The Times in which We Live.
By Editor
THEY are active times. Many run to and fro, and knowledge is increased. The political, moral, and social worlds are all theaters of intense activity. The very foundations are shaken and the landmarks removed. Old truth is superseded by new fancies, and one can hardly tell where the old paths are. Society is a seething caldron of conflicting theories and opinions. They are wicked and perilous times. Crime, including murder, rape, robbery, and sins of every hue abound on every hand. We shudder as we open our daily paper. We are afraid to have our children read it. Fraud seems to be the rule, and honesty the exception. The world spirit has largely crept into the church, and one might almost as well try to find the lines of longitude and latitude upon the surface of the earth, as in many cases to find the line of distinction between the church and the world. They are skeptical times. Many deny the Lord who bought them. Professed Christian men and ministers deny the resurrection of the body, the second coming of Christ, the punishment of the impenitent; and so on, we might go through the entire round of doctrinal truth. Scarcely a doctrine of the New Testament but has been called in question in some professed Christian pulpit. It has been well said that if Tom Paine were now living, he might be Rev. Thomas Paine, and might give expression to his sentiments from a nominally Christian pulpit. They are the last times, the last days, the beginning of the end. Every month, almost every day brings this truth out clearer. The indications all point in one way. "Thy tokens we with joy confess,
The war proclaims the time of peace,
The earthquake speaks thy power;
The famine all thy fulness brings,
The plague presents thy healing wings,
And nature's final hour.
"Whatever ills the world befall,
A pledge of endless good we call
A sign of Jesus near.
His chariot will not long delay;
We hear the rumbling wheels, and pray
Triumphant Lord, appear," So wrote Charles Wesley. We believe it all save, "Nature's final hour." God hath made the earth for the children of men. Nature will be purified, but not destroyed. Throughout eternal ages it shall show forth the power and glory of God. God's resurrected saints are not to float in cloudland, or wander like ghosts and phantoms in a region of dreams and myth. A place, a home, not a mere state, will be our eternal portion. O! that so many would stop this twaddle about heaven being only a state—Christ says a place, and I believe him.—J. S. GILBERT, in Messiah's Herald.