p. 23 | The Message and the School by M. B. Babcock

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 10, 1907

The Message and the School

By M. B. Babcock

“THEREFORE be ye also ready; for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.” “Know that he is near, even at the doors.” Who believes this? “Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” Who will do this? What is the exclusive business of such on earth, to which every other interest gives right of way? “Ye can not serve God and mammon.”

John the Baptist, sent of God to the nation appointed to receive the Son of man at the first advent, in the spirit and power of Elias, went before him “to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” So in the last days, in the same spirit and power, many messengers from among men, called and sent of God for that special purpose, shall go before him—“to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord,” “when he shall come to be glorified in his saints.” They go to warn the world of the end of all corruptible things at the revealed glory of our Lord.

Almost two thousand years ago the learned and devoted Paul in such mighty power preached the second coming of Christ that the people who heard thought the day of Christ then “at hand.” The secret of his power lay in the fact that he himself knew Christ, he saw him, and therefore could introduce him so others could see and know him. Those alone can introduce the Lord of glory and really present his message who personally knew him and it. It is certain that the better, more perfectly, more devotedly the messenger knows for what he is sent, and knows him who sent him, the more definite the introduction will be, the more life and power the message will have, and the deeper and more lasting the effect will be on hearts and minds.

The agencies employed and fostered by God’s remnant people will prosper and increase in power for good only when they are in the hands of devoted souls that know him and his message, and find no glory “save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Every convert “gained, comes into the light, called of God to introduce to men him whom he himself has met and seen and known.”

Without doubt no agency outside the home circle equals that of the genuine Christian school as a means ordained of God to introduce himself and his message to the hearts and minds of the children and youth of the land, and to furnish faithful, finished, effective instruments for his use in the perilous times impending. Self-control, learned in daily drill and wholesome restraint; strength and vigor of mind; quickened power to perceive; talents trained in humble hearts,—all these give ability most acceptably to present the true and living God and his “present truth” in resistless power in the very face of the evil one himself. Growth in grace and in the knowledge of God proceed none too surely and safely under the best conditions and means divinely appointed. “Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.” “Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.”

M. B. BABCOCK.