Socialist Victory in Italy
By Editor
Socialist Victory in Italy.—A news despatch from Rome, of the 14th ultimo, states the following: "After a long struggle for a naval parliamentary inquiry, the Socialists at last have gained a victory. This inquiry was opposed by former Premier Zanardelli and his Cabinet and rejected by the Chamber of Deputies. It has now been decided by the Committee on the Navy of the Chamber of Deputies that this inquiry shall be held with the sanction of the Cabinet, and a bill authorizing it soon will be presented in Parliament." And the Socialists are everywhere gaining in Europe. The incoming of the democratic clay is breaking up the iron imperialism of the old-time rule. Not in Man, but in Christ.—We sympathize with these "new thought" souls who are seeking unselfishness, purity, goodness, victory over sin, in themselves. We pity them in their vain quest. We tried as they are trying. We sought, as expressed by a recent number of their papers, "the overthrow of sin." We vainly thought, as the writer quoted declares, "that sin and self can be conquered and entirely transcended; that he who aspires and wills can scale, here and in this life, the unassailable heights of Purity, Love, and Spiritual Knowledge, and that, having attained, he can point out the way to others, and help the world. We see, know, and proclaim man's power to rise and conquer. Shall man, who has chained even the elements to his will, and made the invisible forces of the universe do his bidding, be powerless to chain the elements of his mind, and render his own thoughts and inner forces obedient to his commands? If man is strong to sin, is he less strong to conquer sin? (Italics ours.)" Paul thought so; and multitudes of others have thought so. Every conceivable device to conquer human selfishness has been devised by the "aspiring" heart who willed in himself to overcome himself. But sooner or later, if sanity has been retained, the despairing heart has returned from its quest of the holy to bow to the words of Inspiration: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is exceedingly corrupt; who can know it?" "For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing; for to will is present with me, but to do that which is good is not. For the good which I would I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I practise. . . . Wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out of the body of this death?" Blessed is that man who looks out of himself and finds deliverance in Christ Jesus. Puny man boasts of his power to chain the elements, but ever and anon is he shown by some manifestation of God's power perverted that all his boasted knowledge and skill is worthless. He not only has not chained the elements, but he is the slave of sin, and the strength of sin is a perverted law; and no man has the power in himself to break the bonds of his slavery. All he can do at its seeming best is to turn his energies into another development of sin more hateful in God's sight, because dethroning God,—the sin of self-righteousness. When man can tame the cyclone, guide the tornado in its path, still the earthquake, put a safety valve on Peleé, or quiet the mighty turmoil of the stormy sea, then, and not till then, can he overcome himself. But Christ Jesus knows the heart, and he who will put his heart in His hands, yielding it not to human reason, but to His law, can overcome sin. And this is the Gospel, the power of God unto salvation, of which no one who has ever known it will be ashamed. There is victory in the power of Christ's endless life.