Earlier text: Discussion on the Sabbath QuestionMany years ago a celebrated Italian artist was walking along the streets of his native city, perplexed and desponding in consequence of some irritating circumstance or misfortune, when he beheld a little boy of such surprising and surpassing beauty that he forgot his own trouble and gloom in looking upon the almost angel face before him. “That face I must have,” said the artist, “for my studio. Will you come to my room and sit for a picture, my little man?” The little boy was glad to go and see the pictures, and pencils, and curious things in the artist’s room; and he was still more pleased when he saw what seemed to be another boy looking just like himself smiling from the artist’s canvass. The artist took a great deal of pleasure in looking at that sweet, innocent face. When he was troubled, or irritated, or perplexed, he lifted his eyes to that lovely image on the wall, and its beautiful, hopeful features and expression, calmed his heart and made him happy again. Many a visitor to his studio wished to purchase that lovely face; but, though poor, and often in want of money to buy food and clothes, he would not sell his good angel, as he called this portrait. So the years went on. Oftentimes as he looked up to the face on the glowing canvas, he wondered what had become of that boy. “How I should like to see how he looks now! I wonder if I should know him? Is he a good man and true, or wicked and abandoned? Or has he died and gone to a better land?” One day the artist was strolling down one of the fine walks of the city, when he beheld a young man, whose face and mien were so vicious, so depraved, so almost fiend-like, that he voluntarily stopped and gazed at him. “What a spectacle! I should like to paint that figure, and hang it in my studio opposite the angel boy,” said the artist to himself. The young man asked the painter for money, for he was a beggar as well as a thief. “Come to my room and let me paint your portrait, and I will give you all you ask,” said the artist. The young man followed the painter, and sat for a sketch. When it was finished, and he had received a few coins for his trouble, he turned to go; but his eye rested upon the picture of the boy; he looked at it, turned pale, and then burst into tears. “What troubles you, man?” said the artist. It was long before the young man could speak; he sobbed aloud, and seemed pierced with agony. At last he pointed up to the picture on the wall, and, in broken tones which seemed to come from a broken heart, said: “Twenty years ago you asked me to come up here and sit for a picture, and that angel-face is the portrait. Behold me now, a ruined man; so bloated, so hideous, that women and children turn away their faces from me; so fiend-like that you wanted my picture to show how ugly a man could look. Ah! I see now what vice and crime have done for me.” The artist was amazed. He could scarcely believe his own eyes and ears. “How did this happen?” he asked. The young man then told him his sad and dreadful history, how, being an only son and very beautiful, his parents petted and spoiled him; how he went with bad boys and learned all their bad habits and vices, and came to love them; how, having plenty of money, he was enticed to wicked places till all was lost, and then, unable to work and ashamed to beg, he began to steal, was caught and imprisoned with the worst criminals, came out still more depraved to commit worse crimes than before, how every bad deed he performed seemed to drive him to commit a worse one, till it seemed to him that he could not stop till brought to the gallows. It was a fearful tale, and brought tears into the artist’s eyes. He besought the young man to stop, offered to help him, and tried his best to save him. But alas! it was too late. Disease, contracted by dissipation, soon prostrated the young man, and he died before he could reform. The painter hung his portrait opposite that of the beautiful boy; and when visitors asked him why he allowed such a hideous looking face to be there, he told them the story, saying as he closed, “Between the angel and the demon, there is only twenty years of vice.” The lesson of this tale is in the tale itself. You who read it can tell what it is. Think of it often, and heed it always. 1873: Unity Among Adventists and the Gifts
By C. P. Whitford
My attention recently has been arrested by reading the “Evidences for the coming of the Lord in 1873,” as presented by N. H. Barbour, in the World’s Crisis, of Oct. 16 and 23. And while reading the many views advocated by the above named paper, I have been enabled to more fully realize the division and lack of unity existing, even among those who profess to be looking for the speedy return of their Lord and Master; and it has also occurred to my mind that it is not so strange a thing after all that the masses are disgusted with everything going under the name of Adventism. I have also been led to feel a sense of gratitude to God that there is a people where peace, union, and harmony exist. A people who have at least tried to heed the exhortation of Paul to “all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.” This exhortation of Paul was given in connection with the statement, “That ye come behind in no gift, waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Hence we believe that right here comes in the operation of the gifts to unite and prepare the waiting ones for the coming of Jesus Christ. The object of the gifts is stated in Eph. 4:11-14. They are having their designed effect in the remnant church. The saints of God are being perfected, the church edified, and there is unity of faith. In looking over the past Advent movement, we can see the hand of the Lord leading his people. He has ever been mindful of them, warning them of dangers, and pointing out a way of escape for all who would listen to and heed his commands. Light has been steadily increasing, and there have ever been a few zealous ones, who were ready to embrace it and move forward in the work of the Lord. Regardless of opposing influences, they have ever stood in defense of the truth. Their trust has been in the Lord and he has blessed them abundantly. And still he leads them on. The light of the third angel’s message now shines upon our pathway. The last and crowning truth which will ever be proclaimed to sinful and rebellious man is steadily increasing in power. The Lord is now preparing a people for his coming who will be found keeping all the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus. Such will have a right to the tree of life. But they are to be purified by obeying the truth. The servants of the Lord are now proclaiming the last message of mercy to the world. Soon it will go with a loud voice. God’s people are being fitted and prepared to stand the trying scenes which are but just in the future, and to reign with Jesus in his kingdom. Jesus will soon come and his people be saved. Oh! glorious day, soon may it dawn. Our trials will then be ended, our sorrows all over and past. Dear reader, Jesus invites you to come to him. Come now while mercy lingers. Delay not. “Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation.” Oh! may our hearts be filled with the love of God, we be more devoted to his cause, overcome every sin, and endure to the end, that we may receive a crown of glory reserved in Heaven for the faithful. Let none be discouraged. The trials of life will soon be over. Look up! Lift up your head, for redemption is near. Yes, we are nearing home. Oh, blessed hope! “Almost to the beautiful land!
Shall we lose courage, then? Never!
Lift up the faltering hand,
Strengthen the feeble endeavor.
Only a few more mornings
Allotted to laboring here,
Only a few more warnings
To fall on the sinner’s ear.
Only a few more conflicts
To wage in the struggle of life,
Then the sweet victory cometh,
That endeth the toilsome strife.” “I cannot do much,” said a little star, “To make the dark world bright! My silvery beams cannot struggle far Through the folding gloom of night! But I’m only part of God’s great plan, And I’ll cheerfully do the best that I can.” “What is the use,” said a fleecy cloud, “Of these few drops that I hold? They will hardly bend the lily proud, Though caught in her cup of gold! Yet am I a part of God’s great plan, So my treasures I’ll give as well as I can.” A child went merrily forth to play, But a thought, like a silver thread, Kept winding in and out all day Through the happy golden head; “Mother said, ‘Darling, do all you can, For you are a part of God’s great plan.’” She knew no more than the glancing star, Nor the cloud with its chalice full! How, why, and for what, all strange things were; She was only a child at school! But thought: “It is a part of God’s great plan That even I should do all that I can!” So she helped a younger child along, When the road was rough to the feet, And she sang from the heart a little song That we all thought passing sweet, And her father, a weary, toil-worn man, Said: “I too will do the best that I can.” Our best! ah! children, the best of us Must hide our faces away, When the Lord of the vineyard comes to look At our task, at the close of day; But ’tis strength from above—for the Master’s plan— We’ll pray and we’ll do the best that we can. DID you ever live in a great city—a Babel of confusion—a place where you might be hungry and sicken and die, and your next neighbor would not know it till he saw them carry in your coffin, or carry out your corpse? a place where kind men get imposed upon by begging impostors till their hearts grow hard, and where shrinking, timid, honest people stay in garrets and starve, rather than endure the insults incident to beggary? a place where there are hosts of friends for the poor, but you do not know where they are, and where there is no difficulty in finding plenty of the vicious and the vile? Were you ever there, penniless and friendless? Perhaps you never were, and perhaps you never may be, but if you ever should be thus circumstanced, learn to trust in God. About the year 1835, when fires, and cholera, and financial disaster had done their worst, and thrown the city into confusion, there resided in New York a poor laborer. He was out of work, and that simple sentence tells of multiplied horrors in such a place. He had hitherto lived honestly and independently, and free from debt. Consequently, he was unskilled in the arts of the dishonest, or the subterfuges of the poor. Unaccustomed to ask favors, he knew not where to obtain them; and as he had neither employment nor money, he was in great distress. Food was gone, and a wife and family depended on him for a breakfast, which he had no means of obtaining. But he was a Christian. His hope and confidence were in that God whom he had endeavored faithfully to serve; and who ever trusted God in vain? He went to his chamber and laid the case before the Lord. He plead with earnestness the divine promises, and supplicated God for daily bread. For hours he continued there, until at length his wife came to the door, and said, “A gentleman wants to see you.” He left the chamber and came into the room where he found a stranger, who said, “I have a contract for labor in the prison at ——, and I wish to obtain an overseer for my hands. I want a steady, faithful, and reliable hand. I am informed that you are well fitted for the place. Now, name your terms, and if you wish money to settle up here, or to remove, there it is at your service.” A bargain was quickly concluded, and with a salary of $1000 per year, he entered upon his duties. He prospered. His wages were increased; he rose to stations of profit and honor; he became in after years mayor of the city in which he still resides; but in all his subsequent prosperity he never experienced a purer joy than on that day when he proved the faithfulness of God, the steadfastness of his promises, and the power of persevering prayer. This account I had from my friend, Mr. B——, a relative of the gentleman referred to, and the statement may be relied upon as correct.—The Christian. The Danish Mission.
By James White
Not far from eight years since Eld. John Matteson, a Danish Baptist minister of Wisconsin, had his mind called to the Bible Sabbath, and other doctrines connected with the third angel’s message. When he became fully established, and decided to do what he could in teaching the message to the Scandinavian people, he saw the great need of publications in the Danish language. This people in our country, embracing the Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians, are numerous. They can read, and understand the word preached, in the Danish language. It is said that in the city of Chicago alone, at the time of the great fire, there were 40,000 Scandinavians. The great north-west is full of them, and we are told that they are numerous in the city of San Francisco, Cal. One of the little church of S. D. Adventists in that city is a Swede. Some six years since Eld. Matteson came to Battle Creek and asked the Trustees of the S. D. A. Publishing Association to print tracts and pamphlets in the Danish language, and hold them for sale, as they did works printed in the English language. But his request was not granted. In justice to ourself, we would here state that at this time we were too feeble to act a part in the work, having had a serious shock of paralysis a few months before. Eld. Matteson, however, was not to be easily discouraged and hindered in the work the Spirit of God was pressing upon him. There was a score or two of Norwegians and Danes in Wisconsin and Minnesota, who had from the heart received the third message. To these Eld. Matteson appealed to raise a Danish Book Fund. And, notwithstanding these were few, and generally poor, they raised nearly one thousand dollars. Then Eld. Matteson went to our Office of publication, learned to set the173types, wrote and translated, and set the types, until he had small editions of tracts and pamphlets amounting to about one thousand pages. With these he entered the lecturing field again, to suffer hardships and privations in toiling to present the truth before others. God crowned his labors with success. And right here we wish to speak of what we know of the faithfulness and devotion of those of the Danish people who have embraced the third message. Judging from what we have seen and known of them, they are generally in advance of the American people. We give as an example the fact that those very Danes, who raised a book fund of their own, when their American brethren had refused to publish books in their language, have since donated quite largely to the American book fund, one brother as high as seventy-five dollars. In justice to the present Board of Trustees of the Publishing Association we wish to say that Eld. Matteson has since been invited to prepare works for publication in the Danish language at the expense of the Association, to be circulated as liberally as our works in the English language. And his suggestions, nearly one year since, to issue a monthly journal in the Danish language were promptly acted upon, resulting in the regular publication of the magazine entitled, The Advent Tidende. Vigilant efforts have been made to redeem the past neglect to give our brethren from the Scandinavian people that help they needed, when they most needed it. And it is in the hearts of the American brethren to assist the Danish Mission, and manifest as deep an interest in the Scandinavian people as they do in the American people. And we are glad to know that our Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish brethren appreciate our efforts to assist them in the work of spreading the truth before their countrymen, and gladly co-operate with us in the great work. We recommend that they take a lively interest in the circulation of the REVIEW AND HERALD, the Health Reformer, and the Youth’s Instructor, among all those of their people who can read the English language, and that all, both American and Scandinavian, do all they can to circulate the Advent Tidende to all who can, and who will with interest, read it. We are very happy to learn from Eld. Matteson’s report of recent labors in Minnesota, in number sixteen of current volume of REVIEW AND HERALD, that Eld. L. Jorgenson, formerly a Danish Baptist minister, and editor of the Danish Baptist paper, has finally taken his stand with us. From personal acquaintance with this brother, we have taken great interest in his case. We met him on the Minnesota Camp Ground in June of 1871. He came to that meeting thirty miles on horseback with some idea that he might receive help from us. He was in a desponding, doubting state of mind. The evidences of the divine authenticity of the Sacred Writings had grown dim, and with this came a feeling of despair. We loved his frankness, and admired the humble, yet intelligent, view he took of matters. We labored to encourage and help him. And while Eld. Ingraham was also laboring to help this brother, Mrs. White had brought to her mind very forcibly many things the Lord had shown her relative to this brother. She spoke freely to him of many things in his past experience, and present condition in a clear and touching manner, and in a most hopeful way exhorted him to trust in God and in his word. We then all bowed in prayer. We all prayed and wept together. At the close of that good camp-meeting, we gave Bro. Jorgenson a good set of books from our book fund, shook his friendly hand, and said, Farewell. And, although we have often thought of him during the last eighteen months, we had not heard from him, until we read the joyful news that he had taken his stand for God and his truth. A wide field of usefulness is before our dear brother. We trust he will arm himself with a clear understanding of the truth for this time, with prayer, hope, and courage in the Lord, and enter the whitening harvest. Bro. Matteson now asks that eight pages shall be added to The Advent Tidende, making the magazine thirty-two pages to each number, instead of twenty-four, which is its present size. The request is reasonable, and will be granted. The expenses of printing volume one, which will close with the December number, will be $1200. Of this sum not far from $700, has been received on subscription. The next volume of thirty-two pages to each number will cost about $1400. When we commenced the publication of this journal, we did not expect that the expenses would be one half met by regular subscribers. We have been happily disappointed in the enterprise, and propose that the deficiency be made up by donations. And while the friends are about it, we propose that the sum of $1000 be raised to make up the deficiency of both 1872 and 1873. For this object we give twenty dollars. Let all those interested in the Danish Mission donate liberally and promptly. Should more be received than needed, the surplus can be applied to the Book Fund. JAMES WHITE, Pres. S. D. A. P. A. The inquirer into the nature of man, and his condition in death, must ever turn with the deepest interest to the record left us concerning the father of our race. In Adam we have an account of the origin of the human family, at once so simple and consistent that the jeers of skepticism fall harmless at its feet, and science, in comparison, only makes itself ridiculous, in trying to account for it in any other manner. And in the sentence pronounced upon him when he fell under the fearful guilt of transgression, we are shown to what condition death was designed to reduce the human family. In the creation and death of Adam we have the account of the building up and the unbuilding of a human being; and this case being the first and most illustrious, must furnish the precedent, and establish the rule for the whole race. Of the creation of Adam, and the elements of which he was composed, we have already spoken. The record brings to view a formation made wholly of the dust of the ground. “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground.” This body was endowed with a high and perfect organization, and was quickened into life by the breath which the Lord breathed into its nostrils. The body before it was made alive had no power to act; the breath which was breathed into it could not of itself act; but the body being quickened, the machinery set in motion, by this vital principle, all the phenomena of physical life and mental action at once resulted. The Author of this noblest of creative works, who must of necessity, as the ruler over all, require the creatures of his hand to obey him, and toward whom an exercise of love, and a voluntary and willing submission, can alone constitute obedience, placed the man whom he had formed, as was meet, upon a state of probation, to test his loyalty to his Maker. The scene of his trial was the beautiful garden in which was everything that was pleasant to the sight and good for food; and over all that adorned or enriched his Eden home, with one exception, he had unlimited control. The condition upon which he was to be tested is thus definitely expressed:— “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Adam and Eve could not mistake the requirement of this law, nor fail to understand the intent of the penalty. And before Satan could cause his temptation to make any impression on the mind of Eve, he had to contradict this threatening, assuring her that they should not surely die. A question of veracity was thus raised between God and Satan; and strange to say, the theological world, in interpreting the penalty, have virtually, with the exception of a small minority, sided with Satan. This is seen in the interpretation which is commonly put on this penalty, making it consist of three divisions: 1. Alienation of the soul from God, the love of sin and the hatred of holiness, called spiritual death. 2. The separation of soul and body, called temporal death. 3. Immediately after temporal death, the conscious torment of the soul in hell, which is to have no end, and is called eternal death. The Baptist Confession of Faith, Art. 5, says:— “We believe that God made man upright; but he, sinning, involved himself and posterity in death, spiritual, temporal, and eternal; from all which there is no deliverance but by Christ.” Let us look at the different installments of this penalty, and see if they will harmonize with the language in which the original threatening is expressed: “Thou shalt surely die.” Adam incurred the penalty by sinning. After he had sinned, he was a sinner. But a state of sin is that state of alienation from God which the orthodox school make to be a part of the penalty of his transgression. In this they take as the punishment of sin that which was simply its result; and they make the sentence read, virtually, in this profoundly sensible manner: “In the day that thou sinnest, thou shalt surely be a sinner!” Because he wickedly became a sinner, and brought himself into a state of alienation from God, the doom was pronounced upon him, “Thou shalt surely die.” Could this mean eternal death? If so, Adam never could have been released therefrom. But he is to be released from it; for, “in Christ shall all be made alive.” These two installments, then, spiritual and eternal death, utterly fail us, when brought to the test of the language in which the sentence is expressed: one is nonsense, and the other an impossibility. Temporal death alone remains to be considered; but the interpretation which is given to this, completely nullifies the penalty, and makes Satan to have been correct when he said, “Thou shalt not surely die.” Temporal death is interpreted to mean the separation of the soul from the body, the body alone to die, but the soul, which is called the real responsible man, to enter upon an enlarged and higher life. In this case there is no death; and the sentence should have read, In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt be freed from the clog of this mortal body, and enter upon a new and eternal life. So said Satan, “Ye shall be as gods;” and true to this assertion from the father of lies, the heathen have all along deified their dead men, and worshiped their departed heroes: and modern poets have sung, “There is no death; what seems so is transition.” If ever the skill of a deceiver and the gullibility of a victim were manifested in an unaccountable degree, it is in this fact, that right in the face and eyes of the pale throng that daily passes down through the gate of death, the devil can make men believe that after all his first lie was true, and there is no such thing as death. From these considerations, it is evident that nothing will meet the demands of the sentence but the cessation of the life of the whole man. But that, says one, cannot be; for he was to die in the very day he ate of the forbidden fruit; but he did not literally die for nine hundred and thirty years. If this is an objection against the view we advocate, it is equally such against every other. Take the threefold penalty above noticed. If death spiritual, death temporal, and death eternal, was the penalty, how much was fulfilled on the day he sinned? Not death eternal, surely, and not death temporal, which did not take place for nine hundred and thirty years; but only death spiritual. But this was only the first installment of the penalty, and far less important than the other two. The most that the friends of this interpretation can say, therefore, is that the penalty began on that very day to be fulfilled. But we can say as much with our view. “Dying, thou shalt die,” reads the margin; that is, thou shalt inherit a mortal nature, and the process of decay shall commence. As soon as he sinned he came under the sentence of death, and the work commenced. He bore up against the encroachments of dissolution for nine hundred and thirty years, and then the work was fully accomplished. An expression exactly parallel to this is found in Ex. 18:18, where it is recorded that Moses’ father-in-law said to him, “Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou and this people.” The margin reads, “Fading, thou shalt fade.” This idiom, which is common in the Hebrew, evidently denotes the commencement and continuation of a process which ends in the complete destruction of the individual. With Adam, this process commenced on the very day he transgressed and the penalty threatened, which covered all this work from beginning to end, was executed in full when this process was fully completed in Adam’s death nine hundred and thirty years thereafter. When God proceeded to pronounce sentence upon Adam, he gave us an authoritative interpretation of the penalty from which there is no appeal. Gen. 3:19: “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” The return to dust is here made a subsequent event to be preceded by a period of wearing toil. And being finally overcome by the labor and ills of life, the person addressed was to return again to the dust from which he was taken. We are very well aware of the method adopted to evade the conclusion which naturally follows from this language. This, it is claimed, was spoken only of the body, not of the soul. The poetry of Longfellow, “Dust thou art, to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul,” takes much better with most people than the plain language of inspiration itself. To whom, then, or to what, was this sentence addressed, “Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return”? Admitting that there is such a creature of the imagination as the popular, independent, immortal soul, was the language addressed to that or to the body? If there is such a soul as this, what does it constitute, on the authority of the friends of that theory, themselves? It is the real, responsible, intelligent man. Watson says, “It is the soul only which perceives pain or pleasure, which suffers or enjoys;” and D. D. Whedon says, “It is the soul that hears, feels, tastes, and smells, through its sensorial organs.” The sentence then would be addressed to that which could hear; the penalty would be pronounced upon that which could feel. The body, in the common view, is only an irresponsible instrument, the means by which the soul acts. It can, of itself, neither see, hear, feel, will, or act. Who then will have the hardihood to assert that God addressed his sentence to the irresponsible instrument, the body merely? This would be the same as for the judge in a criminal court to proceed deliberately to address the knife with which the murderer had taken the life of his victim, and pronounce sentence upon that, instead of the murderer himself. Away with a view which offers to the Majesty of Heaven the insult of representing that he acts in this way! In the sentence the personal pronoun, thy, is once, and the personal pronoun, thou, is five times, applied to the Adam whom God addressed. “In the sweat of thy face, shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” When we address our fellowmen by the different personal pronouns of our language, what do we address? The conscious, intelligent, responsible man, that which sees, feels, hears, thinks, acts, and is morally accountable. But this, in popular parlance, is the soul; these pronouns must every time stand for the soul. The pronouns thy and thou, in Gen. 3:19, must then mean Adam’s soul. If they do not mean it here, how does the same pronoun, thou, in Luke 23:43, mean the thief’s soul, when Christ said to him, “This day shalt thou be with me in paradise”? or the I and my in 2 Pet. 1:14, refer to Peter’s soul, as we are told they do, when he says, “Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle.” Our friends must be consistent and uniform in their interpretations. If in these instances the pronouns do not refer to the soul, then these strong proof-texts to which the immaterialist always appeals, are abandoned; if they do here refer to the soul, they must likewise in Gen. 3:19 refer to the soul. In that language, then, God addresses Adam’s soul; and we have the authority of Jehovah himself, the Creator of man, against whose sentence, and the sunlight of whose word, it does not become puny mortals to oppose their shallow dictums, and the rushlight of human reason, that man’s soul is wholly mortal, and that in the dissolution of death it goes back to dust again! There is no avoiding this conclusion; and it forever settles the question of man’s condition in death. It shows that the intermediate state must be one in which the conscious man has lost his consciousness, the intelligent man his intelligence, the responsible man his responsibility, and in which all the powers of his being, mental, emotional, and physical, have ceased to act. No further argument need be introduced to show that the Adamic penalty was literal death, and that it reduced the whole man to a condition of unconsciousness and decay. But a few additional considerations will show that the popular view is cumbered with absurdities on every hand so plain that they should have proved their own antidote, and saved the doctors of theology from the preposterous definitions they have attached to death. We have the authority of Paul for stating that through Christ we are released from all the penalty which the race has incurred through Adam’s transgression. “As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive.” If the death in which we are involved through Adam is death spiritual, temporal, and eternal, then all the race is redeemed from these through Christ, and universalism is the result. Again, Christ tasted death for every man. He hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. That is, Christ died the same death for us which was introduced into the world by Adam’s sin. Was this death eternal? If so, the Saviour is gone, and the plan of salvation can never be carried into effect. In Rom. 5:12–14, occurs this remarkable passage: “Wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of Him that was to come).” In the first part of the verse Paul speaks of the death that came in by Adam’s sin, and then says that it reigned from Adam to Moses over them that had not sinned. From this language, accepting the popular interpretation of the Adamic penalty, we must come to the intolerable conclusion that personally sinless beings from Adam to Moses were consigned to eternal misery! From such a sentiment, every fiber of our humanity recoils with horror. We cannot stifle the feeling that it is an outrage upon the character of God and therefore cannot be true. The death threatened Adam was literal death, not eternal life in misery. To the view that the Adamic penalty was simply literal death, many eminent men have given their unqualified adhesion. John Locke (Reasonableness of Christianity s. 1.) says:— “By reason of Adam’s transgression all men are mortal and come to die. . . . It seems a strange way of understanding a law which requires the plainest and directest words, that by death should be meant eternal life in misery. . . . I confess that by death, here, I can understand nothing but a ceasing to be, the losing of all actions of life and sense. Such a death came upon Adam and all his posterity, by his first disobedience in paradise, under which death they should have lain forever had it not been for the redemption by Jesus Christ.” Isaac Watts (Ruin and Recovery of Mankind s. 3.), though he was a believer in the immortality of the soul, has the candor to say:— “There is not one place of Scripture that occurs to me, where the word death as it was first threatened in the law of innocency, necessarily signifies a certain miserable immortality of the soul either to Adam, the actual sinner, or to his posterity.” “Death was to be the consequence of his [Adam’s] disobedience, and the death here threatened can be opposed only to that life God gave Adam when he created him.”