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Review and Herald, Vol. 81, No. 16.

Publishers' Page

Review and Herald

Apr 21, 1904

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Apr 21, 1904

Publishers' Page

By J. Q. A. Haughey

Conducted by the Department of Circulation of the Review and Herald Publishing Company

The Second Coming of Christ

BY J. Q. A. HAUGHEY
This excellent tract, which has been out of print for some time, has been reset, bound without covers, and made number 42 of the Words of Truth Series. It contains thirty-two pages of Bible evidence of Christ's second coming, and has proved to be one of the best tracts for general circulation. Several hundred thousand of them have been sold.
There are several hundred of the old edition in covers yet remaining, which will be closed out at $1.25 a hundred, and postage.
The tract in covers can also be had in German and French at $1.25 a hundred, and postage.
The regular new edition in the English now sells for two cents a copy, with the usual discounts to Tract Societies.

Testimonies for the Church, Volume VIII

THIS volume of the Testimonies is now ready. It contains 350 pages, and is bound in two styles,—cloth and limp Russia leather. The prices are 75 cents and $1.25.
Inasmuch as the preface of this volume clearly reveals its importance and its contents, we quote it as follows:—
“In the preparation of another volume of ‘Testimonies for the Church,’ an effort has been made to select those things, both new and old, that would help our brethren and sisters to see where we stand in the closing conflict between the powers of light and the powers of darkness; and to comprehend the riches of the grace of God, freely provided, that we may be more than conquerors through Christ Jesus.
“The calamities that have recently befallen our largest institutions, and the efforts of some of our brethren to arouse from their drowsiness and self-serving, and to go forth into the unworked portions of the Lord’s great harvest-field, have been but imperfectly understood. In order to understand clearly our work as the people of God and the conflict in which we are engaged, we need, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to study diligently the prophecies, the experiences of the church in all ages, and the counsels given to the church in our own day.
“But few are familiar with the testimonies,—the instructions, the warnings, and the great encouragements,—given during the last fifteen years to the leading men in our conferences and institutions. For this reason it is now necessary to publish many of these testimonies, for the benefit of all the church, and especially for the guidance of our younger ministers, physicians, conference officers, and managers of institutions. These young men must come forward in large numbers to bear the burdens of the work; they will be called to pass over the same ground, and to meet the same problems and difficulties, as did those to whom the messages of instruction were first given; therefore the counsels addressed to the pioneers in the work are now published for the guidance and encouragement of these younger co-laborers.
“From a large number of manuscripts, those portions have been selected that are of general interest and importance. The readers of this book are asked to study its contents in the spirit of Christian love and fellowship, bearing in mind that we can understand aright the messages given for our guidance and edification only as we study them in the light of the love of Christ our Lord.
“With the hope that the instruction herein given may help many to understand more clearly the responsibilities and duties of the Church, this book is sent forth upon its mission.”

By Land and Sea Through Five Continents

By G. C. Tenney

BY G. C. TENNEY
Of the merits and practical value of this excellent work the following testimonials will speak:—
“This book is such an account of the five great continents as could be written by a Christian gentleman with eyes wide open to see the things of greatest moment and interest. The book does not descend to the ordinary level of travel gossip, but picks out the things of greatest interest from a physical, mental, and moral standpoint, which are presented by the varied forms of civilization in the five continents. The author has a happy literary style, and every page is replete with interest and instruction.”—Good Health for January.
“‘By Land and Sea.’ A book especially adapted to the needs of our young people at this time when the cause is needing young men and women with a burden for foreign fields. It presents the conditions, customs, and general knowledge of the leading countries from the standpoint of one who believes in the special message for this time.”—The Central Advance, Feb. 24, 1904.
“I am glad that Elder Tenney has revised his splendid book, ‘Travels by Land and Sea,’ bringing it up to date. Before traveling in the countries described by the book, I secured a copy and read it with much interest. Later, when it became my duty and privilege to follow in the footsteps of the author, and to see some of the things as he saw them, I was impressed with the acuteness of his observation, and his faithful and absolutely truthful description of the things he saw. The book is a delightful one to read. The style is easy and forceful. Various principles of truth are presented in a natural way wherever the incidents or places suggest them.”—E. R. Palmer.
“If you wish to take an interesting trip of accurate observation around the world for little expense, procure and read ‘By Land and Sea, Through Five Continents,’ by G. C. Tenney. This book is well written, is a record of accurate observation, is profusely illustrated, and sells for the low price of $1.50.”—Signs of the Times, Jan. 20, 1904.

The Lover’s Love

It is not the largest volumes that express the greatest thought. All books have a use, but the “Lover’s Love” has a special message. Every chapter is as good as gold. What revelations cluster around the words “God,” “so,” “loved,” “gave,” “life,” etc. The first chapter on God is a feast to one’s soul. It gives a new conception of his divine character as seen through the name Yahweh, and the loving expression agapao, and his relationship as Father, and the difference between his mercy and justice. It portrays why some do not believe in him, and why some deny his existence. Every page of this chapter sparkles with precious truths. Every chapter glows with lofty thought, clear reasoning, and moving tenderness. It exalts Christ, glorifies God, cheers the saints, and by the Holy Spirit unites the sinner with a fear that makes him look to God for mercy. May God bless John Three Sixteen.
Now is the time to send this book forth to the world. It should reach every home. It is a book that will be read and appreciated. It will accomplish a good work. Will you give it your help? Well bound, 176 pages. Price, 75 cents.

The Great Nations of To-day

THERE are few who do not know that God sent messages to the nations of ancient times, but few know that he has a message for the great nations of to-day, fraught with as much or more importance than any sent to ancient kingdoms. This message is the third angel's message,—the great threefold message of Rev. 14: 6-12.
The pamphlet, “The Great Nations of To-day,” contains this message in all its phases and relations to the great nations of to-day, and reveals the causes of the movements of these nations at the present time, together with a clear presentation of their rise, relations, career, and their destiny, in connection with a clear, concise treatise on the seven trumpets, the three woes, Babylon, the beast of Revelation 13, and its image and all its phases and workings, the commandments, the hour of God's judgment come, and the setting up of the everlasting kingdom of God.
While this world is studying the present war between Russia and Japan, it is a most favorable time to interest people in “The Great Nations of To-day.” The readers of the REVIEW should study this book, and then place it in the hands of the people. In so doing they will be giving the message due at this time.
The pamphlet contains 257 pages, bound in paper covers; price, 25 cents. Discount to resident agents.

The Sabbath-School Lessons for the New Quarter

will be on the book of Revelation, and the pamphlet is now ready. Price, 5 cents.
A ten-cent pamphlet, entitled "The Seven Churches and the Seven Seals," has been written as a special help in the study of these lessons, and is now ready. The pamphlet contains a chart in colors of the seven seals and seven churches, which will be found a very great help in the study of the lessons. Every one should have a copy of this pamphlet. Price, 10 cents, postpaid.

Order of State Tract Societies

Order of State Tract Societies; Review and Herald, Battle Creek, Mich.; Review and Herald, Washington, D. C.; Pacific Press, Oakland, Cal.; Kansas City, Mo.; Southern Publishing Assn., Nashville, Tenn.

Editorial

By Editor

Encouraging Signs
THOSE whose faith in the near coming of the Lord rests upon the sure word of prophecy will find reason for encouragement in circumstances and experiences which, when interpreted by human reason, would seem most unfavorable. The very fact that there are scoffers who say, “Where is the promise of his coming?” is a sign of the last days. The apparent triumph of Satan, when he works “with all power and signs and lying wonders,” marks the time for the revelation of the Son of man “with power and great glory.” The increase of formality in religion with a decrease of overcoming power is not in itself an encouraging omen, but it is a sign of the last days. The acceptance of the sophistries of Satan in place of the pure truth of the Word of God is not in itself a cause of rejoicing, but it indicates that the close of the great controversy is at hand. The fact that iniquity abounds and the love of many is waxing cold may cause much sorrow of heart, but the Saviour foretold this as a condition of things which would exist just before his return. When the definite signs have appeared “in sun and moon and stars,” when the nations are in distress, and men are fainting for fear, “and for expectation of the things which are coming on the world,” then is just the time that believers are to look up, and lift up their heads, because their redemption draweth nigh. When the decree has gone forth that “as many as should not worship the image of the beast should be killed,” and the faithful are “brought into close combat with the beast and his image,” then the Lord will be glorified in the complete deliverance of his trusting children. It is therefore plain that when we look at the present condition and tendency of events in the world in the light of God’s Word, we can see reason for hope and courage, not because there is any indication that the world is growing better, but because all the specifications of prophecy are being fully met by which we may know that “he is nigh, even at the doors.”
“The signs that show his coming near Are fast fulfilling year by year, And soon we'll hail the glorious dawn Of heav'n's eternal morn.”
“The Throne of Grace”
HEAVEN is a real place. The throne of God is there. Jesus the Son of man is there in his glorified flesh. Unnumbered angels are there, “mighty in strength, . . . hearkening unto the voice of his word.” Enoch and Elijah are there. Some of the trophies of the cross, who were raised from the dead at the resurrection of Christ, are there. There is “the temple of God that is in heaven,” and there our High Priest intercedes in our behalf. “Having then a great high priest, who hath passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we have not a high priest that can not be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but one that hath been in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore draw near with boldness unto the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy, and find grace to help us in time of need.” We are invited to a definite throne of grace, in a definite place, with the assurance that we have “a great high priest” who has gone “to appear before the face of God for us.” And we are invited to this throne of grace for a definite purpose, “That we may receive mercy, and may find grace to help us in time of need.” We need mercy and forgiveness. We need renewed grace day by day. We can not ourselves supply these needs, but we are invited to “the throne of grace,” there to receive freely our souls’ desire. “He shall be a priest upon his throne: and the counsel of peace shall be between them both.” “Let us therefore draw near.”

Revising Christianity

By L. A. S.

WE are in the days when faith is departing from the earth. This characteristic of the times becomes more and more prominent. Bolder and bolder grow the attacks upon the Word of God, made under the very cloak of Christianity. The latest development of this character has just taken place in England. A London press dispatch dated April 9 says:—
Canon Henson of Westminster Abbey in the Contemporary Review attacks the Bible, and especially the Old Testament, declaring “its incredible, puerile, or demoralizing narratives” are “a pack of lies, too gross for toleration.” The Anglican world is amazed at the question with which Canon Henson concludes. He asks:—
“Is the faith of the church in the divine Christ, living, present, and active, really built on an empty tomb?” The canon’s onslaught on the Scriptures has amazed England, Anglican as well as non-conformist.
Simultaneously with Canon Henson’s attack comes a demand from Sir Oliver Lodge, principal of the University of Birmingham, and one of England’s noted scientists, for a “reinterpretation of Christian doctrine,” or in other words, a revised Christianity. Sir Oliver Lodge shocks the believing people of England by declaring that “the doctrine of the atonement in its concrete form is a survival from barbarous times.”
Canon Henson declares that inspiration is now not allowed to certify to the truth of any statement in the Bible “which can not now be substantiated at the bar of reason and evidence.” Everything of this kind in the New Testament, he says, “will have to go the way of the Old Testament prodigies.”
He recommends supplementing the reading of the Bible in church with “Christian compositions which have secured the approval of general acceptance,” declaring that “indiscriminate reading of the Bible in public is an extremely perilous proceeding.”
Mr. Lodge says:—
“I would not be dogmatic in such a matter, but surely it generally is recognized that although the sufferings and violent death of Christ were the natural consequences of his birth and life so far in advance of his age, and although the pity and horror of such a ghastly tragedy has a purifying and sacramental influence, yet we now are unable to detect in it anything of the nature of punishment, nor do we imagine for a moment that an angry God was appeased by it, and is consequently disposed to treat more lightly the sins of men here now or any otherwise than they have beentreated by a constant, steadfast, and persevering universe.
“We are now beginning to realize a further stage in the process of the atonement. We are rising to the conviction that we are a part of nature, and so a part of God—that the whole creation is travailing together toward some great end. We are no aliens in a strange universe governed by an outside God. This strengthening vision, this sense of union with divinity,—this is what science will some day tell is the inner meaning of the redemption of man.”
Thus does the world, by wisdom—its own wisdom—still seek to find out God; and still it is true, as it was when Paul wrote to the Corinthians, that the world by wisdom knows not God. For the wisdom of this world—the science of this world—when applied to the understanding of the things of God, is foolishness. It becomes “science falsely so called.”
The wisdom of this world can not comprehend the mystery of the atonement. It sees in it only a sacrifice made to appease an angry God. This is the heathen idea of sacrifice, and arises from a conception of God which invests him with a nature like unto that of fallen humanity, wherein passion holds sway, and anger can be satisfied only by the sight of suffering. Rightly is Satan called the “god” of this world. The wisdom of this world would make of God a being after that sort.
The Christian knows that the atonement made on the cross was not to appease an angry God seeking to make some one a victim for man’s offense. The atonement was not to appease, or reconcile, God to man, but to reconcile man to God,—to bring man back to God. In the way of that reconciliation, after the fall, stood the law of God, holy and immutable as God himself, demanding the death of the transgressor. And because of Adam’s sin every man must die; there is no escape from that. But Jesus Christ hung on the cross to provide for mankind a way whereby he might die to sin, and still live. Without that sacrifice man would have died eternally. But now, the Christian is crucified with Christ, buried with him, and is raised with him to walk in newness of life. Through his identification with Christ, who has identified himself with humanity, he pays the penalty of his sin, and yet lives. Jesus died in order that there might be a fountain for human sin and uncleanness,—a fountain which only his blood could supply. He died in order that the claims of the law might not forever stand between man and God. His death attested not God’s anger at the sinner, but his love for him. Jesus was God’s gift to a sinful world. This is the Christian conception of the atonement, and is the direct opposite of the heathen conception which was evolved from the wisdom of this world.
The scheme of salvation which the wisdom of this world evolves is one that fails to save. These words of Sir Oliver Lodge show how the “scientific” conception of God is spreading in England, as it is elsewhere throughout civilization. As Christians, we will go to the Word of God for our conceptions of things pertaining to God. We will derive our knowledge through the channel of faith. We take the Bible as our text-book on the science of salvation. L. A. S.

Scientific Mysticism

By William Ambrose Spicer

Present-Day Revivals of Ancient Errors—No. 5

Scientific Mysticism

“THE world by wisdom knew not God.” 1 Cor. 1:21. When men did have a knowledge of him by revelation and faith, they lost it by a philosophy that vainly attempted to reach the same point by process of human reasoning. It seemed too simple to be taught like a little child. It would glorify human wisdom to find a way of knowing God that could be called rational and scientific. But in the attempt the natural and the spiritual were confused. “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” 1 Cor. 2:14. When Paul repudiated any thought of presenting Christian truth after the wisdom of this world, he did not refer to a system of philosophy that was endeavoring to escape from God. The ancient wisdom of the natural man sought to apprehend God, but sought in the wrong way. The result was a commingling of light and darkness, of good and evil, all the more deceptive because it turned the truth into falsehood.
We are witnessing in our day the revival of the ancient wisdom that knew not God, though it professes to have found a way in human reason by which all may know him. The effort to exalt the natural into the spiritual produces mysticism, a mixture that is neither natural nor spiritual. It can be classified only as mysticism. This system of philosophic mysticism has been strikingly described to us by the spirit of prophecy as an eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Instead of true knowledge, it is a mixture that destroys faith and blinds the mind to truth.
Concerning these dangers in apostolic days, Paul gave Timothy the warning: “O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: which some professing have erred concerning the faith.” 1 Tim. 6:20, 21. The mixture of light and of darkness in the false systems of apostolic times was founded on nature study and a philosophy of God, just as in modern systems. As one historical writer says in commenting on the text just quoted: “It must have been a doctrine professing to make a science out of the Christian faith.” It was tinctured with the pantheistic philosophy of the East also; for, as King of Cambridge says:—
So long as philosophy was cultivated in Greece . . . India was often regarded as the ultimate and purest source of the “True Wisdom,” the knowledge of things divine.
These seekers after wisdom talked of great truths revealed to them, and of principles high and holy. But the phraseology of truth is often used to cloak ideas utterly opposed to truth. Augustine, a few generations later, told of his experience with the Gnostics in their search through nature for a scientific philosophy of God:—
They used to repeat, “Truth and truth,” and so did they repeat her name to me, but she was nowhere amongst them, but they spake false things, not only concerning Thee who art the truth, but even concerning the elements of this world of ours, thy creation, concerning which even the philosophers who declared what is true, I ought to have slighted for the love of thee, O my Father. . . . There were set before me, in these same dishes, splendid phantoms, than which it were even better to love the Sun himself, for he was true as regards one’s eyes, rather than to love these fictions whereby the soul was deceived through the eyes.”
It has ever been the old story of Eve before the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The command of God and the way of faith were simple and plain. Instead of loyally taking the word of God as final, she watched and studied the deceptive workings of the evil one until it appeared to her truly that larger and wider knowledge was within her reach. She was searching for more truth in the way of the natural mind, and not by the way of faith that hears the word of God. She ate, and at once it seemed that new and broader views were hers. So came sin into our world. Satan has been working ever since to persuade men to follow his phantoms of wider knowledge and wisdom. He only asks men to study and investigate the evil system with open minds; for when that study begins, the mind turns from the word of truth, and loses its defense. The shifting flashes of light and intermitting darkness, and the flattering appeals to the vanity of human reason lure the soul on into wider, broader fields—all but a mirage wrought by the bewitching power of the evil one.
It is evident that the ancient mysteries were originally but schools to teach a philosophic conception of God by a study of nature. All their abominations that the apostle said could not be mentioned were but the natural fruitage of a refined philosophy. One writer sums up the course of study:—
In ancient mysteries, life was the problem. The candidate was first concerned with knowledge of physical law, as in his own body; then of his relations, on the physical plane, with his fellow men. Then came instruction on the “soul plane,” a knowing of the great mystery of life itself, “for in these he became an unselfish servant of humanity.”
Canon Cheetham says of the nature study in the pagan mysteries and of their philanthropic and humanitarian aims:—
Cicero seems to regard the mysteries of Eleusis and Samothrace as means of learning the secrets of nature rather than of the gods, and this we may believe was the prevalent opinion with men of Cicero’s class. . . . The mysteries [in their opinion] were the source whence gentleness and humanity flowed over men.
Rebold says of these ancient institutions: “Initiation into them was the entering of a school, wherein were taught art, science, morals, law, philosophy, philanthropy, and the wonders and worship of nature.” And Hatch, in his Hibbart lectures, says: “The majority of them had the same aims as Christianity itself—the aim of worshiping a pure God.” The final stage in the education of the initiate was a correctly scientific philosophy of God:—
The sublime mysteries of religion and the profoundest teachings of science were now revealed to him, and satisfied his thirst for knowledge, while the possession of power as one of the hierarchy gratified his ambition. . . . This was the real autopsy, or “bringing to light,” of the candidate in the mysteries.
Why was it that these mysteries—ancient training-schools in which morals and virtue and profound philosophy of Deity were taught—became the synonym for all that was evil?—Because the true revelation of God was missed; and God being removed, all was worthless, even though virtue was praised and vice repudiated. Human reason was led by the evil one ever deeper and deeper into the mazes of error.
Again men are mistaking devotion to the search after knowledge of the things of nature for a spiritual experience. A revival of ancient mysticism is casting over the whole intellectual world the spell of enchantment by which men have been deceived ever since Eve studied the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. One evil agency, world-wide in its operations, is leading minds along similar paths, although the individuals may have no connection with one another. For a time the rationalistic element in our day scoffed at the mystical systems of philosophy that were springing up. But we have seen them winning their way in, and leavening intellectual thought. It is the master-working of Satan for the very last days. The modern search for truth means a way of finding God in nature that shall redound to the glory of human reason. The Unitarian philosophy as much as any other one influence, perhaps, has prepared the way. As Frothingham says of this movement (in his life of the leader of the Brook Farm experiment), it “set knowledge in advance of faith.” Yet only by faith can men know the things of God. Channing said:—
I am surer that my rational nature is from God than that any book is a revelation of his will. This light in my own breast is his primary revelation, and all subsequent ones must accord with it.
Just so Eve’s rational nature, by Satan’s hypnotic spell, led her to see plainly as true that which was altogether false. Now, confident that rational nature is guiding truly, the new philosophy is pressing along the beaten path of ancient apostasy. It is all in the name of a search for the divine, and men proudly say they will follow truth wherever it may lead. One recent writer says:—
Men once died for a dogma which they did not even understand. Men to-day give their whole lives to find out God’s truth. A brotherhood of men of science are committed to discover truth, and to tell it to us. It is their religion to follow truth. Was ever a martyr’s life holier than Agassiz’s or Faraday’s?
Thus men make a religion of the knowledge of the things of nature, deceiving themselves after a vain philosophy, “after the elements of the world [the things of nature], and not after Christ.” Col. 2:8. Speaking of the determination with which observers are delving into nature to find God, one scientific medical writer says: “To-day they stand in actual conscious presence of the immaterial.” Another medical writer, a confessed theosophist, speaking of the same line of investigation among the ancient mystics and scientists of the East, declares that no one who studies their work—
can otherwise than venerate the marvelous men whose penetration, sanctified by humble devotion and illuminated by celestial light, discovered the truths of nature and nature’s laws and principles, and actually fathomed many mysteries not only of the terrestrial world, but of heaven and of the Almighty.
This author advocates the theosophic theory as a cure for infidelity, and thinks it will help scientific men to believe the Bible. While denouncing infidelity, the new philosophy spreads the most dangerous form of unbelief. Still another medical writer says of the winning witchery of this religio-scientific philosophy:—
They know little of the forces at work, or the principles involved, who imagine that there is sufficient force in dissolving creeds, or in the dying throes of materialism, to greatly retard the progress of these truths by sneers or ridicule, or to prevent their triumph by any opposition they can bring to bear against them. They have waited for millennia, and their time has come.
Sadly true it is that the time has come for Satan’s final stand. He knowsthat he hath but a short time. His false gospel of a perverted natural science and spiritualized philosophy is preparing the way for his coming as the great humanitarian and reformer, as surely as the final message of the everlasting gospel of Revelation 14 is preparing the way for Christ’s second advent. Surely the crisis is imminent—even upon us. Human minds are ready to trifle with Satan’s deceptive philosophy. Men and women delight to peer into it, just as Eve loitered round the forbidden tree. They laugh at warnings of danger, even while the very plague is upon them. And in the vanity of the blinded mind, they are fearless in pursuing the path of a natural philosophy of God, to find a rational basis for faith in human reason. Dr. Buck declares:—
A large number of persons have reached, on the intellectual plane, the state of manhood; and are capable of partaking of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. There is no reason why this old philosophy should be longer concealed.
And Pike, the jurist and philanthropist, whose gifts the city of Washington has honored with a statue on one of its thoroughfares, wrote:—
The secret of the occult sciences is that of nature itself, the secret of the generation of the angels and worlds, that of the omnipotence of God. “Ye shall be like the Elohim, knowing good and evil,” had the serpent of Genesis said, and the tree of knowledge became the tree of death. For six thousand years the martyrs of knowledge toil and die at the foot of this tree, that it may again become the tree of life. The Absolute, sought for unsuccessfully by the unsensate and found by the sages, is the Truth, the Reality, and the Reason of the universal equilibrium.
The temper of Eden is throwing over the whole earth the hypnotic spell of the final deception. In an age of enlightenment the greatest darkness shall cover the earth. Christendom is being replenished from the East, as Isaiah’s prophecy of the last days declares. New and old are commingling. Our only safety is in listening to the plain counsels of God, and holding to the work that he has given us to do. The experience of the advent people in the three messages is as a sheet-anchor to the soul. We see the end of our work before us. Satan would delight to persuade people to look aside and try to study out the mazes of false philosophy. Its name is legion. Drive the nail of truth through one phase of it, and, behold, that is not it at all, say its votaries. It is something else altogether. We can not follow all the serpent-like windings and sophistries of error, but we can proclaim the truth that bears the solemn warning against error in all its deceptive forms. Many a soul starts in to study the depths of the philosophy, feeling that its errors need not affect him, only to get entangled in its mesh-like deceptions. Nowit shows an aspect of truth, and then of error. It touches the truth, and then, overpassing it, turns it to falsehood. It is a mixture of knowledge of good and evil that first flatters and then snares the unguarded mind.
Our safety is in keeping our eyes fixed upon the special message and work for this day. One crossing a stream upon a narrow log may look down at the whirling waters and find the head growing dizzy. It is not wisdom to continue looking down in the effort to persuade the mind that the swirl and the rush of the torrent need not affect one on the log. The safety lies in keeping the eyes upon the point where the log touches the goal of solid earth. All about us Satan will wave the whirling lights and shadows of his final deceptions. There is ruin below for every soul who falls from the firm platform of truth set for the advent believers. Our safety is in keeping our eyes straight before us upon Jesus and the end of that way, even the city of our God. There is the Eden that man lost when he turned from the way of faith, and allowed the evil one to persuade him that his own reasoning faculties could discover a way to broader knowledge. Faith, the gift of God, even the faith of Jesus, as any little child may receive it, shall guide our feet in the way till Jesus comes.
The evil one has made a systematic effort to wreck this advent movement by the same methods that he has used in leavening and ruining every reformatory movement since God began to call men out from apostasy. But there will be one reform movement—the last one—which will have the vitality to purge out the evil leaven. This advent movement is not to be turned aside, and the remnant church, shaken free from every entanglement, will stand at last undefiled before God on Mount Zion. God’s holy Word declares it. W. A. S.

The Catholic Church in Politics

By L. A. S.

SPEAKING of the “End of the Anti-Catholic War in Germany,” which has resulted in a complete triumph of the papacy through the direct interference of the Catholic Church in German politics, the New York Sun says:—
On March 9 the Bundesrath, or federal council of the German empire, receded from the position which it has hitherto maintained, and assented to the bill previously passed by the Reichstag, repealing the anti-Jesuit clause of the law of July 4, 1872, which prohibited Jesuits from settling in Germany. Thus vanishes the last vestige of the anti-Catholic legislation with which Bismarck, fresh from his triumph over France, expected to assure the supremacy of the civil power throughout the German empire, and to extinguish the spiritual influence of the captive of the Vatican.
Bismarck’s anti-Catholic campaign began early in 1872 with the appointment of Dr. Falk to be Prussian minister of public worship and instruction. The Falk laws, which were presently passed by the Prussian Parliament, were framed for the purpose of shutting out Catholic ecclesiastics from educational functions, and thus stifling at its source the influence which they hitherto had exercised on the rising generation in the Catholic provinces and districts of Prussia. The Reichstag and Bundesrath of the German empire were persuaded to supplement this Prussian legislation by imposing similar restrictions on Catholic ecclesiastics in the Reichsland or imperial territory of Alsace-Lorraine, and by forbidding members of the Society of Jesus, which of all teaching orders had been most active, to settle anywhere in Germany. For some time these laws, Prussian and imperial, were enforced with the utmost rigor, and the Iron Chancellor repeatedly proclaimed that they would never be relaxed. Recalling the humiliation to which a German emperor had once been subjected at the hands of the papacy, Bismarck declared that he, for his part, would never go to Canossa.
All the world knows that Bismarck before his death was forced to go far on the road toward Canossa, and now the empire of which he was leader has gone the remaining distance. Catholic voters throughout Germany united in electing Catholics to the Reichstag, who stood solidly together in support of Catholic church interests. About one hundred such members were elected, constituting what was known in the Reichstag as the Center party. The Sun adds:—
As time went on, and Bismarck, renouncing free trade, avowed himself a protectionist, demanded laws of exceptional rigor against the Socialists, and insisted upon septennial appropriations for an enlarged standing army, he found that the support of the Centrists was indispensable to the attainment of his ends. That support he managed to secure, but only by sacrificing piecemeal the anti-Catholic laws which had been enacted in block. One after another, the restrictions imposed upon Catholic ecclesiastics in Alsace-Lorraine and in Prussia itself were abrogated, until, when Dr. Windthorst died, very little of the obnoxious legislation remained upon the statute-books. Still binding, however, was that clause of the imperial law of July 4, 1872, that forbade Jesuits to settle in Germany.
The Bundesrath, whose members were elected from districts largely Protestant, for a long time refused assent to the bill, several times passed by the Reichstag, recalling the Jesuits. Finally this last opposition has been overcome, and the triumph of the papacy is complete. And who can doubt that the same policy might under favoring circumstances be successfully carried out in the Congress of the United States, to bring this nation to the feet of Rome? It is the very essence of papal policy everywhere to shape political affairs so as to promote the supremacy of the Church of Rome. Rome knows how to win in the game of politics, but now, as in Luther’s day, she has no power to stand before the Word of God. L. A. S.
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