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Review and Herald, Vol. 40, No. 17.

RELIGIOUS INVENTIONS

Review and Herald

Oct 8, 1872

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 8, 1872

RELIGIOUS INVENTIONS.

By Albert Stone

BY ELD. ALBERT STONE.
Text, Eccl. 7:29: “Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.”
Webster’s definition of the word upright, is, “Perpendicular to the plane of the horizon, erect; just, honest.”
Such was the original position of man both physically and morally. His superiority to animals is indicated by the erect posture of his body, as well as by his moral endowments.
In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him.” The law of God was written in his heart, and though mostly obliterated by the fall, a portion dimly remains; so that “the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.” Rom. 1:20, 21.
The gospel plan is to re-write the law of God in man’s heart, in order to bring him back to his original state. But he does not like the idea of dependence on his Maker, and chooses to depend on his own inventions to better his condition.
We shall briefly notice some of the inventions that man has sought out. The unsanctified use of this propensity commenced early in man’s history. It always has one object, and that is to avoid submission to the Lord. And this it tries to accomplish in one of three ways.
1. To add to God’s plan, or,
2. Take something from it, or,
3. To substitute some plan entirely new.
Thus Adam and Eve in paradise thought to improve their condition by appropriating to their use a forbidden object. “When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.” Gen. 3:6.
Through the deception of the serpent upon her mind, Eve thought to better their state, to please the sight of the eyes, to gratify the appetite, and increase their stock of wisdom. Dissatisfied with the great and good things God had given them, even free access to the fruit of the tree of life, and all the trees of the garden with the exception of one; uninterrupted communion with their Creator, and free converse with the angels, and the dominion of the world, were not enough to satisfy them. They must have some additional privileges to complete their enjoyment.
As though they could do better for themselves than their Creator could do for them, they must add an important item to consummate their happiness, they must place one gem in their crown as the fruit of their own invention, they must have some hand in fixing their happy state. But they found to their cost that God’s way was best; and in their foolish attempts to mend it, they had brought ruin on the whole of their inheritance, and incurred the displeasure of their Creator.
After the flood, in the days of Noah, when men had multiplied somewhat upon the earth, and not liking to retain God in their thoughts, much less to be governed in their conduct by the principles of the law of God, they conceived the plan of evading the judgments of God, in case of another flood, by building a tower so high that the top of it should reach to heaven, that they might escape thither and be safe from the impending storm.
The strong faith of the men of that time in the success of such an enterprise, is evinced in the spirit of sacrifice and union of effort put forth in the construction of the tower and city of Babel. But their work was frustrated and the people scattered by the wonderful interposition of divine power. Their language was confounded, and they could not go on with the work.
But there was as much common sense with the men of that generation in regard to that enterprise, and as much prospect of success, as in various enterprises of a later date, invented ostensibly for some religious end, but really to adapt religion to the carnal mind, to harmonize it with the love and practice of the world, to sap the foundation of moral principle, and turn the truth of God into a lie.
If religionists would be as earnest to sustain and practice moral principle as they are, in many cases, to evade it, if they would sacrifice half as much for truth as they do for error, if they would avoid sin as they do holiness, if they would labor for the soul as they do for the body, if they would yield to be led by the Spirit of God as they do to be led by the spirit of the world; in short, if they would do as much for the God that created them, and the Saviour that redeemed them, as they do for sin and Satan that would destroy them, then would their professed hopes of salvation be more in accordance with reason and the word of God.
The truth is, too many professors of this degenerate age are not half converted. They are more afraid of doing too much than too little. They study more to know how little they can do and be saved, than they do to do the whole will of God. The hopes of many professors are mere labels. God is not for them, but against them. They cry, Lord, Lord, but do not the things he commands them. To such, the Lord will say, “Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity;” “I never knew you.”
3. But there is another class of religious inventors described in Ex. 32. Just as the Hebrew people had obtained deliverance from their bondage in Egypt, and had witnessed the most wonderful displays of the power and majesty of God in their deliverance and the destruction of their enemies, and had come as far as the wilderness of Mt. Sinai, and Moses was gone up into the mount to receive the tables of the law and deliver them to the people; under these circumstances the people relapsed into the grossest idolatry, by inventing and worshiping a golden calf.
“They made a calf in Horeb, and worshiped the molten image. Thus they changed their glory into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass.” Ps. 106:19, 20.
This is another divinely recorded attempt of the people of God to make improvements in religion by their inventions. And here are certainly some of the ingredients of true worship. Here is devotion, zeal, and the spirit of sacrifice. Both men and women contributed of their golden jewelry to this enterprise.
And for our part we are unable to see why this whole affair, which occurred in the camp of Israel at the foot of Sinai’s Mount, where the great God, in most terrible grandeur, was giving his law to man, is not as befitting as some more modern inventions of the people of God that have occurred at the foot of Mount Calvary, where our Lord was crucified. The gospel dispensation has not been lacking in attempted inventions and improvements in its doctrines, ordinances, and laws, by its professed friends.
4. Naaman, the captain of the host of the king of Assyria, is another case in point illustrating this propensity in man. He was a man of standing and character in the Assyrian court; but he was grievously afflicted with leprosy. When he appeared before the door of the house of Elisha the man of God, with his horses and his chariot and his rich presents of silver and gold, to be healed of his disease, he expected and hoped for some pompous display, some popular demonstration, that would be in keeping with his high standing in the king’s court.
But when he found nothing in the demeanor of the prophet, or in the means to be used for the cure of his disease, to feed his vanity or foster the pride of his heart, he was greatly offended, and went away in a rage; not, however, till he had invented and proposed for his cure a plan more congenial with the feelings of his proud heart.
Thus many are willing to receive the Lord’s benefits, provided he would bestow them in a manner which they might dictate, so as not to mar their pride, or interfere in any way with their worldly interests and enjoyments. But if they are required to deny self, reform their life, and be governed in their actions by the rules of pure morality, they will at once manifest a preference for an easier way, and one more congenial with the carnal and depraved mind, and are ready to invent some addition to, or diminution from, the straight testimony of the word of God, so as to divest their religion of all vitality and moral principle. That which many regard as Bible religion, and trust in for salvation, is well compared to a carcass, bereft of heart and bowels, without life or vital principle. Sinners out of the church, and in the church, will have their own way till converted.
The means of conversion are found in the law of God. “The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul.” Ps. 19:7. The means of salvation are found in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
4. The doctrine of the conversion of the world is another invention of man. It is impossible for the world to be converted, because,
1st. There is nothing in the programme of Christ’s work, as laid down in the Scriptures, that favors such a view.
2d. There are doctrines taught in the Bible that cannot be harmonized with the world’s conversion.
The great tribulation of the church from persecuting and belligerent powers, as taught by our Lord and his apostles, is to continue through the entire gospel dispensation, so that all the saved, during the gospel dispensation, are described as those who have come up through great tribulation and made their robes white in the blood of the Lamb. Rev. 7:9–14. See also Ps. 2:8, 9; Dan. 7:21, 22.
Daniel Whitby, who lived less than two centuries ago, was the first that taught the doctrine of the world’s conversion. It was alike unknown to the apostles, and to the dark ages of papal rule. It was reserved for the last days, to be used in opposition to the Bible doctrine of the second advent of Christ.
Satan well knew when it would do the greatest harm to the cause of God and the salvation of souls, and has accordingly reserved it to help carry out his great plan of deceiving and ensnaring the world.
6. Another doctrine, nearly related to the above, is that of the spiritual coming and spiritual reign of Christ on the earth during a thousand years.
I will not stop here to argue this point further than to present the testimony of two of the heavenly angels that waited on Christ at his ascension. “Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.” Acts 1:11.
These false theories of the conversion of the world, temporal millennium, and spiritual reign of Christ, are doubtless honestly believed by many, not because they are true, but because they are pleasant to the unsanctified mind. They are the cry of peace and safety, and sign of sudden destruction. 1 Thess. 5:3.
7. The theory of man’s natural immortality is another invention which man has sought out. God made man upright, but not immortal. This rich gift God has always held in reserve, to bestow upon the faithful at the resurrection. God only hath it. Jesus Christ has brought it to light through the gospel; and it is now presented as an object to be sought, and thus obtained. “God only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto.” “But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.” “Who will render to every man according to his deeds: to them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life.” 1 Tim. 6:16; 2 Tim. 1:10; Rom. 2:6, 7.
This fundamental error in Christian doctrine was concocted in the schools of heathen philosophy, seized upon by the church, dressed in religious costume, by drawing around it an array of false interpolation of Scripture, and thus made the pillar and ground, not of the truth, but of modern spiritualism, the most fatal and widespread delusion that ever eclipsed the moral atmosphere, or hurled the race of man by wholesale into the vortex of irrecoverable ruin.
8. The ordinance of baptism has not been permitted to escape the polluting touch of man’s inventive proclivities. Baptism is designed to follow conversion. In a beautiful figure, it sets forth a dying unto sin and a resurrection to holiness. It sets forth also the believer’s conformity to Christ, by being “buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.” Rom. 6:4–6.
But other modes than the Bible mode of immersion, and other subjects than those pointed out in Scripture, have been brought in by the inventions of men. “God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.” And by every one of these inventions mankind commit sin and dishonor God.
9. Another invention is the substitution of the first day of the week for the Sabbath of the Lord. The Sabbath was instituted in Eden and given to man while yet in innocence, for a most important and useful purpose. Its design is to memorialize the Creator in the work of the creation of the world, and thus perpetuate the knowledge and worship of the true God.
The Sabbath is a fundamental truth. It is one of the pillars on which the government of God rests. “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” Ps. 11:3. The Sabbath underlies everything valuable to man in the work of creation and redemption. It is the link in the chain of truth through which the knowledge of God is perpetuated to man.
The change of the Sabbath to any other than the seventh day of the week, virtually involves a transfer of the worship of the true God to the power that has wrought the change. “To whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness.” Rom. 6:16. Thus saith the Lord, “Walk in my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them; and hallow my Sabbaths, and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the Lord your God.”
Had the Sabbath been permitted to occupy its proper place, idolatry had never overrun the world and caused the name of God to be forgotten and rejected by a majority of mankind in all ages, as has been the case.
But who changed the Sabbath? If the above views are correct, the change of the Sabbath has been effected by some person or government that has sought exaltation, that has been vitally opposed to the government of God, that has by fraud usurped the throne and worship of God. Inspiration points to the “man of sin” as doing this very work. “And he shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.” “For that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.” Dan. 7:25; 2 Thess. 2:3, 4.
Thus the man of sin has thought to change the law of God, especially that part that relates to the Sabbath. He has put the first day of the week in place of the seventh; or, in other words, he has erased the name of God from his law, and inserted his own; or still in other language, he has blotted out the sign of God, and placed instead the sign of the man of sin, which are, respectively, the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, and the Sunday of the man of sin.
This fraudulent action and blasphemy of the man of sin is accepted by Protestant Christians and churches, with few exceptions, throughout the world. Thus the Scripture is fulfilled.
1. The man of sin opposes and exalts himself above God.
2. Thinks to change times and laws.
3. The saints are given into his hand.
4. He sits in the temple of God, and shows that he is God.
5. By solemn, weekly acts of voluntary worship, his claims, and blasphemous pretensions are acknowledged, as well by Protestants as Papists.
How forcibly does the language of the prophet apply here: “Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? but my people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit. Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be ye very desolate, saith the Lord. For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.” Jer. 2:11–13.
Dear friends and brethren who observe the first day of the week, are these conclusions legitimate? Are these things so? Remember that while God has winked at the times of ignorance in the past, he now commandeth all men everywhere to repent.
Will God accept acts of worship offered to another, though sincerely offered? Will God accept the majority because they are many? Will he reject the few because they are few, though they may stand in the truth?
Do not pass lightly over this subject. Angels are interested, God is interested. He will not regard the dishonor done to his name as a light thing. The truth is interested; and will you not stand up for it? Salvation is pending, and will you think lightly of it?

FAITH'S ANSWER.

Still as of old, Thy precious word Is by the nations dimly heard; The hearts its holiness hath stirred Are weak and few.
Wise men the secret dare not tell, Still in thy temple slumbers well Good Eli; O, like Samuel, Lord, here am I!
Few years, no wisdom, no renown, Only my life can I lay down; Only my heart, Lord, to thy throne I bring; and pray That, child of thine, I may go forth And spread glad tidings through the earth, And teach sad hearts to know thy worth, Lord, here am I!
Thy messenger, all-loving One! The errands of thy truth to run, The wisdom of thy holy Son To teach and live! No purse or scrip, no staff or sword; Be pure intent my wings, O Lord! Lord, here am I!
Young lips may teach the wise, Christ said; Weak feet sad wanderers home have led; Small hands have cheered the sick one's bed With freshest flowers; Yet teach me, Father! I heed their sighs, While many a soul in darkness lies, And waits thy message; make me wise! Lord, here am I!
And make me strong; that staff and stay, And guide and guardian of the way, To thee-ward I may bear each day, Some precious soul. “Speak, for I hear!” make “pure in heart” Thy face to see. Thy truth impart In hut and hall, in church and mart. Lord, here am I!
I ask no Heaven till earth be thine, Nor glory-crown while work of mine Remaineth here; when earth shall shine Among the stars, Her sins wiped out, her captives free, Her voice a music unto thee, For crown new work give thou to me; Lord, here am I!

The Wrong Cross.

By Mrs. Chaplin

The expression, “take up your cross,” means, in the cant of some communities, to “talk in meeting;” and the persons whose persistent volubility at every meeting is an annoyance, often talk of “taking up their cross,” when by their course they only lay a cross on other people.
There was once a good lady, far up among the hills of New England, who felt herself competent to reprove, rebuke, admonish, and comfort; and so faithfully did she fulfill her imaginary mission that she and the minister had it all about their own way at the conference meetings. By the time the opening services were over, and she had talked, and a few hymns had been sung, it was time to go home. The brethren had to possess their souls in patience.
Our good sister was a widow, with broad lands and large flocks and herds, and not a little money in the bank. In the lifetime of her husband, who was not a professor of religion, she had really flattered herself that she desired to accomplish great things in the church and in the world, but was crippled in her work by the honest old farmer’s parsimony. But so deceitful is human nature, that when the estates became her own and there was none to check or to advise her, she at once curtailed all her charities, giving, as an excuse, that she was “a widow now, with no husband to work or to manage for her.”
But although sister Crane ceased giving, she did not cease talking; indeed, her volubility increased by the new field opened before her in her lonely lot. She took up “her cross” oftener and carried it longer than ever before. She invariably began her remarks by repeating the solemn statement concerning those who do not take up their cross and follow Christ, adding, “I feel that if I would be his disciple I must take up this cross.”
Sister Crane could do a great deal of work, for she was a wonderful manager; but she was not quite equal to managing two farms, a grist-mill, and a saw-mill. So, hard as it seemed to pay out ready money, she was obliged to hire a farmer; and very soon, a good, humble man, from another town, was installed, with his efficient wife and four bright boys, in the old cottage, a few rods from the large farm-house.
This farmer was a sensible, Christian man, but his usefulness in prayer-meetings and Sunday-schools was not a little hindered by a painful infirmity. He had an impediment in his speech, and when he tried to talk in presence of strangers, he became so nervous as to stutter, till his exhortations sounded as if delivered in an unknown tongue.
Being a stranger in the place, he was wholly ignorant of his new employer’s love for money and the tightness with which she drew her purse-strings. He knew her wealth, and looked on her as the chief pillar of this rather feeble church. Now to this good man, speaking in meeting, or, as he called it, “giving in his testimony,” was, indeed, a heavy cross. It excited his nerves and gave him a painful consciousness of making himself and his subject ludicrous by his efforts to get out his words.
Night after night he listened to Mrs. Crane as she talked of this heavy cross she was lifting and bearing after the Master, and he concluded at length that she was a timid, gracious soul, urging herself to a sacrifice which God did not require of her. And ere long, he got courage to set her right on the subject. One night, after her usual statement of the conflict between her soul and the adversary, in which he sought with diabolical temptations to smuggle her, but in which she always outwitted him, the humble man rose, and, as well as he could, sought to comfort her.
“I th-think,” he said, “the d-dear sister is wri-writing bitter things against herself, and lay-laying unjust bur-burdens on her s-soul. She’s g-got hold of the wr-wrong cross. She’s taken up mine in p-place of her own. I must crucify my-m-my p-pride by showing this th-thorn in my f-flesh. She must do it by gi-giving, and giving, and gi-giving, till the cross makes her sh-shoulders ache. That’s the cr-cross for her; but, oh, bearing my tes-testimony before a g-gainsaying world, that’s the cross that I’m tr-trying to c-carry up the hill, and that al-almost c-crushes me with its w-weight. T-take heart, sister; sh-shoulder up y-your own b-burden; it’s better fi-fitted to your sh-shoulder than mine is, and it’ll be easier borne and s-sooner b-blest.”
The innocent man only meant to say that her duty was to give of her wealth to the Lord; but that he, being poor, and having nothing else to give, must render the offering of his lips, however painful the effort might be to his pride. But the way he put it fell in so exactly with the ideas of the people that some were seen to smile, and others dropped their heads that they might not be seen to smile.
Sister Crane, good woman that she was, took the suggestion so innocently given. She went home asking herself, if, after all, it was a real cross for her to make herself a leader in the social meetings; and if she might not, perhaps, have been mistaken in the department of labor to which she had so nearly confined her efforts. She looked over her land, and herds, and flocks, and reckoned up their value; and then she looked around in vain for the being who needed them when she should be called to give account of her stewardship.
The truth her poor hired farmer so unwittingly stammered out awoke her from her delusion, and showed her that casting in of her abundance to the treasury of the Lord was her real cross—the one which Christ required her to take up and bear after him—and that the exercise which she in false humility had called her “cross,” had really been fostering her pride. Thenceforth she talked less and gave more; refrained from exhorting others; examined her own heart, and humbled herself before Him from whom she had withheld the treasures of which he had made her the steward. She laid down the wrong cross and took up the right one and carried it, until, day by day, it grew lighter, and soon it became a blessing to herself and others.—Mrs. CHAPLIN, in Watchman and Reflector.

Cutting off a Right Hand.

By E. P. Powell

A MAN makes a very poor Christian who does not cut off a right hand occasionally. Giving up the positively bad or doing congenial duty weaves a thin robe of righteousness. The good must be given for the better, and the better often sacrificed for the best. It often amounts to plucking out a right eye or cutting off a right hand. What we hold dearest, what we see by, and what we hold by, are often in the way of a higher, finer life.
I never understood Christ’s emphasis upon self-sacrifice till I had a dear friend shot within an inch of his heart with a double charge of pigeon-shot. The case was desperate. A messenger was sent in great haste to bring a famous surgeon from a neighboring city. But the gruff old man refused to come. “You must bleed him to death to save his life,” was all he would say. And so we did bleed him to the very edge of death, and saved his life. I understood then what Christ meant by, “He that would save his life must lose it.”
In our reaction from the perhaps too frigid style of Puritanism, we have come into an era of Christian luxury. The most superficial logic allows all manner of indulgences as harmless. The question, however, should not be, What harm is there in it? but, What good is there in it? A life cannot be Christian without positiveness.
A father has just been in to plead with me for help for one of his sons. Yesterday a mother came with agony inexpressible, and both had the same tale to tell. “Christians have done the work.” Our boys constantly reply, “If Mr. A. or Deacon C. can do so and so, why not I?” “And,” said a parent to me not long ago, “I told a prominent man in our church that I would hold him eternally accountable for the ruin of my boy. He led him to the billiard-hall, and coming away unscathed himself, he leaves my boy a prey to gamblers. How awful to have one’s own only son turned into a vile outcast.” “What did the man reply?” I asked. “He was angry, and declared that to him billiards and theaters were no harm.” Here was evidently a need of the sacrifice of a right hand.
Every pastor knows how difficult it is to lead his people to measure all their deeds by the possible effect on others. A prominent member of a Detroit church some time since said to me, “I want you to accompany my wife to the opera to-night.” “I cannot,” I replied. “Why not? you are disengaged, are you not?” “But in A., I have lads in my care that have been harmed by going; I do not wish them to go.” “But they will never know it.” “I would not, for the world, know it myself, while among them.”
There is very little likelihood of our knowing the effects of a careless action. Scores are willing to attend church, weekly prayer-meetings, make public profession of Christ; but the moment you ask of them to go not with the fashionable multitude, to bear the name of bigot or fanatic, for cutting off a right hand, they turn haughtily away. O soul! in that hour you turn away from the joy of God, from your best inheritance, and enter on a course of loss, compared with which a right arm is nothing.
A company of gay young men just called, and, in the course of our talk, one said, “But, Mr. P., are you opposed to theaters and such things? Most Christians now-a-days have given in, as to those affairs.” I said, “Not exactly; but I think, at least, one of my boys has been seriously damaged, and two ruined by them, for all high ends. And don’t you think I ought to save a soul rather than please myself? I cannot get the young to understand higher things, till they give up lower.” “You are right,” they responded.
I understand the “right hand” doctrine to be that every man has certain tastes, or habits, or methods of enjoyment, which are to him like a right eye or a right hand. He sets more by them than by all other methods of enjoyment. Every well-made man is adjusted to nature and to society so that he has strong points and strong inclinations. A true man is not a pond, but a river. He has a current; he runs east or west, north or south. We say of one, he runs to machinery; of another, he runs to natural science, or to the fine arts; another runs to mercantile pursuits. So one runs to one kind of emotional display, another to some other. One is fond of one pleasure, another runs to a very different style of enjoyment. And to give up ordinary pleasures or objects may be no sacrifice at all. It is easy for some to refrain from theaters and popular amusements; they cut off nothing in choosing, instead, a social gathering or a literary entertainment. They do not even pare a nail in preaching abstemiousness, temperance, and frugality. Their right hands are very different things. To go out among the low, the vulgar, the mean, and endure and give up valuable time, that cuts. To be one with the young in hours valued for high culture, that puts a sharp blade to the wrist.
Is it right for a man to even give himself to scholarly pursuits and absorb himself in even high moral problems, and not feel the errors and sins of his fellow-men? His thinking, certainly, will not be healthy. But is he right? Ought he not occasionally to cut off a right hand of mental luxury, of even intellectual attainment, and bear a hand in the prime work of saving? Will he not gain a broader culture, a wider sympathy, a deeper humanity, by touching the wants and the weaknesses of the prodigals and wanderers? There are men in the pulpit who do not know how to enter into any other human being’s experience. They write limitless essays on the philosophy of faith and prayer, on baptisms and skepticisms; they dispute with phantom Apollyons; they throw small shot at Huxley and Darwin, but all the community about them is essentially a foreign land. They do not feel into and feel with the currents of human daily life.
Jesus was Saviour in this, that he took up his cross daily for us, and gave himself for us.—REV. E. P. POWELL, in N. Y. Observer.

Science For All

“SCIENCE FOR ALL.”—The most necessary of all the sciences is to learn, by God’s help, to protect one’s self from the contagion of bad example.

The Art of Speaking and Writing.

A musician is not accounted an artist who, although thoroughly versed in the science of music, knows nothing practically of the art. It matters very little to the listening world how much he knows, if he can neither play nor sing. A man may talk or write very intelligently of picture and sculpture without the slightest practical skill in either branch of performance. So there are multitudes of men with well-stored minds, who live without access to the public, simply because they are not accomplished in the arts of expression by pen and tongue. These men have been trained for public life. They have expected to obtain a livelihood by public service. All their education has been shaped to this end; yet they lack just that one thing which will enable them to do it. That mode of approach and expression which is essential to their acceptableness as writers and speakers is lacking; and so their lives are failures.
The professorship of rhetoric and elocution has been regarded in most colleges as rather ornamental than useful; and only here and there has its incumbent manifested the disposition and the power to magnify his office, and perform the great duty that is placed in his hands. Slovenly writers and awkward and unattractive speakers are turned out of our colleges every year, almost by thousands, whose failure in public life is assured from the first, because they have acquired no mastery of the arts of expression. Men of inferior knowledge and inferior mental culture surpass them in the strife for public favor and influence, by address and skill. They are disgusted with the public, and charge their failure upon the popular stupidity. “Our honest toil has been in vain,” they say; “for the people cannot appreciate what we are, or what we have done. They like the shallow man best.”
This is not a just judgment. The brighter and stronger the man, the better the people like him, always provided that he understand the arts of writing and speech. Mr. Beecher, Mr. Phillips, Mr. George W. Curtis, and Mr. Collyer, are not shallow men, but they are accepted everywhere, and in all assemblies, as the masters of oratory. Mr. Webster, Mr. Clay, and Mr. S. S. Prentiss, in the old days, were not shallow men, but they were orators, and their power over multitudes was the power of giants. Not one of these men would now be heard of as men of national reputation had they not won the mastery of expression.
There is a quality in all good writing—writing thoroughly adapted to its purpose—which we call “readableness.” It is hard to define it, because in different productions it depends on different elements. Wit and humor impart this quality, if they are spontaneous and unobtrusive. Eminent lucidity, gracefulness of structure, epigrammatic terseness and strength, downright moral earnestness, gracefulness and facility of illustration, apposite antithesis, forms of expression and uses of words that are characteristic of individual thought and feeling—each and all of these have their function in imparting readableness to the productions of the pen. We find Carlyle readable through a quality which is Carlyle’s own—which he neither borrowed nor has the ability to lend. Emerson and Lowell and Holmes are readable, because of their individual flavor. There are ten thousand educated men in America who are fairly capable of comprehending these writers, yet who would render them all unreadable by undertaking to clothe their thoughts and fancies in their own forms of language. When this strong individual flavor is lacking—an element that belongs mainly to genius—art must be more thoroughly cultivated. No man of moderate ability and education can possibly make himself acceptable as a writer without a skill in the arts of expression, which can be won alone through patient study and long practice.
We have but few men in the country who designedly write for the few. We all seek to write for the million, and to find the largest audience. Readableness, then, must depend very largely upon still another element, which is, perhaps, more important than all—direct, intelligent ministry to the public need. People will not be interested in the discussion of subjects that have no practical relation to their life. Any production, in order to be readable, must be based on a knowledge of the wants of the people and the age. What will amuse, instruct, enlighten, or morally and intellectually interest the people? The writer who is not sufficiently in sympathy with the people and the age to answer this question intelligently to himself, cannot be readable, except by accident. The man who shuts himself up in his library, away from his kind, and refuses to make himself conversant with their wants, and with the questions that concern them, has no one to blame but himself if they refuse to read what he writes.
The clergyman, conscious of Christian purpose and of thorough culture, and earnestly believing that he understands the message of his Master, finds with grief that he is not an accepted teacher. Let him learn, if it be not too late, that it is his mode of presenting truth that makes him impotent. Water tastes better from cut-glass than from pewter, and people will go where they are served from crystal. Salt is salt, but what if it have lost its savor? There are very few preachers who fail in knowledge of their message, but there are multitudes who know nothing of the people to whom they deliver it, or of the art of so proclaiming it that men will pause to hear and heed. The art of writing and speaking is both shamefully and fatally neglected. Without it, cultivated to its highest practicable point, the learning of the schools is comparatively useless. Without it, the preacher is utterly unprepared for his work; for the grand, essential thing which will make his knowledge and culture practically available is wanting. The man who cannot say well that which he has to say may safely conclude that he has no call to the pulpit.
There is no editor of a newspaper or a magazine who is not constantly returning manuscripts full of useful and good material, which he cannot publish because it is not readable. The style is turgid, or involved, or affected, or slovenly, or diffuse. If the style happens to be good, the subject is uninteresting, or it is treated for scholars, and lumbered with redundant learning. Of course the editor would not hurt the pride of the writers, and in his politeness he simply says that their productions are not “available.” They think the editor stupid, and he is content, so long as they do not accuse him of ill-nature. It is only when they charge him with the purpose of refusing all writing that is better than his own that he loses patience, and regrets that he had not been frank and definite in the statement of his reasons for declining their offerings.—“Topics of the Time,” by Dr. J. G. Holland; Scribner’s for October.
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