How Long Will it Be before the Millennium?
By Wm. Covert
I AM constrained to wonder at the persistence with which the claim that a temporal millennium is near is maintained by the clergy of this country. Is it possible that they can believe that the world is growing better? I give below the headings of the record of crime as they appear in the Fort Wayne, (Ind.) Gazette, of Nov. 10, 1875:— “Terrible Tragedy—Three Children shot by their Father. He cuts his little Daughter’s Throat, and Almost Severs his Son’s Head from his Body. Tries to kill his wife, and then Commits Suicide, &c.—A Girl’s Road to the Gallows—A Deadly Duel—A young Girl Shoots her Seducer—Shot Dead—A Noted Horse Thief—A Duel in New York—A Mob of Thieves—Saloon Affray—Death in a Saloon—Fatal Hallowe’en Sports—Horrible Murder—Savage Encounter with a Burglar—St. Louis Whisky Frauds—Murdered for Love—A Boisterous Negro—Shot by Mistake—The Children Murderer—Granted a Respite—Attempted Suicide—A Horrible Story—Clubbed to Death—A Determined Suicide—Bullying a Lover—Beginning of the Trial of Wall, the Murderer—A Horse Thief in Limbo—Villainous Attempt at Assassination—Bloody Row in a St. Louis Dance House—A Political Row—Whisky Frauds—An Editor Cow-hided—Jacobs, the Wife-Murderer, Sentenced—Murder of a Notorious Rough—A Defaulting County Treasurer—Attempted Incendiary—Gambler’s Fiend—Fatal Affray—Doomed to Death—A Counterfeit—Attempted Murder—A Citizen Mysteriously Disappears—A Murder Trial—Notable Divorce Case.” All these crimes are reported in one week in a county paper. I learn from citizens of this county that criminal cases are multiplying to such a degree that the courts could not find time to dispose of them if they should remain in session all the time. Yet in the face of all this the clergy of the orthodox churches are constantly promising the millennium, and telling the people that the world is growing better. I suppose they intend to make up for their failures in devotion to the cause of Christ by legislation on the temperance question and by a national Sunday law. Surely the perils of the last days are upon us. Wm. Covert.