THE TEMPTATION IN THE WILDERNESS, FROM THE HARBINGER, BY WILLIAM HENRY
CHANNING.
A prophecy in the spirit of this age announces that a new era in
humanity is opening, and sounds forth more fully than ever before the
venerable yet new gospel, that the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Doubtless, in all generations, the seers and the seekers--who are
usually one and the same--have felt that their times were the
culminating points of history, the mountain of vision, the border
overlooking the promised land. Doubtless, the great of all nations and
ages have felt that they were a peculiar people, called to a peculiar
work, inspired and led by divine guidance to sublime ends. No age, no
people, have wholly wanted such signs of providential commission.
And doubtless, too, the works, bravely attempted from such high
promptings, have always in actual results seemed fruitless. Yes!
compared with his vision, the gains of the martyr's labors seem
tantalizing--a dropping shower upon the droughty earth. Always the
ideal entering the soul of man, like a god descending to the embrace of
a mortal, seems to engender a son but half divine. Yet this
disappointment is a delusion of the moment.
Quite opposite are the facts.
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