Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 28, 1879
CHRISTIANS, CHRIST'S REPRESENTATIVES.
By Ellen G. White
BY MRS. E. G. WHITE.
In his sermon on the mount, Christ addressed his followers in these words: “Ye are the salt of the earth; but if the salt have lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven.”
If we take in the full meaning of our Saviour’s words, we shall feel a responsibility resting upon us that is not small. We are to be channels of light. We are to so connect ourselves with Him who is the light of the world, that his character will appear in us his followers. There are excellent men and women in our organized churches, who will ever be standard bearers, faithful Calebs. Such will be lights in the world; but the mind and purpose of Christ in the usefulness of many of the church-members is not met. He comes to them as he came to the barren fig tree, searching for fruit, and finds “nothing but leaves.”
There has been on the part of many a sacrifice of the simplicity of true godliness to outward forms and appearances. Worldly thoughts and cares absorb their attention, and the things of eternal interest are made secondary. Christians holding daily communion with God, feasting upon the truths of his word, will by their religious conversation be constantly exerting a powerful influence for good upon their fellow-men. Hearts imbued with the love of Jesus will not fail to express themselves in words. The precious love of Christ has been experienced by them, and they cannot refrain from relating their experience to others. From a heart throbbing with a Saviour’s love, the story of the cross of Christ will be repeated, and they will thus testify that Jesus has power on earth to forgive sins.
The individual members of the church, sons and daughters of God, should show by their words and by their transformed characters, the divine reality that there is in the religion of Christ. They may exemplify in their lives that the happiness which worldlings seek after in vain is to be found in the service of Jesus Christ. Here alone is serenity, peace, contentment, and true happiness and joy. Those who have a name to live, but are dead, are by their unconsecrated lives daily confirming the sinner in his impenitence, and thus, while neglecting their duty to gather with Christ, they are scattering abroad by their silence and the indifference which they manifest.
The testimonies borne in the prayer-meeting frequently savor of gloominess and self-condemnation, and sinners think that if there is no more brightness and cheerfulness in religion than is expressed, and revealed in their lives, they do not desire it. But hundreds and thousands profess Christ who are unacquainted with him, and who do not the will of God in Heaven. Eternal life is a matter of tremendous moment; and if those professing Christ can testify by words and actions to the love of Christ, and can have the divine witness of the Spirit to their testimonies, sinners will be convicted. It is the indifference of the members of the church which makes the truths they profess powerless.
There is a decided lack of genuine, living conversion among Christ’s professed followers. When his people are thrown into the society of unbelievers, whether walking, working, riding, trading, or visiting, they should, as they have opportunity, introduce the subject of religion, and speak of the things which concern their eternal interest. They should not do this abruptly, but with tact. This was the way in which our Saviour taught concerning the kingdom of God. Everything in nature, and the incidents passing under their notice were to him texts for impressive sermons. He thus bound up his sacred lessons with the flowers, with the recurring seasons, with the rocks, the hills, and the mountains, and with the every-day occurrences of life. Thus it is the duty of every follower of Jesus to sow beside all waters, and in so doing he is fulfilling the purpose of God, and doing his work as Christ’s representative on earth.
THE UNITED STATES IN PROPHECY.
By A. H. Cleaves
BY A. H. CLEAVES.
In examining the subject of the American nation in the light of prophecy, a desire to separate facts from appearances and opinions should certainly be paramount. And especially in this day of lawlessness in thought as well as action, when men prefer in matters of religion the vagaries of their own imagination to the realities of God’s word, we should be ready to say with the apostle, “I will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ hath not wrought by me, to make the Gentiles obedient, by word and deed.”
Let us realize that the nations of earth have a place in the providence of God, that they are not the results of mere accident or human invention; and then, with the lamp of prophecy in our hand, let us cast around among the facts of history in the past, and of society at the present, and see if we can find the true position of the United States among the nations of the world.
And here at the outset we may safely assume that with nations, as with individuals, all their practices and reforms exist first in sentiment; and so in order to a correct forecast of a nation’s conduct it will be necessary that we discover the disposition of that class in society who control the government and shape the policy of the nation. In entering upon an inquiry of this kind, among the first things to attract our attention is the attitude of the people and their leaders. Theoretically, this is a government “of the people, for the people, and by the people;” but the great majority of men in practice are not capable nor desirous of self-government; so that their liberty is really exercised in the choice of their leaders, as men exercise their choice in selecting a physician from the different schools, although in any case they commit their welfare into the hands of another, generally from the force of appearances rather than reason.
So of a great many familiar terms, the masses have an impression that they are arbitrary and fixed in their meaning, whereas they are frequently vague and undefined; and so far from being words of a plain and limited sense, understood by leaders in church and state, they are complex and difficult many times, and far from being positive expressions even with magistrates. Thus we have State rights, and national rights, apparently very simple terms; but they admit of a wide difference in their application in different minds: and so the expressions, liberty, morality, laws of God, laws of nature, church and State, freedom, intolerance and a host of others. So we shall find upon inquiry that the questions of law and government, of what American liberty consists in, and, in short, what was the design and intention of the founders of the constitution, so far from being settled, are the great political problems of American statesmen to-day.
These are questions that had an answer undoubtedly in the minds of the founders of this government, for with them morality and religion had a definite meaning; but the latter depended for their place in the government not so much upon legal expression as upon the will of the people. So long, therefore, as public sentiment remains undivided, everything goes smoothly; but when a native and foreign element enters and threatens to overturn the existing order of things, and to supersede law and morality by licentiousness and immorality, then a hidden national life begins to assert itself, and a moral and religious element that had existed before by tacit consent, now comes forward and demands a public recognition, and a place in the statute books of the land.
And this brings us to the inquiry, Who are the aspirants to the seat of government, and what are the sentiments which they wish to enforce? At the close of the late war in this country a book was published, entitled, “History of the Great Republic,” by “Jesse T. Peck, D. D.,” the object of which, in the language of the author, was “to examine the history of the United States from a Christian standpoint;” and representing, as we think it does, the temper of the dominant class in this country, we shall draw upon its statements to prove our own position in relation to the United States in prophecy.
It is especially interesting to study this author, as he professedly attempts to ascertain the position of the great American Republic in the scheme of a general providence; and also as he is a fair representative of that class of men, who, with sanguine views of the gospel in its influence upon the world, see everything in a rose-colored light, and prophecy long ages of human prosperity and progress.
Thus, on p. 211, he says: “The rising, towering grandeur of moral ideas and events indicate to us the strong probability that the world has not yet passed its vigorous youth.” And again, p. 344, in speaking of the influence of the American press and church, and the mission of the great Republic of America among the governments of earth, he says the source of their power is with God. “It is the Sovereign of nations, God Omnipotent, who ‘maketh the wrath of man to praise him,’ unfolding the plans of the Christian dispensation, purging the people by the fires of law and justice; it is the gospel, the potent, at length the nearly omnipotent, spread of truth from Heaven; a free, open Bible; the baptisms of light and love, which are fast converting our nineteenth century into one grand Pentecost. It is the voice of resurrection, saying, ‘Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.’”
This is a fair picture of the pervading spirit in the churches of America to-day; and it is interesting in this connection to examine the same author’s view of the church in its relation to the state. Here we meet with such expressions as “The new American Church,” “The Church of the new nation” and their expositions. On p. 692, he says, “It must not, however, be assumed, that in America we have only a confused mass of conflicting sects.” “Such an opinion of American Christianity would be wholly superficial and untrue. In the great object of worship, the true Jehovah, in simple, absolute dependence upon a common Saviour, in the pervading power of the new life, we are and always have been one.”
As an illustration of the connection between church and State, which he condemns, we quote the following: “There is a sense in which we can speak of the Church of England as we shall never be able to speak of the Church of the United States of America. Episcopalianism is established by law in England. It is the legal religion of the kingdom; all other forms of worship are tolerated merely. This, let us trust, will never be true of any denomination in the Great Republic.”
It will readily be seen by this that he makes a distinction without a difference; for what one denomination secures in England he makes a combination obtain here; at least, in the department of morals. The difference is in the method and not in the results; for a coalition of sects under the title of Evangelical Church is as much a State church when exercising political authority as a single denomination would be in the same situation. Thus he says: “We have reversed the theories of Europe. For a thousand years they have sought unity by repression; we have found it in liberty; and the unity of Christian work is the grandest, most potential fact of the age. The new American Church will therefore be, not the Church of prescriptive dogma, but, in a sense, higher, stronger, than the old, the Church of vitalized and harmonized action.”
Now what does all this mean, reduced to practice? It simply means that the people of this generation do voluntarily what in former ages popes and princes prescribed to them; as a man upon coming of age walks by the same rules that his father laid down for him while under his authority. Tyranny and oppression, as Lieber teaches in his treatise on civil liberty, are not essentially connected with an imperial form of government any more than is liberty with a republican; yet a great many people seem to have obtained this impression. For the worst kind of despotism is that of a government by the people when the people are without moral principle. For as the injury that a combination of men can do is greater than that which one can accomplish, so is a bad government in a republic worse than one in a monarchy.
This parade of evangelical and national unity in matters of religion is false at the outset: it assumes that the conflict of opinions lies between faith in the Bible and atheism, which is not strictly true. There are denominations certainly not infidel in their doctrine that are emphatically outside of the so-called evangelical church, whose views would be outlawed by that body as heretical.
And here we may well inquire, What is liberty, and what is lawful? and what is intolerance? We remember reading several months since, in a number of the Atlantic Monthly, an article on intolerance, in which the writer endeavored to justify its exercise, seemingly on the ground of its being the expression of the popular will. He defined it to mean all legal compulsion for moral ends. He thought that if persecution of a religious nature should arise in the future, it would be characterized by the absence of that barbarism74which existed in the dark ages, both in the government of the church and of the State; and concluded by saying that he thought the wide diversity in religious opinion furnished a safe barrier to the appearance of such a religious oppression for a great while to come.
But if we compare this writer with the author we have quoted, and with facts, we may find good reasons to differ from his conclusion. The disposition among the nominal churches seems to be to ignore denominational distinctions, or at least to suppress them in public, and to combine on points of mutual agreement.
But is it true that any act of political persecution is just because in harmony with popular opinion? We think not. Popular opinion, under the reign of popes and kings, sanctioned their conduct in persecuting the martyrs; and why is it any more reliable when it speaks through its own chosen governors?
The evil in human governments at the present time, we think, consists not so much in theory as in practice. Liberty is generally understood not to mean license to do wrong, but right; and what is right is determined, at least in Christian nations, not by human opinion, but by the revealed will of God, by the Bible. Intolerance, then, is not the proper restraints of law, but the ascendancy of wrong over right by legal means.
The principles then laid down by the author of the “History of the Great Republic” we indorse; for he says, p. 704, “God is the Sovereign. We know his will. We know that as our Sovereign he forbids us to worship idols; to be a nation of swearers, murderers, or adulterers; to steal, bear false witness, or covet houses or beasts, people or lands, which belong to our neighbors; that he requires us to keep sacred the holy Sabbath, and to honor fathers and mothers; to love him with all our hearts, and our neighbors as ourselves.” And again, p. 324, “God is the great Sovereign of nations; no law, no usage, however venerable in precedent or high in authority, is to be considered legitimate or permanent, if at war with the will of God.”
The last quotation he thinks expresses the religion of the Great Republic; and it may in theory, but we think the sequel will show that it does not in practice.
(Concluded next week.)*
THE RIGHTEOUS REIGN,
It will be order then!
Under the scepter of a holy King,
Each creature, low and high, angels and men,
To the great concord sweetly ministering.
Self-will unknown, true harmony restored,
Happy obedience to the righteous Lord;
The multitude of wills all lost in one—
The will that rules from the eternal throne.
Disorders, strifes, confusions, groans, and cries,
Then ended in the endless harmonies!
O age of order, how we long for thee
In these chaotic days of dark perplexity!
It will be freedom then!
True freedom such as nations never saw,
Even at their freest, in the days of old—
The freedom of submission to sure law;
Freedom from self and sin, and lust and gold;
Subjection to the truth, which maketh free;
Surrender of the intellect and soul
To a divine and sweet captivity.
O age of freedom! how we long for thee
In these proud, self-will'd days of spurious liberty!
It will be morning then!
Morn of the long, long looked-for golden day;
Pure summer sunlight, dropping only health,
And never-shaded joy, without one ray
Of poisonous bitterness to scorch or sear:
But calling up creation's boundless wealth
And beauty bright through all the eternal year,
The old, sad night forever passed away.
O morn of love, when, when wilt thou appear?
—Prophetic Times.
IS HE CORRECT?
By E. Lanphear
[Our answers to the following queries will be found inclosed in brackets. Ed. Review.]
EDITOR OF THE REVIEW: I observe that Rev. Wm. H. Ernst, in his article in the Sabbath Recorder of June 12, under the head of “What is the Condition of the Spirit after Death?” refers to the Adventists, or materialists, as to their theory, and says: “It claims that the spirit lies with the body in the ground, if they admit of any spirit properly so called, and that both will be brought up at the close of the Christian dispensation, having the same composition as before death.”
Is it a fact that this is the theory of Adventists on this subject? [No.] I had supposed that the spirit of all men, at death, returned to God who gave it, and the body (dust) returned to the earth as it was, as set forth in Eccl. 12:7; and that the man, soul, body, and spirit, remained in as dormant a state as before creation, until the close of this dispensation, when Christ shall come the second time, and call them forth by the resurrection to be judged. And at that time the righteous shall be raised a spiritual body, and this mortal put on immortality. Am I correct in this view? and is it in accordance with the Adventist faith? [Yes.]
I do not believe that man at the resurrection takes on the same material as while living in this world; but that they will be raised like Christ’s glorious body after his resurrection. Christ said (1 Cor. 15:50), “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” The blood of Christ was sacrificed, taken from his body on the cross; consequently there was no blood in his resurrected and most glorious body, and no corruption connected therewith. The saints shall be like him, their elder brother, and joint heirs with him in glory. Does this view correspond with the theory accepted by Adventists? [Yes.]
Rev. Mr. Ernst says that Christ will come bringing the saints with him. But I understand Christ to say (John 14:2, 3), “In my Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” Does this text justify Mr. Ernst in his statement that Christ will bring his saints with him? [It does not. The place from which God brings the saints with Christ, is from the grave. “Now the God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus,” etc. Heb. 13:20. So those that sleep in Jesus will God bring with him, or in the same manner as he brought him, from the grave. God does not “bring” Christ when he comes the second time; he “sends” him. Acts 3:20.]
Does he correctly represent the Adventists? or does he make his statements with a view to deceive, and thus make it appear that the spirit of man that goes to God at death is the real man, the soul, life, and ever-conscious being that God created out of the dust of the ground, and made accountable? [Whatever Mr. E.’s motive may have been, he does not correctly represent Adventists.] Is there any Scripture evidence that the same spirit that leaves the body at death will return to it again at the resurrection? [This spirit is not an entity.] Do we know any further than that it (the body) will be raised a spiritual body, and this mortal put on immortality, as the gift of God? [That is all that is revealed.] It seems wonderfully strange that educated men will resort to such extravagant ideas in order to make out man an ever-living entity without the gift of God.
E. LANPHEAR.
Plainfield, N. J.
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST.
By J. Clarke
“Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” Rom. 8:9.
Such is the spirit of the present age, that self-deception is peculiarly prominent. A public profession of religion can be maintained, without the least idea of what real Christianity is, because it is customary.
Romanism has paved the way for a mere formal religion, and has had more than ten centuries to make her impress upon the human mind as to what constitutes a Christian life and character; and she has well improved her time; and Protestantism, although many degrees better than the papacy, is still quite too much after the same pattern.
So long as Rome persecuted the Protestants, there was a life in Protestantism; but as soon as this ceased, Protestants began to lose their vigor. Good men, like Wesley and Tennent and Whitfield, did much to stem the tide of secularism; but such men are now too few, and Protestantism is fast ebbing back to the lifeless dead forms of Romanism.
Church dignitaries will find, that to revive old pagan and Roman errors, such as the Sunday of the pagans and the grand weekly holiday of Rome, will not propitiate the favor of God, nor will it bring life to the church; but rather will it strengthen Rome, and sink the world deeper in the mire.
What was it that gave life to the reformers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries? was it not their study of the word of God, and their opposition to human traditions, where these conflicted with the word of God? What will give life to the church at this time? Some principle of reform that God indicates by his word and his providence is needed to call together the flock scattered abroad in this cloudy and dark period of the church.
Luther and Melancthon and Wycliffe and Latimer, and a host of worthies, worked to this object, the purification of the church; but it was reform! reform! it was not a going back to tradition from the word of God, but it was the word of God against human tradition. God owned this work, and the reformers shared largely of his Spirit.
Monmouth, a good and wealthy merchant of London, was a good example of the spirit which actuated the reformers of that time. When Tyndale was translating the Bible, and was driven out by the papal priests, Monmouth took him in; and when Tyndale was driven from this city, Monmouth and others gave him means to continue his work in other places.
Monmouth kept a hospitable table and house, and more than one Romanist was made welcome. Once when this noble man was conversing at his table, he made a remark concerning the papacy which offended a papist who was a guest. He immediately left the house in anger, threatening never to partake again of the merchant’s bounty, or to borrow his money, or ask a favor of him again. Monmouth sought an interview, all in vain. The papist would not speak to, nor look at, his Protestant friend. Finally Monmouth met him in a street so narrow that the papist could not avoid him, and spoke so kindly to him that the papist went and confessed his error in being offended. Such was the spirit that actuated the early reformers; it was the spirit of Christ. What a good time some would have had in telling in a private way how ridiculously the papist had conducted himself; but not so with the good London merchant. See D’Aubigne, vol. 5, pp. 232, 233; also the conversion of Hugh Latimer, and the zeal and love of Thomas Bilney, vol. 5, pp. 243, 244.
A work of reform must be attended with the love of God; it must originate, continue, and end with the Spirit of Christ, if it is God’s work; but he who opposes a true reform, actuated by the Spirit of God, makes a great and a fatal mistake, if persisted in to the end.
John preached reform, and Christ took up the work as it was left by John. The Jews opposed. So now, just as time is about to close, and the second coming is at hand, reforms will be preached in truth and love. Some will hear, while some like the Jews will oppose. Reader where will we be found? J. CLARKE.
WE MUST LIVE.
By A. C. Spicer
“But we must live, you know,” said a professed S. D. Adventist mother the other day, in apology for the fact that her son, who is also a member of an S. D. A. church, was working weekly on the Sabbath day.
“Father, Mr. —— wants to hire me; but I must work Sabbath days if I work for him. Shall I do so?” “Never, by my consent,” responded the father, quite hesitatingly, and half-heartedly. “Well, mother, what do you say, shall I agree to work Sabbath days for the sake of good wages?” “I do not like to have you do so, my son,” replies the mother, but, dropping the head, she continues in a low voice, “but we must live, you know.” The son passed out, saying to himself, as he tossed his head and snapped his fingers, “That’s it, that’s it, we must live;” and he straightway made an engagement to work Sabbath days. Such, substantially, was the conversation in another professedly Sabbath-keeping family, and such the result. Similar cases are frequent, and many a child of parents who profess to love the Sabbath and to honor the law of God, is thus dishonoring the Christian profession. And then that mother professed to her brethren and sisters to regret that her son was violating the Sabbath; and the father sighed as if in great sorrow, remarking, “But then, he’ll do as he has a mind to.”
And thus many a father and mother virtually consent to, and become responsible for, the open and flagrant violation of God’s law, by their children, while making great professions of sincere love and reverence therefor. But who has determined that any of God’s people “must live” at the sacrifice of such high and sacred interests? These parents profess to be Christians. If, then, they are Christ’s, they are “bought with a price” and “are not their own,” but “servants of the Lord Jesus Christ.” And has not the good Master promised on condition of implicit obedience to “bless in basket and store” abundantly, and that all temporal, material necessaries “shall be added unto you,” if ye will “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness”?
Why, then, assume responsibilities that belong to the Master? Why arrogate to the servant to say how he “must live,” in contempt of the Master’s expressed will? Where is it written that the laborer and the poor need not be particular or scrupulous about keeping God’s commandments? Where is it written that children of poor Christian parents may be permitted to do, innocently, what the parent would be ashamed to do on the Sabbath,—to disregard God’s law? God said not only, “On the seventh day thou shalt rest,” but was particular to specify, “Thou, thy son, thy daughter, thy man-servant, thy maid-servant, thy cattle,” etc.; and, to guard all avenues to license even in the most busy time of the year, he added, “In earning time and in harvest, thou shalt rest.”
But poverty is pleaded in excuse. But did not He who made the law, and ordered the precepts and examples of the gospel, know the necessities of the poor? And yet he has made no such exceptional provisions for such license. And may it not be the very reason why you are so poor, that, while you have professed to be a child of God, you have been so improvident of time and opportunities and means, and so persistently regardless of his law, that he has not dared to intrust you with anything beyond the most stinted necessaries of life? Even man can see, and how much clearer can God see, that the only possible condition in which some people can be fitted for Heaven is that of poverty.
The Master has also declared it a condition upon which we may have eternal life, that we be willing to be poor, yet obedient; to forsake all of this world and “follow him;” declaring that “whosoever will save his life [by disregarding God’s will] shall lose it; but whosoever will lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall find it.” This language implies an obligation to regard, also, the honor of the gospel. Why, then, is it assumed that this poor, profitless life must be preserved, regardless of God’s law and the glorious plan of the gospel? Perhaps the Infinite mind sees that the only way for you to be humbled, subdued, chastened, and purified, and fitted for Heaven, is by suffering in poverty. And yet you would thwart his efforts in this direction also, assuming that you “must live” this poor, finite life, even at the sacrifice of life infinite, of the eternal interests of self and children.
The statement that our sons cannot get work unless they agree to work on the Sabbath cannot be accepted; for many quite as unfavorably situated get labor and just as good wages, and yet keep the Sabbath. Let us note the crimes involved in the plea under consideration:— 1. Sabbath-breaking, by the parents, and by the sons; 2. Insincerity and dissembling hypocrisy; 3. Dishonor and disgrace to the church; 4. Great trial and grief to the brotherhood; 5. Incalculable wrong to children, by which they learn to disrespect all religious profession, and soon to reject religion, and become infidel. The wrong done the child involves all that is of value in a true Christian life here, and eternal life in the hereafter.
Yet it is attempted to justify all these terrible sins by the plea, “But we must live, you know.” A. C. SPICER.
DO WE HEED THEM?
By M. Wood
“The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.” Ps. 19:7.
Doubtless many individuals now numbered with S. D. Adventists fail to see the importance of heeding the testimony of Jesus, which is the spirit of prophecy. Rev. 12:17, and 19:10. Please examine, in connection with the scripture above quoted, that found in Prov. 1:22, 23. “Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my Spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you.” The remainder of the chapter describes the dreadful condition of those who do not heed the words of God given through the influence of his blessed Spirit. “Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at naught all my counsel, and would none of my reproof: I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me.”
The testimonies so graciously given to the church are in harmony with the Scriptures, and are generally indorsed by all believers of the third angel’s message, as being of God, and for the benefit and perfection of the saints. But are we thankful enough for this75great blessing? Do we pay sufficient heed to the admonitions of the Spirit, to insure the approbation of God? Duties of one toward another are plainly enjoined upon us; and yet these obligations are ignored by God’s professed people. There are many, very many valuable testimonies to the church which are sadly neglected by some professing to be fathers and mothers in Israel. Page after page might be quoted from the testimonies, showing where many of us fail of coming up to the Bible standard of Christian religion. May God pity us, and enable us by the influence of his Spirit to hail with gladness, joy, and thankfulness each token of favor thus bestowed upon us.
There are some who, like doubting Thomas, would not believe without seeing, and others who would not believe if one rose from the dead and told them. If the Lord himself should speak from Heaven with an audible voice, they, like the unbelieving Jews of old, would say, “It thundered.” Every test which the Scriptures give us to prove the spirits, whether they be of God, sustains the testimonies. They exalt Jesus Christ as the Son of God. They hold up the Law of God as our only rule of right, and true standard of Christian piety. They condemn sin, and expose the cunning deceptions of our wily foe. May God help reader and writer to heed the pure testimony, which will make wise the simple, though it cut like a two-edged sword.
Satan has given an opiate which has caused a death-like stupor upon both the church and the world, and we ought to be truly thankful that God has given an antidote which, if accepted, will prove our eternal salvation. Like ancient Israel, we have wandered from God, murmured against his providences, gone into by and forbidden paths, and been bitten by that venomous reptile, sin. God still waits to be gracious. He is showing us our sins, and giving us time to put them away and purify our souls by implicit obedience to the whole truth. Those who were bitten by serpents in the wilderness, were healed by looking upon the brazen serpent. If we would be made whole, we must accept of the only terms provided by the Lord.
M. WOOD.
“EARTHQUAKES IN DIVERS PLACES.”
By Wm. Penniman
Scribner’s Monthly, of August, 1872, page 496, contains a remarkable fulfillment of the prophecy in regard to earthquakes in divers places. The quotation is as follows:—
“The month of April, 1872, will long be remembered, and will occupy an important position in geological history as the month of earthquakes and volcanoes. The series of disturbances in question commenced on March 26, with an earthquake at Independence, Inyo Co., Cal., and lasted for five hours, during which time the earth was never for a moment perfectly quiet, and every few moments heavy shocks, of a few seconds duration, were occurring: in all, there were more than fifty heavy shocks. During the disturbance, flashes of light were seen to issue from the Black Rock, a volcano of the Sierra Nevada range about fourteen miles distant.
“On April 3, the terrible earthquake of Antioch laid that ancient city in ruins. In this commotion the earth was disturbed over a considerable extent, the shocks being severely felt from Aleppo to Orfa, beyond the Euphrates, and occurring at intervals for more than a week.
“On April 14 and 15, violent shocks of earthquake were felt at Accra, on the Gold Coast of Africa, and these were attended by a hurricane which wrecked nearly every vessel in the harbor of Zanzibar.
“On April 24, Vesuvius again burst her bonds and became more active than at any time since the eruption that overwhelmed Herculaneum and Pompeii; Europe, Asia, Africa, America, four out of the five great divisions of the globe, showing serious disturbance of their surface at almost the same time. It is as if mother earth was shaking the finger of admonition at those who deny the old geological doctrines, and advance the hypothesis that the globe is not fluid in its interior, but is solid through and through.”