THE PAST AND THE PRESENT.
IN noting the fact that the pictures of a great artist are selling at much higher prices since his death a few months ago than he was able to realize when living, the press is simply repeating an old story. It only reiterates a fatal trait in the human character. The contemporaries of John Bunyan deemed him worthy of imprisonment, but succeeding generations have given his book, written while in prison, a phenomenal circulation. The treatment of their prophets by the Jews is highly illustrative of the tendency to reject contemporary worth and to emphasize the virtues of the dead. There was popular rebellion against Moses on several occasions, and at one time the people were almost ready to stone him (Ex. 17:4); but their descendants placed a really superstitious trust in Moses, even to the rejection of Christ—the Prophet whose coming Moses foretold. Jesus described this characteristic of the people when He said to the Jews: "Wo unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchers of the righteous, and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets." But He says to that same class, "Behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes, and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city." And what was the result to them?—Why they were charged with the blood of the prophets, whom their fathers killed, notwithstanding the gorgeous tombs they were building to the memory of those ancient prophets. The fact of their persecuting their contemporaneous prophets shows that they were imbued with the same spirit that actuated their fathers, and were bringing upon themselves the blood of the persecuted ones of the past, from Abel down. Jesus emphasizes their condition and responsibility in these words: "Wherefore be ye witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers." Now the lesson to us is in the words of the apostle Paul, "Despise not prophesyings." 1 Thess. 5:20. That is, do not reject the Spirit of prophecy that is with you; for in doing so you virtually despise the same Spirit as it is manifest in the testimony of those who prophesied, or taught, in former days, notwithstanding your profession of adherence to them. This was what Paul himself had done when7persecuting the disciples of Christ. In the act of putting to death the prophets of his own time, he was rejecting the testimony of those who before had prophesied of Christ. But, the Lord having shown him the folly of such a course, he passes on the warning to us. They who quench the Spirit and despise prophesyings assume a fearful responsibility, besides cutting themselves off from the progressive light of truth.