Editorial by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 3, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 34.

Editorial.

By Editor

"All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable."—2 Tim. 3:16.

RIGHT doing is the fruit of right being. One can no more do right who is not right himself than a bramble can bear grapes, or a thistle figs. "He that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as He [Christ] is righteous." 1 John 3:7. And this statement the prophet prefaces with the warning, "Little children, let no man deceive you." God must make us righteous before we can do righteousness, and this he is more than willing to do; Christ died that he might do it.

THERE are many professed Christians who think that it is a great hardship to be separated from the world. The reason is that they have learned but one side of the separation. They look upon the separation from, and their hearts still long for the past. What they need to learn is that they are separated from in order that they may be separated unto,—from the world, unto Christ, from sin to righteousness, from trouble to peace, from folly to joy, from weariness to rest, from self to love, from death to life. Is not such a separation a privilege rather than a hardship? Look not on the from side but on the side of unto, with all its blessings.

IT is said that "lifeless imitation is decay." Right in the presence of the masterpieces of the Greek sculptors, medieval art produced nothing more than caricatures of the human form. They aimed to imitate, but their soul was not in the work. So with men who by their own strength seek to imitate Christ; so with the minister who seeks in his own wisdom to build after Christ. He will form but wretched caricatures of the divine. The only way to imitate Christ is to have Christ's life within. The only way to build after Christ is to have Christ building through us. An imitation of the long, heavy sermons of the past will not bring like results. They seem dry to us now, but when they were delivered, Christ spoke through the messenger, and the messenger preached Christ. But to preach these sermons over is not preaching Christ. We preach him, we truly imitate him, only when he dwells within.

THE Christian Statesman says: "But above all these things, that which must not be overlooked is the fact that the opening of the gates of the Fair on the Lord's day is the rejection of Jesus Christ as the nation's King." Sunday is not the Lord's day, but let that pass. What we wish to notice is this: When Jesus was on earth and men sought to make him an earthly king he departed from them. (See John 6:15.) He is ever the same. Those who seek to make him king of this nation, with themselves as self-appointed vicegerents, are the ones who are rejecting Christ. His kingdom is not of this world, and the fact that any part of the church is seeking to make him so is evidence that they know not Christ any more than did the blinded Jews eighteen centuries ago.