Review and Herald, Vol. 27, No. 14. (3/6/1866)

Review and Herald

Mar 6, 1866

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 6, 1866

God's Law Unbroken :

By Geo. W. Burnham

Or the Ancient Sabbath, the Sabbath Still.

BY GEO. W. BURNHAM.

MUCH has already been said and written in defense of, and advocating, the Sabbath of the fourth commandment; yet I wish to present a few thoughts in regard to that much-neglected—not to say abused, portion of God's holy law. Many are the arguments brought forward by those who reject the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, to show that that commandment is not binding upon Christians at the present time. Still, they loudly protest that they want to keep all of God's commandments, but if the fourth is mentioned, they say, "We have nothing to do with that, for the old law is abolished, and we are living under the new covenant; therefore we are no longer under the old law, which is the commandments."

It does indeed seem strange that they do not see the absurdity of such a position. Again, they say, "Jesus Christ lived our example, and died our sacrifice." This we not only admit, but firmly believe. But could they who oppose the fourth commandment see the true position in which this claim places them, they would soon turn round, and from opposing the observance of one of the commandments, would as strongly advocate (as they say they want to) the keeping of them all.

Said the Saviour, "If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love." John xv, 10. "Well," says one, "I do keep all of Christ's commandments; and as he is the Christian's lawgiver, we are only required to keep the commandments which he gave, or those that were by him brought over from the old into the new dispensation, and as he said nothing about keeping the fourth commandment, but has commanded us to keep the other nine, therefore, we conclude that he did not teach the observance of the fourth, and we do not keep it."

Now my friend, just please read again carefully, very carefully, the above-quoted scripture, and see where it will lead you, if you still adhere to your present position. Suppose that I should tell you, that in the light of that scripture, I shall be justified in keeping only eight of the nine commandments, which you say are binding, rejecting one, because, perchance it may happen to be at variance with some particular views of my own, Would you believe it? You answer, no doubt, most emphatically, No! Then let me tell you my friend, whoever you see that advocates the abolition by the Saviour of one of the commandments given by the Father, that although you may not be aware of it, that is just your position, so long as you advocate that Christ is the Christian's lawgiver, and that only nine of the commandments contained in the decalogue, are binding on the church in this dispensation. You think this a bold and unwarrantable assertion, do you? Well, facts are stubborn things; and the word of God gives me boldness thus to speak. Now I will show in what way you teach that only eight of the commandments are binding upon Christians in this dispensation.

You say that Christ abolished the fourth commandment; and now, to show the fallacy of your position, or to prove my assertion that if you are correct in the position that Christ did abolish the fourth commandment, there are only eight of the commandments binding upon us at the present time. Mark the Saviour's language in the last clause of the verse, John xv, 10, "Even as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love;" or, in like manner as I have kept my Father's commandments, so keep ye my commandments. Now, how or in what manner, did the Saviour keep his Father's commandments? Did he keep them all? You answer, Yes, he kept them all but the fourth, and as he was "Lord of the Sabbath," he could keep it or not, as he chose, knowing that in him was to be the end of the law.

Now my friend, we see that all the Saviour requires of us is, that we keep his commandments as strictly as he kept his Father's commandments; then, according to the Saviour's language, "If ye keep my commandments, . . . even (or in like manner) as I have kept my Father's commandments," we may set aside one, at least, of Christ's commandments, and still with the same justification say that we are keeping all the commandments of Christ that he requires us to keep, as you say that you keep all the commandments that are binding upon Christians in this dispensation. Now my friend, you would say that they who took the position that only eight of the commandments were binding, were in the dark, to say the least, and yet, such a position is just as good as the one you occupy, when you say that the Saviour did not observe, or that he disregarded the fourth precept in God's law.

"But," say you, "the Saviour did not disregard the least portion of the Father's law as long as he lived; but there was a part of it that was fulfilled in him, and expired when he did. For we have the declaration of the apostle Paul in Rom. x, 4, that Christ was the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes; and as the Saviour never taught the observance of the fourth commandment, while he did the other nine, yea, the very fact that he did not once in all his teachings, mention the Sabbath in connection with the commandments, is evidence enough that the Sabbath was a part of that law that was fulfilled in him and so abolished. Well, then, if the Saviour kept all the Father's commandments, and if he lived our example, how can you say that you are following the example set by him, if you refuse to keep any one of the commandments which you acknowledge our Saviour kept? Do you not see that you are walking at variance with the example?"

Rom. x, 4, is taken to show that Christ was the end of the law of the ten commandments; but let us briefly notice this passage. What law was Christ the end of? was it the ten commandments? Certainly not. He was the end of that law that if a man sinned, and came before the priest, and through him offered the sacrifice which was ordained in the law to be offered for that sin, that act was counted to him for righteousness, and his sin remitted. "And the priest shall make an atonement for him with the ram of the trespass offering before the Lord for his sins which he hath done; and the sin which he hath done shall be forgiven him." Lev. xix, 22. This is also that law in which it was ordained that offering should be made for uncleanness; and, "This is the law of the burnt-offering, of the meat-offering, and of the sin-offering, and of the trespass-offerings, and of the consecrations, and of the sacrifice of the peace-offerings; which the Lord commanded Moses in mount Sinai, in the day that he commanded the children of Israel to offer their oblations unto the Lord, in the wilderness of Sinai." Lev. viii, 37, 38. This is that law of which Paul spoke, when he said, "But Israel which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness. Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law." Rom. ix, 31, 32.

But was the Sabbath any part of that law? I answer, No! for the Lord said he had given them the Sabbath before

he gave them that law; and so far was it from being a part of that law, that the pollution of the Sabbath was one of the sins of which the people were guilty, and for which those judgments were given them. The Sabbath was made for man, and being made for him, it is certain that it could not be against him.

Again, it is said that the Sabbath was changed to the first day of the week, in commemoration of the resurrection of the Saviour from the dead; but whether it was changed by Christ himself, or by the apostles, does not appear quite clear. What an error! to think that because the Saviour, in obedience to the will of his Father, shed his blood to redeem poor lost man from the wretched condition into which disobedience had plunged him, substituting his own precious blood for the blood of bulls and goats which could not take away sin, that we might be freed from the constant observance of those sacrifices, by the shedding of his blood once for all;—what an error to think that of submission to the will of his Father, so far eclipsed the glory of God's power in the creation of the universe, that the Father, seeing his own glory eclipsed by his Son, gave him power to change the only time that he had reserved unto himself, and had sanctified and made holy in commemoration of the great work of creation, and that the Saviour trusted that holy time into the hands of poor, weak, finite man,—though the holiest and the best of men—and that they transferred it from commemorating the creation of all things, to the commemoration of that day on which the Father, who was able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham, brought his own dear Son from the land of the enemy, and rescued the soul of his holy one from the jaws of hell and the pit of corruption!

The Saviour said, "I came not to destroy the law or the prophets;" Matt. v, 17; but if he abolished a part of the law, is not that part which he abolished destroyed? Most certainly it is. And in the 18th verse he says, "Verily I say unto you, till Heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." Jesus says here, that "till Heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." Now, What was it that was to be fulfilled? Some say that it was the law; but we take the position that it was the prophets; as if he had said, "I came not to destroy the law or the prophets, but to fulfill those prophecies which relate to my coming, and my mission on the earth as the promised Messiah, and verily I say unto you, that one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all the prophecies of the Scriptures are fulfilled." Have all the prophecies been fulfilled? Who is there that will say that the prophecy of Jeremiah has had its fulfillment, in which he said, "The Lord shall roar from on high, and utter his voice from his holy habitation; he shall mightily roar upon his habitation; he shall give a shout as they that tread the grapes, against all the inhabitants of the earth;" or, that they have seen "the slain of the Lord, from one end of the earth even to the other end of the earth." Jer. xxv, 30, 33. Who hath seen the earth burning as an oven and consuming all the wicked as the stubble is consumed by fire in the field after the harvest? Mal. iv, 1. What mortal eye hath beheld the glory of that city of which the Lord hath said, "I will lay thy stones with fair colors, and lay thy foundations with sapphires. And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones." Isa. liv, 11, 12. And unless these prophecies have been fulfilled, the law of God remains as unbroken as in the day when it was first given to the children of Israel from mount Sinai.

Again, Jesus says, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind." Matt. xxii, 37. How shall we know when we love God? The beloved disciple tells us, "For this is the love of God that we keep his commandments." 1 John v, 3. Now the disciple would never have left his children in the dark in regard to the commandments of God; and if they had been abolished, he would never have written to the church to keep them; and if we would know what those commandments are, let us turn to Ex. xx, and read from the third to the seventeenth verse and we shall see what they are. We there read that "the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God." These are not Moses' commandments, but God's, which he with his own finger engraved in two tables of stone. And, as if to preclude the possibility of a doubt in the minds of the people as to who the author of those commandments was, and to stamp them with the seal of everlasting unalterability, while the mountain "smoked and quaked," and the terrific lightning blazed forth from the thick darkness of the cloud, and the dreadful thunder shook the earth, in the midst of that scene of awful grandeur stood the Majesty of Heaven, and, while the people trembled and removed and stood afar off, swelling high above the pealing thunder, until it filled the very dome of Heaven itself, rose the sublime voice of the great Jehovah, proclaiming his royal law to his chosen people! Let not that again be called Moses' law, which the great I AM would not entrust even to that faithful servant of his, as his representative to give unto the people, but which was of such vast importance that the Royalty of Heaven came down from his high throne, and from his own lips gave it them! And he has also declared through his servant David, saying, "If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; if they break my statutes and keep not my commandments; then will I visit their transgressions with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips." Ps. lxxxix, 30-32, 34. What, I inquire, has more emphatically gone out of his lips than the ten commandments? and yet, we are very seriously told that those commandments have all been abolished; but that nine of them have been remodeled, and re-established! And yet, after their reconstruction, they stand word for word as they did before they were abolished! O consistency! Let us remember that "God is not a man that he should lie, neither the Son of man that he should repent."

We have the direct testimony from the apostle Paul, that the seventh day was the Sabbath as late as A. D. 46; for while preaching the gospel of the kingdom to the Jews at Antioch in that year, he says, "For they that dwell at Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they knew him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets which are read every Sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in condemning him." Acts xiii, 27. Paul here speaks of the Sabbath as being the Sabbath at that time, and not as something that had been and had passed away, but as an institution that then was; for he says, speaking in the present tense, "which are preached every Sabbath day." No language could more plainly show that the Sabbath of the Lord was still the Sabbath at the time he was speaking, than that used by the apostle. If Paul had understood the Sabbath to have been changed, would he, while endeavoring to lead those to whom he was speaking, to a knowledge of the truth and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, have shunned to declare that they were fallen from grace if they observed the Sabbath, if such had indeed been the case? And, would not Paul have come under the same condemnation because he kept the Sabbath, and by his example before the Jews, encouraged them in the continued observance of that day?

The next year we see the subject of the law brought before the church at Antioch, by certain of the believing Jews of the sect of the Pharisees, who went out from Jerusalem, and who taught that they ought to observe the ordinance of circumcision, and keep the law of Moses; which teaching, threw the church into confusion and trial. But when the apostles at Jerusalem heard of those things, they wrote to the church at Antioch, declaring that they never commanded the observance of the Mosaic law of ceremonies, that "it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things; that ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication; from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well." Acts xv, 19. If the apostles had understood that if they observed the Sabbath day they were fallen from grace, would they not have warned the church at Antioch against its observance, when if they did do those things which they were commanded not to do, they could be in no worse condition than if they did not do those things, and still observed the Sabbath, if it be true that in the observance of that day they were fallen from grace? Hence it seems clear that as they did not warn them against its observance, they did not understand the Sabbath to be either changed or abolished.

Paul in writing to Timothy says: "But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them, and that from a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto salvation, through faith in Christ Jesus." 2 Tim. iii, 14, 15. Here Paul refers Timothy to the Jewish scriptures, and tells him that they are able to make him wise unto salvation, if to them he added faith in Jesus Christ as the promised Messiah. And those Scriptures which were able to make Timothy wise unto salvation, were all founded on the ten commandments; which, according to the testimony of the Saviour, (when questioned as to which of the ten commandments was the greatest) are summed up in those words, Those written on the first table, or our duty to God; "And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might." Deut. vi, 5; x, 12; xi, 13; xxx, 6. Those on the second table, or our duty to man, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Lev. xix, 18. "On these two commandments," said the Saviour, "hang all the law and the prophets." Matt. xxii, 40.

These commandments, then, must surely be what Paul referred to when he wrote Timothy, that, from "a child" he had known them, and they were able to make him wise unto salvation. Says the sweet singer of Israel, "Thou through thy commandments hast made me wiser than mine enemies; for they are ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers; for thy testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients, because I keep thy precepts." Ps. cxix, 98-100. And Solomon, after applying his great wisdom to the study of the many ways by which men sought to be justified before God, says, "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man." Eccl. xii, 13. "And thus saith the Lord, thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel I am the Lord thy God which teacheth thee to profit, which teacheth thee by the way which thou shouldest go. Oh that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea." Isa. xlviii, 17, 18.

Farmington, N. H., Feb. 1866.

Mission Work.

By Hannah More

THE work, 'tis true, is thine, The mission work we do, May we pursue it as divine Most precious Lord, and true.

We love thy labor, Lord, We trust thy firm decree, We would enforce thy holy word, And live, dear Lord, for thee.

Give souls, O Lord, for hire, No other boon we crave! For grace to win them we desire, The power is thine to save.

To spend our lives for thee, Is sweeter far than gold! What else can we desire to be But shepherds in thy fold.

We know that beasts of prey Are seeking to devour, O make us wise to choose the way, To labor with thy power.

HANNAH MORE.

Braithwaite, O. Asylum, Africa.

Is IT I?

By C. M. Willis

Stray Thoughts. No. 4.

Is IT I?

It was night. The sun had withdrawn from the scene; and darkness had drawn her dark mantle over the earth. The planets rolled on in their harmonious circles, regardless of the fearful tragedy about to be enacted in their midst. In a large upper room, reclining around a table spread with the symbols of Jewish deliverance, were thirteen persons. The dignified majesty of one, mingled with an air of resigned suffering, mark him as the central object of the surrounding group, while the looks of love and adoration with which he is regarded by them, show that they believe him to be the promised Messiah, the Son of God. He speaks, and lo, the most eager interest is visible on every countenance, "Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me." What a thought! Consternation seizes their minds at once! What! betray that being whom they had so learned to adore? whom they had never seen bestow aught but kindness to the most abject wretch who claimed his pity? who had done such wonderful works in their presence? who had bestowed such wonderful power on them? who had calmed the angry waves for their safety? given them bread when hungry? healed them when sick? and kindly administered to every want? How could this be? Distrusting even themselves, they began sorrowfully to ask, "Is it I?" and another, "Is it I?"

Treacherous Judas! With those piercing eyes fixed upon him, cowering beneath a knowledge of what he had done, while the thoughts of those rankling pieces of silver kept tugging, pulling, tearing at his heart-strings; no wonder, when he received the proof that his guilt was known, that he went immediately out, horror-stricken, but alas, not repentant. A little later, and the Judas kiss is given, he has been denied and forsaken by his devoted followers, delivered into the hands of sinners, and led as a lamb to the slaughter.

But is Judas the only one who has betrayed his Lord? Is there but one Peter who has denied his Master? Backsliding, lukewarm professor, which are you—you who are striving to gain the world, while you profess to honor God? If you still desire to have a place with his people, and yet are half dead, reaching out after the world with one hand, while the other is lifted toward Heaven, you do not perhaps virtually deny your Lord, you do worse—you bring a reproach upon his cause, a dishonor to his name; crucifying the Lord afresh, and putting him to an open shame. You cannot be called a Peter, you are a Judas. You are ready on the one hand to say, "Hail, Master," and on the other, "This is he, take him, and lead him away." Are there not times when these things are laid before your eyes in their true light, forced home to your hearts and consciences, by the searching influence of the Holy Spirit? times when you start with astonishment, as you see the hold the world is gaining on your affections, and how your heart runs out after its fashions, its riches, its honors and applause, and you becoming engrafted, as it were, into its very habits and principles? When these things are made manifest, though they may be accomplished by repentings and bitter regrets, shrink not from them, nor defer the examination until another time. If you but heed them in season, and hinder not their perfect work, in the end it will prove a most precious pruning. Your works, sooner or later must come to the light, and be made manifest. Why not bring them there yourself, and let them be reproved and purged away even by chastisement, before the great Judge shall sit as a refiner’s fire, and you and they become as the chaff of the summer threshing-floor? As fast as your Christian graces die out and disappear, so fast do obnoxious weeds spring up and fill their place. Look closely. Instead of that Christian charity that was willing to show that forbearance to any erring one, which you asked for yourselves, and which covered a multitude of faults; is there not an envious, fault-finding principle within, a disposition to magnify any falling on the part of others which you may fancy exists? Instead of coming out from the world, and caring for none of its useless fashions, are you not adding one useless article of dress to another, in order to appear like others? Instead of feeling yourselves only as stewards in the Lord’s household, to occupy till he comes; do you not begin to say by your actions, "My Lord delayeth his coming," and begin to eat and to drink, and to add acre to acre, dollar to dollar, and to heap up the corruptible treasures of earth?

Is there any growth in grace in this? Does it have that satisfying influence on the mind, which a closer walk with God did? Far from it.

I do not ask these questions of your neighbors, or that brother or sister who you fancy has injured you, or who, you judge, is going astray. I ask them individually of you. Examine well your own heart, and if you find it conforming to the above description, then you are going wrong. Do not trust for safety in this leader or that messenger, or in your godly neighbor. If you do not trust your safety on a mightier arm than one of flesh, you are binding up your hopes with a rope of sand. Earthly helps are not to be despised, but they cannot save. Neither is Satan voluntarily going to withdraw his forces from the field, and let his captives go free. There never will be a time when you can any more easily break loose from his tightening fetters than now. Every hour of delay but rivets his bonds more firmly. Work out then, your own salvation with as much earnestness, as though you were the only sinner that needed salvation, if you expect to stand in the day of wrath. There are many Peters in the camp who are ready in time of trial or persecution, to deny their Lord; and—may Heaven help us—we have many Judases, who would sell him for a few pieces of silver. Oh, that each with trembling, may ask, "Is it I?"

Concerning Contributions.

By Editor

A CAPITAL thing is it, in an editor’s estimation, to have a large circle of genial and lively contributors. It gladdenneth his heart to see on his table well-written manuscripts, sparkling with animation, flavorous with earnest thought, or musical with poetic melody. In such circumstances, he rubbeth his hands, and saith within himself, “Lo, a good paper cometh forth this week, that will please honest people!” His motto, therefore, is “Success to such writing.” But that there may be a true understanding of the conditions which attend the conducting of such a paper as our own, we will append a few essential regulations, relating to contributions:

1. The editor, while inviting the “pen thoughts” of many minds, must be courteously autocratic in disposing of them. His position makes him responsible first to God for a good spirit, and then to the reading public for an interestig paper, which requires that he should have unquestioned liberty in the selection of his materials.

2. No offense should be taken by persons if their contributions meet with delay or final rejection. Such a disposal of an article does not necessarily impeach its merits, as its delay or exclusion may be caused by an excess of matter in the editor’s hands, on similar topics, or written in a similar vein, the printing of all of which at once would make a dull paper for lack of variety.

3. There must be liberty in the printing office to correct faults in rhetoric or grammar, and to reasonably curtail articles where they may be improved thereby.

4. Short articles—other things being equal—will have perference over long ones.—Sel.

Exclusiveness.

By Jesse Dorcas

DEAR BRETHREN: It seems that our duty, even in these perilous times, may be known, and faithfully discharged, notwithstanding the danger of being branded with being in possession of the spirit of the Inquisition, or of the orthodoxy. If the time has not fully arrived in which somebody will "return and discern between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not," it is unquestionably fast dawning upon us. So clear, indeed, seem to be the marks by which "the faith" may be known, from which, some "in the latter times" are to depart, that such departure is considered by the Spirit of Inspiration an evidence of unsoundness sufficient to exclude them from the communion of the saints. See Titus iii, 10, 11. "A man that is an heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject; knowing that he that is such, is subverted and sinneth, being condemned of himself." And, though the doctrine would be inculcated even in our midst, which we readily allow to be too prevalent all around us, that peace can never exist in the Christian world, until Christians agree to differ, and agree to look for the evidences of Christian character in the temper and the life; yet we must not forget that the Saviour hath said that the time is coming, when the true worshipers must worship the Father in spirit and in truth. This will be as applicable to any other Bible doctrine, as to the Bible Sabbath.

Some in these parts raise the cry of "uncharitable," "exclusive," "sectarian," &c., because our ministers would admonish the brethren to stay away from the religious gatherings of certain men here, who declare that the gifts of the Spirit, as seen in Mark xvi, have all ceased with the apostolic age; that the three angels' messages are all in the past; that the judgment of Rev. xiv, 7, relates to the judgment upon "the beast" of Rev. xiii, &c., and moreover, who scoff at the warning of the brethren, against the danger of the beast, and image-worshipers' suffering the seven last plagues, literally, declaring them to be mainly in the past, many years.

Now, upon a moment's consideration, who can fail to see the necessity of some fixed rule by which to determine all such matters. We are not now determining what doctrines are; but surely none will blame the man who faithfully follows out the direction of the apostle, 2 Tim. ii, 16, and onward, "But shun profane and vain babblings," &c. This he said in relation to certain men that arose in his day, declaring the resurrection past already, and overthrew the faith of some." No doubt their "vain babblings" did not seem such to them. They probably thought that they deserved a hearing.

But to be short. Let us all understand that the Lord has made it incumbent upon his ministers, to take forth the precious from among the vile, so shall they be as his mouth unto them. Jer. xv, 19. Yet let us not forget that we all have a duty, so to aid the ministers of the Lord, by our faith and prayers, that they may be enabled so to speak, as to "in meekness instruct those that oppose themselves, that God peradventure may give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the Devil, who are taken captive by him at his will." Jesse Dorcas.

Looking Back.

JAMES BRAINARD TAYLOR says in his journal, that we may regard it a bad sign when we find ourselves looking back to past Christian experience for evidence of piety. Truly, it is one of Satan's most effectual devices.

In the early ardor of a Christian hope, in the full energy and enthusiasm of youth, we may seem to accomplish much in the service of Christ. But when that youthful ardor has abated, and enthusiasm has become tamed by defeat, when worldliness has crept over the soul, slumbering on some lap of ease, and has shorn its strength, we awake to take up the lamentation,

Where is the blessedness I knew When first I saw the Lord.

Then the danger is that we shall not return at once to our first love and devotedness to the service of Christ, but shall be content with an indolent purpose to do so, which day after day remains unfulfilled. Then self-examination becomes a hard task from which we shrink. We avoid such personal questions as, have I to-day prayed as much and earnestly as I ought? Have I to-day set a holy example before my family and the world? Have I to-day tried to lead any soul to Christ? How much easier for such a one to think and speak of what he has done or means to do, than of what he did to-day.

I have heard people tell what they were enabled to do for Christ twenty-five years ago, till their heart seemed to grow warm in the recital. But they spoke no word of what they had done for Christ that day.

O, there is no more fearful crisis in the soul's history than that in which it stands, while it can only look back for evidences of a living faith in Christ.—Sel.

How to Make it Much.

A SHOEMAKER being asked how he contrived to give so much, he replied that it was easily done by obeying St. Paul's precept in 1 Cor. xvi, 2: “Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him.” “I earn,” says he, “one day with another, about one dollar a day, and I can, without inconvenience to myself or family, lay up five cents of this sum for charitable purposes; the amount is thirty cents a week. My wife takes in sewing and washing, and earns something like two dollars a week, and she lays by ten cents of that. My children each of them earn a shilling or two, and are glad to contribute their penny, so that altogether we lay by us in store forty cents a week. And if we have been unusually prospered, we contribute something more. The weekly amount is deposited every Sunday morning in a box kept for that purpose, and reserved for future use. Thus, by these small earnings, we have learned that it is more blessed to give than to receive. The yearly amount saved in this way is about twenty-five dollars, and I distribute this among the various benevolent societies, according to the best of my judgment.”

Means Sacrificed for Error and Truth

IMMEASURABLY more means and more toil have been sacrificed for error than were needed for the discovery of the truth.

Continue reading: Will the Righteous Ever Go to Heaven?