READ "A Successful Life," on page 420, and ask yourselves whether you are making life a success or not.
We give in this number the third article on "Perfection of the Law." May we again ask for them a careful reading?
In our Mission Fields department will be found that which will give, in some respects, a fair view of that wonderful land Alaska.
In Our Work and Workers department will be found a list of our important camp meetings, as sent us by the secretary of the General Conference.
We have received just too late for this issue "Jottings from Turkey," by our correspondent, Pasteur H. P. Holser. The article will appear next week.
Let our California friends especially note the instruction relative to California camp meeting, as given last week. This will be a most important meeting; let all attend who possibly can.
This number of the SIGNS is an uncommonly good number for children, but the good must be through the parents. Parents, see that you appropriate to yourselves the good instruction found in this paper, that it may flow out to your children. See articles on pages 419, 425.
Following the articles on the Church of England Brother Magan will consider "Church of England Persecutions," "The Scotch Presbyterians," "The New England Puritans," and the conclusion of his "Review on Sunday Legislation." We feel as we pen this that much valuable testimony presented in these articles has been passed over by many of our readers. We hope that they may be more widely read.
"CHRIS T came to seek and save the lost. The strong must help the weak. If there are men who have not strength of character enough to resist drink and other evils, it is our duty to place the evil out of their reach. They do it in Toronto, Canada, by closing every saloon at six o'clock on Saturday evening, before the men go home from work, and not a door is opened until Monday morning." — The Occident.
In no instance did Christ ever place evil out of the reach of any man. To those who want it, he gives the strength of his Spirit to overcome the evil, but he does not arbitrarily remove the evil. Had that been his principle, he would have removed the tree of the knowledge of good and evil out of the reach of Adam and Eve. But suppose it duty to remove the drink evil out of the reach of men inclined to partake of it, is it accomplished by closing saloons on Sunday? or are saloons evil only from Saturday night till Monday morning?
What a strange position that is which claims that the law of the ten commandments condemns the sinner, and that faith so justifies him from the sin that the law is forever dead to him; that is, that he has no more to do with it, is not expected to obey it, etc. All this is done to get rid of the fourth commandment. The claim is made that faith justifies from condemnation of the law, and now that faith has justified we are under no obligation to keep the Sabbath. On the same line of argument, the man who is justified can kill, steal, and commit adultery; and who shall say that the above theory, taught in so many religious circles, is not responsible for much of the sin of this present time? Would that the church, like Christ, and in Christ, would "magnify the law and make it honorable."
"The Warning Voice of a Prophet." — That is what a writer in the Examiner called a Fourth of July poem by Ambrose Bierce, written in 1888. It was prophetic of the evils now upon us. In speaking of the boon of liberty granted in this land, it thus invokes the Deity: —
Oh, give us more or less, as we
Shall serve the right, or serve the wrong;
Confirm our freedom but so long
As we are worthy to be free!
But when the distant be the time,
Majorities in passion draw
Insurgent swords to murder Law,
And all the land is red with crime;
Or—nearer menace—when the hand
Of feeble spirits cinge and plead
To the gigantic strength of Greed,
And fawn upon his iron hand:
Nay, when the steps to state are worn
In hollows by the feet of thieves,
And Mammon sits among the sheaves,
And chuckles while the reapers mourn—
Then stay Thy miracle—replace
The broken throne, repair the chain,
Restore the interrupted reign,
And veil again Thy patient face.
And are not these predictions present facts? Do we not see the "nearer menace" in our "industrial armies," in the mad mobs of the Pennsylvania coke regions, the coal regions of Illinois and Indiana, and the silver regions of Colorado? Do we not see it in the frequent strikes, increasing the ever-growing hatred between the "masses" and the "classes"? Do we not see it in the mutiny of State troops, showing utter disregard of authority, as indicated in South Carolina? Do we not see it in the forcible seizure of railway trains by the so-called "army of peace," and the sympathy expressed for them by a great many people, not only in word, but practically? And how long will it be ere
"Majorities in passion draw
Insurgent swords to murder Law,
And all the land is red with crime"?
Men may theorize, and dream, and talk; and laugh; but the wounds are not healed. The body politic is sick. Religious factions are attempting a cure, but they hasten the dissolution of the patient. The only hope of this world is Christ Jesus, the One who is left out of all these human schemes altogether, or relegated to the position of a menial, to grind as did Samson at the will and beck of the Philistines. But he works not in that way. His glory he divides not with the selfish schemes of men, albeit he would use it—in his own way, as it only can be used—for the good of all. "Come unto me," is his invitation, "and I will give you rest." His coming is near; all signs declare it. The wreck of sin and all that is identified with sin is just before us, but he who is of Christ will triumph gloriously over all its disasters.