p. 277 | What Others Say by Fred G. Stevens

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 6, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 18.

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What Others Say

By Fred G. Stevens

THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST NEAR AT HAND.

WHAT OTHERS SAY.

[Compiled by Fred G. Stevens.]

THE following interesting item appeared in the Christian World, of London, January, 1893:—

A letter "to the Conveners of Christian Conferences in the United Kingdom" has just been published bearing twenty-two signatures of ministers and others, including Sir S. A. Blackwood, Dr. Fausset, Dr. Bullinger, Dr. Gratton Guinness, T. Hudson Taylor, R. C. Morgan, H. W. Webb-peploe, Mark Guy Pearse, and F. B. Meyer, urging that the second coming of Christ as an event near at hand be made a central subject at the gathering of 1893.

Rev. J. G. Harrison, of England, says:—

There is in the present day a somewhat general expectation in the church of God, a kind of pre-sentiment that the coming of the Consolation of Israel is near. I myself, though an old man who might be supposed likely to dwell upon the past rather than look with much hope to the future, am nevertheless full of joyous hope and expectation.

Says the American Presbyterian:—

Everything seems to make ready for no common crisis, no ordinary issue. . . . Statesmen's hearts literally fail them for fear of the things coming on the earth at the present hour.

Says the Protestant Churchman:—

Till the glorious coming of the Saviour, we may expect nothing but successive overturnings of men and earthly things.

Says George C. Needham, the Irish evangelist:—

I believe the thousands of scattered Christians whose hearts have grasped this truth, will be heard declaring, as with united voice, The Lord is at hand. They can no longer keep silence. This truth proclaimed in the Spirit's power will save the church from shipwreck.

Says Henry Varley, another evangelist:—

We are near the end of this dispensation. . . . The coming of the Lord in the clouds, to take his church to be with himself, is the Christian's hope. Oh, to be ready! In the Master's name I tell you to be ready; I charge you to prepare for his coming.

Says Rev. Samuel Garratt:—

We are living in the very age towards which all eyes have been directed as those of the closing days of the church's conflict as long ago as the days of Luther.

Says T. De Witt Talmage:—

We may expect Christ now at any time.

Says Dwight L. Moody:—

I believe he is yonder, getting his guest chamber ready, and the moment it is ready those clouds shall roll away and he shall come, and we shall be caught up together to meet the Lord in the air. So there may be some in this audience who may never taste death.

Said the Rev. C. H. Spurgeon:—

I am afraid we cannot hope for much better times until the Lord Jesus Christ comes a second time. Often do I cheer myself with the thought of his coming. The shout shall be heard, Allelujah! allelujah! the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth! For that day I do look; it is to the bright horizon of that second coming that I turn my eyes.

Rev. R. Roberts, of Birmingham, England:—

Almost all students of prophecy are agreed that the present dispensation is near its end, and that the living generation is likely to witness the change from this dispensation to the next. . . . The next dispensation is the reign of Christ.

Rev. Dr. Chapel, of Boston:—

This subject of the Lord's coming is necessary to a right understanding of the Christian religion. . . . All the earnest students of Scripture are looking for it.

The Christian Alliance, at its session, in Ohio, February, 1892, listened to a discourse from Rev. A. B. Simpson, on the "Second Coming of Christ." I quote from the discourse as follows:—

Never before has so much been written and said on the second coming of the Messiah. New York

papers have been devoting column after column to the subject.

Chicago Herald, Feb. 4, 1892, has the following in reference to Alliance meetings in Findlay, Ohio:—

Rev. A. H. Hussey, of Chicago, gave a discourse on Christ's return to the earth to rule as King over all the nations, and predicted that this time was now almost at hand.

Mrs. E. G. White, Testimony No. 33, written in 1889:—

The present activity of Satan in working upon hearts, and upon churches and nations, should startle every student of prophecy. The end is near . . . We are standing on the threshold of great and solemn events. Prophecy is fast fulfilling . . . There is soon to open before us a period of overwhelming interest to all living. The controversies of the past are to be revived; new controversies will arise. The scenes to be enacted in our world are not yet even dreamed of. Satan is at work through human agencies. Those who are making an effort to change the Constitution, and secure a law enforcing Sunday observance, little realize what will be the result. A crisis is just upon us. . . . 'The time of trouble such as never was' is soon to open upon us.

I clip the following from the Northfield General Conference Bulletin, of September, 1892:—

The present age began with the rejection of Christ; it will end with the reception of antichrist. It began when Christ ascended; it will close when he descends again to earth. The peculiarity of the age is its mixed character—ignorance of God and indifference to spiritual things, lawlessness and insubordination, apostasy, sneering and scoffing, false philosophies supplanting faith, and speculating sciences antagonizing revelation, lust of the flesh and laxity of morals, the desecration of everything sacred, including the Sabbath, marriage, the home, and public worship, mountebanks of ministers and parasites for preachers. Piety has been swept aside, while pride occupies her place. Love to Christ has waned, while pursuit after a false liberalism has waxed hotly. Soundness in faith and contention for sound doctrine have been undermined by fashionable skepticism and weakened by the dry rot of higher criticism. Nevertheless, the light of the gospel will continue to shine brighter and brighter in every dark land where it finds entrance.

Rev. F. Tilney Bassett, M.A., writes in the Prophetic News as follows:—

False prophets, doubtless, are as thick as tares all over the field of Christendom. Infidelity, rationalism, and the higher criticism, as it is speciously called, are luring men away from the true Christ; and . . . there is a surging of the waves which no oil of diplomacy can still, and a deep-seated sore is threatening a universal eruption, which the most skillful statesmen cannot skin over.

New York Tribune, editorial, of recent date:—

A social unrest unparalleled in history has taken possession of the nations of Europe, and has found a lodgment in our own land.

Sermon of Dr. Talmage, November, 1892:—

I have to tell you what you know already, that American politics have sunk to such a low depth that there is nothing beneath . . . So poor is the type of piety in the church of God that men actually caricature the idea that there is any such thing as the higher life. . . . There is enough out-and-out licentiousness in American cities to-day to bring down upon them the wrath of God, who, on the 24th of August, '79, buried Herculaneum and Pompeii so deep in ashes that 1813 subsequent years have not been able to complete the exhumation. As the Romans were after the Celts, and as the Normans were after the Britons, so there are evils after this nation which will attend its obsequies unless we first attend theirs.

Rev. R. D. Clark, Baptist minister, Eureka, Cal.:—

We are not ready to place our liberties in the hands of any church or combination of churches, under the name of the 'American Sabbath Union.' The Lord deliver us from all laws that tend in any way to bind the consciences of men. Baptists and others worked too hard in the early formation of our grand old Constitution to now surrender the whole thing into the hands of those who, like Uzzah, put forth their hands to steady the ark of God. When a nation does that, like Uzzah, it will perish.

Zion's Watch Tower, of January 1, 1893:—

Men in every condition of life are bending together to resist others of opposing sentiments, so that the appearance of the world to-day is that of a great battle field where mighty hosts of contending parties are defiantly mustering their forces and preparing for a desperate conflict.

Battle Creek, Mich.