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Review and Herald, Vol. 9, No. 17.

A CATECHISM FOR THE DEIST

Review and Herald

Feb 26, 1857

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 26, 1857

A CATECHISM FOR THE DEIST.

QUESTION. What do you understand the Bible to be? ANSWER. A revelation from God. Q. What is meant by divine revelation? A. A supernatural communication of truth from God to man. Q. Is it probable that God ever made such a revelation to man? A. It is; for without it man could never have known any thing concerning his Creator, or of his mind and will. Q. Is such a revelation necessary? A. It is, on the supposition that God designed the happiness of mankind, and that they could not be so happy without it. Q. Wherein does it farther appear that such a revelation is necessary? A. Without such a revelation we could not determine the quality of moral actions, so as to know which are good and which are evil. Q. By what rule then are we to judge of human conduct, so as to know what is right and what is wrong? A. By the law of God. Q. How may that law be known?
A. By divine revelation. Q. Are not human opinions a sufficient guide in moral actions, without the aid of a direct revelation from God. A. They are not. Q. Why are they not? A. Because they are so various and contradictory. Q. Is not human reason a sufficient guide in moral actions? A. It is not. Q. Why is not human reason a sufficient guide in regard to moral conduct? A. Because it is imperfect. Q. How do you prove that human reason is imperfect? A. From the fact that some men worship the true God, some the works of God, and others the works of their own hands. Q. What other proof have you that human reason is imperfect? A. The fact that some men worship no God at all. Q. What farther proof can you give? A. The fact that there are some atheists in the world, many kinds of deists, and many heretics among Christians. Q. Do all these different sects and orders of men pretend to be guided by reason? A. They do. Q. Is not the light of natural conscience a sufficient guide in regard to moral conduct? A. It is not. Q. Why is not conscience a sufficient guide? A. Because conscience cannot act without a rule to go by. Q. Where then shall we find the rule, by which we are to be guided in moral actions? A. In the word of God. Q. But is not the Spirit of God, or “inward light,” as some call it, a sufficient guide, without the word of God?
A. We do not know that all men have the Spirit of God; if they have they need the Scriptures. Q. Does not philosophy supersede or set aside the necessity of divine revelation? A. It does not. Q. Wherein is philosophy deficient? A. In its doctrines concerning God, the worship of God, man’s chief good, the pardon of sin, the government and providence of God, and a future state. Q. Have you any proofs to offer that the Bible is of divine origin? A. We have many proofs. Q. Mention some of them. A. The Bible must be the production of either good men, or good angels, bad men, or devils, or of God. Q. How do you prove that it is not the production of bad men, nor of devils? A. Neither bad men nor devils would make a book which condemns their own practices, and dooms them to endless perdition. Q. How do you prove that good men have not imposed upon the world by saying that the Bible is the word of God, when it is nothing but their own invention? A. Neither good men nor good angels, would or could make a book, and tell lies all the time, by saying, “Thus saith the Lord,” when he had said no such thing. Q. Have you any other proof that the Bible is of divine origin? A. The Bible is precisely such a revelation as is necessary and desirable to man in his present condition. Q. Wherein does the Bible appear to be just such a revelation as we might suppose God would bestow upon his creatures? A. In the sublimity of its doctrines, in the purity of its moral precepts, and in its uniform and benevolent design throughout. Q. Wherein does it farther appear? A. In the grandeur and benevolence of its miracles, and in the exact fulfillment of its predictions. Q. What is the Scripture doctrine concerning God? A. That he is without beginning of days or end of years. Q. What farther? A. That he is self-existent, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. Q. What farther? A. That he is infinitely wise, holy, just and good; the creator, upholder, and preserver of all things. Q. What is the Scripture doctrine concerning the origin of this world? A. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. He made the stars also. The sea is his, and he made it: and his hands formed the dry land.” Gen. i, 1, 16; Ps. xcv, 5. Q. What is the Scripture doctrine concerning the origin of man? A. “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” Gen. ii, 7. Q. What do the Scriptures teach concerning the origin of evil? A. That the first human pair sinned against their Creator, and by their sin brought death into the world and a curse upon themselves and upon their posterity: Rom. v, 12. Q. What is the doctrine of Scripture concerning man's chief good? A. "He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" Micah vi, 7. Q. What do the Scriptures teach concerning the government and providence of God? A. "The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens; and his kingdom ruleth over all." Ps. ciii, 19. "It is in him that we live, and move, and have our being." Acts xvii, 28. Q. What directions do the Scriptures give respecting the worship of God? A. "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." Matt. iv, 10. "God is a spirit; and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." John iv, 24. Q. What is the Scripture doctrine respecting the pardon of sin? A. "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." Isa. lv, 7. Q. What do the Scriptures say concerning human depravity? A. "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." Jer. xvii, 9. "They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no not one." Rom. iii, 12. Q. Do the Scriptures point out any remedy for this evil? A. "But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed." Isa. liii, 5. Q. Is there any passage in the New Testament of similar import? A. "The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." John i, 7. Q. In what other respects does the Bible prove itself to be divine? A. By the purity of its moral precepts. Q. Mention some of the precepts. A. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. Thou shalt not covet any thing that is thy neighbor's. Q. Mention a few from the New Testament. A. "Love your enemies; bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you." Matt. v, 44. Q. What else can you say respecting the moral precepts of the Bible? A. They require us to be humble and patient, benevolent, peaceable, and holy in heart, and in all manner of conversation. Q. What other proof have you to offer in favor of the divine authenticity of the Bible? A. The unity of its design, and the harmony of its several parts. Q. Wherein does it appear that the Scriptures are uniform in their design? A. The uniform design of the Bible throughout appears to be, to exhibit the glory of the divine perfections in the salvation of sinners; and in the preservation, increase, and establishment of the Church. Q. Wherein does the harmony of the Scriptures appear? A. In their perfect agreement with each other on points of doctrine and duty. Q. But could not one man have written such a book, and by a skillful contrivance have made it to agree with itself in every particular, and so imposed upon mankind? A. It is not likely that he could; and it is certain that the sacred writers had no such design or opportunity of imposing upon mankind; for they did not all live in the same place or at the same time. Q. When and by whom were the Scriptures written? A. The first five books were written by Moses, near sixteen hundred years before the incarnation of Christ. The other parts of the old Testament were written by David, Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and others. Q. When and by whom were the Scriptures of the New Testament written? A. More than seventeen hundred years ago, by the persons whose names they bear. Q. What evidence have you of the sincerity and integrity of the sacred writers? A. They honestly acquaint us with all their faults and follies; their poverty and prejudices; dullness of apprehension; weakness of faith; ambitious views, and contentions among themselves. Q. Had the sacred writers, in general, an opportunity of knowing the truth of those things which they relate? A. They had; for they were, in general, eye and ear witnesses of those things; they were inspired by the Holy Spirit to write as they did, were empowered to work miracles, and to deliver prophecies, many of which have been fulfilled. Q. Had the world in general an opportunity of knowing the truth of the things contained in the Scriptures at the time they were written? A. It had; the Egyptians, the Chaldeans, the Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans, all had an opportunity of knowing whether the things said to have been done in their several countries were true or not. See particularly the book of Esther, chap. x, 2. Q. Do the historians of those countries contradict or confirm the historical facts of Scripture? A. They confirm them: Sanchoniathon, a Tyrian writer, has preserved a memorial of the actions of Gideon. Q. What historian has given an account of the victory obtained by David over the Syrians of Zoba, upon the banks of the Euphrates, as it is described by the sacred writers? A. Nicholas Damascus. Q. What historian has recorded an account of the taking of Jerusalem by Sesostris, king of Egypt, as it is described in the second book of Kings? A. Herodotus, who was contemporary with Ezra and Nehemiah. Q. Have any other heathen writers recorded any thing in confirmation of Scripture history? A. They have. Q. Who are they? A. Castor, Menander, Strabo, Alexander Polyhistor, Berosus, Xenophon, Manetho, Chemeron, Appolonius, and Lysimachus.
  1. Berosus, the Chaldean, Nicholas, of Damascus, and Manetho, the great Egyptian annalist, mention the ruins of a great ship among the mountains of Armenia, in their day, and it is remarkable that a village at the foot of Mt. Ararat bears a name which signifies the city of descent.
  2. The first authority, among the heathen writers, (concerning the deluge,) is that of Berosus. From his testimony we may learn the opinion of the Chaldeans respecting the flood. If we change the name of Noah for that of Xisuthrus, it will appear that Berosus has the whole history of the deluge complete. Berosus says, “that very anciently the gods being greatly offended at the wickedness of the human race, foretold to Xisuthrus that they intended to destroy the world by a deluge. Xisuthrus immediately set about building a ship of very great dimensions. After many years, a prodigious vessel was constructed, and Xisuthrus with his family entered into it, with a multitude of creatures, which were to be preserved.
“The flood then came, the face of the whole earth was covered; and the vessel which carried the only surviving family of the human race, was buoyed up, and floated on the boundless deluge. The waters at length abated, and the ship chanced to land on a mountain in Armenia, called Ararat.” The same author says, that nigh to his own times, “large pieces of timber were still seen on those mountains, universally supposed to be pieces of the ship of Xisuthrus.” Many other Chaldean writers mention the same things; so that the belief of the Chaldeans in the deluge, rests on the most unquestionable authorities. Moreover, the certainty, that they did believe in it, is a consideration of great weight; for Nimrod founded their empire but a short time after the deluge; and they, of all the ancient nations, were the most likely to have correct information, as far as depended on tradition.
  1. The second authority is Ovid, a writer in the Augustan age. He relates the story though with different names, much in the same way. He says that “the gods, to punish the wickedness of man, destroyed the earth with a deluge. The destruction was so complete, that only Deucalion and Pyrrha escaped to the top of mount Parnassus.” Plutarch, a Greek writer, says, “that Deucalion, when the waters of the flood were abating, sent forth a dove, which returned with an olive leaf in her mouth.”
  2. Varro, the most learned man the Roman state produced, is full to purpose. Varro says that “in ancient times, there was a universal deluge, in which the human race were nearly all destroyed.” He says, that the flood took place 1600 years before the first Olympiad. Now it is known, that the first Olympiad took place 776 years before Christ. This account admirably corresponds with the scripture chronology; for 1600 added to 776, makes 2376; whereas the Mosaic chronology places the flood 2343 years before Christ, a difference of only twenty-eight years in a range of time so long. When we consider the erudition of Varro, and that his chronology was drawn from the Greeks and Egyptians, and came through a different channel from that of the scripture, we may well be astonished at this coincidence, and can have no rational doubt of the correctness of the facts in question.” Whelpely's Compend.
Q. How could Moses ascertain the truth of the facts related in the book of Genesis otherwise than by immediate inspiration? A. By tradition from Adam, through the medium of Methusaleh, Noah, Shem, Isaac and Joseph. Q. Is not the Mosaic account of the creation of the world contradicted and overturned by the Egyptian, Chaldean, and Chinese chronologists? A. By no means. Q. How do you prove that? A. By the disagreement of their historians among themselves. Q. Wherein do they disagree? A. Some of the Egyptian writers say that the world had existed more than twenty-three thousand years previously to the reign of Alexander. Others of them say ten thousand. Q. What do the Chaldeans say on this subject? A. The Chaldeans believed the world to have been eternal, and that they had learned astronomy by tradition from their ancestors, who had all successively made it their study for four hundred and seventy-two thousand years together. Q. What do the Chinese say concerning the age of the world? A. Some of them say it had existed upward of three millions of years previously to the time of Confucius, and in all that long period men were so ignorant that they lived like brute beasts, without any settled government, laws or arts. Q. What heathen writers acknowledge Moses as the founder of the Jewish religion? A. Strabo, Justin, Pliny, Tacitus, Juvenal, Longinus, and others. Q. Have any of the enemies of Christianity borne testimony to the truth of the Gospel history as to the facts therein contained? A. They have. Q. Mention the names of some of them. A. Suetonius, Tacitus, Pliny, Celsus, Porphyry, Hierocles, and Julian. Q. What do these writers say in favor of the truth of the things recorded by the evangelists? A. Suetonius mentions Christ by name, and says that Claudius expelled from Rome those who adhered to his cause. Q. What is the testimony of Tacitus? A. Tacitus records the progress which the Christian religion had made in his time. His own words in a letter addressed to Nero, are, “They (the Christians) had their denomination from Christus, who, in the reign of Tiberius, was put to death by the procurator, Pontius Pilate. This pernicious superstition, though checked for a while, broke out again, and spread, not only over Judea, but reached this city also.” Q. What is the testimony of Pliny? A. Pliny the Younger mentions the Christians in one of his letters to Trajan, as a people who used to meet on a stated day of the week, before it was light, and sing a hymn to Christ as God. This epistle occurred about A. D. 112. Q. What did Celsus say of Christ and of his apostles? A. He says that “he could tell many other things relative to Jesus, besides those things that were written of him by his own disciples; but that he willingly passed them by.” He calls the disciples “ten or eleven publicans and boatmen,” by way of contempt. Q. Do the other writers allow that Christianity existed in their times? A. They do. Q. How long is it since these writers flourished? A. Suetonius and Tacitus lived in the reign of Vespasian, which began A. D. 70. The other between that period and the year 370. Q. What noted enemy of Christianity was emperor of Rome about this time? A. Julian, the apostate. Q. How did this haughty monarch attempt to annul the words of Jesus in Luke xxi, 24? A. By reinstating the Jews as a nation to Palestine, and assisting them in re-building the temple. Q. What was the result? A. The project was as signally defeated as the erection of the tower of Babel, and by the same power, too. Ammianus Marcellinus, a heathen writer, and the secretary of Julian, says, “Whilst Alypius, assisted by the governor of the province, urged with vigor and diligence the execution of the work, horrible balls of fire, breaking out near the foundations, with frequent and reiterated attacks, rendered the place from time to time inaccessible to the scorched and blasted workmen, and the victorious element continuing in this manner absolutely and resolutely bent, as it were, to drive them to a distance, the undertaking was abandoned.” Q. What evidence in favor of the truth of the Scriptures is to be derived from the miracles therein recorded? A. The accounts of miracles must be either true or false; and if true, they prove the divine mission of the prophets, of Christ, and of his apostles. Q. Can you produce any evidence to prove that the miracles of Scripture were really performed at the time, and by the persons mentioned in the Scriptures? A. They were performed publicly, in the presence of many witnesses; and were of such a nature that men might judge of them by their outward senses. Q. Might not the witnesses be deceived? A. It was impossible for them to be deceived. The dividing of the Red Sea and the river Jordan were witnessed by thousands and tens of thousands. Q. How was it with the miracles of Christ? A. The miracles of Christ and of his apostles were not disputed even by their enemies. Q. What is the testimony of Josephus, the Jewish historian, concerning Christ and his miracles? A. “Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works—a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ, and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.” Q. Are there any memorials now observed which serve as evidences of the divine mission of Moses and of Christ? A. There are: the passover among the Jews; baptism and the Lord's supper among the Christians. Q. Did the Egyptians keep up any memorial of the destruction of their first-born? A. They did: once a year, on the day immediately preceding the observance of the passover by the Jews, they marked their sheep, trees, houses, and lands, with red, from the superstitious fear of the like plague that once befell their forefathers. Q. How long did they observe this custom? A. Until some time after the incarnation of Christ. Q. Did Mohammed perform any miracles in proof that his mission was divine? A. He did not: and his pretended night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem, and from thence to heaven, was witnessed by no one; and rests entirely on his own word. Q. What do you understand by prophecy? A. The foretelling a future event, in such a manner as that when the event comes to pass, it shall exactly agree with the prediction in every particular. Q. Are there any such prophecies in the Bible? A. There are many such, both in the Old and New Testaments. Q. What was the design of prophecy? A. To excite expectation before the event, and then to confirm the truth by a striking and unequivocal fulfillment. Q. What remarkable prediction did Jacob deliver on his death-bed concerning the tribe of Judah? A. “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.” Gen. xlix, 10. Q. How was this prediction fulfilled? A. By the miraculous preservation of the tribe of Judah as a distinct and chief tribe among the Jews, until the coming of Christ. Q. What remarkable predictions concerning the Jews did Moses deliver a little before his death? A. “I know that after my death ye will utterly corrupt yourselves, and turn aside from the way which I have commanded you; and that evil will befall you in the latter days.” Deut. xxxi, 29. Q. How has this prediction been fulfilled? A. In the apostasies and numberless calamities which have befallen the Jewish nation since the death of Moses. Q. What calamities did Moses say should fall upon the Jews for their disobedience? A. “The Lord shall send upon thee cursing, vexation, and rebuke. The Lord shall cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies, and thou shalt be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth.” Deut. xxviii, 20, 25. Q. How has this been fulfilled? A. Many of the Jews were taken captive by the Assyrians, the Chaldeans, the Persians, and the Romans; and many of them are found at this day in all the four quarters of the earth. See Esther viii, 9; x, 2. Q. It was predicted by Moses that they should “become an astonishment, a proverb, and a by-word among all nations whither the Lord should lead them;” wherein has this prediction received its accomplishment? A. In the avarice, usury, hard heartedness, and hypocrisy of the Jews, and in the persecutions they have endured in all countries. Q. Are the Jews still a persecuted people? A. They are: Mahommedans, Pagans, and many that are call Christians, however they disagree in other points, generally agree in vilifying, abusing, and persecuting the Jews. Q. It was predicted by Moses that the Jews should be “sorely distressed by war, famine, and the want of all things, and that they should eat their own children secretly in their distress, because of the straitness of the siege;” when were these predictions fulfilled? A. During the siege of Samaria in the time of Elisha, and again in the time of the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans. Q. What is the testimony of Josephus on this subject? A. During the last siege of Jerusalem by the Romans, “there was a most terrible famine in the city; at which time a certain woman of a noble family, driven to distraction by famine, boiled her own child, and when she had eaten half, covered up the rest, and kept it for another time.” Q. What prophets foretold the destruction of Babylon? A. Isaiah and Jeremiah. Q. What did Isaiah predict concerning Babylon? A. “Behold I will stir up the Medes against them, and Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldee's excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah: it shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation.” Isa. xiii, 17, 20. Q. What did Jeremiah foretell concerning Babylon? A. “It shall be no more inhabited forever; neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation.” Jer. l, 39. Q. How long before the events took place were these prophecies delivered? A. Those of Jeremiah more than fifty years; those of Isaiah more than one hundred and fifty. Q. What was the condition of Babylon at the time the prophecies were delivered? A. The most flourishing; it was one of the greatest cities in the world. Q. What is it now? A. A heap of ruins. Q. What are the testimonies of the heathen writers concerning its former greatness? A. Diodorus Siculus says the walls were forty-five miles in circuit: Quintius Curtius says forty-six miles, and Herodotus sixty. Q. What heathen writers mention its destruction? A. Strabo, Herodotus, and Xenophon. Q. What do the Scriptures say of Nineveh? A. That it was “an exceeding great city.” Jonah iii, 3. Q. What do heathen writers say of it? A. That it was the greatest city in the known world at the time. Diodorus Siculus says it was sixty miles in circuit; Eustatius records, that one hundred and forty thousand men were employed for eight years in building it. Q. What prophet foretold its destruction? A. Nahum, about one hundred years before the event. Q. How has the prophecy of Nahum been fulfilled? A. In the most literal and remarkable manner. Q. What heathen authors have recorded the destruction of Nineveh? A. Alexander Polyhistor, Diodorus Siculus, and Lucian. Q. What is the testimony of Diodorus concerning the destruction of Nineveh? A. He says that “there was an old prophecy that Nineveh should not be taken till the river became an enemy to the city; and that in the third year of the siege, the river broke down the wall, and overflowed part of the city: the king then thinking the oracle fulfilled, collected all his wealth, his concubines, and his eunuchs, and burned himself and the palace with them all; and the enemy then entering took the city. Q. What does Lucian say on this subject? A. That “in his day Nineveh was utterly overthrown, and there was no footstep of it remaining, nor could one tell where once it was situated.” Q. What does the exact fulfillment of the prophecies prove? A. The inspiration of the prophet, and the divine authenticity of the Bible. Q. What is the difference between heathen and Christian nations, in regard to the knowledge and worship of God? A. The Hindoos acknowledge one supreme being; but they never worship him, nor think that he concerns himself with human affairs at all; the inhabitants of Ceylon worship devils. Q. What was the state of religion in Bengal when the missionaries landed there in the year 1793. A. They found the inhabitants sunk in the grossest idolatry, acknowledging at least three hundred and thirty millions of gods. Q. What was the nature of their worship at that time? A. It was blind adoration of a senseless idol; devotion to a monkey, a serpent, or a log of wood; mixed with many acts of impurity, which poison the soul and carry it down to perdition. Q. What ideas had they of futurity? A. Nothing more than eternal transmigration, or absorption into the soul of the universe. Q. What were their ideas of transmigration? A. They believed that when a man died, he rose again either in the form of a cat, or a dog, or a worm, or some other reptile. Q. Had they no ideas of happiness after death? A. Happiness after death, with them, was only for those who had given all their wealth to the priest, or had burned themselves on the funeral pile, or had been drowned in some sacred river. Q. What is the state of morality among the heathen? A. One of the missionaries who had been a long time in India, says, “I have never known one man among them previously to his conversion to Christianity, who appeared to fear God and work righteousness.”
Q. What does he say of their conversation? A. “The impurity of their conversation is beyond all description.” Q. What does he say concerning their deceitfulness? A. “They are finished adepts in the art of deception.” Q. What does he say of them concerning slander? A. “For slander and abuse they stand unrivalled, even among the most degraded of mankind.” Q. What is the practise of heathen mothers in India respecting their children? A. When the first-born is two or three years old, the mother takes it to the river, encourages it to walk in the stream, and then abandons it to the cruelty of the terrible alligator: this she does in hopes of having a numerous offspring. Q. Is not the heathen religion a very superstitious as well as cruel religion? A. It is: many suspend themselves in the air for a quarter of an hour by large hooks thrust through the integuments of the back: others have their sides pierced, and cords are introduced between the skin and the ribs, and drawn backwards and forwards, while the victims dance through the streets in honor of their idol. Q. Has the missionary ever seen any of these cruel superstitions? A. “I have seen others,” says the missionary, “cast themselves from a stage ten or twelve feet from the ground upon open knives inserted in packs of cotton. Sometimes one of these knives enters the body, and the poor wretch is carried off to expire.” Q. What is the tendency of the Hindoo writings? A. They encourage self-murder, human sacrifices, and the burning of widows, to an alarming extent. Q. How do the heathen in India treat their females? A. A female is despised as soon as she is born: every mother among the tribe of Rajpoots puts her female child to death as soon as it is born. In one instance where the daughter’s life had been spared till she was ten or twelve years old, the father took her aside one day, and with a hatchet cut her to pieces for the honor of his family. Q. Have the females in India any education? A. In childhood and youth they have no education at all, no cultivation of any kind whatever. Q. Are the wives admitted to equal privileges with their husbands? A. They are not: they never sit to eat with their husbands, but wait on them, and partake of what they leave. When the husband dies, the wife either buries herself alive, or burns herself on the funeral pile. Q. What is the religious character of the Chinese? A. They are ignorant, idolatrous, and superstitious. Q. What account does the missionary (Mr. Ince) give of one of their religious festivals? A. That he saw them burning gold paper before their idols, in the full belief that it would become money in another world, and that it would help those departed spirits who died poor to pay their way to heaven. Q. What account did they give him of their idols? A. They said they were made of paper, and when the festival was over they should burn them. Q. What is the character of the people of New Zealand? A. A missionary who has lately visited them says, “War is all their glory; they kill and eat their prisoners, and consider the Supreme Being as an invisible man-eater, and regard him with a mixture of hatred and fear.” Q. What are the prominent features of heathenism? A. Ignorance, superstition, impurity, folly, injustice, and cruelty. Q. What is the effect of heathenism on the human character? A. The most miserable, degrading and ruinous. Q. What are the prominent features of Christianity? A. Divine knowledge, wisdom, reasonableness, purity, justice, goodness, and mercy.
Q. What is the effect of the pure and undefiled religion of Jesus? A. “Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, and good will to man.”

THE CHRISTIAN'S WALK.

CHRISTIAN! walk carefully—danger is near; Work out thy journey with meekness and fear; Snares from without, and temptations within, Seek to entice thee again into sin.
Christian! walk humbly—exult not in pride; All that thou hast is by Jesus supplied; He holdeth thee up, he directeth thy ways, To him be the glory—to him be the praise.
Christian! walk cheerfully, though the dark storm Fill the bright sky with the clouds of alarm: Soon will the clouds and the tempest be past, And thou shalt dwell with thy Saviour at last.
Christian! walk steadfastly, while it is light; Swift are approaching the shades of the night; All that thy Master hath bidden thee do, Haste to perform for the moments are few.
Christian! walk prayerfully—oft wilt thou fall, If thou forget on thy Saviour to call: Safe shalt thou walk through each trial and care, If thou art clad in the armor of prayer.
Christian! walk joyfully—trouble and pain Cease when the haven of rest thou dost gain; This thy bright glory, and this thy reward, “Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord!”
[Conference Hymns.]
Continue reading: THE SABBATH AND THE “INSTITUTION OF THE SABBATH.”