understood a life of mere sensuality, but the real objective world, is to be inferred in a popular manner from the belief that at the advent of the Lord, i.e., the consummation of the Christian religion, heaven and earth will pass away. The difference between the belief of the Christians and that of the heathen philosophers as to the destruction of the world is not to be overlooked. The Christian destruction of the world is only a crisis of faith,--the separation of the Christian from all that is anti-christian, the triumph of faith over the world, a judgment of God, an anti-cosmical, supernaturalistic act. "But the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men."--2 Pet. iii. 7. The heathen destruction of the world is a crisis of the cosmos itself, a process which takes place according to law, which is founded in the constitution of Nature. "Sic origo mundi, non minus solem et lunam et vices siderum et animalium ortus, quam quibus mutarentur terrena, continuit. In his fuit inundatio, quae non secus quam hiems, quam aestas, lege mundi venit."--Seneca (Nat. Qu. l. iii. c. 29). It is the principle of life immanent in the world, the essence of the world itself, which evolves this crisis out of itself. "Aqua et ignis terrenis dominantur. Ex his ortus et ex his interitus est."--(Ibid. c. 28.) "Quidquid est, non erit; nec peribit, sed resolvetur."--(Idem. Epist. 71.) The Christians excluded themselves from the destruction of the world. "And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet; and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other."--Matt. xxiv. 31. "But there shall not a hair of your head perish.... And then shall they see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh."--Luke xxi. 18, 27, 28. "Watch ye therefore and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man."--Ib. 36. The heathens, on the contrary, identified their fate with the fate of the world. "Hoc universum, quod omnia divina humanaque complectitur ... dies aliquis dissipabit et in confusionem veterem tenebrasque demerget. Eat nunc aliquis et singulas comploret animas. Quis tam superbae impotentisque arrogantiae est, ut in hac naturae necessitate, omnia ad eundem finem revocantis, se unum ac suos seponi velit."--Seneca (Cons. ad Polyb. cc. 20, 21). "Ergo quandoque erit terminus rebus humanis.... Non muri quenquam, non turres tuebuntur. Non proderunt templa supplicibus."--(Nat. Qu. L. iii. c. 29.) Thus here we have again the characteristic distinction between heathenism and Christianity. The heathen forgot himself in the world, the Christian forgot the world in himself.