“OUT OF THE MOUTH OF THE FALSE PROPHET,”
By M. W. Howard
Within a few days I have heard two different preachers, themselves exult, and seek to comfort bereaved hearts with the assurance that the dead infant knew infinitely more of God than any living person could! It is true that David said, when seeking to justify to observers what seemed to them his inexplicable conduct, when told of the death of his child, “I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me,” 2 Sam. xii, 23; and these words can be forced to teach a conscious reunion at death. But what say those who do this, to the plain testimony of Solomon: “The dead know not anything;” and of Hezekiah: “The grave cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee. . . . The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day?” Isa. xxxviii, 18, 19. What think they of Job, when he testified, “Thou changest his countenance, and sendest him away. His sons come to honor, and he knoweth it not; and they are brought low, and he perceiveth it not of them.” Shrinking, with almost sanctimonious horror, from the imputation of Spiritualism, can they not perceive that the foundation for that superstructure is laid in their accepted teachings? Why not look a little beyond the present lesson, and consider the legitimate outgrowth of such theories? Consider who is to have nicety of precision a few years hence, so as to accurately decide where popular Spiritualism ends, and unpopular Spiritualism begins? Or, if the expression is preferred, where orthodox Spiritualism ends, and demonology begins? For my part, I can hardly tell now, when I hear, from orthodox (?) pulpits, of “the spirit-land of our dead,”—or of their being “gone over the dark river,” and “standing on the battlements of Heaven, beckoning, with shadowy fingers, the inhabitants of earth toward the better land.” But, I ask, “What is truth?” Nor will I turn away, in scornful unbelief, without waiting for a reply. Only I insist it be given from the written word of God, and not from the mouth of the false prophet. I turned from my writing, took up the weekly paper, and found this little obituary. Was it an illustration ready to my hand? As such, I give it: “Little Maud has gone to join her mother in the spirit-land. Let it be said of them both,” ‘Sleep on, sweet angels,
Take thy rest;
God called thee home,
He thought it best.’ I comprehend what is intended by the prose, but if there is consistent sense to the poetry, I fail to recognize it. “Sleep” and “rest” accord not with the prevailing ideas of “the home,” and spirit-land. At another theory “out of the mouth of the false prophet,” I wish to glance. It is the expectation, over which so many animate themselves, of future good to our earth. They fancy they already see portentous clouds looming up in the near-coming future. It has become a matter of faith, and to smile disdainfully at any other supposition is often their only argument. Surely it is enough for them, as another expressed it, “Since the golden age is in the future, as is happily now the prevailing faith.” “Happily now the prevailing faith!” Alas! not happily, with its enervating effects. Not happily, with the unblest notes of that siren song that shall have lulled to sleep, “if it were possible, the very elect,” when Christ again shall come. If Satan entraps the soul with one fatal lie, his purpose is accomplished. The death chill of unbelief quenches the incipient faith that might otherwise be developed. And it is so in this case. A fatal lie closes heart and eye to the developing of evil in our world, and is continually holding itself up for our following, when it would be far more conclusive, could it do so, to show how much of good has been developed by its training. And so in these days it is difficult to have a hearty, simple, childlike faith. A feeling of distrust mingles itself, perhaps unconsciously, in many hearts, and is betrayed by the alarm manifested when investigation is called out; as if in terror lest the eternal foundations were sliding from beneath their feet. How like the spirit manifested by the Pharisees among the Jews, when the doctrines of Jesus were propagated; as if investigation were not the surest safeguard. It is the superficial reader of the Bible, whose faith wavers—he, who casting aside the wisdom of God, seeks to stand in his own wisdom. And if in Paul’s time it could be said, “The world by wisdom knew not God,” 1 Cor. i, 21, how signally true it is in these days of scientific and geological fables, and infidelity. So wickedness seems to run riot, and “because iniquity abounds, the love of many waxes cold.” And the iniquity to which I now refer, is not of that “baser sort” that of its own density settles to the lower strata of society, leaving the mass apparently clear. But to that refined sort of iniquity, from which few shrink, exhibited in the various amusements and pleasures of the times; that love of display, in dress and equipage that everywhere abounds; the varied means by which the mind is kept in such a tumult of excitement, that there is little space left for “the peaceable fruits of righteousness,” proving how mankind have become “lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God.” It is natural to associate Christianity with the church, but in these degenerate days the conviction forces itself upon the understanding, that, though outwardly prosperous, he is inwardly decaying; and you cannot feel that you have found a Christian, though his name be enrolled upon the records of the church. Alas! it is sad to know that that prophecy is fulfilled, and already a corrupt Christianity has become “the hold of every unclean and hateful thing.” Already “the fowls of the air are lodged in its branches.” Sad to know, that the “beast” and “false prophet” are fast ranging themselves side by side in history, as they have already been placed by God in prophecy. The Catholic shrinks from the appellation of “beast;” the nominal Christian from the appellation of “false prophet.” I confess I do so shrink myself. But facts are uncompromising arguments, and will abide the test.