D.—Oh, yes, they do! They know more than all the living.
B.—Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead. Isa. 26:19.
D.—Not so. Men are not dwelling in the dust, but in heaven or hell, from whence they must come to be judged, and then be sent back again.
D.—A part of the dead praise him; and the rest curse him in hell, which will be their employment to all eternity.
B.—Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into his garner; but the chaff he will burn with fire unquenchable. Luke 3:17.
D.—He may purge the floor, and gather the wheat (the righteous), but he can never burn up the chaff (the wicked).
B.—Fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Matt. 10:28.
D.—There is no one able to destroy the soul; therefore there is no one to be feared.
B.—But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection from the dead,—
D.—The real man is not dead, and therefore he cannot have a resurrection; nor is there any use for one; for, at the separation of the real man from the body, he goes right to heaven in full possession of all his faculties. What use of thrusting him back into that old clog?
B.—Marvel not at this! for the hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice. John 5:28.
D.—There are none in the graves to hear his voice; all are gone to their everlasting reward beyond the bounds of time and space.
B.—For David is not ascended into the heaven. Acts 2:34.
D.—David did go to heaven at his separation from the body—at death.
B.—The King of kings and Lord of lords; who only hath immortality. 1 Tim. 6:15, 16.
D.—Not so; for all mankind have immortality.
I conclude that a doctrine that so squarely contradicts the word of God must be false.—A. W. Cone.
Faith and Love
Faith and love are like a pair of compasses; faith, as one point, fastens on Christ as the center, and love, like the other, goes the round in all the works of holiness and righteousness.
THE DEVIL.
By A. J. Hough
Men don't believe in the Devil now, as their fathers used to do;
They've forced the door of the broadest creed to let his majesty through.
There isn't a print from his cloven foot, or a fiery dart from his bow,
To be found on earth or air to-day; for the world has voted so.
But who is it mixes the fatal draught that palsies heart and brain,
And loads the bier of each passing year with ten hundred thousand slain?
Who blights the bloom of the land to-day with the fiery breath of hell,
If the Devil isn't, and never was? Won't somebody rise and tell?
Who dogs the steps of the toiling saint, and digs the pit for his feet?
Who sows the tares in the field of time wherever God sows his wheat?
The Devil is voted not to be, and of course the thing is true;
But who is it doing the kind of work the Devil alone should do?
We are told he doesn't go about as a roaring lion now,
But whom shall we hold responsible for the everlasting row
To be heard in church, in home, and State, to earth's remotest bound,
If the Devil by unanimous vote is nowhere to be found?
Won't somebody step to the front forthwith, and make their bow, and show
How the frauds and crimes of a single day spring up? We want to know.
The Devil was fairly voted out, and of course the Devil's gone;
But simple people would like to know who carries his business on.
—A. J. Hough.
Rising Above the Religious World
By Dr. J. W. Alexander
I HAVE found nothing yet which requires more courage and independence than to rise a little, but decidedly, above the par of the religious world around us. Surely the way in which we commonly go on is not the way of self-denial and sacrifice and cross-bearing of which the New Testament talks. —Dr. J. W. Alexander.
Notes from the Field.
“The field is the world.”
Brief mention of work done and results accomplished by Seventh-day Adventists, in different parts of the field, according to reports received since our last issue:—
INDIANA.—Church of twenty-four members organized at Boggstown.
MARYLAND.—Meetings held at Broad Run result in several conversions.
MISSOURI.—Church of seventeen members organized at Harrisonville.
MINNESOTA.—H. F. Phelps reports encouraging results from efforts put forth in the health and temperance work.
DAKOTA.—Mission work at Fargo and Moorhead is yielding encouraging results, four persons having recently embraced the faith.
SOUTH AMERICA.—G. G. Rupert reports his safe arrival at Georgetown, British Guiana, where he will engage in missionary labors.
KENTUCKY.—J. H. Cook reports profitable meetings with the churches at Elizabethtown, Leitchfield, Rio, Knob Lick, and Bowling Green.
WISCONSIN.—Ten converts reported at Byron, as the result of a series of meetings; a Sabbath-school of thirteen members is also organized at that place.
FLORIDA.—S. Fulton reports numerous additions to the believers at different places in Florida, and the prospects encouraging for future labors.
HAWAIIAN ISLANDS.—Will D. Curtis reports his safe arrival at Honolulu, where he will engage in active work in the cause. He found several worthy believers there.
NEW YORK.—A series of revival meetings held at Jeddo results in several conversions; encouraging reports are received from several churches in other parts of the State.
ENGLAND.—Church of seventeen members organized at Kettering; a company of believers reported at Keynsham, as one result of a series of meetings; church at Southampton receives several new members.
PENNSYLVANIA.—The company of believers at Blooming Valley is increased to twenty-two, with a flourishing Sabbath-school of twenty-seven members; revival meetings held with the churches at Portville, Shinglehouse, Corydon, and Jamestown result in the conversion of a goodly number, and in reclaiming backsliders.
KANSAS.—Two additional believers reported at Yates Center; five converts signed the church covenant at Havana; church of eleven members organized at Fellsburg; nine converts reported at Grand Summit, where also a Sabbath-school has just been organized; a company of sixteen believers near Union Center are ready for church organization.
OHIO.—Meetings held at Hamler result in fourteen converts; three converts received baptism at Springfield; several believers reported at Columbus; the church at Mt. Vernon reports constant accessions to its membership; the mission work at Lima results in several conversions; ten new believers reported at Bloomington; a company of seven believers at West Mansfield are waiting for church organization; church at Piqua receives five new members.
MICHIGAN.—A goodly number of conversions are reported from St. Charles, as a result of revival efforts; fifteen converts sign the church covenant at Alaiedon; church at Memphis receives three new members; thirteen new members received into the church at Lapeer, and six at Monterey.
The publication of a new monthly paper, in the Holland language, has just been begun at Battle Creek, the same being devoted to an exposition of the doctrines held by S. D. Adventists; the publishing house at Battle Creek has recently issued “Thoughts on Daniel and the Revelation” in the Danish language; also a new and enlarged edition of the “History of the Sabbath” has recently been issued. “Sunshine at Home,” a finely illustrated work in the German language, has also just been published from the Office. The sale of denominational books has been increasing during the past three months at an unprecedented rate. Two new cylinder presses have recently been purchased, in order to meet the increasing demand of the publishing work.
The Theological World.
.... Rev. Dr. Geo. F. Pentecost has resigned his pastorate in Brooklyn, and will devote himself exclusively to the work of an evangelist.
.... A training school for home and foreign missions has just been completed in Chicago by the Methodists, at a cost of $25,700.
.... An attempt to secure a conference of representatives of the Established and Free churches of Scotland, with a view to possible reunion, has failed.
.... It is reported that much interest is manifested in Germany in behalf of the union of the Protestant churches to resist the encroachments of the Roman Catholic church.
.... A Pennsylvania civil court, to which a case was taken, has decided that when a person makes a subscription to aid in building a church, the same is collectable by law.
.... A society has recently been formed in London, called “Christian Socialists,” one leading purpose of which is to seek for ways and means whereby the evils of monopolies may be eradicated.
.... Of the five hundred Chinese now living in Philadelphia, about one quarter attend Christian Sunday-schools. One of the number is studying for the ministry, and expects to return to China as a missionary.
.... A national congress of churches and Christians has been called to meet in Chicago March 30, for the public discussion of all the various aspects of the great question of secret societies and their relation to Christianity.
.... The Chicago Interior thinks the prospect is very fair that in the near future Japan can be numbered as a Christian church, nominally, but thinks it is yet a question whether it will be Roman Catholic, Greek, or Protestant.
.... A thousand journeymen, carpenters, and joiners at Berlin have petitioned the Government to protect them from Sunday labor. The glass-works directors at Dresden have dismissed about a thousand men, as they refused to work on Sundays.
.... Ira D. Sankey said at Pittsburg that the Rev. Mr. Moody is to erect a building to cost $250,000, in Chicago, to be used as a training-school for Christian workers, and that the greater portion of the money has already been subscribed by wealthy Chicagoans.
.... In Germany the strange spectacle is presented of the Government bargaining for, summoning and receiving, the help of Catholic Rome, while the Protestant churches of the country are endeavoring to combine so as to resist the encroachments of Catholicism.
.... A Spiritualist paper in San Francisco states that “hundreds of people in this vicinity are now investigating the phenomena of Spiritualism, where ten took any interest in the subject one year ago. The cause is advancing with giant strides.” That is probably true, but it is none the less true that Spiritualism is a Satanic delusion.
.... The Chicago Standard remarks: “Catholic priests are growing in this country like locusts. According to the Roman Catholic directory just published, there are 413 priests in the diocese of New York, 312 in Boston, 287 in Baltimore, 282 in Chicago, 270 in Philadelphia, 254 in St. Louis, 227 in Milwaukee, and 219 in Cincinnati.”
.... The work of persecution against the Catholics still goes on in the province of Tonquin, China. Recent information from there speaks of the destruction of four parishes, the inhabitants all having been massacred because of their religious faith. Among the victims burned at the stake was a native priest ninety years of age.
.... At a recent meeting of the West Jersey Presbytery, a resolution was unanimously passed, giving it as the opinion of the Presbytery that church members who required applications for licenses to sell liquor were proper subjects for church discipline, and church sessions were enjoined to deal with such persons by censure or suspension from church ordinance.
.... Russia has adopted the same line of policy against the venerable Armenian Church in the Caucasus that she has been employing with such vigor in the German Baltic provinces. The private schools of the Armenian Christians have been closed; the non-Armenian language has been supplanted by the Russian as the medium of instruction, and an imperial ukas commands the Christian Armenians to military service, while the Mohammedans are relieved of this duty. The object is to transfer for a number of years the younger generation of Christian Armenians into other parts of Russia, where there are only orthodox churches, and thus gradually wean them away from the faith of their fathers. The Armenians are protesting with might and main. They offered to train these young men at home for military purposes, but the governor of the Caucasus districts refused to grant their request. The efforts of Russia are evidently to realize the ideal dreamed of by Alexander III., namely, that the many peoples under his sway should have “one law, one language, one faith.”
WHAT GOOD MEN EXPECTED.
Matthew Henry says of Christ’s coming:—
“In general he will find but few good people, few that are really and truly good; many that have the form and fashion of godliness, but few that have faith.”—Com. on Luke 18:8.
Martin Luther, just before his death, writing on the prophetic periods of Daniel in his German Bible, says:—
“About the consummation of these periods, this gospel will be shut out of all the churches, and confined to private houses.”
When one of Martin Luther’s guests remarked that the world might continue fifty years, he replied:—
“Pray God it may not exist so long; matters would be even worse than they have been. There would rise up infinite sects and schisms, which are at present hidden in men’s hearts not mature. No; may the Lord come at once, for there is no amendment to be expected.”
Dr. Gill, commenting on the signs of Christ’s coming, says:—
“Which yet will be observed by a few, such a general sleepiness will have seized all the professors of religion.”—On Rev. 3:20.
Mr. Hartly, a learned and sensible churchman, has remarked as follows:—
“There are many prophecies which declare the fall of the ecclesiastical powers of the Christian world; and though each church seems to flatter itself with the hope of being exempted, yet it is very plain that the prophetical characters belong to all. They all have left the true, pure, simple religion, and teach for doctrines the commandments of men.”
Dr. Cotton Mather says:—
“When the Lord shall come, he will find the world almost void of true and lively faith (especially of faith in his coming); and when he shall descend with his heavenly banners and angels, what else will he find almost but the whole church as it were a dead carcass miserably putrefied with the spirits and manners and endearments of this world. . . . When I should wish to stir up my brethren, who are in deep sleep, with these messages and admonitions to shake off the soft and indeed lethargic and deadly slumber, I know that I shall appear to them a vain dreamer, a sort of Lot, and that they will treat me as one in jest or sport, and as a man in the falling sickness, seized with I know not what enthusiasm; and that sleep may hold them in still more pleasing fetters, they will make use of, as it were, sleepy medicines, a diversity of commentaries on certain prophecies as not yet fulfilled.”—Famous Latin Preface.
AN IMPROBABLE THEORY.
The invention of a new French explosive, “melinite,” which has “ten times the destructive force of nitro-glycerine, and one hundred times that of gunpowder,” ought, it would seem, to give a new impetus to the predictions of a certain class of people concerning the millennium; viz., that wars will ere long cease because the nations will not dare to engage in them. If the millennium is ever to be brought about by this means, it ought not to delay very long when engines and munitions of war can be produced which will pulverize a whole city at a shot. But we could never quite see how this theory of the millennium could become a reality. The preponderance of power between the parallels of attack and defense is on the wrong side. If fortifications could be constructed of so invulnerable a nature as to bid defiance to the force of the most powerful guns and explosives known to modern military science, then the question might be easily solved by each nation’s constructing a line of such fortifications along her frontier, which would effectually bar the invasion of foreign armies. But the facts of the case do not lie on this side of the question. In the race for superiority, new and improved ordnance has left the most efficient methods of fortifications far in the rear; and the disparity in power is continually increasing. What, then, is to prevent one nation’s making aggressions on another whenever she considers the opportunity favorable? or how is a weaker nation made any more secure against the assaults of one that happens to be stronger?
It is very evident that the cessation of wars cannot be brought about through this avenue. The unceasing hum of the manufacture of death-dealing engines and infernal machines, heard over all Europe, does not have the air of being under the supervision of Heaven for the accomplishment of beneficent designs. It is much more probable that the one who, as described by Milton, first devised death-dealing military engines, is the supervisor, and finds their manufacture profitable to the furtherance of his cause to-day. Lastly, the great powers themselves do not feel in any way admonished to the preservation of peace by the discovery of new and terrible agents of destruction. All are as professedly desirous of this as the man who was “bound to have peace if he had to fight for it,” and it is this kind of peace which each evidently desires,—one which lies on the other side of increased national power. Meanwhile, the next outbreak may be expected to be characterized by some new and startling features of military warfare. One-hundred-ton guns and ponderous ironclads, improved torpedoes, submarine boats, dynamite cruisers, and shells charged with such deadly material as the new explosive, will have a chance to show what they can do. It is feared we will not have long to wait.—Review and Herald.
THE GOSPEL SICKLE.
By Editor
Battle Creek, Mich., March 15, 1887.
In a recent Monday lecture, Rev. Joseph Cook affirmed his belief that it is not safe to send the new gospel of future probation to the heathen. He expressed it as his conviction that this new theology tends to undermine the Bible and “cut the nerve of missions.” We are glad to see Mr. Cook speak out thus boldly against this heresy.
Spiritualism and Animal Immortality
☞ Spiritualists place man on a level with the brutes, as will be noticed by the following paragraph from the Banner of Light:—
“Returning spirits teach that all life is immortal; that the physical form alone is subject to decay, but that the animation, consciousness, intelligence, that operate through the eternal body, live forever. This is true no less of the animal than of the man.”
This is but a natural result of the belief in the inherent immortality of man.
How to Vote on the Prohibitory Amendment
Every fair-minded person in Michigan ought to be able to decide very readily as to how he should vote on the prohibitory amendment. How will all the saloon-keepers vote?—Against the amendment, of course. Then to vote against the amendment is to work for the promotion of the liquor traffic. There are just two sides to the question, and no one need to have any difficulty in deciding which side he is on. If he votes against the amendment, he is on the side of the liquor makers and dealers; if he votes for the amendment, he is on the side of “God, and home, and native land.”
The Prospects of World Conversion
It would seem that the adherents of the temporal millennium doctrine must feel rather gloomy over the prospect of the world's conversion, especially in the face of such evidence as the following:—
“We are compelled to believe by the stern array of facts and figures, that at the end of this boasted century of missions, while not 3,000,000 converts, nominal and real, have been won to Christianity in pagandom, heathens and Mohammedans are 200,000,000 more than they were at the beginning of the century. Thus the votaries of these faiths increase seventy times faster than the followers of Christ. The church is outstripped in its own methods.”
The foregoing is an extract from an article published in the New York Observer for February 17, 1887, and needs no comment.
Protestant Concessions to Catholicism
That Protestants are more than ever inclined to make concessions to the Catholics is evident from the every-day utterances of the pulpit and press. As a marked instance of this characteristic, we note the following remark, made editorially in The Independent of Feb. 17, 1887: “The religion of Catholicism is that of the Bible, and considerable more; it is a religion of God and the Bible.” That is about as good a testimony as Catholics could desire from Protestants, and no doubt they will heartily thank The Independent for those words. Thus is the way being paved for the more complete blending of Protestantism with Catholicism, and the consequent establishment of the American papacy. The strangest part of the proceeding is that Protestants cannot see that they are doing all the yielding, while “Rome never changes.”
DISCOURAGING
In commenting on the formidable war preparations going on in Europe, the Chicago Interior, in a late issue, remarks as follows:—
“It is discouraging enough to find Europe armed and equipped for war as never before in history; but the spectacle of the head of the church [referring to the interference of the pope] stimulating the war-like spirit and encouraging preparations for bloodshed, is more disheartening still.”
To those who are looking for the time to come when nations shall learn war no more, the prospect must be very discouraging, and they will be compelled to defer the coming of the temporal millennium for several hundred years at least. But to those who are carefully watching the signs of the times, such events as the Interior bewails but give emphasis to the words of our Saviour, “Lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.”
SINCERITY
How often do we hear it said when religious beliefs and doctrines are called in question, “It makes no difference if I am only sincere.” We never hear the expression used in any other than a religious sense. When traveling a road at right angles to the one which leads to our destination, or finding ourselves pursuing an opposite direction, we do not say when apprised of this, It makes no difference if we are only sincere. We would never be so foolish as that. We know that going east would not take us south, neither would going south take us north. If our way were questioned, it would not awaken the indifference of “sincerity” (?) but the anxiety of truth. Had we a dose of medicine to our lips, and some one should say it was poison, we would not say, It matters not if I am only sincere. We would become assured of the character of the medicine before we proceeded with it.
Why not be as wise in regard to the way which leads to eternal life? There is but one way—Jesus. He says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” John 14:6. We can have forgiveness only through repentance toward God, whose law we have transgressed, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. Acts 4:12; 20:21. We are sanctified through the truth (John 17:17); we are made free by the truth. John 8:32. We can only be Christ’s disciples by continuing in his word, and his word is truth. John 8:31; 17:17. This must include God’s holy law, for that is the truth. Ps. 119:142. And “no lie is of the truth.” Now can we willingly neglect one single portion of God’s practical truth, one duty, one sanctifying principle? If we are to be sanctified through the truth, if the truth is to make us free, if we are to worship God in the spirit and in the truth, can we willfully ignore that truth and still be sanctified, still be free, still worship God acceptably? If it is unwise to trust to our “sincerity” in the small matters of life, is it not heaven-daring presumption to ignore God’s way of saving men and still expect to be saved? Such an excuse as the above of sincerity may answer our conscience, but it will not answer at the bar of eternal judgment, where every man will be judged by his deeds. Sincerity is an excellent thing if one is sincere in the truth.—Present Truth.
Secret Prayer as a Test of Love
A TEST of love to God is secret prayer. If you love your friend, you will often talk in confidence to him, and get his help.
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