“Our Father Time
is weak and gray,
Awaiting for the better day;
See how idiot-like he stands,
Fumbling his old palsied hands!”
SHELLEY’s
Masque of Anarchy.
“Stage ready, gentlemen! Stage for campground,
Derry! Second Advent camp-meeting!”
Accustomed as I begin to feel to the ordinary sights
and sounds of this busy city, I was, I confess, somewhat
startled by this business-like annunciation from the
driver of a stage, who stood beside his horses swinging
his whip with some degree of impatience: “Seventy-five
cents to the Second Advent camp-ground!”
The stage was soon filled; the driver cracked his
whip and went rattling down the street.
The Second Advent,—the coming of our Lord
in person upon this earth, with signs, and wonders,
and terrible judgments,—the heavens robing
together as a scroll, the elements melting with fervent
heat! The mighty consummation of all 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.
