Detroit—The world is traveling on its way to destruction at the rate of 600,000 miles a day, so the Rev. George T. Gullen of the West Grand Boulevard M. E. church believes. That was a sure thing, he declared, and further he said there are at least eight other ways in which the old world may come to its end before the fatal ending of the “death journey.”
    First, he declared, the axis of the earth might decide to shift about a few degrees, with the result that the oceans would sweep over the dry lands and destroy all life before an ark could be built. If that fails to occur there might be a failure of internal fires and the crust of the earth would absorb all the water and the air. The death of our planet might, on the other hand, be brought about by the heat of the sun dying out and leaving the earth a mass of ice. There was just a possibility that we might all be asphyxiated by the earth passing through the tail of a comet: or this planet might collide with another world wandering through space.
    And the end might be brought about by the slowing down or the speeding up of the rate of the earth's rotation on its own axis. The rotation at present is just sufficient to counteract the centripetal force of the sun and if it were slowed down the earth would fly into the sun, starting at the rate of 1,100 miles an hour and be consumed. If the rate of rotation were accelerated the earth would fly out into space into temperature of 400 degrees below zero and the oceans would be frozen to their utmost depths.
    Other ways by which Mr. Gullen could see the world come to its end were the closing up of all volcanoes and other vents for gases, the inevitable result of which would be a terrific explosion that would shatter the world or bring part of the atmosphere to such a heat that the oxygen and nitrogen would unite and cause a combustion of the atmosphere.
    That such disasters were not imposible was shown, he said, by the spectroscope, by means of which man could read the life history of the planets. He added:
    “The spectroscope shows that one planet is in a state of white heat, that another showing yellow is on the down grade, that Mars is dying, that the moon is dead, while Jupiter is Just getting ready for sentient life. This world is on its way to death, for it is traveling straight toward Hercules 600,000 miles a day, and while the distance is immense it is not infinite.” Science tells us the end is coming, the preacher went on more reassuringly, but it does not believe the end is near. It estimates that God took ninety million years to make the world habitable by man and that man’s life on it is perhaps 100,000 years.
    His comparatively optimistic comment at the finish was:
    “Why could God spend all that time in making a world if it is to be destroyed so soon? God wastes neither space, material nor time. He Is too busy. He is continually making new worlds, but He does not destroy them almost as soon as they are made.”

From—The Jasper News. (Jasper, Mo.), 12 May 1921. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.