THE HOPE OF THE POOR

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 22, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 42.

THE HOPE OF THE POOR.

In the beginning, when the earth came from the hand of its Creator, it was pronounced "good." Its laws were all beneficent, working for the good and happiness of every creature in sea, earth, and air. From earth's fertile bosom came all that man needed; all his wants were supplied. It was all made for him; it was all good.

Man himself was made upright, a righteous governor over sinless territory. As the laws of nature were perfect and beneficent in all their operations, the laws of morality implanted in man's being, the things which God required of him, were "holy and just and good." "God made man upright," says the preacher. God looked upon all that he had made and pronounced it "very good." He crowned that work for man's benefit by making the Sabbath day, the sign of his own power, a spiritual boon and blessing to man forevermore; for "the Sabbath was made for man."

The One Precious Object above all others on that fair, sinless earth was man; and we here use the term "man" in its generic sense, including male and female. He was God's crowning creative work, the one being for whose benefit all else was made, superior to all else, all else subordinate to his rule, his good, and his happiness. While God created all things, including man, for his own glory, yet God's glory is ever man's highest good. Had this continued as ordained of God, man and the earth would have existed forever, in a holy, blessed state, knowing no sin, no woe, no want, no starving multitudes, no dying millions, no tyranny, no oppression, no slavery, no death.

But Man Sinned.—He yielded to him who exalted self instead of God (see Isa. 14:12-14), whose ambition it was to serve self, at the expense, if necessary, of the very universe itself. He would build his throne on the ruins of wrecked hopes and outraged love.

He would pervert, and he did pervert, every law of God wherever there was submission to him. Man, the prince of the earth, yielded; and in yielding, he yielded the earth and all under him. The earth, as well as man, came under the curse. Thorns took the place of fruits; thistles, of grains; weeds, of flowers. All nature in earth was perverted; "for the creation was subjected to vanity [corruption, decay, death], not of its own will, but by reason of him [sinful man] who subjected it." (Rom. 8:20.)

Notwithstanding all this curse, God's merciful goodness still provides for man, in order to bring him to repentance. Well may the psalmist say: "Thou makest the outgoings of the morning and evening to rejoice. Thou visitest the earth, and waterest it; thou greatly enrichest it with the river of God, which is full of water; thou preparest them corn, when thou hast so provided for it. Thou waterest the ridges thereof abundantly; thou settlest the furrows thereof; thou makest it soft with showers; thou blessest the springing thereof. Thou crownest the year with thy goodness; and thy paths drop fatness. They drop upon the pastures of the wilderness; and the little hills rejoice on every side. The pastures are clothed with flocks; the valleys also are covered over with corn." (Ps. 65:8-13.) God thus bestows his bounties in spite of sin, that man may learn the same lessons of generosity and benevolence toward his fellows; that freely as he has received, so freely may he give to the poor and the needy on every side.

But selfish man regards not God or his gifts. There is plenty in the world to-day for all its needs—plenty of land upon which to live and to furnish food for earth's teeming millions, plenty of food to feed her hungry children, plenty of wool and cotton and linen to clothe them, plenty of all things, so that men may eat and drink, and praise God for his bounties. Barns and granaries and storehouses are bursting with grain, and fruit crops are abundant.

And yet there is poverty, dire poverty. Worthy men who long for labor tramp our streets without finding it. At home the wife and mother grows pale and haggard, the faces of the children pinched and wan. Good food is plenty; he can not obtain it. Clothing is loading the shelves of furnishing and dry-goods stores, made cheap oftentimes by a system that wrings the very life-blood from the toiler, but he can not buy it. His rich neighbor, his equal playmate when a boy, revels now in luxury a few blocks away in a brownstone mansion, while he starves in a hut. This and much more is not a fancy picture; it is "repeated o'er and o'er" in every large city of our land, in greater number still among the crowded masses of the Old World. As the result of it, Socialism, Nihilism, and Anarchy flourish, and rulers tremble on their thrones.

An incident of a few years ago is vividly recalled—the year 1885 in beautiful England, rich with memories and incidents of all the opposites of life. The writer was walking in one of its fine, smooth country roads in one of the best agricultural shires of the island. He had as his companion a gentleman of culture, of largeness of heart, of breadth of mind, of noble instincts, of strong faith in God, of liberty-loving principles, of pity for the poor and the oppressed, of keen observation, and one who had had, even for a public man, more than ordinary opportunities for observation among the common people of two continents. How sweet was the balmy air on that early summer day, redolent with the perfume of the fragrant hawthorn! How inviting looked the fields and groves of "Merrie England"! And yet at the entrance to every forest and grove and field, with their cooling shade and soft green carpet, was the legend-warning to poachers or trespassers to beware. The whole of the surrounding country so far as could be seen belonged to the Earl of —. The income of one large farm of the estate went to feed the earl's kennel of dogs, much better kept than many of his tenants. Right there were the extremes of luxurious wealth and dire poverty, so manifest in England then and since.

We talked of the wretched inequality existing; of how good tradesmen and artificers were then walking the streets of the great cities aweary and despairing, seeking rest in labor to earn even a mere pittance, their wives and children hungry and starving, crowded into rooms and wretched tenements unworthy the name house, not to say home. We talked of the wealth squandered in races, in sport, in gambling, in drunkenness; of the fertile land given up to a few hares to minister to the pleasure of a few "titled" men; of the poor who were dying of want under the shadow of the mansions of those who were rolling in wealth, oftentimes wrung from the underfed muscles and nerves of the poor; of classes of workmen represented by the match-box makers of Europe, who work for so small a pittance, and in such a condition of perennial starvation that their employers could not furnish them the wretched paste lest the hungry steal it for his needs. Of the tyranny and sordidness and heartlessness, of the love of money we talked, till the righteous indignation of our friend could no longer be suppressed, and burst forth: "I tell you,"

"M—, if I were not a Christian, I would be a nihilist."

And thousands of others who know somewhat of justice, but who have no hope in Eternal Justice, think the same way without the "if." It is the Spirit of God, the fear of God, that restrains men from what must eventually come upon all the world,—a repetition in different forms of the revolution in France, unless there is a change in systems of government and finance. We do not ask nor wish for such a state. We plead against it; but its coming is predicted by the "more sure word of prophecy."

That to which we point the reader is the Gospel of Christ and his coming eternal reign. Amid all the strife of war and bloodshed, amid all the injustice of trade and commerce and law, amid all the persecution and misery and death, will be heard by him who listens, the fourfold voice from the living throne of God to the oppressed of earth, "Come." Jesus says, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." "And the Spirit and the bride say, Come, . . . and whosoever will, let him come, and take of the water of life freely." At the best, reader, this life, this world of sin, is disappointing. It is but the fitting-up place for the one eternal world to come. It is open to all who will come by Christ. No warning to poachers will meet the weary-footed traveler who comes in the name of King Jesus. No gate is barred to the poor of earth. The exceeding riches of God's grace and glory are free, free to all who will come to him and submit to his eternally beneficent and joyous rule. O poor of earth, why lose this world and the better one to come? Why not make the Lord your God by yielding to him now, and placing your cause in his hands? We know that one will sneer, and another laugh, but those that put their trust in God "shall not be ashamed nor confounded world without end." (Isa. 45:17; 50:7.)