THEY SEE IT; DO WE? by C. H. Keslake

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 15, 1900

THEY SEE IT; DO WE?

By C. H. Keslake

C. H. KESLAKE.

“Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” Luke 24: 26, 27.

It is easy for us in this age to look back to the time when Christ had just risen from the dead, and marvel that the disciples should have been so dull of comprehension, and to congratulate ourselves that we believe and understand perfectly the doctrine concerning the passion of Christ, his resurrection, etc. But the text already quoted shows that “Moses and all the prophets” not only speak of the sufferings of Christ, but of the time when he should enter into his glory. Peter says that the Spirit of Christ in the prophets “testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow.” 1 Peter 1: 11.

The “glory that should follow” will not be fully consummated until Christ shall come again, when he shall be glorified in his saints, and they in him. 2 Thess. 1: 12. What of the time that should elapse between the passion and resurrection of Christ and his second coming? Do the Scriptures have anything to say about this? So far as Seventh-day Adventists are concerned there is, to them, a certainty on this point that is absolute. At least in theory they all believe that the Bible can not get “out of date;” that it is the Book for the times, no matter what the age may be.

But the query might naturally arise, Are we any more clear upon the word of God as relating to our own times, than the disciples were of their times when the Lord spoke to them in the language of the text quoted at the beginning of this article? Not only is it to be feared that many are not, but it is also to be feared that many professed believers do not understand the trend of events as clearly as do some who know nothing of what God in his word has said about it. This is a situation that should be deeply deplored.

Never, in all the history of God’s people, have they been so uniquely situated as they are at present. In times past God’s church has had ample time to study up and understand the philosophy of events long after their occurrence, and, in a way, still be all right. But nevertheless they should have been in a position where they could see and recognize the events as they were occurring, instead of waiting until some future time. But the situation is entirely changed now. History is being made so fast, current events being the harbingers of Christ’s soon coming, that unless we stand in the counsel of God, and so understand them and recognize their significance as they take place, there will be positively no opportunity for us to study them afterward, and so be able to place ourselves on the right side of every question, and so be saved; for the only truth that will save us is “present truth.”

To say nothing of affairs that pertain to the world at large, one can not look at the affairs of this country without recognizing the fact that history is making with lightning-like rapidity, and the time has come when God’s people must be as “minute men,” ready to grasp and understand each event as it occurs in relation to the coming of Christ. To be anything short of this means to be left so far behind that it will be impossible ever to catch up.

As with God’s church, so with this country. No nation in the world at any age has occupied so unique a position as the United States. Founded upon principles that are eternal, this government has been the only exponent in all the world of true Protestantism and republicanism. But in late years this nation has taken steps, which, if continued, must eventually prove its undoing; and as other nations have perished, so must it.

These things are so clearly recognized by public men, who understand their significance so thoroughly, apart from what God has said about them, of which they know nothing, that it should put to shame Seventh-day Adventists, in that, instead of knowing less than these men, as is the case with many, we ought to know a great deal more.

In the New York Sunday Journal of April 15, 1900, appeared two long editorials, one of which is signed, and needs only the leaving out of a few political phrases, and the placing of a good strong Scripture quotation at the beginning, to make it a straight sermon on the Third Angel’s Message.

Under the heading, “The Republic in Danger,” and referring to the situation in Porto Rico, the editor of the Journal, over his signature, says: “Bad as the Porto Rican oppression is in itself, it is not the most sinister phase of the present situation.” And then, speaking of the influence alleged to have been brought to bear upon the executive of the nation, and accounting for the change of policy of the government, he closes with this strikingly significant paragraph:—

The Roman Republic was not overthrown by ambition, but fell through corruption; and to realize adequately what is threatening us, we should remember what has happened before under somewhat similar conditions. American citizens may profitably reread at this time the introductory chapters of Froude’s Cæsar, where the events and causes leading to the dissolution of the Roman Republic are clearly and forcibly set forth.

He then proceeds to give, under the heading, “Froude’s Roman Lessons for America,” a number of extracts from the history referred to, all of which are exceedingly interesting in view of what the Lord has been telling us in the Scriptures and through the Spirit of Prophecy concerning this nation. The whole of the editorial is too lengthy to quote here, but I group together a few of the more prominent statements:—

To the student of political history, and to the English student above all others, the conversion of the Roman Republic into a military empire commands a peculiar interest. Notwithstanding many differences, the English and the Romans essentially resemble each other. The early Romans possessed the faculty of self-government beyond any people of whom we have historical knowledge, with the one exception of ourselves. In virtue of their temporal freedom, they became the most powerful nation in the known world; AND THEIR LIBERTIES PERISHED ONLY WHEN ROME BECAME THE MISTRESS OF CONQUERED RACES, TO WHOM SHE WAS UNABLE OR UNWILLING TO EXTEND HER PRIVILEGES. IF THERE BE ONE LESSON WHICH HISTORY CLEARLY TEACHES, IT IS THIS, THAT FREE NATIONS CAN NOT GOVERN SUBJECT PROVINCES. IF THEY ARE UNABLE OR UNWILLING TO ADMIT THEIR DEPENDENCIES TO SHARE THEIR OWN CONSTITUTION, THE CONSTITUTION ITSELF WILL FALL IN PIECES FROM MERE INCOMPETENCE FOR ITS DUTIES.

The life of a nation, like the life of a man, may be prolonged in honor into the fullness of its time, or it may perish prematurely, for want of guidance, by violence or internal disorders. And thus the history of national revolutions is to statesmanship what the pathology of disease is to the art of medicine.

The physician can not arrest the coming on of age, where disease has laid hold upon the constitution, he can not expel it. But he may check the progress of the evil if he can recognize the symptoms in time. He can save life at the cost of an unsound limb. He can tell us how to preserve our health when we have it; he can warn us of the conditions under which particular disorders will have us at a disadvantage.

And so with nations; amid the endless variety of circumstances there are constant phenomena which give notice of approaching danger; there are courses of action which have uniformly produced the same results; and the wise politicians are those who have learned from experience the real tendencies of things, unmixed by superficial differences, who can shun the rocks where others have been wrecked, or from foresight of what is coming can be cool when the peril is upon them.

For these reasons the fall of the Roman Republic is exceptionally instructive to us. A constitutional government the most enduring and the most powerful that ever existed was put on its trial and found wanting. We see it in its growth; we see the causes which undermined its strength. We see attempts to check the growing mischief fail, and we see why they failed. With such vividness, with such transparent clearness, the age stands before us of Cato and Pompey, of Cicero and Julius Cæsar: the more distinctly because it was an age in so many ways the counterpart of our own, the blossoming period of the old civilization, when the intellect was trained to the highest point it could reach; and on the great subjects of human interest, on morals and politics, on poetry and art, even on religion itself and the speculative problems of life, men thought as we think, doubted where we doubt, argued as we argue, aspired and struggled after the same objects.

It was an age of material progress and material civilization; an age of civil liberty and intellectual culture; an age of pamphlets and epigrams, of salons and of dinner parties, of SENATORIAL MAJORITIES AND ELECTORAL CORRUPTION.

The highest offices of state were open in theory to the meanest citizen; THEY WERE CONFINED, IN FACT, TO THOSE WHO HAD THE LONGEST PURSES, or the most ready use of the tongue on popular platforms. DISTINCTIONS OF BIRTH HAD BEEN EXCHANGED FOR DISTINCTIONS OF WEALTH.

Religion, once the foundation of the laws and rule of personal conduct, had subsided into opinion. The educated in their hearts disbelieved it. Temples were still built with increasing splendor; the established forms were scrupulously observed. Public men spoke conventionally of Providence, that they might throw on their opponents the odium of impiety; but of genuine belief that life had any serious meaning, there was none remaining beyond the circle of the silent, patient, ignorant multitude.

THE WHOLE SPIRITUAL ATMOSPHERE WAS SATURATED WITH CANT—CANT MORAL, CANT POLITICAL, CANT RELIGIOUS; AN AFFECTATION OF HIGH PRINCIPLE WHICH HAD CEASED TO TOUCH THE CONDUCT, AND FLOWED ON IN AN INCREASING VOLUME OF INSINCERE AND UNREAL SPEECH.

THE PROUD PRIVILEGE OF ROMAN CITIZENSHIP WAS STILL JEALOUSLY RESERVED TO ROME ITSELF, AND TO A FEW FAVORED TOWNS AND COLONIES; AND A MERE SUBJECT COULD MAINTAIN NO RIGHTS AGAINST A MEMBER OF THE HAUGHTY OLIGARCHY WHICH CONTROLLED THE CIVILIZED WORLD. Such, generally, the Roman Republic had become, or was tending to become, in the years that followed the fall of Carthage, B. C. 146. Public spirit in the masses was dead or sleeping; the commonwealth was a plutocracy. THE FREE FORMS OF THE CONSTITUTION WERE THEMSELVES THE INSTRUMENTS OF CORRUPTION.

I have given these quotations, not because they are not known by many of the readers of the REVIEW, for many of them have already appeared in our publications, but simply that it may be seen that those who are watching closely the trend of events at this time see clearly that this nation has begun to parallel the Roman Republic; they see plainly that the very same causes that led to the final overthrow of Rome are being repeated by this nation; they see that the disease has laid hold upon “the Constitution” of this country, and that its life can be saved only by such governmental action, or possibly revolution, as would be analogous to the amputation of a human limb to save the rest of the body.

But will this be done? Having started in the direction indicated, are the probabilities likely that this nation will wrench itself from the awful grasp of present influences, and so become again what she once was? Doubtless this is the thing hoped for by those who recognize the alarming situation. But the fateful words of Froude, which I quote direct from his “Cæsar,” might appropriately be given here:—

The popular leader of the hour sees some present difficulty or present opportunity of distinction. He deals with each question as it arises, leaving future consequences to those who are to come after him. The situation changes from period to period, and tendencies are generated with an accelerating force, which, when once established, can never be reversed. When the control of reason is once removed, the catastrophe is no longer distant, and then nations, like all organized creations, all forms of life, from the meanest flower to the highest human institution, pass through the inevitably recurring stages of growth and transformation and decay.

It might be, in fact there is every reason to believe that it will be, that the hope will be cherished that it will finally be true of this country what Froude further says of Rome: “When nothing seemed so likely as complete dissolution, the whole question [will be] changed by a violent operation, and the dying patient’s life protracted for further centuries of power and usefulness.”

But just here is where many will be in danger of making this fatal mistake, and doubtless many will make it; and to guard against it, the Spirit of God has faithfully shown that which really will be, as follows:—

When our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then may we know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan, and that the end is near.

It took Rome hundreds of years to reach the point where decay set in, but barely a hundred years has sufficed for the United States. As its rise has been phenomenally swift, so will there be a corresponding decline. We may understand perfectly the present course pursued by this nation by tracing the history of her prototype—Rome; and as all this has been set forth in the word of God, it clearly shows one of the purposes for which it was done, and that because in no other way could these things now be understood, and this people of to-day be saved from the impending destruction.

But there are many who will plead that they have so much business on their hands that they do not have time to search out all these things, even though they could afford it, and had the inclination. This is doubtless quite true. Yet God has arranged it so that none shall have even that excuse to offer. God is faithful, and he assures us that he is watching over his word to perform it. Jer. 1: 12, Leeser’s Translation. And as he does this, he is raising up faithful watchmen who, in response to the question, “Watchman, what of the night?” are calling, as the dark night is settling upon the world, “The morning cometh, and also the night.”

In other words, God has moved upon some of his servants to study closely the history of Rome, and also to watch closely that which is a perfect parallel to it in this day; and thus knowing the one, they are able to recognize the other. And in the light of the word of God they are faithfully giving us both, in our publications. For ten years it has all been told in “The Two Republics.”