p. 3 | LOVE AND HATRED by E. S. Brooks

Pacific Press Publishing Company · OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA · Sep 13, 1899

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 25, No. 37.

LOVE AND HATRED.

By E. S. Brooks

WE may make a diagram illustrating the spirit of Christianity contrasted with the spirit of persecution, in this manner: Draw a circle, and have the area white; and write beneath it, "Spirit of Christianity." Draw another circle, and blacken the area; and under it write, "Spirit of Persecution." Allowing the New Testament to be our guide, this diagram is a true representation of the spirit of genuine Christianity, and its opposite spirit of hatred and persecution. Love never leads to persecution; but hatred is the source of all persecution. Who can read the New Testament without often seeing the truth cropping out, that love "suffereth long and is kind," "envieth not," "vaunteth not itself," "rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth," and "endureth all things"?

But how different is the spirit of hatred and persecution! We trace this spirit of hatred through the New Testament history. Taking up subsequent history, we trace the same in Christian spirit through paganism, then through the apostasy of Christianity down to the present day. Can a persecuting church be the church of the God of love? Did genuine Christianity ever persecute? Is not the spirit of persecution a sure sign of the apostasy of the persecutors?

E. S. BROOKS.

Blue Lake, Cal.