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Review and Herald, Vol. 46, No. 24.

ROME'S ATTEMPTS TO DESTROY THE BIBLE

Review and Herald

Dec 16, 1875

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 16, 1875

ROME'S ATTEMPTS TO DESTROY THE BIBLE.

By J. O. Corliss

BY ELD. J. O. CORLISS.
The seventh chapter of Daniel brings to view a line of symbols on the application of which all Protestant commentators are agreed. In the twenty-fifth verse of that chapter, it is said of the little horn that he should wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws; and that they (the saints and laws) should be given into his hand for a stated time. It is evident to all that the quickest and most effectual way to make the change here spoken of, and bring the people of God under another regime, would be to suppress that word so dear to them as a rule of life, and in its stead give another by which the minds of the people could be led in a different direction, and their affections be made to center on another object.
In consenting as we do to the universal application of the symbol of the little horn to Papal Rome, we do so because we find its specifications fulfilled in the course which this power has taken with the word of God and his people.
But we shall find that the policy of Rome has ever been to suppress the Scriptures, at least since their translation into the English language. Prior to that time she had no incentive for destroying them, as they, being in the Latin tongue, were already beyond the reach of the common people; and their knowledge of them, if they had any, must come through the corrupting medium of the priesthood. Hence the minds of the people must follow in the channel marked out by those who had selfish interests to serve, and consequently they fell an easy prey to superstition and error, and became the votaries of a haughty, arrogating power.
But gradually the minds of men began to be aroused to the necessity of a version of the Scriptures which could be read by all; and, preparatory to the fulfillment of the word of God by the prophet that this arrogant power should wane, John Wickliffe appeared and produced a translation of the Bible into the vernacular tongue, which was completed A. D. 1380. This work was placed in the hands of, and began to be read by, the laity of England, when ecclesiastical decrees made it a forbidden book, and strenuous efforts were made to wrest it from the hands of the common people.
Prior to this time, however, portions of the Scriptures had been translated, and there is good reason to believe that even the whole Bible was in use among the Waldenses in their native tongue before the appearance of Wickliffe's version. Perrin, their historian, has carefully preserved their Articles and Confession of Faith, in which the books of the sacred writings are enumerated in such a manner as to leave the impression that they had access to God's word in their own language. Reference may be made to a decree enacted with special reference to the Waldensian heretics by the Council of Toulouse in 1229: “We forbid and prohibit the books of the Old Testament to the laity, unless they will have the Psalter or some Breviary for divine service, or the Prayer-book of the blessed Virgin Mary for their devotion; most expressly forbidding them to have the said books translated into the vulgar tongue.”
Henry Knighton, a fierce slanderer of Wickliffe, and a contemporary, lamented that by this general spread of Scripture truth the Bible was no longer regarded as the special talisman of the priesthood; and that which was once precious to both clergy and laity had been rendered the common jest of both. The grand objection of Rome against the laity having the Bible has ever been that its doctrines are too obscure and mystical for their comprehension.
A sincere love for the truths of the sacred writings has always been accompanied by an earnest zeal for the principles of freedom, both civil and religious, which was true in the case of the reformer. In the month of May, 1377, Pope Gregory XI. issued four bulls against Wickliffe, which called out from him an answer not in the mildest language. He says: “Let him [the pope] not be ashamed to perform the ministry of the church, since he is, or at least ought to be, the servant of the servants of God. But a prohibition of reading the sacred Scriptures and a vanity of secular dominion would seem to partake too much of a disposition towards the blasphemous advancement of Antichrist, especially while the truths of a scriptural faith are reputed tares, and said to be opposed to Christian truth by certain leaders, who arrogate that we must abide by their decision respecting every article of faith, notwithstanding they themselves are plainly ignorant of the faith of the Scriptures.”
Rome’s hatred of the Bible has been shown to be the most intense by her course toward those who loved it. In 1390, an attempt was made to suppress the Scriptures in England by an act of Parliament which proved abortive; but in 1400, Archbishop Arundel commenced to harass and oppress all who were suspected of adhering to the Lollards. Their name was derived from Walter Lollard, a German monk who had been an inquisitor, but, upon conversion, became a zealous preacher of the faith he once sought to destroy.
Wickliffe died a natural death, Dec. 31, 1384. But when the Council of Constance was called, thirty years after, his memory was consigned to infamy and execration, and a decree was issued that his bones should be disinterred and burned; which was put into execution forty-three years after his death, and his ashes scattered upon the surface of the river. “And so,” exclaims Fox, “he was resolved into three elements, earth, fire, and water; they thinking thereby utterly to extinct and abolish both the name and doctrine of Wickliffe forever.”
The art of printing was invented near the middle of this century, which opened the way for copies of the Bible to be multiplied both in England and on the Continent. And the hours of midnight were used by the faithful, while their persecutors slept, in reading the sacred writings and hearing them expounded. So vigilant were the emissaries of Rome at this time that many were apprehended and cruelly tortured.
A lady named Joan Boughton, who was eighty years of age, was publicly burned at Smithfield in 1494, upon being convicted of heresy. William Tylsworth suffered in 1506. His only daughter was compelled to set fire to the pile which consumed her father! By pursuing such a course, Rome had nearly succeeded in destroying the sacred writings, when another person appeared who was destined to stir the ire of the pope, and help pave the way for the overthrow of the papacy in England.
But little is known of Tyndale’s early history. He was ordained a priest of the Roman Church in 1502. He afterwards became a monk, and joined the convent of the Observant Friars at Greenwich. About the time that Luther was publishing his theses in Germany, Tyndale and others were preaching the same doctrines in Cambridge. Being in dispute with a learned theologian of the Romish Church, the papist exclaimed: “We were better to be without God’s law than the pope’s!” Tyndale replied, “I defy the pope and all his laws! If God spares my life, ere many years I will cause the boy that driveth the plough to know more of the Scriptures than you do.”
Tyndale was himself poor, but he passed over to Hamburg for security, where Sir Humphrey Monmouth furnished him with the means of support, and about two years from that time, 1526, the first edition of his book (the New Testament) was printed and ready for circulation. The second edition, which soon followed, was speedily denounced by Bishop Tunstall as a “pestiferous and most pernicious poison,” and he commanded all persons who had received copies of it to deliver them to the Vicar General within thirty days after the publication of his injunction, under pain of excommunication.
All the copies of this work which were for sale were bought up by Tunstall and burned. Tyndale, however, without being daunted, labored assiduously to prepare other books and tracts for general distribution; and, in connection with Miles Coverdale, prosecuted his translation of the Old Testament in spite of the proclamation which consigned his other work to the flames. Again the people were admonished to “detest and abhor the New Testament in English,” and to deliver all the copies in their possession to the proper authorities. But the very means employed to suppress the Scriptures only tended to increase the desires of the people to possess them.
In 1534 Tyndale published another edition of the New Testament, after which he became the object of the most malignant hatred of the papacy, and they were determined on his destruction. He was arrested at Antwerp the same year and committed to prison. In September 1536, after a long and tedious confinement, he was first strangled, and then burned. His last words were: “Lord, open the king of England’s eyes.”
In the same year that Tyndale suffered, Henry VIII. decided that the people should have the Scriptures. An order was therefore issued that every parson of a church parish within his realm should provide a copy of the Bible in Latin, and also in English, and place it where all could read it. An act of Parliament, however, in 1543, prohibited the indiscriminate reading of the Scriptures. The penalty for the first offense was a fine of ten pounds, and for the second, forfeiture of all goods and imprisonment for life.
On account of personal difficulties with the pope, Henry VIII. became alienated from the Romish Church. Even after this, neither he nor his immediate successors were entirely free from papal influence; and, in many cases, the majority of those who composed the English Parliament were papists. We may not, therefore, be astonished to find the minions of the pope exercising an influence to return the king and his subjects to their former allegiance; hence, in 1546, a prohibition was published in a royal proclamation, enjoining that no person of whatever condition or degree, keep or take in their possession Tyndale’s or Coverdale’s translation of the New Testament, or any other religious books written by the reformers, but give them up to those appointed to receive them that they might be burned.
Henry did not long survive the enactment of the prohibition. He died the next year, and was succeeded by Edward VI., a prince of an amiable disposition, and favorably disposed toward the Reformation. In the early part of his reign, the Duke of Somerset was made Lord Protector; and one of his first acts was to reverse the restrictions upon the reading of the Scriptures, which brought upon him the fury of the bishops and clergy. They succeeded in ruining him, and he was beheaded Jan. 22, 1552.
The next ruler of England was the “Bloody Queen Mary,” who ascended the throne upon the death of Edward VI., in 1553. One of her first acts was every way worthy of that intolerant sect of which she was an adherent, and was only one of the many acts of infamy by which her life and reign were characterized. A prohibition was published which forbade all ministers from preaching without license from the queen. It also forbade the reading of the Scriptures in the churches. The publication of this was followed by the arrest of the most eminent friends of the Reformation, among whom were Bishops Cranmer, Ridley, and others. These with Latimer were sent to Oxford to hold a debate respecting the real presence, and were convicted and condemned for heresy. In less than four years, during this reign two hundred and seventy-seven persons were burned in England by papal authority!
The death of Mary, in 1558, delivered the people of England from a most cruel yoke; and her departure was hailed by many as a national blessing. She was succeeded by Elizabeth, who immediately restored the Scriptures and the God-given privileges which had been so cruelly torn from the people, privileges which have never since been wholly withdrawn.
When it was seen that the Scriptures could not be suppressed, and England restored to allegiance by such aggressive measures, another policy was adopted to effect the purpose of the papacy. In 1582, a version of the New Testament in English, with copious notes, was issued by the English College of Rheims, which was intended to supersede the popular translation then in use, and to prove that the doctrines of popery are taught in the word of God.
In this version the plainest texts of Scripture were made to contradict one another, or were so shaded by sophistry and falsehood that the ignorant could no longer discern their meaning. The Rhemish version is valuable for one thing. It is a perfect portrait of Rome’s policy to cover up her defects, and justify, nay, even extol, her infernal course in wearing out the saints of God.
We give a few extracts from the notes accompanying this version, which were republished in New York in 1834.
To Rev. 17:6; where the woman drunken with the blood of the saints is described, the following note is appended:—
“Verse 6: Drunken of the blood. It is plain, that this woman signifieth the whole corps of all the persecutors that have and shall shed so much blood of the just; of the prophets, apostles, and other martyrs from the beginning of the world to the end. The Protestants foolishly expound it of Rome, for that there they put heretics to death, and allow of their punishment in other countries. But their blood is not called the blood of saints, no more than the blood of thieves, man-killers, and other malefactors; for the shedding of which, by order of justice, no commonwealth shall answer.”
Speaking of the unclean spirits that cried out, “Thou art the Son of God,” they say:—
“Verse 12: Thou art the Son. The confession of the truth is not grateful to God, proceeding from every person. The devil, acknowledging our Saviour to be the Son of God, was bidden hold his peace. Peter’s confession of the same was highly allowed, and rewarded.—Aug. tract. 10. in ep. Joan. ser. 30, 31. de verb. Apostoli. Therefore, neither heretics’ sermons must be heard, no, not though they preach the truth. So is it of their prayer and service, which being never so good in itself, is not acceptable to God, out of their mouths; yea, it is no better than the howling of wolves,—Hiero, in 7. Osee.”
It is not to be wondered at that the bishops of America repudiate the Rhemish version. They say it was never formally recognized by the church; but how could the church express her sanction? The last Ecumenical and infallible council before that of 1870 was in 1545, and the Rhemish version did not appear until 1582; so that the authority of the church, as expressed in council, could not be given to this translation, for the simple reason that it knew nothing of the forthcoming version.
As we come down, however, a little nearer to the time when the saints should be released from the power of the papacy, and the seal should be taken from the words of God, as spoken by the mouth of the prophet, the minds of the people are being prepared for the great event. In 1604, soon after the accession of James I. to the throne of England, measures were adopted for the preparation of a new version of the Scriptures. The translators were appointed by the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, and by the king. Fifty-four of the most eminent scholars of the age were appointed to the task, but the number was subsequently reduced to forty-seven. The work was completed in 1613, and is the Bible now in common use. The “Protestant version,” as it is called by the Romanists, has always received their denunciations and invectives, and even now is a forbidden book among them.
We give an extract from a Catholic Herald, for November, 1843, which plainly shows the hatred of the so-called faithful against the word of God:—
“What have the Bible Societies accomplished for the United States? Let the universal complaint, now told in almost every newspaper, testify. Let the vast scale on which dishonesty has been practiced by men in responsible situations—let the forgeries, breaches of trust, assassinations, murders—the conflict of eminent men in political affrays—the bowie knife and the pistol, and the disposition manifested by the rising generation, in the late riots of this city—let all these speak of the result of scattering Bibles through the land.”
Do not be startled, friends, at the above language, for “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh;” and you may cease to wonder when you know that it is but the voice of Rome, in imitation of her ancestors, exhausting her harmless thunder against the word of God. Could this power speak greater words against the Most High than these? It would seem that to attribute all these crimes, so fearfully prevalent at the present time, to the use of God’s word can be nothing else than the height of blasphemy.
The time of the end was to mark an era when many should run to and fro, and knowledge should be increased. The year 1798, the time looked forward to by the prophet, was distinguished by the capture of the pope by Berthier, and the temporary overthrow of the papacy. Since that time, the Bible has been translated into two hundred different languages, and sent to all parts of the world. Its principles are being taught, and many of its glorious truths which had been lost sight of and covered up for ages by the intrigues of this subtle power, are being revived and instilled into the hearts of God’s people. The seal of his law, the Sabbath of the Lord, is being restored, in fulfillment of the third angel’s message of Rev. 14, which says, “Here is the patience of the saints; here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.”
And when that message shall have done its work, then, with all the faithful of both dispensations, will the martyrs of the Dark Ages rise from their dusty beds, the prison-house of Satan, to shout victory over death, and enjoy eternal felicity and bliss in the kingdom of our Lord. “He which testifieth these things saith, Surely, I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.”

THE DAY.

“Ye see the day approaching.”
STEADILY, sternly, it marches on; At each sun’s setting a step is won; At each sun’s rising ’tis nearer yet; We cannot its sure approach forget. For the long procession is filing past, And soon will it come, the great, the last.
We see it coming; our shrinking eyes Are drawn to its splendor across the skies. We fain would hide from its blinding glare, Or hinder it by a wild, sad prayer; But ever relentlessly on it comes To our shadowed hearts and our darkened homes.
What though we banish with mirth and song The sound of its coming? It sweeps along. It will not stay for our many fears; It will not halt for our many tears; And every season of blessedness Is making the distance ever less.
But why should we tremble and fear the day Christ is in it, he comes this way. Little of all the pompous show, The gloom, the splendor, our eyes shall know. For we shall see in the Heaven above The Friend we long for, the Lord we love.
Then let us sing, as we pass along, A cheery measure, a hopeful song; Better than all the times shall be That glorious time when the King we see. So let us watch, and wait, and pray, For the approaching of that day. —Sel.

A Perplexed Sinner.

UNDER this head, we find the following pointed and truthful remarks in the N. Y. Weekly Sun, of Nov. 17, 1875:—
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN—Sir: I am a wayfaring man and a sinner. In common with hundreds of my fellow-sinners, I am seeking salvation; but between reading the Sun and hearing Mr. Moody I am greatly perplexed; for it is unfortunate that while Mr. Moody sets forth the humiliating doctrine “that our righteousness is as filthy rags,” and that before the divine law, our morality goes for nothing, the Sun holds that righteousness is the only test of true religion. Plain people, somehow, have always fallen into that error, for a fatal error it is from the orthodox point of view. Now, if what little righteousness I may have is not my own, whose is it? Human law proceeds upon the principle that men can and ought to obey the statutes of the land. I have read the Bible a good deal, and must confess that I find everywhere, in the Old and New Testaments, that God makes a great distinction between the righteous and the wicked. Christ answers the sinner’s question, “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” throughout the gospels in these words, which I am sorry to say Mr. Moody rarely quotes: “Keep the commandments!” My sympathy was aroused a few days since in behalf of a young man whose friends requested prayers at the Tabernacle morning meeting for him, on the ground that he stood on his morality! This incorrigible young man awoke the profoundest pity of Mr. Moody, and the prayers for this poor benighted youth were so fervent as doubtless to be a great warning to other young men who make a profession of morality! A SINNER.
Now, though I am inclined to the Sun’s doctrine upon this great subject, yet the overshadowing influences the other way are so potent just now, that it is hard to determine what course to take. I want to be good; I want to do good. I desire to know the truth. My reason tells me to trust in God and do right. Orthodoxy says I am on dangerous ground, and proposes remedies which I cannot comprehend. It is a great thing to convert a soul from the error of his ways. Perhaps you can help me in my perplexity, and I am sure you will help thousands of others in a similar case.
To the foregoing, the Sun, under the heading, “The Perplexities of a Sinner,” makes the following pertinent reply. Every believer in the perpetuity of the law will feel well paid by its perusal.
In giving place elsewhere to the earnest and sincere letter of a perplexed “Sinner,” who thinks the religious views of the Sun are at variance with those of the Brooklyn revivalists, we desire to say that the Sun is always ready to propound, apply, and enforce, the fundamental truths of religion and morality, but must decline to enter upon any sectarian controversy. We are prepared to defend the ground we have taken, and which we desire to see Moody and Sankey standing upon. We maintain that true religion and true righteousness are one and inseparable, now and forever; that a truly religious man must live and act righteously; that the truth of a man’s religious mindedness must be tested by his righteous conduct; that genuine conversion consists in turning from evil ways to righteous ways; that a revival of religion, to be worth anything, must be a revival of righteousness; that an unrighteous religionist is a fraud; that a divorce of true religion from practical righteousness is impossible; and that any so-called revival of religion, the righteous fruits of which are not palpable, visible, manifest, and unmistakable, is mere shoddy and sham.
By this test we try all public revivals and all personal conversions that may present themselves to us. If any one of them cannot stand this test, we pronounce it bogus. If any of them seek to nullify it, or to shirk it, or to get around it, or to compromise regarding it, we can listen no further to any claims in behalf thereof. Does a religious revival transform the lives of those who feel its power? This is the question. If it does—good for the revival. If it does not—bad for the revival. We know the severity of such a test, but we also know the importance of the thing to be tested; and we furthermore know the damage and danger of deception, or self-deception, in regard to it. The sinners of Christ’s time said that his practical requirements were harder than they could bear; and many of them, after hearing his language, went away, unwilling to listen to such doctrine. But he did not try to suit them by changing his teachings or lowering his demands. He required practice as well as profession; duty as well as faith; a life as well as a sentiment. His example in this respect must be copied, at least, by those who call themselves his followers.
It may be all very pleasant for people who attend revival meetings to get into a state of mental exaltation or ecstasy, to have their spiritual nerves titillated and their souls set thrilling, to rhapsodize about their joys, and to indulge in shouting, singing, and hallelujahing. These experiences belong to a class of phenomena that are interesting to students of the human mind. But they are not true religion. They are not genuine conversion. They do not transform the life. A revivalist may work them up in his audiences without turning a single sinner from the error of his ways; and a man may enjoy them every day in the week, while yet he remains in the bondage of sin and under the dominion of the devil, utterly destitute of genuine religion. This religion is a thing that enters into the dividing of the soul and marrow. It reaches to the roots of life; it controls the body of life; it governs all the relations of life. It becomes the very life itself. By so much as it falls short of this, by just so much does it fall short of being true religion; and anything calling itself religion which does not thus exercise its influence, is a lie, a snare, and a delusion.
This position which we have taken in the Sun is not a novel one, though it doubtless seems both novel and startling to many of the enameled religionists of the day. We are sustained in it, and in every part of it, by the uniform teaching of the Scriptures, by the light of reason, by ancient tradition, and by the authority of the great religious expounders of all ages. If we might adopt one of the dramatic features to which Bro. Moody resorted the other day, we would produce convincing testimony on the subject. We would call Moses to the witness stand, bearing aloft the ten commandments; we would call the man of Uz to read the thirty-first chapter of Job; we would call the shepherd king of Israel to read the penitential psalms; we would call Solomon with his proverbs; we would call Isaiah with his prophecies; we would call all the great Hebrew prophets down to Malachi, and find that their voices on this subject were one.
Entering the New Testament, we would call to the witness stand John the Baptist; the authors of the gospels; Paul the apostle to the Gentiles; and so on down to the Apocalyptic John, who, in the very last chapter of Revelation, describes, not the opinions nor the emotions, but the character of those who, by “doing the commandments,” have “right to the tree of life.” We would call to the witness stand the Founder of Christianity himself, who came not to destroy the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them, and who declared the keeping of the commandments to be the real test of true faith. We would next show by the light of reason that in the very nature of things true religion cannot be a thing of the mind without being a thing of the life. And thus we would make use of our other authorities, if they seemed necessary to those who reject the Scriptures or do not possess the faculty of reason.
We are aware that an emotion may transform a life. One of the profoundest sermons of the eloquent preacher, Dr. Thomas Chalmers, is entitled, “The Expulsive Power of a New Affection;” and the title itself is a whole volume of suggestion to a thoughtful mind. He shows that when the new affection, by which he means the true religious affection, enters the mind and takes possession, its presence is incompatible with evil, and its “expulsive power” is soon made manifest by turning the man from his evil ways. This is precisely the point we have been urging; and we say that the test of true religion, true conversion, or a true revival, is that which the preacher thus enunciated. True religion and evil ways are incompatible.
We have said in these columns that the Brooklyn revivalists, Moody and Sankey, have not given proper prominence to this great doctrine; and we say it now again. They have ignored it altogether. Their hearers would never learn it from their preaching. We regard this as a fatal defect in their method and their operations, and have urged them to remedy it if they desired to make their revival advantageous to Brooklyn.
We have said that we should judge the revival by its practical, visible, manifest results. There is no other way of justly judging it. If its converts exemplify true religion in their works, ways, and lives, in their families, in society, in business, and in the world, we shall not conceal its value or power. But if it gives no such evidences of its influence, if its converts merely change their professions but not their practices, if they continue to walk in the ways of hell while pretending to be under divine guidance, if they flatter God with their lips and serve the devil with their hands, we can’t say that the revival has produced the genuine fruits of true religion.
Our perplexed correspondent, “A Sinner,” whose letter of inquiry to the Sun has prompted these thoughts, must excuse us for not entering into any sectarian disputation concerning faith and works as the means of salvation. The theological logomachists have written thousands of volumes on the subject, and we have nothing to add to them just now. We may tell “A Sinner,” however, since he is a man who reads and accepts the Scriptures, though he does not always quote them correctly, that he can test the real worth of the Brooklyn revival by the hint contained in the language of James, who said, “Faith without works is dead;” and who again said, “I will show thee my faith by my works.” And we may add that these would be good texts for Bro. Moody to take up before he leaves Brooklyn.

Hard to Understand, Hard to Practice

HARD it is to understand the difficult parts of the Bible, and as hard to practice the simple parts.

The Next Duty.

THIS is an epoch of elevators. We do not climb to our rooms in the hotel; we ride. We do not reach the upper stories of Stewart’s by slow and patient steps; we are lifted there. The Simplon is crossed by a railroad, and steam has usurped the place of the alpenstock on the Rhigi. The climb which used to give us health on Mount Holyoke, and a beautiful prospect, with the reward of rest, is now purchased for twenty-five cents of a stationary engine.
If our efforts to get our bodies into the sky by machinery were not complemented by our efforts to get our lives up in the same way, we might not find much fault with them; but, in truth, the tendency everywhere is to get up in the world without climbing. Yearnings after the infinite are in fashion. Aspirations for eminence—even ambitions for usefulness—are altogether in advance of the willingness for the necessary preliminary discipline and work. The great amount of vaporing among young men and young women who desire to do something which somebody else is doing—something far in advance of their present powers—is fearful and most lamentable. They are not willing to climb the stairway; they must go up in the elevator. They are not willing to scale the rocks many weary hours under a broiling sun; they would go up in a car with an umbrella over their heads. They are unable or unwilling to recognize the fact that, in order to do that very beautiful thing which some other man is doing, they must go slowly through the discipline, through the maturing process of time, through the patient work, which has made him what he is, and fitted him for his sphere of life and labor. In short, they are not willing to do their next duty and take what comes of it.
No man now standing on an eminence of influence and power, and doing great work, has arrived at his position by going up in an elevator. He took the stairway, step by step. He climbed the rocks, often with bleeding hands. He prepared himself by the work of climbing for the work he is doing. He never accomplished an inch of his elevation by standing at the foot of the stairway with his mouth open, and longing. There is no “royal road” to anything good—not even to wealth. Money that has not been paid for in life is not wealth. It goes as it comes. There is no element of permanence in it. The man who reaches his money in an elevator does not know how to enjoy it; so it is not wealth to him. To get a high position without climbing to it; to win wealth without earning it; to do fine work without the discipline necessary to its performance; to be famous, or useful, or ornamental, without preliminary cost, seems to be the universal desire of the young. The children would begin where their fathers leave off.
What exactly is the secret of true success in life? It is to do without flinching, and with utter faithfulness, the duty that stands next to one. When a man has mastered the duties around him, he is ready for those of a higher grade, and he takes naturally one step upward. When he has mastered the duties of the new grade, he goes on climbing. There are no surprises to the man who arrives at eminence legitimately. It is entirely natural that he should be there, and he is as much at home there, and as little elated, as when he was working patiently at the foot of the stairs. There are heights above him, and he remains humble and simple.
Preachments are of little avail, perhaps; but when one comes into contact with so many men and women who put aspiration instead of perspiration, and yearning for earning, and longing for labor, he is tempted to say to them: “Stop looking up, and look around you! Do the work that first comes to your hands and do it well. Take no upward step until you come to it naturally, and have won the power to hold it. The top in this little world is not so very high, and patient climbing will bring you to it ere you are aware.”—Scribner’s Monthly.

An Old Clergyman's Warning to Children on Drink

“My dear children,” said an old clergyman to the children of his flock, “never forget to keep on the right side of the public house, that is, the outside. Many a poor convict would have been saved from a life of misery, and many a man from the scaffold, had he never tasted the intoxicating cup.”

Advent: The Beginning of the Church Year

Advent.

The following article with the above title, written for the Tonawanda Herald by the Episcopalian Clergyman, contains, aside from its ecclesiastical superstition of “days and months and times and years,” some thoughts so valuable that I send them for publication in the Review. S. B. WHITNEY.
Next Sunday is the first in Advent. This season, which embraces about four weeks, is the beginning of the church year. It commences with the Sunday nearest St. Andrew’s day, whether before or after, and lasts until Christmas—with which it is sometimes improperly confounded.
Christmas commemorates simply the birth of our Lord. It is the festival of the incarnation, the fulfillment of the prophecy: “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.” Advent has a more general import. It does not refer specifically to the taking on of human nature by the Son of God. Including this as an important preliminary step, and embracing all the earlier life of Christ, it culminates in the opening of his public career, the beginning of his three years’ ministry. Its characteristic event and central thought, the account of which constitutes the gospel for the first Sunday, is his entrance into the capital of the Jewish theocracy, and his appearing in the temple to drive thence those who carried on traffic within its sacred precincts. This was his first official act, his first assumption of Messianic authority. Jesus thereby claimed to be the Saviour foretold by the prophets, the Lord of the sanctuary, who, in the words of Malachi, was “suddenly to appear in his temple.” This act was designed to give the heads of the Jewish nation an opportunity of receiving and owning him as their Messiah—an opportunity which was wholly misimproved.
At the close of his ministry, and only a few days before his death, our Lord repeated this act with still greater emphasis and sternness, for the same object as at first, and with the same result. Then, emphatically, were the words fulfilled: “He came to his own and his own received him not.” This, and not his birth into the world, is properly Christ’s first advent.
But this season differs from Christmas also in that its import is twofold. It not only looks back, but also forward. While it calls to mind Christ’s coming “to visit us in great humility,” it also anticipates his “coming again in the last day in his glorious majesty, to judge both the quick and the dead.”
These two comings of Christ, which the church has wisely placed side by side as branches of the same subject, lend each other significance and force by contrast. They constitute one of those blendings of apparent opposites which occur so frequently, alike in the character, in the acts, and the events in the life of Him who was at once David’s Son and David’s Lord, the “Lamb that was slain,” and the “Lion of the tribe of Judah,” the gentlest and the boldest of men, he who, poor and homeless, could feed the multitude, who endured persecution and revilings though legions of mighty angels stood ready to fly to his defense, and who submitted to death although the Lord of life, whose omnific word had recalled others from the grave.
There is a beauty and an advantage in this joint contemplation of opposite truths. They limit and qualify each other, and we are kept from the extremes to which the exclusive consideration of either would tend. To think of Christ only as the compassionate Saviour, as the sympathizing Son of man, “the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief,” might lead to irreverence and presumption. To view him only as the almighty and omniscient One, to whose searching glance our thoughts and deeds are all open and at whose judgment seat we are all to be summoned, might drive us to despair. But blending these characters, uniting these offices, as the church calls upon us to do in Advent, we are furnished with incentives to self-examination, with encouragements to prayer, with motives to obedience, with grounds of love and fear, and we are prepared to adopt as our motto the beautiful exhortation in the epistle for the day: “The night is far spent, the day is at hand; let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk honestly as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof.”
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