The promise of His coming; a history interpretation and revolution [i.e. revaluation] of the idea of the second advent

Front matter

Class

Boot

Copyright^ .

Chapter I. Watchman, What of the Night ? 1-30

Sec. L The crisis of faith: despair of Christianity and the Church caused by the war ; failure of the hopes of "reconstruction" ; a perennial problem, is the world growing better or worse ? Disraeli's pessimism ; despair in ancient Egypt ; expectation of a cataclysmic end of the world ; the two contrasted interpretations of the Bible 1-11

Sec. II. The evolutionary point of view: propaganda under a millenarian mask, Spiritualism, Vegetarianism, Theosophy; alleged reincarnations of Christ; Postmillennialism ; sociological expectations ; liberal theology ; social Christianity; foreign missions 11-17

Sec. III. Supernaturalistic solutions : Seventh-Day Adventists ; Premillennialism, American and English ; the War a forerunner of the final catastrophe ; "reconstruction" impossible 17-26

Sec. IV. The study of Eschatology: new materials ; the "liberal" portrait of Jesus ; the Jesus of "thorough-going Eschatology" ; the significance of the problem; the solution through historical study 26-30

Chapter II. The Day of Yaiiweh 31-59

Sec. I. The foundation of the Hebrew national hope : Yahweh's choice of Israel and

xi xii Contents

covenant with them involved their prosperity

as proof of his greatness 31-39

Sec. II. Popular theology and the day of Yahweh: sources; use of the term; a day of victory; a natural catastrophe; a world cataclysm 39-46

Sec. III. Mythological influences : biblical use of mythology ; three myths eschatologically interpreted, the primeval monster, the divine Savior, the Golden Age, sources of apocalyptic language and ideas 46-53

Sec. IV. The expected Golden Age: Israel's anticipated power and prosperity ; the transformation of nature ; no messianic expectation ; summary 53-59

Chapter III. Prophetic Reinterpketation . . 60-88

Sec. I. The day of wrath : prophetic use of popular language ; a historical and social catastrophe ; the Captivity as the day of Yahweh ; the "day" postponed; signs of the end 60-68

Sec. II. The cause and purpose of Yahweh' s self -manifestation : Israel's dilemma : was Yahweh powerless or was he punishing his people ? the moral interpretation of the day of Yahweh; suffering as a preparation for service , 68-75

Sec. III. The objects of Yahweh's wrath : the prophets' expanding horizon ; judicial discrimination; the righteous remnant; individual responsibility; judgment transferred from Israel to her enemies 75-81

Sec. IV. After the day of Yahweh: literary problems; moral renewal to prepare for an age of righteousness ; a messianic or a divine kingdom 81-87

Contents xiii

Sec. V. The prophetic contribution : moral and social reinterpretation of popular eschatology ; the idea of service 87 f .

Chapter IV. New Problems and New Solutions 89-109

Sec. I. Disappointed hopes: politics and apocalypticism ; the repeated failures of apocalyptic expectations led to Pharisaic quietism and Sadducean indifference; hostility of officials and apocalyptists ; supremacy of Zelotic apocalypticism A. D. 66-135 *. 89-96

Sec. II. The effect of their religious development upon the hopes of the Jews: the development of the canon and of the doctrine of inspiration; reactions to foreign influences 97-101

Sec. III. Jewish visions and revelations: anonymous, or pseudonymous ; "apocalyptic" . 101-103

Sec. IV. Rise and development of apocalyptic literature: character of apocalyptic visions; four periods and their literature: Ezekiel to the Maccabees; the Maccabean period; the Pharisaic period; the Zelotic period 103-109

Chapter V. A Counsel of Despair 110-139

Sec. I. The chief ideas of apocalypticism : evils preceding the end ; the day of judgment ; a cosmic catastrophe; war in heaven; overthrow of the mighty; revelations of secrets; vindication of the righteous ; a divine, or messianic kingdom ; various ideas of the messiah, Levitic, Davidic, human but sinless, angelic — the Son of Man; the resurrection 110-130

Sec. II. The basic principles of apocalypticism: its philosophy of history, pessixiv Contents

mistic, deterministic, externalistic, literalistic,

universalistic, idealistic 130-136

Sec. III. The general character of apocalypticism: compared with prophecy; its course of development; its complexities and inconsistencies 136-139

Chapter VI. The Kingdom at Hand 140-166

Sec. I. The religious situation in Jesus' day: the many parties; Jewish orthodoxy; apocalypticism the chief heterodoxy; its attractiveness for the people 140-144

Sec. II. Jesus and the prophets: Jesus' religious and political problem; the heterodoxy of Jesus not thorough-going apocalypticism; his worldview; his conception of the kingdom; indicated in his Temptation; his evaluation of suffering . 144-153

Sec. III. The apocalyptic element in the teaching of Jesus: apocalypticism the dominant category in Jewish social thinking; its prominence in Jesus' teaching; the elimination of the Markan apocalypse; summary of Jesus' apocalyptic teaching 153-158

Sec. IV. The meaning of Jesus' apocalyptic language: various methods of interpretation; not to be explained away; apocalypticism the only adequate existing category to describe his unique task and to express his divine self-consciousness, his faith in God, his chosen method, his sense of urgency; literal, figurative, or symbolic ? two contradictory elements 158-166

Chapter VII. A Living and Blessed Hope. .167-191

Sec. I. The primitive apostolic faith: its deep apocalyptic coloring; its peculiarities;

Contents xv

the "second advent" the keystone to their faith; Acts; Paul, I. Th., II Th., postponement, I Co., later letters, summary; I Pt. . .167-177

Sec. II. The Judean crisis: the Markan "fly-sheet"; the fall of Jerusalem to be the end of the world; Matthew, distinguishes the fall of the city and the end, heightens the apocalyptic coloring; inconsistencies 177-182

Sec. III. The Domitianic crisis: the Revelation, a Christian adaptation and systematization of Jewish apocalyptic 182-184

Sec. IV. The second generation: apocalypticism becomes dogma rather than faith; I Clement; Hebrews; James; the Pastorals; Jude and II Peter; the Didache 185-191

Chapter VIII. Three Millenniums of Waiting 192-202

Sec. I. The millennium of biblical history: the development of Jewish apocalyptic; Christianity apocalyptic and prophetic, heterodox and enthusiastic, not uniform and consistent except measurably in the Revelation 192-191

Sec. II. The millenarian system; its historical representatives; matters of disagreement; points of agreement 194-197

Sec. III. Objections to Premillennialism : its origin; falsified by history; literalism; dualism; otherworldliness 197-200

Sec. IV. Other theories: Postmillennialism unsatisfactory; the resurrection and spectacular judgment; individualistic interpretation 200-202 xvi Contents

Chaptej* IX. The Second Advent 203-222

Sec. I. The modern Christian's dilemma : a fundamental doctrine neglected or scorned; a fundamental human hope in question; the Bible in the balance 203-207

Sec. II. A social-spiritual interpretation: the social and spiritual emphasis of Jesus; the Johannine interpretation of the second advent as spiritual; John 14-16 versus Mark 13; a present judgment; the messianic victory present and progressive ; its social fruits ; the "social Gospel" of Luke ; its version of the Markan apocalypse; its prophetic spirit 207-214

Sec. III. The values of Premillennialism \ i conserved in the social-spiritual view: apocalypticism a "pedagogue," its driving power, tension; the fundamental motives of the social-spiritual view, communion with Christ, present judgment, present vindication of righteousness, social progress, the catastrophic element in evolution, the signs of the times, sub specie aeternitatis, tension, faith 215-234

HISTORICAL TABLE OF APOCALYP- TIC LITERATURE 235-238

Chapter I Watchman, What Of The Night ?

I. The Crisis of Faith

THE war has brought to a crisis the fundamental differences of world view and the deep seated perplexities that were seething in men's minds before the storm broke. On the surface the world seemed to be moving toward a period of unexampled prosperity. The progress of science, discovery, and invention, the seeming advances toward the solution of industrial, social, and international differences, the spread of learning, the outward improvement of morals, the gains in political democracy, the conquests of Christian missions, all seemed to point toward the realization of that "one far-off divine event, to which the whole creation moves." And then, without warning, a pistol shot in Sarajevo brought all the magnificent palace of man's fancied achievements down upon his head with a completeness of destruction that history had never before witnessed.

"If there is a God, where is he ?" How many thousands have thought or uttered that question ! Professor William Adams Brown reports a friend to have said, "I do not see how I can go on living. It seems as if I had lost God out of my world." 1

Both friends and foes of Christianity said that the 1 Is Christianity Practicable? (New York, 1916), p. 1.

gospel of Christ had failed. Kepresentative of a large

number is the following:

'*What Christianity has definitely failed to do, after nineteen centuries of trial, is to redeem human life from the worst of its evils. The Christianity which has failed is Christianity as it has prevailed up to date, a Christianity founded on the apotheosis of suffering and the multitude of doctrines associated therewith, . . . Christianity with its long record of failure, now definitely stamped as final by the war. . . . The war is an unmixed and unqualified evil ; and there is no Christian, sanctify it as he may, now it has taken place, who would not have prevented it had he understood the temper of the nations who are engaging in it, and known how to utilize this for beneficent purposes. Inasmuch as they have displayed no such understanding and energy and ingenuity, Christians must charge themselves with definite failure to make their religion efficacious — failure, too, in the province of activity that is peculiar to them." 1

Others made a less sweeping judgment. The British Society of Friends in an address to the public in 1914 said, "The war spells the bankruptcy of much that we too lightly call Christian. No nation, no church, no individual, can be wholly exonerated." 2 Many solaced themselves with the thought that "Christianity had not been tried," or that it was the churches that had failed. "Organized Christianity" was at fault. Dr. Charles F. Aked said,

"Since the first, or perhaps the second century, the churches of Christ have never been true to Christ . . . The churches of Christ have not obeyed Christ because they have not believed in Him. They have been sure of the *big battalions/ but doubtful of the Lord who was to be with them unto the end of the ages. They have ranged themselves on the side of rampant militarism,

^Hiboert Journal, vol. xiv (Jan., 1916) pp. 320 ff., Miss M. E.

Robinson. 2 Quoted in The Pacific, San Francisco, Sept. 16, 1914, p. 7.

The Crisis of Faith 3

blessed the war flags of the nations and urged the war-mad millions to 'fight to a finish/ In England the official representative of the national church comes to a meeting and says he is there to justify the war with Germany 'in the name of his Master and Prince of Peace' — he uses those very words. In Germany the greatest of all living theologians, from whom every preacher in the world capable of learning has learned something, denounces England as a traitor to civilization, and the clergy call to the God of battles to aid in her destruction ! Joaquin Miller, contemplating such things in his day, grew fierce in his onslaught upon such lovers of Christ :

'Behold, this was His last command!

Yet ye dare to cry to Christ in prayer

With red and reeking sword in hand,

Ye dare to do as devils dare !

Ye liars — great and small;

Ye cowards, cowards, cowards all P ,n

After drawing an exceedingly vivid picture of the horrors of the war just closed, Dr. S. D. Gordon writes,

"Christianity has broken down, or, at least, something has broken down that bore that label in large capitals. Certainly there was not enough of the real article in Central Europe to prevent the hellish outbreak. And there wasn't enough outside to keep it from breaking out. The salt in common use had lost its saltiness. It didn't keep things healthful. The common conventional type of Christianity certainly has broken down. And it is a bad breakdown, too." 2

With the majority this mood of questioning did not last long. They began almost at once to look forward to "reconstruction." Men were pathetically eager to record that the beginnings of the war in France, Russia, Germany,

1 Quoted from an address in the Scottish Rite Auditorium, San

Francisco, Sept. 20, 1914, reported in The Pacific, Sept. 23, 1914, p. 6.

2 Quiet Talks on the Deeper Meaning of the War (New York, 1919)',

England, and America drove people to the churches. Danger and death bred a certain exaltation of mood, a readiness to sacrifice, a turning to deeper and higher things that was hailed as a religious conversion. Under the chastening hand of war, faith was coming to its own. The soldier in the trenches showed a seriousness that discovered "the religion of the inarticulate" underneath the surface. As the war went on it was found — alas ! on both sides — that it could be won only as the highest and noblest motives were called into action. Each side had to play upon these profounder feelings. The war was being fought for the sake of the world: to give it the blessings of "deutsche Kultur," to save it from English greed, French frivolity, and Slav barbarism ; or to save civilization from German brutality and Prussian militarism, to make the world safe for democracy.

Almost from the beginning the heart of the world tried to rest itself from the strain of conflict and carnage by looking forward to the "new era" which should dawn when the night of wrath had passed. Just as the struggle was reaching its final climax, that staunch optimist, David Starr Jordan, wrote,

"As the war goes on, we glimpse the dawn of a larger freedom. 'War to end war' now looks forward to the achievement of a 'clean peace' on the basis of a 'new morality' among nations, a settlement in which no selfish interests, national or personal, shall prevail, and no political or territorial advantage be gained by military invasion. Such an ending will find few precedents in history. It is the part of democracy to create precedent." 1

The month after the armistice had been signed, Professor John Dewey published an article, which he may have had in waiting for some time, calling attention to

1 Democracy and World Relations (New York, 1918), p. 3.

The Crisis of Faith 5

the futility of expecting these rosy hopes to be fulfilled. He said,

"Seriousness, determination and constant preoccupation with the future, with what is coming next, marks the human response in war. . . . The concentration upon the future characteristic of war inevitably takes a rosy hue. . . . Every great war is to usher in a time of enduring peace; it is to see the establishment of justice, the dawn of a new era. Millennial expectations are not born in times of prosperity. In such days, the absorbing present is good enough. The millennium is the compensatory refuge of immediate distress and imminent evil. But victory generates buoyancy and buoyancy is likely to find vent in quick satisfactions. The paradise of surrounding milk and honey displaces the new order that has to be labored for. . . . With the let up of war, with the issue determined, the tension relaxes, and the immediate present regains with added force its command. Not the arduous labor of reconstruction, but the enjoyment of the present, of the gains to be snatched from using the opportunities of pleasure and profit in things as they are captures the mind." 1

Professor Dewey disclaims the role of prophet, but enough time has elapsed to show that he predicted truly. The peace treaty has proved a complete disillusionment. Perhaps it was the best obtainable; perhaps it is a step toward the solution of international difficulties; but beginning with that fundamental phrase "open covenants openly arrived at," practically all of President Wilson's idealistic demands have been openly flouted. Mankind has not been regenerated in the blood bath of the war. Class suspicion and hatred, narrow and selfish nationalism, bitter racial animosities, even denominational jealousies, have been accentuated, if not increased, by the heat of the great conflict. The fires of suffering seem not to have purified the hearts of men, but to have embittered them.

1 "The Post- War Mind," in The New Republic, Dec. 7, 1918, p. 157.

Can we suppose that we have come to the end of wars, that this war fought to end war has really succeeded in its ultimate purpose ? The signs of the times hardly warrant such a hope. On the very day that the treaty was finally ratified last January, Marshal Foch warned the world that the last war had not been fought, that armaments cannot at once be discarded. Mankind is not yet ready for the reign of the Prince of peace.

In the face of the world situation, can we pray, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven ?" Can we believe that there is any prospect that all mankind will be brought to acknowledge Jesus as King of kings and Lord of lords? It would appear that the heart of man is fundamentally wrong, and that it is in need of a complete transformation. Is there any possibility that through the ordinary course of preaching the Gospel, spreading the doctrines of the righteousness of God, the love of Christ, and the duties of man to his fellow, this world can really be saved ? Or must there come some cataclysmic change into the course of nature and society so as to make it possible for men to serve God and love one another? No Christian doubts that right will triumph, that God will eventually save the world. The question is, How is it to be done ?

It is a very practical question. If in the long run the preaching of the Gospel is to reach only a few, if all the efforts to make its truths take hold upon society are futile, then our duty as Christians is to seek those few and worry as little as possible about society. If this present creation, physical and human, material and social, is hopeless and must be transformed before the will of God can be done on earth, then our task as Christians will be one thing. It will be quite another if we can believe that God is able to save men, and enough of them, and save them so thoroughly that, in spite of our present physical limitations, we can construct a saved society on this earth, a society in which in a true, though necessarily limited sense, the will

The Crisis of Faith 7

of God will be done, "as it is in heaven." These two contradictory views of the workings of God in his world we are to discuss in the succeeding pages.

This is a perennial problem. It is not merely the war as such that raises the question as to the faith of Christianity and civilization, but the war as the fruit of the whole of our boasted culture. A few in the nineteenth century, who were able to look beneath our showy veneer of material progress, felt the difficulty. In Tancred Disraeli wrote,

"Progress to what and from whence? Amid empires shrivelled into deserts, amid the wrecks of great cities, a single column or obelisk of which nations import for the prime ornament of their mud-built capitals; amid arts forgotten, commerce annihilated, fragmentary literatures, and populations destroyed, the European talks of progress, because by an ingenious application of some scientific acquirements he has established a society which has mistaken comfort for civilization. . . . Amid the wreck of creeds, the crash of Empires, French revolutions and English reforms, Catholicism in agony, Protestantism in convulsions, Europe demands the keynote which none can sound. If Asia be in decay, Europe is in couiusion." 1

In thus comparing the recent and western with the ancient and eastern, Disraeli seems to have overlooked the fact that there was the same dissatisfaction in the midst of that ancient culture that he seems to regard as superior to our own, because, forsooth, it laid less emphasis on comfort. When history was young, the world was already old, and men looked back on the olden times as better than the present, bemoaning the decay and corruption of their own days and longing for relief and redemption. Our oldest records of such dissatisfaction come from Egypt two thousand years before Christ. One of the

1 Quoted by Figgis, Civilization at the Cross Roads, (New York, 1912), p. 16 ff.

songs in the remarkable "Dialogue of the Misanthrope with his Soul" runs,

"To whom do I speak today?

Brothers are evil,

Friends of today are not of love.

To whom do I speak today ?

Hearts are thievish,

Every man seizes his neighbor's goods.

To whom do I speak today ?

The gentle man perishes, The bold-faced goes everywhere.

To whom do I speak today ?

He of the peaceful face is wretched,

The good is disregarded in every place.

To whom do I speak today ?

There are no righteous,

The land is left to those who do iniquity.

To whom do I speak today ?

Evil smites the land, It hath no end." 1

About the same time a priest of Heliopolis, Khekheperre-sonbu by name, wrote a similar indictment of society :

"I am meditating on the things that have happened, the events that have occurred in the land. Transformations go on, it is not like last year, one year is more burdensome than the next. . . . Eighteousness is cast out; iniquity is in the midst of the council-hall. The plans of the gods are violated, their dispositions are disregarded. The land is in distress, mourning is in

1 Breasted, Development of Religion and TJwught in Ancient Egypt (New York, 1912), pp. 193 ff.

The Crisis of Faith 9

every place, towns and districts are in lamentation. All men alike are under wrongs; as for respect, an end is made of it. . . . The poor man has no strength to save himself from him that is stronger than he. . . . m

An equally vigorous denunciation of existing conditions is found in the "Admonitions of Ipuwer," coming from the same period. But this prophet of doom also sees the possibility of reform under the glorious reign of a king who shall really shepherd his people. 2

This alternation of hope and despair comes to us from the pages of all subsequent history. Men saw in their own times only evil, but they dreamed that the Golden Age at the happy beginning before man's fall would sometime, somehow, return.

The problem we are discussing, then, has been of compelling interest since long before the Hebrew prophets. Successive waves of concern have passed over the western world. Ages of rapid development and expansion have been too fully occupied with material things. Then have come dissatisfaction, reaction, despair. The interest felt by the general public today is partly artificial, that is, stimulated by propaganda and discussion, partly natural, the result of the perennial human dissatisfaction with the present and longing for the Golden Age. Just before the war this interest seemed to be increasing, owing to agitation within the church. The influence of the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, the ]STorthfield schools and conferences, the Los Angeles Bible Institute, and of certain outstanding evangelists and preachers has had much to do with this development. For years they have been preaching that the world was growing worse and that only the catastrophic return of Christ could save it. The war brought a tidal wave of interest, to be seen in books and pamphlets, newspaper reports, articles in periodicals, sermons, and discussions.

Since the close of the war, less attention has been given to the numerous irresponsible and often fictitious prophecies that flooded the newspapers for a time, but real interest in the subject of Christ's second coming has not abated ' in the least. Judging from the publication and sale of books on the subject and the meetings held in which it is discussed, serious inquiry seems even to be on the increase. The very disappointment which so many have felt at the outcome of the Peace Conference, the unsettled economic and political conditions in such large portions of the world, the uncertainty as to the future, is increasing the doubting mood which was already developing before the war.

The interest in this question is heightened by the popular alarm at the recent "scientific" prophecies that the world was to come to an end. Professor Porta may never have hinted at such an outcome of the conjunction of the planets on December 17, 1919. But when it was so reported in some newspaper, the public all over America took up the matter with more or less of alarm or amusement, depending upon the individual's world view. The resulting humorous incidents, the miners in Oklahoma who are said to have refused to work, the Ohio farmer who paid fifteen dollars for a reserved seat, the people in the Catskills who read their Bibles as never before, the negroes in Louisiana who held all day services in their church, concern us only in so far as they show how many are still expecting a cataclysmic end of our universe. In American history we have records of previous seasons of similar concern. The "dark day" of 1780, the "falling stars" of 1833, 1 the Millerite calculations of 1843 and 1844, the Mother Shipton prophecy pointing to 1881, all these have led thousands to look for the Judgment Day.

1 Both are still used by Adventists and Premillennialists to prove the nearness of the Second Advent; see Signs of the Times, Mountain View, Calif., Aug. 26, 1919, p. 10, article by Varner J. Johns, "Harbingers of the Messiah."

The Evolutionary Point of View 11

What has the Christian to expect ? It is important for lis to know whether the Bible gives a real basis for the belief that God plans suddenly to wind up the affairs of this planet in a great catastrophe. If it be true that "the day of the Lord will come like a thief, when the heavens will vanish with crackling roar, the stars will be set ablaze and melt, the earth and all its works will disappear/' then "what holy and pious men ought you to be in your behavior?" 1

The question usually takes the form of inquiry into the real meaning of those portions of the Bible w T hich seem so plainly to substantiate the contentions of Adventists and Premillennialists. Must we accept conclusions which are anti-scientific and anti-social, or must we discard the Bible, if not in toto, at least in large part ? What is real Christianity ?

The two contrasted points of view from which this whole complex of ideas — the end of the world, the coming of the millennium, the transformation of society — is viewed should be carefully differentiated. The one view is evolutionary and naturalistic, the other catastrophic and supernaturalistic. The first holds that in the course of social evolution evil will gradually be overcome and more and more righteousness will come to prevail in society ; the second that only by an intervention from without, a divine interposition into the affairs of men which shall miraculously alter present conditions and laws of life, is it possible for the world to become better. The incompatibility of these two points of view is plain. Where do our modern social and religious bodies and movements stand ?

II. The Evolutionary Point of View

Too often propaganda adopts scriptural language to cover up its real nature. For example, Dr. Anna Kingsford said before the National Association of Spiritualists in England in 1917,

"Of what avail will Spiritualism prove to ourselves or to the age unless it make the world purer, sweeter, more just and more godly ? Wherefore, I at least, as one Spiritualist among many will be instant in season and out of season, with voice, pen and desire, to hasten the advent of the kingdom of God, and the age of the 'new heavens and new earth in which justice dwelleth/ ,n

The British vegetarian society called the "Order of the Golden Age" aims to promote a bloodless diet, for philanthropic, ethical, humane, and hygienic reasons, and "to proclaim and hasten the coming of a Golden Age, when Health, Humaneness, Peace, and Spirituality shall prevail upon Earth." 2 Similarly Theosophy has developed its own doctrine of the coming of the better age, based upon its peculiar view of the evolution of the "seven races" of mankind. According to Mrs. Besant we may now be expecting the advent of the great teacher, the successor of Buddha, Christ, and Mohammed, who will develop a new race, superior to any that have gone before. 3

These proclamations of a modified millenarianism are cited, not for their intrinsic value, but as illustrations of the universal appeal of the hope of a better age and the common adoption of its language. As the Persian longed for the coming of Saoshyant, the Hindu for Kalki, the Mohammedan for the Mahdi, and the ancient Greek and Roman for the return of the Golden Age, so men are still hoping and praying and working for the coming of a new

1 Herald of the Golden Age, etc., XIX 8 (Oct., 1917), pp. 188 ff.

Dr. Kingsford was the "first president of the British Theosophical Society."

2 See its organ, The Herald of the Golden Age and British Health

Review, edited by Sidney H. Beard. 2 Her ideas were developed in The Changing World, London, 1910, and in subsequent numbers of the Theosophist. See Farquhar, Modei~n Religious Movements in India (New York, 1915), pp. 274-277.

The Evolutionary Point of View 13

era of peace and happiness. It seems to be the tendency of these new movements to express themselves in terms of this universal, age-long hope. But their methods and ideals have nothing of the urge of the judgment day behind them. Think right, eat vegetables, or learn to communicate with the spirit world, and all will come out right in the end. Such movements and programs have little connection with the coming of the kingdom of God.