Perhaps there is no more encouraging reading to those interested in the cause of present truth than reports of successful labor from our ministers. We should reasonably expect, if this cause is what we think it is, viz., a warning message to the world of its coming doom, that there would be those who would regard it with some degree of interest. We should suppose it would stir the people where it is proclaimed.
When we see good evidence to believe that these results are found, it of course justifies the hope and faith we have had in it, and all true friends of the cause rejoice. Encouragement from the success of this great truth to the readers of the REVIEW is the principal reason for making reports at all. If there is nothing of an encouraging nature in a report, of what use is it to anybody? To be sure, this is a world of great perplexity, trial, darkness, and every kind of evil thing. It is inevitable that we shall meet many of these things. Their tendency is to discourage the hearts of the people, and may cause them to slack their efforts so that they will not gain eternal life.
It is a law of the human mind that by beholding we are changed into the same image. We can constantly look on the dark, discouraging side of things, till we become moody and melancholy, and lose all courage out of our hearts. This is not a desirable result. There never was a good cause but what there were discouragements connected with it of a weighty nature. And if those engaged in it were willing to dwell upon them all the time, they would likely never accomplish very much. But we may better look on the bright side. We are taught, when the signs of Christ’s coming are given, to look up and rejoice, knowing that our redemption draweth nigh. We want to gather all the courage we can. We are in no danger of having too much of this much-needed article.
So we say, Let our brethren who have such encouraging items which they might communicate, send them in. Where good, encouraging meetings are held, and the Lord blesses his people, and one, two, five, a dozen, twenty, or fifty, embrace the truth, it is most encouraging to have this communicated. We all rejoice at this.
I learn from my private correspondence, oftentimes, of most interesting things, which would make glad the hearts of many a lover of the truth, hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of readers who would rejoice at the news as much as I, but the writers seem never to think of communicating it to those readers. This is a wrong. It is the duty of our laborers to encourage the hearts of the people by all the truthful statements they can make of this nature; and it is a wrong to withhold them. Such are not doing their whole duty.
For instance, I received a letter from the president of one of our State Conferences a short time since, stating that under the labors of one or two of our young licensed preachers sixty-five, in one locality, had embraced the truth within two or three months past; and in another place in the same Conference twenty more, by the holding of one meeting; and still another minister in another language was laboring where the people were very much stirred, with a strong prospect of some forty more, which I have since learned have come out; and yet no adequate idea of this was given to the readers of the REVIEW. This is not as it should be. This instance of course is an extreme one; but there are many meetings of great encouragement which are never reported.
We want to see the Progress Department of our paper full of rich items showing just what its name indicates, Progress. There are a plenty of facts with which to fill this department and justify that title. These statements should give a simple, plain narration of these facts, and then stop. And this leads me to notice some abuses of this department. It is not designed to give a lengthy sermon in, or expatiate on the causes and reasons why certain writers did this, that, or the other, and what they thought they could accomplish, and all the particulars why they did not succeed, &c., &c.
Neither is it designed to be the medium through which one may announce his plans for future operations. Nor is it designed to be the place where the particulars of one’s private affairs shall be exhibited, where they think of living, and the places to which they design to move, and such like items. These matters may be of surpassing interest to the persons themselves, but we fail to see wherein they will interest the great mass of the readers of the REVIEW, or in what sense they give evidence of the “Progress” of the cause.
And further still, we are not prepared to see in what respect a minute chronicle of church trials and difficulties, in which the wrongs or wickedness of fallen humanity figure largely, benefits any one. These things will come. “It must needs be that offenses come,” we are told, and these things are sure to follow till human nature is much improved and the devil loses his hold on frail human nature. But it is not evident to my mind why these things should be sent in to fill the Progress Department. A little common sense, enlightened by the Spirit of the Lord, is an excellent thing, and we all wish to act in harmony with it. Let us do so. But let all our friends who have encouraging facts that show “progress” in the good work of God be sure to communicate them, and thus encourage the hearts of all. This is our duty. We want all to hear where the truth is going; and if friends who write to me encouraging facts don’t communicate them for the readers of the REVIEW, I shall be tempted to publish some of their private letters for the encouragement of others as well as myself.
GEO. I. BUTLER.
Battle Creek, Mich., March 29, 1874.
The True Missionary.
By Stephen Nelson Haskell
To say anything by way of calling the attention of the tract societies to this paper seems to be unnecessary and simply repeating what has already been said upon it. Probably one reason why our friends have not been more prompt in subscribing for it is, that they had not heard anything in particular about it previous to its being published. And as many do not realize the importance of personal effort in carrying forward this work, they have not seen the necessity of a paper devoted more especially to missionary labor.
The articles which have already appeared are worth many times the cost of the paper for one year. This is the opinion of all who I have heard express themselves who have read it. The incidents related, showing the especial blessing of God which has attended some that have moved out in the fear of God to sacrifice for the cause of Christ, are soul-inspiring.
No family or isolated individual that has any interest in the spread of this truth should be without this journal. If you want to keep up with the progressive steps taken by the people of God in the great work of warning the world, then you need the True Missionary. If you want to learn what the tract societies are doing, you will find the items showing this in that paper. I have frequently mentioned some encouraging features of this work that is alluded to in Bro. White's article in No. 2; and brethren would manifest a great surprise to think the cause had reached such a state of prosperity. When, if they had had the True Missionary, they would have learned the fact themselves. It is designed to come directly to our brethren and sisters, and treat of those matters which are of especial interest to them.
All those who have any interest in the rise and progress of this work, and in its practical working, will meet with a great loss in not taking this periodical.
The various directors of the tract societies throughout the country should see that every family in their respective districts who has any interest in this work, or who is backsliding for want of interest, and all isolated individuals, become subscribers, and so have the monthly visits of the True Missionary. Let not one be passed by. Shall this enterprise fail? Will it have to be discontinued for want of patronage? Will it be said that with a tract society membership of about 5,000 there is not sufficient interest of this kind to sustain such a paper, while our entire plan of operation is on this principle? The many questions that are asked concerning the practical workings of the tract and missionary work are answered in some form in the True Missionary.
But enough has already been said showing its importance. Its cost is only 50 cents a year. We shall expect that ere the May number is issued, instead of a list of subscribers less than one thousand, there will be a list of subscribers of not less than five thousand. It is to our brethren and sisters that we appeal to subscribe for it and to see that all the scattered individuals and families of Seventh-day Adventists are supplied with it.
S. N. HASKELL.
If It Had Been Different, What Then?
By Dudley Marvin Canright
See how great men are often puffed up by their greatness and use their power for injustice and tyranny. Alexander the Great frequently put to death his best friends in his fits of drunkenness. Whole cities were given up to destruction merely to gratify the spite of some of his favorites. The basest persons were exalted to the highest honors simply to please his fancy.
What if the infinite Creator should use his almighty power in a similar manner!! What uncertainty, what fear, what terror, it would spread throughout the universe! No being, however pure, holy, or exalted, could feel secure for a moment. How thankful we ought to be that, notwithstanding all the power, and honor, and glory of our God, he is still just and righteous in all his ways. Nay, more; from his high and lofty throne of exceeding glory, he is ever ready to listen to the cry of the most humble of his creatures. O my soul, how grateful we should be for such a God! How corrupt and wicked the heart that will not obey and love him!
What if God had made the conditions of admittance into his kingdom different from what they are? What if he had, like some earthly kings, required strength, beauty, and physical perfection, as a condition of his favor? What if he had required great talents and mental abilities as a condition of eternal life? What if he had demanded a hundred thousand dollars as the price of immortality? These are frequently and almost always the conditions which gain the favors and rewards of earthly kings. All, or any, of these tests would have rendered hopeless the cases of most of us.
But, blessed be God, the conditions of salvation are such as to give an equal chance to the poor and to the rich, to the simple and to the wise, to the weak and to the strong,—conditions with which all are able to comply if they only will. All we have to do is to put away our sins, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and give to our blessed God the love and devotion of our hearts. And why should these things be thought hard by us? Alas! what a proof of the corruption of the human heart is found in the fact that it will not submit to such terms as these, but even hates the merciful God who offers them.
Reader, are you thankful for such a God, for such a gospel? If not, why? Would you have the conditions of salvation different from what they are? Would you love a different God? Lay these questions to your heart, my friend, and may the Spirit of God press them upon your soul.
D. M. CANRIGHT.
Watsonville, Cal., Feb. 14, 1874.
Walk in the Light.
By Roswell F. Cottrell
Do you cherish the light which God has given? Are you walking in it? Or are you evading the light because you prefer darkness. The light is given for good. Like the divine law, it is ordained to life; but by transgression the law is found to be death, and the light that would save, being hated, tends only to condemnation. “This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.”
We may talk of loving the truth; but the test of our love is our obedience. Truth cannot be disregarded and trampled under foot without incurring condemnation. Even in those things we may account trivial, or of little importance, lawlessness is sure to harden the heart and bring condemnation. Small sins, if we may call any sins small, prepare the way for greater. The least departure from the way of life tends to death. But a small distance from the tree of life is found the tree of death; and one sin unrepented and unforgiven must in the end bring death.
The overcomer will have trials to overcome. The conqueror will first feel the fierce rage of his deadly foes; and when the final victory is gained, it will be truly said, Well done. The hearers of the truth, and those who love it in word and in tongue only, will not hear those life-giving words. But those who do the truth—walk in the light which God graciously gives—will finally be approved. “Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous.”
Let us cherish the light. Let us bring ourselves to it, that we may know our case, and not be deceived. Let us walk in it, that we may be kept from the hour of temptation. We are about to be tried. Those only who walk in the light will bear the trial and come off victorious.
R. F. COTTRELL
The Atonement No. 3 Scriptural Meaning of Death
By Joseph Harvey Waggoner
The Atonement.—No. 3.
But another difficulty is presented to us by giving an extraordinary definition to death; it is said to mean eternal misery. But on examination of this, the difficulty will be entirely on the side of those who present it. If that definition is correct, there is an insurmountable difficulty, involving the whole doctrine of the atonement, and making it utterly impossible for God to be just, and also the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.
First, if the signification of death is “eternal misery,” Christ never died at all; and then all the scriptures that say he died are untrue; and thus the atonement would be proved impossible, and further consideration of it would be useless. But admitting the Scripture testimony, that the wages of sin is death, and that Christ died for sin, we have the scriptural view of the term death, utterly forbidding such an unnatural and forced construction of a plain declaration.
Secondly, if the correct definition of death is eternal misery, the relative terms, first and second, as applied to death before and after the resurrection, are used absurdly. For how can there be a first and second eternal misery? Sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and death passed upon all men. But the very fact that man may be resurrected, released from death, as the Scriptures teach, clearly proves that the Scripture use of the term death is entirely different from the “theological use,” as given above.
And, thirdly, if death means eternal misery, then that is the penalty of the law; but as Christ did not suffer it, and the redeemed will not suffer it, so it follows that justice is never vindicated by the infliction of the penalty, either upon them or a substitute; and thus justice is suspended, not satisfied; and Christ’s death (if it could with any reason be called so) is not truly vicarious. As I have before considered, justice demands the infliction of the penalty of a just law; and as God is unchangeable and infinitely just, the penalty will surely be inflicted upon the transgressor or his substitute. But the above view makes it impossible. According to that, mercy does not harmonize with justice, but supersedes it; and God’s justice is not manifest in justifying the believer. The sum of the matter is this: that if the penalty be eternal misery, then all that have sinned must suffer it, and be eternally miserable, or else the demands of the law are never honored. But the first would result in universal damnation, and the other would degrade the government of God, and contradict both reason and Scripture.
This definition of death has been adopted of necessity to conform to the popular idea of the inherent immortality of man; yet it involves a contradiction in those who hold it. For it is claimed that the wicked are immortal and cannot cease to exist, and therefore the death threatened in the Scripture is something besides cessation of existence, namely, misery. But immortality signifies exemption from death; and if the scriptural meaning of death is misery, and the wicked are immortal, or exempt from death, they are, of course, exempt from misery! The advocates of this theory do not mean to be Universalists, but their position necessarily leads to that result.
It was well said by that great Christian philosopher, John Locke, that “it seems a strange way of understanding law, which requires the plainest and most direct terms, that by death should be meant eternal life in misery.” Life and death are opposites; the first is promised to the justified, the second is threatened and inflicted upon the unjust. But life and misery are not opposites; misery is a condition of life. In everything but “theology” such a perversion of language would not be tolerated, as to make eternal misery and death, or even misery and death, synonymous. Were any one to report that a man was dead because he knew him to be suffering in much misery, it would be looked upon as trifling—solemn mockery. With a cessation of life every condition of life must cease.
There has been much contention over the word “vicarious” in regard to the atonement. We object to the phrase “vicarious atonement” for reasons which will be given; but an atonement must be effected by vicarious death—vicariousness is an essential element in such a transaction. That which is done for another is vicarious; and as Christ died for us, his death was vicarious. He who suffers for his own sins makes no atonement. True, he satisfies the demand of the law, but he is lost. Had all the world been left to perish, the penalty would have been inflicted and justice honored, but there would have been no atonement. An atonement can only be made by one who suffers for another, or others; and this shows the remark to be just, that there can be no atonement where there is no vicariousness.
Those who deny a vicarious death generally reason thus: Justice would not admit of the penalty being inflicted twice for the same offense; therefore if Christ suffered vicariously, or in our stead, we must be released as a matter of justice, and not of pardon or favor; for where the law takes its course there is no pardon. But this reasoning is defective in every respect. It might apply if mercy were the sole object; but where justice and mercy unite, there must be conditions whereby we avail ourselves of the benefits of his death. But his death was voluntary and unconditional: a free-will offering to justice in our behalf. He honors the law whether we will honor it or not; and if we will not accept him, we must bear the consequences. Thus, there was no pardon to him when he was made sin for us; but there is pardon to us through him. But if he did not suffer in our stead, then we must suffer for ourselves, or how is justice administered? A penalty is inflicted for crime; and Christ died for sin. But whose sin? Not his own, but ours. Then he bore the penalty of our sin in our stead. No one can imagine that Christ bore our sins on the tree, except in the sense of suffering in his death the desert of our sins, for death is that desert.
“He hath made him to be sin for us”—not that he was a sinner, for he “knew no sin,” but he was counted a sinner—sin was imputed to him, if you please, for our sake, “that we might be made the righteousness of God in him,” 2 Cor. 5:21, that we might be possessed through faith in him of justification, a remission of sin.
One remark must be made in regard to the error of what is called the commercial view of the death of Christ, that is, that if Christ suffered the penalty due the sinner, then the sinner must be cleared as an act of justice, the debt being paid for him. But crime is not debt. The death of Christ is not the payment of a debt so that the debtor must be unconditionally released, but it is such a satisfaction to the law as makes salvation possible consistently with justice, on certain conditions.
It must be admitted by all that after the death of Christ the sinner is, in himself, as deserving of punishment as he was before that death. It has not lessened his guilt one particle. And, if he should repent and reform, that would not meet the demands of the law in regard to his past life. But the death of Christ so honors the claims of the law that if the transgressor repents, reforms, and accepts the sacrifice of Christ as his own, then the law is vindicated in respect to the past, and the government is secured against further rebellion. For we must always bear in mind that an atonement is in behalf of the government as well as of the sinner. That must be secured in its rights. God will be just even in justifying the penitent. Infinite mercy and love can devise and execute no plan of salvation but such a one as infinite justice can approve. How partial, unscriptural, and dishonoring to the government of God is every system that ignores the element of justice in the gospel, and makes salvation unconditional.
It remains to notice the vicariousness of the death of Christ as shown by the types of the law, and more fully the effect of that death in behalf of the law of God.
J. H. Waggoner.
Character of the Papacy.
By John Norton Loughborough
CONCERNING the character of the great apostate papal church, and some of its popes, we will quote a few statements from De Cormenin. Of the rise of the power, he says:—“The emperors beheld with contempt, sometimes with indignation, the progress of this new religion, which was elevating its worship on the ruins of the gods of the empire. . . . We arrive at the epoch when Constantine placed Christianity upon the throne. From thence we see Christians, animated by a furious zeal, persecuting without pity, fanning the most extravagant quarrels, and constraining pagans, by fire and sword, to embrace Christianity.”
Again, he says: “The bishops commenced toward the close of the second century to claim for themselves a jurisdiction over other churches; which they had not received from the apostles; and, in the third, had already abandoned the precepts of humility taught by Christ.”
In speaking of the corruptions of the papacy in the thirteenth century, he quotes and indorses the words of Matthew Paris: “All belief is annihilated; . . . and greedy priests can devour without sin the substance of the people and the Lord. Evangelical charity has now taken its flight toward the heavens; ecclesiastical liberty has disappeared, religion is dead, and the holy city has become an infamous prostitute, whose shamelessness surpasses that of Sodom and Gomorrah.”
This De Cormenin, although a Catholic, was not blinded, but could see some of the wrongs in his own church. In the preface to his history, he says of the history of the popes: “It runs through a long series of ages during which the bishops of Rome, whose mission was to announce to men a divine religion, have forgotten it in their pride of power, have outraged the morality of Christ, and become the scourge of the human race. . . . The thunders launched from the Vatican by sacrilegious priests, overthrew kingdoms, and covered Europe, Asia, and Africa, with butcheries, wars, and conflagrations.”
De Cormenin makes some remarks concerning individual popes which I will notice. In the sixth century, he speaks of Pope Saint Gregory I., who reigned from A. D. 590 to A. D. 602 as the one who “discovered the doctrine of purgatory.”
In the seventh century, he says of Boniface IV., who was pope from A. D. 608 to A. D. 614: “The tyrant Phocas offered to Boniface IV. the Pantheon, built by Marius Agrippa, son-in-law of Augustus, thirty years before the Christian era, and consecrated formerly to all the divinities of paganism. The pontiff thankfully accepted the offer of the emperor, and transformed this splendid building into a Christian church, which he solemnly dedicated to the virgin under the name of our lady of the Rotunda.”
In the eighth century, he says of the reign of Zachary, or Zacharias, as some call him: “We now enter upon the most remarkable period of papal grandeur. History will show us the bishops of Rome abandoning the principles of the Bible, trampling under foot the precepts and the morals of Jesus Christ, plunging into all the excesses of depravity, tearing diadems from the foreheads of kings, and crushing the unfortunate people beneath their execrable tyranny.”
Zachary himself wrote to the primate of Gaul: “Has not Rome itself been filled with scandals by its clergy? Has not the chair of St. Peter itself been soiled by pontiffs who were guilty of adultery, incest, murder, and poisoning?” It was this same Zachary who persecuted Virgil, the Scotch priest, calling his theory that the earth was round and inhabited on all its sides, “sacrilegious idolatry.” It was also upon him that Pepin conferred several rich domains of France. By the gift of Pepin, and of Charlemagne, his son, “the pontiffs became possessors of the isle of Corsica, the city of Bari, Reggio, and Mantua, the exarchate of Ravenna, the province of Venice and Istria, and the Duchies of Spoletta and Beneventum.”
In the ninth century, or from A. D. 853 to A. D. 855, the Catholic church was favored with the rule of a female pope, Joan. The deception of her disguise, as well as her own iniquitous course, was discovered in her being delivered of a child during a public procession. Some Catholic writers undertake to deny that there ever was a female pope, but De Cormenin says: “It’s no use to deny it. . . . All that scaffolding of superstition and idolatry on which is placed the chair of St. Peter falls before a female pope!!!”
In the eleventh century, there were three popes ruling at one time: “One at St. Peter’s, the other at St. Mary Majura, and the third at the palace of the Lateran.”
In the same century, or from A. D. 1073 to A. D. 1085, Gregory VII.—Hildebrand—ruled as pope. He had poisoned eight popes while trying to exalt himself to the holy see. Bayle, in speaking of Hildebrand, says: “The popes have been more than once wicked hypocrites, worthy of the rope and fire.” Hildebrand himself, in one of his works, boasts that his “justice resembled rather the cruelty of a tyrant than the severity of a judge.”
As a sample of his manner we will present his anathema against king Henry of Germany: “I prohibit Henry, who, by reason of an unheard-of pride, has elevated himself against us, from governing the kingdoms of Germany and Italy. I free all Christians from the oaths which they have taken to him, and I prohibit all from serving him as king; for he who would oppose our authority deserves to lose his crown, his liberty, and his life. I burthen Henry, then, with anathema and malediction. I devote him to the execration of men, and I deliver up his soul to Satan, in order that the people may know that the sovereign pontiff is the rock upon which the Son of the living God has built his church, and that the gates of hell shall never prevail against it. . . . He addressed a circular to the German and Italian bishops and lords, in which he ordered them, in case Henry should persist in his revolt against the holy see, to choose another king who would govern the empire in accordance with the laws of the church.”
Henry presented himself alone at the outer gate of the fortress, and waited with patience until the pope was ready to have them opened. When he had passed the outward entrance, he laid aside all his royal ornaments, unclothed himself entirely and put on sackcloth. A broom and scissors were then placed in his hands as a sign that he consented to be whipped and shaven. He remained in this position for three days and three nights, with naked feet, during the most extreme severity of the winter, without covering, without any nourishment, shedding torrents of tears, and imploring with many groans the mercy of the pope!”
Hildebrand himself said respecting the position of the pope: “Christians are irrevocably submitted to his orders; they should murder their princes, fathers, and children, if he commands it; no council can be declared universal without the orders of the pope; no book can be received as canonical without his authority; finally, no good nor evil exists but in what he has condemned or approved.”
In the same connection with the above, De Cormenin quotes and indorses the words of Bayle relative to the papacy, as follows: “We cannot consider without astonishment that men, by the assistance of the word of God, a gospel which preaches disdain of grandeur, which exalts humility and poverty, have had the hardihood to aspire to absolute sway over the sovereigns of the earth. But, what surprises us still more is, that the popes have been enabled to maintain this incredible sway during almost a thousand years. This conquest is more admirable than those of the Alexanders and Cæsars; and Gregory VII., who is the principal author of it, ought really to have his place among great conquerors.”
In the eleventh century also, the crusades were commenced, and in these crusades more than one million persons perished. In the fourteenth century, or from A. D. 1318 to A. D. 1335, John XXII. was pope, and it was he that published the celebrated tariff of the Roman chancellors for the absolution of all crimes. De Cormenin says of this tariff: “In fact, the tax exacted by John XXII. became for the popes, his successors, one of the most vast and fruitful financial operations that the avarice and infernal genius of the pontiffs ever invented.”
In the fifteenth century, or in A. D. 1410, John XXIII. commenced his reign as pope. It was under his reign that John Huss was burned. When Gerson, the chancellor of Paris, told Huss he must either bend or break, Huss said: “I prefer the most terrible punishments to the disgrace of being called the defender of popes and kings. Let your infernal proceedings take their course; give John Huss to the flames; but ere a century passes, there will spring from these ashes an avenger who will proclaim anew the truths which I have taught,” and for which you would condemn Christ himself, should he return to earth.”
In A. D. 1492 commenced the reign of Roderic Borgia, under the title of Alexander VII. Of him, De Cormenin says: “We are finally entering upon a period in which the theocracy reached the apogee of its power, and in which, far from concealing its perfidies, corruption, and cruelties, in the dark, it exposes them to the light of day, and even glories in them. . . . The pope who comprehended this new phase of the pontificate, is beyond all contradiction the successor of Innocent VIII., the execrable Roderic Borgia.”127
It was in the sixteenth century, while Leo X. was pope, that Martin Luther engaged in the work of the Reformation. Leo X. was the first to proclaim by a bull the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. De Cormenin says that Leo X. “organized on a vast scale the speculation in indulgences.” It was one of the venders of these indulgences—Tetzel—that stirred the spirit of Luther to proclaim loudly against the corruptions of the papacy. De Cormenin says: “On all sides they attacked the colossal statue with the feet of clay; bold men cried out to the people, ‘Draw away from the dominion of the popes those shameless thieves who have made the temple of Christ a cave of robbers.’”
Arcembold, one engaged in the sale of indulgences in Saxony, said: “As our Lord Jesus Christ absolves you by the merits of his passion, I, by his authority, and that of the blessed apostles, St. Peter and St. Paul, and that of our most holy father, absolve you from all ecclesiastical censures under which you may have fallen, from all sins, delinquencies, or excesses, which you may have committed, or shall commit hereafter, how great soever they may be, and I make you a partaker in all the spiritual merits acquired by the church militant or its members.” Leo X. printed documents announcing that, “for money, one could purchase pardon for any crime, even parricide.”
In the sixteenth century, while Paul III. was pope, the society of the Jesuits was founded by Ignatius Loyola. Of this society, De Cormenin says: “Whilst the Reformation was making great strides under the burning inspiration of Luther and Calvin, and was threatening to crush the papacy, a society of fanatical devotees were sharpening their daggers in the dark, and were preparing to exterminate the Protestants.” Of the Jesuits, I may have more to say hereafter. J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH.
BURIED OR SOWN.
By Archbishop Trench
There went a man from home, and to his neighbors twain
He gave to keep for him two sacks of golden grain.
Deep in his cellar one the precious charge concealed,
And forth the other went and strewed it on the field.
The man returns at last—asks of the first his sack.
“Here, take it, ’t is the same; thou hast it safely back.”
Unharmed it shows without, but when he would explore
His sack’s recesses, corn there finds he now no more.
One-half of what was there proves rotten and decayed,
Upon the other half had mold and mildew prey’d.
The putrid heap to him in ire he does return,
Then to the other asks, “Where is my sack of corn?”
Who answered, “Come with me, and see how it has sped,”
Who took and showed him fields with waving harvest spread.
Then cheerfully the man laughed out and cried,
“This one had insight, to make up for the other that had none.”
The letter he observed, but thou the precept’s sense,
And thus to thee and me shall profit grow from hence;
In harvest thou shalt fill two sacks of corn for me,
The residue of right remains in full for thee.
—Archbishop Trench.
The Judge on the Bench and the Empty Witness-Box
The Judge on the bench is my righteousness; the witness-box is empty; “Neither do I condemn thee.”
Green Hill, R. I.
By P. C. Rodman
We have just closed a course of lectures in Niantic, in the Seventh-day Baptist meeting-house. As a result, several have embraced the truth, and others are investigating, and we hope will follow the Lord wholly. Some of the S. D. Baptist brethren were quickened, and are determined to engage anew in the work of overcoming.
Obtained six subscribers for REVIEW, two for Instructor, one for Reformer, and sold several dollars’ worth of our works, and distributed some tracts.
Eld. H. Clark, who preaches to them usually, attended the most of our meetings. He was very cordial, and invited us to return and preach to them as often as we could.
P. C. Rodman.
Do You Attend the Prayer-Meeting?
By Nevins
How came it to pass that three thousand were converted on the day of Pentecost? Had not the meeting for prayer, of which mention is made in Acts 1:14, when it is said, “These all with one accord continued in prayer and supplication,” a close and influential connection with the glorious results of that day? Undoubtedly it had. But what was there in that meeting of one hundred and twenty disciples to exert an influence to the conversion of three thousand individuals? Whence had it that power? It was a prayer-meeting, professedly a prayer-meeting, a meeting of Christians to express their dependence on God; unitedly to call on him for his blessing; to plead his promise and to await his fulfillment of it. These are the efficient meetings in which Christians meet and agree to ask of God. I wonder they do not value them more. To the prayer-meeting Christians come to exercise the high privilege of intercession for others; to do good and to communicate, to act the more “blessed part;” whereas to meetings of another kind they go for the purpose of receiving good. Yet Christians value no meetings so little as prayer-meetings. But the influence of that meeting of a hundred and twenty was not owing entirely to its being a prayer-meeting. There was much by which it was distinguished from ordinary prayer-meetings. The mention of these peculiarities may be of service. It may provoke imitation in some churches.
1. All the church attended the prayer-meeting. “These all continued,” etc. There were but one hundred and twenty disciples, and they were all present. How different it is now! They who meet may agree among themselves to ask for an outpouring of the Spirit, but it is after all but the agreement of a minority of the church. The majority, by their absence, dissent from the request.
2. As all attended, of course the men attended as well as the women. Yes, every male member of the church was present; they did not leave it to the women to sustain the prayer-meeting. That prayer-meeting had not the aspect of many a modern prayer-meeting, in which almost all are the weaker sex.
3. The most distinguished members of the church attended as well as the most obscure. There were all the apostles, and “Mary the mother of Jesus,” and “his brethren.” None of them felt above being at a prayer-meeting. How is it now?
4. They were all agreed—“of one accord,” as it is said, not merely agreed as touching what they should ask, namely, the fulfillment of “the promise of the Father,” but of one mind generally—ay, and of one heart. They thought and felt alike. They all loved one another. Such cordial union among Christians has great power with God. It does not always exist in our prayer-meetings.
5. They persevered in prayer. “These all continued in prayer.” First they stirred themselves up to take hold on God, and then said: “We will not let thee go except thou bless us.” They met often for prayer, and all met, and they lingered long at the throne of grace. But how long did they continue asking? Until they obtained, and then they did but pass from the note of prayer to that of praise. They sought the Lord until he came. It is time we all should do it. They were together holding meeting when the Spirit descended. I think if all our church members would habitually attend the prayer-meetings, they would not wait in vain for the promise of the Father. How oft we hear it said, It is nothing but a prayer-meeting. Nothing but! I should like to know what surpasses a prayer-meeting.—Nevins.