MILLBURY 



MILLENNIUM 



199 



the upper or wooden roller till the required thick- 

 ness is made up. The lower or iron roller presses 

 by means of a lever and weights against the upper 

 one with sufficient force to consolidate the layers of 

 pulp. The hollow cylinder of millboard on the 

 wood roller is then cut longitudinally with a knife, 

 .and opened out into a Hat sheet, ft is afterwards 

 dried by steam heat or otherwise, calendered by 

 chilled iron rolls, and cut to size by strong circular 

 cutters. 



Millboard is used for Imokhinding and for making 

 lioxes, hut has been largely superseded by Straw- 

 Imard (q.v. ). It is still employed for jointing 

 flanged pi]>es and other engineering work ; but for 

 this purpose asltestos millboard (see ASBESTOS) is 

 now preferred. Millboard or thick cardlmard made 

 from straw or wood is used for many miscellaneous 

 purposes. Mounting board consists of several 

 layers of paper pasted together. A few years ago 

 a mill on a large scale was in operation near 

 London for the manufacture of millboard from 

 stable manure, but the process was not a success 

 commercially. 



Millimrv. Massachusetts, on the Blackstone 

 River, is 30 miles by rail VV. of ISoston, and has 

 several cotton and woollen factories. Pop. 4460. 



llillrdirrvillr. the former capital of Georgia 

 (q.v.), :!-> miles KNK. of Macon. Pop. ( 19<>0) 4SJ19. 



Millenary Petition. See HAMPTON COUBT. 



Millennium (Lat, 'a thousand years '), a long 

 indefinite space during which the kingdom of the 

 Messiah will, according to the belief of many 

 Christians, l>e visibly established on the earth. The 

 idea originated proximate!)" in the Messianic ex- 

 pectations of the Jews ; ami the Christians' belief 

 in the Parmtsia, or Second ('(lining of Christ, was 

 developed by the oppression and persecutions to 

 which they were long subjected. The chief basis 

 of the millcnarian idea, in Judaism as well ns in 

 Christianity, is the ardent hope for a visible divine 

 rule upon earth, and the identification of the church 

 with that of which it is merely a svmliol. In the 

 1st century of the church, chiliasm (the Greek 

 equivalent of millenarianism, from cliilioi, 'a 

 thousand ' ) was a widespread belief, to which 

 the hooks of Daniel and the Apocalvpse (chnps. 

 xx. and xxi.) gave authority; while various 

 prophetical writings, coni|iosed at the end of the 

 1st and the beginning of the 2d century such 

 as the Testament of the Twelve Patriarch, the 

 in ,s', //(///(//.- Boob, the Epittteof Bai-milm* 

 lent it a more vivid colouring ami imagery. 

 Not only the heretic Cerinthus, but even orthodox 

 doctors such as Papias of Hierai>olis, Ircim-iis, 

 and Justin Martyr delighted themselves with 

 dreams of the glory and magnificence of the millen- 

 nial kingdom. The Sibylline Hunks, for instance, 

 hold that the earth will' be cultivated throughout 

 its length and breadth, that there will be no more 

 seas, no more winters, no more nights ; everlasting 

 wells will run honey, milk, and wine. Papias in- 

 dulges in monstrous representations of the re-build- 

 ing of Jerusalem, and of the colossal vine and 

 grapes of the millennial reign. 



According to the general opinion, which was as 

 much Christian as Jewish, the millennium was to 

 lie preceded by great calamities. The personifica- 

 tion of evil appeared in Atilirhrigt (q.v.), the pre- 

 cursor of Christ (identified during the 1st century 

 with Xero), who would provoke a frightful war in 

 the land of Magog ( Kxek. xxxviii. and xxxix.) 

 against, the ]-oj>le ( log, after which the Messiah 

 would ap]>ar, heralded by Elias, or Moses, or 

 Melchizedek, or Isaiah, or Jeremiah, and would 

 bind Satan for a thousand years, annihilate the 

 -t heathen, or make them slaves of the 

 believers, and overturn the Koman empire. From 



its ruins a new order of things would spring 

 forth, in which the 'dead in Christ' would arise, 

 and along with the surviving saints enjoy an incom- 

 parable felicity in the city of the ' New Jerusalem,' 

 which was expected to descend literally from 

 heaven. With the innocence which was the state 

 of man in Paradise there was associated, in the 

 prevalent notions of the millennium, great physical 

 and intellectual pleasures. 



The lapse of time, chilling the ardour of the 

 primitive Christian belief in the nearness of the 

 rurousia, had without doubt also the tendency to 

 give a more shadowy, and therefore a more spiritual 

 aspect to the kingdom over which the expected 

 Messiah was to reign. The influence of the Alex- 

 andrian philosophy contributed to produce the 

 same result. Origen, for example, started the 

 idea that, instead of a final and desperate conflict 

 lietween Paganism and Christianity, the real 

 progress and victory of Christianity would consist 

 in the gradual spread of the truth throughout the 

 world, and in the voluntary homage paiu to it by 

 all secular powers. Yet even in the Egypto-Alex- 

 andrian Church millenarianism, in its most literal 

 form, was widely diffused. The Montanists (q.v.) 

 generally were extreme millenarians or chiliasts, 

 and, being considered a heretical sect, contributed 

 largely to bring chiliasm into discredit, or, at all 

 events, their own carnal form of chiliasm, which 

 Tertnllian himself attacked. Lactantius, in the 

 beginning of the 4th century, was the last im- 

 portant Church Father who indulged in chiliastic 

 dreams. In the 5th century, St Jerome and St 

 Augustine expressly combated certain fanatics 

 who still hoped for the advent of a millennial 

 kingdom whose pleasures included those of the 

 flesh. From this time the Church formally rejected 

 millenarianism in its sensuous 'visible form," al- 

 though the doctrine every now and then made its 

 reappearance, especially as a general popular belief, 

 in the most sudden and obstinate manner. Thus, 

 the expectation of the Last Diiy in the year 1000 

 A.D. reinvested the doctrine with a transitory im- 

 portance. 



At the period of the Reformation, millenari- 

 anism once more experienced a partial revival, 

 because it was not a difficult matter to apply some 

 of its symbolism to the papacy: the pope, for ex- 

 ample, was Antichrist. Yet the doctrine was not 

 adopted by the great Inxly of the Reformers, but by 

 some fanatical sects, such as the Anabaptists, iis 

 also by various theosophists in the next century 

 During the civil and religious wars in France and 

 England it was also prominent ; the Fifth Monarchy 

 Men (q.v.) of Cromwell's time were millenarians of 

 the most exaggerated type. The extravagances of 

 the French Mystics arid Quictists culminated in 

 chiliastic views". During the Thirty Years' War en- 

 thusiastic and learned chiliasts flourished. Among 

 the foremost chiliastic teachers of modern centuries 

 are to be mentioned Ezechiel Meth and Bishop 

 Comenius in Germany ; Professor Jurieu of Sedan, 

 and Poiret ; Serarius in Holland ; and in England 

 Joseph Mede (Clan. Ajmml. 1627), while Thomas 

 Bin-net and William \V histon endeavoured to give 

 chiliasm a geological foundation. Most of the chief 

 divines of the Westminster Assembly were millen- 

 arians ; so were Sir Isaac Newton and Bishop 

 Horsley. Bengel revived an earnest interest in the 

 subject among orthodox Protestants. Spener and 

 Joachim Lange held chiliastic views ; and Sweden- 

 borg employed apocalyptic images to set forth the 

 transfigured world of the senses. Bengel's millen- 

 arianism was adopted by the Swabian theosophist 

 Octinger (died 17S2), aiid widely spread through- 

 out Germany by Jung Stilling. Lavater, and Hess. 

 Charles Wesley and Toplady were millenarians. 



Modern millenarians or pre-millennialists Cos 



