Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 3, 1880
General Articles.
By Mrs. E. G. White
GOD'S DEALINGS WITH TRANSGRESSORS OF HIS LAW.
BY MRS. E. G. WHITE.
"AND the Lord said unto Moses, Depart, and go up hence, thou and the people which thou hast brought up out of the land of Egypt, unto the land which I swear unto Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, unto thy seed will I give it. And I will send an angel before thee; and I will drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite; unto a land flowing with milk and honey; for I will not go up in the midst of thee; for thou art a stiff-necked people; lest I consume thee in the way. And when the people heard these evil tidings, they mourned; and no man did put on him his ornaments. For the Lord had said unto Moses, Say unto the children of Israel, Ye are a stiff-necked people. I will come up into the midst of thee in a moment, and consume thee; therefore, now, put off thy ornaments from thee, that I may know what to do unto thee. And the children of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments by the mount Horeb."
And Moses pitched the tabernacle without the camp, and all who desired to seek the Lord were commanded to separate themselves from the congregation by resorting thither.
The tabernacle here mentioned was a temporary tent arranged for the worship of God. The sanctuary, the pattern of which God gave to Moses, had not yet been built.
All who sincerely repented of their sins, made supplication unto God in confessing their sins with great humility. Then Moses went into the tabernacle. The people watched with the deepest interest to see if God would accept his mediation in their behalf; if he condescended to meet with Moses, then they might hope that they would not be utterly consumed. When the cloudy pillar descended and stood at the door of the tabernacle, then all the people wept for joy, and rose up and worshiped, every man in his tent door. They bowed themselves upon their faces to the earth in humility. As the pillar of cloud, the token of God's presence, continued to rest at the door of the tabernacle, they knew that Moses was pleading in their behalf before God. "And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend."
"And Moses said unto the Lord, See, thou sayest unto me, Bring up this people; and thou hast not let me know whom thou wilt send with me. Yet thou hast said, I know thee by name, and thou hast also found grace in my sight. Now, therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, show me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I may242find grace in thy sight; and consider that this nation is thy people." Moses was very urgent that the Lord would show him just what course to pursue in the great work before him. He deeply felt his need of divine wisdom in the guidance of Israel, that they might once more be acknowledged of God as his people.
The Lord answered the anxious inquiry of his servant with the assurance, "My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest." Moses entreated, "If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence. For wherein shall it be known here that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? Is it not in that thou goest with us? So shall we be separated, I and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth." He was not willing to cease pleading with God until he should obtain the assurance that the cloudy pillar, the token of his presence, would still rest upon the tabernacle, and continue to direct their journeyings.
Moses could not endure to have his interest separated from his brethren. His earnest intercession was that the favor of God in his special presence might again be granted sinful but repenting Israel, and that the tabernacle which had been removed from the encampment of Israel because of their idolatry might be again set up in their midst and the Lord manifest his glory to the children of Israel. There Moses showed his disinterested love for the tribes of Israel, and his genuine zeal for the honor of God. He presses his petition to God, he wants a decisive assurance then and there that the Lord would take back his people to his love, and that the breach that sinful Israel had made might be pardoned. Here Moses shows himself to be indeed a type of Christ. The Lord was in no way displeased with the importunity of Moses. He had a love for the sheep of his care. And the Lord promised that he would fully grant his request.
All truly converted souls will exercise repentance toward God, because they have broken his law. How carefully and tremblingly sinful Israel sought the pardon of God, and to be taken into divine favor. It was not merely form with this people, but earnest pleadings. Were there in our day visible manifestations of God's wrath, and sudden retribution following crime as when the punishment fell so heavily upon Israel there would be less bold presumption and defiance of God's law. Many continue in transgression, flattering their conscience that grace is so free and abundant that they will never be called to an account. But the great God is just as jealous of his law as in the days of Moses; though he bears long with perverse hearts he will surely bring to account all transgressors of his sacred law. God gave the wicked nations a time of probation. He would give them evidences of the power of the true and living God, that they might see and understand the superiority of the God of Heaven to their senseless idols. According to the light given was the condemnation. If they chose their own way before God's ways, and their own wickedness before the righteousness of God, when the decision was fully made then God's time had come to punish them.
In our day ministers and people make void, and pour contempt upon that law which is as sacred as the throne of God. Satan exults that he succeeds to so great a degree with the professedly religious word in making of no account the law of God; that law which is the foundation of God's government in Heaven and in earth. Satan knows that if he could bring about a disregard of this holy law with ministers and teachers, that Christianity will become dwarfed and sickly, true piety paralyzed. Were the churches of to-day sifted by fiery trials they could not bear the proving test of God. His holy law, of ten precepts, the mirror which discloses the defects in the characters of all who consult it, would reveal that a great proportion of that which is thought to be genuine religion is very defective, having only a form of godliness, and no divine power, to savor of life.
The Lord granted the earnest entreaty of his servant. And in answer to the prayer of Moses, that he might behold the divine glory, he was permitted to witness such a manifestation of God's presence as had never before been granted to man.
Moses was now directed to prepare two tables of stone, and take them with him to the summit of Sinai, where the ten commandments would be written as they had been on the broken tables. No man was to go up with him, nor was any man to be seen throughout the mount.
He obeyed the command, and "the Lord descended in a cloud, and stood with him there." The Deity proclaimed himself, "The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, of those that love him and keep his commandments, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation."
God did not mean in his threatenings that children would be compelled to suffer for their parents' sins, but that the example of the parents would be imitated by their children. If the children of wicked parents should serve God and do righteousness, he would reward their right doing. But the effects of a sinful life by the parents are often inherited by the children. They follow in the footsteps of their parents. Sinful example has its influence from father to son, to the third and fourth generations. If parents indulge in depraved appetites, they will, in almost every case, see the same reproduced in their children. The children will develop characters similar to those of their parents. If parents are continually rebellious, and inclined to make void the law of God by precept and example, their children will generally pursue the same course. The example of God-fearing parents, who respect and honor by their own course of action God's rule of right, will be imitated by their children and their children's children; and thus the influence is seen from generation to generation. The commandments of God are only grievous to those who do not observe them.
As the Lord impressed upon the heart of Moses a clear sense of the divine goodness, mercy, and compassion, he was filled with deep joy, and reverence for God. "And he made haste, and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshiped." He entreated the Lord to pardon the iniquity of his people, and take them for his inheritance. Then God graciously promised that he would make a covenant before all Israel to do great things for his people; and that he would evidence to all nations his special care and love for them
TRIALOGUE.
By Rose Terry Cooke
Gem:
WHY was I taken from my rest
Deep in the earth's warm, silent breast?
Why dost thou vex and wound me so
With thy sharp edge, that hard and slow
Goes cutting, cutting, all the day,
Now this and now the other way?
Disk:
I do not on my errand stand;
I am a tool, and not a hand.
What if I fret, and grind, and wear,
And raise thine anger or despair;
It is not well or ill in me:
I do not shape thy destiny,
I do but that which I am bid;
The reason of it may be hid,
I do not ask or seek to know.
Where that hand sends me, there I go.
Gem:
I bore the wrench from darkling sleep
When I was wrapped in peace most deep;
I felt not anger or despair
When I was borne I knew not where.
But this slow nick and fret all day
Wear my poor patience quite away.
A blow, a wrench, a final end,
Were the kind torture of a friend;
But so by atoms to expire
Is worse than wasting in a fire.
Why must it be—this daily grind
That ceases not, nor leaves behind
A precious promise for the morrow,
Nor offers me surcease of sorrow?
Lapidary:
Poor heart so hard! poor eyes so blind!
The graver's work seems all unkind,
Yet over thee, day after day,
I toil and strive, nor turn away
Though broken tool and weary hand
Thy flinty nature understand.
Know that thy hardness, by my art
Shall make thee master of the mart,
The petty anguish thou dost bear
Of daily trouble, hourly care,
Is that thy facets all may shine
Which lay so dull within the mine.
My gracious purpose is alone
To make a jewel of a stone;
Whenever ray of heavenly light
Shall flash to Heaven in answer bright
From thy perfected blaze and glow,
The use of sorrow thou shalt know.
Not by the hammer when it broke,
But by revolving stroke on stroke,
Thy worth and beauty grow to be
A wonder for the world to see;
And men shall say, who see thee shine,
A Master wrought it from the mine.
—Rose Terry Cooke, in Christian at Work.
THE UNITED STATES IN PROPHECY.
By U. Smith
BY ELDER U. SMITH.
THE BEGINNING OF THE END—CONTINUED.
WE continue to quote from the writer last mentioned last week:—
“We come now to examine another class of expressions of a positive nature. What we have quoted is negative, a disclaimer, a relation of what they do not wish to do. Very explicitly have they stated their desires and intentions. True, we cannot reconcile what they have said under these two heads, and it is this which so perplexes us in regard to their professions. It is to be hoped that they will sometime attempt to show that their statements may be harmonized, or else confine their avowals to one side of the question, that all may understand, without study or doubt, just the position they occupy.
“Dr. Stevenson, Corresponding Secretary of the National Association, and editor of the Statesman, in the opening address at the Convention, said:—
“‘Through the immense largesses it receives from corrupt politicians, the Roman Catholic Church is, practically, the established church of the city of New York. These favors are granted under the guise of a seeming friendliness to religion. We propose to put the substance for the shadow, to drive out the counterfeit by the completer substitution of the true.’
“These words are somewhat ambiguous, but none the less important, on this subject; for, taken in any possible way, they are full of meaning. It may be a question whether this ‘seeming friendliness to religion’ is the shadow, and real friendliness to religion in politics is the substance, or whether the Catholic Church is the counterfeit and Protestants the true; but, in either case, the establishment of the church, or a church, or churches, more completely than at present, though practically existing now, is the object aimed at in this paragraph. The latter form, the establishment of the churches, appears to be the object, for in the next sentence he says:—
“‘What we propose is nothing of a sectarian character. It will give no branch of American Christians any advantage over any other.’
“A remark made by Prof. Blanchard is a complement to the above. He has given us a definition of ‘union of Church and State’ as opposed by them. Thus he said:—
“‘But union of Church and State is the selection by the nation of one church, the endowment of such a church, the appointment of its officers and oversight of its doctrines. For such a union none of us plead. To such a union we are all of us opposed.’
“In reading this, we are reminded of the turn taken by the spiritualists when they deny that they are opposed to marriage; they explain by defining marriage to be a union of two persons not to be regulated nor guarded by civil law, and which exists only as long as the parties are agreed thereto, requiring no law to effect a divorce! To such marriage the most lawless libertine would not object. We are sorry that the respectable advocates of the amendment take a position so nearly parallel to the above-cited position of spiritualists. They give a definition of union of Church and State such as no one expects nor fears; such, in fact, as is not possible in the existing state of the churches, and then loudly proclaim that they are opposed to union of Church and State! But to a union of Church and State in the popular sense of the phrase; a union, not of one church, but, of all the churches recognized as orthodox or evangelical; a union, not giving the State power to elect church officers nor to take the oversight of church doctrines, but, giving the churches the privilege of enforcing by civil law the laws, institutions, and usages of religion according to the faith of the churches, or to the construction put upon those institutions and usages by the churches—to such a union, we say, they are not opposed. They are essentially and practically, despite their professions, open advocates of union of Church and State.
“President Brunot and others have referred to the first amendment to the Constitution as a safeguard against establishing a national religion. Yet in the face of this reference he says:—
“‘We propose “such an amendment to the Constitution of the United States (or its preamble) as will suitably acknowledge Almighty God as the author of the nation’s existence and the ultimate source of its authority, Jesus Christ as its Ruler, and the Bible as the supreme rule of its conduct,” and thus indicate that this is a Christian nation, and place all Christian laws, institutions, and usages, on an undeniable legal basis in the fundamental law of the land.’
“Now the question arises, If all this were accomplished, would the Christian religion be established in and by this government? If it be answered that it would not, then another question: Would individuals be at liberty under the law of the land to disregard those Christian institutions and usages? If not, if both of these questions be answered in the negative, then what would be the existing state of things? Could it be defined?243
“This will never do; such talk is idle. To place Christian usages on a legal basis is to enforce them by law, and to enforce them is to ‘establish’ them. When they are placed on ‘an undeniable legal basis in the fundamental law of the land,’ they are fully established, and to deny this is only to trifle with language. But again, you cannot distinguish between ‘all Christian laws, institutions, and usages,’ and the Christian religion. By establishing them you establish it, of necessity. To deny this is to manifest a lack of discrimination or of candor. We speak with due respect, but we have to deal with facts of the greatest magnitude and importance, and which affect us in those things which we hold most sacred and dear. The advocates of this movement are able men. We hope they will not ignore these points, but so explain them as to reconcile themselves with themselves if it can be done.”
The N. Y. Independent, in January, 1875, showed up the inconsistency of this movement in a few paragraphs so pointed and pungent that we quote them entire, as follows:—
“This being a Christian nation, we have a right to acknowledge God in the Constitution; because, as things are now, this is not a Christian nation, and needs such recognition to make it one.
“This having always been a Christian nation, we have a right to keep it such; and, therefore, we need this amendment, since hitherto, without it, we have only been a heathen nation.
“In other words, we need to make this a Christian nation because we are already such; on the ground that if we do not make it such we are not a Christian nation.
“Because the people are substantially all Christians we have a right and have need to make the Constitution Christian, to check our powerful element of unbelievers.
“We mean to interfere with no man’s rights, but only to get certain rights, now belonging to all, restricted to Christians.
“This religious amendment is to have no practical effect, its object being to check infidelity.
“It is to interfere with no man’s rights, but only to make the unbeliever concede to Christians the right to rule in their interest, and to give up like claims for himself.
“It is meant to have no practical effect; and, therefore, will be of great use to us.
“We want to recognize God, and Christianity as our national duty to Deity; but intend to give no effect to such recognition—pleasing God by judicially voting ourselves pious and doing nothing more.
“We shall leave all religions in equality before the law, and make Christianity the adopted religion of the nation.
“Christianity, being justice, requires us to put down infidelity by taking advantage of our numbers to secure rights which we do not allow to others.
“Justice to Christians is one thing, and to infidels another.
“We being a Christian people, the Jewish and unbelieving portion of our people are not, of right, part of the people.
“And so, having no rights which we, as Christians, are bound to respect, we must adopt this amendment in our interest.
“Passing this act will not make any to be Christians who are not Christians, but it is needed to make this a more Christian nation.
“The people are not to be made more Christian by it; but, since the nation cannot be Christian unless the people are, it is meant to make the nation Christian without affecting the people.
“That is, the object of this amendment is to make the nation Christian without making the people Christians.
“By putting God in the Constitution he will be recognized by nobody else than those who already recognize him; and, therefore, we need the amendment for a fuller recognition of him.
“If we say we believe in God and Christ in the Constitution, it is true of those believing in him and a lie as to the rest; and, as the first class already recognize him, we want this amendment as a recognition by the latter class, so that our whole people shall recognize him.
“Whether we have an acknowledgment of God in the Constitution or not, we are a Christian nation; and, therefore, it is this recognition of God that is to make us a Christian nation.”
As to the probability of the success of this movement, there is at present some difference of opinion. While a very few pass it by with a slur as a mere temporary sensation of little or no consequence, it is generally regarded as a work of growing strength and importance, both by its advocates and opposers. Petitions and remonstrances are both being circulated with activity, and shrewd observers, who have watched the movement with a jealous eye, and heretofore hoped it would amount to nothing, now confess that it “means business.” No movement of equal magnitude of purpose has ever sprung up and become strong, and secured favor so rapidly as this. Indeed, none of equal magnitude has ever been sprung upon the American mind, as this aims to remodel the whole framework of our government, and give to it a strong religious cast—a thing which the framers of our Constitution were careful to exclude from it. They not only ask that the Bible, and God, and Christ, shall be recognized in the Constitution, but that it shall indicate this as “a Christian nation, and place all Christian laws, institutions, and usages, in our government on an undeniable legal basis in the fundamental law of the nation.”
Of course, appropriate legislation will be required to carry such amendments into effect, and somebody will have to decide what are “Christian laws and institutions.” From what we know of such movements in the past in other countries, and of the temper of the churches of this, and of human nature when it has power suddenly conferred upon it, we look for no good from this movement. From a lengthy article in the Lansing State Republican in reference to the Cincinnati Convention, we take the following extract:—
“Now there are hundreds and thousands of moral and professedly Christian people in this nation to-day who do not recognize the doctrine of the Trinity, do not recognize Jesus Christ the same as God. And there are hundreds and thousands of men and women who do not recognize the Bible as the revelation of God. The attempt to make any such amendment to the Constitution would be regarded by a large minority, perhaps a majority, of our nation as a palpable violation of liberty of conscience. Thousands of men, if called upon to vote for such an amendment, would hesitate to vote against God, although they might not believe that the amendment is necessary or that it is right; and such men would either vote affirmatively or not at all. In every case, such an amendment would be likely to receive an affirmative vote, which would by no means indicate the true sentiment of the people. And the same rule would hold good in relation to the adoption of such an amendment by Congress or by the Legislatures of three-quarters of the States. Men who make politics a trade would hesitate to record their names against the proposed Constitutional Amendment, advocated by the leaders of the great religious denominations of the land, and endorsed by such men as Bishop Simpson, Bishop McIlvaine, Bishop Eastburn, President Finney, Prof. Lewis, Prof. Seelye, Bishop Huntington, Bishop Kerfoot, Dr. Patterson, Dr. Cuyler, and many other divines who are the representative men of their respective denominations.”
Not only the representative men of the churches are pledged to this movement, but governors, judges, and many of the most eminent men of the land are working for it. Who doubts the power of the “representative men of the denominations” to rally the strength of their denominations to sustain this work at their call? We utter no prophecy of the future; it is not needed. Events transpire in these days faster than our minds are prepared to grasp them. Let us heed the admonition to “watch!” and, with reliance upon God, prepare for “those things which are coming on the earth.”
(To be Continued.)
THE AMUSEMENT QUESTION.
By Charles Haddon Spurgeon
I WOULD to God we were on the Lord's side in view of the sinful amusements which appear to have such charms for many that even Christian people go quite as far as they should in reference to them. When they had bowed before this golden calf they "rose up to play," and very pretty play it was. It does not bear explanation. There is about the world a good deal of this "playing." Beware, I pray you, of every amusement that prevents your redeeming the time, or tends to pollute the mind. There are recreations of a healthy, manly, refreshing kind, but those which are of no possible service to you are unprofitable. The same spirit which made the Puritan refuse to reverence the so-called holy days and holy things of superstition led him to so reverence God and his sacred law that he would not join in the debasing amusements of the period, which were, indeed, so gross as a rule that even irreligious people would not in those times endure them. We have somewhat of the same protest to bear, and we must not flinch from it. We have better joys than the wanton and the foolish can bring to us. We say of a pastime—if this is pure and clean, if this is health-giving to the body, or restful and invigorating to the mind, we are not led by an old-fashioned whim, to denounce it, and we do not denounce it; but if about it there is a taint of vice or a temptation that way, or if it be mere folly, we cannot endure it. We venture not where Jesus could not have gone. We would not go where we should be afraid to die, or should tremble to hear the trumpet announcing the coming of the Lord. Stern teaching this. Are you enough on the Lord's side to hear it? I pray God to put back bones into modern professors. Every other part of their bodies seems to grow firm except their spinal column, which remains soft and easily distorted. We want to be made resolute and faithful on the Lord's side. "Oh," says one, "these are small points." Yes, but I want you to be like the Spartan who painted on his shield a fly. "Your escutcheon is very small," said one. "True," he said, "but I hold it very close to the enemy." If our points of conscience seem to be small, so much the more need that we hold them in the very face of those who think little of the things of God. A small point where God is involved is a great matter. Trifling with small things leads to trifling with great things.—Spurgeon.
IMMORTALITY THROUGH CHRIST.
IMMORTALITY WAS dreamed of by the ancients; the Assyrians held to it; the winged globe of the Egyptians symbolized it; Socrates rejoiced that he was to be freed from the prison-house of his body; but only Christ has brought Life and Immortality to light in the gospel; only He demonstrated that immortality is a fact, not a theory—an established verity, is not a vague hypothesis.
“Because I live ye shall live also;” because He triumphed over sin, the believer, too, shall triumph; because He conquered death, the believer, too, shall spoil the spoiler. Is there any truth grander than that—and does the Christian need any nobler incentive to Christian progress than the truth that the sum of his life-work shall be a blessed immortality beyond?—Christian at Work.
Mercifully Rigorous
Augustine says that his God was "mercifully rigorous" to him, besprinkling with most bitter alloy all his unlawful pleasures, "that he might seek pleasures without alloy."
The Deceitfulness of the Heart
By Raymond F. Cottrell
entire law.
"The heart is deceitful above all things."
CHANGE OF THE LAW.
By Raymond Franklin Cottrell
For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law. Heb. 7: 12.
The law here spoken of is the law of the priesthood existing before Christ, which confined it exclusively to the tribe of Levi. "Our Lord sprang out of Juda; of which tribe Moses spake nothing concerning priesthood;" he could not therefore be a priest by the law of Moses, but, by the oath of God, he was constituted a priest after another order, the order of Melchisedec. Therefore the text speaks of a necessity of a change of that law that would not allow any to exercise the office of the priesthood, unless they could trace their pedigree back to Levi.
But our no-Sabbath, and Sunday-Sabbath friends have felt a necessity, doubtless arising from their want of evidence to sustain their position, of making use of this text to prove that the moral law, the ten commandments, has been changed by the abolition, or change, of the fourth commandment.
Now as the Sabbath is not mentioned in the text or context, but only the law, how do they ascertain what change must necessarily take place in that law of which our Saviour said, "Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law?" There is no text of Scripture which points to the Sabbath commandment as demanding abolition or change. Then if this text applies to one of the ten, it applies to all of them. According to the reasoning of our opponents, then, there is a necessity that the commandments, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, and, Thou shalt not covet, should be changed. And seeing the necessity of a change exists, and the Scriptures do not inform us what change is necessary, I suggest whether it would not please our friends best, who feel this necessity, to leave out the little word, not, in each of these precepts. This, so far as jots and tittles are concerned, is a smaller change than the abolition of the Sabbath, or its change to the first day of the week. Yet it would be quite an important change in the requirements of the law.
Would it not be better for our friends to find the scriptures that proves the abolition, or change, of the Sabbath, and not appeal to those texts that speak of the law in general terms? If these prove a necessity for the modification of the Sabbath commandment, they prove the same necessity for a change of every other precept of the entire law.
R. F. COTTRELL.
CHRISTIANITY AND SCIENCE.
By Ella Wheeler
O SCIENCE, reaching backward through the distance,
Most earnest child of God,
Exposing all the secrets of existence
With thy divining rod,
I bid thee speed up to the hights supernal,
Clear thinker, ne'er sufficed—
Go seek and find the laws and truths eternal,—
But leave me Christ.
Upon the vanity of pious sages
Let in the light of day;
Break down the superstition of all ages—
Thrust bigotry away.
Stride on, and bid all stubborn foes defiance;
Let truth and reason reign;
But I beseech thee, O immortal Science!—
Let Christ remain.
What can'st thou give to help me bear my crosses,
In place of him, my Lord?
What recompense for all my grievous losses,
And bring me sweet reward?
Thou could'st not with thy cold, clear eyes of reason—
Thou could'st not comfort me,
Like one who passed through the tear-blotted season,
In sad Gethsemane.
Through all the weary, wearing hours of sorrow,
What word that thou hast said
Would make me strong to wait for some to-morrow,
When I should find my dead?
When I am weak, and desolate, and lonely,
And prone to follow wrong,
Not thou, O Science!—Christ, my Saviour only,
Can make me strong.
Thou art so cold, so lofty and so distant,
Though great my need might be,
No prayer, however constant and persistent,
Could bring thee down to me.
Christ stands so near, to help me through each hour,
To guide me day by day;
O Science, sweeping all before thy power,—
Leave Christ, I pray.
—Ella Wheeler.
THE DIFFERENCE IN TONE.
I confess our later generation appears unjust, frivolous, compared with the religion of the last or Calvinistic age. There was in the last century a serious habitual reference to the spiritual world running through diaries, letters, and conversation—yes, and into wills and legal instruments also—compared with which our liberation looks a little foppish and dapper. —Ralph Waldo Emerson
THE OLD TESTAMENT.
By A. Rochat
IN general, the study of the Old Testament is too much neglected by a certain number of Christians. They complain of finding but little instruction there, especially in the historic part. I understand, very well, that if we see nothing there but histories of kings who rose and fell, of wars, and of battles and other political events narrated without any of that literary embellishment which accompany them in human histories, there is but little to attract attention. But, when we understand that that history is the history of the heart of man laid bare by Him who knows it and who presents it in every aspect, to show us its wretchedness, and teach us to distrust ourselves; when we understand that that history is, at the same time, the history of the design of God and his conduct towards his own, that it is the manifestation of his unalterable love towards people always unbelieving and yet always loved. (Jer. 3:1; Hosea 3:1.) In a word, when we look upon this history, so simple and devoid of attraction to the world, as the history of the heart of man and the heart of God; then it assumes the most lively interest in the eyes of him who has learned that, to know himself and to know his God, is the one thing needful. Then, the people of Israel—that is my very self; the God of the people Israel, is my God, if, by faith I have become a child of Abraham. (Gal. 3:7.) Then I see myself in the history of the ancient people and everywhere I find my God, sustaining me, chastising me, forgiving me and saying to me, (Jer. 23:3) “I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore have I extended my loving kindness unto thee.”—A. Rochat.
A RACE FOR THE PRIZE.
By Dr. Cuyler
"Just what things must I give up?" To this the Bible-answer is, that you must surrender every thing that hinders your growth in grace. If certain practices, or an attendance upon certain places, hinder your spiritual progress, then be done with them! We are inclined to believe that church members slip into the theater oftener than in former times. They are not apt to come out holier than they went in; and their example helps to increase the tide towards the playhouse door. Wherever there is a doubt in your mind in regard to an amusement, give your Master the benefit of the doubt, and stay out of it. Just on this doubtful territory it is that we see so many unhappy falls.
We also firmly believe that Christians ought to surrender very often their rights to lawful things; for by so doing they may remove stumbling-blocks out of the path of others, and strengthen their own graces. The Greek racer denied himself many lawful indulgences. So should a follower of Jesus whenever self-denial will increase his spiritual sinew. Too much is said in these days against "asceticism;" but the danger of the Church does not lie in that direction. Satin cloaks are more in vogue than "hair shirts."
Daily food is a lawful indulgence. But fasting is sometimes profitable for both body and soul. Many luxuries of domestic life are lawful in themselves; to give them up in order to have more money for benevolent uses, or in order to discourage social extravagances, is a dictate of pure Christianity. John Wesley had a right to own silver plate, yet he nobly refused to possess more than two or three silver spoons "while so many poor people were lacking bread." An excellent man in my congregation sold his carriage just as soon as he found that his horses were eating up his charity-fund too fast. My friend is no ascetic. He is a very sensible and sunshiny Christian. If the same spirit which actuated him were more common in the Church, there would be fewer luxurious equipages, fewer wine bottles, fewer card tables, fewer sumptuous evening parties; but there would be more missionaries in the West, and more Bibles in China and Japan. Self-indulgence lives under the clouds. Self-denial soars above them.—Dr. Cuyler.