Signs of the Times, Vol. 6, No. 6. (2/12/1880)

Signs of the Times

Feb 12, 1880

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Feb 12, 1880

General Articles.

By Mrs. E. G. White

THE GREAT CONTROVERSY.

Birth and Early Life of Moses.

BY MRS. E. G. WHITE.

THE children of Israel were not slaves. They had never sold their cattle, their lands, and themselves to Pharaoh for food, as many of the Egyptians had done. They had been granted a portion of land wherein to dwell, on account of the services which Joseph had rendered to the Egyptian nation. Pharaoh appreciated his wisdom in the management of all things connected with the kingdom, especially in the preparation for the long years of famine. As a token of his gratitude, he not only offered to Jacob and his sons the best part of the land of Egypt as a dwelling-place, but exempted them from all taxation, and granted to Joseph the privilege of supplying them liberally with food through the whole continuance of that dreadful famine. The king said to his counselors, Are we not indebted to the God of Joseph, and to him, for this abundant supply of food? While other nations are perishing, we have enough. His management has greatly enriched the kingdom.

“And Joseph died and his brethren, and all that generation.” And “there rose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph.” By this we are to understand, not one who was ignorant of Joseph's great services to the nation, but who wished to make no recognition of them, and, as much as possible, to bury them in oblivion. “And he said unto his people, Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we. Come on, let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that, when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land.”

The Israelites had already become very numerous. “They were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them. Under Joseph's fostering care, and the favor of the king who was then ruling, the Israelites had been advanced to positions of honor and trust, and had spread rapidly over the land. But they had kept themselves a distinct race, having nothing in common with the Egyptians in customs or religion; and their increasing numbers excited the fears of the king and his people, lest in case of war they should join themselves with the enemies of their masters. They had, however, become too useful to be spared. Many of them were able and understanding workmen, and the king needed such laborers for the erection of his magnificent palaces and halls. Accordingly he ranked them with that class of slaves who had sold their possessions and themselves to the kingdom. Taskmasters were set over them, and their slavery soon became complete. “And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigor. And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field; all their service wherein they made them serve was with rigor.” “But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew.”

The king and his counselors had hoped to subdue the Israelites with hard labor, and thus decrease their numbers and crush out their independent spirit. And because they failed to accomplish their purpose they hardened their hearts to go still further. Orders were now issued to the women whose employment gave them facilities for such acts to destroy every Israelite male child at its birth. Satan was the mover in these matters. He knew that a deliverer was to be raised up among the Hebrews, and he thought that if he could move the king to destroy the children, the purpose of God would be defeated. The women feared God; they dared not murder the Hebrew children; and the command of the king was not obeyed. The Lord approved their course, and prospered them; but the king became very angry when he learned that his orders had been disregarded. He then made the command more urgent and extensive. He charged all his people to keep strict watch, saying, “Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river, and every daughter ye shall save alive.”

While this cruel decree was in full force, Moses was born. His mother concealed him for three months, and then finding that she could keep him no longer with any safety, she prepared a little vessel of bulrushes, making it water-tight by means of lime and pitch, and after laying the child therein she placed it among the flags at the river's brink. His sister lingered near, apparently indifferent, yet all the time anxiously watching to see what would become of her little brother. Angels were also watching, that no harm should come to the helpless infant, placed there by an affectionate mother, and committed to the care of God by her earnest prayers. And these angels directed the footsteps of Pharaoh's daughter to the river, near the very spot where lay the innocent stranger. Her attention was attracted to the little vessel, and she sent one of her waiting-maids to fetch it. When she had removed the cover she saw a lovely babe; “and behold the babe wept, and she had compassion on him.” She knew that a tender Hebrew mother had taken this means to preserve the life of her much-loved babe, and she decided at once that it should be her son.

The sister of Moses immediately came forward and inquired, “Shall I go and call to the a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee?” And her mission was given.

Joyfully sped the sister to her mother, and related to her the happy news, and conducted her with all haste to Pharaoh's daughter. The child was committed to the mother to nurse, and she was liberally paid for the bringing up of her own son. Thankfully did this mother enter upon her now safe and happy task. She believed that God had preserved the life of her child, and she faithfully improved the precious opportunity of educating him for a life of usefulness. She was more particular in his instruction than in that of her other children; for she felt confident that he was preserved for some great work. By her faithful teachings she instilled into his young mind the fear of God, and love for truthfulness and justice. She earnestly pleaded with God that her son might be preserved from every corrupting influence. She taught him to bow and pray to God, the living God, for he alone could hear him and help him in every emergency. She sought to impress his mind with the sinfulness of idolatry. She knew that he was soon to be separated from her influence, and given up to his adopted royal mother, to be surrounded with influences calculated to make him disbelieve in the existence of the Maker of the heavens and the earth.

The instructions which Moses received from his parents were such as to fortify his mind, and shield him from being corrupted with sin, and becoming proud amid the splendor and extravagance of court life. He had a clear mind and an understanding heart, and never lost the pious impressions he received in youth. His mother kept him as long as she could, but was obliged to separate from him when he was about twelve years old, and he then became the son of Pharaoh's daughter.

Here Satan was defeated. By moving Pharaoh to destroy the male children, he had thought to turn aside the purposes of God, and destroy the one whom God would raise up to deliver his people. But that very decree, appointing the Hebrew children to death, was the means overruled by God to place Moses in the royal family, where he had advantages to become a learned man, and eminently qualified to lead his people from Egypt. Pharaoh expected to exalt his adopted grandson to the throne. He educated him to stand at the head of the armies of Egypt, and lead them to battle. Moses was a favorite with Pharaoh's host, and was honored because he conducted warfare with superior skill and wisdom. “And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds.” The Egyptians regarded him as a remarkable character.

Angels instructed Moses that God had chosen him to deliver the children of Israel. The rulers among the Israelites were also taught by angels that the time for their deliverance was nigh, and that Moses was the man whom God would use to accomplish this work. Moses thought that his people were to be delivered by warfare, and that he would stand at the head of the Hebrew host, to lead them against the Egyptian armies. Having this in view, he guarded his affections that they might not be strongly placed upon his adopted mother, or upon Pharaoh, lest it should be more difficult for him to remain free to do the will of God.

The pride and splendor displayed at the Egyptian court, and the flattery he received, could not make him forget his despised brethren in slavery. He would not be induced, even with the promise of wearing the crown of Egypt, to identify himself with the Egyptians, and engage with them in their idolatrous worship. He would not forsake his oppressed brethren, whom he knew to be God's chosen people. The king commanded that Moses should be instructed in the worship of the Egyptians. This work was committed to the priests, but they could not, by any threats or

promises of reward, prevail upon Moses to engage with them in their heathen ceremonies. He was threatened with the loss of the crown, and that he would be disowned by Pharaoh's daughter, unless he renounced his Hebrew faith. But he was firm in his determination to render homage to no object save God, the maker of the heavens and the earth, to whom alone reverence and honor are due. He even reasoned with the priests and idolatrous worshipers upon their superstitious veneration of senseless objects. They could not answer him. Yet his firmness in this respect was tolerated, because he was the king's adopted grandson, and was a universal favorite with the most influential in the kingdom.

ABIDING WITH GOD.

LET every one, whate'er his calling be, Therein abide with God : so wrote of old Saint Paul to them at Corinth, and to me, With loving lips, to-night, that truth was told. I had grown weary with my strifes and cares, And murmured o'er the service of the day, Wherein, I had forgotten, unawares, That thus I still might honor and obey.

Therein abide with God : would I might ne'er forget, That evermore I might with him abide : What matters how or where the stamp is set, Or what the furnace where the gold is tried, So that the metal has the sterling ring, So that the likeness of the King is shown ; God's coinage still, that to the soul may bring Such wealth as merchant princes have not known.

In market places where the race is swift, And competition on temptation waits; In quiet homes where unseen currents drift A thousand petty cares through open gates; Let each and all, whate'er the calling be, Therein abide with God ; from break of day Till set of sun, they shall his purpose see, And serve him in his own appointed way.

So let me see and serve, and thus abide; Not simply patient, or at best content, Not with eye-service, wherein, love denied, In rounds of duty solemn days are spent; Give me, O Lord, a joy that is divine; Touch thou my lips with constant themes of praise; Since, having thee, all things I need are mine, Whate'er my lot, whate'er my length of days.

-New York Observer.

THE WORLD'S JUBILEE.

The following rich extract is from an English layman's letter addressed to Dr. Raffles, on a hymn composed by him for the "Jubilee Year of the Missionary Society." The evils of which the writer speaks have been intensified ten-fold since the article was written. The hymn rejoices in the hope of the world's speedy conversion. The writer says:—

But ere I draw this letter to a close, let me ask you one question: Do you considerately believe that the earth is on the advance to such a consummation as your hymn describes?

I am writing to you with the map of the world suspended before me, the map of this world, of which Satan is the god, and whose right to it, de facto, the Bible does not dispute, but recognizes. Will you, in your study, travel with me over the map or ground plot of the great usurper's dominions, and tell me where it is that you have discovered the cause of such jubilant acclamations as your hymn so joyfully, so sweetly, breathes? for I confess that this map is to my eye, like Ezekiel's roll, full of "lamentations, and mourning, and woe."

Where shall we begin? With the dark places of the earth, which, by universal consent, are full of the habitations of cruelty? Poor Africa! I will not seem as one that mocketh, by asking you whether you find it there—whether, from the Isthmus of Suez to the Straits of Gibraltar, you can find a resting-place for the foot of your happy muse. Well, then, shall we coast it down the western shore, from the Straits of Gibraltar to the Cape? Oh! you exclaim, let us hasten on; for these shores are dyed with blood, so deeply dyed, and the stain so continually, hourly renewed, that the Atlantic waves cannot efface it. Back, then, along the eastern shore, with a sigh, a tear, and a groan, for poor Madagascar as we haste along, and another for Arabia, miscalled "the happy," and its stony and its desert region, as we pass up the Red Sea to the point from whence we started. I ask not if we have yet found a spot where we could pause for a moment to chant our "Jubilee Hymn."

But the Cape! you say—the Cape of Good Hope! Well, we will return to the Cape, and to some other sweet oases in the great desert of the fell tyrant's dominions before we part company. At present, let us hasten on; surely we may not spend many moments in that frightful continent of South America, which seems to look across the ocean to the continent we have left, and defy it to a rivalry of cruelty and woe.

From the Isthmus of Panama to Cape Horn, and from Cape Horn to the Isthmus of Panama, all, all around and within, is true and faithful to its allegiance to its hellish master.

Onward, then, onward to the land of the "pilgrim fathers." We need not tarry, I hear you say, in the gulf of Mexico, to look either to the west on Guatimala, or to the east on Cuba, St. Domingo, or the islands, which for ages have almost concentrated in themselves the groans of creation. . . . Linger here, my dear sir, and sing with such a people your "Jubilee Song" if you can. I could not join you if I would; my voice would falter, my tongue would cleave to the roof of my mouth, I should choke with indignation.

Oh! but, you say, they have divines. I know they have, and many sound and good ones; and greater will be their condemnation. But they have among them one whom a monthly journalist describes in most glowing language, one who has just sent across the Atlantic a book called "Anastasis," written to prove that there is no resurrection of the body; that all the resurrection, there is or ever will be, takes place simultaneously with the dissolution of the soul and body—a mere resurrection of the principle of animal life, and that this principle of animal life will, at the moment of death, pass into the spiritual bodies of the unseen world. I see you quiver, and well you may. Let America burn in the market-place the books of professors, which deny the resurrection of the body; and then let her talk of her divinity. Let her close the doors of infamy in which the 15,000 hapless victims of the sensuality of the citizens of her capital hide their shame and their sorrows (first comparing the number of these unfortunates with that of the adult male population of the city); and then let her talk of religion and morality. Meanwhile, it is no place for the strains of the "Jubilee Hymn," and it is almost a relief from the nausea caused by the scene we are hasting from, to have to pass through the Canadas, and such of the tribes of North American Indians as have escaped the cupiditiy of the degenerate sons of the "blessed pilgrim fathers," and, crossing the Straits of Behring, to enter upon the vast regions of Asia. But where can we stop? In Siberia, or either of the Tartaries, Russian, Independent, or Chinese? in Turkey, Arabia, Persia, Thibet, Hindostan, or China? All, all belong to the god of this world; all, all are peopled by the children of disobedience. And what of the great islands of the sea, Samatra, Java, Borneo, New Guinea, and that continental island, Australia, and its companions, Van Dieman's Land, and New Zealand—what but the same sad, dark, and gloomy scene?

"Oh! but," you say, "here we may stop in Oceanica among the sweet little islands of the Southern Sea—isles so green, so tranquil, so simple, so happy." You need not press me; I sigh for something to remind me of Paradise, however faintly, however feebly. Well, I have brushed off the fly spots which were mixed in with the happy little isles, and which had increased to my eye their apparent number. Yes, they are green and lovely, and seem almost as if they were rescued from the rent-roll of the great usurper by the hand of the faithful missionaries of the cross; as though the sword were beaten into the plough-share, and the spear into the pruning-hook, and the reclaimed savages would learn war no more. But, dearly as we all love to be deceived by that which soothes and solaces, can we, I ask you, can we venture to stop even here to sing your sweet song of triumph? It must not be at Tahiti, poor Tahiti, surely—rescued, well-nigh rescued from the jaws of the dragon, to become the prey of the great papal harlot and her infidel paramour.

And what will be the fate of the rest of the islands of the Southern Ocean, whether Christianized or Pagan, God only knows; but he who calls himself the Vicar of Christ has marked them out for his own. They are part and parcel of his new diocese of "Oceana;" and Rome has friends powerful enough and willing enough to aid him in bringing them under the pastoral crook of the hireling shepherd, as we have alas! seen to our sorrow.

Who is ignorant or unobservant of the strides Rome is making, of the energies she is putting forth to subdue the world to her dominion? He who sees it not must be blind indeed, with the records of the Propaganda open for his perusal, and the scenes at home and abroad acting before his eyes. And who, with the Bible in his hand, knows not of the doom that awaits the man of sin, when he shall come in like a flood, and the standard shall be lifted up against him? When come to the full—when ripe for destruction—the Lord shall consume him with the spirit of his mouth, and destroy him with the brightness of his coming. But till Antichrist falls, I have no heart for the "Song of Jubilee." Come the day, and I trust then to join you in it; when the universe shall hear, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluiah! for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Let us be glad and rejoice and give honor to him; for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. Amen. Alleluiah!

But we have yet another part of the globe to travel over ere we have finished the map. It is the seat of the beast itself—civilized, Christianized, enlightened Europe. Let us be here rather more minute, and take a glance at the different kingdoms, as they are composed of infidel, papal, patriarchal, Protestant, and papal-protestant materials. Shall we begin with infidel Turkey? Pass on quickly, you exclaim. Shall we stop, then, in equally infidel, though nominally papal, France? Pass on. Italy? Austria? Spain? Portugal? The islands of the Mediterranean? I am not mocking I assure you. I only want to take in detail that which may mislead or mystify if spoken of in the aggregate. Well, then, Russia and the lately revived kingdom of Greece, who taught by the patriarch, and not by the pope, deem it an abomination to worship the image, instead of the picture, of the Queen of Heaven—the mother of God!

True it is, that, as we travel northward, we escape from the denser regions of Christian idolatry; but are you willing to pause in Germany, Belgium, or Holland? in Prussia, Denmark, or Sweden? I deem you would rather be hastening on to the land of liberty—the land of Bibles—our own beloved island, the ocean queen. Oh! what a relief! Here, at least, we can breathe after what we have passed through—

"Such regions dolorous—a universe of death! Where all life dies—death lives."

Here at least, we may breathe freely. But where, oh! where shall we find a resting-place to sing the "Song of Jubilee?" for here, surely, if anywhere on the globe's surface, it may be chanted, and with lute and viol. Where shall we begin the strain? Let us search for a suitable spot. Surely, we shall find it where those who represent the aristocracy of the land are gathered in one peerless assembly; surely, among those whom the people have chosen to represent the great community. I would not speak of dignities or of those in authority with irreverence; but I ask you, what would be the reception of the legislator who should propose, in either of those august assemblies, to frame a law on such a simple cardinal principle as this, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," and adduce the authority of Jesus of Nazareth as his warrant for introducing a bill framed on such an obsolete maxim?

Shall we look for the spot in the ranks of our brave soldiers, and invite the accompaniment of the trumpet and the drum? or among our gallant sailors, in some interval of cessation from oaths and blasphemy? Shall we find it with the conductors of our daily press, which leads while it follows the opinions of its millions of readers? Shall we find it in our commercial or manufacturing towns, or among our rural population?

You know something, sir, of both, and could give a description of each which would make us hide our heads for shame and sorrow. Oh! what a tale do the beer-shops of our agricultural districts tell! And were it seemly to speak of those things which are done of the world, the fair-spoken, respectable-looking, well-dressed world, by our cities and towns, in secret, where could we hide our heads or conceal our shame? You are not ignorant of the statistics of crime, soul-polluting, soul-destroying crime, which have been furnished to the public, of one town, for example—a town where the gospel is proclaimed continually with eloquence and with power, but a town which vies with the great metropolis itself in a sin which increases beyond the ratio of the increase of its vast population.

I have before me a pamphlet, in which the philanthropic writer endeavors to grapple with the monster which is ruining its thousands, aye, sending its tens of thousands of our youth, our baptized youth, down quick into the pit—a pamphlet in which the writer avails himself of facts supplied by one of your fellow-laborers, a devoted minister in your town of our denomination—facts which would seem incredible were they not given on unquestionable authority. Let this one speak for itself; but had it ten thousand voices, it would not tell one ten-thousandth part of the sorrows, the utterable sorrows, which it is the key to. Hear it, ye men of pleasure! hear it, ye deceivers and deceived! ye who are hastening with the gospel sounding in your ears to the pit of destruction, and dragging with you the souls of your wretched associates in crime! There is spent in the town of Liverpool alone, in the course of a single year, upon one sin, so emphatically called in the Litany of the national church "a deadly sin," two hundred thousand pounds.

Ponder this one fact, with which you are already acquainted; follow it out through all of its details, causes, and influences, and I need not ask you whether you select such a town as this for the "Jubilee Hymn"—a town devoting the wealth it once earned in the service of Moloch, during the bloody days when its docks were crowded with slavers, to the service of Moloch's great compeer and rival, the dissolute Belial. Such a town! and can we flatter ourselves that Liverpool stands alone? The statistics of crime tell, but too plainly, that it is rather but a sample of the mass of our civic population. Need I lift up the curtain which conceals the condition of the great metropolis, "the monster city," as it has not been unfitly called? That curtain has been drawn aside by able and powerful hands; and what scenes of sickening corruption have been disclosed!

"It must be admitted," says a writer whom I have already quoted, "though the admission bring sorrow to the heart, that by far the great majority of men in every land are still in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity. In heathen lands, vice assumes the most brutal forms, and gathers to itself innumerable victims—it is savage, cruel, relentless; but in those countries where civilization has advanced, there exists a refinement in vice which renders its approach more subtle and its blows more deadly. In the former, it is open and undisguised; in the latter, it is noiseless and secret. In the former, it is bold and daring, giving its victims the chance of escape; in the latter, it has a stealthy pace, and, serpent-like, winds its folds around its victims, the more securely to crush them to the heart, without a ray of hope.

"The history of the world furnishes abundant proof that, as civilization has advanced, vice has become more refined, and has brought down certain desolation and ruin. Do not Greece and Rome present examples? and is not the truth of this remark manifest in this country, the land in which so much has been done and is doing to extend and perpetuate the blessings of religion and virtue? The great metropolis itself, in its leading thoroughfares, in its lanes and alleys, in its winding courts, testifies to the truth of the remark. Take but any of the vices with which London is deluged: mark well all its machinery, regard the modus operandi, and it will be discovered that fiendish arts and infernal contrivances are employed to entrap its victims. More especially is it so in reference to the vice of uncleanness, which holds an almost undisputed sway throughout the length and breadth of the land. Horrid and systematic schemes, intricate, but not the less fatal, are continually practiced, which have disturbed domestic peace, drawn thousands into ruin, and entailed a lasting disgrace upon the country." But the subject is too fearful, too revolting, to be dwelt upon, though too fearfully true and significant to be suppressed. I speak as unto the wise. Judge ye.

Is there no spot, then, where Satan has relaxed his grasp of the territory he has won? Look at the wide sea, which has become almost as populous as the dry land—"the great highway of the world," which no longer separates man from man, but brings all nations into familiarity with each other. Is there one man more proverbially godless than another—is it not the poor mariner? Thank God for the "Bethel flag." But oh! what is still the condition of the tens of thousands of every nation, who live in the bosom of the great deep; who fear neither God nor devil, and who look for a final state between Heaven and hell? not fit, as they deem, for the one, because of their wickedness, nor deserving of the other, because of their bravery. Oh! could the different sea-ports of the world disclose the amount of guilt which every vessel that enters them leaves with its cargo, what a tale would they relate! It is said of our own seamen, that "the curses and imprecations of those they have injured in distant lands are poured upon them, and our country is denounced as the scourge and bane of the world." What must be said, then, of the crimes of other nations who pretend not to rank with us in the scale of morality?

Well it is for us that we cannot see, that we cannot hear, what we are impotent to heal. The heart would give way in its frantic struggle to stay or avenge it.

"No eye but His could ever bear To gaze all down the drear abyss, Because none ever saw so clear The shore beyond of endless bliss."

No, the groans of creation are anything but jubilant; and well may we exclaim, "O Lord, how long!" The great creation groaneth and travaileth, waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God, waiting for the appearance of the Lord, the Head of the new creation.

"Oh! that the months would roll away, And bring the coronation day."

But it is time I brought this letter to a close. Before doing so, I must fulfill my promise of visiting with you some of the little oases in the world's great desert. Bless God, there are many of them—sweet "little spots inclosed by grace, out of the world's wide wilderness;" and there is no part of that wilderness where they are not to be found. In the frozen shores of the Arctic regions—in the burning sands of the deserts, in the east and west, in the north and south, on Greenland's icy mountains, on India's coral strand, in every country and in every clime, in the quiet village and in the busy town, in the palace, in the cottage, in the mansion, and in the garret and cellar, in the houses of parliament, and in the houses of correction for indigent poverty—God has a seed to serve him, and he is still gathering them out of the world that lieth in the wicked one, by the preaching of the gospel—by the evangelist at home and the evangelist abroad—from every kindred and nation and people and tongue.

Great is the honor he puts upon Britain in making her a quiver for his arrows. The Bible Society, the Missionary Societies, the Tract Society, like three sister graces, look lovely apart, but oh, how lovely in their blended beauty! What has not God wrought by means of their work of faith and labor of love, notwithstanding our national crimes, in the one great cause of "spreading the knowledge of Christ among heathen and other unenlightened nations."

Well, here, you say, here we may surely sing with a joyful heart. True; but it must not be

for the "world's jubilee" in the absence of the world's rightful Lord—of the earth's deliverance from bondage while "the god of this world" is triumphant, and making the whole creation groan. It must not be of a time anterior to that when the cry shall be heard, "The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever."

Tell me not that it is the preaching of the gospel that will do all this. It is only the province of the gospel to announce it. "The gospel of the kingdom" is one thing, "the kingdom" itself is another thing. The invitation is not the feast. We have come to talk about the gospel as though there were something cabalistic in the word. We have come to regard it very much as the Jew regards the law, or the papist the crucifix. It is a message—it is an announcement—it is not that of which it testifies—it is not the kingdom of Christ—it has done, and is doing, and will yet do its appointed work, gather out the little flock to whom it is the Father's good pleasure to give the kingdom. But it will do no more. It will not heal the sick, for it is not its province. It will not give sight to the blind, nor hearing to the deaf, nor feet to the lame, for it is not its province. It will not raise the dead, for it is not its province. It will not cause waters to spring forth in the desert, nor make the wilderness flourish and blossom as a rose. It will not dethrone the god of this world, for it is not its province. It will not close the door of the world's great hospital—

"The lazar house, sad, noisome, dark, wherein are laid Numbers of all diseased, all maladies Of ghostly spasm, or racking torture, qualms Of heart-sick agony, all feverous kinds, Convulsions, epilepsies, fierce catarrhs, Intestine stone and ulcer, colic pangs, Demoniac frenzy, moping melancholy, And moon-struck madness, pining atrophy, Marasmus, and wide-wasting pestilence, Dropsies and asthmas, and joint-racking rheums."

But all this is to be done; and when the number of the elect is complete, that number known only to Him who keeps the book, "the Lamb's book of life," in which their names are written—when the last of the little flock shall have heard the Shepherd's voice through the instrumentality of the preaching of the gospel—then the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we (the living) shall be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. And then the Kingdom shall come, and God's will be done on the earth, as it is done in Heaven, and the groans of creation shall cease.

Let the angel speed, then, his flight through the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation and kindred and tongue and people, and say with a loud voice, "Fear God, and give glory to him, for the hour of his Judgment is come." For then shall come the restitution of all things promised from before the foundation of the world.

For, concomitant with and consequent upon the second coming of Christ, shall be—the resurrection of the sleeping saints—the change of the living saints—the casting out and binding of Satan—the destruction of Antichrist—the gathering of Israel—the deliverance of the creature from the bondage of corruption—the kingdom of Christ and his saints. And then shall the Redeemer see of the travail of his soul, and be satisfied. And we shall be satisfied too, "if by any means we may attain unto the resurrection of the dead," awake in his likeness, and share in his glory.

I do not know that I can better close this letter than in the closing words of "the declaration of the faith of the Congregational churches": "As Christ would have us to be certainly persuaded that there shall be a judgment, to deter all men from sin, and for the greater consolation of the godly in their adversity so will he have that day unknown to men, that they may shake off all carnal security, and be always watchful, because they know not at what hour the Lord will come, and may be ever prepared to say, 'Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly.'—Amen." And to this I add my Amen also.

THE LORD'S DAY.

By Marshall Enoch

"I WAS in the spirit on the Lord's day." Rev. 1:10. "And that is the first day of the week," said a certain preacher as he was trying to uphold Sunday-keeping a few weeks ago. When pressed to prove it by the Bible, he replied that "history said so, and nearly everybody believed it. And that is the only answer a minister of the gospel(?) could give.

But what does the Bible say about it? "To the law and to the testimony." Isa. 8:20. Here are two infallible rules God has given us. It is very evident that sixty-five years after the death of Christ, there was a particular day called the Lord's day. Which day was that? We turn to the first rule as found in Ex. 20: and find there that it is the seventh day. This is plain enough. We are not left to guess at it.

Would this government set apart a particular day, and then leave its citizens to guess which day that is? This is too absurd to think of. The first rule (the law) teaches that the seventh day is the Lord's day. Now what does the second rule (God's word) teach? "If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day," etc. Isa. 58:13. That is plain enough. The Lord is speaking here of his holy day.

After the supposed change of the Sabbath, we find the women keeping the Lord's day on the Sabbath, according to the commandment, and that command says that the seventh day is the Lord's day.

Let us now turn to what Christ, the Lord of the Sabbath, says. And he is able to tell us which day the Lord's day is. We turn to Mark 2:27, 28. He says "the Sabbath was made for man." Now when was the Sabbath made for man? We turn to Gen. 2:1-3, and we read there it was at the close of creation. There it says God sanctified it. Christ says it was made for man. Which day was this? The seventh day. Gen. 2:3. Then Christ says: "Therefore the son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath."

Now the first rule teaches that the seventh day is the Lord's day. The second rule says it is the Sabbath which was made for man, and this is the seventh day, and Christ says he is Lord of it. Now I ask in all candor, which day is the Sabbath? The seventh day is the only answer.

Again, the seventh day of what? Of the year? Of the month? No. We turn to Luke 23:56, and it is there stated that the women rested the Sabbath day, according to the commandment. This day they kept, says Luke twenty-eight years after the death of Christ, "according to the commandment," was the day before the first day of the week. The day before the first day of the week is always the seventh day of the week, because there are only seven days in the weekly cycle.

Then the first day of the week is not the Lord's day, but the day that precedes it, or the seventh day of the week.

Marshall Enoch.

Difficulties Strengthen Christian Effort

As little rocks in the stream may trouble the water, but they do not hinder it from flowing on, but only give it greater force; so the difficulties and discouragements of the Christian warfare only serve to make the Christian double his efforts to go forward on his appointed course.

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