The Signs of the Times by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 14, 1889

The Signs of the Times.

By Editor

OAKLAND, CAL., SECOND-DAY, JANUARY 14, 1889.

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OUR article on the Sabbath-school lesson for this week is, with other important matter, crowded out. But we believe our readers will not be disappointed in the excellent matter furnished this week, especially that which relates to our own times, and the dangers that threaten us.

THE publishers wish us to announce that it has been decided to publish the American Sentinel weekly, instead of monthly, as heretofore. The present volume will consist of forty-eight numbers, the next number being dated January 30. The subscription price will be $1.00 a year; in clubs of ten or more to one name and address, seventy-five cents. By this change the Sentinel will contain nearly four times as much reading matter as now, for twice the money, and it is hoped that a large subscription list will be secured at once.

JANUARY 1 the Presbyterian ministers of Minneapolis, Minn., held a meeting and decided to inaugurate a Sunday crusade in that State, and also to join in urging Congressional action. It was decided to "wage war against Sunday breakers and to strike for an era of better laws, and for the better enforcement of existing statutes." Sunday papers were denounced, and Congress was called upon to abstain from patronizing them. It was the sentiment of the clergymen that some more effective legislation was positively necessary, and a move will be made in that direction. The ministers of other denominations in Minneapolis have signified their intention of joining their Presbyterian brethren in this crusade against the Sunday papers.

IN the report from one church of the week of prayer, it was stated that "confessions were made, and quite a goodly number were enabled to grasp by faith the promises of God and appropriate them to themselves." Appropriating God's promises to ourselves is faith. We may believe God's promise; that is, we may give to it our mental assent, our judgment is convinced, we believe. Our neighbor we believe to be humble and true and honestly seeking God, and we believe God accepts him, because our neighbor has complied with the conditions. We believe God will accept us, if we so comply. But that is mere mental assent, and it may never move to action, never profit us in the least. But faith lays hold of the promise and says, "It is mine; Christ is my Saviour; I am his child." Belief assents; but faith appropriates. Faith is a vitalizing, force-infusing principle, fruitful always in good works.

IN noticing editorially the Converted Catholic, published in New York by James A. O'Connor, formerly a priest of the Roman Catholic Church, the Jewish Times and Observer mentions the fact that he has been joined in his work by three other priests, and asks:— "Are we to conclude from this that 'the infallible' head of the Catholic Church is destined to be overthrown in time by the very men it has educated to uphold and defend his alleged infallible authority?" Were the editors of the Observer as familiar as they should be with their own scriptures, to say nothing of the New Testament, they would not ask such a question. The Testaments are a unit in teaching that the Papal power is to stand until destroyed, not "by the very men it has educated to uphold and defend its alleged authority," but by the coming of the Lord of glory. Says the prophet Daniel: "I beheld even till the beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame." Dan. 7:11. And the apostle testifies of the same power, that it shall be destroyed by the brightness of the Lord's coming. 2 Thess. 2:8. The Scriptures, and they only, make known "what shall be in the latter days."

IF persistent assertion made that which is asserted true it would certainly be a fact that wine drinking tends only to sobriety, for the whole wine-subsidized press of California, parrot-like, have repeated this statement so frequently that it has not only become threadbare but the editors themselves seem almost to have come to believe it, notwithstanding the evidence to the contrary, which thickens on every side. Let it be remembered that even the light wines contain alcohol, and that alcohol taken habitually even in small quantities produces a demand for more. The fiction that wine-drinking countries are the most temperate countries has been exploded time and again.

It will be remembered by our readers that California has now in the East a paid "missionary" preaching the "gospel" of temperance reform by the wine-drinking method, which if it does not prove effective in reforming and elevating drunkards, may possibly secure the equality of those who embrace it by bringing all to the level of common tiplers. "Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his color in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder."

HAVE we not reached that period spoken of by Paul in 2 Tim. 4:3: "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears"? In harmony with this, note the following from a writer in the Interior of December 27:— "The English-speaking world is just now in the throes of an epidemic of sensationalism. We see the spots of the plague everywhere—in politics, in trade, in art, in literature, in religion." This unhealthy craving for the extravagant and the extraordinary is not absent from the religious sphere. We see its results very palpably in the pulpit. The popular preacher is the man who affects the dramatic in his manner and the "spicy" in his speech, who seeks "to adorn his doctrine" by attitudinizing, pyrotechnics, and slang. The stronger the text or the more sensational the subject the better; the great desideratum is to tickle and hold the audience at all costs, even though it involve taking Scripture as a point of departure, and treading on the brink of the profane. Sensationalism is the basis of a great many people's religion in these days."

But the true minister of Christ should swerve not. It is still his duty to "preach the word," to "be instant in season, out of season," to "reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and doctrine," till the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ.

A WRITER in an Eastern exchange in an article against Christmas, reveals the characteristic ignorance of the age regarding so-called Christian institutions. He claims that there is nothing in the Scriptures to warrant the observance of Christmas, which is all true. It is a child of that "mystery of iniquity," as he intimates. But the same writer in the same article refers to Sunday as "a commemorative day that returns to us once in every seven, around which gathers, and in which, as historical and prophetic, centers all that is glorious in the mission and finished work of Jesus." And he closes thus: "And can I not assert with truth that the people who make so much of Christmas are not the people who make so much of the 'Christian Sabbath'? All of this about Sunday would be exceedingly good if it were true; but, unfortunately, like Christmas, it has nothing to sustain it but lying tradition. The Scriptures reveal naught of all this. Christmas and Sunday are both children of the Papacy. And no class, except Romanists, pays a higher regard to Christmas than those who are putting forth such efforts in behalf of the legal observance of Sunday. Reverence to either as a Christian institution is "will worship."

THE National Baptist of December 13 has the following, which shows the tendency of the Protestantism of to-day:— "At a religious conference in New York last week, a minister, apparently a foreigner, indulged in a wholesale denunciation of the Roman Catholics, and was very properly checked by Dr. Josiah Strong and by Mr. Dodge, who was presiding. This sort of thing [denunciation of error], in our opinion, does no good. The best way to do away with error is to preach truth."

Josiah Strong and all professed Protestants may "check" denunciation of Roman Catholicism; but no minister can faithfully "preach the word" without denouncing "the little horn" (Dan. 7), the "man of sin," the "mystery of iniquity" (2 Thess. 2), the Apocalyptic scarlet-robed harlot, who has made all nations drunk by the wine of her fornication. Rev. 17 and 18. These are the terms which Inspiration uses to characterize the Papacy, which is embodied in Roman Catholicism. It is a part of that word which is truth. John 17:17; 2 Peter 1:19, 20; Dan. 10:21. Did Luther and Zwingle and Calvin and Hooper and Ridley and hundreds of others labor and suffer and die for naught? Did they "suffer so great things in vain? if it be yet in vain?" Gal. 3:4, margin. Was and is the Reformation a failure? Are the words of the Lord vain words? Have not Drs. Strong, Dodge, and the editor of the National Baptist drunk of the siren's wine?

How much of comfort is expressed in these words of our Redeemer, "Follow me"! He does not ask us to go before him into untried paths, into unmet difficulties, into strange temptations; he does not ask us to turn aside from the oft rugged path into some untrod by-path. He only asks us to follow him, in the path which he has trodden before us, into the difficulties which he has met, into the temptations which he has overcome. Here he will cheer us by his Spirit. The fragrance of his life hallows the whole path. Is the way steep and rugged? Jesus has been here before us. Do the briars and thorns wound and tear flesh and garment? Even so they did those of the Master. Do the clouds hang heavily, and does darkness shut us in? A deeper darkness than we may know enveloped Jesus in this very path. Do we suffer weariness and pain? So did Jesus. Are we perplexed, tempted, tried? He was before we were. Do we meet scoffing and persecution? Jesus met more. His feet have taken every step of the journey which he calls upon us to take. In every trial, every difficulty, every temptation, every cruel assault, we can say with truth, Jesus was here. And knowing this we can come with full confidence to One who can be "touched with the feeling of our infirmities," who is "a merciful and faithful High Priest," having been made "in all things" "like unto his brethren." To Him we can come boldly and "obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need." He will walk the path again with us by his Holy Spirit. He will make the roughest places smooth by his presence. The valley of weeping will become a well-spring of joy; the parched land, a fountain of life. And faith will not only say, "Jesus was here," but, "Jesus is here."