Review and Herald, Vol. 17, No. 12. (2/5/1861)

Review and Herald

Feb 5, 1861

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 5, 1861

SHORN SAMSONS.

By T. L. Cuyler

FORTY years ago an orator stood on Plymouth Rock—lifting before his puritan audience such a "mountain of head" as they had never seen before. Standing there, he gave utterances worthy of a New Hampshire freeman on the rock of liberty. His words were half battles; they rang through the nation. A dozen years later the same statesman stood in the senate chamber, and pronounced his immortal watch-word—"LIBERTY AND UNION, now and forever, one and inseparable." He bade fair to be the nation's Samson to carry off the Gaza-gates of oppression, and to drive back the Philistines of nullification. For a time he was such. But at length a Delilah came. She flashed before his eyes the glittering bait of presidential honors. She soothed him with her promises, and in an evil hour she sheared off the locks of liberty in which lay the strong man's strength. He went out before the people to "shake himself as afore time;" but alas his strength was gone. Those whom he had deserted, in turn deserted him. Even those of us who felt for him the strongest intellectual idolatry, cannot but confess that it was a shorn Samson who was carried to his tomb beside yonder harbor of the Pilgrims. We need not name the fatal Delilah; she has wrought the political ruin of nearly every Northern statesman who has laid his head on her treacherous lap.

2. So, too, have we seen a minister of Christ advancing into vigorous power and usefulness. He was strong in his humility, his love of souls, his fidelity to the truth. At length he began to grow popular. The fascinating cup, that so few can refuse was presented to his lips. The titled and the fashionable began to court him. His name was pronounced by the lips of beauty in the drawing-room of luxury. He could stand obscurity, or hard fare, or hard work; but he could not stand flattery. At length the real power of his ministry showed sad symptoms of decline; no longer did he rebuke sin, or preach the lowly doctrines of the cross as afore time; but "he knew not that the Lord had departed from him." The admiring world soon fell away from him. The public heart is never true to the man who is not true to himself. Not even a Summerfield, a Spurgeon, a Dudley Tyng, a Beecher, or a Guthrie could hold the masses for one hour, should they have turned traitor to their conscience and their Saviour. But what the Philistine of open hostility cannot achieve, the sly Delilah can effect when the strong man falls asleep in her embrace. The twin Delilahs of the pulpit are—love of popularity and the fear of man. How many a shorn Samson have they sent away to the pity of God's people, and to the mockery of God's foes!

3. The dangers we speak of are not confined to the hall of legislation, or to the pulpit. Every private Christian has his temptress. The stronger the man in his religious influence, the more annoyance he gives to the Devil by his aggressive activity—the more surely will the Devil send some Delilah to make an attempt upon the sources of his strength. Sometimes the temptress comes with a purse at her side, and buys him off with large bribes; or she drugs his conscience with such opiates as "prudence," "provision for a rainy day," "claims of business," &c., until he has become a thorough worldling to his heart's core. Now he never comes to church without bringing the stock-market and the corn-exchange in his head; he dreams all through the service about the prices of freights and foreign bills; and goes home to "press toward the mark of the prize" in Wall street or South street. Who supposes that in the early days of that Christian professor's first love, any amount of open opposition would have driven him from Christ? No Philistine of persecution or infidel assault could have shaken him; he would have stood like Samson on the rock of Lehi. Because his conscience would be healthy, and his inward godliness would be strong. Awake, he was a match for all assailants, but when he ceased to watch and pray, when he grew sleepy in the arms of worldliness, then his locks were shorn away so slyly, that he did not hear the clipping of the fatal shears. His fault was in the yielding to the first influences of the enchantress. The moment that he yielded himself, he was left a nerveless, useless, joyless, worthless cumberer in God's church.

There are a host of Delilahs conspiring against the athletes of Christ's covenant host. Avarice is one. Ambition of office is another. Pride is a third. Unbelief is busy with her shears on many a giant's locks. Sensuality is a peculiarly dangerous sorceress who has enticed even ministers of Jesus to lay their head on her harlot-lap; and they have risen up only to be driven away to "grind in the prison-house" of remorse. Perhaps the most treacherous of all Delilahs is spiritual pride, or religious self-conceit. The victim of this tempter is prone to say to himself, How strong I am! How useful—how praised for my charities and good works! How much good I am doing! How plentifully God is laying to my hands! So the artful enemy sings him with siren songs into self-confidence. He begins to grow presumptuous. He relaxes his vigilance. He foregoes prayer somewhat. By little and little he neglects his closet. One religious duty is slighted. Then another; then a third. His locks are not all sheared off; but there is such a cropping away of moral strength, that he is no longer a Samson in Israel. He is but a common man. Never, never, until long penitence and prayer have made those locks to grow again, can he "go out to shake himself as before," and snap asunder the green withes of Satan as a thread of tow is broken when it toucheth the fire.

4. It is a noticeable fact that while all Christians are in danger, the Samsons of the church are in especial danger. Had the son of Manoah been but a common man, there would have been no extraordinary plotting against him. Satan wastes but little time or strategy on spiritual pigmies. Fools do not suit his purpose. Cowards he despises. The already sleeping he leaves asleep. But when he hears of an athletic saint, a Great-Heart or a Valiant-for-the-truth, a man zealous of good works, a Samson who can shoulder off a gate, or hew down a thousand lies with jaw-bone, or throttle the lions of error,—how he lusts for the blood of such a hero! How he keeps his tempters on his track! How he sends one Delilah after another to find out where his strength lieth! At last he finds that it lies in his conscience kept wide awake by prayer. The man is a man of prayer. Before he attacks the Cæsar at Rome, or the Pope's Bull at Wittemberg; before he pours a broadside into the slave

ship, or attacks the hydra of intemperance; before he assails the brothel or the gaming-house; before he lifts his hand against any iniquity, he renews his strength at the mercy-seat. He fortifies his soul in prayer. Satan discovers this. No longer does he try open assault. That will not avail. So he looks for a Delilah that will caress the Samson into a spiritual sleep; and when the slumbering lips have ceased to pray for grace, her cunning fingers feel softly for the locks of conscience, and noiselessly she clips them off. Alas for Samson now! He is shorn of his strength. What spectacle on earth so sad as this?

"So fallen! so sunk! the light withdrawn Which once he wore! The glory from his gray locks gone For evermore!"

"Revile him not; the tempter hath A snare for all, And pitying tears—not scorn or wrath— Befit his fall."

Thank God! there are Samsons who are never shorn! They are those who pray without ceasing. When Satan cometh to such he findeth them WATCHING. "What I say unto you, I say unto all—Watch.

THE CHRISTIAN'S TRIUMPH HOUR.

CHRISTIAN, cease thy look of sadness, Let not sorrow dim thine eyes; Let thy smile beam joy and gladness— Let thy songs of praise arise: Though dark clouds around thee lower, Thou shalt have thy triumph hour.

Though thy strength with toil is wasted, Journeying through this vale of tears; Though deep anguish thou hast tasted, A brighter hope to thee appears. Trust thy Father's saving power— Thou shalt have thy triumph hour.

Has thy night been dark and dreary?— Has no ray of light appeared? Has thy way been long and weary?— Has no hope thy bosom cheered? Trust in Jesus' saving power— Thou shalt have thy triumph hour.

Is thy way beset before thee? Doth dark sorrow swell thy breast? Has thy foeman triumphed o'er thee— Art thou by his hand oppressed? Fear not thou the conqueror's power— Thou shalt have thy triumph hour.

When the sun his course has ended, When the stars shall pale their light; When the heavens above are rended, Thou shalt reign in glory bright. Then, while sinners trembling cower, Thou shalt have thy triumph hour.

When men call on rocks and mountains, Rocks and mountains flee away; Then, beside life's flowing fountains, Thou shalt dwell in endless day: There will God around thee shower Blessings in thy triumph hour.

When the saints to life are springing, When they leave the cold, damp sod; When the heavens are loudly ringing With the praises of your God, Then exult—then praise the power, In the glorious triumph hour.

There shall sorrow all be ended, There shall sighing never come; There shall joy and love be blended, There thou'lt dwell in heaven, thy home. Thou wilt prove God's saving power In that glorious triumph hour.

Cease, then, cease thy look of sadness, Let not tears bedim thine eyes; Let thy smile beam joy and gladness— Let thy songs of praise arise: Soon in heaven's elysian bower Thou shalt have thy triumph hour.

BENEVOLENCE A PART OF RELIGION.

RELIGION begins with a change of heart. The greater part of life is generally occupied with the acquisition and use of property. A change of heart, if real, cannot leave this principal part of life unaffected. The subject of it must be expected to show that he has found a more valued treasure in heaven, by his new aims in getting, and his new principles in using the treasures of this world. If, in that chief part of life occupied with gaining and using property, the professed subject of a change consisting in placing the affections on things above, continues to show the same estimate of property as the great end to be sought, the same eagerness in getting, the same tenacity in holding, the same self-seeking or exclusively selfish gratification in using it, need it be surprising that his worldly competitors doubt the reality of the change? Must not Christ repel such professors with his own searching question, 'What do ye more than others?' There is nothing less than absurdity in the idea of a change, in which the man becomes a new creature in Christ, in which old things are passed away, and all things are become new, which yet does not carry a new spirit through the business, and consecrate the property as well as the heart to God—in which the theory is all for the glory of God, the practice all for making money.

Religion is love. Now, love is an active principle. It is as natural for love to act beneficently as for a fountain to flow, or a star to shine; and its action is ungrudging, unstinted, delighting in toil for the loved object. Witness, for instance, the toils of parental love. Can love to God and man be the very essence of the character, while beneficent efforts are left to hazard, crowded into the by-corners of life, supplied by chippings and remnants? Can love control the heart, when at the same time it obviously does not control the actions of the life?

Christians are laborers together with God, God is always giving, always employed in the work of beneficence; if we labor with him, then we must labor in the work of love, of beneficence. God designs to form us into his likeness; and to this end, we are no sooner brought into his kingdom than we are put to doing his work. Can any one, then, be a laborer together with God, and make that secondary which He regards as primary—pursue without plan, energy, or steadfastness, the object which he seeks, with a steadfastness which knows no abatement, a zeal which spares no sacrifice, and an outpouring of treasure which arithmetic cannot calculate? A laborer together with God, is it possible that you, now reading these lines, can be, and yet that object to which, with him, the destiny of nations and the movements of heavenly hosts are subordinate, be with you secondary to money-getting, to furniture, to equipage—a mere accidental appendage to business? Let the great fact possess your soul with the fullness which its reality demands, that you are privileged to be a laborer with God, and that God is unceasingly engaged in the work of beneficence, and you will cease to make selfish gratifications the exclusive object of your pursuit; and instead of beneficence being an occasional accident or an appendage to business, it will become a steady aim, and business itself be pursued mainly as a means of beneficence—of being like God and engaged in the same work.

The benevolent man is the truly happy man. He that seeks to get good from men—to make them subservient to his happiness, is miserable, in comparison with him who aims to do good to others. God loves and blesses those whose disposition and conduct resemble his own. And as the mind becomes more beneficent, more pure, more active in doing good, all the sources of felicity will multiply around it; it will have peace and dignity within, and the smiles of infinite complacency will beam upon it with inexpressible glory.—S. S. Times.

WHAT IS MERCY?

By Dr. Cumming

If there were no sin there could be no mercy.

Mercy is love through the prism of a Saviour's mediation refracted into all the beautiful colors of the covenant rainbow. God is good to angels, He is love to the unfallen, He is mercy to sinners. And, therefore, if you be a sinner, a chief sinner, an inveterate sinner, let a ray of glory shoot through your heart; and you have a God who is mercy—the very thing you need. Ah, you reply, that is very true; but that does not comfort my soul. I have nothing to give for it, and, therefore, there is no hope for me. What is the next ray of his glory? He is gracious. What is grace? Literally good given gratis. What was the prayer of John Wickliffe, the morning star of the Reformation? "Good Lord save me gratis." God saves only gratis. If you were to pay anything, there is no mercy for you, if you promise anything by way of equivalent, there is no mercy for you: if you offer to endure anything as expiation, there is no mercy for you. You must take mercy in all its amplitude, without promise, pledge, or anything on your part but grace, just as God gives it you.

But you answer, this may be all very true: but I have sinned so long, I have sinned against light, against conscience, against law, against love. If I had been your judge, you had been crushed long ago, if the most tender hearted man had been your judge, you would have been destroyed; but let a ray of this glory sweep through your troubled spirit, and what does it show? That whilst He is merciful and gracious He is also long-suffering. How glorious is this attribute! He suffers long, and is not easily provoked; delighting in mercy.

But if you should say, Ah, this is very true, very comforting: but it does not meet all my case: for so many have drawn upon his mercy, so many have got it gratis, such multitudes have tasted of his long-suffering, that I fear it is exhausted long ago. If God were a cistern his mercy would have been exhausted; but we are told he is a fountain, and a living fountain, inexhaustible, and springing up to everlasting life forever and ever.

But the ray of his glory that meets your case is that while he is long-suffering, He is also abundant in goodness and truth.

But if you should say, So many generations have drawn upon Him, from the world's gray fathers that trod the deserts of Palestine and the pavements of Egypt; the prophets, and evangelists, and apostles, and martyrs, and reformers, and the long procession of sufferers, have all, generation after generation, drawn upon his goodness, drank of his mercy, sought it gratis, and enjoyed it in all its fullness, that I fear it is impossible that God can have supplied so long a world of rebels so countless, and all his mercy is surely dried up long ago. The answer is, He keeps mercy for thousands of generations.

But you add, perhaps, Well, all this is very delightful; but I have been guilty of sins of thought, sins of word, sins of deed, all kinds and degrees of sin. I have no doubt of it; and I am sure you are far more guilty than you think and far more so than you feel; but here is another ray of God's glory; He forgives iniquity; that is the first sort of sin, transgression, that is the second sort; and sin, that is the third sort. In other words, He forgives sins of thought, sins of word, sins of deed.—Dr. Cumming.

PRAYER AND IMMUTABILITY.

NOTWITHSTANDING the repeated declarations of God, there are many who are skeptical as to the efficacy of prayer. God, they say, is immutable. Prayer, in order to be efficacious, must produce a change in him, must lead him to do what he would not have done had prayer not been offered.

The Bible affirms that God is influenced by the prayers of his children as truly as an earthly parent is influenced by the prayers of his children. This does in no way conflict with his immutability. Immutability and inactivity are not identical. God does to-day what he did not do yesterday. He is daily calling new objects into existence. Do these acts affect the unchangeableness of his character? By no means. As long as all his acts are performed on holy and wise principles, so long he is immutable.

The influence of second causes or of instrumentalities in the material world is just as inconsistent with his immutability as is the efficacy of prayer. God maketh the corn to grow upon the mountains, but the instrumentality of man has something to do with its growth. God clothes the hills with corn through the instrumentality of man's toil, and so he bestows the blessings of a spiritual harvest through the instrumentality of prayer. In the material world he uniformly produces certain results when certain conditions have been performed by men. With a similar uniformity he produces certain results in the spiritual world when certain conditions have been performed by men. Nothing is done from caprice. There is no change in the principles of action.

Prayer, then, is efficacious. It is power, not with nature, but with nature's God. It is an instrumentality mightier than that which drives the steam-ship against wind and tide—swifter than the electric current. It enables a soul to beat back the engulphing waves of guilt, to send, in one instant, a message to the presence-chamber of God.

The most interesting chapter in the history of the world (excepting that which records the labors and sufferings of Christ) is that relating to prayer. It cannot be written (except very imperfectly) by the historian of earth. It is written in heaven, to be read by the redeemed. There it will be seen that a mother's prayers reached her wayward son when far away from her in the ends of the earth. There it will be seen that a sister's prayers reached her brother in his lonely room in the crowded city, and led him to open his neglected Bible, and to weep over that loss of innocence, and that departure from God which he thought, when he left the pure influence of his beloved home, could never take place. There it will be seen that a powerful revival of religion, which caused joy in heaven, and sent the Gospel to the four quarters of the globe, was owing to the prayers of some one of God's unhonored poor. There is power in prayer. The resources of omnipotence are within our reach, and we may use them. Ask, and ye shall receive. The Word of the Lord stands sure.—S. S. Times.

FAITH.

FAITH in God is described in Scriptures as implying much more than the mere acknowledgment of his existence: “He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” It is not an occasional thought, or a transient impression of the divine majesty, but an habitual sense of his presence, such as produces “reverence and godly fear,” and makes the believer to live “as seeing him who is invisible.” It implies an assured conviction of his being, and a knowledge of his true

character, as the sole Creator and supreme Governor of the world; but such a belief as produces trust and confidence in him, makes him the object of supreme love, the source of spiritual joy. It chooses God as the chief good,—the only satisfying portion of the soul: it rests in him,—it waits for him,—it longs after him,—it walks with him,—it seeks his face,—it meditates on all his works,—it meekly receives his word,—it submits to his providence,—it obeys his will,—it delights in his fellowship,—it is zealous for his glory,—it casteth out fear,—it takes away the “spirit of bondage,” and imparts “the spirit of adoption which crieth Abba! Father.” Such is the nature of that “Faith in God” which is inculcated in the sacred writings.

The Glory-filled Earth.

By Dr. Cumming

ADAM could not have prayed in paradise, “Let the whole earth be filled with thy glory; for he must have praised his Maker that the whole earth already was filled with his glory; he saw it lying like a soft and shining atmosphere over all space; every bush in that beautiful Eden burning like Horeb’s bush; every mountain glowing with splendors without the transience of mount Tabor; and in all whispers of the wind—in all the chimes of the waves—in all murmuring brooks—and in the voice of God at early morn and dewy eve he heard the most delicious music. On every acre and on every footpath of that beautiful and sequestered spot he recognized the footprints and the trail of the glory of his God and Father as he passed by. He praised him that the earth was filled with his glory; he could not pray that that might be which was already come. But since that day—I appeal to the hearts that falter in their beating, to the eye, the ear, and all the senses, to the annals of nations, to the history of the world—a great deterioration has passed upon our earth; deep shadows are now mingled with its brightest sun-streaks; and the lingering and flickering bits of sunshine alone remain to remind us what a beautiful Paradise has passed away; yet presenting tokens and prophecies also that a yet more beautiful Paradise is one day to dawn. In our present experience there is scarce a line of glory upon our world that a line of suffering or a shadow of sorrow does not run parallel with.

Yet, fallen as our world is, one can see traces of what it once was. An architect visiting Jerusalem guessed from the fragment of an arch what must have been the measure of its span, and the resting-place of its piers. From seeing the fragments of this ruined world, we may form a rude conjecture what a magnificent thing it once was; and even in its darkest places one can notice many things that prove if it hath fallen it is not utterly forsaken. Are there not some days in the loveliest summers that seem rays of glory just come forth from the gates of Paradise to give us a transient glimpse of a faded glory? Even in the deepest winters the laurel, and the bay tree, and the holly, and the group of evergreens, seem to say, “We will not yield as others have; we will keep the path open between the summer that has left and the summer that is to come, thus ministering to man’s heart hope in the deepest depth of nature’s decay; and with other vestiges leaving on the bosom of our world memorials that if fallen it is not altogether forsaken.” But the mere natural glory that breaks upon our world in fragments is shaded by the departure of that moral glory which once overspread the whole heaven and earth as with the very presence of God. If in Adam’s day all was harmony without, it was only responsive to a deeper harmony within. If man saw all the tokens of perfect peace above, around, and beneath, he appreciated and felt the peace the more because of the perfect repose and quiet that was within. But since the fall, these somber shadows have covered up not only the outer glory, but they have also projected themselves into the very heart of man; and in his inmost soul he feels that more has gone wrong with it than even with the world outside.

He needs to pray whether he looks within or without, with intenser fervor, O Lord, let the departed glory return, let Ichabod be erased from the surface of our globe; let the days of Eden come round again; let the tide of sin and sorrow ebb, and let the whole earth be covered with the glory of God!—Dr. Cumming.

Never be at a Loss.

By Exchange

If you are beset by perils from which there are no visible means or hopes of deliverance, all your distress and fear may be embodied in the cry of sinking Peter—"Lord, save me!"

If you are utterly embarrassed and perplexed, that one petition of Saul will invoke light on your path from the source of all light—"Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?"

If you are overwhelmed with a sense of sin so as scarcely to dare to lift up your eyes toward heaven, or venture on a direct address to a holy God, there is the prayer of the publican at hand for you—"God be merciful to me a sinner!"

If you desire inward renovation, profound, complete spiritual transformation rather, the prayer of David expresses that wish in its full and perfect form—"Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me!"

If you desire illumination in the deep things of God, derive a prayer from the intercession of Paul, Eph. iii, 14, to the end. How the soul unfolds its wings in the vastness of that supplication, culminating and resting in a rapturous act of adoration!

If your heart is burdened with anxiety for some beloved one still destitute of grace, there is the fervid, intercession of Abraham—"O that Ishmael might live before thee!" Substitute the name which your affection prompts, and the intercession of the Father of the faithful becomes your own.

If material wants press you, the modest petition of Agur (which was also a "prophecy"—Prov. xxx.—as every believing prayer is) will express the easily contended desires of a holy mind—"Feed me with food convenient for me."

"I adore," said Tertullian, "the fullness of Scripture" (adoro plenitudinem Scripturæ). And in no respect is this Divine fullness more admirably displayed than in the variety of its petitions. They express every emotion of a sinful and suffering soul struggling backward and upward to God from the sin and misery of this fallen world.

Let this "word of Christ dwell in you richly," and you will never lack material for prayer.

And then, what particularly commends these petitions to our use, is that they were inspired prayers. They were accepted prayers. They were uttered by "holy men of God who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." And of nearly three hundred of them recorded in Scripture, all but some five or six were answered by actual granting of the petition—and all, without exception, procured blessings such as God alone can give.—Exchange.

European Powers Preparing for War

THE following remarks are from the Rochester Democrat, and are interesting to the student of prophecy:

England has been arming her civic population until she has over 25,000 volunteers ready for service. Never were her dock-yards more active than at the present moment, some thirty or forty vessels of war being in course of construction.—“The Warrior,” a steamer clad with iron plates four inches thick, and with a tonnage only one quarter less than the Great Eastern, has also been introduced to her native element. Meantime France adds new companies to each regiment, and recalls her soldiers on forlough, as do also Russia and Austria. Italy is also preparing to muster her half million of men, to take part with Garibaldi in the attack on Venetia; even the Pope—poor old man—grows warlike, and is about organizing a fresh army.

But when and where, and between what powers hostilities are to break out, is the point that cannot be with certainty foreseen.

Freaks of Memory.

By Editor

A British captain, whilst giving orders on the quarter deck of his ship at the battle of the Nile, was struck on the head by a shot and immediately became senseless. He was taken home, and removed to Greenwich Hospital, where for fifteen months he evinced no sign of intilligence. He was then trepanned, and immediately upon the operation being performed, consciousness returned, and he immediately began busying himself to see the orders carried out that he had given during the battle, fifteen months previously. The clock-work of the brain, unaware that it had stopped, upon being set going again pointed to the exact minute on which it had left off.—Once a week.

Will the advocates of the conscious state of the dead, and the immortality of the soul, tell us where that soul was and what it is about during the fifteen months of this man’s insensibility. If a blow upon the head can knock it into unconsciousness, it looks to us far from certain, that death should effect its liberation into a higher sphere of intelligence and life.—Ed.

What is Coming.

Says an English correspondent of the N. W. Christian Advocate:—"Students of the Bible are anxiously pondering what will be the end of this universal agitation. Has the Lord’s controversy with the nations begun? Has he arisen to shake terribly the earth; and are we just entering on the era of terror and glory to which the seers of both Testaments so steadily point, and of which the Savior himself spoke so fully to his wondering disciples? Has the crisis of the Gentle dispensation come, and shall it be the privilege of the present generation to witness the greatest events spoken of in the fulfillment of prophecy?"

Character as a Testimony to Christ

Do not shrink from a profession of faith, and of all you have, for that would be a cowardly distrust of your principles; but take equal care to keep your character up with your professions. Have zeal; we have just seen the prime necessity for that; but pretend to no more than you have. A thousand eyes are watching—and some that you may not suspect—to find occasion for a stab at all religion in your hollow piety or your sanctimonious worldliness. Disappoint the wicked expectation. Shallow and inexcusable as that man’s objection is who objects to Christianity because its disciples are not perfect, furnish him in your own person wihout even his shadow of an apology. Character—noble, upright, pure, generous, devout, blameless character—that is testimony to Christ which every man and woman can afford—testimony the simplest and best. The deeper condemnation, then, must threaten that man who fails to bring it through the doubtful transactions of his business, and the immoralities of his self-indulgences; or that woman who fails to bring it, through the foolish levities of her behavior. Learning you may not have had opportunities to gather, as a contribution to your Master; genius may not have been your birthright; riches for splended subscriptions may be beyond your reach; but character is in your power, and where that is the express and open outgrowth of faith, it must be a strong unbelief that does not melt before the sweetness and majesty, the beauty and the strength, of its harmonious ascription to heaven.

Christians as Servants and Subjects

WHAT strange servants some Christians are! always at work for themselves, and never doing anything for him whom they call Master. And what subjects! ever desiring to take the reins of government into their own hands.

THOUGHTS ON THE ADVENT.

(Continued)

ANOTHER argument for the coming of the Lord, we draw from the promises of future reward to the righteous; and in these we see not only the fact of Christ's second coming, but also its necessity. The reward of the faithful followers of Christ is made to hinge upon the second advent. It therefore follows that without the coming of the Lord, there can be no fulfillment of the promises, no future reward; and hence every promise becomes a declaration that the Lord will come again. Let those who love the Lord and his appearing now turn with us to a few of the promises in question.

Says Peter [chap. iv, 4], "And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away." Here a crown of glory is promised to the faithful under-shepherds of the flock of Christ. When will it be bestowed? When the chief Shepherd shall appear. We have not an intimation throughout the book of God that this reward can be bestowed at any other time. Therefore, no appearing of the great Shepherd, no crowns of glory. But crowns of glory are promised on the immutable word of God; the chief Shepherd will therefore appear to perform the glorious coronation. Mark the language of this verse in another particular: It says, When the chief Shepherd shall appear. No invisible coming at the death-bed or in visitations of judgment or of mercy can here be meant. To appear, is to be in sight, to be visible to the eye; and such is to be the nature of the coming of the Son of man, when all the tribes of the earth shall see him, and wail because of him.

Paul in his second epistle to Timothy [iv, 8], speaks of his approaching martyrdom in these words: "For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day." What day? The remainder of the verse explains: "And not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing." Ah, that is it; the day of his appearing; for on no other day can all those that love his appearing receive their crowns. Having the same confidence that rested in the bosom of Paul, that sustained him in all his conflicts and toils, scourgings and imprisonments, we can toil on in cheerful hope, content to look for our reward where he looked for his—to the glorious day of the Lord's appearing.

The instructions of the great Teacher to one of the Pharisees to whose house he had been bidden to eat bread, was this: "When thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee; for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just." Luke xiv, 13, 14. Two great truths are here plainly stated: 1. That there is to be a resurrection of the just; and 2. That then, and not till then, the righteous are to be rewarded. But when is the resurrection to take place? It is when, as the Saviour himself declares in John v, 28, 29, the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of man. And when do they hear this voice? It is when, as Paul says in 1 Thess. iv, 16, the Lord himself shall descend from heaven, with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. That the term, archangel, is used to designate the Son of man, see Jude 9, and Dan. x, 21; xii, 1.

In 1 Cor. xv, Paul sets forth in a most forcible manner, the important place which the resurrection holds in the great scheme of redemption. He shows that all that has reference to a future dispensation centers in that event; that if there be no resurrection, all that we are doing in reference to a future life, is vain; for, in that case, even they that are dead in Christ have perished. Verse 18. But further on he shows, as in 1 Thess. iv, 16, above quoted, that the resurrection itself is dependent on the coming of the Son of man. The question then clearly stands thus: No second coming of the Lord, no resurrection; and if no resurrection, then no future life, and of consequence, no future reward. Let professed Christians who oppose the doctrine of the second advent think of this! Let them know that in their opposition they are attacking the very citadel of their only hope.

In our Saviour's last discourse to his disciples previous to his crucifixion, when he had occasion to tell them of his departure from them which was approaching, he immediately re-assures their hope and courage, by telling them that he would personally return and receive them to himself. John xiv, 1-4. "When Christ who is our life shall appear," says Paul to the Colossians, iii, 4, "then shall ye also appear with him in glory."

Yes, the Lord will come. In the immutable counsels of Heaven it is decreed; and neither man nor devils can alter or prevent it. Rejoice, patient and toil-worn believer. He whom you love, whom you are trying day by day to serve and glorify, and upon whom all your hopes are built, will assuredly appear. You shall yet see the King in his beauty, and behold the land that is very far off. Death may lay you low, but he cannot conquer; for your life is hid in One who is mightier than he. Col. iii, 3. The grave may cover you; but the voice of the Son of God shall yet be heard to its lowest depths calling forth his slumbering people. He for whom we wait has the keys of the grave, and Death is unable to make his bolts so firm that they cannot be forced by the Lord of life and glory. Blessed be the name of our dear Redeemer forevermore!

Sinner, the Lord will come; and which would you wish to be in the day of his appearing, his friend or foe? What you would be then, you must be now; for when the great decree shall have gone forth, He that is holy let him be holy still, and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still, it will be too late to change your position. He comes to render his anger with fury, and his rebukes with flames of fire [Isa. lxvi, 15]; and those who now scorn his truth and despise his followers, will then call for the rocks and mountains to bury them from his presence; but even the rocks and mountains will refuse to render even that sorry assistance to the enemies of the Son of God. Would that the solemn warnings which you now hear, might work in you the needed reformation. If you will not let them, yours must be the responsibility, and yours the consequence.

(To be continued.)

Continue reading: WHAT IS THE FINE GOLD OF REV. III, 18?