have no share. We are all familiar with this expectation: many of
us cherish some pious relative who sees in every great calamity a
sign of the approaching end. Warning pamphlets are in constant
circulation: advertisements are put in the papers and paid for by
those who are convinced, and who are horrified at the
indifference of the irreligious to the approaching doom. And
revivalist preachers, now as in the days of John the Baptist,
seldom fail to warn their flocks to watch and pray, as the great
day will steal upon them like a thief in the night, and cannot be
long deferred in a world so wicked. This belief also associates
itself with Barleycorn's second coming; so that the two events
become identified at last.

There is the other and more artificial side of this belief, on
which it is an inculcated dread. The ruler who appeals to the
prospect of heaven to console the poor and keep them from
insurrection also curbs the vicious by threatening them with
hell. In the Koran we find Mahomet driven more and more to this
expedient of government; and experience confirms his evident
belief that it is impossible to govern without it in certain
phases of civilization. We shall see later on that it gives a
powerful attraction to the belief in a Redeemer, since it adds to
remorse of conscience, which hardened men bear very lightly, a
definite dread of hideous and eternal torture.


THE HONOR OF DIVINE PARENTAGE

One more tradition must be noted. The consummation of praise for
a king is to declare that he is the son of no earthly father, but