Signs of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 15. (4/10/1884)

Signs of the Times

Apr 10, 1884

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 10, 1884

General Articles.

By Mrs. E. G. White

The Training of Children.

BY MRS. E. G. WHITE.

WE are living in an unfortunate age for children. A heavy current is setting downward, and more than childhood's strength and experience is needed to press against this current, and not be borne down to moral ruin. But parents can do much; they should help their children. The mother's work commences with the infant. She should subdue the will and temper of her child, and bring it into subjection, teach it to obey. Every mother should take time to reason with her children, to correct their errors, and patiently teach them the right way.

As the child grows older, relax not the hand. Christian parents should so instruct their children that they may become children of God. The entire religious experience is influenced by the instructions received, and the character formed in childhood. If the will is not then subdued and made to yield to the will of the parents, it will be a difficult task to learn the lesson in after years. Parents who neglect this important work, commit a great error, and sin against their children and against God.

If parents would succeed in the government of their children, they must have perfect control of themselves. They must learn to control their words and the very expression of the countenance. They should not suffer the tone of the voice to be disturbed or agitated with excitement or passion. Then they can have a decided influence over their children. Impatience in the parents excites impatience in the children. Passion manifested by the parents creates passion in the children, and stirs up the evils of their nature. Some parents correct their children severely in a spirit of impatience, and often in passion. Such corrections produce no good results. In seeking to correct one evil they create two. Continual censuring and whipping hardens children, and weans their affections from their parents. First reason with your children, clearly point out their wrongs, and impress upon them that they have not only sinned against you, but against God. With your heart full of pity and sorrow for your erring children, pray with them before correcting them. Then they will see that you do not punish them because they have put you to inconvenience, or because you wish to vent your displeasure upon them, but from a sense of duty, for their good; and they will love and respect you.

Parents, every time you lose self-control, and speak and act impatiently, you sin against God. The recording angel writes every impatient, fretful word you utter to your children; every unguarded word spoken before them, carelessly or in jest, every word that is not chaste and elevated, he marks as a spot against your Christian character. Speak kindly to your children. Remember how sensitive you are, how little you can bear to be blamed, and do not lay upon them that which you cannot bear; for they are weaker than you, and cannot endure as much. The fruits of self-control, thoughtfulness, and pains-taking on your part will be a hundred-fold.

Let your pleasant, cheerful words ever be like sunbeams in your family. You have no right to bring a gloomy cloud over the happiness of your children by fault-finding, or severe censure for trifling mistakes. Actual wrong should be made to appear just as sinful as it is, and a firm, decided course should be pursued to prevent its recurrence; yet children should not be left in a hopeless state of mind, but with a degree of courage that they can improve, and gain your confidence and approval. Children may wish to do right, they may purpose in their hearts to be obedient; but they need help and encouragement. Parents should better qualify themselves to discharge their duty to their children. Some do not understand their children; they are not really acquainted with them. If parents would enter more fully into the feelings of their children, and draw out what is in their hearts, it would have a beneficial influence upon them.

Children would be saved many evils if they would become more familiar with their parents. Parents should encourage their children to confide in them, to be open and frank, to come to them with their difficulties, their little daily annoyances, and when they are perplexed as to what course is right, to lay the matter before their parents, and ask their advice. Who are so well calculated to see and point out their dangers as godly parents? Who can understand the peculiar temperaments of their children as well as they? The mother who has watched every turn of mind from infancy, and is acquainted with the natural disposition, is best prepared to counsel her children.

Children should very early be taught to be useful, to help themselves and to help others. Let the tax upon their strength be very light at first, and increase it a little every day, until they can do a proper amount of work each day without becoming excessively weary. Children who are petted and waited upon, always expect it; and if their expectations are not met, they are disappointed. This same disposition will be seen through their whole lives; they will be helpless, leaning upon others for aid, expecting others to favor them and yield to them. And if they are opposed, even after they have grown to manhood and womanhood, they think themselves abused; and thus they worry their way through the world, hardly able to bear their own weight, often murmuring and fretting because everything does not suit them.

The mistaken parents who are thus teaching their children lessons which will prove ruinous to them, are also planting thorns for their own feet. They think that by gratifying the wishes of their children, and letting them follow their own inclinations, they can gain their love. What an error! Children thus indulged grow up unrestrained in their desires, unyielding in their dispositions, selfish, exacting, and overbearing, a curse to themselves and to all around them. Many daughters can, without remorse of conscience, see their mothers toiling, cooking, washing, or ironing, while they sit in the parlor and read stories, knit edging, crochet, or embroider. Their hearts are as unfeeling as a stone. But where does this wrong originate? Who are the ones usually most to blame in this matter? The poor, deceived parents. They overlook the future good of their children, and in their mistaken fondness, let them sit in idleness, or do that which is of but little account, which requires no exercise of the mind or muscles, and then excuse their indolent daughters because they are weakly. What has made them weakly? In many cases it has been the wrong course of the parents. A proper amount of exercise about the house would improve both mind and body.

Mothers should take their daughters with them into the kitchen, and patiently educate them. Their constitution will be better for such labor; their muscles will gain tone and strength, and their meditations will be more healthy and elevated at the close of the day. They may be weary, but how sweet is rest after a proper amount of labor. Sleep, nature's sweet restorer, invigorates the tired body, and prepares it for the next day's duties. Do not intimate to your children that it is no matter whether they do anything or not. Teach them that their help is needed, that their time is of value, and that you depend on their labor. Much sin results from idleness. Active hands and minds do not find time to heed every temptation which the enemy suggests; but idle hands and brains are all ready for Satan to control. When not properly occupied, the mind dwells upon improper things.

To a great extent, parents hold in their own hands the future happiness of their children. They sow the seed which will spring up and bear fruit either for good or evil. Upon them rests the important work of forming the character of these children. The instructions given in childhood, will follow them all through life. Parents can train their sons and daughters for happiness or for misery. They should deal faithfully with the souls committed to their trust. They should not encourage in their children pride, extravagance, or love of show. They should not teach them, or suffer them to

learn, little pranks which appear cunning in small children, but which must be corrected when they are older. The habits first formed are not easily forgotten.

Parents, you should commence to discipline the minds of your children while very young, to the end that they may be Christians. Let all your efforts be for their salvation. Act as though they were placed in your care to be fitted as precious jewels to shine in the kingdom of God. Beware how you lull them to sleep over the pit of destruction, with the mistaken thought that they are not old enough to be accountable, not old enough to repent of their sins and serve God.

There are many precious promises on record for those who seek their Saviour early. Eccl. 12:1: "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them." Prov. 8:17: "I love them that love me, and those that seek me early shall find me." The great Shepherd of Israel is still saying, "Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of Heaven." Teach your children that youth is the best time to seek the Lord. Then the burdens of life are not heavy upon them, and their young minds are not harassed with care, and while so free they should devote the best of their strength to God.

STILL WITH THEE.

By Harriet Beecher Stowe

"When I awake, I am still with Thee." Ps. 139:18.

STILL, still with Thee, when purple morning breaketh, When the bird waketh, and the shadows flee; Fairer than morning, lovlier than daylight, Dawns the sweet consciousness—I am with Thee.

Alone with Thee, amid the mystic shadows, The solemn hush of nature newly born; Alone with Thee in breathless adoration, In the calm dew and freshness of the morn.

As in the dawning, o'er the waveless ocean, The image of the morning star doth rest, So in this stillness Thou beholdest only Thine image in the waters of thy breast.

When sinks the soul, subdued by toil, to slumber, Its closing eye looks up to Thee in prayer, Sweet the repose, beneath thy wings o'er shadowing, But sweeter still to wake and find Thee there.

So shall it be at last, in that bright morning, When the soul waketh, and life's shadows flee; Oh! in that hour, fairer than daylight's dawning, Shall rise the glorious thought, I am with Thee. —Harriet Beecher Stowe.

The Blank between the Testaments.

By John F. Hurst

Of all the historical periods, the four centuries intervening between the close of the Old Testament inspiration and the birth of Christ seem to be the most obscure, and to have the least significance. Why this hiatus? The question has to do with that larger mystery, the irregularity in time, in attainments of the writers, and in social status, that prevails through all the Scriptural authorship. There appears to be no law as to the order or place of the coming of these writers. In one period, several of them are contemporaries, and the age is all astir with their presence and revolutionary speech. In another, hardly a syllable of divine authority is heard. Moses, the historian of the creation, and the genesis and escape of the church, was not born until B. C. 1738; so that while the entire Old Testament was written within the space of somewhat over thirteen centuries, even this period was irregularly divided in sacred authorship. The short time of less than three-quarters of a century, covers the whole writing of the New Testament, and this, again, is unequally distributed.

But we nowhere find such a period of complete silence, such a total pause in the divine teaching, as that between the Old Testament and the New. Even when the evangelists begin to write, they vary totally from their predecessors, who had taken up the finest thread in order, so that from Moses, and indeed from Adam, to Malachi, we have a consecutive history. But this blank in sacred history is not filled by any or all the evangelists. If we would know what took place, we must learn it from the doubtful Apocrypha, or glean it from the Roman memoranda. The inspired biographers of Christ, pass it over as not relevant to their purpose. Matthew, in his genealogy of Christ, gives only four verses to the four centuries, while Luke, reversing Matthew's order, comprises it in six. In both cases it is simply the family history, as if nothing were of moment besides proving the royal line of Jesus. Those centuries of great sorrow, of national aspiration, of unsurpassed heroism, and of final subjection and despair, are passed by without any inspired characterization.

It is not difficult to trace this interjacent history. It lies so near the later period, that we hear its hollow echoes as we listen to the song of the angels above the hill-side at Bethlehem. During this time Palestine had emerged from its provincial seclusion, and come within the whirl of the struggles of the great nations, and Greek historiography was already assuming systematic force. Since then, too, even in our own days, much new light has been thrown on those apparently wasted centuries. The researches of George Smith in the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates touch but slightly on the time in question; but his information is of such a character that we have new views of the exile, and we know that the later centuries bore traces enough of that exile. The Jew and his country come out from the eddies along the shore, and enter the current of the world's life. Sir George Rawlinson, when he describes the sixth great oriental monarchy (Parthia), goes over this very ground; and in his Seventh Monarchy, which is a description of the Sassanian or New Persian Empire, he gives invaluable information concerning the period.

The four centuries present a great variety of historical forces. We see all the passion, the bloodshed, the caprice, and the power of gifted women, in shaping events, that we do on the broader arena of the world's conflicts. The historians have divided the whole time in various ways. As good as any is that according to the rulers of the country, namely, The further Persian domination, to B. C. 331; the Greek supremacy, B. C. 331-167; the Maccabæan independence, B. C. 167-63; and the Roman rule, represented by the Herodian house, B. C. 40 to A. D. 70. The Persians ruled, by virtue of their military power, as far west as the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, and the Greeks succeeded them as a direct result of the conquests of Alexander. The East, under Xerxes, had striven for European mastery, but was defeated within sight of Athens, at the battle of Salamis:

"A king sat on the rocky brow Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis; And ships by thousands, lay below, And men and nations—all were his! He counted them at break of day— And when the sun set, where were they?"

The European reaction took shape in the Asiatic conquests of Alexander. The Greek domination was overthrown by the assertion of the national feeling, when the Maccabæan family strove for the restoration of the old Davidic glory and the rehabilitation of the Hebrew faith. This national revival ended, not by a restoration of Greek rule, but by the power of Rome, which controlled the country by the corrupt and cruel native family of Herodians. The Herods were always willing to please the Cæsars, and, in turn, were supported by Roman soldiers.

If we inquire into the causes of the cessation and withdrawal of inspiration during this period, it will be easy to see that prominent among them is that the necessity no longer existed. There had already been a sufficient divine communication. The history of the development of the church from one family, and the one man Abraham, and the migration from Egypt, and the growth into a kingdom, and the exile, and the return, had been given. A rich psalmody, by which the servants of Jehovah might express the joy and sorrow of the soul, had been produced. The prophets had spoken, and had so minutely described the coming of Christ, and his history and office, that even the manner of his sufferings was communicated by them to the people. All the light needed for instruction and reproof, and for the awakening of hope, had been furnished. Had a new race of prophets arisen, their revelations could not have altered either the reception given to our Lord, or in any vital sense have been an improvement upon the bold utterances of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, and the lesser seers.

Further, it was during this time that the Jew had his first successful opportunity to learn that his prosperity did not depend on temporal glory. The brief national revival, under the Maccabæan family, is a striking proof of the final failure of patriotism without the element of religion. We must sympathize with the aspirations of the aged Jewish priest, Mattathias, who escaped with his five sons, John, Simon, Judas, Eleazar, and Jonathan, from the persecution in Jerusalem, and dwelt in Modin. He longed for deliverance from the heel of the foreigner. His ancestor, Chasmon, had given the Asmonæan name to the family, and it was now the hope of Mattathias that one of his sons, at least, might restore the kingdom. Judas was the leader. He was as brave as David had been. He passed into history as Maccabæus, or The Hammerer, just as, later, Charles was called Martel, because he gave the death-blow to his foes at Tours. The reign of the Maccabæans was brilliant. It became a terror to the surrounding nations. But it was political, and its inspiring motives were purely secular. There was no great moral background to it from beginning to end. In fact, there was a secularization of even the religious worship of the people. With the rulers of that family, the revival of Judaism was the political overthrow of the Greeks. In due time the Romans came, and not only captured the country, but supported on the throne the Herods, a family which combined all the corrupt qualities of both the Jewish and Roman races.

One can read in those centuries of intermitted inspiration, the divine purpose to preserve a remnant of the sacred people, as the starting-point of a new dispensation, in spite of the persistent attempts, on the part of both the Oriental conquerors and the Greeks, to blot out the worship of Jehovah. One would naturally expect that, if the Persians did not complete the overthrow of the worship of Jehovah in Palestine, the Greeks would certainly succeed. Their culture and military glory would be likely to captivate, and make a long-despondent people look in other directions for the beginnings of a more hopeful career. But this rule, with its one hundred and sixty-four years of persistent effort to eradicate the worship of God, and substitute the mythology of Greece, proved a failure. The Jewish people were more positive monotheists afterward than before. With all their infirmities, with their misreading of the prophetic scriptures, and with their realistic interpretation of Messianic predictions, they were still lovers of the temple service, and lived in hope of a better time for the old faith of the fathers. There is just this philosophy, then, underlying the Greek rule, the Jew was a Jew still. He had faith, often mistaken and misguided, in Jehovah. No enchanting myth from beautiful Greece had any charm for him. He wanted the Greek, with all his splendid history and idealism, away. He was ready to die, but not to become a cultivated pagan.

When we remember that it was during this period that the world's soil was prepared for the propagation of the gospel, the significance of the interval assumes greater force. The Greek language became the vehicle for thought in all the centers, as a direct result of Alexander's conquests. Alexandria was built up into a strong Hellenistic center, whence went out in later years the Septuagint version of the Old Testament. Jewish colonies, the point of pagan persecution, swarmed around the Mediterranean, and became the nuclei of the Pauline societies, and the beginning of universal Christianity. The Jewish nationality passed away forever, and paganism had proved its incapacity to take its place. It was a universal breaking up of the old soil, and its full preparation for the broadest sowing known to men, whose ripest harvest we have not yet seen.—Bishop John F. Hurst, D. D., LL.D.

The Ease of Fault-Finding

NOTHING is easier than fault-finding. No talent, no self-denial, no brain, no character are required to set up in the grumbling business. But those who are moved by genuine desire to do good, have little time for murmuring or complaint.

The Change of the Sabbath.

By G. C. Tenney

To convince people that the seventh day is the Sabbath according to Bible testimony is not a very difficult task. And to show them that there is no divine authority for the observance of the first day of the week may be easily done. Were those who are thus convinced ready to promptly reject the false and accept the true, the work of spreading the Sabbath truth would be comparatively light. Though nothing short of an overwhelming volume of evidence will do this work with many, the required amount is at hand in the simple fact that God has said, "The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work." And he has never spoken anything to the contrary. And the examples and teachings of all Bible writers, including Christ and his apostles, are in harmony with the word of the Lord. To make this apparent is a pleasant and easy work; and then the way of duty would seem to be clear.

But at the time we would naturally look for people to embrace the truth of God "flesh and blood" must be conferred with, and questions begin to arise. "Drowning men will catch at straws," we say, and there are many such frail supports floating on the stream of Sunday-keeping. It is surprising upon how small a straw some will endeavor to keep their heads above water on the streams of popular favor (of which Sunday observance is one branch), and support a profession of religion, while the Saviour says, "In vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." Matt. 15:9.

One of the first questions which arises in the mind of serious inquirers is, How has this change come about? God appointed the seventh day, and for ages he has suffered his people to observe the first day. Since the change has been so universally acknowledged, has it not thus received his sanction? We say, God often permits what he does not sanction. There are times of ignorance at which God "winks," but there comes a time when he calls upon men to repent. Many cases of this kind occur to every mind at all familiar with the history of God's people. Is the experience of the Sabbath truth a similar one? We believe it is. It is not necessary to inquire into the reason why it should be so, why this important part of God's worship should be for a long time hidden from his people. It has been so, and it cannot be denied. And a more significant fact is, that God said many centuries before the change took place that it should be so, and that it should be by the action of a persecuting, blasphemous power, the "man of sin," who, as Paul says, "opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God."

The prediction is found in Dan. 7:25, a prophecy referring without doubt to the papacy. Here it is said, "he (the papacy) shall think to change times and laws; and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time." That this language applies to the papacy but few others than papists will deny. How then could it perform the work which is here allotted to it? Something more than human times and laws are referred to, as changing these would not distinguish any power. But this power is to exalt himself above God. In no way can this be done so effectually as in opposing the law of God. How well this work has been accomplished the history of the Sabbath since the days of primitive Christianity will fully illustrate. No one would for a moment suppose that human power could effect this change at a single step or decision.

The hold which the truth obtained upon the early disciples could not be shaken at once. It was by the slow, stealthy approach of an enemy into the heart of a fortified camp. Says Paul, of his own times, "The mystery of iniquity doth already work; only he who now leth [hindereth] will let, until he be taken out of the way. Paganism gave place to the papacy, and when this iniquitous system was strengthened by the arm of the Roman Empire, actuated by a Satanic influence, nothing within the range of human possibilities could restrict its action."

The Saviour set his seal to the Sabbath by saying: "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath." Had this language been applied to the first day of the week, designating that day as the Sabbath, it would have been regarded as a precept for the observance of Sunday. And rightly too. How much short of a command does it come applied to the Sabbath of the Lord? Not any. An unbroken line of testimony for the observance of the seventh day may be found in the lives of the apostles, and to the close of the sacred volume. In the Bible there is no account of a change of the Sabbath except in its prediction of the work of the "man of sin." Upon the manner of this change, and how it was brought about, it is the principal object of this article to introduce the testimony of "Chambers' Encyclopedia." We do so with satisfaction, on account of the standard and unbiased nature of its authority:—

"Hitherto we have spoken of the observance of Saturday, the day of rest prescribed to the Jews, and to which exclusively the name of the Sabbath-day was anciently applied, and still continues to be given by every nation but the English and its offshoots. At what date the Sunday, or first day of the week, began to be generally used by Christians as a stated time for religious meetings, we have no definite information either in the New Testament, or in the writings of the Fathers of the church. By none of the fathers before the fourth century is it identified with the Sabbath, nor is the duty of observing it grounded by them either on the fourth commandment, or on the precept or example of Jesus or his apostles. . . . 'On what grounds, then, did the Christians observe the first day of the week as a time for religious assemblies? How and when did the custom of so distinguishing it begin? To these questions very different answers have been given.'"

After giving some of the conflicting reasons which are usually offered for first-day observance, the author continues by bringing up the first mention of Sunday meetings, and commenting as follows:—

"By Justin, in whose 'Apology for the Christians to Antoninus Pius,' written between 138 and 150 A. D., the earliest undoubted mention of Sunday meetings in the works of the Fathers occurs. Several reasons for holding them then are assigned—the first being, that on this day of the week the world and light were created; and the second being the resurrection of Christ. 'We all of us,' says he, 'assemble together on Sunday, because it is the first day in which God changed darkness and matter, and made the world. On the same day, also, Jesus Christ our Saviour rose from the dead; for he was crucified on the day before that of Saturn, and on the day after that of Saturn, which is that of the sun, he appeared to his apostles and disciples, and taught them what we now submit to your consideration.' To these reasons, Origen adds the fact that manna was first given to the Israelites on a Sunday; while subsequent writers adduce various other events, either recorded or by them imagined, to have occurred on that day. In arguing with Trypho, Justin opposes Sabbath-keeping by Christians, on grounds which would have been retorted by the Jew as condemning equally the observance of a first-day Sabbath, had the Sunday at that time been regarded as the Sabbath; from which fact, and the circumstance that in his 'Apology' already mentioned, where he professes to give the Emperor Antoninus a full account of the observance of the day, no mention is made of rest from labor as a part of that observance, the inference has been drawn that, except during the time of divine service, the Christians in this Fathers' age thought it lawful to follow, and actually did follow, their worldly pursuits on the Sunday. It is true that by Tertullian, who wrote in the latter half of the second century, the Christians are described as 'putting off even their business on the Lord's day, lest they might give place to the devil; an indication, in Neander's opinion, that now the Jewish law of the Sabbath had begun to be applied to the Lord's day. But the soundness of this interpretation has been questioned—Dr. Hussey, for instance stating that he can find in it 'nothing Sabbatarian—nothing, in fact, more than I should have expected, considering that the church had become somewhat settled—that, rather than that the duties peculiar to the Lord's day should be neglected, worldly business was to be put off to another day.'"

"But whatever may have been the opinion and practices of these early Christians in regard to cessation from labor on the Sunday, unquestionably the first law, either ecclesiastical or civil, by which the sabbatical observance of that day is known to have been ordained, is the edict of Constantine, 321 A. D., of which the following is a translation: 'Let all judges, inhabitants of the cities, artificers, rest on the venerable Sunday. But in the country, husbandmen may freely and lawfully engage in the business of agriculture; since it often happens that the sowing of corn and the planting of vines cannot be so advantageously performed on any other day; lest, by neglecting the opportunity, they should lose the benefits which the divine bounty bestows on us.' . . ."

"It was a natural result of Constantine's law, backed by such interpretations of the Old Testament as these, that, in the words of Dr. Hussey, 'a new era in the history of the Lord's day now commenced, tendencies toward Sabbatarianism, or confusion of the Christian with the Jewish institution, beginning to manifest themselves. These, however, were slight until the end of the fifth century, and are traceable chiefly to and in the civil legislation of the period.' . . . But it was not until the year 538 that abstinence from agricultural labor on Sunday was recommended, rather than enjoined, by an ecclesiastical authority (the third council of Orleans), and this expressly that the people might have more leisure to go to church and say their prayers. Nor was it till about the end of the ninth century, that the Emperor Leo, 'the philosopher,' repealed the exemption which it enjoyed under the edict of Constantine."

"And now the Lord's day being thoroughly established by law, as a sabbath, the fourth commandment would more than ever be employed by the clergy as a means of persuading to its observance."

The points we have presented in this article on the change of the Sabbath are, that there is no sacred authority for the change; but the Scriptures foretell that it shall be undertaken, and temporarily accomplished by the action of a blasphemous power under the semblance of religion. We have produced a concise account of how the change was brought about, corroborating the prediction, and showing that although the change was a gradual one, it kept pace with, and denoted at every step, the development of the power of the "man of sin." If any further evidence could be required it may be found in the admissions or bold claims of the papal church, which proudly boasts of having accomplished this work, and offers this fact as an evidence of its supreme power. These claims are set forth in their numerous catechisms, and the reader is already, or may become, familiar with them. G. C. TENNEY.

God Sees All Our Ways

God's eyes are upon the ways of man, and he seeth all his goings.—Job.

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