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The End of the World
Whatwould you do if you knew the world was coming to an end next week, or even next year?
The people who lived in the tenth century thought the Bible said[4]something that meant that the world was coming to an end in the Year 1000—which was called the millennium from the Latin word meaning a thousand years.
[4]Book of Revelations, chapter xx.
[4]Book of Revelations, chapter xx.
Some people were glad that the world was coming to an end. They were so poor and miserable and unhappy here that they were anxious to go to heaven, where everything would be fine and lovely—if they had been good here. So they were particularly good and did everything they could to earn a place for themselves in heaven when this old world should end.
Others were not so anxious to have the world come to an end. But, they thought, if it were coming to an end so soon, they might as well hurry up and enjoy themselves here while they still had a chance.
Well, the Year 1000 came, and nothing happened.At first people simply thought that a mistake had been made in counting the years—that there had not really been one thousand years since Christ’s birth. The years went by, and still people waited for the end. They re-read their Bibles and thought perhaps it meant a thousand years after Christ’sdeath, instead of his birth. As time went on, without any change, they began to think the end was delayed for some reason they could not explain. But it was not for many years after the millennium that people came at last to realize that the world was not going to stop after all.
Every once in a while some one who thinks he knows more than others says the end of the world is not far off, but we may be quite sure that the world will keep on going and that it will keep on going long after we have all grown up and died and our children have done the same.
At this time, when people were looking for the end of the world there was in the north of Europe a tribe of Teutons who were not Christians and knew and cared nothing about what the Bible said as to the end of the world. They belonged to the same family as the Danes who had come to England in the time of King Alfred. They were called Norsemen or Vikings. They were bold seafaring men, even more hardy and unafraid than the Phenician sailors of old. Theirboats were painted black and had prows carved with figures of sea-monsters or dragons. They sailed the northern seas and went farther westward toward the setting sun than any sailors had ever gone. They had discovered Iceland and Greenland, and at last under their chief who was named Leif Ericson they reached the shores of America. So about the same year that the Christians in Europe were expecting the end of the world—the Year 1000—the Vikings had gone to what they thought was “the end of the world.”
They called the new country Vineland or Wineland, because they found grapes, from which wine is made, growing there. They did not go far on shore, however, and they thought this new land was only another small island. They had no idea it was a new world. But it was too far away from their own country, and they found wild savages there who made it so uncomfortable for them that they sailed back home leaving the country for good. The Vikings did nothing more about their discovery, and people forgot all about this new country until nearly five hundred years later.