Signs of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 50. (12/29/1887)

Signs of the Times

Dec 29, 1887

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 29, 1887

THE JUDGMENT OF THE GREAT DAY.

By Mrs. E. G. White

"And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works."

HERE is presented before us the great and solemn day when the Judgment is to sit and the books are to be opened, and the dead are to be judged according to the things written in the books. We must all meet the unerring record of our lives written in the books on high. We are probationers, on trial. God is testing us to see what kind of characters we will develop in this life. Angels of God are weighing moral worth. Our heavenly Father has sent us a message warning us of the fast-hastening Judgment, that we may prepare for that day of final reckoning.

I have questioned in my mind as I have seen men and women hurrying to and fro on matters of business or pleasure, whether or not they ever thought of the day of God, that is about to break upon us. We need not be in darkness as to what is coming on the earth. We cannot afford to meet that day without a preparation, and light has been given us from Heaven, that we may understand the requirements of God. "Search the Scriptures" is the command of Christ. "Watch and pray, lest ye enter into temptation." There is a witness that follows us in all our actions of life. Our very thoughts and the intents and purposes of our hearts are laid bare to his inspection. As the features are produced upon the polished plate of the artist, so are our characters delineated upon the books of record in Heaven. Are you fitting up in the graces of Christ? Will your robe of character be white and spotless in the day of his appearing? Every interest should be shaped, and every action directed toward this all-important event. We should live daily in great humility before God, seeking divine strength lest we fail of his grace and prove ourselves unworthy of eternal life. We should be "looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works."

You cannot afford to be found a transgressor of God's great moral law. You are to be judged by its precepts. If God had no law, there could be no Judgment, and the cases of men and women would not be called into the solemn tribunal, before the righteous Judge. If we have not been found in harmony with God's requirements in this life, we will be no more in harmony with his requirements in the future life. What excuse can we plead for disobedience to the law of God's Government? And what excuse can we render in the day when the motives of the heart will be tried? You may say now, "The whole world is out of harmony with God's precepts, and I cannot be singular," but in that day you will not venture to present this before the God of Heaven and earth. When the books are opened, the character will be revealed, and every mouth will be stopped. You will be convicted of guilt before the revelation of your own life. Everyone unsaved will see where he departed from right, and will realize the influence his life of disobedience exerted to turn others from the way of truth. "Every one of us shall give account of himself to God," and the quick and the dead shall stand before the Judgment-seat of Christ. The secret things will be made known. There was an eye that saw and a hand that registered the hidden deeds.

When Belshazzar had his great sacrilegious feast, there was present in the splendid halls a witness which he did not discern. The revelers were drinking their wine, and partaking of their luxurious feast, and praising the gods of silver and gold, extolling their own wisdom, magnifying their deeds, and dishonoring God, but right over against the wall, facing the king, a bloodless hand was tracing the terrible characters testifying of his true condition: "Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting."

The Lord is weighing character in the sanctuary to-day, and those who are careless and indifferent, rushing on in the paths of iniquity, will not stand the test. God has endowed us with reasoning powers, and he requires us to use them to his glory. He has given us this body, which he wishes us to preserve in perfect health, that we may render the best service to his cause. He has paid an infinite price for our redemption, and yet men and women dependent from day to day upon his mercies, for life, for health, for food, for all the blessings they enjoy, refuse to obey his laws, refuse to accept his Son as their Example and Saviour.

It may seem to you that obedience to God's law requires too much self-denial and sacrifice. Does it require more sacrifice than Jesus has made to save you? He has led the way, and will you follow? He says, "I have kept my Father's commandments." He left the royal throne of glory. He changed the kingly crown for a crown of thorns. He placed his feet in the blood-stained path which led the way to Calvary, and he has stated to us that those who are partakers with him of his sufferings shall be partakers also with him of his glory. We shall never have to endure the shame, the insult, the mockery, the agony of the crucifixion, and the depth of woe and temptation that the Author of our salvation has endured for our sake; but we should ever keep before us the scenes of his humiliation, and never exalt ourselves in pride and self-sufficiency.

Christ was despised and rejected of men. Those he came to save could not see in him anything desirable. Should he come unto our world to-day without earthly honor or princely power, who would receive him as the King of glory? How many proud church members would be so ashamed of Jesus and the reproach that would be likely to be attached to them should they accept him, that they would refuse to follow him; but his matchless love led him to endure infinite sorrow and reproach that he might bring many sons and daughters to glory. Who is willing to-day to be on the Lord's side?

We cannot wait until the Judgment before we consent to deny self and to lift the cross. It will be too late then to form characters for Heaven. It is here and now that we must take sides with the humble, self-denying Redeemer. It is here we must overcome envy, strife, selfishness, love of money, and love of

the world. It is here that we must enter the school of Christ and learn the precious lesson of meekness and lowliness of mind; and here it must be our aim and our earnest effort to be loyal to the God of Heaven, by obeying all his commandments.

Our only safety is in constant communion with God. Our petitions should ascend in faith that he will keep us unspotted from the corruptions of the world. Did not Jesus tell us that iniquity would abound in the last days? But his grace will be granted to us according to our day. Those who are open to the influence of the Spirit of God will receive strength to withstand the evils of this degenerate age.

Enoch walked with God three hundred years previous to his translation, and the state of the world was not more favorable for the perfection of Christian character than it is to-day. How did Enoch walk with God? He educated his mind and heart to ever feel the presence of God, and when in perplexity his prayers would ascend to God to keep him, to teach him his will. "What shall I do to honor thee, my God?" was his prayer. His will was merged in the will of God, and his feet were constantly directed in the path of God's commandments. Enoch was a representative of those who shall be on the earth when Christ shall come, who will be translated to Heaven and never taste of death. It is fitting that we pray, as did David, "Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law."

Many close their eyes, lest they shall see the truth. They do not want to see the defects in their life and character, and it disturbs them if you mention to them anything about God's law. They have discarded God's standard and have chosen a standard of their own. Their hearts are not inclined to keep the way of the Lord, for it runs in an opposite direction from the path they had marked out. But we want to warn you: Be not deceived by the first great adversary of God's law. When the Judgment is set and the books opened, your life and mine will be measured by the law of the Most High. Those who have washed their robes of character and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, will be found keeping the commandments of God; and when every man is judged according to the things written in the books, they will receive the commendation of Heaven and an eternal inheritance.

OUR EVER PRESENT HELP.

By Anna Holyoke Howard

"Our help is in the name of the Lord." Psalm 124:8.

We look to thee, most gracious Lord, With prayerful, steadfast eye. Our trust, dear Lord, is in thy word; Oh, hear thy children's cry!

How long, O Lord! how long shall sin And Satan ride apace? How long, O Lord, shall evil win, And triumph in the race?

Arouse thy slumbering church, O Lord, To hear the groans and cries That daily, from ten thousand hearts, In intercession rise.

Direct us, Lord, and send us might, When Satan's hosts assail. Thou only canst defend the right; With thee we must prevail. —Anna Holyoke Howard.

THE ANCIENT HOPE.

By George Müller

IN the days of the apostles the disciples were comforted and encouraged by the prospect of the personal return of the Lord Jesus Christ. An angel had said to them as they watched the Lord depart from the earth, "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven." Acts 1:11. This, and not death, was the hope of the church; and thus it ought to have remained up to his actual return. His coming should have continued to be the hope of the church; but this, alas! for centuries has not been the case.

In confessions of faith, the truth that the Lord Jesus will come again may still have had a place; but practically, to by far the greater number of his disciples, it has been a mere doctrinal statement that has not been enjoyed, and which has had no influence upon their lives. The Lord, however, desired that it should be otherwise.

He intended that his church should look for him, that she should watch and wait for his return. Again and again, during his personal ministry, the Lord Jesus foretold this great event; and after his ascension the apostles referred continually to it. . . . Blessed therefore it will be to enter upon that glory which awaits us only at our Lord's return.

. . . The whole church will at once be introduced to full eternal happiness and glory at our blessed Lord's return. Not only as individuals will our cup of joy be full to overflowing, but we shall rejoice throughout eternity with the whole company of the redeemed.

Oh! how should the solemnity and certainty of these events come home to every one of us, and with what earnestness should each person who reads these lines seek upon scriptural grounds to settle for himself that he is really Christ's; because by nature we are lost, ruined, and undone, and deserve nothing but punishment; but we have, at the same time, to accept God's only remedy, namely, salvation through faith in the blood and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, by whom alone eternal life, pardon, and justification can be obtained. See Eph. 2:1-9; Gal. 3:26; Acts 10:43; Rom. 5:1; John 3:16; Rom. 8:16, 17.—George Müller.

THE DECLINE OF CIVILIZATION.

By Editor

THE San Francisco Chronicle has the following editorial comment on the way that Sullivan, America's champion human bull-dog, has been received by royalty in England. The Chronicle's comparison is a just one; but it seems to forget that Sullivan went to England with the official indorsement of the most cultured city in the United States, and that the bloody sports of the arena are fully as popular in this country as in England. Rome's decline began with the introduction of gladiatorial shows; why are we not justified in concluding that England and America are going the same way?

A London dispatch says: "The Prince of Wales, who was very much prepossessed by the American's independence, sent his equerry to a well-known jeweler's in Bond Street and ordered a handsome gold watch to be made, bearing the inscription, 'To John L. Sullivan, Boston, U. S. A., with best wishes of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales.'"

Does not this carry the reader back at once to the pages of Suetonius and Gibbon, and to the times when the brawny gladiators were the pets and boon companions of the dissolute masters and rulers of the Roman Empire? Can we not, in our imagination, see Domitian, given over to those vices which evoked the merciless satire of Juvenal, not the least of which was the emperor's inordinate fondness for the sports of the arena and the delight at the sight of human blood? Does not this gift from the heir of the British throne to John L. Sullivan, with the best wishes of the giver, unavoidably recall the decadence of the Roman Empire, and conjure up the picture of the times when the sect called Christians were butchered to make a Roman holiday, and when cruelty, luxury, and licentiousness reigned supreme in that city which had been the mistress of the world?

And who is the man whom the future king of England so delights to honor, and to whom he extends a token of his admiration and his best wishes? Simply a man who enjoys the notoriety of being the most powerful brute that walks erect; a creature who can strike a harder blow with his fist than any other living animal except the gorilla and the grizzly; a human being who, so far as the record shows, has never done a kindly or manly or generous act in his whole life, who has never used his vast strength for the protection of the weak and feeble, who has never done his country or his kind one moment's service; but who, on the contrary, has been a rowdy, a bully, a swashbuckler, a terror to women and inoffensive men, a drunkard, and a brawler, and altogether a disreputable and wholly useless member of society. This is the man whom Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, heir apparent to the kingly and imperial throne of Great Britain, honors with his presence, and favors with his best wishes.

PENALTY A NECESSITY OF LAW.

By James B. Walker

LAW is a necessity of things, and penalty is a necessity of law. This second affirmation, although equally true, may not be assented to so readily as the preceding one. Sometimes there is not a clear apprehension of the difference between the necessity of penalty as a final issue, and the necessity of penalty immediately executed upon the transgressor. It is not affirmed that penalty is always immediate upon the transgression of law, nor that, where transgression has occurred, the penalty may not be counteracted. What we do say is that every law has its penalty. Natural penalty, or rather the penalty natural to law, is progressive derangement tending to ultimate destruction. If disorder be not immediately destructive, then, during the deranged action which follows departure from law, the subject by interposition, as we shall see, may be recovered to obedience; but if not recovered, the destruction of the subject, whatever it may be, is necessary, and therefore certain.

We wish to reiterate and illustrate this form of expression until the two cognate truths become lucid and settled convictions. We can perceive enough of the nature and relations of things to know that penalty lies not wholly, nor perhaps mostly, against the subject that transgresses the law. The necessity of penalty is connected with the general good. God has created things, as we have noticed, in relationship to each other, and the restoration or destruction of a transgressing subject is necessary to the harmony and safety of the whole.

In the realms both of matter and mind there are facts that elucidate this subject: the physical will illustrate the moral. If a planet should "shoot madly from its sphere," its destruction would be necessary, not so much on its own account (if we may so speak), as on account of its deranging influence upon other bodies. When it lost its place and balance among the spheres, it passed into a condition of disorder which would necessarily terminate in its destruction. This, however, would not be the greatest evil. In its disorder it would necessarily encroach upon the orbits of other bodies, derange the whole system to which it belonged, and, if not destroyed, it would involve the whole in eventual ruin. When it left its prescribed place, then, in view of the safety of other parts of the system, its destruction would become necessary. The very laws which preserved it in its place would cause its destruction out of its place; and in order to save it, God would have to destroy all the physical laws of the system (and then it would not be saved), or adopt some expedient to bring it back and balance the injury which its aberration had occasioned to the members of the solar family. Destruction is a necessity when any member of a system persistently violates the laws of the system.

So an animal which violates its instincts departs not only from the laws of adaptation which secure its own happiness, but, as God has filled all departments of nature with body or life appropriate to the several conditions, when an animal leaves the sphere which the

law of its instincts prescribes, it necessarily impinges upon the province of other things, and the good of the whole requires its destruction, and the nature of things secures the infliction of the penalty.

We say, the good of the whole requires its destruction. If the ants were to leave the earth, forget their instincts, and live upon the pollen and vital germs of the flowers, the bees would die, and fruit would cease to exist throughout the world. The ants, then, must either be destroyed, or bees and fruits, and everything which lives upon fruits, must suffer.

To the disobedient the laws of the universe are inexorable. The law permits no transgression, and provides for no pardon. In so far as law would allow of transgression, it would annul itself and produce evil. A single transgression places the trespassers in the "road to ruin;" and pardon in itself cannot, from the nature of the case, prevent or remit the penalty. Happiness and life being the result of obedience, as we have seen, pardon without a return of the transgressor to the sphere of obedience would be a form without effect. Obedience is the condition of safety and life; therefore, pardon without restoration of the transgressor to obedience is absurd and impossible in a system governed by law.

When the first transgression has occurred, there is no strength or influence in the aberrating subject to restore itself. If a planet were to depart from its orbit, the first departure would give it a tendency to depart forever. As a weight upon an inclined plane, the first movement creates a momentum, which will increase until the movement is stopped by an opposing force. If one cog becomes broken in a single wheel, every revolution jars the whole machinery, and widens the fracture, until the injury is repaired or until it becomes irreparable. One departure from rectitude, under all laws, makes another more easy, and every departure increases the difficulty of a restoration to order. The very laws, as we have noticed, which hold a subject to happy obedience, operate for destruction where there has been transgression. The earth is now balanced in our system, and moves in obedience to centrifugal and centripetal forces; but if it were to move from its orbit the balance would be broken, and the disproportionate or illegal action of the two forces would work its destruction. This would be certain unless a sympathy latent in the whole system, or a power above the system, were to accomplish its restoration.

If pain be considered penalty, which it may be in one sense, yet pain is not all the penalty of transgressing either organic or moral law. It is part of the penalty only, as progress is part of the result—as derangement is linked with disaster. Pain indicates that there is disease or derangement in the system. If the disorder be removed by compensation from other parts of the system, or by appliances from without, the pain ceases with the removal of the derangement by which it was occasioned. The pain was neither the disease nor the cure. A cancer is a different thing from the pain which it produces. Often the pain abates although there be no remedy for the evil.

Let us, then, not mistake pain of body or pain of conscience for the derangement itself, which causes the pain, or for the final penalties of organic or moral law. Pain often abates in the body as the strength of the constitution diminishes to death. Pain may subserve a benevolent design; it is admonitory of existing disorder, or of penalty in progress. But the fact is beyond dispute that death ensues as the ultimate penalty, whether with or without pain, unless the disorder be removed. —Rev. James B. Walker.

RELIGIOUS DEMAGOGISM.

By M. C. Wilcox

POLITICIANS are among the first of the children of this world who "are wiser than the children of light." No indication is too small to be unnoticed, if it will but catch votes. If the votes of a religious denomination are desired, they are always willing to foster some pet scheme, to render support in some measure, however unjust that measure may be, providing that the majority are either ignorant of its true merits, or are not opposed to it.

This has been manifested again and again in the privileges granted in past years to the Roman Catholic Church by the Legislature of New York. The Romanist vote counts something, and politicians are always ready to bid for it, whatever principles of religion, justice, liberty, or truth may be violated by their action, if they can but retain the support of the majority. In such ways many unjust laws, oppressive, tyrannical laws, anti-liberty laws, persecuting laws, have been passed. In the same way the oppressive Sunday law of Arkansas was placed on the statute-book of that commonwealth. Such may be the way in which the National Reformers may accomplish their tyrannical purpose of placing some of the so-called Christian institutions in the statute law of our own free country. Often

the watch-word of a small and hitherto insignificant party becomes the war-cry of a majority, if union with that party is necessary to make the majority.

An instance of how this may be done in reference to Sunday, was manifested in the recent election campaign of New York. The Republicans as a party repudiated temperance. At least they did not wish to recognize it in a way which would offend the liquor-dealers. But how to call in and retain the support of the religious class—that was the question, and the Personal Liberty party furnished the answer. They demanded a free Sunday, open saloon, etc. The clergy of New York united against the movement, and the Republicans took up the cry of the clergy. "The American Sunday." Monday, October 31, a large meeting of prominent citizens assembled at Steinway Hall, New York, "to save America's Sunday." Among the prominent men on the platform were: "Revs. John Hall, D. D., R. S. MacArthur, D. D., Walter Elliott, of the Paulist Fathers, W. W. Attebury, D. D., Thane Miller, D. D., Howard Crosby, D. D., of Sabbath authorship notoriety, M. D. Hodge, D. D., J. P. Whedon, and many other reverends, judges, etc. There were many remarkable utterances showing the trend of religious politics, some of which we quote. Ex-Judge Noah Davis presided. He said that he "counted it no simple honor" to open such a meeting as that.

"I am glad to be retained upon the Lord's side [applause] by such a noble army of his servants as those before me."

After extolling Sunday very highly, he thus closed:— "There is no liberty without law, there is no personal liberty except in obedience to the law. Our duty is to preserve our Sabbath [the American Sunday], and we should see that no man goes into our Legislature who does not think as we do, and who is not prepared to vote against any desecration of our Sunday."

Dr. William M. Taylor, in a letter, expressed full sympathy with the movement, and longed that Sunday laws could be enforced here as thoroughly as in Scotland. The meeting met with the "hearty concurrence" of Senator William M. Evarts. Father C. A. Walsworth, of Albany, wrote: "All my heart is with this meeting." "The Personal Liberty party (God be thanked for their folly) have now forced us into a position where we must either renounce all hopes of law and order, and prove traitors to our faith in God, or else crush these slaves of the liquor traffic beneath our ballots. We must now either yield up the great day of Christian worship to the demands of lawless greed, or vote down the men who would by their votes destroy it. The motto of all true men at this critical time should be: 'The Lord's Day—it must and shall be preserved.'"

The great facts concerning the Sabbath of the Lord were perverted and made to do Sunday service. Dr. W. R. Huntington, of Grace Church, appealed to "the clay cylinders of Babylonia," and the parchments of Hebrew Scripture "for the antiquity of Sunday." He thought it was menaced, but not endangered. In equity, he said, common property should not be encroached upon by private interest. The rest-day (Sunday) was common property. His ethical point was this:—

"The observance of Sunday as a day of cessation from toil is part of that general scheme of social life which we know under the name of Christian morals, and which must be accepted or rejected as a whole. The whole thing hangs together. You cannot take out a stone here and there and expect the fabric to stand. You cannot tamper with that part of Christian morals that deals with personal rest, and leave untouched those

other parts that deal with marriage, for example, and property."

But Dr. Huntington did not inform us by what authority Sunday observance became a part of Christian morals. Certainly not by the authority of Christ or his apostles. We see, also, just the same confounding of those laws which relate to duty to men with those laws which relate to our duty to God as is shown in all National Reform arguments.

Another point made by Dr. Huntington was that of statemanship. Among other strong utterances he said:—

"Better than any amendment that shall read the name of God into the national Constitution, better than the name of God upon the face of your coinage, is the maintenance of one quiet day among the seven, tacitly recognized as his. Therefore, Mr. President, in the name of fairness, in the name of good morals, in the name of patriotism, I say, 'Rally, fellow-citizens, to the defense of the rest-day!'"

There is no misunderstanding this language. It means, when reduced to practice, oppressive laws against those who may not consider this a duty, whose conscience would condemn them for the religious observance of a day which God has not called his, whose circumstances prevent abstinence from labor on that day upon which the Lord has given, by precept and example, the right to work.

Rome was also represented. The Rev. Walter Elliott, of the the Paulist Fathers, uttered the following:—

"Some may say that the Roman Catholic Church is unsound upon this question. Nothing could be further from the truth." (Applause.) And then the reverend father quoted from Scripture and Councils to enforce his remarks.

The speech of Dr. James M. King awakened the enthusiasm of the meeting throughout. He said:—

"I am glad there are some distinct American principles on which we can all stand, irrespective of creed or religious belief. [Applause.] While not all American Catholics, we are all Catholic Americans. [Applause.] I sometimes tremble for our liberties when I see vice assume such a bold front; and we have reached the point where we must ask, What are you going to do about it? Yet I am glad that the contest has assumed its present shape. We cannot easily fight an enemy who skulks in the bushes, but we can bring our forces together when we know where our enemies are, who they are, and how many it takes to overcome them. [Applause.] The audacious demands of the saloon-keepers for Sunday opening, each asking longer hours, would make us think that give them a little more time and they'll back clear into Saturday. It does not become us to allow any trifling with the Sabbath as a civil institution. As Christians we love the Christian Sabbath, but as citizens we love the American Sunday."

Says the Tribune: "Dr. King referred to the Sabbath [Sunday] as almost abolished in Germany, and that contracts for work provided for labor on that day as well as the others. He maintained that if the laboring man was led astray on the Sunday question by false advisers it was the duty of thoughtful citizens to apply the law so as to bring him under the school-master truth."

A prominent point urged by most of the speakers was that men sent to the Legislature should be sound on the Sunday question. If all of these utterances mean anything, they mean that the speakers are bound that Sunday shall be surrounded by the bulwark of civil law, and to him who would not heed it, would zealous "citizens" "apply law so as to bring him under [not] the school-master truth," but under the tyrannical power of oppressive error, instigated by "that old serpent, called the devil and Satan." And how will those conscientious, God-fearing people who are advocating and keeping the seventh-day Sabbath as commanded by God, be classed? Among lawless liquor-dealers, beer-drinkers, infidels, etc. How will they fare? They will have applied to them the iron hand of the law. Clearer and clearer appear the omens of the coming struggle. Closer and closer let the friends of truth gather together. Firmer and firmer let us plant our feet on "the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus." God will care for his own, and give victory to the faithful and true.

M. C. WILCOX.

UNDER THE SHADOWS.

By Mrs. L. D. A. Stuttle

BY MRS. L. D. A. STUTTLE.

I CANNOT bear it longer, This weary, weary load; I've borne it, oh, so many years, Along life's devious road! The petty cares of daily life, They gall my spirit so, I'm sore oppressed—I fain would rest And peace and comfort know.

I cannot bear it longer, My heart is sick and sore. I tremble 'neath the galling weight, I cannot bear it more. And if I knew my work on earth Was well and nobly done, I could not weep, in death to sleep Before the setting sun.

So tired am I of longing For something more complete! So tired am I of plodding on, With restless, aching feet! So weary, weary, weary Of selfishness and sin! I strive in vain to hide the pain, The grief and care within.

'Tis thus I sat repining, With tear-drops in mine eyes, When a blessed thought came unto me, Like a message from the skies. Methought, my blessed Master, I'm sure he understands; For he knows my frame: my humble name Is graven on his hands.

Methought, I will read the message The King sends to his child; Perhaps 'twill soothe my aching heart And calm this tumult wild. I took my blessed Bible, My letter from the skies, And, oh! it seemed an angel's hand Had brought the precious prize.

I read the sweet old story, And read it o'er again, And how he came to earth to save The suffering sons of men. And then in tones of pity The Master spoke to me: "Didst thou e'er bear the grief and care That I have borne for thee?"

Then tears of shame and sorrow Fell o'er my burning cheek, That I, a poor, ungrateful worm, Such murmuring words should speak. O Lord, my blessed Saviour, Forgive thine erring one, And help me evermore to say, "Thy will, O God, be done."

Bancroft, Mich., December, 1887.

THE PREACHER OR THE TRUTH.

By Rusticus

"How did you like him?" This was the question that met me at the door of the sanctuary at the close of the morning service. The church was without a pastor, and the strange preacher, though not a formal, was a possible candidate. All around me I heard one and another asking this same question. I replied: "I did not pay any special attention to him; I was thinking all the time of that message which he brought us from our Lord. He came here as an ambassador. He presented, in the name of Christ, solemn and important truth, and it mattered very little to me whether he presented it gracefully or awkwardly, if the presentation was clear and earnest. I had no time or heart to criticise his tones or his gestures. I felt that he was sent to rebuke my unbelief and to quicken my faith. He evidently believed what he preached, felt it, too, and wanted to make us feel it."

"Yes, the sermon was good. It was real good," said one excellent Christian lady, "but I never could enjoy hearing a preacher who swung his arms about like a windmill."

"And I," said another, "always get nervous when a preacher walks about so much. I am afraid he will upset the vases of flowers or do something dreadful."

"And I," said another, "can never vote for any man as my pastor who goes into the pulpit with a black necktie. There ought to be something distinctly ministerial about a minister's appearance."

"And I," said another, "want a preacher with a musical voice. I go to church all worried and out of sorts, and expect the sermon to soothe my troubled spirit. You know there is nothing so quieting as a soft and gentle voice. This man's voice is too loud and he does not modulate it well. He talks as if the house was on fire, and he wanted to rouse us all to escape for our lives."

And so they discussed the man, or rather his manner, and forgot all about the truth that he had proclaimed. Is not this kind of criticism one of the besetting sins of the church to-day? A poet sings:— "Manner is all in all, whate'er is writ Of learning, eloquence, or wit." But Paul did not think so. He confessed in his letters to the Corinthians that his bodily presence was weak and his speech contemptible. But, though he came not among them with excellency of speech, and was with them in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling, so that he, no doubt, made some people nervous, and disgusted others who could appreciate nothing but the graces of oratory, yet he claimed a hearing for his message, and the Holy Spirit made it the power of God and the wisdom of God.

A minister of the gospel is not an actor. He is called in the Bible a workman. The ideal of a true workman is to do good work. He cannot always be studying attitudes. He studies truth and how to present it most forcibly and effectively. And the most graceful presentation is not always the most effective. The woman who complained that the preacher talked as if the house was on fire gave him, unconsciously, the highest commendation. He was so thoroughly in earnest that his manner was abrupt and startling. She did not like to be startled, but she never will forget that solemn warning of the man who believed every word that he uttered.

Paul said, "We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us." If a man is thirsty he will be glad to get a drink of pure cold water, even if it is brought in the rudest and cheapest kind of cup. And fresh water at the spring in common crockery is better than stale and tepid water in a stately mansion from a vessel of porcelain or even of gold. God could give to all his ambassadors such gifts and graces that they would charm all who heard them. But he knew that if he did the interest of the people in the man and his manner would divert their attention from the truth. He wants us to hear his message for its own sake, and not because it is presented attractively.

Now, I do not object to grace of manner, or to anything which makes the gospel attractive to even the most fastidious hearer. But I do object to this exaltation of the man above the truth. The tendency is to tempt the minister to cultivate manner and to become a brilliant orator, rather than a workman that needeth not to be ashamed. The real power of the preacher is not human but divine. It is the power of the Holy Spirit working in and through the truth. What secures the influences of the Spirit is loyalty to the truth on the part of the minister, and faith in the truth on the part of the hearer. The great question, then, is not, How did the minister preach? but, What did he preach? If it was the word in its simplicity and purity the preaching was good, even if the gestures were not graceful, nor the voice musical, nor the necktie clerical. —Rusticus, in Occident.

Continue reading: THE WHOLE HOUSE OF ISRAEL

THE JUDGMENT OF THE GREAT DAY.*