Review and Herald, Vol. 28, No. 21. (10/23/1866)

Review and Herald

Oct 23, 1866

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 23, 1866

The Coming of Christ.

By Madame de Gasparin

THE whole primitive church expected the coming of Christ, and believed in his temporal reign. This belief, so strong and firm in apostolic time, faded in proportion as faith lost its early simplicity. Men undertook to materialize precepts and spiritualize prophecy, and thus truth got modified on both sides.

I am one who take the promises in a literal sense. I believe with all my soul in my Saviour's coming. I believe that our earth will witness the scenes described by the prophets, and I have drawn my conviction from the study of the Bible.

The Lord comes! As the lightning shining from the east to west, so is the shining of the Son of God. He comes surrounded by myriads of angels, comes as conqueror to claim his crown.

The hour has struck, the elect have put on their glorified bodies. God's power hath done this. In the same moment the faithful who still live have been conscious of a marvelous transformation. It is not death; it is rather the casting off of a chrysalis covering. In the twinkling of an eye, incorruption has triumphed over corruption.

Do you realize this moment, this coming, this object of faith, now beheld from far, as actually come to pass?

Yes, it is true; my imagination is not at work, my eyes see. It is indeed Jesus my Lord. This is he who had pity on me; who suffered for me; whom I love with all the strength of my soul. My breast expands with a divine breath, each moment I love more, and feel that I am more beloved. My God! oh! to prostrate myself before thee! It is as though a sun had risen within my heart. At one glance my eye has taken in the thousand thousands in thy train. My dear ones, there you all are; you indeed, you living, forever mine—all of us the Lord's. But yesterday I laid your bodies in the earth, but yesterday I wandered alone, losing myself in the immensity of my sorrow, and now you are here, my hands touch you, you will not die any more. If God's arm did not sustain, surely man would founder in this ocean of bliss.

Oh! I can understand that hymn of rapture which marks our earth's course through the skies. The ground is moved, the forests clap their hands, the streams fertilize the sandy wastes, the rose blooms in the desert. No more desolate places, no more broken hearts, we hear no more the lion's roar, the shrieks of the slaughtered are changed to songs of thanksgiving. The Lord's alliance with his creatures glorifies the universe.

You are shocked at this! Such a scheme seems to you unworthy of God who is a spirit. For my part, it leaves me penetrated with reverence, admiring reverence. Without this restoration of all things there lacked one ray of my God's perfect glory.

It well beseems the Creator to re-establish his work in its pristine beauty; to restore to it the lustre it possessed when he spake the word and it was made. It becomes his power to snatch it entire from the grasp of Satan. It befits his glory to display it radiant once more; more touchingly beautiful, because it has known suffering; more precious, because Jesus died for it; more firmly rooted in holiness, because it has struggled to recover it.

And now, tell me, do you not find such a restoration sublime? Does it not seem to you worthy of the Lord, this restoration of the world lost by the madness of man: tormented by the rage of the great enemy, saved by the very Son of an offended God?

The mountains of Judea have beheld thy cross; the walls of Jerusalem have heard the shouts of the maddened crowds that dragged thee from Caiaphas to Pilate; Gethsemane has drunk thy blood; Golgotha has echoed with the mocking laughter of the Roman soldiers; the sighs of thy agony have passed over this land.

Oh! the tears of the mourner's earth! the lonely steps of those who walk among thy tombs! Thou who hast swallowed up generations of cherished beings; and to those who have asked of thee their dead, hast shown thy dust as sole reply. Thou wilt restore them all, eternally young and happy; they will deck thee like a burst of new flowers; two and two, in families, in companies, they will walk again, singing with joy, on the sites they loved.

The beasts of thy forests; all that move in solitudes unknown to men; all that swim in the abysses of the deep—used once to tear each other to pieces. A sound as of some pillaged town; a nameless sound, which, as we listen to it, fills the soul with terror, rose incessantly from thy whole surface. Then they who listen will hear a hymn of deliverance burst forth from mountain and plain, and the waves of ocean will repeat it to their shores.

Thou thyself curse-stricken earth; thou whose breast cracks at the equator beneath the breath of the simoon; whose barren poles are crushed beneath icebergs—thou shalt blossom out fair and fresh, younger than in the days of Eden. Thou hast borne our rebellion and our woe through the immensity of space; thou shalt then march in bridal beauty through a tranquil sky; blessed among worlds, bearing on thy surface the redeemed and the Redeemer.

How will these things be?

I know not, but God knows. The least moral contradiction troubles me more than mountains of physical impossibility.

Of all this I am ignorant. All this is my Father's business; I am not at all uneasy about it.

Nothing is too hard for him whose seven acts created the universe.

He will come soon! Watchmen lost in the darkness, we send this cry of hope one to the other.

Yes, the morning stars will soon sing together the hymn which greeted the dawn of the seventh day; the bones that strew the ground will soon rise; Jesus will soon return.

I shall see thee again, thou holy city, never to be depressed and trodden down by unbelievers; I shall see thee glorious, I shall salute thee, queen of the world. Desert, thy wide swamps shall change to gardens; thy swords, turned to ploughshares, shall prepare thy rich harvests, O country, everywhere called blessed.

You who weep, say, Are not your tears less bitter? You who are tossed upon the open sea, do you not discern the shores of the land of life?—Madame de Gasparin.

Gleanings Arranged. No. 2.

By Mary W. Howard

I OPENED a book, and my eyes rested on these words of an eminent minister now gone to his rest. “I am one of those old-fashioned people who believe there will be two resurrections of the dead: first of the just, and second of the unjust; which last resurrection of the reprobate will not commence till a thousand years after the resurrection of the elect.” These words recalled a little incident which did more to open my own eyes, than almost any other that I remember. The time and place are unnecessary, and to give the names might be indiscreet. Some of the doctrines advocated by those who “love the appearing of our Lord,” were under discussion. An esteemed minister, who had grown gray in the service of his church had been furnished with some unanswerable expositions of the Advent faith, which he had designed to examine. Perhaps his manifested annoyance grew, out of the conscious inability to refute them. Be that as it may, he produced the books, throwing them down with a spitefulness quite undignified

and with an air of a peculiar disdain, remarked, “I have examined these, and find them to contain doctrines which would not have been considered orthodox within the last fifty years.” My judgment rebelled at the word orthodox. Had he said unscriptural, which truthfully he could not, very likely I should have gone on unthinkingly. But “Not orthodox,” with an emphasis I mentally repeated, “Not orthodox!” what an argument in the mouth of a minister, whose creed affirms that “we will take the Bible as our only rule of faith and practice.”

A careful research on my part, was the result of the above quoted remark; and to my joy I found that the views of scripture which from a child had harmonized with the bias of my mind, were, to use the words of a venerable Massachusetts divine, Rev. Joshua Spaulding, “Not new but old; they may be new to some minds, but I cannot say it is to their honor.”

Other incidents transpiring around me, have of late turned my thoughts to these things, and because the thoughts did not readily form themselves into expression to be copied out for publication, I have had it in my mind to make some extracts from well-known olden authors, and which I will do after referring to the event suggesting these thoughts.

I had attended two funerals in one afternoon! Two youths from the same Sabbath School, had been borne to the same cemetery in the space of three brief hours! The incident itself spoke words of warning to other youth, aside from the voice of the preacher, who well improved the occasion, entreating all to make Jesus their trust ere disease comes, taking away the strength, prostrating the lithe and agile form, then taking away the reason, and then the life. Sweet hymns were sung—“Asleep in Jesus,” and “Jesus only.”

As the words

“Jesus only, when the trumpet, Rends the tomb and wakes the soul,” were sung, my heart caught the refrain, “Rends the tomb and wakes the soul.”

Yes! “wakes the soul.” But what means that expression, from lips that virtually ignore the resurrection by holding and teaching that the soul immediately appears before God in judgment?

Surely it is worthy of note, in these times of such general misconception of Bible truth as manifested by the masses, to find such passages as the following from the pen of Richard Baxter:

“Hasten O my Saviour, the time of thy return; send forth thine angels, and let that dreadful, joyful trumpet sound; delay not, lest the living give up their hopes, delay not, lest earth should grow like hell, and lest thy church, by division, be crumpled all to dust; delay not, lest thine enemies gain advantage of thy flock, and lest pride and hypocrisy, and sensuality, and unbelief, should prevail against the remnant, and share among them thy whole inheritance, (the earth) and when thou comest thou find not faith on the earth; delay not, lest the grave should boast of victory; and having learned rebellion of its guest, should plead prescription and refuse to deliver thee up thy due. Oh hasten that great resurrection day, when thy command shall go forth, and none shall disobey; when the sea and earth shall yield up their hostages and all that sleep in their graves shall awake and the dead in Christ shall first arise; when the seeds that thou sowest corruptible shall come forth incorruptible; and graves that received but rottenness, and retained but dust, shall return the glorious sun and stars. Therefore dare I lay down my carcass in the dust, intrusting it not to a grave but to Thee; and therefore my flesh shall rest in hope, till Thou raise it to the possession of the everlasting rest. Return, O Lord! how long? Oh let thy kingdom come! thy desolate bride saith come, for thy Spirit within her saith, Come, who teaches her to pray with groanings after thee, that cannot be expressed; the whole creation saith, Come,—waiting to be delivered from the bondage of corruption, into the glorious liberty of the sons of God. Thyself hast said, ‘Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so come, Lord Jesus.’” It is comforting to ascertain by research backward, that in the days when the Mathers preached in Boston such doctrines were inculcated as this:

“Speedily, with flaming fire!” but who knows how soon? The Son of God about to descend, will inflict vengeance on them that know not God, and obey not his gospel; but he will manifest his kingdom of the saints in the earth, which is to be possessed by our second and heavenly Adam; and this, we confess, is ascertained to us by promise, but in another state after the resurrection.”—Cotton Mather, D. D.

“They indulge themselves in a vain dream; not to say insane, who think, pray, and hope, contrary to the whole sacred Scripture and sound reason, that the promised happiness of the church on earth will be before the Lord Jesus shall appear in his kingdom. Without doubt the kingdoms of this world will not become the kingdoms of God and his Christ, before the pre-ordained time of the dead, in which the reward shall be given to the servants of God, and to those who fear his name.”—Ibid.

Other extracts might be given equally corroborative of the fact, that among the ablest minds are those who love and cherish, and proclaim too, the coming of Jesus and the attendant resurrection, the hope of the true Israel, and not as I heard expressed only a few days ago in the pulpit by a home missionary. “Since Christ uttered the words upon the cross, ‘It is finished’ the work of bringing in his kingdom was committed to the church.” Blasphemous, presuming words! robbing Jesus of his blessed, all-glorious, crowning work. Not so did the writers think from whom I have quoted. It may be said the era of missions was then unbegun. But all, of missionaries even under patronage of the American Board, do not claim this high prerogative, as the following words from two such will show. The first from the pen of one sent to the Chinese. “Since writing to you last, I have adopted many of the millennial views in regard to the second advent of Christ, the return of the Jews, &c. They seem to make many things in the history of missions, that were dark before, much more plain, and encouraging. I find much satisfaction in them, and often long inexpressibly for the coming and appearing of our Lord! Oh to be found doing his work when he comes, and not idling in the field to which he has sent me.”

Another writing from his labors says: “We are all daily longing and praying for the speedy coming of our Lord, to restore all things; and sometimes we are apt to wonder why he delays his coming. But it is not he, but we, who are the cause of the delay. He cannot come as he said, until the ‘gospel has been preached to all nations as a witness;’ and he has ordered his faithful people to go and preach it. When I have been in a village preaching the gospel of the kingdom, I feel, ‘Now there is one more obstacle to Christ’s return removed.’”

And again he says: “He will come in the flesh, in infinite glory, visible to all men; at his coming the dead shall be raised and the living changed. This is a fact which I Thess. and I Cor. xv, do not allow us to doubt. Further, that up to the time of his coming, the mass of mankind will be unconverted and unbelieving, is also distinctly stated in Matt. xxiv, and elsewhere.”

Such are the words of two who doubtless went out to their labors with the fancied idea that with them was the “delegated power of God” to convert the heathen; but they have since learned that this was more than the Scriptures warrant. They are only witnesses, witnesses it may be of condemnation to whom they preach, even though individuals may be saved through their instrumentality.

Other extracts I would like to give, but will only add one from the pen of an Episcopal Bishop, whose name has been familiar to me from childhood. “Within the last ten or twelve years of my ministry, my opinions have undergone a thorough revolution. And I cannot but think that any man whose mind is ready to submit with the humility of a childlike faith, to the only infallible teacher—the word of God—must yield, even at the sacrifice of his previous prejudices, to the vast amount of testimony the Scriptures furnish to that important doctrine, the personal advent and reign upon the regenerated earth, of the glorious Redeemer.”

MARY W. HOWARD. Malone, N. Y.

Work While It Is Day.

What have I yet to do? Day weareth on, Flowers, that opening new, Smiled through the morning dew, Droop in the sun.

’Neath the noon’s searching glare Fainting I stand; Still in the sultry air, Silentness everywhere Through the hot land.

Yet must I labor still All the day through, Striving with earnest will, Patient my lot to fill, My work to do.

Long though my task may be, Cometh the end. God ’tis that helpeth me; This is the work, and he Now strength will lend.

He will direct my feet, Strengthen my hand, Give me my portion meet. Firm in his promise sweet, Trusting I stand.

Up, then, to work again! God’s word is given. That none shall sow in vain, But find his ripened grain Garnered in Heaven.

Longer the shadows fall— Night cometh on; Low voices softly call “Come, here is rest for all; Labor is done.”

A Tearful Picture of Suffering.

A CORRESPONDENT of the London Times, writing from Calcutta on July 31st, gives a fearful picture of the suffering caused by the famine in India. He says:

I started from Midnapore, a civil station about seventy miles southwest of the capital, on the morning of the 26th of June, and had hardly proceeded some seven miles when commenced the painful sights which, varying only in intensity, continued until I again returned to this place. Rain had fallen heavily during the night, and the palki men were trudging slowly through the mud, when a little after daybreak, I saw two bodies under a tree. As there seemed to be a slight motion in one, I alighted, and on going up to it found, covered under an old cloth, with just a spark of life left in him, an old man slowly dying from hunger. He appeared as if he had a thin piece of transparent rubber tightly drawn over his skeleton frame, so emaciated had he become. I gave him some beer, and he slowly faltered out his tale of woe. He said that he and his companion had left their homes, after seeing their families die from the effects of cholera or famine, and had got thus far on their journey toward Midnapore, hoping to get relief there, when one, struck by damp and hunger, dies on the road under a tree, and the other wakes to find his friend a corpse, and himself exhausted and drenched by the heavy rain that had fallen during the night, unable to move. The dogs and jackals feast off the body, while this living skeleton, but a few paces off, is powerless to prevent them. He faintly begs from the passers-by, but in vain. Hunger is gnawing their vitals also. They all turn a deaf ear to his cry. The beer seemed to revive him, and I went to my palki to get some biscuits, but returned to find the poor sufferer in a state of coma, and in a few minutes he was dead. The half-picked body of his companion attested his tale.

I continued my journey, passing at intervals the dead as they lay unburied, and in every stage of decomposition on the side of the road. Sometimes I would see a cluster together. In one place there were twenty-two bodies within the space of half a mile; in another six, close together, all more or less mangled and torn by the jackals, dogs and vultures. Pushing my way through the jungle and over paddy fields, often obliged to swim sundry streams swollen by the late floods, in one of which my palki was upset, I traversed one hundred and twenty miles of country, when I reached the house of a Mr. Fales, an assistant in Messrs. Watson & Co.'s indigo concern here. That gentleman informed me that a woman had died by the roadside, and that a living child was said to be at her breast. He sent out his servants, who returned saying that they had found the corpse and the child, but the mother's arm clasped the latter so tight that in bending it back, it was so stiff and cold, it broke. They say that the living and the dead had been thus linked together for two days; at any rate, the poor little infant, exhausted by exposure and want, died as it was being released.

The above gentleman and myself were traveling through a dense jungle. Miles away from any human habitation, we perceived a famished native of the Sonthal tribe, lying on the ground; he had thrown himself down to meet a certain death; but a little brandy re-kindles the vital spark, and, loth to leave him to be a prey for the jackal and leopard, we have him placed on the roof of a palki. The palki bearers, however, refused to budge an inch, saying that their caste would be gone. “Suaviter in modo” is tried, but “no go;” “fortiter in re” then came into play. They murmured, looked at the palki, asked for a bottle of grog, and then trudged along with their tipsy burden. The brandy had been too strong for him. I am glad to add, that in twenty-four hours after this the burden was walking about. The misery entailed by the famine has brought out all the worst qualities of the lower classes of natives. As a rule, affectionate and fond of their homes, they have in too many instances fled, leaving their wives and families to starve; but, as an eye witness in two cases where nobler feelings held their sway, I here record them. A woman with her three young children crawls up

to a planter's house, just as luncheon was being carried from the table; she begs for the remainder of the curry and rice, which are at once taken out to the verandah and placed before her. Without attempting to eat, she quietly seats the three children round the dish, who in a few minutes demolish its contents; and although the mother is wasted to a skeleton, yet, mumbling her thanks, she turns away, grateful that her offspring have been fed, even while she herself still hungereth. In another village we met a little girl and her mother, lying under a mango tree. Both were faint from hunger; they had been trying to keep life together by feeding on snails picked out of ponds, berries and lizards, where they could obtain them, but daily feeling weaker, they had sunk down under a tree, awaiting a lingering death.

We get some boiled rice and put it before them. The younger is the stronger, the mother is too weak to raise herself. Although the child's big eyes flashed with a hungry gleam, yet her little hands, well filled, first seek the mother's mouth, and not until half the rice is thus gone, does she herself eat. It is impossible to judge of the numbers that have died from actual want, as no returns are kept; but taking the three districts of Balasore, Cuttack and Midnapore, I should say quite twelve hundred a day. In Balasore large plague pits have had to be dug near the town to receive the bodies of those found dead near their precincts, but in too many instances the bodies are left to rot on the roadside.

A Mysterious Death.

THE Chicago Press, of Sept. 17th, contains the following:

A singular fatality, and one which might be regarded as a special visitation of the Almighty, occurred yesterday afternoon in this city. The circumstances are verified by several persons who were present, including the physician who was called in to examine the stricken person. We give the circumstances as related to our reporter by the attending physician, leaving the reader to draw his own inferences.

About a week ago, a mechanic, boarding at No. 144 Burnside street, was robbed in the night time of about $50. The money was taken out of his pants pocket, after he had retired. In the morning, discovering his loss, he made it known to the landlady. She enjoined silence upon him, and told him that she herself had been victimized, but by whom she did not know, although her suspicions rested upon a boarder named Rosencrist, a tailor. This Rosencrist had been an inmate of the house for some time, and the woman did not like to accuse him directly of the crime, although his actions for some time past, and the extravagance of his expenditures, justified her in entertaining suspicions relative to his integrity. Yesterday morning another boarder reported the mysterious disappearance of his pocket-book, and the landlady, after due deliberation, determined to take Rosencrist aside and question him. Going into the parlor, and calling in the boarders whose money had been purloined, the woman accused him of the theft. Rosencrist turned deadly pale upon hearing the accusation, and grasping a table near him, he turned toward his accusers and denied all knowledge of the theft. They insisted upon his being the culprit, and the man repeated the asseverations of his innocence, and placing his hand upon his heart, he appealed to Heaven to verify his rectitude, saying that if he was guilty he hoped “the tongue would cleave to the roof of his mouth, the top of his head fall in and drop from his shoulders, and that God would strike him dead.” As he uttered the last word, he was observed to stagger, a ghastly paleness overspread his features, and, throwing up his arms, he dropped dead on the floor, to the horror of those in the room. A physician was immediately summoned, who, after examination, pronounced life extinct. The affair has created intense excitement in the neighborhood, and numerous are the opinions advanced relative to the superinducing cause of the man’s death.

A General European War.

PREDICTIONS BY A FRENCH STATESMAN.

The Marquis de Larochejaquelein has published in pamphlet form, in Paris, what would have been pronounced in the form of a speech in the French Legislature but for his ill health. The substance of his argument is, that Europe is on the verge of a general war. He says:

“There is no use in concealing the fact. France has played too great a part in recent time, to have any alliances on which she can count. Modern Germany does not love us, and rivalry will soon be aggravated into hatred. Italy is out of the question. The manner in which the French are received there, and the Government judged and treated, does not allow any allusion. Russia suffered too much from her wars in the Crimea and in Poland, and from the treaty of Paris, to trust to our alliance. England, having to choose between the Empire of Germany and France, cannot hesitate. We are feared; and all great nations are jealous of us; and two of these great nations are created by our arms or by our assent. We have revived old and created new grievances against us, and it will be long before they are effaced. Soon, in a European conflict, we shall be alone. This is beyond dispute, and the policy we have to follow is obvious.”

He adds that, if France awaits the Constitution of the new German Empire, she will have all Germany upon her, and continues thus:

“Without fixing any precise period for the general war which is certain, and which all political persons believe in, even the most inveterate optimists concur in declaring that from this moment the duty of France, and of other great nations—their most imperative duty—is to prepare on the largest scale for the greatest events of this century, which, however, has witnessed some of the most extraordinary.”

The immediate alliance of France with Austria, and with the nations now subjugated by Prussia, he thinks, may save all; and would, moreover, keep back those who, without that alliance, are sure to become provinces of Prussia.

Extracts for the Review.

We are led from all signs to infer that the meeting-place of all the lines of God's providential work on earth is very near. I do not prophesy; I do not foretell; I only forthtell what God has said; but I do feel there is to be a time unprecedented since the beginning—portentous, startling and terrible to the enemies of God; but glorious, holy, and full of joyous scenes to the people of God. For in the midst of this the people of God are safe; they are enclosed in everlasting arms; the shield of Omnipotence is over them. They may pass through a sharp night, but it will be a short one. Oh what a solemn position do we occupy! We stand on an isthmus washed by the waves of time, and wasted by the waters of eternity. It seems now but the suspensive pause before the shock comes. A sure and glorious termination reconciles us to the pressure. Into a holy and happy, and blessed land, the surf of the troubled present rolls; and our weary hearts will leap to that land as a babe leaps to its mother's bosom.—Late Dr. Cumming.

Although we have advocated the popular theory ourselves, the common belief that there will be a conversion of all nations to the faith of Christ, and a state of universal peace and holiness throughout the world, for the space of a thousand years before the second advent of our Lord, is, to our view now, utterly irreconcilable with what the Scriptures teach,—Rt. Rev. J. P. Henshaw.

Are we among the penitent, believing, and holy ones, who are looking for, and hastening unto the coming of our Lord, or are we among the impatient and unholy, who will ‘wail because of him.’—Ibid.

Jesus will reign in visible glory among his saints upon the earth. He has now as regards his visible presence gone to receive to himself a kingdom, and return. When the appointed hour arrives, the Son of man shall appear in his glory, and all his holy angels with him. To this blessed kingdom of the Son of God multiplied prophecies of the Scriptures bid us look forward continually; and it is our blessed privilege to live in unceasing expectation of this happy day, when angel voices shall thus announce to his waiting Zion, “Thy God reigneth.”—Stephen H. Tyng, D. D.

“Hope is a prophetic grace; and as faith gets more genuine and distinct, hope will grow more active and sustaining. When faith’s backward gaze on the bright obscure of Calvary is clear and strong, then hope’s prospective glance penetrates into Heaven itself, with animating expectations of the day when He shall ‘rend the heavens and come down.’”

Tennessee.

THE WICKED GO UNPUNISHED.

It is a very difficult thing for a freedman to get justice in the courts. Almost every day some poor fellow makes his way to Nashville, wounded and distressed. His employer or some other villain, in a moment of excitement, has fired on him with the intention of killing him. The truth is, there is a class in the South who would rather shoot at a negro than at a fox or a squirrel. They think it sport. They have no regard for his life or limbs. Half a dozen freedmen have been shot dead or dangerously wounded in this county within a few months past, and yet no man has been punished, and I doubt whether any one of the cold-blooded murderers of freedmen I see on the streets every day, will ever be punished. They never will be if Andrew Johnson's policy is indorsed by the northern people.

Your readers will remember that a most bloody massacre occurred some months since in Memphis. Many of the most foul murders that have been perpetrated in any country were committed in that city; and the murderers are well known, yet no one has been indicted by the grand jury, and no one of them has been arrested. The civil authorities will not punish them, and the military are restrained by that man at Washington, who rose to power when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. He has refused to authorize the military authorities to bring the Memphis murderers to justice.

Now these are sad facts, and they portend evil. The faces of Union men in Tennessee are becoming troubled and anxious, and they have but one hope. If the northern people at the coming elections speak with a voice of thunder in condemnation of Johnson's policy, then all will be well; and that is their hope.

I can not think that the great struggle through which we have passed, at the expense of so much blood and treasure, is to end in nothing substantial and valuable; and it does not seem to me possible that President Johnson can be permitted by the Almighty to blast the hopes of the most gallant nation under the sun.

I will add a news item, that Major-General Fisk has been dismissed the service. He is one of the noblest of men, but could not indorse Johnson. His removal is a heavy stroke on the freedmen, and all loyal men here feel indignant.—Religious Telescope.

The Pumpkin and the Acorn.

A LEARNED man lived in France who boasted in his not believing in the being of a God. One day as he was lying in the shade under a large oak tree, and looking at a pumpkin, which was growing in a garden close by, he shook his head and said “The world could not be made by a great and wise God, for if it were, the small acorn would not grow on the oak tree, and the large pumpkin on so small a plant. If I made the world, I should change places with the pumpkin and the acorn!”

Whilst the foolish man was puffing himself up with conceit, and thinking himself wiser than the Maker of the earth, the sun, and the stars, an acorn fell from the oak tree, and gave him such a sharp blow on the nose as to make it bleed.

“Oh! what a fool I am,” said the astonished man, “I have received a crack on my nose for my folly, and it is well for me that pumpkins do not grow on oak trees; for if they did, my nose would be smashed, or perhaps my skull broken. I now see that I am wrong and nature is right. I will never again say there is no God.”

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