MAN-WORSHIP | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 8, 1899

MAN-WORSHIP.

We read in the twelfth chapter of the Acts that on a certain occasion one of the Herods made a speech to the people displaying his royal glory and oratory, and the people in fawning homage declared, "It is the voice of a god, and not a man. And immediately the angel of the Lord smote him, because he gave not God the glory; and he was eaten of worms, and gave up the ghost." The Emperor Wilhelm II. of Germany recently entered Jerusalem, escorted by a large and gloriously caparisoned retinue. The highways had been prepared, the crooked places made straight, the rough places smooth, the hills leveled, the valleys filled. The glorious sun from a cloudless sky glinted with splendor every piece of armorial metal, or gold or silver trapping. Of course it would be expected that the Germans would gladly receive their emperor; but the greatest and most fulsome adulation came from that people whose ancestors nearly nineteen centuries ago rejected their own King and whose descendants have cherished hatred against Him ever since. In the words of Cecil F. P. Bancroft, LL.D., in The Christian Advocate of December 3, "The Jews had spanned the road with a characteristic arch inscribed in Hebrew and German, 'Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord,'" words prophetic of the Messiah, fulfilled in part when Jesus entered Jerusalem, crowned only with holy character and preceded by good deeds, to be fulfilled again by those who rejected Him, when the words shall be forced from their lips, but, alas, too late! The emperor received it, so far as we learn, without rebuke. All proper respect should be shown to all who are in authority; but the highest of earthly princes are men, not God.