"Verily I say unto you, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, _till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom_."[234:5] This, surely, is very explicit, but it is not the only time he speaks of his second advent. When foretelling the destruction of the temple, his disciples came unto him, saying: "Tell us when shall these things be, _and what shall be the sign of thy coming_?"[234:6] His answer to this is very plain: "Verily I say unto you, _this generation shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled_ (_i. e_, the destruction of the temple and his second coming), but of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only."[234:7] In the second Epistle _attributed_ to Peter, which was written after that generation had passed away,[235:1] there had begun to be some impatience manifest among the _believers_, on account of the long delay of Christ Jesus' second coming. "Where is the promise of his coming?" say they, "for since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation."[235:2] In attempting to smoothe over matters, this writer says: "There shall come in the last days scoffers, saying: 'Where is the promise of his coming?'" to which he replies by telling them that they were ignorant of all the ways of the Lord, and that: "One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." He further says: "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise;" and that "the day of the Lord _will come_." This coming is to be "as a thief in the night," that is, when they least expect it.[235:3] No wonder there should have been scoffers--as this writer calls them--the generation which was not to have passed away before his coming, had passed away; all those who stood there had been dead many years; the sun had not yet been darkened; the stars were still in the heavens, and the moon still continued to reflect light. None of the predictions had yet been fulfilled. Some of the early Christian Fathers have tried to account for the words of Jesus, where he says: "Verily I say unto you, there be some standing here which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom," by saying that he referred to _John_ only, and that that Apostle was not dead, but sleeping. This fictitious story is related by Saint Augustin, "from the report," as he says, "of credible persons," and is to the effect that: "At Ephesus, where St. John the Apostle lay buried, he was not believed to be dead, _but to be sleeping only in the grave_, which he had provided for himself till our Saviour's second coming: in proof of which, they affirm, that the earth, under which he lay, was seen to heave up and down perpetually, in conformity to the motion of his body, in the act of breathing."[235:4]