ADDRESE 



XIX 



sixth of the time that mankind have already existed in 

 the world, the number of human beings on the globe 

 will fully equal the capacity of the earth to sustain 

 them, according to any rate of productiveness in the 

 soil which experience authorizes us to expect. What 

 then shall we conclude ? Shall fish be substituted for 

 flesh and grain, and will man learn to be an amphibious 

 cultivator of the watery acres, and all the year become 

 one long Lent ? Shall we have recourse to the sup- 

 position of a miraculous millenial fruitfulness of the 

 ground, and endorse the prediction of Father Papias, 

 the sanguine Chiliast bishop of the second century? 

 "The days will come," he says, "in which there shall 

 grow vineyards, having each 10,000 stocks ; and each 

 stock, 10,000 branches ; each branch, 10,000 shoots ; 

 each shoot, 10,000 clusters ; each cluster, 10,000 

 grapes ; and each grape squeezed shall yield 10,000 

 measures of wine, (of nine gallons each ;) and when 

 any of the saints shall go to pluck a bunch, another 

 bunch will cry out, ( I am a better bunch ; take me, 

 and bless the Lord through me.' In like manner a 

 grain of wheat sown shall bear 10,000 stalks; each 

 stalk, 10,000 grains; and each grain shall yield 10,000 

 pounds of the finest flour ; and so all other fruits, seeds, 

 and plants, in the same proportion. These things," adds 

 the simple-hearted enthusiast, " are credible to those who 

 believe? But if our faith falls short of this millenarian 

 measure, to what other supposition shall we have 

 recourse? Shall we apprehend some second great 

 catastrophe, like the ancient deluge, to relieve the over- 

 burdened earth, that it may start anew with only the 

 remnant preserved in some new ark? That supposition 



