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Signs of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 16.

General Articles

Signs of the Times

Apr 22, 1886

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 22, 1886

General Articles.

By Mrs. E. G. White

The Law in the Patriarchal Age.

BY MRS. E. G. WHITE.
WHEN Adam and Eve were created, and placed in their Eden home, they had a knowledge of the law that was to govern them. Its precepts were imprinted on their hearts by Jehovah himself, and they were acquainted with its claims upon them. When they transgressed that law, fell from that state of happy innocence, and became sinners in the sight of God, the dark future of the fallen race was not relieved by a single ray of hope. Because of the transgression of the divine law, paradise was lost to man, the curse was pronounced upon the earth, and the reign of death commenced.
But Heaven pitied man, and the plan of salvation was devised. When the curse was pronounced upon the race, in connection with the curse there was given the promise of pardon through a Saviour who was to come. This promise was the star of hope that lighted up the gloom, that, like the pall of death, hung over the future of man, and of the world which was given him as his dominion. The gospel was first preached to Adam and Eve in Eden. They sincerely repented of their guilt, believed the promise of God, and were saved from utter ruin.
Those who lived before the flood were favored in receiving instruction from Adam, who had conversed with God and angels in Eden. He lived nearly a thousand years, and by his teachings, and his example of humble obedience, he exalted the law of God. He sought to turn his posterity from transgression to a life of obedience and faith in a promised Saviour; but he found from sad experience that it was easier to open the flood gates of sin and woe upon the world, than to resist and press back the tide of moral wretchedness that was pressing in upon mankind in consequence of his transgression.
Enoch also was a preacher of righteousness, and sought to turn men from their evil ways. For three hundred years he walked with God, giving to the world the example of a pure and spotless life, one which was in marked contrast with the lives of the men of that self-willed and perverse generation, who openly disregarded God's holy law, and boasted of their freedom from its restraints. But his testimony and his example were alike unheeded; because men loved sin better than holiness. Enoch served God with singleness of heart, and the Lord communicated to him his will, and through holy vision revealed to him the great events connected with Christ's second appearing. And then this favored servant of the Lord was borne to Heaven by angels without seeing death.
At length the wickedness of man became so great that God could no longer bear with it; and he made known to Noah that because of the continual transgressions of his law, he would destroy man, whom he had created, by a flood of water which he would bring upon the earth. Noah and his family were obedient to the divine law, and for their loyalty to the God of Heaven they were saved from the destruction that overwhelmed the ungodly world around them. Thus the Lord preserved to himself a people in whose hearts was his law.
Noah warned the people. He believed that the threatened punishment would come upon the world, and he made every effort to turn that sinful generation from transgression to obedience. But he was unsuccessful. Only his own family at last received his message.
The terrible judgments of God in the destruction of the antediluvians should be a sufficient warning to all who have since lived upon the earth, that God will surely punish those who disregard his law. But the human heart is prone to evil; and as people multiplied upon the earth after the flood, they soon became bold in their transgressions. Idolatry existed, and increased to a fearful extent, until finally the Lord left the hardened transgressors to follow their evil ways, while he chose Abraham, and made him the depositary of his law for future generations.
Abraham was called out from an idolatrous family, and was appointed of God to preserve his truth amid the prevailing and increasing corruptions of that idolatrous age. The Lord appeared to Abraham, and said: "I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect. And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly." "And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee."
The Lord communicated his will to Abraham, and gave him a distinct knowledge of the requirements of the moral law, and of the salvation that would be accomplished through himself. It was a high honor to which Abraham was called, that of being the father of the people who for centuries were the guardians and preservers of the truth of God for the world,—of that people through whom all the nations of the earth should be blessed in the advent of the promised Messiah. But He who called the patriarch judged him worthy. This is the testimony of God concerning his chosen servant, as it stands registered on the sacred page: "Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws." And again: "I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment."
It is God that speaks. He who understands the thoughts afar of, and places the right estimate upon men, says, "I know him." There will be on the part of Abraham no betraying of the truth for selfish purposes. He will keep the law, and deal justly and righteously; for he knows that he must answer to God for his conduct. And he will not only fear the Lord himself, but he will cultivate religion in his home. He will instruct his family in righteousness; the law of his God will be the rule in his household. Would that this testimony could be borne of all who in this day have the knowledge of the way of the Lord, and profess to walk in it.
God conferred upon his faithful servant special honor and blessings. Through vision, and through the angels that walked and talked with him as friend with friend, he was made acquainted with the purposes as well as with the will of God. When judgments were about to be visited upon Sodom, the fact was not hidden from Abraham. "The Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do; seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?" And at the request of Abraham, he would have spared that wicked city, had even ten righteous persons been found in it.
The blessings upon the patriarch Abraham are repeated to Isaac in these words: "And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these countries; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws."
God gave to Abraham and to his seed the rite of circumcision as a token that he had separated them from all other nations as his peculiar treasure. By this sign, they solemnly agreed to fulfill the terms of the covenant made with Abraham and repeated to Isaac and Jacob. But the descendants of Abraham departed from the worship of the true God, and transgressed his law. They mingled with the nations who had no knowledge or fear of God before their eyes, and gradually imitated their customs and manners, until God's anger was kindled against them, and he permitted them to have their own way and follow the devices of their own corrupt hearts.
God revealed to Abraham that his posterity would become bondmen to an idolatrous nation,But when they humbled themselves before God, and acknowledged his dealings, and cried unto him earnestly for deliverance from the oppressive yoke of the Egyptians, their cries and their promises to be obedient reached Heaven. Their prayers were answered in a most wonderful manner, and Israel was brought forth from Egypt, and the covenant made with their fathers was renewed to them.
Thus was the knowledge of the law of God preserved through successive generations from Adam to Noah, from Noah to Abraham, and from Abraham to Moses.

"I SHALL BE SATISFIED."

Not here, not here ! not where the sparkling waters Fade into mocking sands, as we draw near; Where in the wilderness each footstep falters; I shall be satisfied—but oh, not here!
Not here, where every dream of bliss deceives us; Where the worn spirit never gains its goal; Where, haunted ever by the thought that grieves us, Across us floods of bitter memory roll.
There is a land where every pulse is thrilling With rapture earth's sojourners may not know; Where Heaven's repose the weary heart is stilling, And peacefully life's time-tossed currents flow.
Far out of sight, while yet the flesh infolds us, Lies the fair country where our hearts abide, And of its bliss is naught more woundrous told us, Than these few words, "I shall be satisfied!"
Satisfied, satisfied ! the spirit's yearning For sweet companionship with kindred minds; The silent love that here meets no returning, The inspiration which no language finds.
Shall they be satisfied ? the soul's vague longing, The aching void which nothing earthly fills? O what desires upon my soul are thronging, As I look upward to the heavenly hills !
Thither my weak and weary feet are tending; Saviour and Lord, with thy frail child abide; Guide me toward home, where, all my wanderings ended, I then shall see thee and be satisfied ! —Sel.

The Origin of Lent.

By C. A. S. Temple

This great fast, so conspicuous among the many observances of the Roman church—and among those of some Protestants, as well—is upon us once more. Its claims of peculiar sanctity, the increasing respect for it among even Protestants, and that mysterious glamour with which it always seems invested, all demand the most searching investigation into its every feature, and that its merit, or demerit, be fully and thoroughly understood.
It is conceded by all concerned that there is no precept, or command, in the Old Testament or the New, requiring, or even approving any such observance. In no history, sacred or profane, have we any example of its observance, either by those holy men “to whom were committed the oracles of God,” by the ancient church, under the Old Testament dispensation, or by the “apostolic church,” of the New. Like every form of “festival,” therefore, its appearance in the Christian church is that of an interloper and an enemy.
Very early in the Christian era, the resurrection of Christ was annually commemorated, but for centuries that commemoration was preceded by no Lent. Cassianus, the monk of Marseilles, writing in the fifth century, says: “The observance of the forty days had no existence so long as the perfection of that primitive church remained inviolate.” This testimony is a most expressive intimation that the introduction of “the forty days” was the bitter fruit of a violation of the purity and integrity of “that primitive church.”
“Whence, then,” we ask, with another, “came this observance?” We answer: The forty days’ abstinence of Lent originated with the ancient pagans, formed a part of their worship, and is therefore a purely idolatrous observance. “Such a fast of forty days” in the spring of the year, “is now observed by the Yezidis, or devil worshipers of Koordistan, who have inherited it from their early masters, the Babylonians.”—Layard’s Nineveh and Babylon, p. 73.
So, too, the pagan Mexicans, says Humboldt (“Mexican Researches,” Vol. 1, p. 404), “Three days before the vernal equinox, began a solemn fast of forty days in honor of the sun.” Wilkinson tells us in his “Egyptian Antiquities,” Vol. 1, p. 278, that such a fast of forty days was observed in Egypt.—Two Babylons, p. 169. Rome, too, whose paganism, both ancient and modern, was borrowed and perpetuated from the same ancient Babylonian model as that of Egypt, did not allow herself to overlook so conspicuous a feature as this, in that paganism, for under the pagan regime she too had her Lent. Probably this was the time which includes the “forty nights,” during which “the wailing of Proserpine continued.” It appears from the testimony of Arnobius, as represented by Hislop in “Two Babylons” (p. 170), that the Romans observed a “sacred” fast called “Castus,” which the Christians in his time believed was primarily in imitation of the long fast of Ceres, when for many days she refused to eat, on account of “excess of sorrow,” for the loss of her daughter Proserpine, who had been stolen and carried away by Pluto, the god of hell.
Whatever relation “the forty nights wailing for Proserpine,” “the long fast of Ceres,” and the “sacred fast” of “Castus” may or may not have sustained to each other, they show that, like the Egyptians, from whom they learned their paganism—and like the whole pagan world as well—the ancient Romans periodically observed a “sacred fast.”
The facts, as we shall see, answer the question as to the origin of this great observance. They reveal, as the source whence it has emanated, a fountain whose filthiness and pollutions no words but those “which the Holy Ghost speaketh,” can possibly describe,—a fountain whose waters, however clear and pellucid they may appear, are always charged to the full with the rankest, deadliest poison!
Just here another question presents itself, viz.: How and why did “Lent” find its way into the Christian church? Let us see. There is abundant evidence in history that, to propitiate the pagans, and to secure their assets to a “nominal Christianity,” the church of Rome, pursuing her usual policy, took measures, and found it no difficult matter, to get paganism and Christianity, now far sunk in idolatry—in this, as in so many other things—to shake hands.
Such a treasonable policy could be carried out only by treachery and fraud. But Rome, as usual, was equal to the occasion.
Taking advantage of the fact that fasting, though not commanded, was expressly approved by the Master, and practiced by his apostles and “the Apostolic Church,” it was easy for her, under some plausible pretext, to recommend, and, at last, to bring in this ancient and revered pagan fast. To the church, “now far sunk in idolatry,” this—like certain popular defections of the present time—was but another backward and downward step in her much boasted “progress” and “advanced thought”! Of course, it was in every sense a loss to her, while to the pagans it was a positive gain.
Side by side with the Christians, they still fasted and worshiped in honor of Bacchus, their false messiah; while the Christians, in their “progressive” but false “liberty,” kept the same fast, and to great extent in the same way, in honor professedly of the true! Thus, at length, Lent had found its place among other “abominations,” as an ordinance of the Christian religion! In all this the pagans yielded absolutely nothing, yet the church, conceding everything, yielding everything, took, in this one act, a long step in that long career of concessions and compromises, by which at last she became thoroughly and hopelessly metamorphosed into what is now called the “Roman Catholic church,” a living, loathsome embodiment of the ancient Babylonian paganism!
As we have seen, for some hundreds of years after Christ no fast before Easter was observed, and until long after its adoption it had no connection with the “Lent” of the pagans. Just when the “forty days” were adopted, does not clearly appear, but it is certain that it was not for a considerable time after the Council of Nice, which assembled in A. D. 325. About the year 450, Socrates, the eminent historian, wrote: “Those who inhabit the princely city of Rome fast together before Easter three weeks, excepting the Saturday and Lord’s day.” “At last,” says Hislop (“Two Babylons,” p. 172), “when the worship of Astarte was rising into the ascendant, steps were taken to get the whole Chaldean Lent of forty days made imperative on all within the Roman Empire of the West. The way was soon opened. A council was held at Aurelia, in the time of Hormisdas, Bishop of Rome, about the year 519, which decreed that Lent should be solemnly kept before Easter.”
The beautiful “simplicity that is in Christ,” which at first characterized the celebration of his resurrection, was already eclipsed and superseded by the pompous flummeries of the pagan Easter, and now, after such a mandate, from such “infallible” authority, the tendency toward paganism, which had fully become the rule, in everything ecclesiastical, made the acceptance and adoption of “Lent,” a “foregone conclusion.” Accordingly, the observance of this great pagan monstrosity became, in time, the law and custom of “the universal church!”
This new order of things cursed the church with the rankest superstitions and the grossest abominations.
Let any one read the atrocities that were commemorated during the “sacred fast,” or pagan Lent, as described by Arnobius, or Clemens Alexandrinus (“Clem. Alex. Protrepticos,” p. 13), and surely he must blush for the Christianity of those who, with the full knowledge of all these abominations, “went down to Egypt for help” to stir up the languid devotion of a degenerate church! “That Christians should never think of introducing the pagan abstinence of Lent, was a sign of evil. It showed how low they had fallen. It was also a cause of evil. It inevitably led to deeper degradation.”—Two Babylons, pp. 171, 172.
“Can a man take fire into his bosom and not be burned?” If the introduction of the pagan festivals and the “Lent” has been attended with such fearful cost to the integrity and purity of the Christian church in by-gone ages, how can she now do the same thing without a repetition of the same consequences? Her present insensate zeal for pagan feasts of Saturn and the old Greco-Roman Aphrodisia under their specious but deceitful aliases (“Christmas” and “Easter”), often celebrating them with a hundred-fold more earnestness, more passionate ardor, than she bestows upon the legitimate observances of any true, Christian ordinance, is already bringing forth its inevitable fruit. Corruptions in both doctrine and practice are fast finding their way into the church, and are accepted and cherished there with a heartiness, and unction even, which is appalling, and the growing favor with which this other paganism, Lent, is even now regarded and treated, is a sure indication that the great defection is most alarmingly on the increase! It shows, too, that, as with Christmas and Easter, the adoption and observance of “Lent” by the Roman church, and its cunning, crafty insinuation into the Christian church, is an important link in that long chain of “sorceries” with which “that arrant whore of Rome,” even now “deceives” and binds “the nations.” As therefore God commands that we “be not partakers of her sins,” participation in this, as in any other of her paganisms, must be open treason against the “King of kings.” See Jer. 10: 2; 2 Cor. 6: 16, 17; Rev. 18: 4; Deut. 12: 32.

Preparation of the Heart.

“THE preparation of the heart is from the Lord;” but a proud, selfish heart has not been prepared by him. A deceitful, covetous, idolatrous heart has had no divine moulding. Such a heart cannot work or worship and please God. The work and worship with which God is pleased come from faith and love, and are directed by the Holy Spirit. With such God is well pleased. A self-loving heart cannot worship God, nor can it work righteousness. It cannot do all things to his glory, nor make his service a delight. If the fountain be not pure, the inhabitants will not rejoice in the stream.—Sel.

Lives Fashioned in Prayer

THERE are great lives that fashion themselves in prayer. Their communion with God gives them somewhat of the dignity of their associations. All the belittling things of life are obscured and hidden under the august conceptions that engross the mind when it is holding fellowship with God. Outwardly, such a life is filled with the peace and warmth of the gospel, and it is fruitful in spiritual results.—Sel.

Blessed Are They That Do.

By R. F. Cottrell

THE religion of the Bible consists in believing what God says, and doing what he commands. “Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man.” Eccl. 12:13. “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.” “But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.” “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this: To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.” Jas. 1:22, 25, 27. To obey God’s perfect law, honoring him and doing righteous deeds to our fellow-men, is religion pure and undefiled. The opposite kind of religion is, of course, impure and defiled.
The religion of many consists chiefly in feeling. They do what they feel to be duty; but they do not always feel it duty to do what God requires. They say they know that they are accepted of God; for they feel it is so in their very souls. “The Lord saves me, and he saves me now,” is a favorite form of expression. They know God answers their prayers, because they feel it so. On the contrary, an apostle has said, “And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.” 1 John 3:22. Here it is again: “Blessed are they that do.”
Now feeling is not faith. It is all right when it is founded in faith and obedience to the word of the Lord. When a man has an intelligent faith in what God has revealed, and does what that revelation requires, he has a right to feel, and to rejoice in the Lord. What is it which distinguishes the true religion from all false religions? Is it not that the truth of God lies at its foundation? True feeling, then, will always be found in conformity to this truth. Then a person must be intelligent in the truth before he can depend upon his feelings.
Do not false religionists feel? Do they not manifest religious zeal? What but the most ardent feeling of devotion could cause a heathen mother to cast her infant into the river Ganges, to be devoured by the monsters of the deep? or to cast herself before the car of Juggernaut, to be crushed to atoms? I think that there is feeling in every kind of religion, and therefore we shall be deceived if we trust to feeling, unless we know that our faith and works are in harmony with the truth of God.
The first, and most pressing want of the people in these days, is instruction in the truth as revealed in God’s word. They need a true foundation for their faith; and then they want a faith that will cause them to act—to do what that word requires. Their ears have been turned away from the truth to fables. This is as Paul foretold it would be.
Sensational preaching stirs the religious sentiments or faculties, producing certain emotions or feelings, and this passes for genuine Bible religion, though many of the duties therein revealed are neglected entirely, either from ignorance or unwillingness to obey. I repeat it: Truth is the thing which distinguishes true religion from every false way. The truth is in our Bibles; but in a land of Bibles the great need of the people is to be instructed in the truth. They talk of worshiping God in spirit; but they that worship him must worship him not alone in spirit, but “in spirit and in truth.”
The truth is in the word of God. “Thy word is truth.” John 17:17. “Thy law is the truth.” Ps. 119:142. “All thy commandments are truth.” Verse 151. This refers to the moral law, the ten commandments. Every word of them is true; every jot and tittle of this law shall endure till heaven and earth pass away. Matt. 5:18. Yet the leading ministers and churches of to-day are treading the fourth commandment of this law under foot: God is now pleading with them, saying, “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; then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” Isa. 58:13, 14.
On the other hand, God is now sending a fearful message of warning to the nations of the earth, saying, “If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation.” See Rev. 14:9–12.
Through the influence of apostasy, the Sabbath of the fourth commandment has been disregarded, and another institution has been put in its place, according to the prophecy of a wicked power that should “think to change times and laws.” Dan. 7:25. This same power is the beast, against the worship and mark of which we are being warned. Rev. 13:1–10. The Roman popedom is the power thus foretold; and the Roman church to-day claims that their church changed “the Sabbath into Sunday,” or “substituted the observance of Sunday, the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday, the seventh day, a change for which there is no scriptural authority.” See their doctrinal works.
Now the question is, Shall we follow the changes and corruptions of the popedom, or shall we keep the commandments of God? Does it make any difference whether we have the light of God’s word, and walk in that, or follow the traditions of an apostate church, which claims the power to change the law which God spake with his own voice, and wrote with his own finger, and to “substitute” something else in its place? In a land of Bibles, and in which God’s voice is being heard in fulfillment of the last message of warning promised in his word, will it be just as well to walk on in darkness, following the dictates of a fallen church which blasphemously claims to make laws for God, “if the heart is only right”? We have the word of the living and true God; and Jesus says, “Blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.” Luke 11:28.
Jesus said to the apostate Jewish church, “Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.” Mark 7:9. Is not this his voice to the professed Christian church to-day?
Let us hear Jesus. “Not every one,” says he, “that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of Heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in Heaven.” Matt. 7:21. Listen to his voice again, in his last benediction to his people, recorded in the book of Revelation: “Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.” Rev. 22:14. R. F. COTTRELL.

Let Your Light So Shine.

An earnest and godly minister relates the following incident, and gives us the lesson that it teaches:—
“During a voyage to India I sat one dark evening in my cabin, feeling thoroughly unwell, as the sea was rising fast and I was a poor sailor. Suddenly the cry of ‘Man overboard!’ made me spring to my feet.
“I heard a tramping overhead, but resolved not to go on deck, lest I should interfere with the crew in their efforts to save the poor man.
“‘What can I do?’ I asked myself; and instantly unhooked my lamp. I held it near the top of my cabin, and close to my bull’s eye window, that its light might shine on the sea and as near the ship as possible. In half a minute’s time I heard the joyful cry, ‘It’s all right; he’s safe,’ upon which I put my lamp in its place.
“The next day, however, I was told my little lamp was the means of saving the man’s life; it was only by timely light which shone upon him that the knotted rope could be thrown so as to reach him.
“Christian workers, never despond or think there is nothing for you to do, even in dark and weary days. ‘Looking unto Jesus,’ lift up your light; let it ‘so shine’ ‘that men may see,’ and in the bright resurrection morning what joy to hear the ‘Well done!’ and to know that you have, unawares, ‘saved some soul from death!’”—Sel.

Confessing Christ.

My brethren, we can never be placed in exactly Peter's situation. That particular incident could never occur but once. But Christ is still on trial before the world, and he needs the testimony of his friends. We may repudiate Christ by spoken words, but it often occurs that to be silent is to deny him. To defend one who is attacked is a proof of friendship, and to stand up for one in peril at a sacrifice to ourselves is a proof of love. Our love for Christ requires that we testify for him, and yet how often do our trembling lips act the part of the coward! When in our social meetings our tongues are silent, here we hear Jesus saying, "Lovest thou me?" When in the company of the ungodly we hear them speak lightly of that hallowed name, and deride his holy life and doctrine in wicked jest, and our lips are still, then does that voice ring again, "Lovest thou me?" Does a husband love a wife, who suffers imputations to be made upon her character and does not resent them? Does a child love its parents, who hears reflections cast upon them and does not deny them? Is not our Lord dearer to us than wife or parent? Child of God, stand up for Jesus! Spring to his defense when assailed. Declare with boldness and fervor his exalted character and wonderful love. Let other lips be still, but be thine eloquent in his praise. Confess him cheerfully before men, whom it will be thy great honor to have confess thee before his Father and the holy angels.
“Ashamed of Jesus! that dear friend! On whom my hopes of Heaven depend? No! when I blush, be this my shame, That I no more revere his name.”

Four Mottoes.

1. What's mine is my own, and what's thine shall be mine.
This is robbery.
2. What's mine is my own, and what's thine is thine own.
This is worldly honesty.
3. What's mine is thine, and what's thine is mine.
This is communism, the fancied heaven of the natural man.
4. What's mine is thine, and what's thine may still be thine.
This is LOVE; the only way to become possessed of all things is by surrendering all things. "Having nothing and yet possessing all things." "Whosoever will be chiefest, shall be servant of all."—Sel.

The Glory of a Worthy Life

By Horace Bushnell

WHAT is it but the zest and glory of life that something good and great, something really worthy to be done, is laid upon us? It is not self-indulgence allowed, but victory achieved, that can make fit happiness for men.—H. Bushnell.

The Visigoths in the Western Empire.

By A. T. J.

(Continued.)
"THE last resource of the Romans was in the clemency, or at least in the moderation, of the king of the Goths. The senate, who in this emergency assumed the supreme powers of government, appointed two ambassadors to negotiate with the enemy. This important trust was delegated [A. D. 409] to Basilius, a senator of Spanish extraction, and already conspicuous in the administration of provinces; and to John, the first tribune of the notaries, who was peculiarly qualified, by his dexterity in business, as well as by his former intimacy with the Gothic prince. When they were introduced into his presence, they declared, perhaps in a more lofty style than became their abject condition, that the Romans were resolved to maintain their dignity, either in peace or war; and that, if Alaric refused them a fair and honorable capitulation, he might sound his trumpets, and prepare to give battle to an innumerable people, exercised in arms, and animated by despair. 'The thicker the hay, the easier it is mowed,' was the concise reply of the barbarian; and this rustic metaphor was accompanied by a loud and insulting laugh, expressive of his contempt for the menaces of an unwarlike populace, enervated by luxury before they were emaciated by famine. He then condescended to fix the ransom, which he would accept as the price of his retreat from the walls of Rome: all the gold and silver in the city, whether it were the property of the State, or of individuals; all the rich and precious movables; and all the slaves who could prove their title to the name of barbarians.
"The ministers of the senate presumed to ask, in a modest and suppliant tone, 'If such, O king, are your demands, what do you intend to leave us?' 'YOUR LIVES!' replied the haughty conqueror; they trembled, and retired. Yet, before they retired, a short suspension of arms was granted, which allowed some time for a more temperate negotiation. The stern features of Alaric were insensibly relaxed; he abated much of the rigor of his terms, and at length consented to raise the siege, on the immediate payment of five thousand pounds of gold, of thirty thousand pounds of silver, of four thousand robes of silk, of three thousand pieces of fine scarlet cloth, and of three thousand pounds weight of pepper. But the public treasury was exhausted; the annual rents of the great estates in Italy, and the provinces, were intercepted by the calamities of war; the gold and gems had been exchanged, during the famine, for the vilest sustenance; the hoards of secret wealth were still concealed by the obstinacy of avarice; and some remains of consecrated spoils afforded the only resource that could avert the impending ruin of the city. As soon as the Romans had satisfied the rapacious demands of Alaric, they were restored, in some measure, to the enjoyment of peace and plenty. Several of the gates were cautiously opened; the importation of provisions from the river and the adjacent country was no longer obstructed by the Goths; the citizens resorted in crowds to the free market, which was held during three days in the suburbs; and while the merchants who undertook this gainful trade made a considerable profit, the future subsistence of the city was secured by the ample magazines which were deposited in the public and private granaries.
"A more regular discipline than could have been expected, was maintained in the camp of Alaric; and the wise barbarian justified his regard for the faith of treaties, by the just severity with which he chastised a party of licentious Goths, who had insulted some Roman citizens on the road to Ostia. His army, enriched by the contributions of the capital, slowly advanced into the fair and fruitful province of Tuscany, where he proposed to establish his winter quarters, and the Gothic standard became the refuge of forty thousand barbarian slaves, who had broke their chains, and aspired, under the command of their great deliverer, to revenge the injuries and the disgrace of their cruel servitude. About the same time, he received a more honorable re-enforcement of Goths and Huns, whom Adolphus, the brother of his wife, had conducted, at his pressing invitation, from the banks of the Danube to those of the Tyber, and who had cut their way, with some difficulty and loss, through the superior numbers of the Imperial troops. A victorious leader, who united the daring spirit of a barbarian with the art and discipline of a Roman general, was at the head of a hundred thousand fighting men; and Italy pronounced, with terror and respect, the formidable name of Alaric.
"At the distance of fourteen centuries, we may be satisfied with relating the military exploits of the conquerors of Rome, without presuming to investigate the motives of their political conduct. In the midst of his apparent prosperity [A. D. 409], Alaric was conscious, perhaps, of some secret weakness, some internal defect; or perhaps the moderation which he displayed was intended only to deceive and disarm the easy credulity of the ministers of Honorius. The king of the Goths repeatedly declared that it was his desire to be considered as the friend of peace, and of the Romans. Three senators, at his earnest request, were sent ambassadors to the court of Ravenna, to solicit the exchange of hostages, and the conclusion of the treaty; and the proposals, which he more clearly expressed during the course of the negotiations, could only inspire a doubt of his sincerity, as they might seem inadequate to the state of his fortune. The barbarian still aspired to the rank of master-general of the armies of the West; he stipulated an annual subsidy of corn and money; and he chose the provinces of Dalmatia, Noricum, and Venetia, for the seat of his new kingdom, which would have commanded the important communication between Italy and the Danube. If these modest terms should be rejected, Alaric showed a disposition to relinquish his pecuniary demands, and even to content himself with the possession of Noricum, an exhausted and impoverished country, perpetually exposed to the inroads of the barbarians of Germany.
"But the hopes of peace were disappointed by the weak obstinacy, or interested views, of the minister Olympius. . . . Olympius might have continued to insult the just resentment of a people who loudly accused him as the author of the public calamities; but his power was undermined by the secret intrigues of the palace. The favorite eunuchs transferred the government of Honorius, and the empire, to Jovius, the Pretorian prefect; an unworthy servant, who did not atone, by the merit of personal attachment, for the errors and misfortunes of his administration. The exile, or escape of the guilty Olympius, reserved him for more vicissitudes of fortune; he experienced the adventures of an obscure and wandering life; he again rose to power; he fell a second time into disgrace; his ears were cut off; he expired under the lash; and his ignominious death afforded a grateful spectacle to the friends of Stilicho. After the removal of Olympius, whose character was deeply tainted with religious fanaticism, the pagans and heretics were delivered from the impolitic proscription, which excluded them from the dignities of the State. . . . But the court and eunuchs of Honorius still remained a scene of weakness and distraction, of corruption and anarchy."
"Jovius, from a selfish, and perhaps a criminal motive, had negotiated a treaty with Alaric, in a personal interview under the walls of Rimini. During the absence of Jovius, the emperor was persuaded to assume a lofty tone of inflexible dignity, such as neither his situation, nor his character, could enable him to support; and a letter, signed with the name of Honorius, was immediately dispatched to the Pretorian prefect, granting him a free permission to dispose of the public money, but sternly refusing to prostitute the military honors of Rome to the proud demands of a barbarian. This letter was imprudently communicated to Alaric himself; and the Goth who in the whole transaction had behaved with temper and decency, expressed, in the most outrageous language, his lively sense of the insult so wantonly offered to his person and to his nation. The conference of Rimini was hastily interrupted; and the prefect Jovius, on his return to Ravenna, was compelled to adopt, and even to encourage, the fashionable opinions of the court. By his advice and example, the principal officers of the state and army were obliged to swear that, without listening, in any circumstances, to any conditions of peace, they would still persevere in perpetual and implacable war against the enemy of the republic. This rash engagement opposed an insuperable bar to all future negotiation."—Decline and Fall, chap. 31, par. 15-17.
A. T. J.
(To be continued.)
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