I Will Come Again by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 30, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 13.

I Will Come Again

By Editor

"Not that we have dominion over your faith, but are helpers of your joy; for by faith ye stand."

"I Will Come Again."

The promise left by our Lord to His disciples, in that last holy conference together, was: "I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." John 14:1-3. Resting in that promise, the church has ever since cried out for her coming Lord, "Amen; come, Lord Jesus." Rev. 22:20. At that coming the hope of the Christian meets its consummation. The warfare is over, the victory is gained in Jesus Christ, and the triumphant warrior goes victorious to his Father's house. Why should he not long for his Lord's coming?

Guarding sanctity is not the province of any civil government. No power can injure sanctity, therefore it does not need guarding. The trampling of the Sabbath day does not affect its sanctity, nor does its enforced observance add anything to its sanctity. Civil rulers are set to guard the people's rights, not to compel them to observe ceremonials. When the Hon. Allen G. Thurman was a justice of the Supreme Court of Ohio, he delivered the following logical opinion: "The General Assembly of Ohio is not a guardian of the sanctity of any day. If it may protect the first day of the week from desecration, because it is the Christian sabbath, it may, in like manner, protect the sixth day, because it is the holy day of the Mohammedan, and the seventh day, because it is the Sabbath of the Jew and Seventh-day Baptist. Nay, more, it may protect the various festival days, which, by some of the church, are considered scarcely less sacred than the Sabbath day."

The force of this opinion is more keenly felt when we reflect that by protecting the sanctity of Sunday the advocates of such measures always mean its compulsory observance.

Is It Christian?

Many Christians contend that socialism is Christian, that really it is the highest expression of practical Christianity. And this we believe many honest socialists believe. But one can not help believing otherwise when he witnesses such instances as the following: An anti-socialist speaker declared that Christ did not teach a certain thing, when the champion of socialism declared: "If Christ did not teach that, we will." And the sentiment was loudly cheered by the thousand or more socialists before him. Again, when the anti-socialist declared, on the authority of the Bible, that the greatest cause of suffering and misery in this world was sin, he was answered by derisive catcalls and jeers and hisses. In the light of such things, is socialism Christian?

Not Christian.

A Buffalo preacher got up an endless chain scheme to get money to start a "moral" daily paper. The scheme was illegal, and was stopped by the postal department, but not until many thousands of dollars had been filched from the confiding dupes. The plan was the same adopted by the "get-rich-quick" swindles that involved the post-office in such a scandal. Anything to get wealth without PRODUCING it. To what base uses the name of Christ is put to deceive!

—Appeal to Reason.