Review and Herald, Vol. 77, No. 14. (4/3/1900)

Review and Herald

Apr 3, 1900

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Michigan · Apr 3, 1900

The Faith of Our Fathers.

By Francis S. Borton

THERE was a time, I've heard the fathers tell, Ere pagan hades took the place of hell, When great Jehovah sat upon the throne, And “Yahweh” was a thing as yet unknown:

When “higher critics” had not nicked the sword Of the thrice-piercing, sundering, flashing Word; When sin was black as midnight, hell no dream, And Jesus Christ the preacher's fruitful theme:

When purple robes could not excuse the guilt Of him for whom the blood of Christ was split; When death and Judgment did not cause a smile, Nor Christians show the world the “latest style.”

Plain churches held the plain-clad people then, Where God's whole message was proclaimed by men Anointed, filled with that strange power of speech That all the modern schools can never teach.

Then power divine, resistless, fell from heaven; Then citadels of sin were shattered, riven; From heart to heart the electric current went, As preachers, prophet-like, bade men repent.

Through all the reverent throng God's power swept, Till pardoned sinners knew their Lord and wept; Then shouts of victory rose. 'Twas heavenly sweet, As scores knelt lovingly at Jesus' feet, Until the place grew luminous, as the Lord Stood in their midst and feasted at their board!

Our fathers tell us stories such as these, Of times when men found pardon on their knees; When Methodists had little worldly gear, But much of Christian zeal and godly fear;

Their battle cry in bygone days a hymn, When God still dwelt between the cherubim; His own “evangelist” each preacher, then, With faith in God, and not in far-fetched men.

We are our fathers' children, but to-day From such “old paths” we've strayed so far away; We trust in numbers and an empty ark; Our church has now become a shining mark, All over gilded with our own cheap dross, Our seeming gain, for us, eternal loss.

What though our altars shine with burnished gold, No flame is there, but ashes dead and cold; Though rich the sacrifice, as times require, No well-pleased God responds in Carmel fire.

We gild the fringes of the word of God, But leave the paths of old our fathers trod; We number Israel oft in proud array, Heedless of what befell in David's day.

And for the law, 'mid flame and thunder given, When cloud-wrapped Sinai trembled, anguish-riven, We have a critic credence nowadays, And find with German doubters newer ways.

Church of our fathers, heritage of years Of toil and triumph, shining with the tears Of saints triumphant, who in that old time, Conquering, unconquerable, with faith sublime,

Jeweled with victories thy queenly brow, God ever calls and loves thee, calls thee now: “Come back, my daughter, never more to roam Far from thy Father's love and far from home;

“Back to the vows that knit thee to my side; Back from thy wandering through the cold world wide, With loving pity, pitying love, I call— Come home, and find in me thine all in all.”

—Francis S. Borton, D. D., in the Christian Advocate.

“HE THAT LOVETH NOT HIS BROTHER ABIDETH IN DEATH.”

By Ellen G. White

MRS. E. G. WHITE.

The completeness of Christian character is attained when the impulse to help and bless others springs constantly from within; when the sunshine of heaven fills the heart, and is expressed in the countenance. There is no such thing as a loveless Christian. It is not possible for the heart in which Christ abides to be destitute of love. The heart that is cold and stern is not catching the bright, softening beams of the Sun of Righteousness.

Hear the testimony of the apostle John: “These things write we unto you, that your joy may be full. This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, That God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: but if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.”

“In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother. For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous. . . . We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him. Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?”

Take the question to your own hearts, and answer it as if before the Judge of all the earth. A reformation must take place in every family, in every institution, in every church. “Let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.” “Let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. . . . Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. . . . If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.” “If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.”

These sacred lessons, if received into the heart, will bring about the reformation essential. Many will lose heaven unless they change their selfish, unlovable, unsympathetic ways, and learn that the Spirit of Christ is not selfish and forbidding, uncourteous and loveless. Unless those who stand in responsible positions in our institutions make decided changes in heart and character, they will be condemned as lukewarm, knowing not that they are “wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.” Unless we practice Christ’s ways, and receive his Spirit, we are none of his. He desires us to reveal his love in word and action. All that we do should flow from a deep, abiding principle of love,—a principle that is after the similitude of Christ, who is love and light and peace. But how little, how very little, of Christ’s character is revealed! The spirit of self-denial is becoming a rare thing.

Yet there is love in our churches. There are those who love God supremely and their neighbors as themselves. Their prayers and their alms come up before God as a memorial. The Lord does not lose sight of them. He is watching those who are walking in the light as fast as they receive it. They are the objects of his special care.

The law of Christ’s kingdom is in every respect to be carried out in this world. The inspired apostle declares, “Ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God.” “For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.”

God desires to bind his family of workers together by common sympathy, pure affection. It is the atmosphere of Christlike love surrounding the soul of the believer that makes him a savor of life unto life, and enables God

to bless his work. False philosophy alone is proud, exclusive, favoring only a few. In those who have this spirit the lowly awaken little sympathy. They possess no power nor disposition to uplift the degraded. But Christ binds men to himself, to God, and to one another. True, sanctified philosophy makes all human elements one in Christ. It builds no walls of separation between man and his fellow men. Pure and undefiled religion makes the children of God one family, united with Christ in God. Connected as branches of the parent vine, they bear fruit to God’s glory.

THE ROSETTA STONE.

By John Norton Loughborough

J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH.

When I was visiting the British Museum a short time ago, having just passed through the Assyrian department, in which are many stones, tablets, and plates bearing inscriptions in hieroglyphics, demotic, and cuneiform characters, — the work executed by the hands of men centuries before the first advent of Christ, — I came to the famous Rosetta Stone, and read with greater interest than ever before the explanation placed beside it.

It is there stated that this record upon the stone was inscribed one hundred and ninety-eight years before the birth of Christ, and that the inscription is in three forms of writing. The first is in hieroglyphic, the form used by the priests; the second in demotic, that used by the common people; the third in Greek. This Rosetta Stone was thus the grand key that unlocked the mysterious characters on the ancient monumental pillars and tablets. On reading the Greek, it was ascertained that the same thing was said in the other two forms of writing. By the aid of this key, those hitherto silent inscriptions of these ancient writings were unsealed.

This Rosetta Stone was discovered by the French at Fort St. Julien, on the Rosetta branch of the Nile, in the year 1798, and was placed in the British Museum in the year 1802.

While looking at the stone and the descriptive tablet, I was deeply impressed with the date of the discovery of this grand key to the writings on those ancient monuments and tablets. It was discovered just at the time when special knowledge on the Lord’s word was to be brought before the world. The Lord said to Daniel, “The words are closed up and sealed till, the time of the end.” Dan. 12:9. And again, “But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.” Verse 4.

The time of the end is marked, in Dan. 11:35, as the close of the “appointed time” of the warfare of the “horn” against the people of God. That horn was the persecuting power that lost its civil dominion in the overthrow of Pius VI, in 1798. That date, 1798, begins the period called in prophecy “the time of the end.” With this increase of knowledge in the Word came also the Lord’s time for his “two witnesses” — the Old and New Testaments — to finish their testimony in sackcloth, or obscurity, and come into a position of prominence before the world, compared to an ascension to heaven in a cloud, while their enemies beheld them. Rev. 11:7–12.

The British and Foreign Bible Society, organized in 1804, may be mentioned as one of the agents that brought the Bible more prominently before the people. The organization of this society was soon followed by the formation of numerous other Bible societies, which have placed millions of copies of the Sacred Scriptures in the hands of the people of all the leading languages of the world, and in nearly every dialect of those various tongues.

While the Word has thus been brought into prominence before the world, the enemy of all righteousness has made fierce attacks upon it, seeking to weaken the force of its teachings, and to contradict some of its historical statements. While this has been going on upon the one hand, upon the other hand the pick and shovel of man have been exhuming, from the ruins of ancient cities and temples, the tablets and stones bearing witness in their hieroglyphic, demotic, and cuneiform inscriptions to the very facts that the skeptics have denied. For instance, while men were doubting whether there ever was such a priest-ruler as Melchisedec, out came tablets exhumed along the banks of the Nile, about 1892, containing records made 1430 B. C.; and in these tablets are letters written by “Melchisedec, king of Salem.”

Again: more recently, while the skeptical were claiming that there never were such persons as Mordecai and Esther, and that the book of Esther in the Bible was merely a Jewish myth, there was exhumed, 1899, from the ruins of Susa, the ancient capital of Persia, the relics of a temple on whose walls is inscribed that it was erected “in memory of the good Queen Esther and her kinsman Mordecai, the grand vizier, both of whom lie buried at Ecbatana.” The records corroborate completely the statements presented in the book of Esther, in the Bible.

Then, again, while the great question of the Sabbath as God’s great memorial of creation, founded at the close of the first seven days of the world’s history, is being proclaimed to men, some ministers, in opposition, have claimed that the sanctifying of the day did not take place until the law was spoken from Mt. Sinai, and that the fourth commandment is not speaking of what took place at creation, but at Sinai. Out of the earth come tablets that demolish such a theory. In the fifth tablet from the library of Assur-bani-pal, prepared about 700 B. C., and exhumed about 1876, is distinct mention made of the Sabbath as instituted at the close of creation week, and as observed by the “Accadians,” — the descendants of “Accad.” See Gen. 10:10.

In view of the fact that these ancient tablets, with their otherwise mysterious hieroglyphics, etc., are bearing witness against the infidelic thrusts made at the divine records, which characters would have remained a mystery except for the aid of this key on the Rosetta Stone, you can see what led me, while standing before this stone, to rejoice and praise God for his fatherly care over his word, which he has exalted and magnified above all his name. And I still say, Praise the Lord! He preserveth his truth to all generations.

BLENDED PERSONALITIES.

The King's Messenger.

To RECEIVE the message of the Spirit is to receive the message of the Father and the Son. There is something charmingly beautiful about their union. With exquisite delicacy of utterance does Jesus declare the divine authority of his message, “The word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me;” and again, “The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself.” He is ever in union with the Father, and came, really, that men might see the Father, and know his love.

So the Holy Spirit cherishes the same delicacy of spirit and expression. He is the administrator, revealer, and guide of this age. And as such he must make himself known and understood; but withal he does not speak from himself alone. He does not manifest himself as apart from the Father and the Son; but as one with and sent by the Father and the Son.

He is here that he may make us know the things of Christ, and any nominal honor given to the Spirit that does not really make known the character and things of Christ is a great grief to his unassuming, dovelike nature. He would make us know his personality, but ever in living connection with Christ. He abides in our hearts down here, while Christ Jesus is our Advocate with the Father above; but he abides in us as Christ, making the very life that speaks and works in Christ to also speak and work in us. “Christ in you.”

Let us not grow overbold concerning the Spirit alone; but remember that he is ever with the Father and the Son, and that whatever he speaks to us he speaks as from them; for it is written, “Whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak.” Let him make you know, beloved, how surpassingly beautiful are the blended personalities of our triune God, manifested by the personal presence of the Holy Ghost.

To know him is to know the Father and the Son, and these can not be truly known and really honored until we receive and know the Spirit; for no man can call Jesus Lord but by the Holy Ghost. And, furthermore, he would so unfold Christ in us, who are born of the Spirit, causing his life to actually flow through us, that our lives are submerged and blended in the same oneness with the Father and the Son.

Blessed be God forever, for the gift of the Holy Ghost, by whose work we who are the body of Christ are perfected in union with our living Head. For as we allow self to be displaced, and he comes in, his personality and ours are blended more and more. Our life is inseparable from his, our thoughts are the impartation of his mind, our love is the love of God, and our works and words are the fruit of his active life in us.

Let the blending process go on; be willing, yea, eager, to sink out of self into Christ.

Faith and Prayer Reveal Deep Things

“Faith and prayer are necessary in order that we may behold the deep things of God. Our minds are so bound about with narrow ideas, that we catch but limited views of the experience it is our privilege to have.”

IF I SHOULD DIE TO-NIGHT.

If I should die to-night, all things unlovable in me would also die, And only what is good would live to hallow blessed memory. Kind words, in extenuation of my every fault, and praise for honest effort, would declare That I was well approved—if I should die to-night.

If I should die to-night, e'en those who dire revenge have sought For real or fancied wrong would at the sight of my pale face relent; For who could quarrel with cold and lifeless clay? Would they freely all forgive—if I should die to-night?

If I should die to-night, true hearts would break, and burning tears would fall; The lips of those who love me well would utterance give To deep-souled thoughts, in accents low and sweet; The air would laden be with breath of flowers, and yet— I could not hear or see; nor would I know by them how greatly I was missed— If I should die to-night.

Ah, friends! how soon, how very soon, our loved ones pass Beyond the reach of human-handed ministries! Oh, then, by word and deed, make manifest to-day The promptings of a heart compassionate and kind! Keep not endearing names and meed of praise For death-closed ears and chiseled monument! Keep not the warmest kisses for the cold brow, And the rarest flowers for the coffined dead; But give them to the living, give them to-day, Lest those whom they would bless should die to-night. —Selected.

England's Surplus of Unmarried Women

It is estimated that in England there are over two hundred thousand more unmarried women than unmarried men.

THE GOSPEL AND CIVIL GOVERNMENT.

By R. S. Owen

R. S. OWEN.

(Hatley, Mass.)

(Concluded.)

CHRISTIAN MEMORIALS ARE FOR CHRISTIANS.

If the first day of the week be really the “Lord’s day,”—a memorial of the resurrection of Christ,—then, like all Christian institutions, it belongs to the church, and should never be enforced upon unbelievers. It would be as much out of gospel order for one who does not believe in Christ to celebrate his resurrection, as it would be for him to partake of the memorials of our Lord’s death. God does not wish unbelievers to observe his ordinances. They are designed to be an expression of faith, and “whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” Rom. 14: 23.

When ancient Israel forsook the Lord, and still kept up a formal observance of his ordinances, the Lord rebuked them, saying, “Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I can not away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting.” Why were these things an abomination unto the Lord? Had he not commanded their observance?—He had; and when properly observed, they were a blessing to the people, and an honor to God; but the trouble was that this people were “laden with iniquity,” their hands were “full of blood.” Isa. 1: 11–17. Their profession of religion was only a pretense.

To force an ungodly man to keep the Sabbath is to compel him to act the hypocrite. The same would be true of the Lord’s Supper. “He that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.” 1 Cor. 11: 29. The Lord calls sinners to repentance, and offers them salvation full and free; but he wishes no hypocritical pretensions.

ENFORCED IDLENESS IS A CURSE.

“We do not insist on a religious observance of the Lord’s day,” says one; “we only demand that men shall not work on our sabbath.” Here the advocates of the Sunday law fall into another serious error—that of encouraging idleness. There is no virtue in simply doing nothing. When the day is not observed from religious motives, it is far better that the time be spent in useful labor than in the manner in which it is often employed. Follow that young man from his usual vocation to his places of Sunday resort; witness the evil influences that surround him there; and no further argument will be needed to show that a mistake has been made in forcing him to leave his work. We here present a few statements from Sunday League Leaflets:—

Make Sunday a holiday instead of a holy day, and you infallibly injure public morality.

A holiday sabbath is commonly followed by a jaded Monday.

About one fourth of the liquor drank is consumed on Sunday—a day of general idleness and temptation.

Sabbath dissipation very commonly makes Monday an idle day.

In Germany a great majority of the female suicides occur on Sunday.

There is not a parish in Chicago where the Sunday saloon has not been the ruin of the most promising and brightest boys.

These statements illustrate the folly of enforcing Sabbath observance upon the ungodly. Some of these evils are charged to the Sunday saloons; but these saloons are open every day of the week, not simply on Sunday, and they are only one of the many sources of evil. The reason for the excess of crime and licentiousness on Sunday is not that the saloons are open; but because ungodly men are idle. Saloons should be closed not only on Sunday, but on all days of the week.

Satan ever “finds some mischief for idle hands to do.” The following forcible words on this subject are from Dr. Albert Barnes:—

Extensively in our large cities and their vicinities, this is a day of dissipation, of riot, of licentiousness, and of blasphemy. It is probable that more is done to unsettle the habits of virtue and soberness and industry, to propagate infidelity, to lay the foundation for future repentance of ignominy, to retard the progress of the temperance reformation, and to prepare candidates for the penitentiary and the gallows, on this day than on all the other days of the week. So it always is where institutions designed for good are abused: they become as powerful for evil as they were intended for good. The Sabbath is an institution of tremendous power for good or evil. If for good, as it was designed, and as it easily may be, it is laid at the foundation of all our peace, our intelligence, our morals, our religion. If for evil, it strikes at all these; nor is there any possible power in laws or in education that can, during the six days, counteract the evils of a Sabbath given to licentiousness and sin.—“Practical Sermons,” pages 288, 289.

WHAT IS TRUE SABBATH-KEEPING?

While useful industry is commended in the word of God, idleness is associated with vice, and is condemned as a sin. Prov. 31: 10–31; 6: 6–11; Heb. 6: 10–12; Eze. 16: 49. We may be sure that God never designed the Sabbath to be simply a day of idleness. If keeping the Sabbath consists in simply doing nothing, then Christ was a notorious Sabbath-breaker, for he did many wonderful works on the Sabbath; and when the Jews charged him with breaking the Sabbath, he replied: “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” John 5: 17. The ancient priests of God did more work in the temple service on the Sabbath than on other days. Gospel ministers usually do their most arduous labor on the day they regard as the Sabbath. Diligence in the Lord’s service is repeatedly enjoined in the word of God. We are to “diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord” (Ex. 15: 26); to “teach them [the words of the Lord] diligently” (Deut. 6: 7); to seek God diligently (Heb. 11: 6); and look “diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God.” Heb. 12: 15.

The Sabbath is the Lord’s day, and it should be devoted diligently to his service. The Lord commands us to refrain from our own work on his day, not because there would be virtue in our being idle upon that day; but because he has other work for us to do. “Is it such a fast that I have chosen,” saith the Lord, “a day for a man to afflict his soul? Is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord?” If this was all God required, the civil government could easily make Sabbath-keepers. It could compel the unbelievers to sit in sackcloth and ashes all day, or stand with bowed head and sober countenance; but it can not enforce true Sabbath-keeping. “He that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it.” Rom. 14: 6.

From our Saviour’s words in the synagogue at Nazareth on the Sabbath day, we may get the true idea of Sabbath-keeping. He says, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” Then, with the eyes of all that were in the synagogue fastened upon him, he added: “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.” Luke 4: 16–21. Follow the Saviour throughout his public ministry, and it will be seen that especially on the Sabbath was the Spirit of God upon him in doing just this kind of work.

Christ was the model Sabbath-keeper. And until the civil government can clothe men with the power of God to enable them to keep the Sabbath according to the example of the true Pattern, it should attend to its own legitimate work, and let God take care of his own day.

Let the ministers of Christ “preach the Word” faithfully. Let them weep over the erring, and pour out their prayers for the salvation of the lost, as did our Saviour. Let them labor as ardently and unselfishly for the truth as did the early Reformers, and as did many of the pioneers of their own churches. Then their power will be felt, for their influence will be strong through the sweet savor of Christ. Then, too, they will have neither the need nor the time, nor yet the desire, to lobby at the halls of legislation, nor to attend upon the office of the magistrate, to secure better observance of the Sabbath or of any other form of religious service. “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord.”

Communion with God

“If we would have spiritual life and energy, we must commune with God.”

POWER FOR WITNESSING.

By R. D. Quinn

R. D. QUINN.

(Butte, Mont.)

“Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, that I am God.” We are witnesses for God when we reveal in our lives the working of a power that is divine. Paul was a powerful witness for God. Why?—Because he had something powerful to tell, and he told it wherever he went. He determined not to know anything save Jesus Christ and him crucified, and he preached everywhere the mighty fact that God gave Christ as a ransom for sin, and that the whole world can be saved by trusting in him.

This kind of preaching, supported by the testimony of his own experience, was his most effectual way of drawing men to Christ. It was this testimony that confounded the Jews who dwelt in Damascus, and proved to them that Jesus was the very Christ. It was the testimony of his own experience and conversion and the power that attended it, that silenced the clamoring mob who cried, “Away with him,” when all Jerusalem was in an uproar. It was the same testimony when at last the aged apostle was summoned before the highest earthly tribunal, to witness for God.

It was not with excellency of speech, or enticing words of man's wisdom, but the same simple story of his own experience, and how Christ was seen of him while on his way to Damascus, and the remarkable transformation wrought in his life, witnessed to by the Spirit and by power, that caused Felix to tremble, and Agrippa to say, “Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.”

Thus we see that the secret of Paul's power was in his telling the people what he had seen and heard and felt in his own life of the power of Christ. This is the witness for which our Lord calls, and for lack of which the world is now perishing. “Our confession of his faithfulness is Heaven’s chosen agency for revealing Christ to the world. We are to acknowledge his grace made known through the holy men of old; but that which will be most effectual is the testimony of our own experience.” This being true, it follows that what we need most of all just now is a rich experience,—something that we ourselves are enjoying and experiencing daily of the saving and keeping power of God.

Words alone can not tell it. The mere iteration and reiteration of doctrine along with logic and theory will not reach the heart of the sinner. It must be a positive, living testimony that we now bear to the world. “The gospel is to be presented, not as a lifeless theory, but as a living force to change the life. God desires that the receivers of his grace shall be witnesses to its power. Those whose course has been most offensive to him he freely accepts when they repent. He imparts to them his divine Spirit, places them in the highest positions of trust, and sends them forth into the camp of the disloyal to proclaim his boundless mercy.”

“These precious acknowledgments to the praise of the glory of his grace when supported by a Christlike life, have an irresistible power that works for the salvation of souls.” He who would be a witness for Christ must have Christ abiding within. So let no one try to communicate to others that which he has not received, but rather, “that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the word of life, . . . that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you.” 1 John 1: 1–3.

THE TALMUD AND MODERN CRITICISM.

By W. S. Butterbaugh

W. S. BUTTERBAUGH.

(Denver, Colo.)

A BRIEF and concise answer to the question, What is the Talmud? may be given by saying that it is a compilation of the writings and decisions of the “higher critics” of the Jewish age of the church. It may also be said to be a newspaper of Judaistical interpretation and comment, edited during a period of no less than a thousand years, its editors and collaborators belonging to all classes of men. This being the case, there can be found in it almost everything, presenting, in some cases, the most striking contradictions. Politics, pedagogy, history, mathematics, jurisprudence, medicine, philosophy, astronomy, theology, astrology, demonology, magic, and a multitude of bonmots of uncertain mixture, are discussed, both pro and con. Starting with religion, the collaborators of the Talmud discussed almost everything in the daily affairs of life from the cradle to the grave.

Strictly speaking, it is not, as many suppose, the science or religion of Judaism, but rather the “higher criticism” of the Bible by Jewish rabbis and worldly wise critics of those days. Of a truth it could be said: “In vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” It was the library of the Jews when no other existed outside of a few cloisters and palaces; and to-day we stand with awe before that memorable monument, which was erected upon the grave of Israel’s national life. As such, this monument contains a repository of thought and an index of reference that help to unfold the spirit that animated Jewish customs.

The word “Thalmud,” or Talmud, signifies something that is to be committed to memory, in contradistinction to the law of Moses, which could be read. A prominent Jewish writer is authority for the statement that it was by dire necessity, on account of the increasing disasters during the dispersion, that special methods of preserving and expanding the law were established.

This method, he says, turned out disastrously for Judaism, on account of the sophistry and idle argumentation that necessarily had to be applied in order to impress the mind with the substituted interpretations of the law, as well as the perversion of the plain words of the Pentateuch, and to thus find in them what the original writers never intended. This formalism, these minutiae, this anxiety to explain and scrutinize every iota by all sorts of interpretations, became painful and ridiculous in the extreme, and what is worst of all, hostile to free research by the ordinary person.

It is a noticeable fact, as compared with present-day theological tendencies, that when a “Thus saith the Lord” is regarded objectionable to the prevailing custom of the majority, our “higher critics” find some means of declaring the same to be null and void. The same was true of the Talmudical critics.

In proof of the foregoing I herewith submit the following evidence: In the days of Samuel cows were sacrificed, which was against the law. Lev. 1: 3–10. However, the Talmud approves of it, considering the circumstances. See Abodah Sarah 24 c. “The rabbis have a right to abolish even the law of Moses.”—Jebamoth 90 c. “God never came down from heaven to earth. Moses and Elijah never ascended to heaven.”—Sukkah 5.

In the middle of the third century, Simon ben Lakish, the great Talmud teacher, decided that Job never actually existed, but was a deeply poetical creation, and, furthermore, that the names of the angels were borrowed from a foreign people (Babylonians and Persians) by the Jews during the exile.

Gaon Ladiah, who flourished in the ninth century, explained away many of the miracles; namely, the speaking of the serpent in paradise, and the speaking of Balaam’s ass, etc. His contemporary, Chivi of Balk, explains the crossing of the Red Sea by the Israelites, with “ebb and flood” (evidently meaning ebb and flow of the tide). The manna he says was a sort of “resin emitted by the sweating of certain trees.” The radiance of the face of Moses was the result of “too much fasting,” etc.; and he plainly denies supernatural revelation.

“Israel has no longer to expect a personal Messiah; for all prophecies concerning the Messiah have been fulfilled by the King Hezkiah.”—Sanhedrin 99. “In every country and land where Israel has not to suffer persecution, there is their Messiah.”—Berachot 34.

“Better desecrate one Sabbath in order to keep this day holy in future days.”—Joma 87.

More evidence might be introduced; but the foregoing is sufficient to show that there existed in the days of the Talmud a class of critics similar to those of the present day, whose criticism and interpretation was nothing other than infidelity in disguise. Thus it is apparent to every candid Bible student that while in many cases they professed outward compliance with the law, and strenuously laid upon others its obligation; yet whenever any point touched themselves, they did not hesitate to declare it void. Thus they bound heavy burdens, and grievous to be borne, and laid them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves would not touch them with one of their fingers.

Therefore, inasmuch as “this method turned out disastrously” “on account of the sophistry and idle argumentation” that characterized it, how much more shall it be true that the present-day interpretation by the higher critics will turn out DISASTROUSLY to all concerned in this, on account of its SOPHISTRY and IDLE ARGUMENTATION!

THE TIMES OF REFRESHING.

By Thoro Harris

THORO HARRIS.

(Washington, D. C.)

It is remarkable how the light of the Third Angel’s Message—the gospel for these last days—illumes every text of Scripture.

For instance, consider the words of Peter: “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord.” With this passage compare the testimony of a later prophet: “In the commencement of the time of trouble, we were filled with the Holy Ghost as we proclaimed the Sabbath more fully.”

The conclusion is unavoidable that the latter rain, the “refreshing from the presence of the Lord,” occurs in connection with the promulgation of the Sabbath truth. Nor could it be otherwise; for was it not upon that day in the beginning that God rested and was refreshed? Does not true Sabbath observance constitute the very essence of this refreshing?

As the former rain was the divine seal to the witnessing of the early disciples, while the Sabbath truth remained unobscured; and as it ceased with the development of the mystery of lawlessness; so with the restoration of God’s broken seal the latter rain will fall in great abundance. And to this intent are the words of Gabriel: “O the blessednesses”—plural number (this, in the original, is an exclamation)—“O the blessednesses of him who is waiting earnestly, and doth come” to the expiration of that prophetic period which marks the beginning of the cleansing of God’s temple both in heaven and on earth. Dan. 12: 12.

Concerning apostate Israel, the Lord, through Zephaniah, prefers the charge: “Her priests have polluted the sanctuary, they have done violence to the law.” Again, he declares that they “have violated my law, and have profaned mine holy things: they have put no difference between the holy and profane, . . . and have hid their eyes from my Sabbaths.” Thus the treading down of the sanctuary is coupled with the desecration of God’s Sabbath day. But when “the temple of God was opened,” in 1844, “there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament.”

According to Daniel’s prophecy, the times and law of Deity were to be given into the enemy’s hands until a specified date. And what should check his impious pretensions?—Ah! “the judgment shall sit.” Here we are afforded a pertinent answer to the oft-recurring inquiry, “Why not found out before?”

Moreover, as we understand more clearly the meaning of God’s rest day, as week by week we observe this season of “refreshing,” and unite in the dissemination of this glorious message of rest, the showers of heaven will fall in copious abundance. And they will continue to fall until all the mists of pagan error shall have melted away before the advancing sunlight of that angel who ascends from the east bearing the seal of God. Then will be fulfilled the prophecy of Ezekiel, “There shall be showers of blessing.”

The Spirit’s Steady, Daily Life

The Holy Spirit, if simply allowed, will bring us into a steady, daily, constant obedience to his loving will. He will lead us to live a simple, common-place, steady, and obedient life—nothing out of the regular order, nothing romantic, nothing exciting or hysterical, everything silent, sweet, sure—a satisfied and contented life. He will live his daily life in us. Little duties, hourly tasks, the regular round of life, is the life he will live if let.—King’s Messenger.

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