Review and Herald, Vol. 18, No. 12. (8/20/1861)

Review and Herald

Aug 20, 1861

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 20, 1861

The Atonement.

By Albert Barnes

BY ALBERT BARNES.

[The following is the conclusion of the chapter commenced in last Review, on the "Objects to be secured by an Atonement." The reader will notice that in this article not only is the same great idea kept prominent, namely, that the Atonement must have respect to the authority and perpetuity of God's law, but also a new point is introduced, which is, that the divine arrangement in relation to pardon, has respect to the future obedience of the subject, showing that he who seeks pardon, does so on the implied condition that he will in future live in obedience to that law, the violation of which has loaded him with guilt, and made a pardon necessary. This throws light upon such passages as Eze. xviii, 24: "But when the righteous turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and doeth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doeth, shall he live? All his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned; in his trespass that he hath trespassed, and in his sin that he hath sinned, in them shall he die." It appears from this that when a person after repentance relapses into sin, all his righteousness that he hath done avails him nothing, but all his previous transgressions stand against him. This is just; for since a person, when he seeks pardon for past sins, does so on the condition that he will obey the law in future, when he again transgresses he violates the condition on which his forgiveness was based, and has no right to expect the Law-giver to overlook his transgressions committed previous to the time when he sued for pardon. What unjust and limited views of the Atonement must they therefore have, who believe in the abolition of the law? —U. SMITH.]

THE OBJECTS TO BE SECURED BY AN ATONEMENT.

Now it is obvious that if an atonement is made for sin, it must be of such a nature as to secure the object contemplated by the penalty of the law; that is, it must be such as to show the sense entertained by the Great Legislator of the value of the law, and of the evil of violating the law. As the punishment of the offender himself would have secured this, and as this is the very design of the penalty, if an atonement is contemplated in virtue of which the guilty shall be rescued from the infliction of the penalty, it is clear that the atonement must answer the same end or secure the same result. If it can do this, then no objection could arise from this source to the pardon of the offender, whatever might arise from other sources; if it cannot do this, or if the atonement does not do this, then an act of pardon is, in fact, a setting aside of the penalty of the law altogether, and a public proclamation that that penalty is not to be regarded as an expression of the sense entertained by the legislator of the value of law and of the evil of disobedience. A friend of the government of God has a right to expect that an arrangement for an atonement will secure this end; an enemy of that government—a skeptic—has a right to demand that this provision shall be found in that which professes to be an atonement. If such an arrangement is found in any proposed scheme of salvation, it would be so far an evidence of the divine origin of the scheme,—for it is far above the wisdom of all human schemes; if it is not found in a professed revelation, or if the arrangement would not secure this end, it would be a conclusive argument for rejecting the scheme,—for a scheme originating in infinite wisdom must meet what is so radical a defect in all human governments. It is impossible to believe that God would solemnly appoint a penalty to his law, and then in all his dealings with men act so as to set that penalty aside, or so that the fair interpretation of his acts would be that he regards the law as of no value and the violation of it as no evil.

III. The third point in an atonement relates to the offenders in whose behalf an atonement is made,—that it may make their reformation and future good conduct certain.

We have seen that one of the great difficulties of pardon—a difficulty which none of the arrangements in a human administration has been sufficient to remove—arises from the fact that there can be no security of the future good conduct of him who is pardoned, either from professed repentance and reformation, or from the efficacy of the punishment inflicted, or from any influence of the act of pardon itself on the mind of him who is pardoned. We have seen that one of the principal evils which results from the free exercise of pardon arises from the fact that convicts from prisons are sent out without any such evidence of their reformation, to prey again upon the community. We have seen that by no possible arrangement, under a human government, would it be safe to discharge at once all the convicted felons in the penitentiaries in the land.

To render a community secure would be one of the ends of an atonement; and if such an arrangement could be made, it would remove one of the main difficulties in the way of pardon. That arrangement in a human government, if it could be made, would consist essentially in some scheme for securing the reformation and future good conduct of the violators of the law who would thus be discharged.

Not precisely, indeed, for the same reason, but for a reason equally imperative, it is necessary, in a scheme of pardon under the divine administration, to secure the reformation of the guilty, and to obtain a guarantee for their future observance of law. It cannot be supposed that God would discharge the guilty, or release them from the obligation of the penalty of the law, unless there were some ground for believing that they would obey the law in time to come. It is possible that the very stability of the divine administration may depend on this: certainly it would be a reasonable expectation among holy beings that God would not discharge the guilty and demand that they should be received into the goodly fellowship of holy beings, without some evidence that they were thoroughly reformed.

What would heaven be if the hosts of atheists and scoffers, of murderers and seducers, of the profane, the corrupt, and the sensual, that are now upon the earth, were admitted at once to the blessed abodes of holy beings? What security of happiness could there be in those realms were they suddenly peopled with all the polluted and the defiled of earth?

If, therefore, the guilty are to be released on the basis of an atonement, then there must be some provision by which the reformation and the future good conduct of the guilty will be secured. What that is will be the subject of future inquiry. But it is obvious that it must be something quite different from any arrangement which has been made by human laws. It must be something in the atonement itself, or something secured by the atonement,—some power or influence to act on the mind of the guilty to bring them voluntary repentance and reformation,—for there can be no other true repentance and reformation; it must be something that shall extend into all the future—embracing eternity itself—making it certain that the offender who is pardoned will never again revolt from God.

IV. The fourth point relates to the community,—that its rights may be secured, and that it may have nothing to apprehend if the guilty are pardoned. We have seen that one of the difficulties in regard to pardon has respect to the safety of a community. That safety is now protected by the arrangements which have been made for detecting and punishing the guilty. The processes of law are important safeguards in defending the rights and securing the welfare of a community; and each one of those processes, as has been already remarked, constituted, when it was introduced, an epoch in the history of jurisprudence. The rights of person, property, life, reputation, are dependent on the forms of law; on the mode of indictment; on the trial by jury; on the confronting of the accuser and the accused; on the examination of witnesses in open court; on the writ of habeas corpus; on the vigilance of the police and the fidelity of public prosecutors in detecting offenders and bringing them to trial.

Yet, as we have seen, all these are practically set aside by an act of pardon. So far as that goes, all that the community has done to guard its own rights, and to secure public peace and safety, is declared to be of no value by each act of pardon. An offender, though arrested and tried by those forms of law which the community has regarded as of so much importance to its own peace and safety, is again discharged, with no security whatever that the same offense will not be repeated; with nothing to protect the community from the murderer or burglar who is thus set at liberty. Nothing can be introduced into the system that shall secure the community from a repetition of the crime for which he was arrested, tried and sentenced.

Now what, in this respect, is needed in the case of pardon, is some arrangement by which all the interests which it has been the object of the law to secure by the regular processes of trial shall be secured if pardon is extended to the guilty. To make such an atonement admissible, as a part of a just administration, there must be the same security of person, property, reputation and life which the community has sought to obtain by these processes of law. The act of pardon must not be capable of an interpretation by which all these, or any of these, would be set aside. There must be, under an atonement, as much safety as these processes of law have been designed to obtain; and, if this could be done, there would be no objection, on this account, to the discharge of the guilty: that is, to the pardon of one convicted of crime.

What would thus be requisite in a human government must be equally so in the divine administration. If an atonement is made, it must be of such a character that the divine declarations in reference to the evil of sin; that the laws which God has established in the soul itself to show the guilt of transgression, and the arrangements which he has appointed in society to keep up the idea of that guilt; that what he has intended to communicate to man in regard to that guilt by the threatenings of future woe; and that the various influences which he puts forth to detect and punish the guilty here and hereafter, shall not be set aside by that work. There must be the same security on all these points which there would be if they were all carried out, and if the guilty were made to illustrate the value of these arrangements by enduring themselves the penalty of the law. To all these the work of atonement must have reference; and, if these can be secured, the offender may be discharged.

V. The fifth point relates to the character of the law-giver,—that that character may stand fair before the world, and be such as to inspire confidence, if the penalty of the law is remitted. We have seen that one of the difficulties on the subject of pardon has reference to this point. In a case where it should be contemplated that it was never to be extended to the guilty, the character of the sovereign, though it might be just, would be severe, harsh, repellent. A government such as that would be, would make its way over some of the finest feelings of our nature. It would be a government which might inspire cold respect, but never love or esteem.—In the case where it was supposed that pardon would be often extended to the guilty, we have seen that it is impossible so to do it as not to infringe on the arrangements made for securing the regular operation of law.—In a case where pardon should be always extended to the guilty, we have seen that the effect would be to encourage crime, and to render every interest in a community insecure. We have seen also, that in human arrangements it has been found absolutely impossible to blend the two attributes of justice and mercy so that they shall be exhibited in proper proportions; so to dispense pardon, or so to administer justice, that the one shall not cast a shadow over the other.

Now, what is needful, if an atonement is made, is, that there shall be, through that atonement, a proper expression of the character of the law-giver. It must be required and expected that the atonement shall somehow represent him as a just being; as the enemy of transgression; as maintaining the principles of his own law; as confirming all that he has said in that law in regard to its value, and in regard to the evils of its violation. The atonement must make the same representation or impression on this point which the actual infliction of the penalty would do. It would be unjust to the sovereign if it did not; that is, if one representation was made by a revealed law and its threatened penalties, and another by the atonement. In other words, it must be demanded that, for example, the character of God shall not be one thing, as seen in his revealed law and its threatened penalty, and another thing in the atonement; that, in looking at the atonement, we shall not get one impression of the character of God, and another from the threatenings of the law; that in the one, God shall not be represented as just, and in the other as unjust. In like manner, it may be demanded that there shall not be a false impression made by the atonement in regard to the mercy of God. If he is merciful, then the atonement should so represent his character. It should leave that as a fair impression on the minds of all who contemplate it. There should be in that atonement a real and not an imaginary display of mercy. There should not be a mere transfer of guilt; there should not be a mere infliction of wrath on the innocent instead of the guilty; there should not be mere punishment and nothing but punishment,—the punishment of the innocent instead of the guilty; there should not be a mere stern demand of the 'last farthing,' demanded of the offender or of a substitute; there should be real mercy, real forgiveness, a real lessening of the infliction of pain. If this were not so, then, whether a pretended atonement were made or not, the entire representation of the character of God in the case would be that he was only severely and absolutely just, or that there was no mercy blended with justice in his character. If God is merciful, then this would be a wholly unfair representation of what he is. In one word, it is necessary in the work of an atonement, that all the arrangements should be such that the divine character, as far as the atonement goes to illustrate that, should not be susceptible of a misrepresentation, or that it should fairly represent that character on these points: (a) That God is, in fact, just; (b) that he is, at the same time, merciful; (c) that he does not connive at sin; (d) that he is not indifferent to sin; (e) that he actually intends to lessen by the atonement the amount of suffering and sin in the universe, and does not mean merely to transfer them from the guilty to the innocent.

If an atonement can be so made as to furnish in itself a correct representation of the divine character in these respects, it is plain that so far as these points are concerned there can be no difficulty in pardoning offenders. If an atonement could be so made as to furnish a more clear and impressive demonstration than could be made in any other way of what the character of God in these respects is, there would be this additional reason why it might be introduced into the system.

Whether the atonement proposed in the gospel actually is such as to secure these results will be the main subject of inquiry in the remainder of this essay.

Contentment.

BLEST is the man of small desires, With whatsoe'er he hath content; Who to no greater thing aspires Than Heaven hath lent.

Thrice happy he whose life is not By fierce ambition's fire consumed; 'Neath Heaven's smile to cheer his lot, Sweet flowers have bloomed.

I saw a man who, on Time's score Had not yet reckoned thirty years: And yet full thrice had lived them o'er, In borrowed fears.

His frame was bony, gaunt and bent; His limbs were weak—his eyes were dim; Earth's glorious seasons came and went, But not for him.

Yet Heaven had blest him—well at first, With mind and place and ample store; But still his heart in secret nursed A wish for more.

He could not rest on middle step, While others held a higher seat; So envy to his heart's core crept, To gnaw and eat.

Though fortune smiled along his way, And home was eloquent with bliss; He never knelt aside to say, "Thank God for this!"

I saw a man of eighty years, Upon whose brow was lightly graved The record of the cares and fears Which he had braved.

His step was buoyant, and his eye Was hopeful as the eye of youth; His cheerful smile seemed to defy Care's ruthless tooth.

"Father," I cried, "though full of years, Thy brow is smooth, thy smile is glad; A pilgrim through a vale of tears, Yet never sad;

"Pray, tell me how thou hast passed through So scatheless—earth's continual strife? At what sweet spring didst thou renew Thy waning life?"

"The tale is short," said he, "think not Life's sweets were mine, unmixed with gall; But I, contented with my lot, THANKED GOD FOR ALL!"

Fashions Among the Savage and Civilized.

[The following article is borrowed from the instructive writings of that calm philosopher, the celebrated Mr. Dick. From the extract here given the reader will perceive that the practice is almost universal of distorting the human form by surgical operations and fantastic dress, until it presents almost any idea except being in the image of its All-wise Creator. Let it be distinctly borne in mind that the following article places the wearing of hoops, contracted waists, and every attempted improvement of the human frame, in the same category with small feet, slitted ears and bored noses. But we will not forestall our author. We only beg the victims of the foolish and wicked fashions of our day to read and be wiser. G. W. A.]

THE human frame, when preserved in its original state, is one of the finest pieces of mechanism which the mind can contemplate. In beauty, in symmetry, in the harmony and proportion of all its parts and functions, it is superior to the organical structures of all the other ranks of sensitive existence. There is no part imperfect or deformed, no part defective, and no part useless or redundant. All its members are so constructed and arranged as to contribute to the beauty and perfection of the whole, and to the happiness of the intelligent mind by which it is governed and directed. In combination with the power of thought and volition, and when unstained by malignant passions, it is a visible representative of the Creator, having been formed after his image; and it displays, in a most striking manner, the wisdom and the goodness of its Almighty Maker. But, notwithstanding the acknowledged excellence of the human frame, it has been the practice of the degraded tribes of mankind, in almost every country, and in every age, to disfigure its structure, and to deface its beauty; as if the Creator, when he formed it, had been deficient in intelligence and in benevolent design. Such practices, I am disposed to think, imply a principle of malevolence directed towards the Creator, and a disposition to find fault with his wise contrivances and arrangements. At any rate, they display a degree of ignorance and folly, a vitiated taste, and a degradation of mind, inconsistent with the dignity of a rational intelligence. The following facts will, perhaps, tend to illustrate these remarks:

Condamine, when describing the natives of South America, informs us, that the Omaguas, and some other savages, flatten the faces of their children, by lacing their heads between two boards; that others pierce the nostrils, lips, or cheeks, and place in them feathers, the bones of fishes, and similar ornaments; and that the savages of Brazil pull the hair out of their beards, their eye-brows, and heads, which make them have an uncommon, and ferocious appearance. Their under lip they pierce, and, as an ornament, insert into it a green stone, or a small polished bone. Immediately after birth the mothers flatten the noses of their children. Captain Cook informs us, that, in New Zealand, both sexes mark their faces and bodies with black stains, similar to the tattooing in Otaheite. The men, particularly, add new stains every year, so that, in an advanced period of life, they are almost covered from head to foot. Besides this, they have marks impressed, by a method unknown to us, of a very

extraordinary kind. They are furrows of about a line deep, and a line broad, such as appear upon the bark of a tree which has been cut through after a year's growth. The edges of these furrows are afterwards indented by the same method, and, being perfectly black, they make a most frightful appearance. Both sexes bore their ears: they gradually stretch the holes till they are so large as to admit a finger. Into these holes they put feathers, colored cloth, bones of birds, twigs of wood, and frequently the nails which they received from the ships. The same voyager, when describing the New Hollanders, tells us, "Their chief ornament is a bone, which is thrust through a hole bored in the cartilage which divides the nostrils. This bone is as thick as a man's finger, and six inches in length. It reaches quite across the face, and so effectually stops up both nostrils, that they are forced to keep their mouths wide open for breath, and snuffle so when they attempt to speak, that they are scarcely intelligible to each other. Our seamen with some humor, called it their spirit-sail yard; and indeed it had so ludicrous an appearance, that, till we were used to it, we found it difficult to restrain from laughter." He also describes a custom of a peculiar nature which prevails in the Friendly Islands. "The greater part of the inhabitants, both male and female, were observed to have lost one or both of their little fingers. This custom seemed not to be characteristic of rank, of age, or of sex; for, with the exception of some young children, very few people were discovered in whom both hands were perfect. They likewise burn or make incisions in their cheeks."

All the eastern nations are said to have a predilection for long ears. Some draw the lobe of the ear, in order to stretch it to a greater length, and pierce it so as to allow the admission of an ordinary pendant. The natives of Laos so prodigiously widen the holes in their ears, that a man's hand may be thrust through them. Hence, the ears of these people often descend to the tops of their shoulders. Gentil assures us, that the women, in the northern parts of China, employ every art in order to diminish their eyes. For this purpose, the girls, instructed by their mothers, extend their eye-lids continually, with the view of making their eyes oblong and small. These properties, in the estimation of the Chinese, when joined to a flat nose, and large, open, pendulous ears, constitute the perfection of beauty. We are informed by Struys, that the women of Siam wear so large and heavy pendants in their ears, that the holes gradually become wide enough to admit a man's thumb. The natives of New Holland pull out the two fore teeth of the upper jaw. In Calicut, there is a band of nobles called Naires, who lengthen their ears to such a degree, that they hang down to their shoulders, and sometimes even lower. The Arabs paint their lips, arms, and the most conspicuous parts of their bodies, with a deep blue color. This paint, which they lay on in little dots, and make it penetrate the flesh, by puncturing the skin with needles, can never be effaced. Some of the Asiatics paint their eye-brows of a black color, and others eradicate the hairs with rusma, and paint artificial eye-brows, in the form of a black crescent, which gives them an uncommon and ugly appearance. The inhabitants of Prince William's Sound, paint their faces and hands, bore their ears and noses, and slit their under lips. In the holes made in their noses, they hang pieces of bone or ivory, which are often two or three inches long; and, in the slit of the lip, they place a bone or ivory instrument with holes in it, from which they suspend beads that reach below the chin. These holes in the lip disfigure them greatly, for some of them are as large as their mouths.

Such distortions of the beautiful structure of the human frame, are not peculiar to the savage tribes of the human race, but are practiced by nations which have made considerable advances in science and civilization. It is well known that,

in China, a ridiculous custom prevails, of rendering the feet of their females so small, that they can with difficulty support their bodies. This is deemed a principal part of their beauty; and no swathing or compression is omitted, when they are young, to give them this fancied accomplishment. Every woman of fashion, and every woman who wishes to be reckoned handsome, must have her feet so small that they could easily enter the shoe of a child of six years of age. The great toe is the only one left to act with freedom; the rest are doubled down under the foot, in their tenderest infancy, and restrained by the tight bandages, till they unite with, and are buried in the sole. I have inspected a model of a Chinese lady's foot, exactly of this description, which, I was assured, was taken from life. The length was only two inches and three-fourths; the breadth of the base of the heel, seven-eighths of an inch; the breadth of the broadest part of the foot, one and one-fourth of an inch; and the diameter of the ankle, three inches above heel, one and seven-eighths of an inch. With feet of this description the Chinese ladies may be said rather to totter than to walk; and, by such practices, they evidently frustrate the benevolent intentions of the Creator, and put themselves to unnecessary inconvenience and pain. Yet such is the powerful influence of fashion, however absurd and ridiculous, that women of the middling and inferior classes frequently suffer their feet to be thus maimed and distorted, in order to ape the unnatural customs of their superiors.

We have every reason to believe that the harsh and ugly features, and the ferocious aspect, by which numerous tribes of mankind are distinguished, are owing to such voluntary distortions of the human frame, and to the filthy and abominable practices in which they indulge. Father Tertre assures us, that the flat noses of the Negroes are occasioned by a general practice of mothers, who depress the noses of their new born infants, and squeeze their lips in order to thicken them; and that those children who escape these operations have elevated noses, thin lips, and fine features. It is somewhat unaccountable, and it shows the perversion of the human mind, in its present degraded state, that such practices should be so general, and so obstinately persisted in, when we consider the pain and inconvenience with which they are attended. To pull the hairs of the chin or eye-brows from the roots; to slit the under lip, till the incision be as large as one's mouth; to pierce the nostrils, till a bone as large as a man's finger can be thrust through them; and to cover the body with black streaks, which make the blood to flow at every stroke of the instrument by which they are produced, must be attended with excruciating pain. Sir Joseph Banks, who accompanied Captain Cook in his first voyage, was present, in the island of Otaheite, at the operation of tattooing, performed on the back of a girl of thirteen years of age. The instrument used had twenty teeth; and at each stroke, which was repeated every moment, issued an ichor or serum, tinged with blood. The girl bore the pain with great resolution, for some minutes, till, at length, it became so intolerable, that she burst out into violent exclamations; but the operator, notwithstanding the most earnest entreaties to desist, was inexorable, while two women, who attended upon the occasion, both chid and beat her for struggling.

I am therefore disposed to view such absurd and barbarous practices, as intimately connected with the operation of a principle of malevolence, as an attempt to frustrate the wise designs of divine benevolence, and as directly repugnant to the spirit of Christianity, and to the benevolent precepts of the gospel of peace. And it becomes some of the ladies, and the dandies of modern Europe to consider, whether some of their awkward attempts to improve the symmetry of the human frame ought not to be viewed in the same light. Not many years ago, it was considered, in the higher circles of society, as an admirable improvement of the female form, to give the lower

half of the body the appearance of the frustrum of a large tun, as if it had been ten times the capacity of its natural size, by supporting their robes with enormous hoops; and, about the same period, the lower ranks of female society considered it as the perfection of proportion and beauty, to have their waists compressed into the smallest possible space, till the vital functions, in many instances, were deranged, and ultimately destroyed. Were the dictates of sound reason universally attended to, and were the influence of Christianity fully felt among all nations, the preposterous and savage practices to which I have now adverted, would not only be discontinued, but held in abhorrence. And were such customs completely abolished, we might soon expect to behold, among all the tribes of mankind, every distortion of the features or the countenance removed, and the human form restored to its original beauty and perfection.—Dick's Works—The Philosophy of Religion, pp. 146, 147, 148.

Moral Inability.

By J. A. Alexander

Will not this doctrine tend to paralyze the efforts of the sinner for salvation? And what then? The more completely his self-righteous strength is paralyzed, the better. No man can trust God and himself at once. Your self-reliance must be destroyed, or it will destroy you.

But if, by a paralysis of effort, be intended a stagnation of feeling and indifference to danger, I reply that this doctrine has no tendency to breed it. Suppose it should be suddenly announced to this assembly that a deadly malady had just appeared, and had begun to sweep off thousands in its course; and that the only possibility of safety depended on the use of a specific remedy, simple and easy in its application, and already within the reach of every individual, who had nothing to do at any moment but to use it, and infallibly secure himself against infection. And suppose that, while your minds were resting on this last assurance, it should be authoritatively contradicted, and the fact announced with evidence not to be gainsayed, that this specific and infallibly successful remedy was beyond the reach of every person present, and could only be applied by a superior power. I put it to yourselves which of these statements would produce security, and which alarm? Which would lead you to fold your hands in indolent indifference; and which would rouse you to an agonizing struggle for the means of safety? I speak as unto wise men; judge ye what I say. O my friends! if there is any cure for spiritual sloth and false security, it is a heartfelt faith in the necessity of superhuman help. The man who makes his helplessness a pretext for continuance in sin, whatever he may say, does not really believe that he is helpless. No man believes it till he knows it by experience. The firmest believers in man's plenary ability, are men whose hearts are hard through the deceitfulness of sin.—J. A. Alexander.

The Eye of the Needle

THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE.—Some traveler in the holy land informs us that there is (or was) at the side of the principal gate of Jerusalem, a small one which, upon occasions of great urgency, was opened for the admission of persons after the great gates of the city were all closed for the night. This gate, from its small size, was called the eye of the needle, and to get a camel through it at all was no small task—for a loaded camel to pass was an utter impossibility.

With the above fact before the mind, one can see that the words of our Saviour when speaking of the "strait gate" and the "rich man" were more literal than many suppose. And we see how as the rich man passes into the narrow way, the sides and the low top of the strait gate scrape everything from him in which he had before trusted. No one can take anything but himself through. For easier is it to strip a camel of its burden than to divest a rich man of his trust in riches.

EASTERN TOUR.

By James White

WE were obliged to leave our beloved Bro. Sperry at North Parma very low, and pursue our journey on to Rochester, and to the conference at Roosevelt, which held Aug. 3 and 4.

Sabbath, the meeting-house was full. It was indeed a solemn assembly. A day of fasting, humiliation and prayer seemed most appropriate to the condition of this people. Several of the pioneers in the cause were in great affliction. Bro. Edson had been unable to labor for about a year and a half in consequence of failing strength. Our beloved Bro. Goodwin was in despair, and chose not to come into the congregation. Bro. I. C. Snow had also nearly sunken in despair; and a dreadful gloom seemed to rest upon the whole assembly.

We spoke in the morning from Rev. iii, 17. "Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." We showed that from the plain language of the text the following facts were apparent:

1. Those addressed are in the greatest possible deception. They believe their condition to be what they say it is, namely, "rich and increased with goods, and have need of nothing," while in fact they are "wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked."

2. They are honest in the deception. They are vindicated from the charge of hypocrisy by these words in the text, "and knowest not that thou art," &c. Therefore,

3. There is the greatest necessity of self-examination, humiliation, fasting and agonizing prayer.

This state of terrible deception calls for the note of alarm from every true watchman. He should search out from God's treasury of truth those illustrations of self-deception and their results, found in Bible history. He should call to his aid all those cutting declarations of inspiration designed to meet the wants of this fearful time, and if possible arouse the deceived to their real condition. He who dabbles with the work of God and withholds, and stands opposed to, that testimony which the times require, takes upon himself a most fearful responsibility.

Such a responsibility Korah, Dathan and Abiram assumed when they stood opposed to the high standard of holiness sustained by Moses. "And they rose up before Moses, with certain of the children of Israel, two hundred and fifty princes of the assembly, famous in the congregation, men of renown. And they gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron, and said unto them, YE TAKE TOO MUCH UPON YOU, SEEING ALL THE CONGREGATION ARE HOLY, EVERY ONE OF THEM, and the Lord is among them; wherefore then lift ye up yourselves above the congregation of the Lord?" Read the full account in Num. xvi, and there learn the deceived state and fate of those who were under the influence of Korah, Dathan and Abiram. Their standard of holiness was not as high as that of Moses and Aaron, and hence the rebellion, and their own destruction. They regarded Moses' great care and anxiety for Israel superfluous, and a cause of trouble in the camp.

Elijah also, moving under the hand of God, was regarded as a trouble to Israel. "Art thou he that troubleth Israel?" said Ahab to Elijah. "And he answered, I have not troubled Israel; but thou and thy father's house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and thou hast followed Baalam." 1 Kings xviii.

Satan has been a deceptive liar from the beginning, and his principal mode of sinking men and women in perdition has been by his power to deceive. But the last days are perilous on account of the vigilance of Satan's forces to envelop all in his deceptive fogs. These hang over us most heavily as we near the heavenly shores, and render the entrance of the harbor dangerous. Even those who are professing to walk in the light of the third message are so far held in Satan's deception as to be worthy to be addressed in the language of the text, "Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked."

With feelings of anguish we look forward to the day of recompense, when many will learn too late their sad mistake. "Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity." Matt. vii, 22, 23. Not a few only, but many will awake to the deception when it will be too late for wrongs to be righted. And none will feel the agony of that hour so keenly as the unfaithful minister.

Sabbath afternoon we spoke upon the system of sanctification as set forth in 2 Pet. i. It was rather a refreshing season. Several spoke; then we had a season of special prayer for the afflicted and desponding among us, and for the return of the Holy Spirit to us as a people. We had been assembled seven hours without taking food, and the interest of the occasion was such that no one appeared to be faint or weary. God heard the united prayers of his afflicted people, and his Spirit came down upon them. Mrs. W. shared largely in this blessed refreshing, and was soon in vision, in which she had messages of comfort for the desponding and afflicted, and of correction for the wayward and erring.

J. W.

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