AFTER the settlement of the Vandals in Africa (A. D. 429-439) the Saxons were the next barbarians to plant themselves on the territory of what had been the majestic empire of Rome.
“For the fatherland of the English race we must look far away from England itself. In the fifth century after the birth of Christ the one country which we know to have borne the name of Angeln or England lay within the district which is now called Sleswick, a district in the heart of the peninsula that parts the Baltic from the Northern seas. Its pleasant pastures, its black-timbered homesteads, its prim little townships looking down on inlets of purple water, were then but a wild waste of heather and sand, girt along the coast with a sunless woodland, broken here and there by meadows that crept down to the marshes and the sea.
“The dwellers in this district, however, seem to have been merely an outlying fragment of what was called the Engle or English folk, the bulk of whom lay probably in what is now Lower Hanover and Oldenburg. On one side of them the Saxons of Westphalia held the land from the Weser to the Rhine; on the other, the Eastphalian Saxons stretched away to the Elbe. North again of the fragment of the English folk in Sleswick lay another kindred tribe, the Jutes, whose name is still preserved in their district of Jutland. Engle, Saxon, and Jute, all belonged to the same Low German branch of the Teutonic family; and at the moment when history discovers them they were being drawn together by the ties of a common blood, common speech, common social and political institutions. There is little ground indeed for believing that the three tribes looked on themselves as one people, or that we can as yet apply to them, save by anticipation, the common name of Englishmen. But each of them was destined to share in the conquest of the land in which we live [England], and it is from the union of all of them, when its conquest was complete, that the English people has sprung.
“Of the temper and life of the folk in this older England we know little. But from the glimpses that we catch of it when conquest had brought them to the shores of Britain, their political and social organization must have been that of the German race to which they belonged. In their villages lay ready formed the social and political life which is round us in the England of to-day. A belt of forest or waste parted each from its fellow-villages, and within this boundary or mark the ‘township,’ as the village was then called, from the ‘tun’ or rough fence and trench that served as its simple fortification, formed a complete and independent body, though linked by ties which were strengthening every day, to the townships about it and the tribe of which it formed a part. Its social center was the homestead where the ætheling or eorl, a descendant of the first English settlers in the waste, still handed down the blood and traditions of his fathers. Around this homestead or æthel, each in its little croft, stood the lowlier dwellings of freelings or ceorls. . . . The eorl was distinguished from his fellow-villagers by his wealth and his nobler blood; he was held by them in a hereditary reverence; and it was from him and his fellow-æthelings that host-leaders, whether of the village or the tribe, were chosen in times of war. But this claim to precedence rested simply on the free recognition of his fellow-villagers. Within the township every freeman or ceorl was equal. It was the freeman who was the base of village society. He was the ‘free-necked man’ whose long hair floated over a neck which had never bowed to a lord. He was the ‘weaponed man,’ who alone bore spear and sword, and who alone preserved that right of self-redress or private war which in such a state of society formed the main check upon lawless outrage.
“The religion of these men was the same as that of the rest of the German peoples. . . . The common god of the English people was Woden, the war-god, the guardian of ways and boundaries, to whom his worshipers attributed the invention of letters, and whom every tribe held to be the first ancestor of its kings. Our own names for the days of the week still recall to us the gods whom our fathers worshiped in their German home land. Wednesday is Woden’s-day, as Thursday is the day of Thunder, the god of air and storm and rain. Friday is Frea’s-day, the deity of peace and joy and fruitfulness, whose emblems, borne aloft by dancing maidens, brought increase to every field and stall they visited. Saturday commemorates an obscure god, Sætere; Tuesday the dark god, Tiw, to meet whom was death. Eostre, the god of the dawn or of the spring, lends his name to the Christian festival of the resurrection. Behind these floated the dim shapes of an older mythology; ‘Wyrd,’ the death-goddess, whose memory lingered long in the ‘Weird’ of northern superstition; or the Shield-Maidens, the ‘mighty women,’ who, an old rhyme tells us, ‘wrought on the battle field their toil and hurled the thrilling javelins.’ Nearer to the popular fancy lay deities of wood and fell or hero-gods of legend and song; Nicor, the water-sprite who survives in our nixies and ‘Old Nick;’ Weland, the forger of weighty shields and sharp-biting swords, who found a later home in the ‘Weyland’s smithy’ of Berkshire; Egil, the hero-archer, whose legend is one with that of Cloudesly or Tell.
“The energy of these people found vent in a restlessness which drove them to take part in the general attack of the German race on the empire of Rome. For busy tillers and busy fishers as Englishmen were, they were at heart fighters, and their world was a world of war. Tribe warred with tribe, and village with village; even within the township itself feuds parted household from household, and passions of hatred and vengeance were handed on from father to son. Their mood was above all a mood of fighting men, venturesome, self-reliant, proud, with a dash of hardness and cruelty in it, but ennobled by the virtues which spring from war,—by personal courage and loyalty to plighted word, by a high and stern sense of manhood and the worth of man. A grim joy in hard fighting was already a characteristic of the race. War was the Englishman’s ‘shield-play’ and ‘sword-game;’ the gleeman’s verse took fresh fire as he sang of the rush of the host and the crash of the shield line. . . .
“And next to their love of war came their love of the sea. Everywhere throughout Beowulf’s song, as everywhere throughout the life that it pictures, we catch the salt whiff of the sea. The Englishman was as proud of his sea-craft as of his war-craft; sword in teeth he plunged into the sea to meet walrus and sea-lion; he told of his whale-chase amid the icy waters of the North. Hardly less than his love for the sea was the love he bore to the ship that traversed it. In the fond playfulness of English verse the ship was ‘the wave-floater,’ the ‘foam-necked,’ ‘like a bird’ as it skimmed the wave-crest, ‘like a swan’ as its curved prow breasted the ‘swan-road’ of the sea.
“Their passion for the sea marked out for them their part in the general movement of the German nations. While Goth and Lombard were slowly advancing over the mountain and plain, the boats of the Englishmen pushed faster over the sea. Bands of English rovers, outdriven by stress of fight, had long found a home there, and lived as they could by sack of vessel or coast. Chance has preserved for us in a Sleswick peat-bog one of the war-keels of these early pirates. The boat is flat-bottomed, seventy feet long and eight or nine feet wide, its sides of oak boards fastened with bark ropes and iron bolts. Fifty oars drove it over the waves with a freight of warriors whose arms, axes, swords, lances, and knives, were found heaped together in its hold. Like the galleys of the Middle Ages such boats could only creep cautiously along from harbor to harbor in rough weather; but in smooth water their swiftness fitted them admirably for the piracy by which the men of these tribes were already making themselves dreaded. Its flat bottom enabled them to beach the vessel on any fitting coast; and a step on shore at once transformed the boatmen into a war-band. From the first the daring of the English race broke out in the secrecy and suddenness of the pirate’s swoop, in the fierceness of their onset, in the careless glee with which they seized either sword or oar. ‘Foes are they,’ sang a Roman poet of the time, ‘fierce beyond other foes and cunning as they are fierce; the sea is their school of war and the storm their friend; they are sea-wolves that prey on the pillage of the world!’
“Of the three English tribes the Saxons lay nearest to the empire, and they were naturally the first to touch the Roman world; before the close of the third century, indeed, their boats appeared in such force in the English Channel as to call for a special fleet to resist them. The piracy of our fathers had thus brought them to the shores of a land which, dear as it is now to Englishmen, had not as yet been trodden by English feet. This land was Britain. When the Saxon boats touched its coast, the island was the westernmost province of the Roman Empire. In the fifty-fifth year before Christ a descent of Julius Cæsar revealed it to the Roman world; and a century after Cæsar’s landing, the Emperor Claudius undertook its conquest. The work was swiftly carried out. Before thirty years were over, the bulk of the island had passed beneath the Roman sway, and the Roman frontier had been carried to the Firths of Forth and of Clyde. . . .
“For three hundred years the Roman sword secured order and peace without Britain and within; and with peace and order came a wide and rapid prosperity. Commerce sprang up in ports, among which London held the first rank; agriculture flourished till Britain became one of the corn-exporting countries of the world; the mineral resources of the province were explored in the tin mines of Cornwall, the lead mines of Somerset or Northumberland, and the iron mines of the Forest of Dean. But evils which sapped the strength of the whole empire, told at last on the province of Britain.” —Green’s Larger History of England, chap. 1, par. 1, 2, 11, 13-16.
(To be continued.)
First Place for God
ANYTHING which makes religion its second object makes religion no object. God will put up with a great many things in the human heart, but there is one thing he will not put up with in it—a second place. He who offers God only a second place, in reality offers him no place.—Sel.
His Bible.
Mr. Moody tells a pithy story of a young man who held out a book to his pastor, saying, "Here's your Bible," and, turning the leaves, showed him the volume with many books cut out altogether, and hardly a whole page among those that were left. "Why, what do you mean?" asked the doctor of divinity; "that is not my Bible." "Yes, it is," was the reply. "I have followed your preaching for ten years, and whenever you have discredited a book or verse, or explained it away as uninspired or mythical, I have cut it out; and this is what is left of your Bible." "Let me have it," said the pastor. "Oh, no," said the young man instantly, "I am going to hang onto the covers anyhow."
"Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery."
By W. N. Glenn
THERE is not a commandment in the decalogue so generally yet unwittingly violated by professed Christians as the seventh. This will be to many a startling assertion; but the subject is introduced thus abruptly in order that it may be startling, as it ought to be, trusting that a little candid consideration of the Scriptures will elucidate the point.
In the fifth chapter of Ephesians, the relationship between Christ and the church is represented as of the same character as that of husband and wife. Or, rather, the highest ideal of the matrimonial relation is that of Christ and the church. "The husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church." "Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands." "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it." "For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church; for we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery; but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
Now let us turn to the seventh chapter of Romans, for a further understanding of this union, and its bearing upon the commandment: "The woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man." Mark the application: "Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God."
The argument is simply this: Before conversion, in the light of the law we were wedded to sin—"our old man" (Rom. 6 : 6), "the flesh" (chap. 7 : 5). In that condition we could not be united to Christ; but when that "wherein we were held" ("the motions of sins," verse 5) died, then, like the woman whose husband died, we were free from the law that held us in that union, and at liberty to marry another, even him who was "raised from the dead." Some take the position here that the law which held us to the former union was abolished; but that idea would destroy the force of the illustration. When a woman's husband dies, and she is loosed from the law that united them, no one claims that the marriage law is repealed, or becomes a dead letter; but that it merely loses its effect in binding her to that husband. If she marries again, the same law holds her to her newly-wedded husband. So then, when "our old man" is dead (which is virtually our being dead to the world), and we are married to Christ, the same law holds us to him that formerly held us to "the flesh."
Keeping in mind the fact that the woman is held to her husband as long as he liveth, it is plain that when we become married to Christ our obligation to be subject unto him holds as long as he liveth; hence the union can never, by any act of ours, be legitimately dissolved, and the Christian who turns from his allegiance and again becomes united to another, is an adulterer. Furthermore, Christ said that if a man looked upon a woman to lust after her, he had already committed adultery. According to this exposition of the law, the Christian who even looks longingly after the pleasures, the follies, and allurements of the world,—whatever is inimical to the interests of the Lord's cause,—even without actual indulgence, is an adulterer.
In confirmation of these conclusions, note the culmination of the great apostate church as brought to view in the Revelation: "Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication." Adultery,—turning away from the Lord and joining herself to the world ("all nations"),—is her most prominent characteristic. Again: "And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will show unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters; with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication."
This is sufficient to show that the primary element in apostasy is a violation of the seventh commandment,—the heart turning from a true allegiance to its legitimate spouse. This is adultery in the deepest sense of the term—adultery of the heart. When the apostle Paul, in writing to the Galatians (chap. 5 : 19) details the "works of the flesh," he heads the list with adultery. Eve was led to partake of the forbidden fruit through adultery—her heart, her longings, were turned from her marital allegiance, to an illegitimate affection. The Christian cannot deliberately violate any other commandment in the law until the way has been paved by a spiritual transgression of the seventh.
But there is still another important phase of this subject growing out of the illustration in Romans 7—out of the principle that a woman is an adulteress if she marry another husband before the first is dead. This convicts the individual of adultery who unites himself to Christ before the "old man" is dead, before self is crucified and is dead to sin. Where then stands the hypocrite, or the self-deceived one who has thought he could join himself to Christ without giving up the world? Under the Lord's construction of the law, and under his apostle's analysis of the same, they stand branded as adulterers.
But many well-meaning persons may not have looked deeply enough into the law to discern their true condition. They are ignorantly transgressing the commandment; their sin is yet a "secret fault." It is time for such to take up the prayer of the psalmist: "Who can understand his errors? Cleanse thou me from secret faults." Ps. 19 : 12. "Deal with thy servant according unto thy mercy, and teach me thy statutes. I am thy servant; give me understanding, that I may know thy testimonies." Ps. 119 : 124, 125.
How Christianity Was Paganized.
THE Rev. Dr. Geikie, author of the "Life and Words of Christ," gives a good illustration of the means used by some of the early Christians to induce the heathen to accept the Christian religion. We are quite sure, however, that the time of which he speaks must have been after all the apostles had ended their labors and gone to their rest. But both Paul and John foresaw this time in the near future. Dr. Geikie is speaking of the heathenism of Palestine, and says:—
"Helios, the sun, was the great object of worship, and so deeply rooted was this idolatry that the early Christian missionaries knew no other way of overthrowing it than by changing it into the name of the prophet Elias, and turning the temples into churches dedicated to him."—Life of Christ, pp. 53, 54.
We can well imagine the sort of Christians they would make. The ancient Egyptians, for many centuries before Christ, worshiped Isis as the queen of the heavens and the goddess mother, with her son Horus in her arms as the god of the rising sun. The image of the mother and child, Isis and Horus, was found in nearly every temple in Egypt, and in the time of the Roman emperors in many of the temples of Italy and Greece. If the Christian missionaries had told the Egyptians that this image was hereafter to be called the Virgin Mary, and her child called Jesus, and that they must hereafter worship them under these names, they would have possessed about the same amount of Christianity as those spoken of by Dr. Geikie.
Yet this is just the way the missionaries induced the Egyptians to become Christians. They could continue to worship the queen of the heavens, but they must call her the blessed Virgin Mary, and they could continue to worship the all-conquering Horus, who was the rising sun, but they must hereafter call him the Sun of Righteousness. No wonder that Tertullian told the heathen in substance: "If the Christians do seem to worship the sun, they are no different from you." It was during this period that the people of the church were told by their leaders that they must now, instead of observing Sunday for the reason that the day was dedicated to the sun, or to his worship, observe it because it was the day on which God began the creation of the world, and also the day to be observed in memory of the resurrection of Christ.—Light of Home.
Love Is Not Selfish
By Selected
LOVE is not selfish. There are those who want things to suit themselves, whether others are suited or not. If riding on the train or street-car, they want the whole seat. If walking on the street or riding on the highway, the selfish one wants the whole sidewalk or street for himself. If such an one happens to be a member of the church, he wants things to suit himself whether others are pleased or displeased. If he cannot have things his way, he will not have them at all. If he cannot have the preaching to suit his fancy, he will not come to church. Like a balky horse, if he can go his own way, he will go all right; but if he is checked, even by the majority, he balks. If he cannot rule, he will try to ruin. But such an one has no love for God and his fellow-men.
—Sel.
A Sign of the Times.
By Jesse S. Gilbert
THERE are many signs that indicate the near approach of our Lord. The "fig tree" is putting forth its leaves, as a token that summer is nigh. Luke 21 : 29-31. There is one sign of our times to which I would call special attention. I refer to lawlessness. That this is to characterize the closing days of this dispensation is very clearly marked out in Scripture. Men are to be "truce-breakers, disobedient to parents, incontinent, fierce," etc. 2 Tim. 3 : 1-3. Look at the world to-day. Everywhere there is a revolt against law. It begins in the family, and extends up through the school, the college, the church, the State. It seems to be in the very air.
Men are no longer satisfied with liberty—they want anarchy! The red flag waves in our streets, whilst dynamite threatens to explode under our feet. There is no sign of our times more marked or more universally present, than this one of lawlessness. As a legitimate result, murder and crime run riot. In the meantime no one seems to have any adequate remedy, and "men's hearts are failing them for fear." This state of things seems to pervade the whole world: and men anxiously and wonderingly inquire: "What next?" Those who watch for their Lord's appearing are not slow to catch the import of all these things. They see in this prevailing lawlessness a marked sign of the times—another indication that the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.—Rev. Jesse S. Gilbert, A. M. (Methodist.)
IN last week's article, texts were quoted to show that the expression, "till the seed should come to whom the promise was made" (verse 19), has reference to the second coming of Christ. This is an important point, and we wish to have it well fixed in the mind of the reader. We therefore present a few more thoughts in the same line of argument. Let us first read the eighteenth and nineteenth verses in connection:—
"For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise; but God gave it to Abraham by promise. Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added [spoken] because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made."
There can be no question but that the "promise" referred to in verse 19 is the same as that mentioned in verse 18. And what is that promise? It is the promise of "the inheritance." What inheritance was promised to Abraham? In Rom. 4:13 Paul tells us that the promise to Abraham was "that he should be the heir of the world." This promise must be the same as that discussed in the third chapter of Galatians, because, (1) only one inheritance was promised to Abraham, and (2) the same means of securing the inheritance is given, both in Romans and in Galatians. Compare the two texts: "For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect." Rom. 4:13, 14. "Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. . . . And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect. For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise; but God gave it to Abraham by promise." Gal. 3:16, 18. That the thought in these two texts is identical, there can be no shadow of doubt. It therefore needs no further argument to show that the "promise" is the promise of "the inheritance," and that "the inheritance" is the whole earth, which God gives to Christ, the seed (Ps. 2:7, 8), and to all who, by faith in Christ, become children of faithful Abraham (Gal. 3:7, 29). And this is at the second coming of Christ.
The next point to be emphasized is that in speaking of the seed, "the inheritance" is in the mind of the apostle. His argument, in outline, is this: The inheritance is given solely on account of faith. To the objection that this makes void the law, he replies that the law was spoken (made more plain) to serve an important purpose in connection with faith, and that it will continue to fill this office until the seed shall come to whom the promise was made, and through whom alone the inheritance can be obtained. The coming of the seed brings the fulfillment of the promise, and, of course, the end of faith. 1 Peter 1:9.
And when will this take place? For answer, note two texts that have been previously quoted. Through the prophet Ezekiel the Lord says of the dominion of this earth: "I will overturn, overturn, overturn it; and it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him." Eze. 21:27. And that this refers to the second coming of Christ, he himself showed when he said: "When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory; and before him shall be gathered all nations. . . . Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." Matt. 25:31-34.
From the foregoing, we think that there can be no doubt in any mind that the apostle has reference in verse 19 to the second coming of Christ. This will appear even more plainly as we develop the argument which he bases on this point. The next thing for consideration will be the relation which the law sustains to the promise and its fulfillment. This is the objective point of the whole argument; but since the limits of this article will not allow the matter to be presented in such shape that it could well be left for a week, we shall defer a discussion of that question until the next number.
W.
Restoration of the Papacy.
WE have seen how that Germany and the United States have acknowledged the sovereignty of the Pope, and have noted the movement in Italy to follow suit. After Germany and Italy, of the powers of Western Europe, there only remains England whose acknowledgment would be of any significance. And when Germany and Italy, which have been the most bitter of the opponents of the Papacy, are now so ready to bring about a reconciliation which grants the sovereignty of the Pope, it is not at all difficult to believe that occasion may arise at which England would be ready to engage his good offices by also recognizing his sovereignty as Germany has done, and as Italy desires to do.
This will the more readily appear when the motive is seen which has led Germany to humble herself before the Pope, and which is leading Italy to take the same course. This is so clearly stated by Signor Fazzari, that we shall give it in his own words:—
"In my mind, the necessity and possibility of the understanding with the Papacy, follows from the present condition of Italy and the monarchy, both in itself and its relations with other nations; and this all the more, and most particularly from a consideration of the ever-spreading spirit of anarchy, and the condition of political degradation, which we all lament in Italy, and which certainly will not be ended by the alternative of Right and Left [the Italian Parliament] at the helm of State, so long as the ideas hitherto held by these parties are still entertained."—The Monitor (S. F.), June 23, 1886.
This same "ever-spreading spirit of anarchy," it was that caused Bismarck to "go to Canossa." In his speech in the German Parliament, the Chancellor said that there are "political parties in their own assemblies who put forward demands, and advocated views which would ruin Germany far more quickly than any papal pretensions;" and that "the Pope is a wise, venerable, and good man, very friendly to Germany, much better disposed to forward the true interests of Germany than some of the politicians in the Prussian Diet and the Reichstag." In these expressions Bismarck clearly betrays the cause that induced him to seek the friendship of the Papacy. Socialism is rife in Germany, and has a large representation in the Parliament. It is the Socialists who "put forward demands and advocate views that would ruin Germany;" and so even the "iron" Chancellor is compelled to bend, and makes haste to enlist the Pope on his side in the impending and imminent contest with the "spirit of anarchy."
Nor is it alone in Germany and Italy that the spirit of anarchy prevails. Even while we are writing this article, there comes to hand the San Francisco Sunday Chronicle, July 25, containing an excellent article from one of its European correspondents, dated Paris, June 28, 1886, and entitled, "The Red Specter." We here insert the first few sentences:—
"Socialism is the red specter of Europe. It is ever in the thought of kings; it clogs the wheels of legislation in parliaments; it alarms the thoughtful and far-seeing, and it is in all European countries a disturbing element in politics and society. Governments, politicians, the press, and writers of books, are more and more taking it into account, availing themselves of its influence, or using the material which it furnishes. The question is constantly asked, Is it extending? The reasons for believing that it is are many. The strongest is that it is feared. In France the Ministry acts timidly in presence of its occult power. Bismarck, who hoped that his law of 1878, proscribing Socialism, would accomplish its work, and effectually lay the specter in five years, has been compelled to renew it. There are more Socialist deputies to-day in the German Parliament than in 1878. In Russia, Socialism, less defined in principle than elsewhere, threatens the life of the Czar and the annihilation of all existing social and political forms. In Austria, Italy, Spain, and England, the public is continually made aware of its operations by the expressed discontent of the working classes and the imminency of revolutions."
Thus "the ever-spreading spirit of anarchy," in the presence of which statesmen turn pale, and Governments tremble, is the secret of the movement for the restoration of the Papacy. In times of such difficulties as these, it is with peculiar force that the Papacy suggests itself to the minds of statesmen as the source of greatest help. In times of anarchy and revolution, when the very foundations of States, and even of society itself, seem to be moved, it is almost instinctively that the European statesman grasps the hand of the Papacy. The Papacy has passed through revolution after revolution, and complete anarchy itself is no terror to her. She saw the fall of the Roman Empire. And as that empire was the "mightiest fabric of human greatness" ever seen by man, so its fall was the most fearful ever seen in history. Yet the Papacy not only passed through and survived it all, but she gathered new strength from it all. When Alaric and Genseric—Goth and Vandal—poured destruction upon destruction upon the devoted city, the Papacy came forth from it with no weakness upon her, and the wrath of the terrible Attila was turned away by the efforts and the personal presence of the Pope. When the flood of barbaric rage swept over all Western Europe, spreading destruction, misery, and anarchy for centuries, instead of disturbing the Papacy, it was but her opportunity. The Papacy thrives on revolutions; the perplexities of States are her fortune; to her anarchy is better than order. Therefore, we repeat, when revolution is imminent, and anarchy threatens, it is almost instinctively that the European statesman grasps the hand of her who mastered the anarchy of the Middle Ages, and the revolutions of fifteen centuries. And if England gets out of her dynamite-Irish troubles without the help of the Papacy, it is more than we expect.471We see then that the prophecies reveal a restoration of the Papacy. We see the steps already taken in that direction by the two nations principally concerned. We see, in the ever-spreading spirit of anarchy, the cause which has impelled these nations to these steps, and which, in the nature of the case, must induce others to follow their lead; and all such advances can end in nothing else than the aggrandizement of the Papacy, and its re-assertion of power. For as surely as any person or power enters into negotiations with the Papacy upon an equal basis, that person or power will be overreached. Negotiations backed by force may succeed, but not otherwise, and even then only for a time; because, though a pope may be beaten and die, the Papacy lives and works. We believe Macaulay's words express the literal truth:—
"It is impossible to deny that the polity of the Church of Rome is the very masterpiece of human wisdom. . . . The experience of twelve hundred eventful years, the ingenuity and patient care of forty generations of statesmen, have improved that polity to such perfection that, among the contrivances which have been devised for deceiving and oppressing mankind, it occupies the highest place."—Essays, Von Ranke.
The statement of the Bible on this point is that it is "the mystery of iniquity," and that "through his policy he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand." Dan. 8:25. Craft always has prospered in his hand, and in his present efforts for the renewal of his power, his vast experience in this bad accomplishment will not fail him; for the Papacy is only too willing to do its part in this matter. As an instance of this, we may mention that in the matter of the negotiations with Bismarck, the agreement was that if Prussia would revise the May Laws, the Pope would then direct the Catholic officials in Germany to show proper obedience to the laws. But it was so willing to show his sincerity in the scheme of reconciliation that he went beyond his part of the agreement, and gave the requisite order before the German Parliament had agreed to a revision of the obnoxious laws. This was then used by Bismarck as an effectual answer to those who opposed his bill out of suspicion that the Pope was not really sincere. But the Papacy would not be itself if it were really sincere in anything else than the one grand project of its own aggrandizement. That is all the sincerity that it has ever shown in history. That is all the sincerity it is capable of showing. Yet with all the dreadful history of the Papacy before them, not only unapologized for, but prided upon, statesmen and Governments are compelled by "the ever-spreading spirit of anarchy" to shut their eyes to it all, to forget it all, and, for their own safety, to make firm alliances with the embodiment of that polity which is the perfection of "contrivances which have been devised for deceiving and oppressing mankind."
As, therefore, the spirit of anarchy is the principal cause of these advances toward the renewed recognition of the Papacy in national and international affairs, and as this spirit is universal, so we are certain that this recognition of the Papacy in one form or another, as suits it best, will be universal. And we believe that Father O'Reilly stated the exact truth when he said:—
"The time must come, and is coming, when the Papacy will be formally acknowledged as the international institution par excellence, and when both its sovereignty . . . and the means necessary to secure its exercise, will be once more placed solemnly under the safeguard of all nations."
We believe it because it is in accordance with the Scripture: "All that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." Then can she indeed say "in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow." Rev. 18:7. And as surely as the Papacy shall be restored, which is as sure as the sure word of prophecy itself, just so surely will there be persecution. The Papacy is ever the same. The disposition to "root out heresy" is the same in all places and in all ages. All that is now lacking is the power, and when that shall be restored to her, then will be fulfilled the prophecy: "The same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them, until the Ancient of Days came; and judgment was given to the saints of the Most High; and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom."
But it will not be for long. For just at the time when she, because of her restoration to preference and power, is glorifying herself, is living deliciously, and congratulating herself, saying "in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow;" just then, and "therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire; for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her." Rev. 18:7, 8. The restoration of the Papacy is the one great event that stands between the world and the Judgment. That restoration is now in progress; the elements are rife that will assure its accomplishment; war upon the saints is impending; and the time that the saints possess the kingdom is at the doors.
Next week we shall examine this subject in connection with our own country.