Is the World Going to End on April 27th, 1918?

1918

By THE REV. FREDERICK W. BETTS
Minister First Universalist Church, Syracuse

I met a friend the other day who related to me an incident that occurred a few days ago, which touches the edge of one of those age-long immortal dreams of men, which no vicissitudes can dim and no disappointment can destroy.

The incident was this. My friend is a life insurance agent. He has been in this business many years. He has a friend who came to him for a policy a quarter of a century ago. Since that time, with two or three changes in the insurance policies, this agent has continued to insure his friend. The other day the friend came to him and told him to cancel his policy! When asked the reason for this request the policy holder answered that the world is coming to an end on April 27th, 1918, and he did not care to put any more money into life insurance. Here is a man who acts up to his belief, which is more than most of us do. Whatever our difference of opinion with him may be he is entitled to our respect.

This incident recalls another which my father related to me when I was a boy. He was born about 1835 or a little later. His people lived in a neighborhood which had been greatly stirred by a religious revival such as was universal in those days. This revival developed almost a hysterical anticipation of the end of the world. There was a wonderful searching of Scripture to find out the day and the hour when the great change was to take place. At last the date was discovered and the word was passed along to prepare for the impending cataclysm. The ideas of the people were elaborated from a literal interpretation of Matt. xxiv. and I Cor. xiii. Jesus Christ was to come on the clouds, with his angels. Gabriel was to blow his trumpet. The dead were to be raised "in the twinkling of an eye." Then the separation would take place. The sheep would go to one side and the goats to the other side. The saints were thenceforth to be forever with their Lord.

As the day for the great transformation drew near those who were moved mightily by this dream ceased the ordinary activities of life. The horses were left in the stables. The plows were idle in the field. Women made ascension robes while men spent long periods in prayer and exhortation.

Outside the village was a rising slope of ground which ended at a round-top hill. The spot was beautiful. From it the world stretched away to woodland and sky line over undulating, fields ripe unto the harvest. The sun shone bright on the fateful day. All the village turned out to follow the believers to their trysting place. When they were there the believers gathered in a central group, surrounded by the crowd. The believers sang a hymn, then knelt to pray. Sometimes a voice of exhortation rose from one of their number. It was not far from the rising of the sun when they went out. Hour after hour through the whole day they sung and prayed and shouted in patient anticipation. But the sun went down, darkness fell upon the world, until at last, when the midnight hour had passed, a weary, hungry, discouraged group of pilgrims wended their way back to their village homes, to begin over again the monotonous and toilsome round of daily life. Soon the horses were harnessed and the plowmen and the reapers went afield. The world went on as usual.

What happened to the faith of these people I was too young to remember, but the telling of the incident to me when I was a boy made as deep an impression upon my mind as the witnessing of it did upon my father's mind. But that generation passed away. Another generation came, only to repeat in many strange and wonderful ways the experience of their forebears. I am not inclined to be facetious over the incident. I prefer to think of it as one of those gropings of the human spirit in its search after the meaning of life and an explanation of the ways of God. What surprises the detached observer, however, is the amazing virility of this apocalyptic vision of the end of the world. Through all the centuries days have been set, preparations have been made, people have watched and prayed expecting to see the heavens open, only to turn away disappointed, with their hopes crushed. But the vision never perishes. In one form or another, it has had its devotees from the days of Buddha and Mohammed to this hour.

And now April 27th, 1918 is set again for the great transformation. Perhaps sometime, by some chance or some intuition, some one may hit upon the day when the old order will pass and a new world be born over night. Who can tell what will happen in such a universe as this? And yet the probabilities are that the oft repeated story will be lived over again, and we shall tell our children and our children's children how the day passed and no portent came and men turned back to the long and trying task of making our new earth in which the Lord shall reign, in spirit if not in a human form.

—The Syracuse Herald, Syracuse, New York, January 13, 1918, page 6.