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Review and Herald, Vol. 81, No. 45.

The Eucharistic Hymn

Review and Herald

Nov 10, 1904

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Nov 10, 1904

The Eucharistic Hymn

Calm lay the city in its double sleep, Beneath the paschal moon’s cold, silvery light, That flung broad shadows o’er the rugged steep Of Olivet that night.
But soon the calm was broken, and the sound Of strains all sweet and plaintive filled the air; And deep-toned voices, echoing all around, Made music everywhere.
The holy rite is o’er; the blessed sign Is given to cheer us in this earthly strife; The bread is broken, and outpoured the wine, Symbol of better Life.
The bitter cup of wrath before Him lies; And yet, as up the steep they pass along, The mighty Victim to the sacrifice, They cheer the way with song.
We ne’er can know such sorrow as that night Pierced to the heart the suffering Son of God; And every earthly sadness is but light, To that dark path He trod.
And yet how faint and feeble rise our songs! How oft we linger ’mid the shadows dim, Nor give the glory that to Him belongs In eucharistic hymn!
O for an echo of that chant of praise! O for a voice to sing His mighty love! O for a refrain of the hymns they raise In the bright home above!
Touch Thou our wayward hearts, and let them be In stronger faith to Thy glad service given; Till, o’er the margin of Time’s surging sea, We sing the song of Heaven.
—Lyra Anglicana.

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RECOMMENDED TRACTS

(a) “Gospel Message for Today.” Price, 70 cents a hundred, postpaid. (b) “Who Changed the Sabbath?” 70 cents a hundred, postpaid. (c) “Waymarks to the Holy City,” 70 cents a hundred, postpaid. (d) “Heralds of His Coming.” Price, $1.00 a hundred, postpaid. (e) Religious Liberty Leaflets, New Envelope Series. The following will be ready about November 15, and others will follow soon: “Principles Too Little Understood,” 38 cents a hundred, postpaid. “Sunday Laws, Their Origin, Nature, and Object,” 38 cents a hundred, postpaid. “The Logic of Sabbath Legislation,” 38 cents a hundred, postpaid. “The Civil Sabbath,” 55 cents a hundred, postpaid. (f) Family Bible Teacher. Ten cents a set, postpaid.

RECOMMENDED BOOKS

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The above books are dedicated to the assistance of our schools and work in the South, hence no commission is received by the worker.
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“Steps to Christ” (cloth), 50 cents. “Steps to Christ” (paper), 25 cents. “Power for Witnessing” (cloth), 75 cents. “Power for Witnessing” (paper), 25 cents.
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LIFE AND HEALTH

Special Issues for November and December

SPECIAL issues of “Life and Health” have been planned for use in the Missionary Campaign, and the November number is now ready. Though only a limited notice of this number has so far been given, very encouraging orders from all sections of the country are coming in rapidly. Besides the many single subscriptions sent to us in every mail, the following club orders will give a general illustration of the large orders daily received:—
“Enclosed find money-order for $2.50 for which please send me 50 copies each of the November and December numbers of Life and Health. Cora B. Hill, Aledo, Ill.”
“Kindly send me at once 50 copies of the November number of Life and Health. “W. H. Loose, Irvington, N. J.”
“Please send 100 Life and Health for one year to J. B. Beckner, Text Lane, Jamaica.”
“The Sanitarium wishes to co-operate in the missionary campaign and desires to use Life and Health in their work. At present please send 80 copies of the November issue. Newark Sanitarium, Newark, Ohio.”
The Nebraska Conference orders 75 copies; Mrs. M. A. Livingstone, Park Rapids, Minn., orders 100 copies; Mrs. Olina Hanson, Webster, S. D., orders 100 copies; Mrs. Phebe Press, San Francisco, Cal., orders 200 copies, etc.
Telegram—
“Send us 500 copies Life and Health, Brighouse, San Francisco. “St. Helena Sanitarium. “Per J. T. Evans.”
New yearly subscriptions for 1905 will include the November and December numbers until the editions of these issues are exhausted.
We give our regular authorized agents 20 cents commission on all new yearly subscriptions secured in the United States between November 1, and December 31, 1904.
Twenty-five or more copies of the special numbers ordered at one time will be furnished for 2½ cents per copy.
Agents everywhere report good success. Many of them express surprise that the journal sells so easily. Oftentimes people purchase it from sight without waiting for a description. Sells well from news stands. The November number is especially attractive, and people purchase it readily. Two sisters recently went out for an hour in the evening, and sold 60 copies. Others can do likewise.
Order through your State Tract Society or
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Gain and Gaiety

Editorial

Gain and Gaiety

THE lust for wealth and the love of pleasure are characteristics of the last days. It is because of the desire for sudden riches that the many get-rich-quick schemes find ready victims. It is because of the inordinate appetite for amusement that so many reap handsome returns from very questionable forms of public entertainment. The revelations which are now being made in the public prints of the methods employed by the rich men of to-day in heaping up their treasures ought to shock the whole people. It is certain that so many colossal fortunes were never amassed at any time in the past, and the methods employed indicate an utter disregard for all principles of justice and righteousness. There is only one explanation for this state of things. We are in the last days. And even many of the professed followers of Christ have been so completely drawn into the current of the pleasure seekers that it is difficult to distinguish them from the average devotees of fun and frolic. Gain and gaiety seem to be the chief aim of many lives. In this way many will be shut out of the kingdom of heaven. With them the passing things of this world occupy the place which belongs to eternal realities, and they utterly neglect so great salvation. How emphatic is the call for convincing testimony to be borne concerning the inestimable value of the true riches and the offer of “pleasures forevermore!” “I counsel thee to buy of me gold refined by fire, that thou mayest become rich.” “How precious is thy mercy, O God! And the children of men shall take refuge under the shadow of thy wings. They shall overflow with the fatness of thy house, and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures.” Such riches and such pleasures are the heritage of the Christian. Such riches will not take to themselves wings and fly away, and such pleasures will never lose their freshness. Do not be deceived by the tempter.

The Last Generation

A CAREFUL student of the Scriptures must be convinced that it is the Lord’s purpose that men shall know when the Saviour’s return to this earth is near. There are many lines of prophecy which lead up to the second advent. Some deal with the successive kingdoms up to the setting up of the everlasting kingdom of God. Some are based upon definite periods of time which extend to our own day, but all of which are now in the past. Some give certain remarkable events as signs to mark the approach of the day of God. Some describe the condition of the church and the condition of the world as indicating the nearness of the end. When all these are combined they constitute unimpeachable evidence concerning the greatest event of all the ages,—the second advent of our Lord in glory. An unprejudiced study of these prophecies leads to the inevitable conclusion that this is the last generation. There are many now living who will never see death, but will “be caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air.” There are many more who will not die a natural death, but will be overwhelmed by the revelation of the glory which will be manifested when our Saviour shall appear. In this generation, in our day, will come those experiences of terror and of triumph which the human mind can not fully comprehend, and which human language can not fully describe. That fear which will pierce the very heart, and for which there is no remedy, will seize upon those who have not found a refuge in Christ. That joy which thrills the very soul, and for which there will be no limit, will be the heritage of the humble, faithful ones who wait for their Lord. This is a mere suggestion of what will happen in this last generation. Are you laying your plans on the basis that this is the last generation? The world will go bankrupt in this last generation. Are you investing your means in the eternal securities? Time will change to eternity in this last generation. This mortal will put on immortality in this last generation. Heavenly scenes will burst upon our view in this last generation. Spread the good news. Be ready.

A Continuous Campaign

It was a part of the recommendation concerning this winter missionary campaign that it should be the beginning of a work which should go steadily forward until this warning message shall have been given to the whole world, and our Lord shall come. This is a reasonable and sensible view to take of our present situation. It marks out a plan of action which is in harmony with the vital truths of our message. It indicates an increasing confidence that, with the Captain of the Lord’s host as our Leader, we can win a sure and speedy triumph in vindication of his truth, and come to Zion with many trophies of the glorious victory.
A brief consideration of our present situation will show clearly the propriety of conducting a continuous campaign, with a determined purpose that the whole world shall hear this truth in the shortest possible time. The testimony of prophecies fulfilled and fulfilling show that we are far along in the last generation, and that the time of the promise is here. The great earthquake of Lisbon in 1755, and the darkening of the sun and moon in May, 1780, and the close of the “time and times and half a time” of the prophet Daniel in 1798, and the falling of the stars in November, 1833, and the close of “the hour and day and month and year” of the sixth trumpet, indicated by the passing of the supremacy of the Ottoman empire on Aug. 11, 1840, and the close of the twenty-three hundred days (years) in 1844,—all these events and dates within a single century constitute a series of prophetic steps which lead up to the close of all definite time prophecies, and bring us to the place where we may know that “He is near, even at the doors.” The lack ofpower in the professed church of Christ, the departure of some from the faith, the unprecedented accumulation of wealth by the few at the expense of the many, and the increasing distress among the nations,—all these conditions existing at the same time, as foretold in the Scriptures, further emphasize the nearness of the end. The one thing which delays the final triumph of God’s people is their own lack of zeal and devotion in sounding the warning message. “Ye can churches of the living God, . . . consider how your lack of faith, of spirituality, of divine power, is hindering the coming of the kingdom of God.” “Arouse, and consecrate yourselves unreservedly to the work of giving the light of truth for this time to those in darkness. Catch the spirit of the great Master Worker. Learn from the Friend of sinners how to minister to sin-sick souls. Remember that in the lives of his followers must be seen the same devotion, the same subjection to God’s work, of every social claim, every earthly affection, that was seen in his life. God’s claims must always be made paramount. Christ’s example is to inspire us to put forth unceasing effort for the good of others.
“God calls upon every church-member to enter his service. Truth that is not lived, that is not imparted to others, loses its life-giving power, its healing virtue. Every one must learn to work, and to stand in his place as a burden-bearer. Every addition to the church should be one more agency for the carrying out of the great plan of redemption. The entire church, acting as one, blending in perfect union, is to be a living, active missionary agency, moved and controlled by the Holy Spirit.”
We are encouraged to believe that leaders and people are awakening to a larger sense of their responsibilities, and that they will respond to the demands of the hour. The missionary spirit is certainly being aroused. The missionary zeal is certainly increasing. The missionary tide is certainly rising. Conferences are voting men and means. Volunteers are offering themselves for the fields. The results of missionary efforts in distant lands were never so encouraging as now. “For that the leaders took the lead in Israel, for that the people offered themselves willingly, bless ye Jehovah.” We thank God, and take courage.
Now let the work go forward with increasing enthusiasm, with a growing zeal, in the power of the Spirit, in a continuous campaign, until the earth shall be lightened with the glory of this message, and “the kingdom of the world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ: and he shall reign forever and ever.”

Help in a Crisis

The greatest opportunities in life occur in the time of a crisis when much depends upon immediate action. At such times those who are prepared to step in and cast all their interests into the work of God secure to themselves great blessings. Of Simeon and Levi, God said, “Instruments of cruelty are in their habitations. O my soul, come not thou into their secret: unto their assembly, mine honor, be not thou united: for in their anger they slew a man, and in their self-will they digged down a wall. Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel: I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel.” Gen. 49:5-7. When all Israel made and worshiped the golden calf, the tribe of Levi alone stood firm for God; they stood in the gap and defended the honor of God.
Many years later the honor of God was at stake, and Phineas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, again arose and vindicated God. And when he did this, God said, “Behold I give unto him my covenant of peace: and he shall have it, and his seed after him, even the covenant of an everlasting priesthood; because he was zealous for his God, and made an atonement for the children of Israel.” Numbers 25.
A few years later, at the close of the life of Moses, we hear him speaking of Levi as follows: “Let thy Thummim and thy Urim be with thy holy one, whom thou didst prove at Massah. . . . They shall teach Jacob thy judgments, and Israel thy law: they shall put incense before thee, and whole burnt sacrifice upon thine altar.” Deut. 33:8-11.
This was very different from what Jacob had said; for Levi had risen in the time of a great crisis, and risked their all to vindicate the honor of God. Instances of like note are found all through the Bible. Circumstances arise when the honor of the cause of God is at stake. It is then man's opportunity to arise, and show where he stands.
The present time, in the history of the third angel's message, is the greatest opportunity for men of means to go forth and assist the cause of God. There never was a time like the present. In the onward march of present truth, never before was such an opportunity presented for men of means to help the cause of God. God has most signally given temporal prosperity to his people, especially in this country; for on them rests the burden of extending the knowledge of the truth to the most unenlightened portions of the earth.
Missions have been established in every civilized country, also in the darker portions of Africa and in Asia. Institutions are to be erected in different portions of this country, and in otherportions of the earth. The call for means in Washington is according to the spirit of prophecy, but this represents only one important phase of the work. New fields are still to be opened, and the truth is to be carried to earth's remotest bounds. Our foreign missions are to be sustained, and at the same time our home work is not to be neglected.
Our people know but little of the conditions of the South. Twenty thousand dollars would be but a very small sum to meet the present necessities of the Southern field. The condition of things in the South is fast coming to the place where the work will be closed up, and what is done for the South must be done speedily. Much has been done, but the present demand is greater than in any other one portion of this world. It is greater because the work is closing.
Our brethren in the North can not appreciate the condition of things in the South any more than our brethren in America can appreciate the condition of things in other countries, where the customs and civilization are entirely different from what they are in America. God has spoken concerning all of these enterprises. Our annual offerings are soon to be taken from all parts of the world to be given to these different fields. There are not sufficient funds with which to begin to build the colored sanitarium in the South at Nashville, about which the spirit of prophecy has spoken so plainly. Neither are there funds to build the sanitarium for the white people outside of the city limits of Nashville. Money should be raised to meet all these calls. Twice the sum is needed that has been set to be raised this present time of annual offerings. Will our people come up to this crisis, and make a lift that will bring relief to the cause in all its branches? Should there come a reverse, a financial crisis such as has been sometimes in the past, in less than six months there would be hundreds of thousands of dollars lost by financial depression. Why not place it where it will advance the cause of God?
To secure God's continued favor, it is necessary that God's people now make use of the blessings that they have received to bless others. This is not only true financially, but in putting forth efforts to scatter the rays of light. Now is man's opportunity to step in and secure the favor and blessing of God, so that even where God may have spoken by way of reproof, he would regard the efforts put forth, and would turn curses into blessings.
In 1844, within a few weeks of the time it was expected the Lord would come, thousands and tens of thousands of dollars were brought to the old Signs office in Boston, Mass., and laid on the counter, the owners begging the brethren to take the money and use it in the cause of God. But they were met by the statement that they had enough money to carry them over the twenty-second day of October, when they expected the Lord would come; so the money was pushed back, and they had to take it away with them. This may be the case with many in the history of this work.
There are plenty of men and plenty of means in the ranks of present truth, if all could appreciate the condition of things, to accomplish God's purpose in scattering the rays of light in a very brief period of time. It is the golden opportunity for the remnant of God's people. Where are men of means who will arise and invest their substance in a crisis like this? Such ones God will honor.
S. N. HASKELL.

A Cruel Necessity

We have sent word to all the mission fields to defer any expenditures that can be deferred, and to husband every slender resource. The mission funds are depleted, and the annual offering is still a long way off, measuring the time by the needs.
We are telling laborers who expected to go to the fields this autumn that we can not send them. A few will go, as special help comes from conferences sending laborers, or from other sources. Others must wait, and the fields must wait, apparently. Calcutta greatly needed three nurses for the busy winter season in our sanitarium there, and three earnest missionary nurses were under appointment months ago. We have had to cancel the appointment for this year.
Brother J. N. Anderson has been pressing us to get Dr. Law Keem to China by January 1. Dr. Keem, after years of preparation in this country, and with plans to become self-supporting very quickly after his arrival, is in California, ready to go, and the Mission Board had expected to send him. We have written him that we shall have to wait. When the little in the mission fund is needed to sustain workers already in the field, it becomes necessary to resolutely refuse to go ahead.
We are saying “No” to many an urgent call, while waiting for the annual offering, and shall have to continue, unless the regular flow of gifts shall be found to greatly increase. Surely many who might help are forgetting the fields that are so far off that they can not quickly tell us of their immediate needs. Month by month those needs must be supplied, or there is perplexity and possible distress.
No one believes we are doing too much for missions. In the best year we have ever had for mission gifts—the year 1902—the total given in all the year, including some special appeals, averaged four cents a week per church-member. Is that too much for a people charged with quickly carrying the third angel’s message to a perishing world? It is less than the price of one loaf of bread a week. Will not all especially pray now that the Lord will send forth laborers into his harvest? That means money with which to send them. It is a cruel necessity we are under just now in holding back workers and saying “No” to appeals for help. The most rapid progress we have ever seen in the mission fields is reported to-day. That very progress—God’s signal of advance—adds to the hardness of the situation as we counsel every our retrenchment and delay in all the fields. Must it be so?
W. A. SPICER, Secretary Mission Board.

The Blessedness of Giving

“REMEMBER the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Acts 20:35.
This statement of the Lord Jesus declares a truth that but few believe. Many who assent to it as being true, do not know by experience that it is true.
The natural, or carnal, mind looks upon giving as a stern duty, and receiving as an agreeable privilege. Giving is regarded as a detriment, a privation, a loss. Receiving is looked upon as an advantage, a benefaction, a profit. The idea of giving is unpleasant, forbidding, and disagreeable to the natural heart. But the thought of receiving is pleasant and gratifying.
But this is not the view, or contrast, presented by our Lord. He does not contrast giving and receiving. He compares them. He represents both as a blessed privilege, and giving to be the more blessed of the two.
This, says Dr. Pierson, “Lifts giving to its highest plane, and crowns it as the true secret of the most exalted blessing to the giver himself.”
This view of giving is mysterious and incomprehensible to the natural mind, for the reason that it is contrary to nature. But all gospel service and experience is contrary to nature, and beyond the grasp of the natural, unspiritual mind.
There is a spiritual law—a divine working by which:—
Rest comes from labor. Matt. 11: 28-30.
Life from death. Rom. 6: 8-11; Gal. 2: 20.
Exaltation from humiliation. Phil. 2: 8, 9; Luke 14: 10, 11.
Strength from weakness. 2 Cor. 12: 9, 10.
Increase from giving. Prov. 11: 24, 25; 2 Cor. 9: 6-8.
Reality from faith. Heb. 11: 1; 1 Peter 1: 8.
Everything from nothing. Heb. 11: 3; Ps. 33: 6-9; Rom. 4: 17.
All this is contrary to nature, but it is the law in the realm of the spiritual.
Rest from labor. Christ says, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, . . . and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” The yoke is an emblem of labor and toil. It represents the earnest, constant service every follower is to render to the Master. To the natural mind the yoke does not mean rest. Yet every Christian whose heart is full of the love of God, can testify of the sweet rest that comes from wearing toil for Christ.
Joy from sorrow. Of Jesus we read, “Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.” What a revelation this is of joy coming from sorrow. As the Son of God, Christ occupied the second place in the universe. He was next to his Father. He had been the happy recipient of all that his Father could bestow upon him. In him were “hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” He was his Father’s “Darling.” O what honor, what glory, what vast treasures were his!
But in the possession of all these, his heart was filled with grief when he gazed upon the face of a sorrowing, perishing race. He knew that there was one way by which this lost world could be saved. And that way was the way of sorrow. But the way of sorrow would bring to him a joy that he could never obtain in any other way. So, for that joy, he gave himself to that sorrow. He became “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.”
“Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind.” “Rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings.” This is just what the natural heart endeavors to shun. It shrinks from trials, sorrows, and afflictions. It selects a smooth, pleasant path. But, in doing so, it misses the sweetest joys that can come to the human heart. Says Paul, “Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ.” 2 Cor. 1: 3-5.
Life from death. “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed untosin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” “He that hath the Son hath life.” “He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.”
How true all this is, and yet it is as contrary to nature as is the result of spiritual grafting, presented by the apostle Paul in the eleventh of Romans. In nature the fruit produced by the union of a graft with the trunk is always of the nature of the graft, and never of the trunk or roots. But this spiritual grafting worked contrary to nature—the graft from the wild olive tree partook of the nature of the trunk, and bore the fruit of the trunk. In other words, the Gentile became a Jew, an Israelite indeed, in whom there was no guile, and bore the fruits of the Spirit instead of the fruits or works of the flesh.
Increase from giving. This same spiritual law, this mysterious working, is just as manifest in the matter of gospel giving as in any other feature of the gospel. O that this lesson of priceless value may be learned! Many Christians go far enough to learn by experience that rest comes from labor. Some learn that joy comes from becoming partakers with Christ in his afflictions. But how few learn the precious lesson that increase comes from scattering, yea, that riches come from poverty. We can believe that God made all that we behold from nothing; that “he spake, and it was.” We can believe that when God speaks of “things that be not as though they were,” that that very speaking produces the things. Rom. 4: 17. But O, it is so difficult for a selfish heart to believe, without reserve, that giving, imparting, scattering, means a return, an increase! Listen to the voice of God. The Lord says:—
“There is that scattereth and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, and it tendeth to poverty. The liberal soul shall be made fat: and he that watereth shall be watered also himself.” Prov. 11: 24, 25.
“There is that maketh himself rich, yet hath nothing: there is that maketh himself poor, yet hath great riches.” Prov. 13: 7.
Could anything be plainer? Do not these statements show that there is a course to take, that, to all human appearance, would reduce one to poverty, but which actually increases and multiplies his goods? And do they not also plainly declare that there is a course to take, which, from a human standpoint, will bring great increase, but which results in loss and poverty?—They certainly do. Then here we find, in the matter of Christian beneficence, the working of that spiritual law so contrary to nature.
“The contributions required by the Hebrews for religious and charitable purposes, amounted to fully one fourth of their income. So heavy a tax upon the resources of the people might be expected to reduce them to poverty; but on the contrary, the faithful observance of these regulations was one of the conditions of their prosperity. On condition of their obedience, God made them this promise: ‘I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground, neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field. . . . And all nations shall call you blessed; for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of Hosts.’”—“Patriarchs and Prophets.”
“But thou shalt remember the Lord thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth.” Deut. 8: 18.
“Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field.”
“The Lord shall command the blessing upon thee in thy storehouses, and in all that thou settest thine hand unto; and he shall bless thee in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.”
“And the Lord shall make thee plenteous in goods, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy ground, in the land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers to give thee.”
“The Lord shall open unto thee his good treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto thy land in his season, and to bless all the work of thine hand: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, and thou shalt not borrow.”
“And the Lord shall make thee the head and not the tail; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath; if that thou harken unto the commandments of the Lord thy God, which I command thee this day, to observe and to do them.” Deut. 28: 3, 8, 11-13.
All this divine working in behalf of our temporal prosperity, is promised on condition of our obedience to all of God’s requirements. But if we distrust and disobey God, we shall have a very different experience. He says:—
“Thou shalt carry much seed out into the field, and shalt gather but little in; for the locust shall consume it.
“Thou shalt plant vineyards, and dress them, but shalt neither drink of the wine, nor gather the grapes; for the worm shall eat them.
“Thou shalt have olive trees, throughout all thy coasts, but thou shalt not anoint thyself with the oil; for thine olive shall cast her fruit.
“Thou shalt beget sons and daughters, but thou shalt not enjoy them; for they shall go into captivity.”
“All thy trees and fruit of thy land shall the locust consume.
“The stranger that is within thee shall get up above thee very high; and thou shalt come down very low.
“He shall lend to thee, and thou shalt not lend to him: he shall be the head, and thou shalt be the tail.” Deut. 28: 38-44.
Here are the promises of wonderful prosperity, and warnings of terrible adversity, made by him who can not lie. They are not confined to any one race or age; they are for all people in all ages. The Bible presents some impressive records of the fulfilment of both the promises and the warnings.
A. G. DANIELLS.
(To be concluded)

Note and Comment

A REPORT made at the late Episcopal convention by a commission on capital and labor, in which were Bishop Potter and ex-Mayor Seth Low, of New York City, and Jacob A. Riis, draws a parallel between the labor trust which seeks to dictate terms to those who would enjoy the right to work, and the religious trust which formerly dictated to the people in religious matters, and would now, in some places, compel all men to accept Sunday as the Christian sabbath, and pay homage to this religious institution, under penalty of forfeiture of their civil rights. The report says:—
The question of the closed shop is like the question of the closed State. Men whose Puritan ancestors strove to maintain a State whose privileges should belong only to members of the church, ought to be able to understand the struggle of their brethren to maintain a shop in which no man shall serve except a member of the union. They may not agree with these brethren, but they ought to appreciate their self-sacrifice. The laborer has learned from the capitalist to despise order and break law. He has learned from the churchman to pursue the dissenter with menace and violence. The recent tragedies in Colorado do not follow at a far distance the massacres which in the sixteenth century ensued upon the withdrawal of Holland from the ecclesiastical union.
This is a recognition of the truth that the same spirit actuates men in the invasion of the rights of others, both in secular and in religious matters. The same spirit that is now stirring up strife in the industrial world is ready to cause trouble in the religious realm, and will surely do so, in fulfilment of inspired prophecy. Out of the existing strife in civil and in religious affairs will come, ere long, the decision that no man may buy or sell save he that has the mark of the “beast”—the ecclesiastical power described in Revelation 13. To that end all things are now tending. L. A. S.
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