Review and Herald, Vol. 85, No. 36. (9/3/1908)

Review and Herald

Sep 3, 1908

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 3, 1908

TO-DAY

By Amelia Robbins

The sun breaks forth in all his morning's splendor, To-day sweeps into view with regal state; It swingeth open an inviting door To those who toil in hope, or, patient, wait For what to-day may offer, worth the while.

What tribute have we at its feet to lay, Which may induce to-day to sweetly smile Upon us in the very happiest way, Approvingly of deeds of yesterday?

What gleaned we, when we crossed the ripened field Of opportunity, which to-day might yield Fruitage of joy, within our hearts to sing?

Upon the silent wheel of yesterday Was spun the thread which Destiny doth weave Into a web of happiness or woe.

Let no illusions fond our souls deceive! If Wisdom leads us in her way, we know Peace shall await us with each new to-day: —Amelia Robbins.

Life and Health

A Practical Health Journal

PUBLISHED with a view of assisting the public in the application of the hygienic principles of health; teaching how to preserve the health; prescribing simple hygienic remedies that aid nature in resisting disease by throwing off accumulated poisons rather than by adding more poisons through the use of drugs; suggesting how to avoid disease, how to manage in case of sickness, and how to combat disease through the application of simple principles. Equal to a trained nurse in every home.

The August edition of Life and Health was 55,000 copies.

The September Issue

A Temperance, Food, and Home Number

The great question of temperance in eating, drinking, and working presented. Foods best adapted to the needs of the body suggested. The home, its making and maintenance essential to health and happiness.

FOOD and Bad Things to Drink; The Best Things to Eat; A Vacation for Bad Habits; What to Do for Neuralgia; Detecting and Avoiding Typhoid Carriers; Cause of Increased Drunkenness; Benefits of the Public Bath; Sources of Typhoid-Fever Germs; Street Dust as a Factor in the Spread of Disease; and a General Health Catechism.

Good Points

on Sleeping, Milk Foods, Hydrophobia, Snake Poisoning, Tuberculosis, and Food Preservatives. It also contains much other important matter that will prove to be decidedly practical in every home during the month of September in the general care of the health and prevention of disease.

Single copy, 10 cents; 2 to 25 copies, 5 cents a copy; 25 to 500 copies, 4 cents a copy; special rates on orders for 500 or more copies. The regular subscription is 75 cents. Ten or more copies one year, to one address, one order, 45 cents a copy; foreign subscriptions, including Canada, $1 a year.

LIFE AND HEALTH

Takoma Park Station - - Washington, D. C.

The Mystery and Mystical Gospel

THERE is a great difference between the mystery of the gospel and a mystical gospel. The mystery of the gospel, which is “Christ in you the hope of glory,” can never be solved by human reason, or explained by human philosophy; but the fact can be realized in human experience. This union of divinity and humanity will ever remain an inexplicable mystery; but it is a revealed mystery, the glorious results of which may be known by every sincere believer. A mystical gospel is an altogether different thing. It is the product of human philosophy, an unsuccessful effort to counterfeit the genuine gospel by claiming for humanity divine qualities and attributes while denying that Jesus was in any unique sense the Son of God, and thus cutting off the only channel of connection between God and sinful men. With great swelling words and sonorous phrases, which no one can clearly define, the advocates of this mystical gospel confuse the minds, and bewilder the imaginations, of those whose self-assertion leads them to seek some other way of salvation than the way of the cross. A careful analysis of this mystical gospel in all its varied forms of manifestation leads to this verdict: it is only the reappearance in a modern and pleasing dress of the old assertion, “Ye shall not surely die,” coupled with the flattering teaching that man is able by his inherent power to overcome all opposing forces, and even to demonstrate over death. The only antidote for this mystical gospel is the proclamation of the mystery of the gospel.

Protestantism, Modernism, and Catholicism

The attempt to readjust religious belief in harmony with the conclusions of the “Higher Criticism” is developing an entirely new line of theological literature, in which the old ideas and the old platforms are repudiated, and a new interpretation is placed upon the Bible, and a different future for the church is predicted. Among the books which have thus attracted attention is one which gives a somewhat unique analysis of the present religious situation, and suggests the hope of a reunion between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism.

In the first portion of the book, an effort is made to show that Protestantism which had its rise in the sixteenth century has served its generation, and is now falling into decay. The second portion of the book deals with “Modernism,” which is defined as “a renovating movement within the Roman Catholic Church,” and it is further stated that “some Protestant observers, who are in close touch with it, believe that it is destined to be the greatest religious movement since the time of the Reformation.” As to the underlying principle in this movement, Dr. Smyth declares that Modernists “have generally adopted the present evolutionary manner of thought,” and he further mentions “the Modernist belief in the immanence of God in man.” From this it will be seen that this movement in the Roman Catholic Church, which is known under the name of “Modernism,” corresponds very closely to the movement among Protestants which passes under the name of the “New Theology.”

In the third part of his book, Dr. Smyth treats of “Coming Catholicism” as being neither the continuance of Roman Catholicism nor the extension of Protestantism, but as a new expression of religion, the union of Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, transformed by the renewing power of Modernism. He declares that “the rise of Roman Modernism brings a new challenge to the Protestant churches,” and asks, “Shall the new Roman Catholicism find, when it comes, a Catholicism that has arisen from Protestantism, waiting to meet it and to match it?” This reads like a distinct call for the healing of the breach which was made in the sixteenth century, and a reunion between the two great divisions of Christendom.

In the recent movement for federation among Protestant churches, Dr. Smyth sees a hopeful indication, to which he refers in these words: “Nevertheless, one sign of Catholicity is now written large over the whole diversity of Protestant denominationalism,—it is the universal desire for Christian unity.” He continues:—

The reunion of the Protestant churches would be the completion of but one column only of the triumphal arch of the one true church. The other column stands apart—the Roman Church—its base, as it claims, the rock on which the church is founded, built on the memorial stones of the ages, unshaken in its massive proportions. Shall the two columns remain forever apart? Rather has it not already come to the point where on either side may be discerned the beginning of the curve, which, when carried up to completion, shall make the one perfect arch?

As to the present attitude of Protestant churches toward the papacy, Dr. Smyth writes:—

Generally the old-time cry, “No popery,” is now regarded as superfluous. To fill our Protestant trumpets with that sound would be a vain call to a civil strife against imaginary foes.

Those who are familiar with the outcome of this movement as foretold through the spirit of prophecy will hardly need to be reminded of the words written many years ago:—

When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan, and that the end is near.—“Testimonies for the Church,” Vol. V, page 451.

When in connection with this suggested union between Protestantism and Catholicism we consider to what an extent the essential doctrines of Spiritualism have permeated the Protestant churches, we may see in how short a time the threefold union may be realized. In the light of these developments, it appears more plainly than ever that the only teaching of the gospel which can meet the present demand is that message which denies evolution both in science and in religion, and which places the Word of God above all human authority. That divine wisdom which foresaw the apostasy of this generation has provided the needed remedy.

Editorial

By Editor

UNDER the pressure of public opinion, or even from motives of self-respect, one may be able to lead an outwardly correct life, and to maintain what the world regards as a high standard of character; but there is in this no basis for a hope of salvation. There must be a transformation of heart and mind, a new creation, before one becomes a member of the household of God. “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he can not enter into the kingdom of God.” “Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” “Create in me a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within me.” The very springs of conduct must be purified. The old must pass away, and all things must become new. Then the evidences of such a conversion will appear in the life.

The Rise and Fall of Religious Liberty in America

By C. M. S.

The Virginia Legislature Is Besieged by the Baptists

Among all those who struggled for religious liberty in the early days of Virginia, the chief credit must be awarded to the Baptists; for they alone pursued a consistent course, in their attitude toward the state and toward the establishment of religion by law. This statement has no reference to the Quakers; for, while their course was consistent, they can hardly be said to have struggled to attain liberty of conscience. They suffered under the conditions then prevalent, and did little to alter them. The Baptists, from the time of their entrance into the colony, insisted upon worshiping God according to the dictates of conscience, taught the inconsistency of state interference in matters of religion and of religious interference in matters of state, and stood opposed to the legal establishment of religion in any guise whatsoever. They suffered much, but their cause won adherents rapidly.

The Methodists, affiliating with the established church, upheld the church-state in its course, and opposed the efforts of the Baptists and Presbyterians to bring about a change in the oppressive conditions. The Episcopalians held tenaciously to the privileges they had so long enjoyed, and opposed every move looking toward liberty of conscience in Virginia. The Presbyterians, because of their agreement with Governor Gooch, were practically estopped from doing anything aggressive against the establishment until Revolutionary times. Nevertheless, they did protest against some of the oppressive conditions in Virginia, which affected them directly, as early as 1775.

In the year 1768 Baptist ministers began to be imprisoned in Virginia. Two years later the Baptists began to petition the House of Burgesses for a redress of some of their grievances. The House journal of May 26, 1770, has this record of the matter:—

A petition of several persons, being Protestant dissenters of the Baptist persuasion, whose names are thereunto subscribed, was presented to the House and read; setting forth the inconveniences of compelling their licensed preachers to bear arms under the militia law, and to attend musters, by which they are unable to perform the duties of their function; and further setting forth the hardships they suffer from the prohibition to their ministers to preach in meeting-houses, not particularly mentioned in their licenses; and, therefore, praying the House to take their grievances into consideration, and to grant them relief.

One week later the committee to which the petition was referred reported as follows:—

Resolved, That it is the opinion of this committee that so much of the said petition as prays that the ministers or preachers of the Baptist persuasion may not be compelled to bear arms or attend musters be rejected.

The recommendation to reject was agreed to by the House. The Baptists, however, were not discouraged, and two years after the rejection of their reasonable petition concerning their ministers serving in the militia, four petitions were presented to the House from the Baptists, all within the month of February, 1772. Concerning the first of these the House journal of February 12 has this record:—

A petition of several persons of the County of Lunenburg, whose names are thereunto subscribed, was presented to the House and read; setting forth that the petitioners, being of the society of Christians called Baptists, find themselves restricted in the exercise of their religion, their teachers imprisoned under various pretences, and the benefits of the Toleration Act denied them, although they are willing to conform to the true spirit of that Act, and are loyal and quiet subjects; and, therefore, praying that they may be treated with the same indulgence, in religious matters, as Quakers, Presbyterians, and other Protestant dissenters enjoy.

The first favorable mention of these petitions occurs in the journal of February 25, as follows:—

“Resolved, That it is the opinion of this committee that the petition of sundry inhabitants of the counties of Lunenburg, Mecklenburg, Sussex, and Amelia, of the Society of Christians called Baptists, . . . is reasonable.” The resolution was agreed to by the House, and the “committee for religion” was ordered to bring in a bill in harmony therewith. Accordingly, on February 27, this entry appears in the journal:—

“A bill for extending the benefit of the several Acts of Toleration to his majesty’s Protestant subjects in this colony, dissenting from the Church of England, was read a second time,” and “committed to the committee for religion.”

This committee, in harmony with its instructions, prepared a bill which was read the third time, on July 1, 1772; but it proved objectionable to both Baptists and Presbyterians, and never became a law. In the meantime another Baptist petition had been presented, this one from Caroline County. On account of the disagreement between the governor and the House of Burgesses, nothing was accomplished in the line of legislation between the years 1772 and 1774. It was just at this time that James Madison, a young college graduate of twenty-one years, began to be heard on behalf of liberty of conscience. His first known expression of sentiment upon this question occurs in a letter to a college friend at Philadelphia, by the name of Bradford. From that letter the following quotation is taken:—

I have nothing to brag of as to the state and liberty of my country. Poverty and luxury prevail among all sorts; pride, ignorance, and knavery among the priesthood, and vice and wickedness among the laity. This is bad enough; but it is not the worst I have to tell you. That diabolical, hell-conceived principle of persecution rages among some, and, to their eternal infamy, the clergy can furnish their quota of imps for such purposes. There are at this time in the adjacent country not less than five or six well-meaning men in close jail for publishing their religious sentiments, which, in the main, are very orthodox. I have neither patience to hear, talk, or think of anything relative to this matter; for I have squabbled and scolded, abused and ridiculed, so long about it, to little purpose, that I am without common patience. So I must beg you to pity me, and pray for liberty of conscience, to all.

The clergy of whom Madison speaks thus deprecatingly were the clergy of the established church; and the conditions which he depicts are the conditions that have always prevailed where religion, or a particular form of religion, has been established by law. The letter above quoted was written on Jan. 24, 1774. On the first day of the following April, Madison again wrote to the same friend in reference to the matter; and this letter is interesting, as showing the difficulties against which the advocates of religious liberty had to contend. He says:—

Our Assembly is to meet the first of May, when it is expected something will be done in behalf of the dissenters. Petitions, I hear, are already forming among the persecuted Baptists, and I fancy it is the thought of the Presbyterians also to intercede for greater liberty in matters of religion. For my own part, I can not help being very doubtful of their succeeding in the attempt. The affair was on the carpet during the last session; but such incredible and extravagant stories were told in the House of the monstrous effects of the enthusiasm prevalent among the sectaries, and so greedily swallowed by their enemies, that I believe they lost footing by it. And the bad name they still have with those who pretend too much contempt to examine into their principles and conduct, and are too much devoted to ecclesiastical establishment to hear of the toleration of the dissentients, I am apprehensive, will be again made a pretext for rejecting their requests. . . . That liberal, catholic, and equitable way of thinking, as to the rights of conscience, which is one of the characteristics of a free people, and so strongly marks the people of your province, is little known among the zealous adherents to our hierarchy.

The agitation then being carried on by the Baptists and Presbyterians, and such defenders as Madison and Jefferson, began to make the priests and officials of the established church fear for the continuance of their dominance and special privileges. Concerning this the historian Semple says:—

The zealots for the old order were greatly embarrassed. “If,” say they, “we permit them to go on, our church must come to nothing; and yet, if we punish them as far as we can stretch the law, it seems not to deter them; for they preach through prison windows, in spite of our endeavors to prevent it.”

The struggle was now on in earnest. It was the beginning of the grapple between the oppressor and the oppressed in Virginia.

From this year, 1774, the hierarchy began to lose ground. It was in this year that the Presbyterians first petitioned the assembly for relief from what they considered an unsatisfactory condition. Of this, and of the vigorous work which both Baptists and Presbyterians did from 1774 to the close of the Revolution, we will speak in another article.

C. M. S.

Catholics on Record

By W. A. S.

The American Federation of Catholic Societies, in its meeting in Boston, August 11, registered a protest against any religious test in civil service in these words:—

RELIGIOUS TEST.—Resolved, That this Federation stands for the abolition of any and every religious test in all public employment, and we more particularly condemn any and all inquiry as to the religious belief of applicants for such public employment.

It is an admirable declaration, and one can only ask why, if this is Catholic doctrine in the United States, it is not emphasized by the church in Catholic lands, where that church is supreme? Very likely the refusal to apply the principle in Catholic lands is based on that other principle which Lecky quotes from Veuillet, a French journalist, who said to the Protestants and Liberals:—

When you are masters, we claim perfect liberty for ourselves, as your principles require it; when we are the masters, we refuse it to you, as it is contrary to our principles.

W. A. S.

The Call of the Hour

By C. P. BOLLMAN

We are told by the spirit of prophecy that the South ought to have been entered years ago; that the work for the colored people could have been done then much more easily than now. The opportune time was allowed to pass by unimproved. Now God by his providence is giving us another opportunity, and upon every hand are to be found open doors through which access can be had to the colored people of the different States.

THE MISSION HOME FOR COLORED WORKERS, NASHVILLE, TENN.

Race feeling is increasing rapidly in almost every part of the South; and even now the work is much more difficult in some respects than it was a few years ago. On the other hand, influences are at work which make the present a most opportune time in which to give to the colored people “this gospel of the kingdom.”

As the temporary withdrawal of the Roman army from before the walls of Jerusalem gave the Christians of that day opportunity to escape from the doomed city, so the noble stand taken by such men as Ex-Governor Northen, of Georgia, in favor of Christian and industrial education for the negro of the South, gives us as a people what the writer firmly believes is the final opportunity to do for the negroes of our own land the work that ought to have been done years ago.

The Testimonies call for the establishment of small schools and sanitariums, in which colored people can be taught to labor for their own race. The whole of the South is open just now for this kind of work as it has not been open before for more than a decade.

The Ethiopia of the South is stretching forth her hands unto God, and upon every side is heard the Macedonian cry, “Come over, . . . and help us.” What shall our response be?

During the past year simple buildings to serve as schoolrooms and meeting-houses have been provided in three cities of the South as a means of reaching the colored people; but what are they among so many? Property which cost $3,650 has been purchased in Nashville, Tenn., to serve as treatment-rooms and a mission home for colored workers. This was in response to the plain statements of the Testimonies that such facilities should be provided in that city. But the property is not fully paid for, and it must be fitted up for the work for which it is designed.

Something like seven hundred dollars has been raised to provide needed facilities in Atlanta, Ga.,—barely enough to buy a plat of ground eighty by one hundred feet for the needed buildings. Elder W. A. Westworth writes me that he thinks the necessary buildings can be provided for about thirty-five hundred dollars. Shall we not rally to the work and quickly provide needed facilities in these and other places, that the necessary work may go forward in these strategic points?

Then there are the touching appeals which come to us from faithful colored teachers who from the firing-line ask us to send them help in the way of humble school buildings, books, and appliances.

At the Oakwood Summer School our mission teachers told the simple story of their labors, their hardships, their conflicts, their victories. They told of the crowded rooms, of pupils who had no books, of schoolrooms furnished only with soap-boxes, of walls unadorned by blackboards or maps, and of rooms lighted only by an open door and unglazed windows. But there was no note of complaint or discouragement.

Brethren and sisters, let us send reinforcements to these earnest, humble workers. Let us say to them by a liberal offering the first Sabbath in October: Go forward, extend your work, enlarge your borders, gather in the children, instruct the ignorant, comfort the sorrowing, and minister the gospel to all; and we will minister to you of the substance of which God has made us stewards.

C. P. BOLLMAN.

Hypocritical Zeal

By Editor

ONE of the leading brewing companies of the United States has filed a bill in the United States Court, asking that the prohibitory law which recently went into effect in the State of Georgia should be declared unconstitutional, on the ground that it restricts people from worshiping God according to the dictates of their consciences. It is alleged that the prohibitory law interferes with the rights of conscience, because under that law the purchase of fermented wine for use in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper is illegal. Two things may be noted concerning this remarkable action on the part of a brewing company: First, it is not necessary to purchase fermented wine for use at the communion table, and, second, the ebullition of zeal in behalf of religion on the part of a brewing company, whose real purpose is to nullify the action of the people in restricting the sale of intoxicating liquors, is enough to make the most confirmed hypocrite ashamed of his record. We recommend that the churches of Georgia and every other State should use unfermented wine in celebrating the communion.

Ripening for the Harvest

As one of the signs of the times, Jesus declared that “as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.” An observer so conservative as the well-known English preacher, Prebendary Webb-Peploe, bears testimony in the following words to the similarity between the present time and the time of Noah:—

As in the days of Noah gross immorality had ripened; as in the times of our Lord men had ripened in luxury and art, and yet they were living grossly immoral lives, so that the Lord was compelled to bring judgment again; so we have advanced marvelously in regard to the veneering of gross sins,—but behind all this there is undoubtedly the manifestation of self-assertion, the attempt to deify and glorify humanity, the rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ. So we are ripening in the assertion of human nature as against the deity; and, ere long, though it may be by subtle terminology, God will be laid aside altogether.

Those who mistake mental culture for religion, and who regard beautiful and costly church buildings as an index to character, reiterate the assertion that the world is growing better; but those who look beneath the surface, and are able to perceive the actual conditions in society and in the church, are not deceived by this claim. To the Pharisees who prided themselves in the glories of the temple, and were sticklers for all the forms of religion, Jesus declared, “Ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.” This is the indictment which we present against the men of this generation.

Note and Comment

The Catholic Solution

IN an address before the delegates to the American Federation of Catholic Societies at Boston, Bishop McFaul, of Trenton, N. J., declared:—

The Federation desires no privileges; it claims for Catholics only what is just and fair. It endeavors to create sound public opinion on the problems of the day, and to proclaim the Catholic solution.

We grant the right of Bishop McFaul and his associates “to proclaim the Catholic solution,” and we ask in turn the same right to make clear to all the people what “the Catholic solution” will mean. What the papacy has done for other nations it would be glad to do for America.

The Wall of Partition

THE difficulty of conducting missionary work among the Jews is illustrated by the following extract from a circular of warning issued to Jewish parents in Chicago:—

Your homes, friends, are in danger! Your tents, O Israel, are in peril! Danger, grave and serious, is lurking round about your home! Seducers, vile and crafty missionaries, lie in wait for your homes! Your children are being lured away by soul-catchers! At —— there is a mission maintained by misguided Christians, who hire these renegades to lure the Jew from his moorings, and the Jewish children from parents' home. Under the guise of teaching your children how to sew, they urge them to embrace Christianity. Under the mask of love, your children are taught by these vile and detestable soul-catchers to mock at and ridicule the religion of their fathers.

It is through such watchfulness as this that the Jews have prevented Christian teachers from making many converts among them; and when one does abjure his faith, he is subjected to a fierce persecution.

Church Control of Education

In a recent local election a Catholic priest used his official influence to defeat one of the candidates, which led the Chicago Israelite to make this comment:—

The city, state, and nation have reason to stop and think when the church commences to mix in politics. The time has come for the statesmen of the nation to emphasize the ground principle of this great American nation—the separation of church and state. It is next to suicidal to allow a marriage to take place between them.

If the Roman Catholic idea of the relation between church and state should obtain in this country, the absolute control of elections would pass into the hands of that church, and the pope would thus be able to do for America what he has already done for other countries.

The Gospel for Africa

THERE is a great work to be done in Africa before that dark continent shall have been lighted with the glory of the gospel. It is even stated that the tenets of Mohammed are being extensively spread among the tribes of the interior. A veteran German missionary gives rather a startling view of the situation:—

Among the heathen on the coast, in so far as Christianity is known, there seems to be little danger of Islam gaining further ground. But in the heart of Africa the Moslem missionary is doing most effective work, and when these districts become better known, Christians will probably be amazed and deeply saddened by what they will see to be the condition of affairs.

Only such a gospel as Paul preached, and which won so many converts throughout Asia, can meet and conquer the opposing forces in Africa.

Undermining the Critic

FOR some years the critic has been “undermining” the Bible. Now the spade of the excavator is undermining the critic. A few years ago the critics proved that there never was such a nation as the Hittites. Not long after the publication of this “proof,” the very stones began to cry out, and proved the critic to have borne false testimony against the Bible. The record of the existence of the Hittites was found upon the rocks as well as in the Word of God.

The critic has disputed the existence of any place in Palestine by the name of Sychar, and has charged up a mistake to the author of the fourth Gospel in his record of the incident at the well of Sychar. Now the stones have cried out again, and declared the existence of the place where Jesus taught the woman at the well. In 1896, when preparations were being made for the erection of a Greek church at Medeba, in eastern Palestine, a mosaic map of Palestine was discovered among the ruins of an ancient edifice.

The value of the mosaic map was not understood by the workmen or the natives, and was not preserved with any degree of care. Later, however, the librarian of the Greek patriarchate, on a tour of inspection, discovered what was left of the mosaic, preserved it, and has made known its existence. The exact date of the map can not be determined; but it bears within itself evidence that it could not have been made later than the sixth century, nor earlier than the third. Upon this map occurs the name Sychar, and there can no longer be a question as to its existence.

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