ABSTRACT
A s the nineteenth century drew at last to its close, many a late Victorian pulpit rang wi th apocalyptic warnings. To the ardent Evangelical the end of all things was at hand; the old order, it seemed, could hardly long survive the faith that had made possible its dominance. By the early nineties, one Reverend Mr. Baxter was, therefore, quite convinced that the day of final doom, fast approaching, would be presaged by the ascent to Heaven, at an appointed hour in 1896, of some one hundred and forty-four thousand selected Christians.1 But when the hour arrived, most of the chosen, apparently, preferred to linger on earth for at least another year, that
they might join in the festivities of Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. For the true-born Englishman, in fact, grown less and less responsive to every Evangelical appeal, was finding more immediate forms of emotional release in the imperial concerns of his Empress-Queen.
