The Spirit of It

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jun 4, 1912

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 39, No. 22.

The minister of the Gospel is not commissioned to use the weapons of the flesh in his work. He has mightier weapons than the sword. He is not asked to call the sheriff to keep men from either play or work on what he regards as the Sabbath day. But of course there is a longing in the mind of man for power with which to do things; and if he does not know this mighty power of the Gospel, he is sure to turn to the power of force and of the sword to try to supply the lack that he feels.

The spirit of the mob that so cruelly took the life of the Christ because He refused to conform to all the religious dogma of that time, is the same spirit exactly that will seek to drive men in these times outwardly to observe Sunday. The thing is under a different guise, but the controlling spirit is the same. Men will see things that are so simple and plain as this if they will only take the pains to think them over carefully and without prejudice.

Alexandrina, Princess of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, wife of King Christian X, now Queen of Denmark.

Liberty, with some persons, means a division of the spoils, the scattering of the wealth of the rich, the division of the lands or their reversal to the State, with a maximum of ease and pleasure and idleness and a minimum of toil, the State a great, indulgent, coddling parent, and the people children, directed in all the affairs of life. The idea is Socialistic. There are many Socialists who have high ideals. They note present conditions, they see the practical working of industrial slavery, and they ardently long for better conditions for themselves and their fellows. They hope by education and evolution and union of effort to accomplish the desired end; but such do not see the true cause, sin, and, in consequence, fail to grasp the remedy, Christ Jesus.