FEEL YOUR PULSE by H. A. St. John

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 27, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 17.

"FEEL YOUR PULSE."

By H. A. St. John

BY H. A. ST. JOHN.

"If you would know whether the Lord had forsaken you or not, feel your pulse. If you would know whether the Lord is still working for you and in you, for your eternal well-being, feel your pulse; if it still continues to beat, then the Lord is in His living temple, and has not forsaken you, or left you without hope."

After the tenor of the above statements we have recently read words of so-called comfort to the desponding. Now to my mind, the mere existence or continuance of heart-beats or pulsations, is in no way a sure test, or a test at all, of the moral or spiritual relation of a soul to God.

The pulse may and does, testify that physical life from God does continue, but mortal, physical life may continue to exist after the complete and eternal divorcement of all moral and spiritual life. We simply assert that physical life, attested by the pulsation of the heart, may continue for a time, thus divorced, but cut off from the moral and spiritual life of God, must necessarily cease sometime.

Satan and all the fallen hosts of angels, for long centuries have had life from God, nevertheless all this time they have been in a state of hopeless condemnation. Whether they have each a pulse to feel, or not, is immaterial, for no one will question the statement that they are full of life, received from God, the only source of life, in all of its manifestations.

Reader, permit your mind to go back to the antediluvian age. See the multitudes of struggling, strangling beings, contending with the terrific flood of water, falling faster and

faster, and rising higher. I imagine a host of these despairing and drowning creatures in the immediate vicinity of the ark, calling loudly to Noah, who is safely sheltered from the storm. They appeal to the man of God to know if there is any chance for their safety or salvation. Imagine, if you please, just at that juncture the venerable old patriarch calling to them out of the only window in the ark: "Feel your pulse; if your pulse is still beating, God has not left you. There is hope as long as your pulse beats."

You say, and say truly, that would be bitter irony, comfort with a vengeance, solemn mockery of their fears. And such would be true, also, in many cases, since that day, and will be again in numerous instances, before the end. The pulse will beat, life will continue after probation ends, and all hope in God is forever cut off. If we would know our true relation to God, and the only safe and true ground of hope for the future, we must needs repent of all sin, believe and obey the Gospel, and receive the witness of the Holy Spirit bearing witness with our spirit, or life, that we are the children of God. The Lord in His Word has given us rules by which we may know that we have passed from death unto life, but the beating pulse is not one of them.