kind each extreme is largely
responsible for the other. Neglect prepares the way for exaggeration;
exaggeration leads to further neglect. Moreover, in the case before us,
both tendencies are strengthened by the very difficulty in which the
subject is involved. Vagueness, uncertainty, mystery, attract some minds
as powerfully as they repel others. And, assuredly, the element of
uncertainty is not wanting here. In the first place, this is a subject
for all our knowledge of which we are wholly dependent upon revelation.
Much that Christ and His apostles have taught us we can bring to the
test of experience and verify for ourselves. But this doctrine we must
receive, if we receive it at all, wholly on the authority of One whom,
on other grounds, we have learned to trust. Verification, in the nature
of the case, is impossible. Further, we have gone but a little way when
revelation itself becomes silent; and, as I have said, when that guide
leaves us, we enter at once the dark forest where instantly the track is
lost.

Let us seek to learn, then, what Christ has revealed, and what He has
left unrevealed, concerning His coming again.

I

As to the _fact_ of Christ's coming we are left in no doubt. Our Lord's
own declarations are as explicit as language can make them. Thus, in
Matthew xvi. 27 we read that "the Son of Man shall come in the glory of
His Father with His angels; and then shall He render unto every man
according to his deeds." In the great discourse on the Last Things,
recorded by all the Synoptists, after speaking of the fall of Jerusalem,
Christ goes on, "Then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven;
and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the
Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory."
And again, in the Upper Room, He said to His disciples, "I go to prepare
a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I come again,
and will receive you unto Myself; that where I am ye may be also." The
hope of that return shines on every page of the New Testament: "This
Jesus," said the angels to the watching disciples, "which was received
up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye beheld Him
going into heaven." The early Christians were wont to speak, without
further definition, of "that day." St. Paul reminds the Thessalonians
how that they had "turned unto God from idols, to serve a living and
true God, and to wait for His So