THE CLOSING YEAR by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 26, 1900

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 26, No. 52.

THE CLOSING YEAR.

By Editor

THE close of the year and the close of the volume are upon us.

For all the blessings of the year we praise God; and His blessings come to the trusting soul in everything.

To all those who have labored with us to extend the everlasting Gospel, we send hearty greeting. We were about to say that we thank them for their hearty co-operation. But why should we say this when what they have done we are persuaded is not for us but for our ever-blessed, common Lord. We are “workers together with God,” and so be it that we have His approval, well. He gives us thanks, and we praise Him for the privilege of having even the smallest part in His work.

The year has been a fruitful one—fruitful of evil. Satan has wrought with a swift and skilful hand in accident and incident, in vice and crime, in murder (retail and wholesale), in pillage and arson, in earthquake and cyclone, in famine and fever, in plague and pestilence; and the fearful harvest is still on. Above the songs of peace which periodically ascend during December’s ides, rises the mad shout of red-handed war, the leering laugh of the drunkard, and the weeping and wailing of widows, orphans, and childless, and worse than any of these. Mammon and greed and war and alcohol have the nations by the throat, and are crushing out their very life.

But “the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men.” Thus far and no farther shall the great sea of wickedness surge. And we may say with the psalmist, “Surely the wrath of man shall praise Thee; the remainder of wrath shalt Thou restrain.” He must in His love—for blind unbelief will learn in no other way—let wickedness develop. He must in His love let the seed bear its fruit. He desires man to learn by simple faith what is righteous, what is sinful, and so escape the fruitage of sin’s seeding. But man will not, and so God in His love permits His creatures to see the exceeding sinfulness of sin. And this century and this year have been abundant in the exhibition.

Yet God has been working. There are noble examples of self-sacrifice, zeal, earnestness, devotion, which stand out as did the three Hebrew youth among the throng of Babylon’s fearsome worshipers. There are souls who do not, will not, bow. There are business men who dare be honest. There are preachers who will proclaim the message God speaks to them. There are statesmen who can not be bought for gold. There are humble ones in whom is manifest the excellency of God. There are noble workers who do not yet see all the light in every phase of reform.

And, therefore, we are of good courage. Our God reigns. Jesus Christ is priest-king. His message is yet of power to save to the uttermost, to every one who will receive it. And why in the even more fruitful year that lies before, should not every true, loyal soldier of Christ gird on his armor anew, and go forth in his great Captain’s lead, with splendid hope and courage, to glorious, eternal victory? Let it be a year of glorious work for the Master.