A SCENE OF THE LAST DAY. THE SUPPOSED REFLECTIONS OF A SINNER, WITNESSING THE SOLEMN EVENTS WHICH IMMEDIATELY PRECEDE, AND FOLLOW, THE SECOND ADVENT OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, AND THE CONFLAGRATION OF THE WORLD. It Ан! what means that noise? Can that be thunder? Too long-too loud and shrill-more like a thousand trumpets sounding an onset. shakes the earth see, see it reels! How dreadful!-how strange! Another phenome -- non, to frighten poor, ignorant fanatics. I will not be afraid. Let nature play her fantastic gambols. My soul's too brave to shake-too big to be afraid. When the stars fell like hailstones, I stood unmoved, and laughed at others' fears. They passed away, and all was calm again. It was one of nature's freaks. So oft of late has nature played her tricks, methinks 'tis natural. There was a time when superstition reigned. The world would then have said-ah, yes, and believed it too-that these denoted war, bloodshed, and great convulsions among men; but now the world has become more wise; they are not fools and cowards, as our forefathers Hark! another sound-more long, more loud, more dreadful still! Rock-rock! the world is rocking men like babes to sleep. I will not yet be scared. This may be natural. The wind is pent up in the bowels of the earth, and in seeking vent makes all this uproar. These noises in the earth, and roarings of the sea, which have of late made timid mortals shake, by this philosophy. are all accounted for. I am not shaken yet. Nature will work her own cure; and while these Christian fools are trembling under their vain imaginations of these sights and signs of the great last day, I stand un A third great blast-a shout-a cry! What means this wild roar? I'll go and see. [The open air; a brilliant light seen in the heavens, and the inhabitants issuing from their dwellings, some screaming with fright, and others cursing their cowardice; while a few, silent with awe, are looking and waiting with deep anxiety the approach of the new, but long-expected heavenly luminary.] Ah! I thought it so. Aurora Borealis ! [Speaking to the multitude.] Ye fools and cowards all why do you make ado about this so common sight? Have you not often seen, within a few years past, the heavens almost as brilliant as now- —what the vulgar illiterate called “fire, and blood, and pillars of smoke"—and then it passed away, and nothing was left but to ridicule each other's fears? And so now: this will soon pass a --- But it increases. See, see-how brilliant! The very clouds are bright with glory. It rolls and gathers to the zenith. Hark! -hark! another sound, more deep-a fourth, more loud and long-a second shout!—'t is like the human voice: it is the wind-the electric fluid in the air. See, see-the heavens do shake! The clouds, the light, the air, are trembling yet. And yet the light rolls on, the cloud grows brighter, and the rays diverge from yonder point. An eye!—an eye!—how like the All-seeing Eye! I will not tremble yet. These coward souls shall never see me sha- What! yet another crack! How deafening to the ear! Another shout! Sure, that was a shout of men-I hear them still. The mountains shake and tremble on their base; the hills move to and fro; the compass needle has forsaken the pole, and leaps towards the zenith point. The sea has fled its bounds, and rivers backward in their channels run. can this mean? Is nature in a fit?. -- What The light! the light!-it still approaches nearer to the earth-and brighter too: it dazzles my weak sight. Is it a comet, or some other orb, that has strayed from its track, and by the laws of gravitation is approaching to our earth? Now for the laws of nature here's a struggle! and if that other law, repulsion, does not repel its force and drive it back, then surely this poor, dark, sublunary globe must be drowned in a sphere of fire; and where will mortals ... Another sound!a dreadful blast, an hundred fold more loud than former trumpets! This shakes my soul-my courage, too, has fled. What but a Gabriel's trump could give such sounds-so loud, so long, so clear?.. Look! see-the sun has veiled his face-all nature heaves a groan, one deepdrawn sigh, and all is still as death. -- --- The clouds-those vivid clouds, so full of fire-are driven apart by this last blast, and rolling up themselves, stand back aghast. And O, my soul, what do I see? A great white throne, and One upon it. His garment is whiter than the driven snow, and the hair of his head is like the pure wool. See fiery flames issuing from his throne, rolling down the vault of heaven like wheels of burning fire. Before him are thousands and thousands of thousands of winged seraphim, ready to obey his will. See Gabriel, the great archangel, raising his golden trump to his mouth. The last great trumpet sounds-one heavenly shout-and in a moment every angel flies, each different ways, in rays of light, to this affrighted globe. The earth now heaves a throb for the last time, and in this last great throe her bowels burst, and from her sprang a thousand thousand, and ten thousand times ten thousand immortal beings into active life. And then those few who had looked on the scene with patient hope, were suddenly transformed, from age to youth, from mortal to immortal; and thus they stood, a bright and shining band, all clothed in white, like the bright throne which yet appeared in heaven. While I stood gazing on this heavenly band, I saw the winged seraphs, who had come from the great white throne when the seventh trumpet sounded, standing among them. "All hail!" they cried, "ye blood-washed throng-arise, and meet your Savior in the middle air." They clapped their wings, and the next moment all the air was full of the bright seraphs and their train of immortals whom I late had seen spring from the earth. I saw them pass through the long |