The Prayer of the Souls Under the Altar.
By John Nevins Andrews
"How long O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? Rev. vi, 11. The advocates of the kindred popular doctrines of the immortality of the soul, and that the souls of the righteous go to Heaven at death, believe and teach that the souls of the martyrs are alive under an altar in Heaven, and that they literally pray in the above words for vengeance on their persecutors. They do not seem to see that there is anything inconsistent in the idea that the souls of the martyrs in the presence of God where there is fullness of joy, should be able to think only of their past tortures, and entirely given up to anxiety for vengeance on their persecutors, who had hastened their arrival to their state of blessedness. Nor do they seem to realize that such prayers are not only unlike the spirit of Christ who prayed in his hour of extremest anguish, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do;" or that it is unlike the spirit of that noble martyr, Stephen, who cried with his dying breath, "Lord lay not this sin to their charge." Luke xxiii, 34; Acts vii, 60. Nor do they explain how such a prayer can be literally offered while the Saviour stands before the ark of God's law as a great sacrifice; and the Spirit of God strives with sinful men to lead them to repentance. But let this case stand while we look at another. The parable of the rich man and Lazarus teaches to the same class of people that the righteous at death go to Heaven, and the wicked at death go into the flames of hell. It also shows them that the wicked in their torment are not only in plain sight of the righteous in their blessedness, but that the two places are within speaking distance of each other, and that the two parties converse together. Now let us put these two cases together. The souls under the altar had only to look from their state of blessedness to see their persecutors in the flames of hell, and such of them as were still alive would be in a very short time one by one dropping into this fiery gulf. Could the martyrs with this terrible sight before them pray, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?" Would they have been bidden to wait yet a little season? Would they not rather have been directed to look across the great gulf and to see many of their persecutors already in torment, and others every moment arriving? Who does not see that these two cases when taken together completely refute the doctrine so often drawn from each taken alone? J. N. ANDREWS.