Verbal Inspiration and the Workers’ Bulletin
By Editor
WHEN the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures is called in question by men high in authority in the Protestant church, it is good to know that there are some who still hold to the paramount authority and plenary inspiration of the word of God. The doctrine of the Scriptures on inspiration is simple, easily comprehended, and the only safe and tenable ground to occupy. Reasons for holding to this are well set forth in another column in an extract entitled, "Five Reasons for Verbal Inspiration," from an essay on "The Testimony of Scripture to Itself." This essay with others of the same character, make up the "Inspired Word," a book published by Anson D. F. Randolph & Company, Philadelphia. While we are not able to endorse the teachings of the work as a whole, it is a remarkable symposium to the truth and inspiration of the Bible, which is worth reading. THE Workers' Bulletin is the name of a new four-page weekly paper published in Des Moines, as the organ of the Iowa Tract Society. Its editor is L. T. Nicola. It "is designed to serve as a ready and convenient means of communication between the workers of different grades, and the members in general of the denomination of Seventh-day Adventists in Iowa. In setting forth the object of this paper the editor says:— "Our people have been well supplied with the best religious literature published, yet we have had no paper that has fully met our local interests. Many matters of immediate interest to our brethren in Iowa are of no value in other localities. Much of real concern to us has been left unnoticed because we have not felt free to use the columns of our regular papers, necessity confining them to the more general interests of the entire field." On the same subject the Iowa Conference Committee says:— "The Bulletin cannot take the place of any of our denominational periodicals; yet, at the same time, it may fill a place in our State work that none of them have ever been able to fill or can fill. There should not, for any reason, be any decrease of effort in behalf of our regular periodical literature; but, on the other hand, there should be shown an increased interest in the work by more frequent articles and reports, and by a subscription patronage commensurate to their great value, and to our ability to aid." It appears from this that the Bulletin is to be purely local, and we doubt not will fill a long-felt want. We trust it will be a success, which it may be if it receives the hearty support of those who are interested in the spread of the truth in that Conference. The general appearance and make-up of the Bulletin is creditable, and the matter it contains interesting, especially to those in the Iowa Conference. The new paper has our best wishes. "WHAT about the new birth, or being born again?" we hear many professed Christians asking in these days of unsettled questions. "The New Birth" on page 450 with its plain propositions well backed by forcible texts of Scripture, will prove a help to all those who are seeking to understand this important, though to many, dark question. We trust that it will be read by all, as well as the article entitled "Conversion," on the same subject. If these articles are carefully perused they will certainly prove helpful. CARDINAL GIBBONS has an article on religious instruction in the public schools in Public Opinion of July 13, in which the usual Catholic arguments are presented. He claims that religious education is more important than secular, and that the public schools can only afford the latter. All this is true. But the public school is not designed to impart religious instruction; it is not in its province; it cannot from the nature of the case do this unless there is a union between the Church and State. Religious instruction is demanded; but that belongs to the home and the church. If parents and churches were faithful to their duty, there would not be the cry for religious instruction which we now hear. Such duties cannot be performed by proxy, or through State-paid institutions. They belong to those organizations which originated with God, and which have no connection with the State. THAT part of Indian Territory which soon hopes to be the Territory, and then State, of Oklahoma, has a population almost sufficient for statehood now. The chief town, Oklahoma City, has a population of about six thousand already. But what we wished to note is this: With laws sufficiently strict and comprehensive, with executive officers faithful to duty, prohibition does prohibit. This is the case in Oklahoma. The editor-in-chief of the Advance has been making a tour through the Territory, and in his issue of July 11, he bears the following testimony:— "In Oklahoma absolute prohibition is a fact. And it does prohibit. The laws are most severe and the United States officials are most watchful. Everybody is emphatic in declaring the beneficence of the law. They shudder at the very thought of what would be without it. As a man at Guthrie remarked, 'It's our salvation; without it there would be a murder every day.' And this after all is the fact of supreme interest about this altogether phenomenal settlement of Oklahoma—the fact, so conspicuous as an object lesson to all the land, of the beneficent effect of actual prohibition." THE California Christian Advocate publishes the following:— "In 1885 a census of Saturday-night drinking was taken over certain parts of London. The results were startling. Two hundred public houses in St. Pancras, North Bow, the neighborhood around the 'Elephant and Castle,' and selected districts in the West—the statistics being literally gathered from all points of the compass—were watched from nine to twelve o'clock on the Saturday night. In those three hours the 200 public houses were entered by 48,800 men, 30,794 women, and 7,019 children, or a gross total of 86,603 persons. If the average expenditure on each visit was 3d., and it is scarcely likely to have been less, the sum of £1,082, 10s, 9d was taken in those houses in three hours. A similar census of the city of Bristol, taken in 1881, showed that in four hours 12,000 children entered 900 drink shops." The Advocate makes a specialty of demanding, professedly in the interest of temperance, a law closing all places of business on Sunday; but, according to its own showing, there is now more liquor sold Saturday night than for the same number of hours on any other day; then why does not our contemporary call for a law forbidding business on Saturday night in order that the saloons may be closed? It looks just a little as though that which the Advocate wants is to exalt Sunday first and close the saloon second. THE grace of the Lord Jesus Christ is not designed to control acts in and of themselves alone. It does not take the impure water from a loathsome fountain to filter and then dispense to the earth. It cleanses the fountain. It not only gives power to "mortify the deeds of the flesh," but it casts down all "imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." 2 Cor. 10:5. It mortifies the deeds by controlling the thoughts. It can be done no other way; for if the thoughts be allowed to run uncontrolled, it is accounted sin. Matt. 5:28. 1 John 3:15. The grace of God can control the thoughts. Do not many Christians limit its power in this respect?