MEETING IN OAKLAND LAST SABBATH.
By Editor
SABBATH, Sept. 24, as appropriate to the present time, we took for our text, Ps. 119:126—"It is time for thee, Lord, to work; for they have made void thy law." After reading the proclamations, one of President Arthur, and two of Governor Perkins, and speaking of the calamity for which our nation and even the whole civilized world is in mourning, we remarked on the spirit of lawlessness in the world. Nihilism is not confined to Russia, socialism to Germany, nor communism to France. We are weekly importing the most dangerous classes as immigrants from the Old Country, who come here to talk openly what they did by stealth in their native lands. And they do not seek to destroy Emperors, Kings, or Presidents. Their object is to destroy nations, to subvert all law and order. The spirit of reverence is departing from the fireside, from the school, and even from the church. The law of God is set aside as authority, and even ministers preach that it is abolished, against the positive statement of Paul to the Romans, that the law is not made void by faith. Romans 3, 6, and 7, and Galatians 3 were noticed to show how people try to prove their exemption from the claims of the law; and, that deliverance is from the curse or condemnation, but not from the obligation of law. Also Jer. 7:8-11, to show how God regards those who claim deliverance from the law so as to have a right to violate its precepts. Whether such teachers realize, and are ready to confess the tendency of their teachings or not, the effect is apparent. Destroy the sanctity of the law of God in the minds of the people, and you open the door for recklessness, for riot, and ruin. Destroy respect for authority in the minds of the young, and you start them in the way of irreverence, selfishness, and immorality. Isa. 58 and 59 were noticed as applicable to the present, and the immediate future. Justice, equity, and truth are ignored. The righteousness and the ordinance of God are forsaken. Criminal court proceedings are nearly a farce, and the extensive spread of the vagaries of Spiritualism are sapping the foundation of the social structure. But the Lord has promised: "When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him." The standard for the last days—before the advent of our Lord—is found in the third angel's message of Rev. 14; it is, "The commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus." It is a returning to the "old paths—the good way," and to "walk therein." With illustrations of the effects of seeking to be free from just restraint, in the family, in the church, and in the State, we made our appeal to our hearers. But we sorrow not as having no hope; we are looking for a kingdom, to the head of which every knee shall bow, and in which rebellion and bloodshed cannot exist. Insubordination and lawlessness will soon be forever quelled by "the Governor among the nations." The audience was larger than usual, and a good feeling prevailed. We trust the result may prove good to all who were present.