International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 25, 1889
"COME YE, BUY AND EAT."
By Ellen G. White
BY MRS. E. G. WHITE.
It will do you no good to believe that others may be blessed. Each one must appropriate the blessing to his own soul, or he will not be fed. Each must work for himself. Suppose that a table were spread with every desirable thing, and you were invited to come and eat, but you should make excuse and say, "I am not prepared. Let others eat; it is not for me." You know you would not be nourished by seeing a well-spread table, and by others eating. We would starve if we did not partake of physical nourishment, and we shall lose our spiritual strength and vitality if we do not feed on spiritual bread, eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of God, which is, receiving and doing his word.
The invitation has been given, "Let him that is athirst come, and take of the water of life freely." "Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labor for that which satisfieth not? Hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness." The invitation has been given, and the question is, Will we come and eat? Others cannot receive blessings for us; and we have kept the Saviour apart from our lives. Jesus prayed that his disciples might be one with him as he was one with the Father; and if we are one with him, if we are obedient to his word, the Father loves us even as he loves his Son.178
When Philip asked the Master to show him the Father, Jesus looked upon him in sorrow, and said, "Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I speak unto you, I speak not of myself; but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works." Our lives can be so connected with God that we can have this oneness with Christ. Our thoughts, inclinations, desires, and appetites may all be on the Lord's side. Then we shall have nothing separate and distinct from Christ. There will be perfect harmony between our hearts and his, so that we shall be one with him as he is one with the Father. And now is the time to come into this union with Christ. We have only to-day to call our own; to-morrow is not ours. We want to-day to determine that we will no longer dishonor God by our unbelief, by standing back from the Master when he says, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
The table has been spread, and Christ invites you to the feast. Shall we stand back, refusing his bounties, and declaring, "He does not mean this for me"? We used to sing a hymn that described a feast where a happy household gathered to partake of the bounties of the board at a kind father's invitation. While the happy children gathered at the table, there stood a hungry beggar child at the threshold. She was invited to come in; but sadly she turned away, exclaiming, "I have no father there." Will you take this position as Jesus invites you in? Oh! if you have a Father in the courts above, I entreat you to reveal the fact. He wants to make you a partaker of his rich bounties and blessings. All who come with the confiding love of a little child will find a Father there. How could the Lord express his love to us in more tender language than that in which he has expressed it in his precious word? He tells us just what to do in order that we may be saved. How I wish that we might all believe in the promises of God. He says, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: for everyone that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened." Do we really believe this promise? We should comply with the conditions laid down in God's word; for if we do this we shall receive, simply because God has pledged his word. We are not to look into our hearts for a joyful emotion as an evidence of our acceptance with Heaven, but we are to take God's promises, and say, "They are mine. The Lord is letting his Holy Spirit rest upon me. I am receiving the light; for the promise is, 'Believe that ye receive the things ye ask for, and ye shall have them.' By faith I reach within the veil, and lay hold of Christ, my strength. I thank God that I have a Saviour."
Are you doing this? Are you taking God at his word, planting your feet on the eternal Rock that cannot be moved? You should daily be making advancement in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour. If you have been laboring in your own strength, make a covenant with God that from this time forth you will rely upon Him who is mighty to save to the uttermost all who come unto Him. If you have gone before the people, presenting your own weakness, now say, as did Moses, "I will not go up unless Thou goest with me." When you are imbued with the Spirit of God, self will no longer be cherished. What has been the trouble with your experiences in the past? Why have you not made a success of the Christian life?—It has been because of vain conceit, self-esteem, self-righteousness, and unbelief. May God help us that self may die here. May he help us to humble our souls by repentance and confession until we can come before him clothed in the righteousness of Christ.
Say before Heaven, "I have nothing of my own to bring; I want that righteousness that comes through the merits of the blood of a crucified and risen Saviour. How thankful we should be that we have a whole Saviour, that in him is our complete righteousness and salvation! I want to see a wave of glory from Heaven waft over this congregation, until you see the great truths of redemption in a different light. When you have tasted and seen that the Lord is good, you will have something to tell. Like Philip, when he found the Saviour, you will go forth to invite others into his presence, saying, "I have found Him of whom Moses, in the law, and the prophets, did write."
May the blessing of God rest upon his people as never before. May they come up to their high privilege, and open the door of the heart and let Jesus in to sup with them and they with him.
High Liquor Licenses and Monopoly
Boston has raised its liquor license from $1,000 to $1,500 for hotels. The second-class inn keepers will hereafter pay $1,200 instead of $600, and restaurants will pay $1,000 instead of $400, the former price, while the privilege of selling beer, cider, and light wines, will cost $500 instead of $200. The liquor dealers profess to think that they cannot stand the rise, and probably some of them cannot; but those who can will find their business just so much better. Experience in Nebraska and other high-license States, and in numerous cities, has shown that while high license does temporarily reduce the number of saloons, it does not reduce the amount of liquor sold, but has the effect simply of giving a few dealers the monopoly of the business.
Wanamaker Continues His Sunday School
POSTMASTER-GENERAL Wanamaker will still continue to conduct his large Sunday-school in Philadelphia.
Idaho Mormon Disfranchisement Proposal
The Idaho Legislature proposes to disfranchise all who have been members of the Mormon Church within three years. "Probably," says the Christian at Work, "Idaho has an imperfect knowledge of the instrument known as the Federal Constitution."
California’s Abundance of Liquor Saloons
THE Advocate thinks that the fact is not without significance that "in California, the land of 'pure, light, home-made wine,' there is one liquor saloon to every ninety-nine inhabitants, there being only two States having more saloons in proportion to the population than this State."
Week of Prayer and Passion Week
The pastor of the Memorial Presbyterian Church, Detroit, writes to the Evangelist urging that the week of prayer be made identical with Passion week in Lent, as the observance of the season bids fair otherwise soon to be extinct. He declares that he will so observe it next year in his church.
Quebec Payment to the Jesuits
CANADIAN Protestants are justly indignant at the action of the Quebec Legislature in voting to pay the Society of Jesus $400,000 in lieu of the estates which George III. confiscated shortly after the conquest of Canada. It is hoped that the Dominion Government will veto the whole business, as it has the power to do. If the award is ever paid, the burden will fall principally upon the Protestants, who pay a large percentage of the taxes in the two cities, Montreal and Quebec.
Mrs. Booth and the Salvation Army
Mrs. Ballington Booth has been meeting with marked success in interesting the wealthy and fashionable people of New York in the work of the Salvation Army. Mrs. Booth is a young woman possessing education and refinement, and of very pleasing address. The principal work of the Army is among the poor, the outcast, and the vicious, and Mrs. Booth has given herself to the work with a zeal which certainly proves her earnestness, and at a cost in self-denial which attests her sincerity.
Unitarianism and Confucianism
By Editor
An Eastern paper says that "Rev. A. Lloyd writes from Japan that Unitarianism is so wonderfully like Confucianism that it seems likely to prove specially attractive to the Japanese. Without change of heart or opinion they will be able to call themselves Christians, and that is just what they most desire." The two systems compared by Mr. Lloyd must be closely akin to the National Christianity which certain self-styled reformers want to have adopted in this country; it requires neither change of heart nor opinion, but simply assent to certain so-called Christian laws.
South America Invites Immigration
THE nations of South America are inviting immigration. They do not, however, welcome all alike. Farmers with families are especially favored. Owing to the friendly attitude of the Government, and to the abolition of slavery, Brazil received last year 130,000 immigrants against an average of 27,390 for the previous ten years. Likewise the Argentine Republic received last year 175,000 immigrants, nearly all from Southern Europe. Only about ten per cent of these were, however, farmers, and the Government is seriously considering the advisability of restricting immigration.
Russia’s Monster Guns
The London Times says that monster Russian guns were sent recently to Sebastopol for the purpose of being placed in the new iron-clad Sinope. The guns are 12-inch pieces, weighing 50 tons, and throwing projectiles of nearly half a ton. The powder charge is 270 pounds, and the initial velocity 3,000 meters, while the distance of the cannon's range is said to be 20 versts, or over 13 miles. Two men suffice for each gun, as they are worked by hydraulic machinery. All such facts are especially interesting in view of the present exceedingly threatening aspect of the European war cloud.
The Probable Site of Calvary
In the Independent of March 7, Dr. Vincent has an article on Jerusalem, in which he says that a cliff north of the Damascus gate, now known as the cliff of Jeremiah's grotto, on which is "Beth-has-Sekilah (the House of Stoning), so-called in the Talmud," is the probable place of the crucifixion, and not that covered by that wonderfully convenient edifice, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. He says:—
"The Jews to this day [point to it] as the place of execution used by their ancestors before the destruction of Jerusalem. The most modern theory recognizes this skull-like mount as the true Calvary. And it would be a pleasant thing, after the sacrilegious mummeries which have taken place for centuries in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, to ascertain that the true locality of the crucifixion had never thus been desecrated.
HEAVENLY LOVE.
By Southey
THEY sin who tell us Love can die.
With life all other passions fly,
All others are but vanity.
In Heaven Ambition cannot dwell,
Nor Avarice in the vaults of hell;
Earthly these passions of the earth,
They perish where they have their birth;
But Love is indestructible,
Its holy flame forever burneth,
From Heaven it came, to Heaven returneth;
Too oft on earth a troubled guest,
At times deceived, at times oppressed,
It here is tried and purified,
Then hath in Heaven its perfect rest;
It soweth here with toil and care,
But the harvest-time of Love is there.
—Southey.
RULES FOR MAINTAINING AN APPETITE FOR THE WORD OF GOD.
By F. B. Meyer
THOSE who want to maintain an appetite for the word of God must avoid unwholesome sweetmeats. The reading of novels and all sorts of tid-bits will speedily destroy the Christian appetite for Scripture. We may be compelled to read many things, but let us avoid whatever genders a distaste for the word of God.
Then if you would have this appetite unspoiled take plenty of exercise. The boy who has lost his appetite will probably regain it by going in for athletics. So in spiritual things, if we want more truth let us exercise the truth we have. It is one of the laws of God's kingdom that he will not give us fresh truth until we have acted on what we have learned. Let no chasm yawn between knowledge and obedience. If you want to know, you must do.
If you want an appetite you must breathe good air. Those who live in a vitiated atmosphere lose their appetite, which they regain wonderfully on the breezy hill-side. So let us climb the mountains of communion; let us 'come out and be separate,' or 'come up and be separate,' and we shall learn to enjoy our Bible.
If we would maintain our appetite for the word, let us seek to take well rather than take much. A small quantity of food well masticated does more good than a large quantity hastily swallowed. So in reading the Bible it is not a question of reading so many chapters and verses, but of pondering well what we do read, and gaining some definite thought from it.
One more hint, secure quiet for your Bible reading. You will never read the word to profit if you always read it in a hurry and bustle. Get alone with it if you can, and sit reverently at its feet; or, rather, at the feet of Him who is the living Word, and of whom the written word testifies.—F. B. Meyer, in The Watchman (Chicago).
HOPE FOR THE HOPELESS.
ONE of the most hopeless cases ever brought into the great Moyamensing Prison in Philadelphia was a negress, who was convicted of a crime of violence. She was a huge, fierce animal, who had been born and had lived in the slums of Alaska Street. She was a drunkard and dissolute from childhood.
The chaplain, after she had been under his charge for six months, shook his head hopelessly and passed by her cell without a word.
One day the matron, taking a bunch of soiled scarlet flowers from her hat, threw them to "Deb" carelessly, with a pleasant word or two. The woman started in astonishment, and then thanked her earnestly. The next day the matron saw the flowers, each leaf straightened and smoothed, pinned up on the wall of the cell. Deb, in a gentle voice, called attention to them, praised their beauty, and tried, in her clumsy way, to show the pleasure they had given her.
"That woman," said the matron to the chaplain, "has the rarest of all good qualities. She is grateful. There is one square inch of good ground in which to plant your seed."
The matron herself planted the seed. Every day she showed some little kindness to the poor, untamed creature, who was gradually softened and subdued simply by affection for this, her first friend, whom she followed like a faithful dog.
By and by the matron took her as a helper in the ward, a favor given only to convicts whose conduct deserved reward. Deb was orderly, quiet, and neat from sheer gratitude only. The matron's hold upon the woman grew stronger each day. At last she told her the story of the Saviour's sacrifice. Deb listened with wide, eager eyes.
"He died for me—me!" she said.
The matron gave up her position, but when Deb was discharged she took her into her house as a servant, trained and taught her, cared for her body and soul, always planting her seeds in that "one square inch of good ground."
Deb became a humble, faithful Christian. "He died for me," was the thought which lightened her darkened soul.—Baltimore Methodist.
The Quality of Attention
By Charles Dickens
The one serviceable, safe, certain, remunerative, attainable quality in every study and every pursuit is the quality of attention. My own invention, or imagination, such as it is, I can most truthfully assure you, would never have served me as it has but for the habit of common-place, humble, patient, daily, toiling, drudging attention.—Dickens.
Knowing and Doing One’s Duty
By Mary Lyon
THERE is nothing in the universe that I fear but that I shall not know all my duty, or shall fail to do it.
ANXIETY VERSUS TRUST.
ONE day while Flattich, a pious minister of Wirtemberg, was sitting and meditating in his arm-chair, one of his foster-children fell out of a second-story window right before him, down upon the pavement below. He calmly ordered his daughter to go down and pick up the child. On doing so, she found the child not only alive, but without having sustained the least injury. The noise occasioned thereby had called out a neighbor's wife, who reproached Flattich for his want of attention to his foster-children; for she had seen him quietly reposing in his arm-chair when the boy fell out of the window. While she was thus scolding, her own child, which she had brought along, fell from a bench in the room and broke one of its arms.
"Do you see, good woman," said Flattich, "if you imagine yourself to be the sole guardian of your child, then you must constantly carry it on your arm. I commend my children to God, and if they fall they fall into the arms of an angel."
Maclaren, in alluding to unavailing anxiety, says: "After all your watching for the corner of the heaven where the cloud is to come from, there will be a cloud, and it will rise somewhere, but you will never know in what quarter. The morrow shall have its own anxieties. After all your fortifying of the castle of your life, there will be some little postern left unguarded, some little weak place in the wall left uncommanded by a battery; and there, where you never look for him, the inevitable invader will come in. After all the plunging of the hero in the fabled waters that made him invulnerable, there was the little spot on the heel, and the arrow found its way there."
Bulstrode Whitlock, Cromwell's envoy to Sweden, was one night so disturbed in mind over the state of his nation that he could not sleep. His servant, observing it, said: "Pray, sir, will you give me leave to ask you a question?" "Certainly." "Do you think that God governed the world very well before you came into it?" "Undoubtedly." "And do you not think that he will govern the world quite as well when you are gone out of it?" "Certainly." "Then, pray, sir, excuse me, do you not think that you may trust him to govern it as long as you live?" No answer could be given, and composure and sleep followed.
Fresenius, a pious minister at Frankfort-on-the-Main, one day found his mother, who was a widow, concerned about a dollar which she much needed at the time, but did not know whence to procure. Not being able at that instant to furnish her with one, he said: "I likewise believe that you must have the dollar. I accordingly turn this hour-glass, and assure you that if the dollar is really needed, it will positively lie here on the table before the hour-glass is run down. If it does not lie here, God will convince us after this hour, that it was not as indispensable as we imagine." The hour-glass was scarcely run down one-half when a messenger arrived, who had traversed an eight hours' walk, bringing a dollar which someone was owing to Fresenius.
From Cromwell, we have this world-wide brevity, "Trust in the Lord, and keep your powder dry." And Sevinnock says, "We lie to God in prayer if we do not rely upon him after prayer."
Would that all anxious souls might learn the sweetness of Rutherford's trustful song, "I lay my head on the bosom of Omnipotence."—Ernest Gilmore, in Christian at Work.
WAITING.
I am waiting for the dawning
Of the bright and blessed day,
When the darksome night of sorrow
Shall have vanished far away;
When forever with the Saviour,
Far beyond the gloom of tears,
I shall swell the songs of worship
Through the everlasting years.
I am looking at the brightness—
See, it shineth from afar—
Of the clear and joyous beaming
Of the "bright and morning star,"
Through the dark gray mists of morning
Do I see its glorious light;
Soon shall flee the darkest shadow
Of this sad and weary night.
I am waiting for the coming
Of the Lord, who died for me;
Oh! his words have filled my spirit,
"I will come again for thee;"
I can almost hear his footfall
On the threshold of the door,
And my heart, my heart is longing
To be his forevermore.
—Selected.
ANNIHILATION.
By A. E. Place
A CLERGYMAN, in answering the question, "Will the wicked be destroyed?" said to his congregation: "The Adventists teach annihilation, but any man who has studied even the rudiments of science, knows that it is utterly impossible to annihilate the smallest particle of matter." Of course, if it is utterly impossible, then God is not omnipotent. Scientific men, so called, have thus set in judgment on God and limited his power. Would not this judgment naturally include its opposite, viz., that it is utterly impossible to create the smallest particle of matter?—a position taken by some scientific (?) men. To illustrate the first impossibility, the speaker said: "Take that chair, for instance; you may split it all into kindlings, grind them to dust, and burn the dust to ashes, but not one particle of matter has been annihilated. It is in existence somewhere."
This is simply likening God's power to man's power, and concluding that because man cannot do a certain thing it is absolutely impossible for God to do it.
After the services, we asked if the speaker had any idea that after the chair was burned to ashes it was still a chair? He thought not. "Do you think it would, if so used, ever be a chair again?" "No! of course not." That is all the annihilation Seventh-day Adventists teach. Not that God annihilates men as matter (though he might do even that if he chose), but as men, as individuals, as beings; "burns them up root and branch" (Mal. 4:1); "brings them to ashes" (Eze. 28:18); "and never shall they be any more" (verse 19); they "shall be as though they had not been" (Obad. 16).
God's word should be recognized and used as the rule by which to test every theory, scientific or otherwise. A. E. PLACE.
Years Teach More Than Books
"Years teach us more than books."
H. F. PHELPS
By H. F. Phelps
GOD'S OBJECT LESSONS. NO. 2.
ANOTHER of these object lessons is to be seen in the life of Cain. The sin of murder is a terrible sin. Cain slew his brother, "and wherefore slew he him? because his own works were evil and his brother's righteous." Cain was branded as a murderer; he was cursed from the earth, and sent out as a vagabond from the face of the Lord. Then God cursed the earth again because of this sin. Already the curse rested heavily upon the earth, but after this awful deed, the blight of God's curse is felt more and more. And no wonder! for man made in the image of God has lifted his puny arm to take the life of his brother. First, he allows angry feelings in his heart. He is envious because God accepts the offering of Abel. Do we allow feelings of envy and even hatred to arise in our hearts?
It may be our brother's works are righteous and our deeds are evil. These very feelings may result in taking the life which none but God can give. The devil was a murderer from the beginning, and we must not be a partaker with devils. Be careful of those angry feelings. Ahab did not with his own hands take the life of Naboth, but God held him accountable, and in the very place where the dogs licked the blood of Naboth, there they also licked up the blood of Ahab.
David so far forgot his duty to God, his dignity as ruler of Israel, shepherd of the flock, that he dared to feel envious of Uriah because of his wife. And God said of him by the mouth of his servant, "Thou art the man." And there is Judas, that false apostle who betrayed his Master with the kiss of affection—envy, hatred, and even murder in his heart at the very time he bestows the kiss of affection. These are God's object lessons to show us the danger of allowing our feelings to run as they may. By these he says, Be careful of those feelings of envy, and malice, and hatred. Christ, by his words, unveils the matter, and traces sin to the very thoughts of the heart. It is a crime in the sight of Heaven to harbor a thought of sin in the mind. "Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornication, thefts, false witness, blasphemies; these are the things which defile the man."
In Paul's catalogue of sins, he classes that feeling of envy right by the side of murder: "Full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity." Rom 2:29. "Envying, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like." Gal. 5:21. Envy may lead to anger, anger to hatred, and anger and hatred to murder. 1 John 3:15: "Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer." Those who indulge in any of these feelings are just so far from the great Pattern. And that is so far that they are not like him at all. And all such will finally be found outside the city of God. These feelings are cruelty itself. "Envy is as rottenness of the bones." These feelings, if indulged by us, may in this life do harm to others, but in the day of God will, unless repented of, turn with tenfold power upon the guilty one. If these feelings are in our hearts, in our midst, shall we not arise and put them away? Oh, for more of the Spirit of the Master in our hearts in place of these things.
H. F. PHELPS
GOD'S WAY IN US.
By Anonymous
DEAN ALFORD has said: "Our only true triumphs are God's triumphs over us. His defeats of us are our only true victories."
It is not uncommon to find professed Christians imperfect, in that they have a secret tendency to resist God's will concerning them. If the question were clearly put to them whether they will obey or disobey him in some well-defined duty, such as the reading of his word or the observance of Christian ordinance, doubtless their decisions would be promptly on the side of God. But in less clearly-defined matters pertaining to ordinary life, where human judgment must decide according to revealed principles, rather than because of any distinct rules, they are liable to resist God's will. Not that they would prefer to do this, but such is the weakness of the flesh that they are ever in danger of losing sight of the great principles by which their conduct should be governed. Some malarial atmosphere of the world, some violent and unforeseen onset from the evil one, may be the occasion of the loss of spiritual vision for the moment. It is only when the divine knowledge that pertains to God and his salvation comes to be their abiding possession that they are really safe.
Dean Alford, therefore, might have truthfully said that "God's triumphs over us" are accomplished by giving us a spiritual understanding of the principles taught in his word. When we see that God is love, that his wisdom is perfect, that his discipline is always for our good, that the blood of Christ has power to cleanse, that he can keep us from transgression so long as we trust and obey him, that whatever of moral weakness may yet remain he can reveal even this unto us—when we realize all these things as profound, life-long convictions, then the struggle of resistance between God and the soul will cease. In all things it is then our joy to exclaim: "Lord, hold me in thy hand! Do with me exactly as it seemeth best to thee! If my choice be in harmony with thine own, well; if my request be denied, equally well."
May this blessed rest, this heart-felt acquiescence before God, be reached as in a moment? In other words, may there come a time in the experience of believers when this divine knowledge flashes upon their souls in such a way that they may speak of it as instantaneous? Without doubt this is the genuine experience of very many. They can tell us of the very hour and place when the sublime revelation came. They then fell at the Lord's feet in humility and trust. They rejoiced to take him forever as their Redeemer to cleanse, as their Teacher to instruct, as their Guide to lead, and as their Governor to rule, and also to discipline as they might need correction. God became their conqueror by the full revelation of truth in their souls as in a moment, and henceforth they joyfully will bear witness to the fact. They can truthfully say: "We count these trials of life our joy." They bear the crosses and losses of life with meekness and without murmuring. They show toward all that "charity that suffereth long," that "charity that vaunteth not itself." The candid observer is compelled to submit the divine reality of such spiritual subjugation, and even to admire the wondrous change. Life, in all its manifold phases, becomes to them only the beginning of that higher and perfect existence toward which they rapidly tend.
But, while this is true, it must be admitted that others cannot give the precise date of such full surrender—that is, the surrender which is the result of a scriptural and overpowering knowledge of eternal truth, imparted by the Holy Spirit to the inmost soul. To these this experience has come as the dawn of an opening day. They have known the struggles of the weary night. Through all its gloom of sorrow and discipline they have been safely conducted.—Anonymous.
THE ORIGIN OF LENT.
By Chas. A. S. Temple
THE ASSUMPTIONS of great sanctity, which, despite its acknowledged paganism and relationship, are so often set up for Lent, the increasing respect for it even among Protestants, and that mysterious glamour with which it always seems invested, all demand the most searching investigation into its every feature, and that its merit, or demerit, be fully and thoroughly understood.
It is conceded by all concerned that there is no precept or command in the Old Testament or in the New requiring, or even approving, any such observance. In no history, sacred or profane, have we any example of its observance, either by those holy men "to whom were committed the oracles of God," by the ancient church under the Old Testament dispensation, or by the "apostolic church," of the New. Like every form of "festival," therefore, its appearance in the Christian church is that of an interloper and an enemy.
Very early in the Christian era, the resurrection of Christ was annually commemorated, but for centuries that commemoration was preceded by no Lent. Cassianus, the monk of Marseilles, writing in the fifth century, says: "The observance of the forty days had no existence so long as the perfection of that primitive church remained inviolate." This testimony is a most expressive intimation that the introduction of "the forty days" was the bitter fruit of a violation of the purity and integrity of "that primitive church."
"Whence, then," we ask with another, "came this observance?" We answer: The forty days' abstinence of Lent originated with the ancient pagans, formed a part of their worship, and is, therefore, a purely idolatrous observance. "Such a fast of forty days in the spring of the year is now observed by the Yezidis, or devil worshippers of Koordistan, who have inherited it from their early masters, the Babylonians." (See "Layard's Nineveh and Babylon," p. 73.)
So, too, the pagan Mexicans. Says Humboldt ("Mexican Researches," Vol. 1, p. 404), "Three days before the vernal equinox, . . . began a solemn fast of forty days in honor of the sun."
Wilkinson tells us in his "Egyptian Antiquities," vol. 1, p. 278, that such a fast of forty days was observed in Egypt. Rome, too, whose paganism, both ancient and modern, was borrowed and perpetuated from the same ancient Babylonian model as that of Egypt, did not allow herself to overlook so conspicuous a feature as this, in that paganism, for under the pagan régime, she, too, had her Lent. Probably this was the time which includes the "forty nights," during which "the wailing for Proserpine continued." It appears from the testimony of Arnobius, as represented by Hislop in "Two Babylons" (p. 170), that the Romans observed a "sacred fast" called "Castus," which the Christians in his time believed "was primarily in imitation of the long fast of Ceres, when for many days she refused to eat, on account of "excess of sorrow" for the loss of her daughter Proserpine, who had been stolen and carried away by Pluto, the god of hell."
Whatever relation "the forty nights' wailing for Proserpine," "the long fast of Ceres," and the "sacred fast of Castus," may or may not have sustained to each other, they show that, like the Egyptians, from whom, in part at least, they learned their paganism—and like the whole pagan world as well—the ancient Romans periodically observed a sacred fast.181These facts, as we shall see, answer the question as to the origin of this great observance. They reveal, as the source from whence it has emanated, a fountain whose filthiness and pollutions no words but those "which the Holy Ghost speaketh," can possibly describe, whose waters, however clear and pellucid they may appear, are always charged to the full with the rankest, deadliest poison.
Just here another question presents itself, viz.: How and why did Lent find its way into the Christian church? Let us see. There is abundant evidence in history to show that, to propitiate the pagans, and secure their assent to a "nominal Christianity," the church of Rome, pursuing her usual policy, took measures, and found it no difficult matter to get paganism and Christianity, now far sunk in idolatry—in this, as in so many other things—to shake hands.
Such a treasonable policy could be carried out only by treachery and fraud. But Rome, as usual, was equal to the occasion. Taking advantage of the fact that fasting, though not expressly commanded, was yet approved by the Master, and practiced by all his apostles and the "apostolic church," it was easy for her, under some plausible pretext, to recommend, and at last to bring in, this ancient and revered pagan fast. To the church, "now far sunk in idolatry," this—like certain popular defections of the present day—was but another backward and downward step in her much boasted "progress and advanced thought." Of course, it was in every sense a loss to her, while to the pagans it was a positive gain.
Side by side with the Christians, they still fasted and worshiped in honor of Bacchus, their false Messiah; while Christians, in their "progressive" but false "liberality," kept the same fast, and to a great extent in the same way, in honor, profanely, of the true. Thus at length Lent had found its place among other "abominations," as an ordinance of the Christian religion.
In this the pagans yielded absolutely nothing, yet the church, in conceding everything, yielding everything, took, in this one act, a long step in that long career of concessions and compromises, by which at last she became thoroughly and hopelessly metamorphosed into what is now called the Roman Catholic Church, a living, loathsome embodiment of the ancient Babylonian paganism.—Chas. A. S. Temple, in Pagan Counterfeits.
ITS WEAKEST LINK.
If a chain can be made up of a thousand links, and nine hundred and ninety-nine are strong, but one is weak, the chain will be in danger of breaking at that one weak link. We may be strong in a thousand excellences, and yet have one weakness which endangers us. That is the reason that we sometimes see men distinguished for a whole round of virtues collapse and go down. The weak link in the otherwise stout chain gave way under the pressure.
The first chain bridge was built in Scotland. Walter Scott tells how the French imitated it in a bridge across the river Seine. But there was one weak point in that chain bridge. There was a middle bolt that was of poor material, but they did not know how much depended on that middle bolt of the chain bridge. On the opening day a procession started, led on by the builder of the bridge; and, when the mighty weight of the procession was fairly on it, the bridge broke and precipitated the multitudes. The bridge was all right except in that middle bolt. So the bridge of character may be made up of mighty links strong enough to hold a mountain, but if there be one weak spot, that one point unlooked after may be the destruction of everything. And what multitudes have gone down for all time and all eternity because in the chain bridge of their character there was lacking a strong middle bolt!—Selected.
SIN BEGETS SIN.
ONE sin leads to another. If a man tell a lie for any cause whatsoever, he commonly has to back it up with other lies; and then he may think it necessary to swear to his statements, or to curse those who do not believe him. In fact, the man who deliberately tells a lie, who explicitly declares that which is untrue, by his very act of lying turns his back upon God—the God of truth; and his only hope of success rests on the devil—the father of lies. Cursing is, indeed, a natural concomity of lying. To lie, under any circumstances, or for any purpose, is to desert God's cause and to enter the devil's service. Praying is appropriate to God's service. Lying is incompatible with the service of God; it belongs to the service of the devil.—Selected.
The Furnace Reveals Our Dross
By Colton
It is not until we have passed through the furnace that we are made to know how much dross there is in our composition.—Colton.