Signs of the Times, Vol. 4, No. 26. (7/11/1878)

Signs of the Times

Jul 11, 1878

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Jul 11, 1878

CONDEMNATION OF JESUS.

By Ellen G. White

BY MRS. E. G. WHITE.

When Herod first heard of Jesus and the mighty works wrought by him, he was terror-stricken, and said, “It is John whom I beheaded; he is risen from the dead;” “therefore mighty works do show forth themselves in him.” Herod had never before met Jesus, but he had long desired to see him, and witness his marvelous power. He was pleased that he was brought to him a prisoner, for he made no doubt that he could force him to work a miracle as a condition of saving his life. Herod’s conscience was far less sensitive than when he had trembled with horror at the request of Herodias for the head of John the Baptist. For a time he had felt the keen stings of remorse for the terrible act he had committed to gratify the revenge of a cruel woman; but his moral perceptions had become more and more degraded by his licentious life, till his sins appeared but trifles in his eyes. The men who are capable of the worst crimes are those who have once been convicted by the Spirit of truth, and have turned away from the light into the darkness of iniquity. Herod had very nearly become a disciple of John; but at the very point of decision, he had fallen into the snare of Satan and put to death one whom he knew to be a true prophet.

As the Saviour was brought before Herod, the rabble surged and pressed about, crying out against the prisoner, some charging him with one crime and some with another. Herod commanded silence and directed that Jesus be unbound, for he wished to interrogate him. He looked with curiosity, mingled with an impulse of pity, upon the pale, sad face of the Saviour, which was marked with deep wisdom and purity, but showed extreme weariness and suffering. Herod, as well as Pilate, knew from his acquaintance with the character of the Jews, that malice and envy had caused them to condemn this innocent man.

Herod urged Jesus to save his life by working a miracle that would give evidence of his divine power. But the Saviour had no such work to do. He had taken upon himself the nature of man, and was not to perform a miracle to gratify the curiosity of wicked men, nor to save himself one jot of the pain or humiliation that man would suffer under similar circumstances. Herod urged him to prove that he was not an impostor by demonstrating his power before the crowd. He summoned for the purpose, maimed, crippled, and deformed persons, and, in an authoritative manner, commanded Jesus to heal these subjects in his presence, urging that if he had really worked such remarkable cures as were reported of him, he still had power to do like wonders, and could now turn it to his own profit by procuring his release.

But Jesus stood calmly before the haughty ruler as one who neither saw nor heard. Herod repeatedly urged his proposition upon Jesus, and reiterated the fact that he had the power to release or condemn him. He even dared to boast of the punishment he had inflicted upon the prophet John for presuming to reprove him. To all this, Jesus made no answer either by word or look! Herod was irritated by the profound silence of the prisoner, which indicated an utter indifference to the royal personage before whom he had been summoned. Open rebuke would have been more palatable to the vain and pompous ruler than to be thus silently ignored.

Had Jesus desired to do so, he could have spoken words that would have pierced the ears of the hardened king. He could have stricken him with fear and trembling by laying before him the full iniquity of his life, and the horror of his approaching doom. But Jesus had no light to give one who had gone directly contrary to the knowledge he had received from the greatest of prophets. The ears of Christ had ever been open to the earnest plea of even the worst sinners; but he had no ear for the commands of Herod. Those eyes, that had ever rested with pity and forgiveness upon the penitent sinner, however defiled and lowly, had no look to bestow upon Herod. Those lips, that had dropped precious words of instruction, and were ever ready to answer the questions of those who sought knowledge, and to speak comfort and pardon to the sinful and desponding, had no words for proud and cruel Herod. The heart, ever touched by the presence of human woe, was closed to the haughty king who felt no need of a Saviour.

The silence of Jesus could no longer be borne by Herod; his face grew dark with passion, and he angrily threatened Jesus; but the captive still remained unmoved. Herod then turned to the multitude and denounced him as an impostor. His accusers well knew that he was no impostor; they had seen too many evidences of his power to be thus misled. They knew that even the grave had opened at his command, and the dead had walked forth, clothed again with life. They had been greatly terrified when Herod commanded him to work a miracle; for of all things they dreaded an exhibition of his divine power, which would prove a death-blow to their plans, and would perhaps cost them their lives. Therefore the priests and rulers began to cry out vehemently against him, accusing him of working miracles through the power given him of Beelzebub, the prince of devils.

Some cried out that he claimed to be the Son of God, the king of Israel. Herod, hearing this, said in derision, A king, is he? Then crown him, and put upon him a royal robe, and worship your king. Then turning to Jesus he angrily declared that if he refused to speak, he should be delivered into the hands of the soldiers, who would have little respect for his claims or his person; if he was an impostor it would be no more than he deserved; but if he was the Son of God he could save himself by working a miracle. No sooner were these words uttered than the mob, at the instigation of the priests, made a rush toward Jesus. Had not the Roman soldiers forced them back, the Saviour would have been torn in pieces.

At the suggestion of Herod, a crown was now plaited from a vine bearing sharp thorns, and this was placed upon the sacred brow of Jesus; and an old tattered purple robe, once the garment of a king, was placed upon his noble form, while Herod and the Jewish priests encouraged the insults and cruelty of the mob. Jesus was then placed upon a large block which was derisively called a throne, an old reed was placed in his hand as a scepter, and, amid satanic laughter, curses, and jeers, the rude throng bowed to him mockingly, as to a king. Occasionally some murderous hand snatched the reed that had been placed in his hand, and struck him on his head with it, forcing the thorns into his temples, and causing the blood to flow down his face and beard.

Satan instigated the cruel abuse of the debased mob, led on by the priests and rulers, to provoke, if possible, retaliation from the world's Redeemer, or to drive him to deliver himself by a miracle from the hands of his persecutors, and thus break up the plan of salvation. One stain upon his human life, one failure of his humanity to bear the terrible test imposed upon it, would make the Lamb of God an imperfect offering, and the redemption of man would be a failure. But he who could command the heavenly hosts, and in an instant call to his aid legions of holy angels, one of whom could have immediately overpowered that cruel mob,—he who could have stricken down his tormentors by the flashing forth of his divine majesty,—submitted to the coarsest insult and outrage with dignified composure. As the acts of his torturers degraded them below humanity, into the likeness of Satan, so did the meekness and patience of Jesus exalt him above the level of humanity.

When Herod saw that Jesus submitted passively to all the indignity that was heaped upon him, preserving an unparalleled serenity through it all, he was moved by a sudden fear that after all this might not be a common man who stood before him. He was greatly perplexed when he looked upon the pure, pale face of the prisoner, and questioned if he might not be a god come down to earth. The very silence of Jesus spoke conviction to the heart of the king, such as no words could have done. Herod noticed that while some bowed before Jesus in mockery, others, who came forward for the same purpose, looked into the sufferer's face and saw expressed there a look so like a king that they turned back, ashamed of their own audacity. Herod was ill at ease, and, hardened as he was, dared not ratify the condemnation of the Jews; and he therefore sent Jesus back to Pilate.

The Saviour, tottering with weariness, pale and wounded, wearing a robe of mockery and a crown of thorns, was mercilessly hurried back to the court of the Roman governor. Pilate was very much irritated; for he had congratulated himself on being rid of a fearful responsibility when he referred the accusers of Jesus to Herod. He now impatiently inquired of the Jews what they would have him do. He reminded them that he had already examined the prisoner, and found no blame in him; that his accusers had failed to sustain a single charge against him; that he had sent Jesus to Herod, a tetrarch of Galilee, and one of their own nation, who also found nothing worthy of death against the prisoner. Said Pilate, “I will therefore chastise him and release him.”

Here Pilate exposed his weakness. He had declared that Jesus was innocent of the crimes of which he was accused, yet he was willing to make a partial sacrifice of justice and principle in order to compromise with an unfeeling mob; he was willing to suffer an innocent man to be scourged, that their inhuman wrath might be appeased. But the fact that he proposed to make terms with them placed Pilate at a disadvantage with the ungovernable crowd, who now presumed upon his indecision, and clamored the more for the life of the prisoner. Pilate turned to the people, and represented to them that the priests and elders had not substantiated in any degree the charges brought against Jesus. He hoped by this means to raise their sympathy for him, so they would be willing to release him. Meanwhile Jesus had fallen through exhaustion upon the marble pavement. Just then a messenger pressed through the crowd, and placed in Pilate's hand a letter from his wife, which ran thus:—

“Have thou nothing to do with that just man; for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him.” Pilate's wife was not a Jew; but the angel of God had sent this warning to her, that, through her, Pilate might be prevented from committing the terrible crime of delivering up to death the divine Son of God.

Pilate turned pale when he read the message; but the priests and rulers had occupied the interval in farther inflaming the minds of the people, till they were wrought up to a state of insane fury. The governor was forced to action; he turned to the crowd and spoke with great earnestness: “Whom will ye that I release unto you? Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?” It was customary at this feast for the governor to release one prisoner, whomsoever the people desired to be set at liberty. Pilate seized this as an opportunity to save Jesus; and by giving them a choice between the innocent Saviour and the notable robber and murderer, Barabbas, he hoped to rouse them to a sense of justice. But great was his astonishment when the cry, “Away with this man, and release unto us Barabbas!” was started by the priests, and taken up by the mob, resounding through the hall like the hoarse cry of demons.

Pilate was dumb with surprise and disappointment; but by appealing to the people, and yielding his own judgment, he had compromised his dignity, and lost control of the crowd. The priests saw that though he was convinced of the innocence of Jesus, he could be intimidated by them, and they determined to carry their point. So when Pilate inquired, “What shall I do then with Jesus, who is called Christ?” they with one accord cried out, “Let him be crucified!”

And the governor said, “Why, what evil hath he done?” But they cried out the more, saying, “Let him be crucified.” Here Pilate again revealed his weakness, in submitting the sentence of Jesus to a lawless and infuriated mob. How true were the words of the prophet: “Judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off; for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.” The governor's cheek paled as he heard the terrible cry: “Crucify him!” He had not thought it would come to that—a man whom he had repeatedly pronounced innocent, to be consigned to the most dreaded of deaths. He now saw what a terrible thing he had done in placing the life of a just man in the balance against the decision of those, who, for envy and malice, had delivered him up to trial. Pilate had taken step after step in the violation of his conscience, and in excusing himself from judging with equity and fairness, as his position demanded he should do, until now he found himself almost helpless in the hands of the Jews.

Again he asked the question, “Why, what evil hath he done?” and again they cried out, “Crucify him!” Once more Pilate expostulated with them against putting to death one against whom they could prove nothing. Again, to conciliate them, he proposed to chastise him and let him go. It was not enough that the Saviour of the world, faint with weariness and covered with wounds, must be subjected to the shameful humiliation of such a trial; but his sacred flesh must be bruised and mangled to gratify the satanic fury of the hellish army had gained possession of them.

Pilate, in the vain hope of exciting their pity, that they might decide this was sufficient punishment, now caused Jesus to be scourged in the presence of the multitude. The pale sufferer, with a crown of thorns upon his head, and stripped to the waist, revealing the long, cruel stripes, from which the blood flowed freely, was then placed side by side with Barabbas. Although the face of Jesus was stained with blood, and bore marks of exhaustion and pain, yet his noble character could not be hidden, but stood out in marked contrast with that of the robber chief, whose every feature proclaimed him to be a debased and hardened desperado.

Pilate was filled with sympathy and amazement as he beheld the uncomplaining patience of Jesus. Gentleness and resignation were expressed in every feature; there was no cowardly weakness in his manner, but the strength and dignity of long-suffering. Pilate did not doubt that the sight of this man, who

had borne insult and abuse in such a manner, when contrasted with the repulsive criminal by his side, would move the people to sympathy, and they would decide that Jesus had already suffered enough. But he did not understand the fanatical hatred of the priests for Christ, who, as the Light of the world, had made apparent their darkness and error.

Pilate, pointing to the Saviour, in a voice of solemn entreaty said to priests, rulers, and people, “Behold the man.” “I bring him forth to you that ye may know that I find no fault in him.” But the priests had moved the mob to mad fury; and, instead of pitying Jesus in his suffering and forbearance, they cried, “Crucify him, crucify him!” and their hoarse voices were like the roaring of wild beasts. Pilate, losing all patience with their unreasoning cruelty, cried out despairingly, “Take ye him, and crucify him; for I find no fault in him.”

The Roman governor, familiarized with cruel scenes, educated amid the din of battle, was moved with sympathy for the suffering prisoner, who, contemned and scourged, with bleeding brow and lacerated back, still had more the bearing of a king upon his throne than that of a condemned criminal. But the hearts of his own people were hardened against him. The priests declared, “We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.”

Pilate was startled by these words; he had no correct idea of Christ and his mission; but he had an indistinct faith in God and in beings superior to humanity. The thought that had once before passed through his mind now took more definite shape, and he questioned if it might not be a divine personage who stood before him, clad in the purple robe of mockery, and crowned with thorns, yet with such a noble bearing that the staunch Roman trembled with awe as he gazed upon him.

“When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he was the more afraid; and went again into the judgment hall, and saith unto Jesus, Whence art thou? But Jesus gave him no answer.” Jesus had already told Pilate that he was the Messiah, that his kingdom was not of this world; and he had no farther words for a man who so abused the high office of judge as to yield his principles and authority to the demands of a blood-thirsty rabble. Pilate was vexed at the silence of Jesus, and haughtily addressed him:—

“Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee? Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power against me, except it were given thee from above; therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin.” Jesus here laid the heaviest burden of guilt upon the Jewish judges, who had received unmistakable evidence of the divinity of Him whom they had condemned to death, both from the prophecies and his own teachings and miracles. What a scene was this to hand down to the world through all time! The pitying Saviour, in the midst of his intense suffering and grief, excuses as far as possible the act of Pilate, who might have released him from the power of his enemies.

Pilate was now more convinced than before of the superiority of the man before him, and tried again and again to save him. “But the Jews cried out, saying, If thou let this man go, thou art not Cæsar’s friend; whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Cæsar.” This was touching Pilate in a weak point. He had been looked upon with some suspicion by the government; and he knew that a report of unfaithfulness on his part would be likely to cost him his position. He knew that if the Jews became his enemies he could hope for no mercy at their hands; for he had before him an example of the perseverance with which they sought to destroy one whom they hated without reason.

The implied threat in the declaration of the priests, regarding his allegiance to Cæsar, intimidated Pilate, so that he yielded to the demands of the mob, and delivered Jesus up to the crucifixion rather than risk losing his position. But the very thing he dreaded came upon him afterward in spite of his precautions. His honors were stripped from him; he was cast down from his high office; and, stung by remorse and wounded pride, he committed suicide not long after the crucifixion.

“When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person; see ye too it.” Caiaphas answered defiantly, “His blood be on us, and on our children;” and his words were echoed by the priests and rulers, and taken up by the crowd in an inhuman roar of voices. “Then answered all the people and said, His blood be on us, and on our children.”

At this exhibition of satanic madness, the light of conviction shone more clearly upon the mind of Pilate. He had never before witnessed such rash presumption and heartless cruelty. And in strong contrast with the ungovernable passion of his persecutors was the dignified repose of Jesus. In his own mind Pilate said, He is a god, and thought he could discern a soft light shining about his head. Looking thus upon Christ he turned pale with fear and self-condemnation; then, confronting the people with a troubled countenance, he said, I am clear of his blood. Take ye him and crucify him; but mark ye, priests and rulers, I pronounce him a just man, and may He whom he claims as his Father judge you for this day's work, and not me. Then turning to Jesus he continued, Forgive me for this act; I am not able to save you.

Only a short time before, the governor had declared to his prisoner that he had power to release or condemn him; but he now thought that he could not save him, and also his own position and honor; and he preferred to sacrifice an innocent life rather than his own worldly power. Had he acted promptly and firmly at the first, carrying out his convictions of right, his will would have been overborne by the mob; they would not have presumed to dictate to him. His wavering and indecision proved his irredeemable ruin. How many, like Pilate, sacrifice principle and integrity, in order to shun disagreeable consequences. Conscience and duty point one way, and self-interest points another; and the current, setting strongly in the wrong direction, sweeps away into the thick darkness of guilt him who compromises with evil.

Satan’s rage was great as he saw that all the cruelty which he had led the Jews to inflict upon Jesus had not forced the least murmur from his lips. Although he had taken upon himself the nature of man, he was sustained by a godlike fortitude, and departed in no particular from the will of his Father.

Wonder, O heavens! and be astonished, O earth! Behold the oppressor and the oppressed. A vast multitude inclose the Saviour of the world. Mocking and jeering are mingled with the coarse oaths of blasphemy. His lowly birth and his humble life are commented upon by unfeeling wretches. His claim to be the Son of God is ridiculed by the chief priests and elders, and the vulgar jest and insulting sneer are passed from lip to lip. Satan has full control of the minds of his servants. In order to do this effectually, he had commenced with the chief priests and the elders, and imbued them with a religious frenzy. This they had communicated to the rude and uncultivated mob, until there was a corrupt harmony in the feelings of all, from the hypocritical priests and elders down to the most debased. Christ, the precious Son of God, was led forth and delivered to the people to be crucified.

Pontius Pilate.

By Mrs. L. D. A. Stuttle

WITHIN the judgment hall, with haughty frown, Stood Pontius Pilate, while the angry cry, Of thousand voices, like a raging sea, Condemned the hated Nazarene to die.

“What evil hath he done?” the ruler cries, From earliest morning till the shades of night, They say these hands have given the leper health, Have healed the sick and blest the blind with sight.

“What evil hath he done?” these pallid lips, Have ever spoken words of love and cheer, Inspiring hope within the fainting heart, And whispering words of courage in the ear.

Oh, Pilate! hadst thou listened to the voice, Of smothered Conscience; in thy stubborn pride, Thy garments never would have borne the stain, The precious blood, of Christ, the crucified!

But thou didst give th’ approval of thy God, For earthly honor, and a transient crown, Oh, foolish Pilate, that thou e’er should’st buy— The smiles of Cæsar, with Jehovah’s frown!

MRS. L. D. A. STUTTLE.

Eternal Life.

A THOUSAND years is a great while—we think a hundred years is long. How venerable things a century old look to us! What changes, little less than miracles, have touched and transformed the country's face within the last hundred years? How márvelously has life peopled our cities, and death our graveyards! What domes of sacred grandeur and temples of sacred worship have risen toward the skies! What splendid names have blazed and gone out! How have the useful arts astonished the world with their mighty growth, and inventive science climbed a higher throne! What records of bloodshed, and what triumphs of peace have been written!

A hundred years! Time long enough for three human generations to pass away, with their shifting costumes and habits of speech. A hundred years! monumental of every human experience in sense or spectacle or sound;

“Pearls of the bridal, and the festive dance, * * * * * Of peasant burial and monarchal march, Of war and famine, tears, blood, and death.”

But when we come to think of a thousand years, we stand before a mountain whose top is lost in the clouds. We catch the sound of the figures, and see their form; but the idea is still far away. We wait for some comparison to impress upon us the first notion of such a vast age. A sense of something tremendous comes over us when we gaze upon a fellow-man who has lived a century.

But what if we could look upon that one man of the race who survived almost a thousand years!—with a memory reaching back over a whole millennium, lacking little more than thirty years,—hoary and awful with the seasons of ten centuries that had snowed upon his hair and whistled through his beard—

“The white old man, seated upon the ground, Clad in his gown of age, the pale white gown, His wrinkled hands Clasping about his knees; old—very old.”

How would the facts and forms of forgotten history move before us in his ancient face! How must the great, deep voice astound us, ringing every counterpoint in the melo-drama of thirty generations!

Then suppose we were to see a man who was immortal. Let him be the great-grandfather of Noah, who never died—who cannot die—come among us in his supernal vigor, the seventh from Adam, to prophesy again of righteousness and judgment—with what a dumb gaze would we consider his stature, shape, and presence! How we would scrutinize his features and complexion! How we would long to question him, or even explore his pulse for the secret of such invulnerable vitality! What aching thoughts of the much he had seen and known must strike our bewildered minds! What a new, strange, overwhelming sense of longevity! We should almost fall down at his feet to worship as the sight of him swept us back

“O'er the broad ocean of the fateful past,”

and made us feel the contrast of our own ephemeral littleness.

It is in such a life-picture, be it of translated patriarch, or dying child, that we get some faint idea of the venerableness, the lasting fullness and luster of eternal life. No. Methuselah, with all the grandeur of his ten centuries, could be so highly honored and brightly blessed as the saint of fewest earthly years whose life is hid with Christ in God, and who will have part in the first resurrection.

“When we've been there ten thousand years, Bright shining as the sun, We've no less days to sing God's praise Than when we first begun.” —Sel.

Divine Interposition in Human Emergency.

By Austin Phelps

THIS title expresses a law of God's government. The first act of God for man after the fall was a supernatural intervention in an exigency which could have been met in no other way. The promise of the "seed of the woman" was the capital act which signalizes the whole subsequent history of the world. Standing at the head of the stream of human experience, it has infused its own character of eccentricity into the whole current of that experience. As sin creates an unbroken succession of emergencies and entanglements in human destiny, so redemption creates a corresponding succession of interpositions and rescues.

This law of supernatural intervention is signally illustrated in the protection which God has given to the institutions of the gospel. The history of the gospel is a history of deliverances by invisible powers of that which to human view seems often to be a doomed cause. Philosophical expectations are all against its success. The balance of natural probabilities is never in its favor. The great forces of the world are its allied enemies. If it were true, as Murat said, that "it is the law of Providence to favor the strongest battalions," Christianity ought long ago to have been numbered among the mythologies. We ought to find it in books of ancient fables. Its history is a riddle to statesmanship and philosophy alike, because it is a history of emergencies, from which truth has been rescued by a secret power, when all the visible causes of events seemed to insure its annihilation.

This is illustrated, for instance, in that law by which persecution always defeats itself. It has become a truism (has it not?) that persecution never permanently injures a good cause. We never fear the ultimate effect of violence in an attempt to suppress a truth, to put down a good man, to destroy a good book, to crush any good thing. Why? It is not, as is often affirmed, that in the natural course of things truth in such a conflict is the superior. In such a world as this truth is not the superior. Under natural law the good never triumphs as a matter of course. It never rises by its own elasticity. Crises have often occurred in which persecution has been backed up by wealth, by learning, by the prestige of antiquity, by the civil law, by public opinion, and by bayonets, by all the great forces which sway society and compact nations, and thus allied, it has borne down—upon what? Upon armies bristling with steel? Upon Ehrenbreitsteins and Cronstadts? No; upon a handful of poor men and friendless women and little children, who had no weapon of defense but prayer.

The existence of Christianity has more than once hung in the balance of such a conflict as that. On which side, then, in the nature of things, were the chances of success? Leave out of account the law of supernatural intervention, and what wise man could foresee that impotence and strength would change places in the issue! Many times the success of persecution has seemed to be a foregone conclusion. Many times has its success appeared to be an accomplished fact. It has laughed at failure as a bugbear. Many times it has burnt up the handful of men, women, and children, as Alva did in the Netherlands. It has answered prayer with faggots. "We have them now," said one of the "Blood Council," "and God himself cannot save them." Many times have even the people of God thought so. "We trusted that it had been he who should have redeemed Israel." "Oh! yes, we did trust; but our trust has failed us, our enemies have triumphed, God has not interposed as we thought he would, we have now only to lie down and die."

It is often true that God has not interposed as men have believed he would. God is not partial to the miraculous methods of working. He often seems to look on indifferently while fire and steel do their work on those who are as the apple of his eye. It has been said to be the great miracle of Providence that so often no miracles are necessary to accomplish his purposes. He does not find it needful or expedient to work very largely by hairbreadth escapes. His methods of procedure strike deeper than that. He strikes at persecution where it roots—in the underground of Satanic forces. The prayer of a dying child opens an armory which faggots cannot burn. The twelve legions of angels are given to it. Spiritual battalions crowd the air with their strategy, and soon to even our swollen eyes it appears that the success of persecution has been its failure. God has interposed in the emergency, but in his own way. He has caused violence to defeat itself, through the spiritual forces which it has roused to the rescue.

The same truth is illustrated in that law by which infidelity on a large scale is always short-lived. There was a truth in the argument of Robespierre for the being of God, that "atheism was an aristocratic belief." It is true of every variety of infidelity that sooner or later it contracts itself within the circle of a few minds. The masses of men never permanently embrace it. The history of infidelity proves this. It has been beaten so many times, in so many varieties, beneath such adroit disguises, under such diversities of circumstances, with such accumulations of disadvantage on the side of faith, popular opinion has so often spurned it, respectable opinion has so often become ashamed of it, that now we have settled upon this as one of the axioms of Christian policy, that infidelity cannot become the permanent belief of any people. The mania of suicide lurks in its blood. Sooner or later a secret power in the popular instinct of faith will creep around it in a circle of fire, and it will act the scorpion in the fable. This we believe simply because the history of unbelief is a succession of such deaths. It is always braying in some new form, and is always gasping in some old form.

But why is it so? It is not because anything in the nature of the case defends the world from infidelity. On the contrary, human nature has elective affinities with infidelity. Men do not love to retain God in their thoughts. Atheism finds a den to hide in in every human heart. The practical life of the world is largely atheistic. So strong are the tendencies of sin to a dethronement of God that many thoughtful minds anticipate that the last conflict of Christianity with it in this world will be narrowed down to a struggle with atheism, naked and shameless. There have been periods when to human view the immediate prospects were overwhelmingly suggestive of this crisis. Times of transition have occurred, from an old to a new order of society, when the popular faith has seemed to break loose from the old moorings and to drift, nobody could tell whither. Simultaneously with this, infidelity has been greeted by the sympathy of the controlling minds of a nation. Universities and Royal Societies have nursed it; elegant literature has dandled it; poetry has sung to it; the sciences have disciplined and armed it; fashion has coquetted with it; philosophy has crowned it; wealth has built temples to it; philanthropy and liberty have brought incense to it from afar; and to the friends of Christ it has seemed that, if it were possible, the very elect would be drawn after it into the vortex of apostasy. Society, at such times, seems to have run mad with unbelief. What was Paris in 1789 and again in 1871 but one vast lunatic asylum? Respectable medical opinion thus explains the atheistic ferocity of the French metropolis.

Now at such a crisis it is not on the ground of natural causes operating in known methods that we can anticipate the restoration of faith. Indeed, in such emergencies that restoration usually comes in ways which have not been anticipated. Sometimes God suffers infidelity to triumph for a while, and by its enormities to work out a popular recoil. A very brief experience of it under the secret overruling of the holy Spirit is often enough to do that. Sometimes he permits it to run to seed in absurdities which he uses to awaken the sense of the ludicrous. Then the common sense of the world breaks out into a broad laugh at it. Sometimes he raises up one man, like Bishop Butler, whose life work it is to bring back the cultivated mind of a nation to the conviction that belief in God is intellectually respectable. Sometimes a national affliction comes like an earthquake, and a national revival of religion follows it. Providence and grace delight in co-operation. They go forth at God's bidding, as the disciples did at the command of our Lord, the two together. Their compound forms become explosive to the solidity of error. The mass is rent by fissures which never close up again. In some such unlooked-for method God comes to the rescue and meets the emergency himself. Thoughtful men seem to themselves to be spectators, rather than actors.

The same principle is illustrated in that law which forbids corruption within the church of Christ to reach the extreme of organic disease. If the wisest and best of men had fore-ordained the history of the church, they would have been apt to order events so that the church itself should have stood like an angel in the sun, pure as that purest of elements. Men would have planned things so, because of an imagined necessity. We should have said it must be this or nothing. We should have reasoned on the problem of corruption in the body of Christ, as we reason upon gangrene in the physical body. Once pervasive, it is fatal. When spiritual disease has even balanced spiritual health in the church, it has been a perfectly natural inference that the last hour of the church was at hand. Looking cautiously into the surroundings of the French Deism of the last century and the French Atheism of today, we cannot but respect the sagacity of their champions in reasoning as they have done from the premise of the Papal church to the conclusion that Christianity must be near its end. If an effete and imbecile faith, the foe alike of learning, and liberty, and morality, be all that the Bible has to offer to a race of "wretches" such as Voltaire described mankind to be, it is reasonable to believe that the Bible will soon become an antiquarian rarity. Such logic is right if we reason only upon the assumption of such natural causes operating by such natural laws as are visible and calculable to our sagacity.

But the church of Christ has already lived long enough to demonstrate to us that here is one of the points at which natural law opens secretly to invisible agencies, which come in noiselessly and work breathlessly. They are God's angels of reform. Precisely how, precisely where, precisely when they act, we do not know; but we see results which cannot be explained without them. We see decay arrested. We see the mass of corruption sloughed off. We see the dead limbs stirring. We feel the heart which but just now gave no sign to our stethoscope, bounding with the pulse of a new life. God interposes by an alternation of moral surgery with moral restoratives to save his beloved from dying by organic disease.

The same principle might be illustrated, if space would permit, from the history of local revivals of religion. These often excite in Christian observers the feeling of surprise. They often break out suddenly. They come in unexpected methods. They follow unhonored instruments. They develop power altogether disproportionate to the means employed. They often fall upon a slumbering church. They reach to forgotten classes of society. They compass results which even prayer had not foreseen. They override approved and established ways of preaching. Their first sign seems to be the undermining and the humbling of a revered and complacent pulpit. In ways which human ingenuity would never have thought of, God makes his own sovereignty felt in them. And in their timeliness they fit into emergencies in the religious life of a people which to human view could have been met by no other conceivable agencies or events. Such divine interposition is one of the favorite thoughts of prophecy. So has the church of Christ always found it to be one of the "precious thoughts" of God.

—PROF. AUSTIN PHELPS, D. D., in Independent.

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