Materialists and Literalists are always the same. The apostles soon rose out of their literalism, and soon spoke of Christ as being revealed _within_ them, not outside of them; dwelling, not in the air, but in their hearts. But literalists, down to this day, have always imagined the coming of Christ to be to the senses, rather than to the soul. They do not see that a great noise in the air is not so glorious a thing as a voice heard in the depths of the heart, and a great outward conflagration somehow seems to them more imposing than the burning up of falsehood and sin in the world. So we are always hearing people predict that Christ is to come in 1846, or 1856, or 1866, meaning thereby that they expect some great outward event then, visible to eyes and ears. “Fools, and slow of heart,” not to see that the only possible coming of Him who is spirit and love is a coming in the soul, and that he has come, and is coming, and is to come more and more abundantly, from day to day. So they read about the heavens and earth being burned up, and of a new heavens and earth; and they imagine that the sky is somehow to be burned with material fire, and the surface of the earth to sink into the flaming abyss beneath us. But if this should happen, _that_ would have nothing to do with the coming of Christ. The heavens and earth which he consumes with the breath of his mouth, and destroys with the brightness of his coming, are the religions and moralities, the institutions and works, of men. And the new heavens and new earth which take their place are the higher, nobler, purer religions and moralities which flow out of the Spirit of Christ. § 4. Examination of the Account of Christ’s Coming given by Jesus in Matthew (chapters 24-26). A great difficulty in regard to the coming of Christ is to combine in one view the different notions given in Scripture concerning it. Many of these ideas indicate that the coming of Christ took place at the destruction of Jerusalem, as, for example, the description of wars, destruction of the Temple, and especially the declaration that “this generation shall not pass away till all these things be fulfilled.” On the other hand, the coming of Christ is expressly connected, in our translation, with “the end of the world,” and with the general judgment. Hence a difficulty in interpreting these passages, some persons thinking that the coming of Christ took place at the destruction of Jerusalem; others thinking that it is yet to take place at the end of the world; others, again, maintaining two or more comings of Christ; and others spiritualizing the whole of it, and making it mean the spread of the spirit of Christianity. Let us, therefore, examine the passage in which Christ’s coming is spoken of, and endeavor to find its natural and obvious meaning, and so see how far the common Orthodox conception is correct.