Abstract

The expectation of a "new heaven and new earth" has by and large suppressed the attention of Christian thought to the fate of this heaven and this earth. Our world, perishable, sinful, and a vale of unrelievable sorrow and illusory pleasures, cannot attract one who is wholly absorbed in Eternity. Such is the unflagging belief of Christian consciousness with which the countless zealots of the spiritual life went off to monasteries and into the desert to pray