Review and Herald, Vol. 22, No. 21.
Here are They That Keep the Commandments of God. Rev. xiv, 12Page 1
Here are They That Keep the Commandments of God. Rev. xiv, 12.
By Isaac Sanborn
THIS is an acknowledged characteristic of a class of people living in the time when the warning is given, If any man worship the beast and his image or receive his mark in the forehead or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God. Rev. xiv, 9, 10. The cause for this warning may be seen in Rev. xiii, 11, 12: "And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake like a dragon, and he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them that dwell therein to worship the first beast whose deadly wound was healed." It is evident that the beast here referred to as the first beast is a symbol of the Papal church. Daniel speaks of the same power under the symbol of the little horn saying, "He shall think to change times and laws." Dan. vii, 25. Ques. What laws did the Papal church think to change? See Dr. Challoner's Catholic Christian Instructed, Chap. xxiii, p 252. There we read as follows: "Ques. What are the days which the church commands to be kept holy? Ans. 1. The Sunday or Lord's day, which we observe by apostical tradition instead of the Sabbath. Q. What warrant have you for keeping Sunday preferable to the ancient Sabbath which was the Saturday? Ans. We have for it the authority of the Catholic church." In this we see a perfect fulfillment of the prophecy of Dan. vii, 25: "He shall think to change times and laws." But the reader may inquire, What has all this to do with the worship of the beast? Ans. Says Paul, "Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey?" Now mark carefully, God says, the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. The Papal church says, "Sunday is the Lord's day, instead of the Sabbath which was the Saturday." Now if I remember and keep Sunday whose servant am I? You answer, The servant of the Papal church. Well, if you remember and keep Saturday, the seventh day, whose servant are you? Ans. The servant of him whom you obey, that is, God; because he commanded you to do so. Ex. xx, 8. "Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath." &c. Now, dear reader, who are worshipers of the beast? You answer, All who keep Sunday for the Sabbath. Well, your answer is in harmony with the word of God. See Rev. xiii, 8. "And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life." You see then how the beast is worshiped. Preachers are most all preaching that Sunday is the Sabbath or Lord's day. Sunday-school teachers are all teaching the same thing. The result is people are keeping Sunday instead of the Sabbath. Here then is the place for the warning of the third angel, If any man worship the beast, he shall drink the wine of the wrath of God. He closes his warning by saying, "Here are they that keep the commandments of God;" and one of these commandments says, The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. It will be seen by reading Rev. xiv, beginning with verse 9, that two previous messages had to be given before the third angel could follow. Ques. When were those first messages given? Ans. From 1840 to 1844. At that time the minds of the people were greatly agitated on the subject of the judgment-hour cry, which brought out a people looking for the coming of the Lord. This was prophesied of, in Isa. viii, 14–20: "And he shall be for a sanctuary, but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel." Now all admit that the first house of Israel stumbled over the doctrine of the first advent of Christ; for he said unto them, If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins. Did they believe? Let them answer. Then answered all the people, His blood be upon us and our children. Matt. xxvii, 25. Paul says that they were broken off because of unbelief. Rom. ii, 20. Again Paul says, Seeing you judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, lo we turn to the Gentiles. Acts xii, 46. This proves that the first house of Israel stumbled over the doctrine of the first advent of Christ. Here the second house began to be grafted in from among the Gentiles, that is, those that were converted from among the Gentiles. But says the reader, When did the second house stumble? Ans. In 1844, over the doctrine of the second advent of Christ. Did not the churches generally reject that message? Yes. Did they not disfellowship all their brethren and sisters who continued to believe that the Lord was near, notwithstanding 2 Peter iii, 3, 4, says that scoffers should come in the last days, saying Where is the promise of his coming? This has all followed the proclamation of the advent message, as given in 1844. Since then the third angel's message has been proclaimed, fulfilling Isa. viii, 16, where the Lord says, "Bind up the testimony and seal the law among my disciples. And I will wait upon the Lord that hideth his face from the house of Jacob and I will look for him." When is the law to be sealed? Ans. When there is a people waiting for the Lord and looking for him. This work has been going on since 1844. It is during this time that they were to say "Seek unto them that have familiar spirits;" and Spiritualists have been saying this ever since 1848. But the Lord gives a standard by which we may try them: To the law and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. The testimony here we understand to be the spirit of prophecy, and the sealing of the law among the disciples, the restoration of the Sabbath. Has such a work been going on since 1844 among a class of people who are looking for the Lord? I answer, Yes; and that class are known as Seventh-day Adventists. To show that the Sabbath is the seal of the living God, it is only necessary to refer to Ex. xxxi, 13–17, "Speak thou also unto the children of Israel saying, Verily my Sabbaths ye shall keep; for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you. Verse 17. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever." See Jer. xxxi, 35, 36. Thus saith the Lord which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar, the Lord of hosts is his name: If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me forever. Ques. Have the Jews ceased from being a nation before God? You answer, Yes; scattered to the four winds among all nations. Then who does the Lord refer to in Jeremiah? Ans. His people, or church called the second house of Israel, in Isa. viii, 14, and a holy nation by Peter. "But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation. 1 Pet. ii, 9, So it will be seen that the Israel to whom the Sabbath is a sign have not ceased as a nation from before God. Therefore we conclude that the Sabbath has not ceased; and therefore again, that the Sabbath reform is spoken of by Isa. lviii, 1, "Cry aloud and spare not. Lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression."162 Ques. What does the transgression of God's professed people almost universally consist in? Ans. In Sabbath-breaking. This is just what we have been telling them for more than ten years, saying to them, Thus saith the Lord, keep ye judgment and do justice; for my salvation is near to come and my righteousness to be revealed. Blessed is the man that doeth this, and the son of man that layeth hold on it, that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, &c. When are they to lay hold on the Sabbath? Ans. When the salvation of God, which is to be brought unto his people at the coming of Jesus, is near. And Jesus has said himself that we might know his coming was nigh at hand when we should not be following signs: Luke xxi, 25, 26. And there shall be signs in the sun and in the moon and in the stars and upon the earth distress of nations with perplexity, men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth. When ye see these things come to pass, lift up your heads, for your redemption is nigh. Here we find ourselves in the time when a class of people are looking for their redemption and laying hold of the Sabbath. The Lord says, Thou shalt be called the restorer of paths to dwell in, if thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath from doing thy pleasure on my holy day and call the Sabbath a delight the holy of the Lord honorable, and shalt honor him not doing thine own ways nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words, &c. Look at the seventh-day Advent people and you will see this prophecy having its fulfillment. And at the same time you can see another prophecy fulfilling; namely, Eze. xiii, 4–15. "O Israel thy prophets are like the foxes in the desert. Ye have not gone up into the gaps, neither made up the hedge, for the house of Israel to stand in the battle of the day of the Lord. They have seen vanity and lying divination, saying, The Lord saith; and the Lord hath not sent them; and they have made others to hope that they would confirm the word." What are the gaps or breaches here referred to? Ans. The Papal church has given a substitute for the Sabbath of the fourth commandment; and now the preachers called by Ezekiel, Israel's prophets, are all the time trying to make the people hope that they will confirm the word that the first-day is the Sabbath. In so doing they act like the foxes of the desert, which burrow in the ground, making a number of holes into the same den. The hunter approaches and puts a trap at one hole. The fox goes out at another. He then puts a trap at that, but the fox goes in at another. The hunter puts one at that, but the fox goes out at another, and finally forsakes the den. So God says of the prophets of Israel. We present before them the arguments for the perpetuity of the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, and they will tell us it was abolished at the cross. But not being able to sustain that position without being trapped, they will say it was changed by Christ and the apostles. But failing to prove this, and thus escape the trap, they will tell their hearers that it is the seventh part of time and no day in particular. And thus they go on multiplying their contradictory positions, dodging from one to another, till like the foxes that forsake their den, they will say of the Sabbath, We will not keep it if it is true. Again God says in Eze. xiii, 10–15. "Because, even because they have seduced my people, saying, Peace, and there was no peace; and one built up a wall and lo another daubed it with untempered mortar." That is, the Papal church gave, or built up, the Sunday wall, and the preachers are daubing it over with untempered mortar, that is, false doctrine. Verse 11. Say unto them which daub it with untempered mortar, that it shall fall. There shall be an overwhelming shower, and ye, O great hailstones, shall fall, and a stormy wind shall rend it. So I will break down the wall that ye have daubed, and ye shall be consumed in the midst thereof. Some may be disposed to inquire when these great hailstones will fall. See Rev. xiv, 9. And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, the same shall drink of the wrath of God, &c. What is that? See Chap. xv, 1. "And I saw another sign in heaven great and marvelous, seven angels having the seven last plagues, for in them is filled up the wrath of God." Chap. xvi, 1–21. And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God 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." In verses 17–21, we have a description of the seventh vial and the great hailstones every one the weight of a talent or at least thirty pounds. Dear reader, may God help you and me to refuse the worship of the beast and to keep all God's commandments, and thus escape the seven last plagues and stand with the 144,000 and the Lamb on mount Zion. If ye, then, with Christ be risen,
Seek the things that are above,
Where the Saviour sits in heaven,
With the Father, thron'd in love, Settle your affections there,
Not on things on earth, besides,
Dead to these, indeed, ye are,
Hid, your life in Christ abides. Christ, your life, shall soon appear,
With him ye shall then be found,
His own image ye shall bear,
With his glorious beauty crowned. Hope immortal—priceless prize—
Earth to conquer, heaven to win,
Wrestle, strive, and agonize,
Press the gate, and enter in. Every sensual bait reject,
Evil thoughts, and base desires,
Putting on, as God's elect,
Every grace his love inspires; Mercy, humbleness of mind,
Meekness, patience, gentleness,
(Long forbearing, piteous, kind,)
Love, the bond of perfectness. In your hearts, the peace of God,
Still, with thankfulness, regain,
Let the Saviour's precious word,
Richly, in your hearts remain. Joyfully, with songs of praise,
All the Saviour's grace proclaim,
All ye do, in word, or deed,
Do, with faith in Jesus' name. If ye thus with Christ be risen,
If ye thus in him abide,
Earth shall no'er your souls imprison,
Where He is shall ye reside. Imperishable.
By Dr. Nevin
God's word shall endure forever. Other things may perish, but it shall never die nor decay. Oh, what wreck and ruin meet the eye as it glances at the past! Thrones have crumbled, empires have fallen, and philosophers and their systems have vanished away. The very monuments of man's power have been converted into the mockery of his weakness. His eternal cities moulder in the ruins; the serpent hisses in the cabinet where he planned his empire, and echo is startled by the foot which breaks the silence that has reigned for ages in his hall of feast and song. Yet, notwithstanding all this desolation, the stream of truth, which first bubbled up at the foot of the eternal throne, has continued to roll on with silent majesty and might, bearing down each opposing barrier, and declaring to perishing multitudes on its brink, that "while all flesh is grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass, the word of the Lord endureth forever." No weapon that has ever been formed against the Bible has prospered. It has survived the power of secret treachery and open violence. The time has been when to read it was death. Numerous foes have risen up against it—Pagans who have aimed to destroy it, Papists who have striven to monopolize it, and ungodly men who have hated it for its purity and penalties; but from all these assaults it has been preserved. Though cast into the fire, it has risen triumphantly from its ashes; though crushed, yet, like the diamond, every part of which, when broken, exhibits the beauty of the whole, it has proved its indestructibility, and, though sunk in the waters, it has come up again studded with the costliest pearls. It has survived the shocks of all its enemies, and withstood the ravages of time. Like the fabled pillars of Seth, which are said to have bid defiance to the deluge, it has stood unmoved in the midst of that flood which sweeps away men, with their labors, into oblivion. Infidelity has fought against it with relentless malignity; but it has successfully resisted all its potency, passing unhurt through the hands of Julians, Celsuses, and Porphyrys, and defying all the sophistries of Hume, the eloquence of Gibbon, the innuendoes of Rousseau, the blasphemy of Paine, and the vituperations of Voltaire. The identical press, indeed, which was employed by Voltaire and the French Institute to disseminate their attacks upon the Bible, has since been used to print the very volume they so vainly sought to destroy. Thus has the word of the Lord lived and triumphed, while its adversaries, one after another, have been blasted.—Dr. Nevin. Talk to a Young Preacher on Elocution.
ELOCUTION is to the thought what the musket is to the ball. More. The musket is useless without the ball. Elocution gets on alone often. Some public speakers have nothing but elocution, and succeed; accomplish something. This is an indisputable fact, and it is a high tribute to elocution. It proves everything that we want proven in favor of elocution. It is of a piece with the trite truth, that music, modulated intonation, simple sound, has singular, prodigious power. It soothes the savage breast. It is irresistible to the civilized, no less. Study to sound well. If you excel in thought and tone both, you shall do wonders. But you may fail in the first, only, and yet succeed. You may still excel in the second. As audiences are at present, it is better thus than contrariwise. If you have the rare gift of a good voice, the rest is easy. If you are deficient in natural voice, you ought, by this time, to have an effective acquired voice. By exercise, by persevering, patient practice of the voice, it can be improved and educated indefinitely. First get a good voice, then learn how to use it. I have no ultra notions about elocution. I think it is a gift of nature, as music is, and song. I believe that orators, as well as poets, are born, and that once born, they are irrepressible. But he who sets about it, can acquire largely in the way of an impressive, moving, influential, public voice. And it is an obligation most binding on the preacher, to make the most of his voice. Now there have been preachers who have lived and died, without being as much as distinctly heard; and there are preachers who are dead while they live, because they are not distinctly heard. A considerable portion of the discourse is lost to the audience through indolence, or nervous rapidity of utterance. It is not from every pulpit that you can hear every word of a brief text, even. It is grumbled or rattled out with a slovenliness shockingly inconsistent with the speaker's professed belief in regard to it. There are not many preachers who stand up straight, and utter their texts and chapters of Scripture with a vigor of voice and deliberation that will simply send them into the ears of their hearers, much less impress the hearts of the same. An indifferent discourse, declaimed with deliberation and distinctness, will be vastly more effective than a superior sermon, mumblingly pronounced. There is a great deal of funnel-fashion delivery. The sentence is uttered in the shape of a funnel, with the big end before. Everybody hears the first of it, nobody hears the last of it. This prevailing defect is inexcusable. You can be heard, every word, if you wish to be. Therefore see that you obtain a round, full, slow, clean way of enunciating words. Pronounce your text, your theme, and the salient points of your discourse, with a deliberation and emphasis commensurate with their relative importance. Repeat, whenever an important word is likely to be lost through somebody's provoking cough. An audience will soon listen attentively to a speaker who shows real anxiety to be heard. The repetition of a sentence or paragraph renders it a thousand-fold more adhesive. Learn to converse with an audience. Conversation is the basis of all oratory. Take the modulations and intonations of your every-day talk, for your guide in public speaking. You never talk monotonously; see that you do not speak monotonously in public. You talk with animation and versatility; exhibit these attractive qualities to the great congregation. You do not yell, bawl, or bellow, in the face of your audience. You do not chant your "how d' do's," and "fine days," and "good bys;" do not chant your addresses to the promiscuous assembly. The holy twang is a nuisance. Address the assembly precisely as you would address a single member of it in private conversation. An increase of voice, and of care to be heard, are all that are necessary to the man who has the root of the matter of oratory in him. I asked a lady of culture and discernment what she thought of our finest American orator, he of the "silver tongue." She replied that he reminded her of "an elegant gentleman conversing with his friends." The description is perfect. It should be the description of the preacher. Alas! it is the description of lamentably few preachers. Some of them remind me of a Niagara Falls conversing with its friends. And so on. There are astonishingly few theological graduates who can stand up before a group of their fellow beings in the audience room, and speak to it with even the grace and naturalness that they speak to a group of their acquaintances in the drawing-room. What are called "natural orators" are artistic orators. The highest art is the best nature. Perfect art and perfect nature are identical. Your natural orator is an artist; your perfect artist is a naturalist. Have you not heard in commendation of the natural flowers, "O, I thought they were artificial!" as well of the artificial flowers, "O I thought they were natural!" Show some of this art-nature in the pulpit. If you must murder something, murder your sermon. But keep the Scriptures, I beseech you, from mangling at the hands of your tongue. Use art, nature, leisure, deliberation, downright elocution, in the reading of your chapter. Study hard, long, laboriously, to make the most of our high, strange, mystic art of speech, in the recitation of Holy Writ. This is an utterly uncultivated field.—Keynote in N. Y. Examiner. To the Weary Christian Soldier.
“Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed, for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.” Joshua i, 9. Up! drooping soul, shake off thy fear,
With notes of gladness fill thy song;
Renew thy heart with heavenly cheer,
For Israel's God would have thee strong. With courage thy temptations meet,
Trusting thy Saviour's watchful care;
Thy burdens bring to Jesus' feet,
And find a ready helper there. Through fiercest storms and darkest night,
By perils tossed or anguish driven,
The Lord of hosts and God of might
Will bring thee safely home to heaven. “Isn’t It Worse for a Man, Father?”
It is two years since I left off the use of tobacco. I only chewed a little, but I did enjoy my cigar. I prided myself on my fine Havanas, and might have been seen almost any morning with a cigar in my mouth, walking down Broadway in a most comfortable manner. The way it happened that I left off is this: I had a little son about six years of age. He almost always hurried to be ready to walk down with me as far as his school. His bright face and extended hand were always welcome, and he bounded along beside me, chatting, as such dear little fellows only can. The city has in it many dirty, uncared-for boys, whose chief delight seems to be to pick up pieces of discarded cigars and broken pipes, and with their hands in their pockets, puff away in a very inelegant manner. One morning it seemed as if little Edgar and I met a great many of these juvenile smokers. I became very much disgusted, and pointed them out to little Edgar as awful warnings of youthful delinquency, talked quite largely, and said the city authorities ought to interfere and break it up. A little voice, soft and musical, came up to me as I gave an extra puff from my superb Havana. A bright little face was upturned, and the words, “Isn’t it worse for a man, father?” came to my ears. I looked down on the little fellow at my side, when his timid eye fell, and the color mounted on his boyish cheek, as if he feared he had said something bold and unfitting. “Do you think it is worse for a man, Edgar?” I asked. “Please, father, boys would not want to smoke and chew tobacco, if men didn’t do it.” Here was the answer. I threw away my cigar, and have never touched tobacco since in any form. And is it not worse for a man? Are we not fearfully responsible? Are not the daily examples of the rich, and the refined, and the good, telling all the time upon these vagabond children whom we blame, and would turn over to city authorities? Am not I, for one, in a measure responsible for the example I have been daily setting to these wretched outcasts, these lonely and forlorn boys whom I daily meet? The customary use of tobacco as a stimulant is an evil, in whatever form the habit may be acquired. It leads to drinking, and thus to other vices. Can I, as a Christian man, justify myself in the use of these, any more than in the use of ardent spirits? Is not my example of some moment? Parents, your children see such things. They think about them, and remember them; and if a little one with an earnest tone asks, “Is it not worse for a man, father?” will you not heed his voice? Many things has God “hid from the wise and prudent, and revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight.” Who are "they?" Who are the cowled monks, the hooded friars, who glide with shrouded faces in the procession of life, murmuring in an unknown tongue, words of strange import; who are they? The midnight assassins of reputation, who lurk in the by-ways of society, with tongues sharpened by invention, and envenomed by malice; to draw the blood of innocence, and hyena-like, to banquet on the dead. Who are they? They are a multitude no man can number—black, stolid, familiar with the inquisition of slander, searching for victims in every city, town, and village, wherever humanity throbs, or the ashes of mortality find rest. Give me the bold brigand, who thunders along the highways with flashing weapons, that cut the sunbeams as well as the shades. Give me the pirate who unfurls the black flag, and shows the plank which your doomed feet must tread; but save me from the "They-sayers" of society, whose knives are hidden in a velvet sheath, whose bridge of death is woven in flowers, and who spread with invisible poison even the spotless whiteness of the winding-sheet. An old Mexican monk in his cell painted an allegorical picture which may now be seen in the public library of one of our cities. It represents a beautiful young maiden, standing on a narrow island, with only room for her feet to rest upon, and all around her dashes and rages a lake of fire. The many tongues of flame leap up and almost lave her feet, yet she smiles on all, unconscious of her danger. More dreadful still, upon each billow’s crest rides a malignant fiend, and they have closed around the seemingly defenseless girl, and are winding their foils about her, one seeking to fasten chains to her limbs, and others tugging with all their fiendish strength to drag her into the burning pool. The muscles of every arm are knotted with the struggle, and the hate and malice of the pit is written on every brow. Yet serenely the maiden smiles, for she sees nothing of her danger. A golden cord of grace, descending from above, is twined amid her sunny hair, but death stands overhead, ready to cut the thread. A hand of help is reaching down to her, which she must take or be lost in the abyss. A company of attendant angels, anxiously awaiting her decision, completes the picture. This is a true picture of the condition of every one out of Christ. "They stand upon slippery places, and fiery billows roll beneath them." Thousands of fiends are busily at work to ensure the soul’s ruin, and the offers of mercy and pardon may be cut short by death. Grace is a hand reaching down from heaven, offering us salvation, and faith is the hand reaching up to receive it. "They that be for us, are more than they that be against us." Oh, will we not make friends of these blessed attendant angels, by enlisting under the same great Captain. Who would stand for half an hour in such a position as this young girl is represented as standing. And yet if you have not accepted of salvation, you are in an immeasurably worse one. Oh, hasten to take this proffered hand of help, or you must sink in those burning waves forever.—Sel. What bores they are; what havoc they make with the precious moments of orderly, systematic men of business. A person who is faithless to his appointments may not intend to swindle people, but he does. To those who know how to turn time to advantage, every hour has an appreciable pecuniary value; minutes, even, are worth so much a-piece. He who robs you of them, might just as well take so much money from your purse. The act is petty larceny or grand larceny, according to the amount of time he compels you to waste, and the value of it, at a fair appraisal, to yourself or your family. The only capital of a large portion of the community is time. Their compensation is measured by the clock. The moments of which promise breakers cheat them may represent, in fact, the necessaries of life, and the loss of an hour may involve the privation of a loaf or a joint, or some other article urgently needed at home. Nobody places any confidence in persons who are habitually behind time. They scarcely succeed in any enterprise. Therefore, for your own sake—as well as for the sake of others—be punctual.—Sel. Increase of Intemperance.
Among the evils that are rising and rushing in like a deluge upon us, darkening all the land, and portending earth's fast approaching doom, intemperance, with its streams of liquid death, bears a conspicuous part. Speaking of the order of the Sons of Temperance, T. L. Cuyler, in the N. Y. Independent, says: “In 1850 this order numbered 245,000 members; this year it can count but 55,000! Making all due allowance for the loss by secession of the Southern members, the falling off is painful and portentous. In fact it marks most unerringly the degree of the decline of the temperance cause in the public appreciation and support. With the decline of membership in this famous and useful fraternity, there has been a corresponding decline of other total-abstinent organizations and a discontinuance of their journals. Dr. Marsh's admirable Journal of the American Temperance Union, and a few other similar papers, still hold on their fearless way, though shorn of much of their patronage. Prohibitory laws against the rum-traffic have been expunded from the statute-books of several States; while on some others they remain as effete as the edicts of the Medes and Persians. In Great Britain the temperance cause is better organized and more widely successful than ever before; but in its birthplace, America, it is suffering a wide-spread, shameful, and ruinous neglect. Its great leaders are passing away. The hand that wrote the “Six Sermons against Intemperance” is in the dust, and has left no successor like to it; Frelinghuysen, Gov. Briggs, McLean, Admiral Foote, have gone to their graves; the noble author of the prohibitory law is a captive in the hands of the rebels; and the unrivaled eloquence of Gough is less frequently employed for the temperance reform than in days gone by. Sermons on the perils of the bottle are becoming rarer from the pulpit (with a few faithful exceptions;) and all this time the traffic in the vilest of adulterated liquors, the drinking-usages of society, and loathsome intemperance, are rushing back upon us with appalling volume and violence. This is the actual state of affairs. We have preferred to look at the reality in its terrible face.” Sympathy in Human Reformation
THE track upon which the train of human reformation runs, is laid in sympathy, and this sympathy can never be established as long as there exists in the heart of virtue the same feeling of hatred toward the sinner that is felt toward the sin. WE are told that there are in New York 100,000 German infidels; 350,000 persons who don't go to church; 13,000 families without Bibles; 60,000 children who never attend school; 15,000 vagrants and homeless children who graduate thieves and vagabonds; 6,000 sailors in port all the time; a floating population of 50,000; all sorts of bad books in circulation and in any quantity; 99,232 arrests by the police last year, three-fourths of which were traceable to drunkenness; 6,000 places where liquor is sold; nine theaters, having an average attendance of 15,000 persons and taking in $8,000 per night; 25,000 abandoned women keeping up their end of the so-called "social evil" (or one to every six young men in the city); 2,500 brothels; arrests in 1862 equaling one in every nine, and commitments to prison one in every twenty-two of the entire citizenship; the cost of crime, pauperism, and moral obliquity more than $3,000,000 this year; half a million of people living in tenement houses; 25,000 persons living under ground. Lessons for Bible Students.
(PROPIIICY OF DANIEL, PP, 43-51.) 1. What is Walker's definition or the term, Sanctuary? 2. How does Webster define it? 3. What does Cruden call it? 4. How is it defined in the Bible? 5. Is the earth the sanctuary? 6. How many times does the word, sanctuary, occur in the Bible? 7. Is it in a single instance applied to the earth? 8. What then is the only authority for the view that the earth is the Sanctuary? 9. Is the earth a dwelling place for God, or a holy or sacred place? 10. To what does the word sanctuary refer in almost every instance of its use? 11. What do those do, therefore, who teach that the earth is the sanctuary? 12. Will the earth after it has been purified by fire, become the sanctuary? 14. Is the church the sanctuary? 15. Does the Bible ever call the church the sanctuary? 16. God calls another object his sanctuary; and what does he uniformly associate with that sanctuary? 17. What is the only inference that has been urged in favor of the view that the church is the sanctuary? 18. What text may be urged by some to support it? 19. What would this text, at most, prove? 20. Remembering that God chose Jerusalem as the place of his sanctuary, what other Psalm will fully explain this text? 21. But if a text could be produced to show that the church is the sanctuary, could it even then be the sanctuary of Dan. viii, 13. 14? 23. Is the land of Canaan the sanctuary? 24. Out of the 146 times of the word's occurrence, how many texts, have been urged as referring to the land of Canaan? 25. In view of this what have men strangely claimed? 26. What is the first text supposed to apply to Canaan? 27. What testimony does David utter, which should be taken in connection with this? 28. From what is the first of these texts taken? 29. When was the second text written? 30. How does the psalmist, then, record what Moses utters as a prediction? 31. Of what does the psalm thus become an inspired commentary? 32. Taking the first text without the other, what idea might be gathered? 33. But if the second text be taken in connection with the first, what does it do? 35. What distinction does Jehoshaphat point out between the land of Canaan and the sanctuary in 2 Chron. xx, 7-9? p. 47, top. 36. What is another text by which some persons attempt to prove that Canaan is the sanctuary? 37. This is only an inference; and what facts make the matter all plain? 38. What may occur to some minds as a fourth text to prove that Canaan is the sanctuary? 39. Is it fully admitted that Canaan was the place of God's sanctuary? 40. What fact should be noticed by those who say that the place of the sanctuary is the sanctuary itself? 41. What would this prove? 42. What is the sum of the argument, thus far, respecting the earth, the church, and the land of Canaan? 43. What does the sanctuary as brought to view in the Bible include? 44. What did the tabernacle erected by Moses include? 45. Where do we find our first instructions respecting the sanctuary? 46. What do we learn in chap. xxiv? 47. With what does the next chapter commence? 48. For what express purpose do we here learn that the sanctuary was erected? 50. According to what was Moses enjoined to make the sanctuary and all its vessels? 51. What was the plan of the sanctuary? 52. How many coverings had it? 53. What formed the door at the east end of the tabernacle? 54. What divided the tabernacle into the holy and the most holy place? 55. What was the ark and what were its dimensions? 56. For what purpose was it made? 57. What was the mercy seat? 58. What had it on either end? 59. What was the size of the altar of incense, and for what purpose was it used? 60. For what was the golden censer used? 61. Of what was the candlestick made, and what was its use? 62. Give the size of the table of shew-bread, and its use? 63. Give the dimensions of the altar of burnt-offering, and the use that was made of it? 65. What was the size of the court that surrounded the tabernacle? 66. How much was a cubit?