would come speedily, and sweep away all men outside it, and leave it alone on an earth renewed and glorified. Faith in him was the pass that procured admission to the felicities of his Messianic reign; to those outside Christianity his coming could only bring confusion and ruin.[64] This new world, the creation of which was begun by Christ’s death, and was to be completed by his second coming, the early Christians regarded as a kingdom of light girdled on every side by the old world or kingdom of darkness. It was their mission, they held, to extend its frontiers, and continuously to encroach on the region given over to night. Every inch of ground they gained they believed to be saved from an imminent destruction. For the fervour of proselytism which possessed them rested on the dogma of the second advent. To it they looked forward as a blessing to themselves and a terror to the rest of mankind.[65] All men outside the Church seemed to be walking on the brink of a precipice, over which they were shortly to be hurled. Naturally to save as many as possible of these from a danger so immediate and so vividly conceived was to most Christians the chief object of life. Some of the sterner of them, as we know from the book of Revelation, which was written at the close of this period, expected with gladness the coming of Christ to take vengeance on his enemies. But the harsh and exclusive spirit of that characteristically Jewish work could not have been general; and we may be sure that the Christians, as a whole, felt only pity when they thought of the impending destruction of the proud non-Christian world. Many strange ideas entered into the expectation of the coming of Christ. It was even thought that at the last moment he would convert and save those who had been unreached by his earthly envoys. St. Paul believed that then, “after the fulness of the Gentiles had come in,” Israel would at length be saved.[66] As to what was to follow the second advent, opinions slightly varied. According to St. Paul,[67] Christ would establish after it an eternal and heavenly kingdom of the Christian living and risen dead; but according to the book of Revelation,[68] he would then reign for a thousand years on earth, afterwards beginning his everlasting rule.