Christian Union and Daily Consecration
By Editor
It has been voted by the General Conference that our able contemporary, the Present Truth, published in London, be changed from a semimonthly to a weekly, and that Brother L. A. Smith go to London to assist Elder Waggoner in the editorial work. This is a good move, and of course will be a successful one. THERE can be no Christian union outside of Jesus Christ. When all of Christ's followers are one with him, they will be one with each other. Let him be recognized as the head, and there will be no divisions in his spiritual body, the church of God. In him there is union and peace, but apart from him all is discord and division. In order to succeed in the Christian life there must be a daily consecration to God. We live one day at a time, and day by day and hour by hour we must consecrate to God every purpose and object of life. Lay all before him, your plans to change or lay aside as his providence may direct. "If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me." A REMARKABLE "Public Letter on the Sunday Closing" appears in the New York Christian Advocate of the 2d inst. It is addressed to Mr. Durborrow, chairman of the Congressional Select Committee on the Columbian Exposition. The remarkable thing about the letter is that it emphasizes the fact that in the act of Congress providing that the exposition should be closed on Sunday, the nation assumes a religious attitude. It also claims that the repeal of the Sunday-closing act would be the "elimination of the Sabbath . . . from its [the nation's] statute books." Then it is not only the opponents of the Sunday-closing act who observe that the act was religious legislation,—placing Sunday on the statute books as the sabbath to be recognized by the civil law,—but the friends of the act admit it to be so. There can be no evading the fact that the nation has established by law a religious tenet, an act expressly forbidden by the First Amendment to the Constitution. The Sunday sabbath becomes, by this act, the one religious badge of this nation. It has for centuries been the special badge or mark of authority held up to the world by the papal power. Can anyone fail, in the light of Revelation 13, to see the force of the image which the nation has set up? Having set up the image, will it fail to command the worship predicted by the prophecy? And when the decree goes forth, our duty is made plain. The warning must go: "If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb." Rev. 14: 9, 10. SCHOOLS where a limited number of young men are received to train for gambling are among the latest additions of Chicago's already numerous agencies for evil. It is said that for forty dollars the bright student may be fitted in one month for this life of vice. No doubt many such devil traps might be found in all of our large cities. How many canker spots of sin and iniquity like the above, and even worse, if possible, our large cities contain, the judgment only will reveal. Evil doers may ease their guilty consciences now with the thought that because God interferes not with their iniquitous doings therefore he sees not nor regards. Let not such ones flatter themselves that God is like unto sinful man. Long-delayed justice will in God's own time be executed against every evil doer and every evil work. PRESIDENT CLEVELAND refused to receive callers on Sunday, the day after his inauguration. And the San Francisco Christian Advocate says "his attitude on the Sunday question has greatly pleased the Christian people of this great nation." But suppose the President had "rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment," what would the "Christian people" and the Advocate have thought about it? This great "Christian nation" wouldn't have been a bit pleased; and why not?—Oh, "the majority," you know; the action of the majority, not the commandment of God, decides what is right! When King Saul disregarded the command of God, and spared the cattle and sheep of the Amalekites, he "greatly pleased" the people. When Pilate gave Christ into the hands of the mob, he "greatly pleased" the people. No man ever yet pleased the people and pleased God at the same time; when the people's pleasure was antagonistic to the commandments of God. REV. DR. VAN DYKE (Presbyterian) says that there is "a determined and organized effort to introduce and apply a new test of orthodoxy in the Presbyterian Church," namely, "the inerrancy of the original autographs of the Holy Scriptures, as distinguished from the Holy Scriptures which we now possess." As to his own position he has this to say:— I will have nothing to do with this theory of the inerrancy of the original autographs. I neither affirm nor deny it. Whether the original autographs were free from the difficulties which exist in the present text or not, is one of those things which no man can find out. The theory may be true, or it may be purely imaginary. God knows. I do not. I am perfectly contented with my ignorance. The Bible as it is is good enough for me. It is the word of God to my soul, a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path, my only rule to direct me how to glorify God and enjoy him forever, my treasury of grace and comfort, my chart in life's stormy voyage, my deed and title to an inheritance with the saints in light, my own word of prophecy whereunto I have taken heed until the day dawn and the daystar, Christ, arose in my heart. THE American Sentinel truthfully says that "the principle of a mild religious law is just as evil as the principle of a harsh religious law. Civil laws enforcing religious doctrines always begin mildly. They could not obtain prestige at all if suddenly thrown before the people in an extreme form. The first Sunday law was very mild, only affecting the town people and public officials. Many of these were favored by the law, and the country people were favored by exemption. But about forty years afterward the sentiment had grown to such an extent that the Council of Laodicea was emboldened to pronounce it heresy to observe the seventh day. And so the spirit of intolerance and persecution grew into the cruelties of the Inquisition. A people are only prepared for extreme violence by the practice of lesser evils. But as "he that hateth his brother is a murderer," so in the milder forms of persecution lurk the seeds of the grosser cruelties. Thus the men who at first ask for Sunday laws with mild penalties and many exemptions, become hardened to clamor for "severer penalties and fewer exemptions." MR. W. F. STEAD, editor of the Review of Reviews, according to a recent issue of the Christian Commonwealth of London, has been having what is termed "some singular psychical, or other phenomena, in his own experience." He claims that his hand, independent of his will or any visible force, has written messages from absent friends. He has been able to form a connection of thought with persons who were many miles away, and hold mental converse with them. He also claims to hold converse with an intelligence of the spirit world. Mr. Stead flatters himself that he has discovered some higher power of the mind of man, which he trusts by further development may prove of greater value in transmitting thought than any known mechanical device. But let not the editor of the Review of Reviews flatter himself that his discovery is that of a new power or hitherto unknown force in the mental endowment of the race. It may be a new phase, but it is the manifestation of the same science whereby the soothsayers and necromancers and diviners of the past prospered, and oftentimes told marvelous things. It is but a new manifestation of modern Spiritualism, and its source is the same, whether coming through a man of influence like Mr. Stead, or through the most ignorant devotee of the system. Many of the so-called "psychical phenomena" of to-day are but the workings of the crafty enemy of souls, who is putting forth every effort and using every argument and subterfuge to trap the unwary, and drown souls in perdition at last. While we should stand prepared to discern the manifestations of the Spirit of God, and follow where it leads, let us be watchful in avoiding the counterfeit, in whatever form, or under whatever name, nature, or claim it may turn up. This is an age of counterfeits and delusions. But the presence of counterfeits denotes the existence of the genuine and true. God's Spirit will work mightily in the last days. Satan will try to oppose its power and counterfeit its claims by miracles and lying wonders. But he who makes God his refuge will not be left to the deceivings of the enemy.