The ordinary cares and employments of this life were given up. The land was left untilled; for why plow, why sow, when no one would be left to reap? Houses were allowed to fall into decay; for why build, why repair, why trouble about property, when a few months will put an end to all terrestrial things? History was neglected; for why chronicle events, when no posterity was expected to read the records? The rich, the noble, the princes, and bishops, abandoned their friends and families, and hastened to the shores of Palestine, in the persuasion that Mount Zion would be the throne of Christ when He descended to judge the world. Large sums of money were given to churches and monasteries, as if to secure a more favorable sentence from the supreme Judge. Kings and emperors begged at monastery doors, to be admitted as brethren of the holy order; crowds of the common people slept in the porches of the holy buildings, or at least under their shadow.
But in the meantime the multitudes must be fed. The last day of the thousand years had not yet arrived. But food there was none; corn and cattle were exhausted, and no provision had been made for the future. The most frightful extremities were endured, far too revolting to be repeated here. But the day of doom drew nearer and nearer. The last evening of the thousand years arrived: a sleepless night for all Europe! Imagination must fill up the doleful picture. But in place of some extraordinary convulsion, which all were tremblingly waiting for, the night passed away as other nights had done, and in the morning the sun shed forth his beams as peacefully as ever. The amazed but now relieved multitudes began to return to their homes, repair their buildings, plow, sow, and resume their former occupations.
Thus closed the first thousand years of the church's history; the darkest day in the reign of Jezebel, and in the annals of Christendom.
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