The early Christians lived in a state of spiritual elation; they daily, hourly, expected the Second Coming of Christ. It was the one article of their religious creed. The end of the world was to be the next important festival in the Church calendar, so they held in full near view their heavenly home, which was already feathered for their reception. At the sound of the Archangel’s trumpet the heavens would open, the dead rise from their graves, and they would be caught up in the air to meet the Lord, and float off triumphantly into mansions of eternal rest furnished for their home coming. They saw it all vividly as a drama soon to be enacted, in which they each would play their ordered parts. The present was a dream-life to them, a mirage quickly to melt away. This hope of immortality was the first bright ray of light the gospel of Jesus Christ shed upon mankind. Having minds heavily charged with celestial visions, the common round of daily duties became unreal to them. They had a short creed and no theology. They sat on the brink of eternity, and the radiance streaming from its shining heights bedazzled their minds with bewildering raptures. After long and patient waiting the heavens did not open, no clarion voice trumpeted the dead from their graves or welcomed saints into paradise; the sordid, sin-stained earth remained their polluted dwelling-place. The illusion of the millennium faded away and disappointment frosted their early hopes, yet bravely they held on and died in the faith. The Saviour’s promise did not fulfil on the comfortable lines they planned, but it would make good another way equally great. The Church learnt to take long views of the promises, and turned its thoughts to things terrestrial. The affairs of the present grew interesting to them; they commenced setting their earthly house in order, and when the Church settled down into the slow, steady stride characteristic of every long march it became clear that she was destined to rank amongst the permanent institutions of the world. She formed new rules of life for her children’s guidance, and thus faith in Christ gradually lost the fragrant aroma of otherworldliness which first perfumed it, and in lapse of time the plan of salvation became more thought of than salvation itself. A vast ecclesiastical system was organized, having endless intricate ramifications, and God was appointed head of one department of it; and to-day heavy accretions of theology accumulate and fasten deadly tight on the old Church like barnacles crusting the bottom of a long floated ship, hindering its speed to port.