Ragnarok : the age of fire and gravel

THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF OF MANKIND. 495

white, and blue,” the very colors which distinguished the comet ; and they are all reminiscences of that great monster. The idols of the pagan world are, in fact, congealed history, and will some day be intelligently studied as such.

Doubtless this ancient astronomical, zodiac-building, and constellation-constructing race taught the people the true doctrine of comets ; taught that the winding serpent, the flying dragon, the destructive winged dog, or wolf, or lion, whose sphinx-like images now frown upon us from ancient walls and door-ways, were really comets; taught how one of them had actually struck the earth; and taught that in the lapse of ages another of these multitudinous wanderers of space would again encounter our globe, and end all things in one universal conflagration.

And down through the race this belief has come, and down through the race it will go, to the consummation of time.

We find this “day of wrath” prefigured in the words of Malachi, (chap. iv, v. 1):

“1. For behold the day cometh that shall burn as an oven ; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.

“2. But unto you that fear my name shall the sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.

“3. And ye shall tread down the wicked ; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that

I shall do this, saith the Lord of hosts.”

We find the same great catastrophe foretold in the book of Revelation, (chap. xii, v. 3) :

“ And there appeared another wonder in heaven ; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten

horns, and seven crowns upon his heads, 19