Review and Herald, Vol. 16, No. 12.
VOICE OF THE PROPHETS, VOL. 1, NO. 1.Page 1
VOICE OF THE PROPHETS, VOL. 1, NO. 1.
By Joseph Bates
THIS paper dates from Boston, Mass. 1860. Joshua V. Himes, Editor and proprietor; well known as a professed leader in the promulgation of the doctrine of Christ's second advent for the last twenty years. After a silence of about fifteen years over this subject, he comes forth in this new dress to arouse the world again to the time of the second advent. The celebrated Dr. John Cumming of London, whose preaching and writings on the second advent of Christ have gained such noted celebrity in both hemispheres, is to be the leading writer; or rather his writings on this subject are to be held forth in this periodical as the most prominent and reliable for that event in 1867. The editor commences with what he calls "the most important and remarkable work of the age," viz., "The Great Tribulation, or Things Coming on the Earth, by John Cumming, D. D., heralded by some of the leading periodicals of London and the United States. See pages 1, 12, 2d Col." In his introduction Dr. C. says, "I stated in apocalyptic sketches that the last vial, that is, the symbol which denotes the source, and measure, and duration of the 'Great Tribulation,' was, in all probability poured out in 1848, from which time to 1867 we may expect to feel its intensest effects. . . . The great earthquake that accompanies the pouring out of this vial occurred in 1848 when Europe reeled like a drunken man, and kings were thrown from their thrones," &c. On page 13, Eld. Himes shows five things to be committed to memory. The fourth one is, "1867 is to be the great crisis in the events of history, in the fulfillment of prophecy, and in the experience of mankind. Read Dr. Cumming on the Great Tribulation." As Eld. Himes recommends this "Great Tribulation" as a valuable work for students of prophecy and designs to spread it throughout every city, town and neighborhood in the land, I feel interested to examine its premises. The foundation of this "Great Tribulation" then is the pouring out the seventh vial [Rev. xvi, 17] in 1848, the effects of which are to be felt to 1867, or for nineteen years. As we have thus far failed to find any history, or a thus saith the Lord to satisfy us that the first six vials have been poured out, we shall have to examine the chapter in which they are given, to learn how Dr. C. arrived at his conclusions, or whether any of the seven have yet been poured out. 1. Rev. xvi, 2. "And the first went and poured out his vial upon the earth, and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshiped his image." As the worshipers of the beast and his image are to be marked and known by grievous sores, and finally to be destroyed at the second coming of our Lord [Rev. xix, 11, 13, 16, 19, 20], as worshipers of the image, it is plain that the image beast will be known and worshiped only by that generation that lives when our Lord shall come. We ask then, if such worshipers, marked with grievous sores, have been seen in this generation. It cannot be shown. Then there is no image yet to worship; consequently the first vial of the seven is not yet poured out, and Dr. C.'s premises of the "Great Tribulation" are on sliding sand. 2. "And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea, and it became as the blood of a dead man and every living soul died in the sea." If this vial is in the past, where and when was it, that the sea became like the blood of a dead man? Mariners that are continually on the sea, are silent in this matter. Who can make them tell what they never saw? Again where is the history to prove that every fish has died in the sea, and if so who knows when the sea was filled with living fish again as it is now? If the sea-birds and fishermen cannot tell, should not the landsmen keep silence? "This divine testimony may be figurative," says my reader. Then we ask again, who ever saw the sea figuratively like the blood of a dead man? And where have we any statement in history, or the Bible of figurative fish living in the sea? and figurative fish dying figuratively in the sea? Once more, if we have proved that the first vial is not yet poured out, then we know that the second is yet future. 3. "And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters, and they became blood." For proof of the literality of this vial, the angel of the waters says, "For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink." Verse 6. See also an illustration of this in the days of Moses. Ex. vii, 19-25. Question: When did the rivers and fountains of water become blood? All history is silent, and also inspired testimony. Then those that shed the blood of saints and prophets are yet to drink blood. Hence the third vial is future. 4. "And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun, and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire. And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God which had power over the plagues; and they repented not to give him glory." That this is to be literally received is evident; for men blaspheme the name of God, repent and give him glory, literally. It is further clear that because of the literal pain from the scorching of the sun they blaspheme the name of God. 5. "And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast, and his kingdom was full of darkness, and they gnawed their tongues for pain, and blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds." The seat of the beast is the literal kingdom of Rome. The darkness and gnawing their tongues for pain doubtless refers to the ten kingdoms of Europe (called ten horns) that will hate her (the church) and make her desolate and naked [chap. xvii, 16, 17] in the interval between the pouring out the fifth and seventh vials, because at the pouring out of the seventh vial the 10th verse shows that God will then give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath. They blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores. Where did they receive their sores? Ans. Under the first vial. Here is another proof of the literality of the first vial, and shows the continuance of that dreadful scourge. The effects of it are foreshown by the prophets, Isa. iii; Eze. vii, 18; Amos viii, 10. 6. "And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates, and the waters thereof were dried up, that the way of the kings of the East might be prepared. And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs [come] out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the Spirits of Devils working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty." We notice five things that are to transpire under the pouring out of this sixth vial. 1. The waters of the Euphrates are to be dried up. 2. This prepares the way of the kings of the East. 3. The unclean spirits, workers of miracles, called spirits of Devils, that have been doing their work, are at this point out of the mouths of the dragon, beast and false prophet. In other words, their deceptive work is manifestly accomplished. 4. At this point of time the kings of the earth and the whole world are gathering for the battle of the great day of God Almighty. 5. They are gathered into a place called Armageddon. If we ask again where, and at what age of the world did these wonderful things transpire, will it be received as good and sufficient evidence to be90told that learned men have proved satisfactorily that these six vials have all been poured out in past ages, and that it has been a work of many years? Dr. C. on p. two and five of the "Voice" quotes celebrated authors to prove his position, and that the waters of the Euphrates, which he calls the Turkish territory have been drying up since about 1822, and yet does not admit that the drying up is yet accomplished, even under the seventh vial, in 1860. The text declares the waters of the great river Euphrates dried up when the sixth vial was poured out. And what is still clearer, inspiration says it will be done in one day. Proof. "And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, come out of her my people, . . . that ye receive not of her plagues. . . . Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death and mourning, and famine, and she shall be utterly burned with fire," &c. Rev. xviii, 4, 8. We believe this to be a prophetic day of twelve months, because famine does not cause death in a twenty-four hour day See also Isa. lxiii, 4; xxxiv, 8; xxi, 16. Rev. xvi, 1, shows the wine of the wrath of God to be the seven last plagues. The third angel [Rev. xiv, 9, 10] declares that the image worshipers shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God without mixture, that is, without mixture of mercy, because when they drink it the gospel will have closed. Chap. xix, 19, 20 shows the gathering and destruction of the image worshipers after the close of the gospel, and at the second coming of Christ. Here then we prove by inspired testimony that not one of the seven vials is yet poured out, neither can they be until mercy ceases, or in other words, till the gospel has closed. About twelve months will then be occupied in pouring them all out in successive order; emphatically proving them to be the seven last plagues. As Rev. xvi and xiv, 9-11 shows that there is no mercy for worshipers of the beast and his image in that prophetic day when the seven vials of God's wrath are falling, we think Dr. C. will have to admit that he began his "Great Tribulation" at least twelve years too soon, or that the gospel was finished (according to his statement of the pouring out of the seventh vial) in the year 1848. We leave Eld. Himes to ponder this matter which he calls "the most important and remarkable work of the age" while we examine the two remarkable discourses of Dr. C. on the prophetic periods relative to the coming of the Lord in 1867, pp. 5, 6, by the earnest request of Eld. H. Proceeds to show the close of the prophetic periods of the prophet Daniel in brief as follows, to 1867, viz.: "A very learned and able clergyman of the church of England, &c., thinks that the 2,300 years of Daniel commence 433 B. C.; if so, then they would end in 1867 when, according to his view Mahometanism will be utterly expunged." Also the 1260 years began in A. D. 607 when the emperor Phocas constituted Pope Boniface III. the universal head of the church. These two periods added bring us to the same date, viz., 1867. Here the papacy will sink like a mill-stone. But says Dr. C., "I must say that I prefer Elliot's; but what I wish to impress is the remarkable fact that both interpretations land us in 1867." Elliot's view is, that the 1260 years began in A. D. 532, when Justinian the emperor of Rome made his bishop the universal Pope. These two numbers added carry us to 1792, when the papacy was to be gradually exhausted. "Then there shall be 1290 years. In other words Daniel says that 1260 years shall be augmented by 30 years more; and at the end of which 30 years, there shall be some great event which we have to ascertain. Then add the 30 years to 1792 and it brings us down to 1822, where also the 2300 years ended." "Well, did anything take place in 1822 that would justify that period as a terminating epoch? "We find that Turkey, in the language of Lamartine, began to die for want of Turks!" What profound and splendid ideas! But the author before said, that the ending of the 2300 years in 1822 measure out the taking away of the daily sacrifice. How unscriptural! Then says Dr. C., Daniel mentions three periods all beginning, we assume, at 532; first 1260, ending in 1792; then 1290, ending in 1822, and then 1335, ending in 1867. As Dr. C. endorses this theory, I will just state his views again to show the unscriptural position he occupies. He states that "Daniel says, the 1260 years shall be augmented by 30 years more (taking it from the 1290 years) that added to 1792 would bring us to 1822 where Turkey began to die for want of Turks." This manner of augmenting the 1260 years by 30 years more is unscriptural and unjustifiable; for Daniel nowhere intimates anything of the kind, nor any other inspired writer. We will therefore proceed without adding 30 years to the 1260, until some one can show a thus saith the Lord for the addition. Then A. D. 532 is the starting point for the 1260 years, carrying the point to 1792. Now where the 1260 years end, there also end the 1290. The 1335 reach 45 years beyond the 1290, which added to 1792 would bring Dr. C. to the end of the prophetic periods, and what he calls the end of the world in 1837 instead of 1867. Will Eld. H. please think of this, while we set forth his statement of the prophetic periods of Daniel to carry out the judgment hour cry in 1844. Rev. xiv, 6, 7 The time times and an half or dividing of time, in Daniel vii and xii, or 1260 years commenced in A. D. 538, where Justinian made his head bishop the pope. These two periods added, ended 1798 when Berthier took away his dominion. This harmonized with the prophecy as saith Daniel vii, 26, and xii, 7. The 1290 of Daniel xii, 11, Eld. H. declared in the "Signs of the Times," commenced in A. D. 508, when Clovis, king of France, with a large army abolished the daily Pagan worship and set up in its place the Roman Catholic religion, or what Daniel calls the abomination that maketh desolate. The same as shown also in chapter xi, 31. Then the 1290 were added to the 508 which also ended in 1798. Does not Daniel xii, 11, say there are to be 1290 from the time the daily is taken away? Yes; then the foregoing addition is right, and there were no 30 years beyond 1798 to be added anywhere. In verse 12 a blessing is pronounced on those that come to the 1335 years from where the 1290 commence. Here then were 45 years to be added on where the 1290 ended, viz., in 1798; this brought us to 1843. How many times he made his opponents yield the point when he stated that the 70 weeks of Daniel ix, were the beginning of the 2300 years of Daniel viii, 14, and that the 25th verse pointed to a commandment or decree that would go forth to begin those years, and how readily he pointed them to Ezra vii, 1, 7, 13; ix, 9, and showed them from thence, and from history that that decree went forth in 457 B. C., which number subtracted from 2300 would leave us in 1843 Roman time, 1844 Bible time. Then shall the sanctuary be cleansed. How like God and the Bible that looked and sounded then! Such harmony with the prophetic numbers made the world tremble. They ended with the mighty cry, "The hour of his judgment is come." How different that sounded from the unscriptural calculations of the prophetic periods he is now sending forth, viz., that the 1290 and 2300 days ended in 1822 and Turkey began to die for want of Turks! Surely Newton is dead. Eld. H. will pardon me for trespassing on his time, while I glance at one more point which he has called our attention to, viz., GOOD NEWS FOR THE CHURCH. What is it? Why, the Rev. R. C. Shimeall, member of the Presbytery of New York, has been for about thirty years critically examining the Bible chronology. "He calls on all classes—the clergy and laity, learned and unlearned, the rich and the poor to examine his arguments to prove that 6000 years will end the world's history in 1868. Eld Himes says he has examined this work and received much light. He gives us his figures on p. 10, and says, Read Mr. Shimeall's great work! Mr. S. says, from the creation to the commencement of the predicted seven times of Moses and Daniel, are |
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|---|
|
3480 years. |
| Add seven times as above, |
2520 " |
| Total, |
6000 " |
By some means we are not told how Mr. S. shows that the world began |
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|
4132 B. C. |
| To which add |
A. D. 1868 |
| Total |
6000 |
Simple as water; but who knows how or where he got his starting point? Bishop Usher who gave the chronology of king James' Bible says the world began 4004 years before Christ. Then in the year 1996 if the world stood, we should have 6000 years. But Eld. H. had better light than that; for his weekly papers and books went forth from his Office in 1843 declaring that the world began in the year before Christ 4157, so that 1843 would fill up the 6000 years Now if we could simply know that either of these three statements had the right beginning, we could readily tell when 6000 years would end; but then we should not know that the end of the world would come, because the Bible is silent on that point. As Mr. S. shows five different ways in his historical and prophetic numbers to make the 6000 years end in 1868, we will pass to the two last which he calls "A SUMMARY OF THE SHORTER PROPHETICAL NUMBERS." "I. 1. Set down for commencement of the 2300 years |
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|---|
|
3652 A. M. |
| 2. Add years B. C. |
480 |
| 3. Add years A. D. |
1820 |
| 4. Add years of the gradual exhaustion of the mystical Euphrates from that date to A. D. 1859 |
39 |
| 5. Add nine years to A. D. 1868 |
9 2348 |
| Total |
6000 |
II. Set down for the commencement of the 2300 years |
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|---|
|
3652 A. M. |
| Then add 1572, 150, 123, 396, which makes |
2241 |
| Add for drying up the mystical Euphrates, Rev. xvi, 12 |
107 2348 |
| Total |
6000" |
In the first place Mr. S. allows 48 years for the gradual exhaustion of the mystical Euphrates after the ending of the 2300 years of Daniel, or from 1820 to 1868 to fill up his 6000 years. And then in the second place, to make the 2300 years reach the point to make up 6000 years he allows 107 years for drying up the mystical Euphrates, and cites us to Rev. xvi, 12, viz., "And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates and the water thereof WAS DRIED UP." In 48 years? or to stretch "the Bible chronology" 59 years longer and make it 107 years to suit Mr. S.'s convenience? No, no. Why? "For her plagues come in one day." Rev. xviii, 8. That is, the seven plagues are all poured out in one prophetic day, and if it be ever so clear that the waters of the Euphrates began to be dried up in any sense before they are dried up, then Mr. S. has two places 59 years apart to commence with. We ask then which of the two is right, and at what period his 6000 years will end? If such are the arguments to re-arouse the world by a proclamation of the judgment-hour cry [Rev. xiv, 6, 7], we fail to see their force. Furthermore we fail to see the least ray of hope in such an unscriptural undertaking91as Eld. H. proposes; for he, with a host of others proclaimed and finished the judgment hour cry in 1844 Monterey Mich., July 23 1860 The Patience of the Saints
"Here is the Patience of the Saints: Here are they that keep the Commandments of God, and the Faith of Jesus." The Advent Review and Sabbath Herald
The Advent Review and Sabbath Herald is published weekly, at One Dollar a Volume of 26 Nos. in advance. J. P. KELLOGG, CYRENIUS SMITH and D. R. PALMER, Publishing Committee. Uriah Smith, Resident Editor. J. N. Andrews, James White, J. H. Waggoner, R. F. Cottrell and Stephen Pierce, Corresponding Editors. Address REVIEW AND HERALD Battle Creek, Mich. Jesus loves me—that's enough
To cheer me when the way is rough,
To soothe, support, and comfort me,
When earthly hopes and pleasures flee;
Loved ones may fail in hours of need,
But Jesus is a friend indeed! Jesus loves me—earthly cares
Engrossed upon my soul's affairs,
Therefore he sent the chastening rod
With time to commune with my God—
It was his love that sent the pain,
And 'tis his love restores again. Jesus loves me—he will shield
My soul in life's great battle-field;
Though "powers of darkness" 'gainst me rise,
Though Satan to "devour" me cries,
He who repelled the tempter's power
Will save me in that trying hour. Oh! "I have all things and abound,"
While I am in my Saviour found,
E'en crosses shunned by flesh and blood
To me are ministers of good.
My joy is more than tongue can tell,
For Jesus loves, and all is well! MAN'S NATURE, AS INTERPRETED BY THE PREVALENCE OF CRIME.
It was well remarked by one of the speakers at the recent anniversary meetings in this city, that the present times bid fair to be distinguished, in this country at least, not especially as a period of art, of liberty, of humanity, of general comfort or general culture, but pro-eminently as a period of CRIME. The progress and the prevalence of even the grossest forms of wickedness, in different places, and among diverse classes, are facts frightful to observe, and more frightful to ponder. Every newspaper is laden with the records of such. Dishonesty, licentiousness, violence, murder, they do not meet us as exceptional instances; they make the staple of the news of the day; they load and darken the columns of all journals; till one trembles almost to take up the morning paper, is afraid to have it read in the family, and lays it down with a sense of heart-sickness, a saddening impression of the ineffectiveness of our means of public moral and religious instruction, a keen apprehension of what is to be expected in the future. It is not the rich and luxurious alone, among whom such evidences of viciousness abound. It is not those who are avowedly worldly and godless in their life. Mechanics, merchants, farmers, teachers, physicians, lawyers, ministers of the gospel, men high in social rank and in political influence, women as well as men, the young not only, but the aged, in well nigh equal measure, the refined and cultivated as well as the coarse—all seem to be smit with the foul contagion, and suddenly to break out with the vile and hateful leprosy of sin. Not crimes of dishonesty alone are common; but the murder of wives, of husbands, of children, of the most confiding and affectionate friends, a horrible lustfulness, the most flagrant and fiendish violations of faith—all seem as common as the blossoming of trees, and are coming to be spoken of as familiarly and frequently, and with nearly as little apparent concern, as are the most ordinary and trivial facts. No one, we think, can feel that in this descriptive outline the case is at all overstated; that any slightest exaggeration of the truth is either intended or allowed. The same impression must be made upon all whose eyes and ears are measurably open to what is publicly passing around them, and who contrast this present state of things, not against some ideal plan of the social state, some fancy of their own as to what might be but what never has been, or even against the comparative pureness of the manners of our fathers, but against the actual state of society as it was in this country only twenty or thirty years ago. That was not Arcadian, but it looks almost so in comparison of the present. It certainly is true that excesses of crime are vastly more common now than then, and that what would then have shocked a community so deeply and indelibly as to be remembered and recounted for years, is now forgotten, beneath the impression of that which follows it, in a few days or weeks. A sense of unsafeness begins to prevail throughout many circles. A sudden death can hardly anywhere occur without exciting the suspicion of foul means. Elopements and domestic infidelities are so common as hardly to excite any remark, unless perhaps a ribald jest. And no sense of strangeness is awakened in the public mind by the story of even a parricide or a wife-murder. There are many thoughts suggested by this state of things, as also many duties that are palpably impressed by it, to some of which we may very likely have occasion hereafter to refer. But there is one truth so plainly preached by it, and in itself so important and imperative, that we cannot but advert to it for a moment here. It would seem impossible that all thoughtful persons should not be at once and equally reached by it, and should not equally recognize the proof of it: It is, that HUMAN NATURE, as unchanged by grace, is now JUST AS DEPRIVED AS IT EVER HAS BEEN; is, in fact, precisely the same in its character, and the same in its tendencies, that it was in the age of the Roman amphitheater: that it was in the days of the Ptolemies or the Pharaohs. An intense and passionate selfishness is at the heart of it. It does not seek the interests of others, but primarily its own. It does not seek to honor God, but to gratify its own ambition and passion. It does not acknowledge allegiance to virtue, but aims at indulgence, mastery, pleasure, and at whatever cost, at whatever hazard; and so it has in it the quick seeds of all crime, and only shows these more fearfully and boldly, in more horrific forms of exhibition, as its means and instruments for such revelation become more complete. We have not always been as ready as we should have been to perceive and to feel this; but it is true nevertheless, and the papers now proclaim it with million tongues, and a most appalling and unanswerable emphasis. It is one of the wide-spread errors of our day—most disastrous and most dangerous—the notion that our institutions of freedom, with an outrunning commerce, a copious prosperity, a generally diffused intellectual cultivation, the discipline and invigoration of the popular mind, the accomplishment of great outward and material works, the wide circulation of religious instruction—that these have essentially elevated man's nature, and made it less sensual and gross than it was. The gilding on the drug has been believed to have eliminated from it the radical poison; the ornamentation on the outside of the sarcophagus to have arrested the process of decay underneath; the placing of the tiger in zoological gardens to have made him less ferocious than he was in the woods; the housing of mankind in marble or in freestone to have cleansed their inner spirit, and made it less vile and less deadly than it was when the unlettered tribes dwelt in huts or in tents. Perhaps we all have felt something of this. And not a few have really accepted the plausible idea that all these material means and mechanisms were raising a sort of inclined plane, up which men would pass by insensible degrees, till without help of grace it should lift them to the level of millennial attainment. Away with such dainty and delicate theories! The times denounce them, and unanswerably demonstrate them short-sighted and pernicious! Man is to-day, unchanged by God's Spirit, precisely what he has always been. He is in Massachusetts, in New Jersey, in New York, what he was in old Rome or older Babylon. This city is Nineveh on another continent, wanting only its readiness to repent. The mechanic at Weymouth, if guilty as alleged, is Caligula or Tiberius, with only, thank God! a less opportunity. The Methodist preacher poisoning his wife, wants only a different occasion and arena to repeat the worst horrors of what we are wont to call, by way of eminence, "the Dark Ages." The outward glitter and garnish of society have not availed to regenerate man, to reform or essentially to restrain his nature. His manners may be modified, but his temper is still, at the root, identical. His wealth is greater, but his heart is no more God-like than before. He now, as of old, carries in him the furious volcanic fires of idolatry, and of lust, that may break at any time into lurid and devastating manifestation. He is hardly afraid of the law man has made; not at all of the law which is higher than this, the ground of its authority, the measure of its justness, and which has the Eternal and Omnipresent for its executive. He may shrink from human courts, but not from the great assize of the future. He is at heart just as godless as ever, and just as rebellious; making gods for himself of his pride and lusts, and of his greed for worldly good, and wishing that the Almighty were out of the way, ready to hurl him from his throne each moment, to gain the liberty of unlimited indulgence; of doing precisely what he wishes! When we get to the center of the nature of man, as shown in the current history of our times, it is precisely this that we find there; unchanged by years; unremoved by the progress of outward civilization; tastes and tendencies just as vicious as ever; capacities for cruelty, treachery, falsehood, for crimes of every grade and die, exactly the same in kind and in measure, that have been shown along the bloodiest passages of the past.—Any other description of this nature misstates it. Any other view of it essentially misconceives it. To try to change it by any other means than those which reach the heart itself, and rectify that, is to treat its inward hurt too slightly. And it is not the pulpit that now alone or chiefly preaches this; but it is the common speech of men. A thousand newspapers are every day announcing and repeating it, with an appalling irresistible energy, to the whole reading world! Let us think of this, and feel it! and let the force of its meaning and the lessons of its verity, instruct and inspire us as of right they ought.—Independent. As the Independent accounts for this sad state of morals on the ground that "human nature unchanged by grace is now just as depraved as it ever has been," it must admit, in view of the late exceeding increase of these manifestations of depravity, that the restraining grace of God has less hold upon the hearts of men than it formerly had. This is just what Inspiration has told us to expect, in the unequivocal language of 2 Tim. iii, 13: "But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived." And this, be it remembered, is laid down as a prominent and unmistakable sign of the "last days." What description of the fulfillment of this sign could be more graphic, than the foregoing article?—ED. The Boston Transcript tells us of a "pastor who was in the habit of picking the large stones from the roads as he walked, and teaching his flock to do the same." We love that habit of mind—that giving of an airing to the religion of the closet; and we coincide also in the still further remark of our bright contemporary: "Give us the man who, in city or suburbs clears a path, sprinkles sand or ashes on the ice, drains off the standing water in front of his premises, turns out in his sleigh for pedestrians, or keeps to the far side or middle of the road, to save walkers from the dust, is careful not to compel foot passengers to go into the mud to let his horse have the driest track, and steers clear of curb-stones that people may not be sprinkled by the splashing of hoofs or the rolling of wheels through mud-puddles—give us this man, and you give us a gentleman in the true sense; nay more, a Christian—in little things." A CONSTANT MIRACLE.
By Professor Maclogan
THE Bible itself is a standing and an astonishing miracle. Written fragment by fragment, throughout the course of fifteen centuries, under different states of society, and in different languages, by persons of the most opposite tempers, talents and condition, learned and unlearned, prince and peasant, bond and free; cast into every form of instructive composition and good writing, history, prophecy, poetry, allegory, emblematic representation, judicious interpretation, literal statement, precept, example, proverbs, disquisition, epistle, sermon, prayer; in short all rational shapes of human discourse; and treating moreover on subjects not obvious, but most difficult; its authors are not to be found, like other writers contradicting one another upon the most ordinary matters of fact and opinion, but are at harmony upon the whole of their sublime and momentous scheme.—Professor Maclogan. The Folly of Pursuing Worldly Honor
He that pursues honor, applause, or worldly reputation, is like the foolish schoolboy running after the butterfly, and neglecting his book; both meet with disappointment, dissatisfaction and reproof.