see? That celestial principle of love to the Lord and the neighbor which shone conspicuously in the early days of the church, making her members of one heart and mind and binding them all together in the bonds of a beautiful brotherhood—that principle had died out or departed from the church. And there was no vital faith in the divinity of the Lord, the divinity of the Word, or in a life after death. The Scripture had become falsified on every fundamental doctrine, and spiritual darkness brooded over all Christendom. Even the knowledges of spiritual good and truth were lost to the great body of the church. As fixed and guiding principles they were no more. They had fallen from their heavenly places in men's minds. And thus was fulfilled in relation to the church—really and perfectly fulfilled according to its spiritual and true meaning—this prophetic declaration: "The sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven."
But at this juncture—amid the general darkness that enveloped the church—amid the clouds of ignorance and error and doubt and denial which had extinguished in the minds of nominal Christians all the heavenly luminaries, a glorious light breaks forth to rejoice and save a sinking world. From within or above the cloud of the letter—out from the living soul of Scripture—out from that world where angels dwell, long clouded and obscured, the spiritual Sun pours kindling beams on a benighted church. And thus the Lord of life appears all glorious in the clouds, agreeable to his own prophetic declaration: "And then shall ye see the Son
