The noonday was dark because the leadings and teachings of fallible man were substituted for the Holy Spirit and Word. A thousand errors were brought in, the Word of God rejected. The faith once delivered to the saints was lost, sin and iniquity abounded and their love waxed cold. The preachers divined for money, and sought places of affluence, and thus the day was dark over them. Sectism to-day is a mass of worldliness. Infidelity abounds and every abominable work. If you desire a perfect description of sectism as it appears upon the scene to-day, read that given by the angel in Rev. 18:2. PART III. THE EVENING. Or, Christianity In The Closing Days Of This Gospel Era. We have now come to consider the evening time of this gospel day. The morning was light because of the truth being experienced and taught. The noonday was dark because traditions and theories and vain philosophies of man became substitutes for the Word of God. This evening time was seen by prophetic eye. “But it shall be one day which shall be known to the Lord, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light.” We are nearing the close of this gospel day. The sun of time hangs low in the western horizon. The gospel light is now shining in peaceful splendor like the clear setting of the sun after a dark and cloudy noonday. “Misty fogs so long concealing All the hills of mingled night Vanish, all their sin revealing, For the “evening shall be light” “Lo, the ransomed are returning, Robed in shining crystal white, Leaping, shouting, home to Zion, Happy in the ev’ning light.”—_Sel._ Chapter I. The Apostasy In Two Days. In our introduction we gave a number of texts which spoke of the whole of the gospel dispensation as one day; but any period of time distinguished by some extraordinary historic event may be and is also termed a day. The apostasy or dark noonday being under two forms is marked in Bible history as two days. The first form of the apostasy, namely, Catholicism, is called by the Scriptures a “dark day.” A Cloudy Day. The second form of the apostasy was not such utter darkness as the first, and is therefore called a cloudy day. “For thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I, even I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out. As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered; so will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day.” Ezek. 34:11, 12. The cloudy day was a day of the scattering of God’s people. This has been true of Protestantism. God’s own people have been divided and scattered among the various organizations of man. The time of the seeking out refers to the evening, when God is going to gather his children together that “were scattered abroad,” and they shall be “one heart and one soul” as in the morning.