All is silence—stillness—solemn blackness of despair.
All is as the similitude and shadow of death.
Oh the weariness, the painful suspense, the watchings, the wanderings, the anxieties, the pains and sorrows of eighteen centuries! Oh the mist of ages which has shrouded a nation as it were in the gloom of an endless night!
When—O when, will their day dawn, and the day star of their ancient science appear above the horizon, disperse the cloud, and usher in the morning of a brighter day?
When the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.
When they shall welcome a messenger in the name of the Lord.
CHAPTER III.
PROGRESS, DECLINE, AND FINAL LOSS OF THE SCIENCE OF THEOLOGY AMONG THE GENTILES—FORESHADOWINGS OF ITS RESTORATION FOR THE USHERING IN OF THE MILLENNIUM.
Oh Mystic Babel, long has been thy reign!
What direful evils follow in thy train!
The veil is rent—thy mystery revealed,
Angels cry wo! and God thy doom has sealed.
The nations, from thy long and dreary night,
Are waking now to everlasting light.
Returning to the Gentile Church, we find the science of Theology, with all its miraculous powers of visions, dreams, angels, revelations, prophecy, healings, &c., everywhere enjoyed. It had abated none of its powers, in its transition from Jew to Gentile. The wild branches, being engrafted into the good old stock, immediately partook of the root and fatness of the tame olive tree, and thus was produced the natural fruit.