1. In view of the wonderful grace and gifts of God, what does the apostle testify?
“This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye no longer walk as the Gentiles also walk, in the vanity of their mind.” Verse 17. Note 1.
2. What brings the vanity of the mind?
“Being darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardening of their heart.” Verse 18. Note 2.
3. To what does this condition logically lead?
“Who being past feeling gave themselves up to lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.” Verse 19. Note 3.
4. Was this the religion which was taught the believers whom Paul is addressing?
“But ye did not so learn Christ.” Verse 20. Note 4.
5. How were they taught in Him?
“If so be that ye heard Him, and were taught in Him, even as truth is in Jesus.” Verse 21. Note 5.
6. And what did that teach as to conduct?
“That ye put away, as concerning your former manner of life, the old man, that waxeth corrupt after the lusts of deceit.” Verse 22. Note 6.
7. What were they to put in the place of the old life?
“And that ye be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, that after God hath been created in righteousness and holiness of truth.” Verses 23, 24. Note 7.
Notes and Comment
1. “No longer walk.”—It can not be emphasized too strongly, nor said too frequently, emphasized by the constant repetition, that the old life must not be continued. Conversion in Christ Jesus means a new man. Those who were gathered out from the Gentiles must leave all the vanity and emptiness of the mind with the past, and no longer walk that way.
2. “Darkened . . . alienated.”—Two reasons are given for the darkness and the alienation. Let us go to the basic one, the hardening of their heart. The hardening of the heart, we learn in Heb. 3:13, comes by departing from the living God, turning away from His instruction, losing grip upon the great verities of His gospel. The man that turns from duty benumbs his conscience, hardens his heart, and because of that hardening of the heart he increases the ignorance within him. He knows less and less of God. He is turning from the light of truth to the darkness of error, and so turning, and suffering the sin and the darkness and the alienation to come in between himself and God, he alienates himself from the life of God. He has only the animal life of the flesh, and that of a perverted flesh, and the perverted flesh leads on to the other sins of the heathen world.
3. “Past feeling.”—That is, the conscience is past feeling. When it continues to yield to sin, it yields until at last it can no longer be impressed by truth or holiness. The apostle here is leading us on to the ultimate, showing us just what sin will do to those who yield themselves to it. He gives us an awful picture of the heathen world, of some of the nations which God thought necessary to sweep away, who gave themselves up to all lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness. There was no hope for them, no response in their heart to the holiness and salvation which is in Christ Jesus.
4. “Ye did not so learn Christ.”—Let the thought come to the tempted child of God again and again. “Ye did not so learn Christ.” He did not teach us vanity. He did not lead us into darkness. He does not alienate us from the life of God. He does not lead to ignorance of mind nor hardening of heart. Keep forever with us the thought of the life which Christ would teach us.
5. “If so be that ye have heard Him.”—How gently He instructs them! Of course they heard Him. He calls it to mind in the most tender way. They had heard Paul, they had read the wonderful things that he had sent to them. They had heard him, and were taught in him, the truth as it is in Jesus.
6. “Put away.”—All these things of the Gentiles must be put away,—the corrupt conversation,—better as in the Revised Version, the “former manner of life.” The old man of sin, that which binds and chains and corrupts and destroys, must all be put away. If not, more and more the soul will grow corrupt after the lusts of deceit, for every lust of sin is in its very nature deceptive. It blinds and hardens and stupefies the soul the more it is indulged, and leads less and less to reformation of life.
7. “Be renewed . . . put on.”—God does not ask us to go naked; He does not leave us without comfort. He takes away nothing but what He would put something infinitely superior in its place. Therefore in the place of the vanity and darkness and ignorance of mind He renews the spirit of the mind; He puts within it a divine life and power; He makes of the old corrupt man a new man, and places within him the heart new-created in God,—not in lasciviousness or uncleanness, but in righteousness and holiness of truth. Who would not change the one for the other?
Shakespeare or Bacon.
A little booklet from Gay & Hancock, Ltd., by Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence, takes strong, clear ground, and illustrates it by various cuts, that the true author of all the Shakespearean plays and poems was not the ignorant William Shakespeare, who could not even write his own name, but was Francis Bacon. More and more the scholarship that has investigated the matter is coming to the same conclusion.
Prodigal Expenditures
By T
Photo by Paul Thompson
CONFERENCE OF NEW ENGLAND GOVERNORS
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.
In one of the big divorce cases that a millionaire of the country has on his hands, the gentleman demanded through the court to know how the wife with whom he was in litigation was spending the $100,000 a year alimony that he was paying her. She filed the following items:
Three trips to Europe . . . $23,000
Apartments at the St. Regis at $25 a day . . . 12,000
Motors and chauffeurs . . . 10,000
Clothing . . . 20,000
Entertainment and restaurant bills . . . 10,000
Physicians and masseurs . . . 2,300
Woman companion . . . 8,000
Dentist . . . 1,200
Miscellaneous, insurance on jewelry . . . 4,500
There is nothing particularly remarkable in regard to these items, for the reason that we have such cases of extravagance before us all the time. The prodigal expenditures of the very wealthy are given in instance after instance through the columns of the press. Almost every day gives some news of this character. And because these things are so common, they would be considered hardly worthy of remark were it not for the keen desire of the newspaper men to have the very latest “news and gossip” from “society.”
But while it may be considered that these cases are not worthy of very much notice, yet are they exceedingly significant. The prodigality of the very wealthy is one of the leading characteristics of this time. A few families have acquired a monopoly of the sources of wealth, and they are educating themselves to forms of luxury that are ominous. Habits of extravagance are hard to break, and they degenerate and degrade to the very limit, for the reason that drunkenness and every vice that appeals to the fleshly nature are fondly hugged to the bosom of the debauchee who needs never a care for the amounts he spends.
When Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome, Phenicia, Carthage, lost their power, and finally were overthrown, it was almost wholly due to the fact that the wealth of those nations was centered in the hands of a few powerful families, and these families gave themselves up to the vices of luxury, and so were easily broken to pieces. Not merely this country, but the leading nations of this world, are all traveling in the same course that caused the downfall of the great nations of ancient and medieval times. When those nations fell, they had become an easy prey to the “barbarian” forces that came upon them from other parts of the world. They had become all broken up and weakened by their internal dissensions and revolutions.
In all the time of the past, there have been outlying districts of the world where sturdy peoples were battling with the forces of nature for a livelihood, and amid their sturdy surroundings they developed a strong manhood. And while the luxurious nation was deriding them as “barbarian,” they were nevertheless more upright than their haughty despisers. Through this succession of nations, civilizations have been preserved, and justice has been to quite a degree maintained. But where is the strong nation growing up at this time that is to overthrow the debaucheries of luxury, and the injustice, and to put down the revolution that is smoldering like an angry volcano in each and every country of this entire globe? We look the earth over, and we do not see the place from which it can come, for all the world is alike afflicted with the disease of degeneration and decay. But such a nation is to come, and there can be no question about it. It was announced some two thousand and five hundred years ago in these assuring and unequivocal words:
“And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever. Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter: and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure.” Dan. 2:44, 45.
Those who are familiar with the second chapter of Daniel’s prophecy, from which the foregoing text is taken, are well aware of the fact that he announced that there would be three other universal monarchies to follow the monarchy of Babylon. The last of these monarchies was to be broken into numerous parts, and the fragments thus produced are “these kings” that are to be standing when “the God of heaven” shall set up His kingdom that “shall stand forever.”
But this kingdom of God, as other scriptures abundantly show, is set up at the second coming of Christ, at which time the wicked shall be consumed “with the spirit of His mouth” and destroyed “with the brightness of His coming.” See 2 Thess. 2:8.11
Within the limits of a single article, it would be impossible to present the prophetic evidence that Christ is about to come and that His kingdom is soon to supplant all the tottering and vice-laden kingdoms of this earth. But those who are acquainted with our splendid literature upon the subject, or who have studied the matter from the Bible, know that testimony is both abundant and conclusive. But perhaps it would not be amiss in this connection to give one of the New Testament warnings to the wealthy in this time. Because of its presentation of the subject in such modern forms of expression, we will quote from the “Twentieth Century” version:
“Listen to me, you rich men, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming upon you! Your riches have wasted away, and your clothes have become moth-eaten. Your gold and silver are rusted; and the rust on them shall be evidence against you, and shall eat into your very flesh. You have heaped up wealth in these last days—you will find that you have heaped up a fire! I tell you, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you have been fraudulently keeping back, are crying to heaven, and the protests of your reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Hosts! You have lived on earth a life of extravagance and luxury; you have indulged your fancies in a time of bloodshed. You have condemned, you have murdered, the righteous one! Must he not be against you? Be patient, then, brothers, till the coming of the Lord. Even a farmer has to wait for the crop so precious to him, watching over it patiently, till it has had the spring and summer rains. And you must be patient also, and not be discouraged; for the Lord’s coming is near. Do not make complaints against one another, brothers, or judgment will be passed upon you. The judge is already standing at the door!” James 5:1-9.
James is describing times that immediately precede the coming of the Lord, for he exhorts to patience under the distressing circumstances, for the Lord’s coming is near. In this time he tells of the wealth that has been “heaped up,” and of the cries of the laborers that are not getting their reward. He says to the wealthy, “Weep and wail for the miseries that are coming upon you.” These wealthy ones in these last days “have lived on earth a life of extravagance and luxury.” They have “indulged” their “fancies” in a time of bloodshed. And because of these things, they bring on a revolution and suffering that will cause their weeping and howling.
This condition among the wealthy is not the lone and single sign that we are in the end of time; it is merely one of the chorus of voices that are proclaiming from the prophetic word that the race of this earth is nearly run, and that the everlasting kingdom of God will soon break in pieces every earthly dominion.
But if we did not have the light of prophecy, men ought to be able to see from the philosophy of history itself that the nations of this time can not stand much longer. The leading nations are one and all exhibiting the elements of luxury and the rumblings of revolution and violent strife that were the invariable harbingers of the downfall of the nations that have gone before. The one bright and glorious star of hope in this time is the unsilenceable voice of prophecy, which, in the harmonies of a mighty chorus, proclaims that the end of all things is at hand and the coming of Christ is even at the door.
Are you ready for the great day? Are you intelligently aware of what it means? If you are, your heart is bounding with joys that are immeasurable and indescribable. You are planning to join soon the happy throng of the good of all ages and climes, and under the exhilarating buoyancy of immortality, to enter upon the pleasures and occupations of eternity. T.
California’s Japanese Land Question
By Editor
California has a large and constantly growing Japanese and Chinese population, and many of the people of this state think that these “Orientals” are a menace to the best interests of the place, and hence they are seeking to get a law passed by the present legislature that will forbid them from becoming landholders. The despatches say that because of this proposed legislation there is great excitement in Japan, mass-meetings are held, and the popular cry is raised to declare war on this nation and seize our island possessions at once. Missionaries who are laboring in Japan are finding that this unfortunate circumstance is making it very embarrassing for them in their work, and they are making earnest appeals to this country, asking that all such drastic legislation be avoided. The situation is grave enough to demand the attention of the president and the leading diplomats of both this nation and Japan, and it is to be hoped that the good sense of both nations will lead to some course that both can agree upon without any resort to arms. We make very boastful claims of being a “Christian nation.” If there is anything to our claim this should lead us to ask ourselves very carefully. What is our duty with respect to the nations that are not embraced in the fold of “Christian nations”? Or is our claim mere talk when dollars and cents are in the balance?
The Balkan Crisis and Armageddon
The interest in the Balkan troubles has been centered for some time in what Montenegro would do about abandoning the siege of Scutari. The powers made demands that she desist from her designs on that place, and sent war-ships to enforce these demands. But Montenegro went right on, and at last the place has fallen into her hands. Now it develops that there is not an agreement among the powers in regard to what shall be done. There are great transports of joy in all the Balkan capitals over the success of the arms of Montenegro, but there is much perplexity in all the capitals of the powers. Russia thinks that Montenegro must not be driven out of what she has taken by conquest, and it is thought that England and France will stand with her; while on the other hand, Austria-Hungary has already made definite proposals to the powers to compel Montenegro to surrender Scutari. The tangle is perplexing, and is a menace to the peace of Europe, and is a part of the evidence which conclusively shows how the world is balancing along the brink of that vortex which the Bible proclaims as the war of Armageddon.
Clinedinst Photo, Washington, D. C.
Ready.— Referring to struggles between Roman Catholics and Protestants in the past, the Western Watchman of April 10 says: “For four hundred years Protestants have been moaning and nursing hurts they received from Catholics in the religious wars of the past. Their histories are a wall; their polemics a lamentation. Catholics have forgotten all about the conflict long ago, and with beaming faces they await the next call to arms.” Exactly; and will meet it with the same spirit that was manifested in the past. All that true Protestants have done, or ought to do, is to show the spirit and principles that made possible all the wars of the past. A rejection of those principles and an adoption of the true principles would never permit such wars or struggles in the future. And the adoption of those principles will result in religious persecution now as they did in the Dark Ages.
Episcopal Church Considers a Name Change
By Editor
Next October the general convention of the Episcopal Church will meet in triennial convention in New York City, and one of the questions which they will decide there is as to whether they will change their name from the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States to the Holy Catholic Church of America. The question will be before them, and they will have to decide it. One Episcopal clergyman declares that this movement is almost wholly of foreign agitation, and really has been forced upon the church by men who have recently come from England and who have not yet imbibed true American principles. We are glad of the agitation which is involved, and we hope that some will see more clearly just what true Protestantism means.
Going to Rome.
The Anglican Augustinians of Caldey, England, have gone in a body to the Roman Catholic Church. It is said that their reason for going was that they wanted to be “under more authority, and to enjoy more submission,”—not a natural thing for the human heart, but they could not find that in the Protestant church, and so they left it for the Church of Rome. There are some in the Roman Catholic Church that want freedom, and they leave the Roman Catholic Church because of that. If there were more real anxiety to submit to God and be directly connected with Him, we should have a different state of things in Christendom.
Bryan’s Unfermented Wine Banquet
On April 22 Secretary of State Bryan gave a banquet to some forty members of the diplomatic corps, at which he served his guests with unfermented wines. It takes a little courage to do things of this sort, but it is just the thing to be done, and it is to be hoped that his example in this respect will be widely copied. Those who have the courage to place the ban upon intoxicating wines and other strong drink, can well afford to enjoy the slighting remarks that some people will make about them for doing it.
Poodles and Babies in Boston
Mrs. Charlotte Smith, a social worker of Boston, is authority for the statement that the idol of many homes in that city is a poodle dog, and they range in price from $100 to $1,000. She says that babies are being sold in the same city for from $2 to $10 each, depending on whether they are blondes or brunettes. If Boston were the only place where the “poodle dog” has taken the affections away from the baby, it would not be so bad.
War and Gold.
The German government, it is said, is determined to store $90,000,000 in gold in the Julius Tower of the Spandau Fortress. This would mean the withdrawal from circulation of about one seventieth of the world's supply of circulating gold, of that which is used as a monetary basis. It certainly will not be beneficial to trade and commerce.
Wireless Operators Resist Strike Order
A strike was ordered among the wireless operators of the Pacific Coast on April 22, but up to this writing they have refused to obey the order.
Pushing on the Lines
By Annie Laurie
(By Annie Laurie in San Francisco Examiner)
JUST a year ago it was that I saw her last until yesterday. A little, thin, nervous, worried-looking woman, with eyes too bright, mouth too set, firm little hands too tightly clasped, going up-hill in an old-fashioned wagon, pushing on the lines.
There was a good driver in the front seat, and a good steady horse in the shafts, a good smooth road under the wheels, a fine green landscape all around to see, but my friend didn't see it; she was too busy pushing on the lines.
Up, up, up the long hill climbed the straining wheels. “Gid-dap,” said the driver as he spit contentedly into the splendid gulf of green below the bluff; “gid-dap.” And the patient, steady old horse “gid-dapped” quietly, calmly, steadily, to the top of the long hill.
At the top my friend leaned back on the cushions. “There,” she said, and sighed in great relief. The driver turned in his seat and spoke with all the freedom of the Western spirit.
“Tired, ain't you?” he said.
“Tired?” echoed my friend. “Why, yes, I guess I am.”
“Well, now,” said the driver, soothingly, “you hadn't ought to be. The old horse, he did all the pulling. I wouldn't push so hard on the lines when we come to the next hill.”
The woman's face relaxed, her bright eyes softened a little. “That's so,” she said; “I believe that's good advice.” And she waved us a good-humored good-by as she and the driver and the old horse and the old-fashioned mountain wagon started down the hill.
Yesterday I met my friend for the first time since then. Her back was toward me, and I didn't know her till she turned.
Such a young back it was, and so was her face, young and rested and pleasant and full of a kind of calm joy that had been missing when last I saw her.
“What in the world has happened to you?” said I. “You look like a girl again.”
My friend smiled. “I am,” she said; “and yet it is all so simple.
“I learned it from the driver on the mountain road. I've stopped pushing on the lines, that's all, and you can't think how much easier the road is to climb.”
Stopped pushing on the lines; that was it.
My friend has a good husband—kind, devoted, successful in a quiet sort of way; not so clever as my friend, not so ambitious, not so full of energy, but the man of the family, without a doubt. I have often wondered if her constant pushing and prodding and reminding and spurring didn't get on his nerves. My friend told me about it.
“You know Joe as well as I do,” she said. “Poor fellow, he's had a time of it with me. I was always pushing on the lines, and thinking I was helping, and all the time it didn't do a thing but make me tired before we got to the top of the hill.
“Joe never hurries; he never goes into things with his heart and soul; he just does the best he can and lets it go at that.
“It used to fairly kill me to get him off to the office. I wanted him to hurry. I wanted him to get to work. I wanted him to do things, and hustle. And he never would; he couldn't. He had just so much strength, just so much energy, and just such a hill to climb, and all the pushing I did didn't make a particle of difference to him or to me or to the load.
“I worried, and fretted, and nagged, and was irritated, ‘pushing on the lines’ all the way, and we didn't get to the top a bit quicker for all my pushing.
“Suddenly, last year, when the driver told me that about the lines, it all was clear to me, and I've never done it since—not once.
“When I feel like hurrying Joe, when I wish he'd do something quicker than he does, or put more life into the doing of it, I just lean back, and untie my face, and say to myself, ‘Don't push on the lines,’ and it's all right.
“I'm ten years younger, and so is Joe. I take time to enjoy things. I don't worry over what I can't help, and in the long run I guess we get over the road about as well as we did before, if not a good deal better.”
Don't push on the lines. I wish every woman who nags would learn that lesson. She needs it, and so does her husband.
Don't Talk About Your Troubles
SITTING by my window the other day, I saw a little fellow who was running on the sidewalk, stub his toe and fall with a great thump. It must have hurt him severely, and I expected to hear a tremendous outcry. Instead of that he got upon his feet as soon as possible, rubbed his head, looking around to see if there was anybody to pity him, and not discovering any one, trotted on without a whimper. “There,” said I to myself, “that is about the way we grown folks act. Our troubles are never half so serious when there is no one to whom we can explain how dreadfully we are hurt.”
Whereupon I fell into a brown study upon the folly of giving voice to every little discomfort. The habit certainly develops our selfishness. The common human infirmity is for each to make himself the center of the universe, and to look upon every event as of more or less consequence in exact proportion as it affects his interests. He glances over the newspaper account of the flood that swept a village away and drowned twenty-five people, giving it scarcely a thought; but he speaks again and again of a freshet that carried off a rod or so of his fence and did sundry other small damage. He talks it over on every occasion, with all its tiresome details, because, forsooth, it touched his sacred possessions. He can dispose, with some old threadbare proverb, of a calamity under which another may be writhing, and he fancies that he has settled the matter handsomely; but let some disagreeable thing be said of him, you’ll not hear the last of it for some while. And the worst of it is, like the story of the three black crows, the grievance grows with every repetition, till you take him as the most cruelly injured individual upon the planet.
Since this is an infirmity of the race to which we belong, it is only common prudence for us to guard against it. If it makes us selfish to demand sympathy in every little trouble, let us see to it that we avoid speaking of our trials.
By talking about discomforts, we give them proportionately more attention, and by so much we increase their power to annoy us. If we have something to take our thought, a hot, dusty day on the railroad train will pass by without seriously incommoding us; but let us give our time to fanning and fretting, constantly commenting upon the heat and dust, and the frequency of stops, and we will get all the discomfort possible out of the trip.
If one gets up in the morning with a pain in his head, and begins to tell everybody who asks after his health how much he is afraid that he is about to have one of his dreadful nervous headaches, and what untold agony he suffers with them, and how he has worn out this and that remedy, etc., if it is at all possible, he will probably bring about the result he fears.
Not infrequently a little bright, thankful talk, casting the care most fully upon, and getting an added touch of faith and a shining in the joy of, the Lord, will help one over the bad places so easily that his morning headache will be forgotten long before night.—Christian Witness.
Killing for Fun
No small boy should be allowed to go around with an air-gun, shooting at every small bird he gets sight of. If any sparrows have to be killed, it should not be left to the boys.
When the boy grows older, he should not be turned loose with a 22-rifle, with which he will shoot at everything that flies, walks, or creeps, and endanger his own life and that of other people.
A far better way is to buy the boy a camera instead of a gun, and teach him to use his eyes and keep a note-book.
To get a good picture of a moose, a deer, or an eagle, is generally much more difficult, takes more endurance, more patience and determination, than killing with a gun.
I have hunted with a camera for a week at a time, climbing tall, limbless trees, carrying a heavy pack over bad trails, crouching in a canoe all day long, wading beaver ponds, and getting up at all hours of the night, and have come home with possibly a dozen first-class pictures.
Had I hunted with a gun in the same district it would have been easy to kill a cartload of game.—The Animals’ Friend.
The Perishing Without Christ
“At every breath we draw, four souls perish, never having heard of Christ.”
