things at hand, with its destruction and its
triumphs, sad wailings of the lost and rejoicing songs of the glorified!
From this overswarming hive of industry,--from these crowded treadmills
of gain,--here were men and women going out in solemn earnestness to
prepare for the dread moment which they verily suppose is only a few
months distant,--to lift up their warning voices in the midst of
scoffers and doubters, and to cry aloud to blind priests and careless
churches, "Behold, the Bridegroom cometh!"

It was one of the most lovely mornings of this loveliest season of the
year; a warm, soft atmosphere; clear sunshine falling on the city spires
and roofs; the hills of Dracut quiet and green in the distance, with
their white farm-houses and scattered trees; around me the continual
tread of footsteps hurrying to the toils of the day; merchants spreading
out their wares for the eyes of purchasers; sounds of hammers, the sharp
clink of trowels, the murmur of the great manufactories subdued by
distance. How was it possible, in the midst of so much life, in that
sunrise light, and in view of all abounding beauty, that the idea of the
death of Nature--the baptism of the world in fire--could take such a
practical shape as this? Yet here were sober, intelligent men, gentle
and pious women, who, verily believing the end to be close at hand, had
left their counting-rooms, and workshops, and household cares to publish
the great tidings, and to startle, if possible, a careless and
unbelieving generation into preparation for the day of the Lord and for
that blessed millennium,--the restored paradise,--when, renovated and
renewed by its fire-purgation, the earth shall become as of old the
garden of the Lord, and the saints alone shall inherit it.

Very serious and impressive is the fact that this idea of a radical
change in our planet is not only predicted in the Scriptures, but that
the Earth herself, in her primitive rocks and varying formations, on
which are lithographed the history of successive convulsions, darkly
prophesies of others to come. The old poet prophets, all the world
over, have sung of a renovated world. A vision of it haunted the
contemplations of Plato. It is seen in the half-inspired speculations
of the old Indian mystics. The Cumaean sibyl saw it in her trances.
The apostles and martyrs of our faith looked for it anxiously and
hopefully. Gray anchorites in the deserts, worn pilgrims to the holy
places of J