THE PROPHECIES.

The clergy having ever claimed that the prophecies are Divine revelations of events yet to occur, and having incessantly agitated society by preaching their speedy fulfillment, we propose to expose the fallacy of their teachings by showing that these scriptures are not the records of future events, Divinely reavealed, but that they originated with the founders of Astral worship, who predicated

As evidence that the founders of the Jewish or ancient Christianity believed, like the votaries of other forms of Astral worship, that the prophecies were soon to be fulfilled, we find that the New Testament, of the original version of which they were the authors, is replete with such texts as "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand," Matt. iv. 17; "There be some standing here which shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom," Matt. xxi. 28; "The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand," Mark i. 15. That the original version of the New Testament was composed when the Vernal Equinox was in the sign of Aries we are assured by reason of the fact that it inculcates homage to the Lord under the symbol of the Lamb; and that it was during the last, or 30th degree of that sign, can readily be proven by

When the time arrived for the fulfillment of the prophecies we can well imagine that, fearing the wrath of the Lamb, there were weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth among the terror-stricken sinners, while those who believed they had made their calling and election sure were looking with feverish expectancy for the second advent of their Lord and Saviour; and, doubtless, clothed with their ascension robes, they watched and waited, with ears alert, to hear the sound of Gabriel's trumpet, summoning the quick, and the dead to the general judgment. But not a blast from the archangel's ram's horn was heard reverberating along the skies, no Lord appeared descending upon the clouds to meet the elect in the air, and, in the last act of the fearful drama of "judgment day," the curtain refused to be rung down upon a burning world.

With the non-fulfillment of the prophecies, the more enlightened elements of society began to scoff at the priests, who were temporarily demoralized, but true to their deceptive instincts, soon rallying with the plea of a mistake having been made in the calculations based upon the prophecies, they undoubtedly concocted scripture to meet that very emergency, for, to the taunts of the scoffers who, in reference to the second advent of the Lord, enquired

Following up the history of this interesting subject, we find that the founders of modern Christianity, to which we will refer in our next article, in composing their version of the New Testament from that of the Jewish, or ancient Christians, made no change in its verbiage relative to the prophecies; but when Constantine I., Emperor of Rome, became the patron of the church, her hierarchy, tired of figuring upon them, secured a long respite from that troublesome subject by claiming to have made other calculations, which put off the time of fulfillment to the year 1000; and from history we learn when the time arrived the whole of Christendom was fearfully agitated upon the subject: Since then every generation has been vexed with the fallacies of second adventism; and the facts of the case justify the charge that the clergy, by teaching that the prophecies refer to events yet to occur, are perpetuating a most stupendous fraud upon Christendom, and an earnest and efficient protest should be inaugurated against the further agitation of the monstrous delusion of second adventism,