EDITOR'S TABLE. 



393 



through tins space ! How small the ■wisdom 

 obtained by a single life in its passage ; and 

 how smttU the known wlien compared with 

 the unknown by the accumulation of the 

 millions of lives through tlie art of printing 

 in hundreds of years ! 



" How many questions press themselves 

 upon us in these contemplations ! Whence 

 come we? Whither are we going? What 

 is our final destiny ? What the object of our 

 creation ? What mysteries of unfuthomable 

 depth environ us on every side ! But after 

 all our speculations, and an attempt to grap- 

 ple with the problem of the universe, the 

 simplest conception which explains and con- 

 nects the phenomena is that of the existence 

 of one spiritual Being, infinite in wisdom, in 

 power, and all divine perfections ; which 

 exists always and everywhere ; which has 

 created us with intellectual faculties suffi- 

 cient in some degree to comprehend his 

 operations as they are developed in Nature 

 by what is called ' science.' " 



Prof. Henry here begins with Na- 

 ture, and deduces from its study the 

 fundamental conception of religion — 

 the idea of a Divine Spiritual Ruler of 

 the universe, who has made man capa- 

 ble of penetrating its secrets and un- 

 derstanding its laws by the faculty of 

 reason applied to scientific investiga- 

 tion. Nature, God, religion, and sci- 

 ence, are thus bound together in one 

 grand synthetic and harmonized con- 

 ception. In this view Prof. Henry rep- 

 resented the most advanced intelligence 

 of his time, and how advanced was his 

 view we can best appreciate by con- 

 trasting it with other states of mind in 

 the theological sphere. 



It is well known that, in the lan- 

 guage of a recent writer, " the men of 

 the first Christian generation, includ- 

 ing the apostles and the writers of the 

 New Testament, lived in the almost 

 daily expectation of the Lord and the 

 end of the world," The notion of the 

 world's coming to an end was an easy 

 one in a state of perfect ignorance of 

 the nature of the world. When it was 

 supposed to be flat and small, and sta- 

 tionary, and there was no such idea as 

 that of the universe, and not the slight- 

 est conception of anything like order and 



stability in the constitution of subluna- 

 ry things, there was certainly no rea- 

 son why the world should not come to 

 an end at almost any time. It was 

 supposed to have been made in a some- 

 what hurried manner, not very long 

 ago, and it was natural to think that it 

 might terminate at almost any hour in 

 a similar sudden way. And, as its cre- 

 ation was considered as belonging to 

 theology, its extinction, it was supposed, 

 would come by a theological catastro- 

 phe. The idea that the world might 

 come to an end was made possible by 

 the ignorance of the time, and as men 

 knew nothing about its shape, magni- 

 tude, motions, relations, and antiquity, 

 they could not be expected to know 

 anything in favor of its duration. No 

 'blame can therefore be attached to 

 the primitive Christians who were in 

 daily expectation of the end of the 

 world. 



But when we pass over a period of 

 eighteen hundred years and reach the 

 nineteenth century, the case is differ- 

 ent. It is not surprising that the early 

 traditions should have long been tena- 

 ciously held in the sphere of theology, 

 but it certainly is a matter of some 

 amazement that a belief in the pre- 

 dicted destruction of the earth as the 

 sequel of a theological programme 

 oould have been seriously entertained 

 so late as the middle of the present 

 century. Yet the sudden ending of 

 mundane affairs in accordance with 

 Scripture predictions was not only pro- 

 foundly believed by multitudes, but the 

 exact time was assigned and extensive 

 preparations made for the grand event. 

 The epidemic of Millerism spread over 

 large parts of the country not many 

 years ago, and, although the exact cal- 

 culations were discredited, revised cal- 

 culations took their jdace, and societies 

 of " Second Adventists " in different 

 parts of the country have kept alive 

 the exhilarating prospect that the earth 

 would soon be wrapped in conflagration, 

 and, if not reduced to nothing, that the 



