International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 2, 1889
The Messiah
“MESSIAH” is a Hebrew word meaning “the anointed.” “Christ” is the Greek word meaning the same thing. John 1:29. Jesus the Son of God was especially the anointed of God. When he began his earthly work, he was anointed by the Holy Spirit to preach the glad tidings to the poor, to heal the sick, to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. Luke 4:18. According to the type he was anointed when he ascended to Heaven and entered on his work as priest. He is the great High Priest of God. He will be anointed once more when he comes to take his own, and sits down upon the throne of his father David.
He is anointed of God; men are anointed through him. His anointing was by the Holy Spirit, and was effectual in fitting him for his work, in which was needed all power and all gifts. The anointing which we will receive will be effectual in us if we will but lay hold on God by faith. He who is anointed of God to save us, will fail not nor be discouraged.
THE CHRISTIAN'S COMMISSION.
By Mrs. E. G. White
BY MRS. E. G. WHITE.
"Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you; and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth."
I WISH to call your attention especially to the commission which Christ gave to his disciples. He said, "Ye shall be witnesses unto me . . . unto the uttermost parts of the earth." But they were not fitted to present the gospel of Jesus to the world until they received the gift of the Holy Spirit. The commission Christ gave his disciples then, is our commission to-day. We are to be witnesses of him to the world; but we cannot impart Heaven's light, unless we have received it. We cannot reveal a Saviour of whom we have no knowledge.
There are many who have a legal, casual faith. They have nominally accepted Christ as the Saviour of the world, but they have no evidence in their hearts that he is their personal Saviour, that he has forgiven their sins, that they have a living connection with God, the source of all light. You cannot teach others of Jesus and his righteousness, you cannot portray his matchless love, and the fullness of his grace, you cannot picture him as the Christian's all in all, as the comforter and guide of man, unless your own heart is filled with his love. You will not be able to present God as a God of compassion and love unless you can say, "I have tasted and know that the Lord is good."
The fact that others receive blessings will not benefit your soul; unless you exercise faith530in Christ on your own behalf, you will be unblessed. That others partake of food will not serve to nourish your physical strength, neither will it nourish your spiritual strength to see others rejoicing in God and his love. You yourselves must partake of the feast which your Saviour has provided. Every one of you must wash and be clean. But you say, How can I do this? Have you not told us we have no power of ourselves to cleanse our souls from one spot or stain of sin? Yes, I have told you this, and yet I say unto you, "Wash you, make you clean." God has provided a way of salvation at an infinite cost to Heaven. A fountain for sin and uncleanness has been opened for Judah and Jerusalem.
The Father "gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." There are many who act as though Christ was the friend of men, but that the Father was their enemy. If this were so, would God have delivered his Son to death that man might have life? Jesus says, "I and my Father are one." Philip said to Christ, "Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us." Jesus turned to him and said, "Have I been so long time with you, and yet thou hast not known me Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father."
Christ came into the world to do a special work. He did not come to originate truth. It was already originated. He did not come to set aside what patriarchs and prophets had spoken; for he himself had spoken through these representative men. He himself was the originator of truth. Every jewel of truth came from Christ. But these priceless gems had been placed in false settings. Their precious light had been made to minister to error. Men had taken them to adorn tradition and superstition. Christ came to take them out of the false settings of error and to put them into the framework of truth. He came from Heaven to give the world a correct representation of the Father. Through Satan's suggestions and temptations, the Father had been represented as a being of a stern and unforgiving nature. The Christian life had been represented altogether too much as a life of hardship and sorrow. God was pictured as a being who was watching with jealous eyes, spying the mistakes and errors of men that he might delight himself in punishing them by the severest discipline, and that there could be no peace or joy in his service, Satan clothed the Father in his own forbidding attributes of character. All this was a false representation, and Christ came to reveal the character of God, and the nature of his service.
Christians misrepresent their heavenly Father when they go mourning and groaning, as though they were burdened with an enormous load, when their countenances are expressive of gloom and despondency, and the shadow encompasses their souls. But let them not think they are serving God in so doing; they are doing Satan's work in misrepresenting God and his service. They should go before the Father, and plead with him for a view of his goodness. They have lost sight of Jesus and his love. Let them go to Christ and study his character, for he came to represent the Father. Shall we receive Satan's misrepresentations of our God, and go on in discouragement, lacking peace and joy in the Holy Ghost? Shall we go on mistrusting our heavenly Father's love and doubting his goodness? What greater injury could we do to our children and our friends than to give them such false impressions of Christian life? It was at an infinite cost to the Father that man's salvation was purchased. The Father suffered with the Son to bring salvation within our reach. It is not his will that one soul should perish, but that all should come to repentance and receive eternal life. He has done all that it is possible to do to save fallen man. There was no other way by which man could be brought into harmony with his unchangeable law, save by the death of Christ. Christ became our surety, our sacrifice, Saviour, and example, and when all Heaven has been poured out to us in this gift of God, how shall he not with him freely give us all things?
How much we lose by doubting the love of God! Why do we not come boldly to a throne of grace, and by living faith lay hold of the merits of the blood of a crucified and risen Saviour? This must be an individual work. I cannot be saved by another's faith, nor can another be saved by my faith. Every soul must be saved by his own righteousness. Can we manufacture this righteousness? No. But Jesus has furnished it for us. When the sinner comes to him he takes his load of sin, and gives him his righteousness. The vilest sinner may claim all that was provided in the plan of salvation through the merits of Christ. He may have the attributes of the Saviour. He may go forth to tell of a living Saviour, and to win men to the truth; for he knows what it is to lay hold of Christ by living faith. He has taken the requisite steps in repentance, confession, and restitution, and he can teach others the way of salvation. He can present Christ as one who left his royal throne, who clothed his divinity with humanity that he might save fallen man. He can present him as one who was rich and yet for our sakes became poor, that we through his poverty might be made rich. He can go without the camp, bearing his reproach. He is willing to deny self that others may be saved.
Suppose that Christ had always remained in Heaven, there would have been no salvation for man; but he came from Heaven to represent the Father, to tell us of the glory and riches of eternity, and to save sinners by the sacrifice of himself. He died that we might live; that we might lay hold of his righteousness, and by faith claim his merits. Have you an experimental religion? Are you laborers together with God? Have you received the endowment of the Holy Spirit? Those who have received a knowledge of Christ cannot hold their peace. It is those who have not tasted the love of Jesus that can fold their hands in carnal security, and have no burden for souls. It is those who are not laborers together with God.
Those who are living branches of the True Vine, will seek to fulfill the commission of Christ, to be witnesses of him unto the uttermost parts of the earth. Jesus has said, "Ye are the light of the world." Has God given you intellect? You should use it to his glory. You should connect yourself with him who is the source of all light, if you are to be a light in the world. Jesus has said, "He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." When we come into straitened places, he will be with us. He will be at our right hand to uphold us. Those who keep a connection with God, may be as was Nehemiah in the king's court. One day the king asked him a question that involved consequences of the greatest importance to God's people, and Nehemiah felt his weakness, and he darted up a prayer to Heaven. Help came to him in a moment. The very answer that was appropriate for the occasion was on his lips. It will be so with those who follow Christ. In a time of great need they will not be left to themselves. They can send up a prayer to Heaven, and God will provide the needed grace and wisdom. If we are to be laborers together with God, if we are to fulfill Christ's commission, we must come to the fountain of life. We must drink of the well of salvation ourselves, if we would refresh others. Brethren, let us open our hearts to Heaven's light, that we may be able to flash its bright rays on the pathway of others. Let us kindle our tapers at the divine altar, that we may be light-bearers in a world of spiritual darkness.
Healing Hope
THERE is death in despair; but there is healing in hope.
Stumbling Blocks and Stepping-Stones
THE block of granite, which was an obstacle in the pathway of the weak, becomes a stepping-stone in the pathway of the strong.
The Truest Way to Help
OFTENTIMES people get the idea that they have much to do in some great work. Many times they seek their own glory, and many times they really desire to help. Very often indeed the truest way to help is by not hindering.
Saloons Reopened at Johnstown
The Pittsburg Post makes the statement that saloons have been re-opened at Johnstown, and the town is a scene of indescribable drunkenness. Men, whose families are being supported by the benefactions of the Nation, are spending their substance at the bar, while public works are at a stand-still because enough sober workmen cannot be secured. The Post demands the suppression of the source of so much evil.
Christ’s Example of Self-Denial
"For even Christ pleased not himself; but, as it is written, The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell on me." Rom. 15:3. Christ did not need to deny himself for his own advantage. In him dwelt "all the fullness of the Godhead." He was already the mighty Creator and Ruler of worlds which delighted to do him homage. Even Christ, that is, he who needed not to do this, pleased not himself for our sakes. But our self-denial for other’s sakes is to our edification, or building up. The Christian life is founded in self-denial; it should be an example of self-denial all the way through.
Prohibition and Sunday Laws
By Editor
The following from the California Prohibitionist of August, is sensible:—
“If Cincinnati wants to settle the contest with the saloons in the easiest manner, let her close the saloons every day in the week as well as Sunday. There is no sense in allowing the traffic six days in which to get up muscle with which to fight the law on the seventh.”
It is refreshing to find a Prohibition organ that is consistent on this point. There is really no more relation between Sunday laws and Prohibition than Sunday laws and tariff reform. We are glad to find our contemporary a true Prohibitionist.
The Beauty of an Established Religion
By Editor
THE Christian Commonwealth of July 25 relates that the Moslem preacher of Liverpool publicly rebuked the Prince of Wales for teaching the Shah of Persia to gamble. He had never known the vice till it was taught him by a so-called Christian prince. The above journal says:—
“It seems to us extremely disgraceful that just at the time when the Church of England is waking up to the enormity of this vice, and is becoming sensible of the extent of its spread, the future head of that church should be teaching a Mohammedan how to add another vice to the list of those which he habitually practices.”
And this shows the beauty of an established religion. According to law the Prince of Wales will soon be the head of the Established Church; but law can never make Christians.
Love Fulfills the Law
“LOVE worketh no ill to his neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” Rom. 13:10. This is the Bible definition of love. It certainly does not denote an abstract principle, but a living, concrete force. Fulfill is to perform, to accomplish. Then to substitute the definition for the word in the text, we have, “Love is the performing [or doing] of the law.” That this is the true interpretation is shown by another scripture: “For this is the love of God that we keep his commandments; and his commandments are not grievous.” 1 John 5:3. Love will not only perform the letter of the law, but its spirit. It will delight to do it even as did Christ. Ps. 40:8. The Spirit of God has shed abroad in the heart the love of God (Rom. 5:5), and that love is manifested in keeping the law of love. The love of God shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit, enables us to obey the law. “The righteousness [the spirit as well as the letter] of the law” is “fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” Rom. 8:4.
DIVINE AWARD.
By Alice Cary
I THANK thee, gracious Lord,
For the divine award
Of strength that helps me up the heavy heights
Of mortal sorrow, where, through tears forlorn,
My eyes get glimpses of the authentic lights
Of love's eternal morn.
For thereby do I trust
That our afflictions spring not from the dust,
And that they are not sent
In arbitrary chastisement,
Nor as avengers to put out the light,
And let our souls loose in some damned night
That holds the balance of Thy glory just;
But rather, that as lessons they are meant,
And as the fire tempers the iron, so
Are we refined by woe.
—Alice-Cary.
AN EXTRAORDINARY SERVICE.
By Editor
The Missionary Herald for August has the following account of what was indeed a most peculiar service:—
"In May last an extraordinary service was witnessed in the great Buddhist temple at Ikegami, Japan. It seems that nearly twenty years ago the United States ship Oneida was sunk on the Japanese coast, and recently in the raising of the vessel the remains of many officers and sailors who were drowned were recovered. The Japanese conceived the idea, out of respect to the memories of the men thus lost, of holding a memorial service after the Buddhistic rites. They therefore made elaborate arrangements, and the ceremony is said to have been as imposing as any religious service ever witnessed by foreigners in Japan. Seventy-six priests in full canonicals took part, and there was a large attendance of natives as well as foreigners.
"The admiral of the American flagship, with his contingent from the United States man-of-war, was present; an address in English was given by a Japanese, Mr. Amenomori, who, it seems, was neither a Buddhist nor a Christian, but an agnostic. The Japan Mail says that the best parallel to this singular arrangement would be the burial of Japanese sailors, wrecked on our coast, by Americans, who should go to a Catholic church and there celebrate high mass, with a funeral oration delivered by Robert G. Ingersoll.
"From the address of Mr. Amenomori, in which he frankly acknowledged that he was not a Buddhist, but declared that he would seek to speak from a Buddhist's point of view, we learn that the service which was held was called a segaki, or 'a feast for hungry spirits.' The origin of the ceremony, he said, is derived from an incident in the life of Ananda, a contemporary and disciple of Gautama. This man, being alone at one time, was told by a hungry spirit in a horrible form that he should die within three days and be numbered among the hungry spirits. Ananda asked how he could escape such a horrible condition, and the spirit replied, 'If thou givest freely one531measure of food and drink to each one of the hungry spirits, which are as numerous as the myriads of sands of the Ganges, and to each one of the milliards of Brahmans, and if thou doest homage to Buddha, the priests, and the law, on my behalf, thou wilt escape from the impending pain and I also shall be born in heaven.'
"The impossibility of accomplishing this task overwhelmed Ananda, and he went to his master, Gautama, to see what could be done. He was told that there was a way to feed this multitude. 'I shall teach thee a sutran. If thou offerest some drink and food and repeatest this sutran there shall be given to each spirit and Brahman seven measures sevenfold of the drink and food.' By this simple method he succeeded in pacifying the hungry spirits and thus obtained his own release. Such is the story. And with such a fable as this the modern Japanese Buddhists sought to provide for the dead American sailors who were drowned near their shores. The kindly spirit which led to the act is certainly to be recognized. That they could believe that in this way the souls of the departed were to be relieved is certainly astonishing."
To us it does not seem nearly so strange that the pagan Japanese should believe that souls could be released in that way as it does that people with the Bible in their hands should believe that the souls of the dead are conscious; or that those in the lands of Bibles should believe that the souls of the dead can be relieved of pain or advanced in position and happiness by the muttering of a score of masses, more or less. The Roman Catholic purgatory belongs to the same family as the Buddhist purgatory; and the segaki is a parallel to the mass.
"PECULIAR PEOPLE."
By N. Y. Evangelist
WHAT every church needs to make it a spiritual power in this world, is at least a reasonably large proportion of members who are scripturally "peculiar," because they are always "zealous of good works." With these it can carry to the end of the earthly route those who insist upon an easy and quiet passage because they have paid their fare, and the other do-nothings who insist upon being "dead-headed."
But besides these, nearly every church is afflicted with numbers who are "peculiar" in very different and very disagreeable directions. They are peculiar by their constant and unsolicited advice to the pastor as to how he shall do his work and manage his family affairs. They are peculiar in the prayer-meetings, where, while their silence would be always heartily enjoyed, they are sure to talk or pray in a manner which gives an impression that an iceberg has in some way floated in through the door. Their talks are about the shortcomings of other people, and the sad lack of spirituality in the church; and when they pray, or rather profess to pray, they always throw such criminating talks into the form of a prayer, being careful not to hit themselves.
Many pastors have a firm conviction that a mysterious dispensation of providence has sent into their respective churches all the peculiarly zealous people that can be found within twenty miles of them. While they are not light afflictions, they should be borne patiently, and be made, as far as possible, a means of grace.—N. Y. Evangelist.
WHENCE WHEAT CAME.
CLASSIC ACCOUNTS OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE PRECIOUS CEREAL.
WHEAT, which is now the bread corn of twelve European nations, and is fast supplanting maize in America and several inferior grains in India, was no doubt widely grown in the prehistoric world. The Chinese cultivated it 2700 B. C. as a gift direct from Heaven; the Egyptians attributed its origin to Isis, and the Greeks to Ceres. Ancient monuments show that the cultivation of wheat had been established in Egypt before the invasion of the shepherds, and there is evidence that more productive varieties of wheat have taken the place of one, at least, of the ancient sorts. Innumerable varieties exist of common wheat. Colonel Le Conteur, of Jersey, cultivated 150 varieties. Mr. Darwin mentions a French gentleman who had collected 322 varieties, and the great firm of French seed merchants, Vilmorin-Andrieux et Cie, cultivate about twice as many in their trial grounds near Paris. In their recent work on "Les Meilleurs Bles," M. Henry L. de Vilmorin has described 68 varieties of best wheat, which he has classed into seven groups, though these groups can hardly be called distinct species. M. Henry L. de Vilmorin has cross-bred three of them, Triticum vulgare, Triticum turgidum, and Triticum durum, and has found the offspring fertile. Three small-grained varieties of common wheat were cultivated by the first lake dwellers of Switzerland (time of Trojan war), as well as by the less ancient lake dwellers of Western Switzerland and of Italy, by the people of Hungary in the stone age, and by the Egyptians on the evidence of a brick of a pyramid in which a grain was imbedded, and to which the date of 3359 B. C. has been assigned.
The existence of names for wheat in the most ancient languages confirms this evidence of the antiquity of its culture in all the more temperate parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa, but it seems improbable that wheat has ever been found growing persistently in a wild state, although the fact has often been asserted by poets, travelers, and historians. In the "Odyssey," for example, we are told that wheat grew in Sicily without the aid of man, but a blind poet could not have seen this himself, and a botanical fact can hardly be accepted from a writer whose own existence has been contested. Diodorus repeats the tradition that Osiris found wheat and barley growing promiscuously in Palestine, but neither this nor other discoveries of persistent wild wheat seem to us to be credible, seeing that wheat does not appear to be endowed with a power of persistency except under culture.—Edinbury Review.
PARENTAL AFFECTION AND INFLUENCE.
WHEN mothers are mentioned in the brief record of early life of some distinguished character in God's word, we have reason to think that they had a great influence in forming the character of their children. Joseph had the counsel and training of his mother twelve or fifteen years. In the remarkable events in the infancy of Moses, he was sent to his mother to have her shaping influence in the formation of a character that has been admired by God's people from his day down to the present time. The power of the mother in the case of Samuel and of Timothy, is distinctly related in the Bible.
Throughout the history of the Christian church there are beautiful examples of the faithfulness of mothers in training their children for God. Nonna, mother of Gregory of Nazianzen; Anthusa, mother of Chrysostom; and Monica, mother of Augustine, have secured a prominent place in ecclesiastical history, mainly because of their devotion to their children. Indeed, we have no instances of godly mothers neglecting the religious training of their children. The church in all its branches holds that to be important, and enjoins attention to it. Baxter gave it as his opinion, that if every parent would faithfully perform his duty in bringing up his children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, it would almost render unnecessary the living ministry. Sharp says: "College learning is good, but all the learning of all the universities of Europe cannot compensate for the loss of that which the youth, reared in a religious home, has learned in childhood at his mother's knee."
Since the power of the Christian mother is recognized to be so great, it is a wonder that more mothers do not use it with greater effect. We fancy that Rev. Dr. Payson, in writing to his mother when a young man, found one defect, when he says, "Why cannot other parents learn your art of mixing the friend with the parent." A little more of the unrestrained fellowship of the friend, with the authority of the parent, would add immensely to the power of the parent. The reading of the letters532of his mother to President Adams, led a stranger to say to him one day, "I have found out what made you the man you are." Those letters revealed the anxiety and the tenderness of the mother's heart, which desired that her son should be a good man.
John Ashworth at early dawn heard the voice of his mother, as she prayed "Lord bless John! Keep him from bad company, and make him a good and useful man." "Her words went to my young heart," said he, "and they are ringing in my ears to this hour."
"Home influences, directed by a pious mother," Washington declared was the source of his success. When his mother heard of his success, she said, "It was nothing more than I expected, as George was always a good boy."
When well advanced in life, Thomas Benton said: "My mother asked me never to use tobacco, and I never touched it from that time to the present day. She asked me not to game, and I have not. When I was seven years of age, she asked me not to drink, and then I made a resolution of total abstinence."
President Lincoln's mother died when he was ten years of age, and even at that early age he was well instructed in the Bible, and he said of his mother, "All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my mother."
Said Rev. Dr. Bushnell of his mother: "Long years ago she vanished; but God stays by me still, embracing me in my gray hairs, as tenderly and as carefully as she did in my infancy."
When the parents' training and solicitude are appreciated and acknowledged before their removal from the world, then their care must come with great satisfaction to their remembrance. Guizot once wrote to his mother in the following words: "If I ever do any real good, the consolation it may afford you will be my sweetest recompense."
To please his father was one great thought in the early life of Dr. Thomas Guthrie, and he wrote at his death, "I was anxious to please him by success in my studies, and when he died, I felt as if one great motive to exertion was gone."
Dr. Payson wrote to his parents: "Thanks be to God, that you are loved and blessed by many who never saw you, on account of your children."
When the praises of the people were many, just after the writing of the missionary hymn, "From Greenland's icy mountain," Heber was found "on his knees thanking God, not so much for the talents which brought him so much honor, as for the happiness which they had enabled him to give his parents."
On the other hand, how keen are the reproaches of memory, when a man is led to cry out, as did Charles Lamb, when he said, "What would I give to call my dear mother back to earth for a single day, to ask her pardon upon my knees for all those acts by which I grieved her gentle spirit."
How the memories of parental affection and influence come to us as the end of life approaches. It is said of Senator Hill, that when too feeble to walk into the parlor to view his mother's portrait, he would have himself carried in, and after gazing for a time, would say, "I shall soon be with her again."
When on his death bed, Rev. Dr. Adams, of New York, remarked: "I owe everything to the judicious training of my parents. Serious, earnest in their own religious life, they never made religion repulsive. My mother's influence was specially gentle and wise."
After referring to his attention to his mother's grave, Thaddeus Stevens remarked in his will: "I do this out of respect to the memory of my mother, to whom I owe whatever little of prosperity I have had on earth, which, small as it is, I desire emphatically to acknowledge."
John B. Gough said in reference to his mother, before a large audience, "I stand before you to-night, to declare that if I have ever accomplished anything in the world, if I have ever done aught of good, what I am and what I have done by the grace of God, has been through the influence of that mother."—Rev. Robert H. Williams, in N. Y. Evangelist.
JESUS, THY NAME I LOVE.
By William C. Richards
Jesus, thy name I love
All other names above—
That tongue can sing;
Its sweetness fills my heart,
Soothes sorrow's keenest smart,
And dries the tears that start—
When joys take flight.
If shadows 'round me fall,
And fears my heart appall,
Of coming ills—
The covert of thy grace
I make my hiding-place,
Where one smile of thy face
My bosom stills.
When sharp temptations press,
From paths of righteousness,
My steps to stray—
Thy name of love shall be
Heaven's talisman for me,
To make the tempter flee—
In shame away.
My life, from youth to age,
Shall bear on every page,
Thy name of might,
To calm the waves of death,
As when Genessareth,
Awed by thy sovereign breath,
Slept in morn's light.
And then, before thy throne,
With all the glories shone,
That crown thy cross,
"Jesus!" the song shall be,
Of millions saved like me,
To all eternity,
From sumless loss!
—Wm. C. Richards, in the Christian Enquirer.
THE WHITE GARMENTS OF BELIEVERS.
By Arthur T. Pierson
WE may almost say that the figure of the white garment, as representing the righteousness of God investing the believer, is the favorite method of showing forth this truth.
White garments stand for purity of heart, unworldliness of life, and bridal relation to Christ. They represent our separation from all defilement, our renunciation of the world, and our espousal of the heavenly Bridegroom.
Very exalted are the scriptural conceptions of the purity which the disciple should cultivate. God causes our iniquity to pass from us and clothes us with priestly robes instead of filthy rags. The father says in behalf of the returning prodigal, "Bring forth the best robe and put it on him"—probably that was the priestly robe connected with birthright privileges. The wedding garment furnished for the guests at the marriage of the king's son is another reference to the same truth.
"Christ's righteousness" is a phrase often used by even ministers of the gospel; but it is not scripturally warranted. Great exactness is the only law of scripture quotation; and it is very noticeable that Paul is very particular in phraseology. It is always "the righteousness of God," by faith unto and upon all that believe. Compare Rom. 1:17; 3:21, 22; and Phil. 3:9. Christ was the second Adam, the representative man. He was a medium, the mediator, in whom the righteousness of God passes over to us and becomes ours. As he delivers God's message and executes God's will, so he invests us with God's righteousness.
We are regarded as clothed with this immaculate white garment. All believers are so invested, and this constitutes, as well as assures, justification. But it is to be carefully observed—
First, that while nothing is so beautiful and in itself immaculate, nothing is so easily soiled. It comes to us without a stain or spot; but in proportion to its celestial delicacy and purity is its susceptibility to take defilement. Like the newly fallen snow, nothing is so faultlessly white; and nothing shows so readily the least touch of contamination.
Secondly, defilement may come to this heavenly garment, as to any other, either from within or without. This garment is worn by a believer who is yet in the flesh—and it comes in contact with the flesh—and from that may take fleshly corruption; or being worn in the midst of the world may take its stains from contact with its surroundings. This double danger seems to be referred to constantly and in many forms in the word of God. For example, the Old Testament laws concerning leprosy, Lev. 13:47, et seq. Leprosy was a disease of blood and skin. It seems to be the peculiar type of the unregenerate, carnal nature—evil beginning in the heart and developing in the whole fleshly nature, and imparting its contamination to everything it touches. And then this defilement is in the world as well as in the flesh, and the believer must not only "cleanse himself from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God, but he must keep himself unspotted from the world." Peter uses another figure: girding up the loins—gathering up our garments about us, with care, least we defile it with dust or even tear it by the thorns along our pilgrim way! Compare James 1:27; 1 Peter 1:13.
Here lies the double danger of disciples: first wickedness remaining in themselves and working outward; secondly, wickedness remaining in the world and working inward. Either may cause the white garment to be soiled and contaminated, spotted with the leprosy of sin, that greenish tint that has so long been associated with the gangrene of mortifying wounds, and that reddish hue, inseparable from inflamed and feverish sores.
To drop the figure, God calls his disciples to be separate from the sins of the flesh and from conformity to the world. Many who are on their guard against the uprisings of sin within are not equally careful to avoid needless contact with a world that is, and always has been, the foe of godliness and spirituality.
HEART-PEACE BEFORE MINISTRY.
PEACE in the heart is one of the conditions of good spiritual work. Indeed, this qualification is unnecessary, for the same is true of all kinds of work. We cannot do our best in anything if we are fretted and anxious. A feverish heart makes an inflamed brain, a clouded eye, and an unsteady hand. The people who really accomplish the most and achieve the best results are those of calm, self-controlled spirit. Those who are nervous and excited may be always busy, and always under pressure of haste; but in the end they do far less work than if they wrought calmly and steadily, and were never in a hurry. Nervous haste is always hindering haste; it does faulty work, and does but little of it in the end. Really rapid workers are always deliberate in their movements, never appearing to be in any hurry whatever; and yet they pass swiftly from task to task, doing each one well, because they are calm and unflustered, and with their wits about them, work with clear eye, steady nerve, and skillful hand. The people in all lines of duty who do the most work are the calmest, most unhurried people in the community. Duties never wildly chase each other in their lives; one duty never crowds another out, nor ever compels hurried and therefore imperfect doing. The calm spirit works methodically,533doing one thing at a time, and doing it well, and therefore works swiftly, though never appearing to be in haste. "Unhasting yet unresting" is the motto of quick and abundant achievement. Haste spoils work, and yet one dare not pause, for duty presses.
"Haste not! let no thoughtless deed
Mar for aye the spirit's speed;
Ponder well and know the right,
Onward then with all thy might;
Haste not; years can ne'er atone
For one reckless action done.
"Rest not! life is sweeping by,
Do and dare before you die;
Something mighty and sublime
Leave behind to conquer time;
Glorious 'tis to live for aye
When these forms have passed away."
It is especially true in spiritual work that we must know the secret of peace before we can minister either swiftly or effectively to others, in our Master's name. Feverishness of spirit makes the hand unskillful in delicate duty. A troubled heart cannot give comfort to other troubled hearts; it must first become calm and quiet. It is often said that one who has suffered is prepared to help others in suffering; but this is true only when one has suffered victoriously, and has passed up out of the deep, dark valley of pain and tears to the radiant mountain-tops of peace. An uncomforted mourner cannot be a messenger of consolation to another in grief. One whose heart is still vexed and uncalmed cannot be a physician to hearts with bleeding wounds. We must first have been comforted of God ourselves before we can comfort others in their tribulations.—S. S. Times.