Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 2, 1873
COMING SOON.
I know not if He come at eve,
Or night, or morn, or noon;
I know the breeze of twilight gray
That fans the cheek of dying day
Doth ever whisper—Soon!
I know not why our souls should doubt
His promise to appear,
When every flower's opening eye
Looks up into the changing sky
And seems to murmur—Near!
I know not round His blessed feet
What peerless glories throng;
I only know from rending tomb
The good shall burst in beauty's bloom
And faith assures—Not long!
I know not if His chariot wheels
Yet near or distant are,
I only know each thunder-roll
Doth wake an echo in my soul
That saith—Not very far!
I know not if we long must wait
The summer of His smile;
I only know that hope doth sweep
With thrilling touch my heart-strings deep
And sings—A little while!
I know not on this glorious theme
Why lips so oft are dumb;
I only know the saddened earth
Will flush with beauty and with mirth
At sound of—“Lo, I come!”
—Christian Treasury.
THE BLESSEDNESS OF BELIEVING WITHOUT SEEING.
By Bishop Simpson
TEXT:—“Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed; blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” John 20:29.
The circumstances under which these words were spoken are detailed in the chapter read for our second lesson. Christ had risen from the dead. On the evening of his resurrection, he appeared to the ten disciples, who had met in an upper chamber. Thomas was not present with them, and when they related how they had seen the Saviour, and testified that he had risen from the grave, Thomas said: “Except I put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.” A week afterward, Christ appeared again to his disciples, and this time Thomas was with them. He came into the upper chamber, though the door was shut as on the former occasion, and his salutation to his disciples was the same, “Peace be unto you.” And immediately he turned to Thomas, as if he had heard the words just uttered from the lips of Thomas himself, and said to him, “Thomas, reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side; and be not faithless, but believing.” Thomas, perfectly satisfied, cried out, “My Lord and my God!” Fully convinced, he was joyful. The exclamation was one of attachment to Christ personally as his Lord, and was also a confession of the divinity of Christ—“My God.” Jesus turned to him while in this glow of happiness from believing, and said, “Thomas, because thou hast seen, thou hast believed—thou dost believe truly; thou art joyful now in that belief; thou hast seen, thou hast believed; but happy, or blessed, are they who have not seen, and yet have believed.”
The contrast here seems to intimate, more blessed are they—that is, blessed rather than those who have seen; and the doctrine of the text is, that those who believe without seeing are more blessed than those who believe by seeing—that it is better for us not to have seen Christ; better for us, were it possible to see him now, not to see him; that to trust in the unseen is better than to look on the seen. It is hard for us to believe this. Had it been announced this morning that in any church in this city Christ would visibly appear, oh! what gathering crowds would have been around that church before the dawn of day! How, from distant cities, they would have come, and from mountain-top, and from distant continent, and from the islands of the sea, in multiplied millions, to see the Saviour! And yet we are more blessed if we believe without seeing.
I say this expression seems to us to be unnatural; and yet I notice, first, that it is in harmony with other declarations in the Holy Scriptures. For when Jesus was about to leave his disciples, he said to them, “It is better for you that I go away, for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come;” and again he said, “It is better for you that I go away.” Place, now, ourselves in the room of one of those twelve disciples who had walked with Jesus, who had listened to the tones of his voice, who had looked into the sparkling light of his eye, who had taken him by the hand, some of whom had leaned on his bosom so sweetly and so softly that it seemed like sinking away into rapturous bliss, while he talked of Heaven and a glorious eternity, and then hear the words, “It is better for you that I go away.” How could we have thought so? Better for us not to hear that voice which speaks as never man spake! Better for us not to see those eyes that flash with the light of eternity! Better for us not to feel the touch of that hand which upholds the universe! Better for us not to listen to those tidings which come fresh as from the throne of the eternal God! Strange language was that! And yet it is the word of the Saviour—the omniscient, the eternal Saviour! “It is expedient for you that I go away.”
Again, who of us have not often wished we could receive what we call certain tidings from the spirit-world? I remember well, in a little company of young men who commenced a religious life about the same time I did, often to have conversed with them; and I remember how, in some of our seasons of close converse, we said to each other: “If some one of us is called away, if it be possible, we will come back and tell the others something of the unseen, the spirit-land.” How we longed! I think there is no one of us who has lost a friend but has thought in some way it might be possible for that friend to come back and speak to us. Oh! what would we give just for one glimpse of a loved face! What would we give to hear just one utterance from a sweet voice hushed in death! And, then, when certain thoughts rack the bosom, what would we give if some dear one we have known could come back and tell us there is a Heaven; there is the throne of God; there is the song of angels; there is the tree of life; there is the throne of glory; there is the gathering of loved ones who have walked together, in white, and now surround the throne of God! Oh! what would we give! And then that other thought, Is there a place of woe—a separation and a banishment from God? Is there misery? Is there wretchedness? Oh! what would we give if some one could come back and tell us there is danger of eternal woe! And yet our Saviour says: “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they believe though one rose from the dead!” There is no need of one coming back. It would do no good for one to come back. There is the data on which our faith should rest given us; and if we believe not that data, neither would we be persuaded though one rose from the dead.
Now this seems unnatural, and yet it is the declaration of Scripture, through and through, that it is more blessed to believe without this vision. And yet, as I have said, you and I, circumstanced as we are, feel differently, and can scarcely help feeling differently. Oh! to-day, I must say, with all this declaration, such is the anxiety of vision, that if the blessed Saviour were visible, I would go to the ends of the earth. Were he in Palestine, I would risk the dangers of the sea; I would climb the hills, as it seems to me, I would kiss the very foot-prints on the earth which he trod! Oh! if I could get to him, as my soul said when yearning spiritually to find him—if I could just see him without his seeing me! If I could just reach out my hand and take hold of his garments; if I could only get near enough to him to have power come out of him and take my sins away, oh! how I would rejoice! And yet we come back to the declaration: “Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.”
This doctrine is not only in harmony with the declarations of Scripture elsewhere, but I notice again that it is in harmony with the condition of our salvation. We are saved through faith, and faith is the supplement to sight. What we realize through our senses we are said to know; what we take on testimony we are said to believe. Now, not only is our final salvation predicated on faith, but every single step of exaltation toward that final salvation is also predicated on faith and looking into the unseen. For, says the apostle, “Faith is the evidence of things not seen”—that is, it is that state of the mind in which we as fully believe in the existence of the unseen as if we saw it. It is that state of the mind in which, as the substance of things hoped for, we seem to realize already that which we believe will be. We take hold of, we grasp, we enjoy, a kind of first-fruit. That our salvation is dependent on this is stated all through the sacred volume. “Without faith, it is impossible to please God.” And no man can have a consciousness of joy unless he has the consciousness that he pleases God. God is invisible. It must be this something which takes hold of the invisible that gives us a sure conviction of the existence of God. God is omnipotent. Our faith takes hold of that truth, and in him we feel secure under all circumstances. God is omniscient, and the human soul, conscious of right and truth and sincerity, appeals with perfect confidence to God, saying, “Thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee.”
Again, not only is it faith in God, the unseen, which is essential to salvation. We believe in God; we must believe also in Christ, and yet we have not seen him. We believe in his advent into the world, and yet we were not permitted to stand with the angels that saw his advent, and sung, “Glory to God in the highest; on earth peace, good-will toward men.” We believe in him as the Babe of Bethlehem, and yet we were not permitted to take him in our arms, as Simeon, or as Anna of old, and cry out, “Now, Lord, lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.” We believe in the works which he wrought; the miracles which he performed; the doctrines which he taught, and yet we have not heard the tones in which those doctrines were uttered; we have not seen the powerful changes involved in the working of those miracles; but we stand, and in the attitude of faith we hear him, as he sits on the side of the hill overlooking the basin of Galilee, saying, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.” And as we hear, there comes into our heart a strange filling, like the breaking in of the rivulet, and then it swells as it seems to flow down the mountain-side, spreading out into the mighty river, until we may be filled with all the fullness of God.
We are not permitted to stand by Calvary, and to see his sacrifice on the cross with our eye, and yet we stand, and even in earth’s darkness and gloom, by faith see him on Calvary, the sacrifice for sin, the Lamb of God. We stand and hear that groan; we see the throbbings of that mighty heart in its pangs of agony until it bursts. We hear him say, “It is finished,” and we feel that he died for us. Strangely and mysteriously that blood seems to flow from Calvary. It touches our hearts, and the guilt is taken away. We cannot see him as he ascended up on high. The heavens seem closed, the skies arched evenly all over us, and yet we know that archway was opened; the portals of glory were unloosed; from the top of the mountain he ascended with a shout. Our God has gone up with a shout, and the angels said, “Lift up your heads, ye heavenly gates, and give the King of glory to come in.” We see him not, and yet by faith we know he is seated on the right hand of God. The Heaven of heavens is filled with his glory, and yet where the poor, humble, suppliant child cries for mercy, he bends a listening ear. And when I look over a congregation of hundreds of men and women who are worshiping, and ask on which one of the hundreds is the eye of my Saviour fixed, I hear a voice which says, “To that man will I look that is of a humble and contrite heart, and that trembleth at my word.” Oh! yes, with this doctrine the eye may be blind; earth’s glories may never have burst upon the vision; the poor orphan child, sightless and earless, I might say, as to all the glories of this world, can see and read a name written in the Lamb’s book of life, a title to mansions in the skies.
Now, that is faith—the instrument of our salvation—and, from beginning to end, has taken hold of the existence of God, the fatherhood of God, the sufferings of Christ, his atoning merits, his resurrection from the dead, his ascension on high, and his intercession before the throne. They are all of faith. The eye of the mind looks out, and in believing, we are saved.
But again: God loves to give us analogies on earth that make it seem a little easier to gain the heavenly ascent. Oh! how we understand what it is to love God when we love all around us. For how can a man say he loves God whom he has not seen, when he loves not his brother whom he has seen? Love to God is like love to man. It is the same affection. It comes out of the pure, the noble, the grand, the beneficent; and as a child loves a father because of his kindness, and loves a mother because of her deep affection and unswerving devotion, so from a mother’s love and from a father’s love it seems almost easy to take a step higher and feel love to God. God gives us these helps to ascend upward to Heaven. He lets down a ladder to earth, and we take visibly a few steps here to be prepared for the steps that are invisible; and as we ascend here, we shall ascend at last, step by step. So that we may understand how it is that faith in the unseen elevates us. God makes it the step to elevation even here on earth. Take the process of education: it is stepping from the seen toward the unseen. The child goes to school. To attract attention, it wants little pictures. Your primers are filled with pictures. There must be something to attract the eye, to fasten the attention. Give the child a book without pictures and he refuses it; but when he learns to read, and is anxious to know something, he cares nothing about the pictures, comparatively. And yet we are all so much children that we do love the pictures; but just as the mind turns toward the valuable, we get away from the pictures, we are anxious for the thought—that thought which has power and strength in it. Take up the highest sciences, you have no pictures for them. Study the human thought, the science of thought; there is no illustration in such books; there cannot be. You have risen to the realm of thought, and you must grasp the invisible. You take hold of the thought of the great thinker and make it your thought. You forget the body, and get out into the unseen, and man rises in his dignity as he learns to live in the unseen.
It is not only so in education; it is so in all successful business life. Men of trade rely on the unseen. They freight their ships to China, and they bring back their90cargoes, though they have never seen that land. Commerce, trade, exchange, are based upon this faith. You place your money in your bank here and draw for it on London, though you have never been there, and you cross the ocean with the certainty that you will have the money in London when you get there. It is the same thing as to draw from the merits of Christ, and know you have the treasure when you cross the ocean and get into glory—the same principle precisely. Here is a man of means in your city, and I want money from the bank. I cannot get it on my own name, but I draw up a note and take it to him and he indorses it, and I go to the bank, knowing I will get it. They don’t know me, don’t care for me; they would not trust me; but they know that man and his influence and power, and they trust him, and I go to the bank with perfect confidence that I will get the money, for I have the name of that millionaire. Jesus says, “Whatsoever ye ask in my name the Father will give it you.” There is a name that has power in Heaven—all power, all wealth—and I ask in the name of Jesus, and I receive. And when I learn to go with the same confidence to the bank of glory in the name of Christ that I can go to the bank in your city in the name of one of your millionaires, then I have the things that I ask of God.
Now, is it strange that faith should be demanded of us when we consider that it was a lack of belief in God that led to man’s fall—a lack of trust? And do we not see that God requires of us this trust; that he has arranged human life all through on this basis, and the more a man trusts, the higher he rises?
Then, again, let us consider that all true greatness—that is, the doing of great things, and I mean, by great things, things that require sacrifices—is all based on this looking at the unseen. The essence of all heroism, in whatever department, is based on the mind resting on the unseen. The hero who fights is fighting for something unseen—his country’s glory and honor. A soldier never fights for what he sees unless he fights on his own soil, to protect the fields and hills and city around him. When he goes off the soil which he defends, he fights for the unseen; it is the honor of his country, the glory of his country, the happiness of his country, the safety of his loved ones, his kindred, his race; but these are to him ideas and not visions. No man ever succeeded in getting out of the common walks of life, but by trusting in the unseen. It is that alone lifts a man upward, takes him out of the circle. The man who excels in trade, looks away beyond. You call a man a far-seeing man—that is, a man who looks beyond the circle around him; sees the tops of distant thoughts which common men never see. So the martyr who dies for his religion dies for the unseen. Deny Christ? Never! Let limb be torn from limb, he believes in Christ. Cast him to the lions, he believes in Christ. Kindle the fires around him, he believes in Christ, and it gives him strength to stand. Let the body be cut into pieces, if the soul is full of an idea, and has faith to grasp it while consciousness remains. Raise a clamor around a man who looks into the unseen, and he is not moved. Let the thousands cry out, and he stands still. Let the billows rise and surge and roar, if his feet are on the Rock, and his eye on the Star of Bethlehem, he stands unmoved, and he will stand; he is supported by the invisible. The man who is to do anything great must break away from the clamor around him; must not lean on the near; and sometimes God, to train a man, cuts from him the props of things around him. Here are some of us who, if business prospers, and everything goes finely, lean so much on our associates in business, and the regular routine of business, that we shall forget God, and in prosperity say, “We shall not be moved,” and lean on earth. God sometimes sees that there is no way of making us lean on him alone but to just cut from us these props, one by one. It is severe. The tendrils of the vine have wound around these props, and when the tendrils are cut it seems as if the life blood almost oozed out, and the heart is anxious, and the soul sad, yet God sees there is no other way. Sometimes he takes from us friends, and this world is dark; we feel as if there was no ray of hope in it. It is all to make us look higher, to mount on stronger wing, to soar into a celestial atmosphere. There is One, around whom, if the tendrils of our affections cling, we shall never be moved. The cross of Christ never falls.
Now, I admit that sometimes human bravery and heroism are stimulated by things seen. It is said of an old Scottish hero, that the heart of Bruce was encased in a metallic case and carried by him with a chain attached, and in time of fiercest struggle, when everything was desperate and the men retreating, the chieftain would throw that heart into the midst of the enemy and say, “Go, rescue the heart of Bruce!” and then he and those around him would rally and in desperate strife would put their enemies to flight. The stars and stripes are about to be taken. Men rally around the flag, fight for it, sacrifice life for it. But it was not for the heart of Bruce simply that the Scotch fought. It is not for the flag our men die. It is not for the few yards of bunting colored thus and so. It is for ideas. These are symbols, and, to stimulate us, Christ gives us symbols. There is that symbol, pure water, washing, cleansing, that signifies the cleansing efficacy of the Redeemer’s merits. There is this table to which we come when he says, “In memory of me.” There is the bread, and there is the wine, and they become part of us, and so Jesus gives himself to us. He leaves us not without these symbols for the better fixing of and confirming and elevating of our faith; but he himself is invisible. These are representatives of a great idea, and these he gives us. But as I said before, true courage, heroism, rests on the unseen. Yes, you find a man who will keep his onward course unmoved, and he is like a needle on the compass. Why it points north we can scarcely tell. We know it does so, that when the skies smile and the sun shines, the needle points northward, and when the skies are clouded, and the storm rages, and the sea roars, and all possibility of telling the course in which the vessel is going is lost otherwise, the needle still points north. The good man is like the needle, true to the pole, firm, fixed; but he must have a distant object on which to fix his faith, a polar star for his reckoning faith; faith in the unseen Saviour, who is the owner of all things, that he may stand unmoved; but with this, blessed be God, he does stand—stands alone if need be, stands with the world around him if he can have it so. It is better, if God please, to have Christian friends with us; it is happier to go hand in hand; it is more joyful to ascend Mount Zion with the voice of song; it is a little more pleasant to have men help over rough places and go with us, and shout in the brightness of the mountain-top, if we can; but if we must struggle alone, if we see the cross on the mountain-top, we shall go there, if no other one goes with us.
But now how would a seen Saviour strengthen our faith in this way? It is said when the Duke of Wellington, on one occasion, rode up to his retreating army, a soldier happened to see him first and cried out, “Yonder is the Duke of Wellington; God bless him!” and the retreating army had courage to nerve itself afresh, and went forward and drove the enemy. One has said that the Duke of Wellington was worth more at any time than five thousand men. So it would be if we had the Captain of our salvation in front, we would go forward. How gloriously would this church contend if Christ were visibly in front of them! But the army was sometimes without the Duke of Wellington. There was a place where he could not be. And if Christ were visibly present, he would be present at the same time, only at one church in one locality; it might be in Philadelphia, but what of the thousand other cities? But an unseen Saviour is at the head of the column everywhere. We know he is there. The Captain of our salvation is where two or three are gathered in his name to inspire; and to-day, in every city on the face of this globe, where the columns need to march, his voice sounds, “Onward!” in their ears. His very being unseen inspires hope, and strength, and joy. To-day, I thank God, he is leading hosts in Lapland, in Russia, in China, in Japan, in the torrid regions of Africa, in the islands of the sea, in the mountain-tops, and in the valleys. Oh! how many hearts feel the inspiring influence of his holy presence to-day! It is because he is invisible. “Blessed are they that have not seen and yet believe.”
Then, again, it is only thus that he can be the spiritual Comforter and give us consolation. There were those who were sick on earth and Christ healed them, and it was a joyful occasion, but he was confined to one little spot. Now, in comparison with the whole earth, how little is Palestine! It is not much larger than one of our very large Western counties. It is less than one-fourth of this State in size. Now, what is that to the earth’s surface? And then consider, he was only present at the same time in one single locality of that land. But to-day, unseen, he is in every place, and there to comfort. The sick of heart may be cheered everywhere. Unseen, he is in this congregation to-day. And how many hearts love, though they have not seen, him! “Whom though they see him not, yet believing they rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.” And yet he is not confined to this congregation. In how many congregations is he this day! Oh! how many souls to-day are saying, “Oh! that I knew where I may find him!” And yet though they know it not, he is just beside them. There is no man to-day who has a palsied arm of faith and longs to stretch it out, that Jesus is not strengthening the spiritual nerve of that arm and saying, “Reach hither thy hand.” And then in consolation there are sick-beds—oh! how many of them—to-day, where our loved ones possibly are lying, unable to come to church, and Jesus is there! His mantle of love is thrown over them; they are in the banqueting-hall to-day. Heaven’s glorious visions press upon them, and they are listening to-day on sick-beds to the voice of Jesus. While we are sitting here this morning, thousands are dying. Oh! could I see the death-struggles, could I see the eye grow dim, could I hear the weakening pulsations of those hearts, could I see those fingers from which are retiring the signs of life! Oh! how many hearts are agonized just now! Every dying eye can be turned to Christ. He is lifted up, that all may look unto him. Thank God, there is not a dying soul that has heard of Jesus on the face of this green earth that may not look to him. He is invisible to the outward sight, but the eye of faith can reach him and the touch of faith can feel his power, and no one passes into eternity without the arms of Jesus being thrown around him if he believes. Oh! I rejoice there is not a human being out of the reach of Christ. He is everywhere—everywhere to “make a dying bed feel soft as downy pillows are;” everywhere to reclaim the prodigal, to comfort the widow, and cheer the orphan; everywhere to reclaim the outcast; everywhere to nerve and strengthen men for duty. And, oh! when the last hour comes, he is there to put into the trembling hand the rod and the staff, that they may pass safely over. He is there to open to dry eyes the glory of the unseen land, and they “behold the King in his beauty, and the land that is afar off.” Oh! my friends, our fathers and mothers have felt the inspiration as they went down to the valley of death. You and I shall feel it, and the little children that we leave behind us shall feel it, and our children’s children shall feel it, and they can all cling around an unseen Saviour. “Blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed.”
And now, to-day, oh! I rejoice that in this congregation every heart may take hold of the Saviour. Will you take hold of him now? Unseen, he is near you. By faith you can touch him to-day. He can heal all your maladies. This is the glorious gospel of the Son of God. To-day you can draw near to him. O troubled one, sorrowing one, despondent one, come to Jesus. You can get as near to him as John when he laid his head on his bosom. You can have such visions of him as Mary when she cried out; “Rabboni” (my Master). You can get as near him as when the disciples crowded around him, going up from the Mount of Ascension into glory. You may have him to-day—now. Believing in him, unseen, you can be filled with “joy unspeakable and full of glory.” Oh! it is this trusted and unseen Saviour who brings these feelings of joy—a joy that has a real basis, a permanent basis; a joy that shall endure forever; a joy that shall be honored of yourself and of God; a joy that wells up on earth and overflows in eternity; a joy that goes with us all through time, and is but in its infancy when eternity shall unfold its glories. Oh! it is this unseen Saviour who gives all this joy. Trust in him to-day. I would that every heart would come to him. Oh! that every one would love this Saviour and come to this Christ and adore him for his goodness!
One thought, and I have done: Thomas believed after he had seen, and he believed truly; believed, I may say, successfully. It is not said, as it was with the first disciples, “Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord;” and yet I have no doubt he was glad. But that doubting spirit of Thomas seemed to keep him from doing much. Has it ever occurred to you that we never hear the name of Thomas mentioned again in all the volume of inspiration, except at the time the disciples met to choose one in the place of Judas? He dropped out of sight. He was doubting in his tendency, and a doubtful mind never accomplishes much. Do you want to be like Thomas, just having a place in the church, and go out like one of those stars that shine for a moment and are never seen again? It is the tendency of the doubting mind.
If you want to be a successful Christian, be a believing Christian. “Be not faithless, but believing.” And that you may believe, there are two or three things necessary. All that God does for you, when you recognize him, you must, in some way, confess. Thomas cried out, “My Lord and my God!” “If thou shalt believe in thine heart, and shalt confess with thy mouth,” saith the apostle. That confession must always be, in part, by action. You must stand in this world a witness for Christ. “Ye are my witnesses,” saith the Lord. No man will ever accomplish much unless willing to witness for Christ. According to what Christ has done for him, he must stand up before society by his actions, utterances, life, attesting the goodness of God. No man lighteth a candle to put under a bushel. God does not put his Spirit into the hearts of men that they may hide its light. No man can expect to have a strong, vigorous faith without living a life of confession before the world. “Him that confesseth me before men, him will I confess before my Father.” You can’t be a Christian and not live a Christian’s life. You can’t go through the world a Christian unseen; it is utterly impossible. You weaken your power, your experience.
One thing more: That you gain the full confidence of faith, you must rely on God’s word. Now, here is one of the blessings of it: If you could see God, there would be no life-study, thought, developing the highest culture in religion. We have tried to show how that applied to science. God makes man study, and here is a volume of revelation, a whole volume of God’s sayings and God’s dealings with man, and you must study them; and as you study them and practice them, trust them, acknowledge them; this faith grows stronger. And now, I want to tell you a conviction that rests deeply on my mind, and I want you to carry it home with you. Some of you have weak faith; you have been hesitating; you have not been growing; and you almost doubt whether there is such a thing for you as full Christian confidence. You know a great many have died very triumphantly, and a number have lived very triumphantly, but you are not sure whether you can ever have that triumphant faith and that confidence. But don’t you believe that God is honored by such faith; that men do more good in proportion as they have strong faith; as they live as on the suburbs of Heaven; whose eyes are open always, and whose hearts are influenced by the power of the invisible? Now, my conviction is this, that there is hid somewhere in this blessed volume of God a truth, a narrative, a promise, a warning, designed just for you. I cannot tell where it is. One was for me; another was for you. You have a different temperament; and somewhere in that Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, there is a special passage for you. The omniscient Eye knew you needed it. Strange experiences are here. I have conversed with men, and have been astonished to find the passage of Scripture that led to their awakening something I had never thought of. The word of God is given for a purpose: it is to leave men without excuse. There is a passage somewhere for every one of you; and every one may attain to strong faith; triumphant, holy living; triumphant dying. But that you may find this passage, you must read the Bible through and through, through and through. In our spelling-books, we were taught the story of the dying man who called his sons around him, and told them that somewhere in the field there was hidden treasure. The next year, they ploughed every part of that field, and cultivated it to the utmost extent, and when they came to gather the year’s profits they said, “We see the meaning of our dying father.” It is so with this volume. There is a treasure—I cannot tell where—a heavenly treasure, intended for you. It is somewhere in the volume. Seek and find91it. Turn over its pages; read its precepts; study its promises; and when you have gone over them once, go over them again. It is somewhere, and the reason why you have not found it is, you have not studied that book; you have not peered into the unseen through that open avenue. Study it now, and God bless you, and may all of you love that unseen Saviour! May you rejoice in his strengthening faith! May you die with his arms around you! May you be in his presence to all eternity.—From a sermon by Bishop Simpson, in The Methodist.
The True Temperance Standard.
By C. D. Mack
It is not enough that we pledge to abstain from the use of alcohol “as a beverage!” Our Saviour long since taught that “a house divided against itself cannot stand, and if Satan cast out Satan, how shall then his kingdom stand?” The Evil One knows the truth of this, and still has looked down upon all this hue and cry, this flourish of trumpets along the lines of the temperance armies, with supreme indifference. So long as we aim our guns away from the drug store he does not care how loudly we war. With that he can make and remake drunkards faster than our best efforts can unmake them. He knows that so long as man looks upon alcohol as a friend in need (and who does not?), his position is safe.
So long as we carry the odor of alcohol upon us, is there any hope? So long as we resort to the use of it in our ailments, is there any hope of the temperance cause? Need we expect to induce the people to cease drinking, or the rum seller to abandon the traffic? More: would it be for the best to close up all the liquor stores? Would it not at times cause a slight inconvenience to ourselves? If we must use alcohol in our sickness, can we, with any degree of propriety, ask the common drinker to abandon the use of it in his ailments? He does no more—in principle—than we. He loves it, looks on it as a “friend in need.” Our tippler bought his dram at the liquor-store end of a grocery; we bought ours at the rum-hole end of a drug store. That's the difference. Oh! if we are going to take hold of this gigantic evil to crush it out, if we intend to grapple with this desperate presence, if we mean to rid the world of the crime of intemperance, why not quit this half-hearted basswood temperance movement, and show the grip and sinews and daring of men. I do not claim that temperance workers are indifferent; it is not the lack of grace that makes the reform move so slowly. It is not because efforts are not made to destroy intemperance; it is because our efforts are made in the wrong direction, because we have been taught wrong, have believed wrong!
Among the most active human agencies in this work of ruin, are our family physicians. They perform the fatal work of administering to all classes from infancy to gray-haired age; laying foundations for appetites that drag their victims down through all the sorrowful ways of the drunkard, again renewing a once conquered habit, and so sending the poor victim with swift speed down the wild, dark whirlpool of death. But most of all is the teaching that this withering curse, this scathing blight upon all living things, this demon of the glass “is essential to human life.”
This doctrine has been the guiding star that has signaled on the host of Satan in all ages. This dark untruth has been a masked battery from which he has swept the ranks of humanity throughout the world. The physician is not alone in his work. Side by side with him stands the distiller, the brewer, the wholesale trader and the common rum seller. They are all in one firm; all gather sheaves from one harvest field; all draw their pay at one bank.
We believe there is no man entirely bad. And as we love to linger in the warm sunlight and drink in the glad joyfulness from the sparkling eye of friendship, avoiding the gloom, the deformed and the cold look of hatred, so we like best to hold up to view the better qualities of our fellow-men; and as they are good and true, we love them; as they are wise and brave, we honor them; as they are unfortunate, we mourn for them. But as they are devilish, we oppose them. There is love for their humanity, honor for their wisdom, tears for their sorrows, but death for their avarice. I am not intending to give hard names to any of these gentlemen whom Satan is making use of in this way. I do not even wish to dwell upon their crime. I would that I could gather up all the living victims of their avarice and let them see the ruin they have wrought. I would that I had some means of estimating the sense of shame and degradation, the destitution, the heart-aches and the nameless agonies they have produced.
Then could I lift the veil which hides from us the damned in hell—gathered there by their agency; then would I leave them to their conscience and to God.
Our temperance armies are virtually arrayed against these men, more—they are arrayed against the powers of darkness. In this conflict, the interests and hopes of the world are in their keeping. If we are true to this great trust, true to ourselves, and faithful to the interest of mankind, in due time the glad news will be proclaimed: “Alcohol is conquered.”—C. D. Mack, in Golden Censer.