and the dawn of a new Dispensation as the coming of the Lord to judgment.
A strong array of evidence in support of this view might be drawn from Scripture, but a single passage is sufficient; for that is so clear and positive as to carry conviction to the most doubting mind.
The prophet Joel predicts that the time will come when there will be wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and pillars of smoke; that the heavens shall tremble, and the sun be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, and the stars withdraw their shining. These things are very similar to those which the New Testament predicts about the last judgment and the second coming of the Lord. Now the apostle Peter, preaching on the day of Pentecost the death and resurrection of Jesus, quotes this very passage from the prophet Joel, and assures his hearers that the prophecy was then and there fulfilled. Peter's mind was illumined to see that the prophetical language described the passing away of an old system and the inauguration of a new.
The world is the Church, the cosmos, the system of order and beauty, which having become cor-
