despised and down-trodden people. To have it apparently proved from Scripture that the time was at hand when Christ would appear in the heavens, set up his kingdom on earth and rule with his saints a thousand years, and that all enemies should be speedily put under his feet, was fitted to carry away the ignorant and simple-minded, and even some of sufficient learning to have known better. Or, if any have difficulty in comprehending how ideas so absurd (to them) should find so easy and so wide acceptance, let them recall the reception given to precisely similar teaching in one of the most intelligent communities of our own land, no longer ago than fifty years. William Miller and Hans Hut were theological twins, and there is a most instructive similarity in the character, reception, and results of their teaching. Like Miller, Hut was rash enough to set an exact day for the ending of the old order and the coming of the new kingdom—the second anniversary of the battle of Frankenhausen. When May 15, 1527, came and the world still stood, he was, again like Miller, quite undismayed by the failure of his prediction, and proceeded to make another with equally cheerful
