So unwholesome an
absurdity could only have gained ground under two conditions: one,
a reaction against a society in which sensual luxury had been
carried to revolting extremes, and, two, a belief that the world
was coming to an end, and that therefore sex was no longer a
necessity. Christianity, because it began under these conditions,
made sexlessness and Communism the two main practical articles of
its propaganda; and it has never quite lost its original bias in
these directions. In spite of the putting off of the Second Coming
from the lifetime of the apostles to the millennium, and of the
great disappointment of the year 1000 A.D., in which multitudes of
Christians seriously prepared for the end of the world, the
prophet who announces that the end is at hand is still popular.
Many of the people who ridicule his demonstrations that the
fantastic monsters of the book of Revelation are among us in the
persons of our own political contemporaries, and who proceed
sanely in all their affairs on the assumption that the world is
going to last, really do believe that there will be a Judgment
Day, and that it MIGHT even be in their own time. A thunderstorm,
an eclipse, or any very unusual weather will make them
apprehensive and uncomfortable.
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