International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 2, 1886
General Articles.
By Ellen G. White
The Love of Gain.
BY MRS. E. G. WHITE.
Paul writes to the Philippians: “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” “Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.” He admonishes his Hebrew brethren: “Let your conversation be without covetousness, and be content with such things as ye have; for He hath said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.” To the Corinthians he writes: “Let no man seek his own, but every man another’s wealth.” These exhortations are needed; for naturally “all seek their own and not the things which are Jesus Christ’s” or their neighbors.
In the end it does not profit any one to be selfish; for God marks all such acts, and he will render to every man according to his works. “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” “He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly.”
Our mission in this world is to live for the good of others. And it is little things which test the character. It is the unpretending acts of daily self-denial, performed heartily and cheerfully, that God smiles upon. We should cherish love and forbearance, and should be a blessing to others by our forgetfulness of self and our care for their welfare.
Hospitality should be practiced. We should entertain those who need our care, and the benefit of our society and our homes, even though it be at some inconvenience. Some one must bear these necessary burdens; but many close their eyes to the good which they have opportunity to do for others, and by their neglect they lose the blessing which they might obtain, and those who have willing hearts, and who cheerfully make the cases of the needy their own, are burdened. The Lord has work enough to employ all his followers. All can show forth his glory if they will, but the majority refuse to make the necessary sacrifice. They profess faith, but have not works; and their faith is dead, being alone. They shun responsibilities and burdens, and will be rewarded as their works have been.
The work of the Lord is a great work, and wise men are needed to engage in it. God calls for earnest, unselfish, disinterested laborers, who will keep up the various branches of the work. Sacrifice, self-denial, toil, and disinterested benevolence characterized the life of Christ, who is our example in all things. He laid aside his glory, his high command, his honor, and his riches, and humbled himself to our necessities. The work and character of a true laborer will be in accordance with the life of Christ. We cannot equal the example, but we should copy it. Love for souls for whom our Lord made this great sacrifice should stimulate his people to self-denying effort for their salvation. When this spirit actuates ministers and people, their labors will be fruitful; for the power of God will be seen upon them in the gracious influences of his Holy Spirit.
God would have his people arouse, and summon strength and courage to surmount obstacles. He would have them, if need be, labor, as did the apostle Paul, in weariness, in painfulness, in watching, forgetting infirmities in the deep interest felt in souls for whom Christ died. Many could do a good work in his cause if they were consecrated, having no selfish interests of their own to serve.
All are required to have an unselfish interest in the work of God, to labor for its advancement, and to give of their means for its support. Anciently the covetousness of some led them to make stinted offerings, and to withhold that which the Lord required. This was recorded against them in Heaven, and they were cursed in their harvests and their flocks just in proportion as they had withheld from the cause of God. Some were visited with affliction in their families. God would not accept a stinted offering nor one that was lame. It must be without blemish, the best of their flocks, and the best fruits of their fields. And it must be a free-will offering, if they would have the blessing of the Lord rest upon their families and their possessions.
Hearts will be tested and proved by the calls for means. This is a constant, living test, and one that it will be hard for the naturally selfish and covetous to bear. It is a test that enables each one to understand his own heart, to see whether the love of the truth or the love of the world predominates.
When the young man came to Jesus, and asked him what he should do to gain eternal life, Jesus told him to keep the commandments. The young man declared that he had done this from his youth, and Jesus said to him: “One thing thou lackest. Go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow me.” The result was, that the young man went away sorrowful; “for he had great possessions.” There are many like this young man. They desire eternal life; but the true spirit of sacrifice, which alone is acceptable to God, they do not possess. They love the world better than they love the truth. They are not being fitted up and made ready for the kingdom of God; and because of their covetousness, the prospering hand of God will not be with them to bless their undertakings.
God is acquainted with every heart. Every selfish motive is known to him; and he suffers circumstances to arise to try the hearts of his professed people, to prove them, and develop character. The lives of the professed people of God should testify that they are sincere. Unless their faith is shown by their works, it is dead; and nothing but a living faith will save them in the great day of final accounts.
It is time for those who have large possessions to begin to work fast. They should not only lay by them in store as God is now prospering them, but as he has prospered them. In the days of the apostles, arrangements were made that all should share equally in the burdens of the church, according to their several abilities. They did not think it consistent that some should be eased and others burdened.
Those who, like Judas, have set their hearts on their earthly treasure, will complain as he did when calls are made for the cause of God. His heart coveted the costly ointment poured upon Jesus, and he sought to hide his selfishness under the disguise of a pious, conscientious regard for the poor. “Why,” he asked, “was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?” He wished that he had the ointment in his possession; it would not thus be lavished upon the Saviour. He would sell it for money, and apply it to his own use.
As Judas brought up the poor as an excuse, so professed Christians whose hearts are covetous will seek to hide their selfishness under a pretended conscientiousness. They quote: “Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.” “Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them.” And they urge that these texts teach that they must be secret in their works of charity. They seem to have a conscientious desire to follow the Bible plan exactly, just as they understand it; but they entirely ignore the plain texts that enjoin liberal giving. The left hand does not know what the right hand does; for the right hand does nothing worthy of the notice of the left hand.
These persons do very little, excusing themselves because they do not know how to give. But Jesus explained the matter so that there need be no misapprehension. “When thou doest thine alms,” he says, “do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do, in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily, I say unto you, they have their reward.” They gave to be regarded noble and generous by men. They received the praise they sought, and this was all the reward they would have. This lesson was designed to rebuke those who wished to receive glory of men. They gave large sums with this object in view, and the means given was often obtained by oppressing the hireling in his wages, and grinding the face of the poor.
Scripture testimony will harmonize when it is rightly understood. And our Saviour says: “Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven.” “By their fruits ye shall know them.” The good works of the children of God are the most effectual preaching that the unbeliever has. He thinks that530there must be a strong motive to actuate the Christian to deny self, and use his means to benefit his fellowmen, and advance the cause of God. It is unlike the spirit of the world. Such fruits testify to the genuineness of Christianity.
“There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty. The liberal soul shall be made fat; and he that watereth shall be watered also himself.”
BE THOU WITH ME.
Be thou with me; the way is dark and drear,
Vouchsafe, O God, to make the pathway clear.
Doubtful and devious still my way must be
If thou dost guide me not—be thou with me!
Life's bitter chalice to its dregs I sip,
Its fair fruits turn to ashes on my lip;
O thou who wept in dark Gethsemane,
I too have suffered—oh, be thou with me!
Lonely, adrift upon a troubled sea,
The cold waves, pitiless, break over me;
O thou who stilled the waves at Galilee,
Still thou my troubled soul—be thou with me!
O Cross to which I cling, illume the night;
O Lamp unto my feet, shed forth the light;
O love divine that brightened Calvary,
Descend upon my heart—be thou with me.
—Advance.
The True Freedom.
By George Dana Boardman
“If ye abide in my word, then are ye truly my disciples; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” Then truth has emancipating power. For born as we are into a fallen world, we are born to a heritage of misconceptions and delusions. Surely every man walketh in a vain show, flitting to and fro as in a realm of unreal shadows. And a state of delusion is a state of slavery. Falsehood is a fetter, chaining our best faculties. But let truth enter in, and how soon it dissolves the chain. This emancipating power of truth holds in the intellectual world; observe how the knowledge of the sciences or truth as it is written in nature, frees us from the thralldom of ignorance, and superstition, and fetishism. But the emancipating power of truth is especially manifest in the moral world; observe how the knowledge of God, or truth as it is written in Scripture, frees us from the thralldom of falsehood, and prejudice, and misconception, and evil habit. Truth it is, especially truth in Jesus, which unlocks the dungeon in which sin has imprisoned our Godward faculties, bidding them go forth into God’s own realm of moral liberty, wherein the hitherto pent-up religious capacities shall have full scope for unfolding into all varieties of strength and beauty and joy. The truth shall make you free.
But the Lord’s declaration is too spiritual for these carnal Jews, and so they haughtily exclaim: “We be Abraham’s seed, and have never yet been in bondage to any man; how sayest thou, Ye shall be free?” As though their fathers had never served in the rigorous bondage of Egypt, or borne the ignominious yoke of the Philistine, or suffered the woes of the Babylonian captivity! As though these Jews themselves were not at this very moment under the yoke of Rome, the symbols of her pagan tyranny flaunting over Moriah’s temple! Oh, the blinding power of pride and guilt!
Jesus answered them: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Every one that committeth sin is the bondservant of sin.” For there is no bondage so bitter as the bondage of a sinful habit, no thralldom so absolute as the thralldom of a sinful character. How true this is of the drunkard531the libertine, the spendthrift, the miser, the scoffer! “And the bondservant abideth not in the house forever: the son abideth forever.” That is to say: the slave has no legal right to the patrimony; he may at any moment be sold to another; it is the son who is the heir. It is as though the Lord had said: “Because ye are Abraham’s seed, ye imagine that ye are his spiritual heirs. It is not so: ye are sinful, and therefore ye are not Abraham’s spiritual sons; ye are slaves of sin, abiding as it were for a while in Abraham’s house. But those who live a true life, accepting my testimony as God’s ambassador, are Abraham’s true sons, and therefore his true heirs: the son abideth in the house forever.” Have ye never read what Sarah said to Abraham: “Cast out this bondwoman and her son, for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac.” “If therefore the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” For Jesus Christ, in virtue of his own two-fold sonship—Son of God, and so God’s heir; Son of man, and so man’s next of kin—is this world’s true emancipator, striking off with his own cross-stained hands the shackles of sin, manumitting into the eternal freedom.—George Dana Boardman, D. D.
The Coming of Satan.
By B. R. Nordyke
THAT Satan has power to transform himself into “an angel of light” is shown by Paul in 2 Cor. 11: 14. And the apostle also warns us to beware of any other gospel than the word of God. In Gal. 1: 8, he says: “But though we, or an angel from Heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.”
The editor of this “avant-courier of the new spiritual dispensation,” the World’s Advance-Thought, April 5, 1886, comments editorially upon the question of “A Coming Messiah,” as follows:—
“In a recent Harmony Hall lecture on ‘The Messianic Idea,’ the necessity for a new messiah, and the certainty of his early advent, were philosophically considered, as well as prophetically proclaimed.
“The messianic idea is involved in the theory that all the phenomena of spiritual manifestations, however diverse and widely separated, may be referred to a single mediumistic source of distribution. . . . The time has already come for logically arranging the authenticated facts which shall demonstrate it.
“The mere suggestion of the idea that through one medium the spiritual lights and forces may be transmitted that control the destinies of a world, or worlds, as a great city may be illuminated by lights transmitted from one central point, will lead to new channels of thought on the subject; and many, and especially a certain class of mediums, will scout and ridicule it; but I will venture the opinion that the controlling intelligences of the greatest of the inspirational speakers will, when questioned in regard to it, either indorse it as true, or relegate it back to mortals for further consideration on their part—which would be to say, in effect, ‘It is true, but we do not deem it expedient to unqualifiedly tell you so now.’
“Apply the test, my friends. The unanimity of the immortals’ answers may thrill the world with the promise of a new messiah.
“There are regular cycles of spiritual progress, of truth unfoldments; and we are now passing from one into another. Another ‘Sun of Righteousness’ is called for on earth, and the messenger cannot be far off whose life mission it shall be to practically illustrate the new truths that will be vouchsafed. He will not be a more racial messiah, to which class belonged Buddha, Zoroaster, Pythagoras, and Mahomet; nor a half-world messiah, as was the great Nazarene; but steam locomotion and lightning communication, and the harmonizing influences of commercial intercourse, have made a whole-world messiah possible, and such the next one shall be. Though themselves ignorant of the fact, as a body, the great and multiplying army of mediums are his avant-couriers.
“Why have not our inspirational mediums told us this before?’ you will ask. I answer, because you would have received the answer from their lips, as you now do from mine, with incredulity; and then, in the general course of spiritual education it has not heretofore been necessary to make the fact known.
“Do you not understand that to fail to grasp the messianic idea is to be blind to the fact disclosed all along the line of modern spiritual manifestations, that a designing intelligence is behind all the external evidences of immortality that you have received—that all would be anarchy and confusion without a unity of direction somewhere?”
Judge H. A. Maguire, in a lecture delivered in Harmony Hall, Salem, Oregon, is reported thus:—
“I say, ‘as one having authority,’ Spiritualists, and all, may see a hope, that shall be a realization to this very generation, of the higher spiritual forces getting control over and governing all the institutions of earth. Silently and invisibly to the worldly-wise, these forces have been, and are being, under the direction of a divine intelligence, extended into every department and station of human life, and the culmination is near at hand,—the ushering in of a new messiah and a new spiritual dispensation.
“These mystical batteries of Spiritual power, to which all material forces are subordinate, have been planted in all the strongholds of injustice and ignorance on the face of the earth, and the time cometh on apace when they will pour forth their regenerative energies like rivers of consuming fire. Then hypocrisy will be unmasked in the temples of worship; injustice and corruption will be banished from the councils of State, and the children of men will enjoy such meeds of peace and happiness as they never knew before. This is the voice of living prophecy, as true as ever fell from lips of prophets in olden times.
“In this enlightened age, when woman’s influence is felt co-equally with man’s in all the relations of life, as many female spirits appear as male ones. The coming messiah will represent the liberal spirit of the age, and be a positive assurance of more important advances in the future. The central jewel of his crown royal shall be the star of progress.
“What do you think, here let me ask, of the ancient oracles, which were patronized by the wisest and greatest of the olden times? That their influence was powerful over the destinies of individuals and nations, and that it was maintained through ages of time, is a well-authenticated historical fact; and it comes down to us as a mystery, which, like the Bible mysteries, can only be solved by Modern Spiritualism. Mediums were the priests and priestesses who made temples sacred and famed as sources of inspirational knowledge in the past ages. That almost every word and action of the life of Socrates was advised by his guardian spirit is so well established that to deny the fact is equivalent to denying his very existence. A reliable ancient historian records that Cæsar’s ghost twice appeared to Brutus—first at Sardis, and then on the field of Philippi. Human history outside the Bible dispensations is filled with such examples. Mahomet wrote the Koran automatically, when he was in conditions of trance, and his mind was illuminated by spiritual influx.”
The editor of the World’s Advance-Thought seems to consider that his paper is the special “forerunner” of what we believe to be his Satanic majesty, and that the Pacific Coast will be the first to receive a knowledge of the so-called “spiritual truth.” He says:—
“Oregon is one of the few countries of this earth that was acquired to civilization through peaceful diplomacy; and that is one of the great reasons that the magnetic conditions are peculiarly favorable for transmitting the light of the new spiritual dispensation from Oregon.”
“Intelligent design is impressed on all God’s works. All the messiahs of the past that we know of through history and its traditions, made their advent in localities near the center of the population of all that was known of the world by the people among whom they appeared. The regions along the Mediterranean have given birth to many messiahs, and for the reason that from localities thereabout the light could be radiated into the three continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa. The Pacific Coast of North America is now the most available region for the dissemination of spiritual truths.”
Now is the time for Christians to heed the admonition of Jesus found in Matt. 24: 4, 24–27: “Take heed that no man deceive you.” “For there shall arise false christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. Behold, I have told you before. Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth; behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not. For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.”
And the angel in Rev. 18: 23, says: “For by their sorceries were all nations deceived.” Rev. 16: 14 tells us plainly who these sorcerers are: “For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles;” and they are to “go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world.” And again, Rev. 13: 13, 14 says, that “he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, and deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do.”
And Paul says of it:—
“Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie; that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”
B. R. NORDYKE.
The Bible.
By Rev. William Walton Clark
Who wrote this book? This is the most important matter for us to settle ere we study and teach the Scriptures. The great theological question of the day is concerning the character of revelation, whether the Bible be wholly inspired, or partly inspired, or not inspired at all. Even among theologians there is a great difference of opinion; and as these opinions are ventilated in the secular and religious press it is our duty to look into the matter deeply that we may not only be convinced ourselves, but be able to persuade others also.
We believe in the full verbal inspiration of Holy Writ, that the Scriptures as they originally came from the hands of the writers were in truth “God breathed.” As students and teachers of these oracles we must know whether our faith rests upon the wisdom of men or on the authority of God. Paul writes to the Thessalonians: “For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the word of God.” Peter writes, “Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost,” and he also declares, “This scripture must needs have been fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake before concerning Judas.” David himself said, “The spirit of the Lord spake by me, and his word was in my tongue.”
If this be true in relation to the spoken word, it is especially so in relation to the written word. This is declared in 2 Tim. 3:16, “All scripture (that is, every writing) is given by inspiration of God.” If all the writings are not inspired, who is to decide what portion is of God and what of man? Each reader may cut and carve, accept and reject, as he chooses, and in the end nothing but threads and patches of the divine book will remain.
Bear in mind that it is the record that is inspired and not every utterance. Satan was not inspired to say to Adam, “Thou shalt not surely die,” for it was a falsehood; but Moses was inspired to write it. Ananias was not led by God “to lie to the Holy Ghost,” but Luke was inspired to give us the record. Peter was not inspired to deny the Lord, but he was inspired to make a confession as to his divinity. The record of the former is as much inspired as the record of the latter.
The Old Testament testimony is superabundant. Mark the utterances of the prophets: “Hear the word of the Lord” which came unto Isaiah, Jeremiah and expressly unto Ezekiel, the priest. This phrase, “the word of the Lord,” or its equivalent, is used 100 times in Jeremiah, 60 times in Ezekiel, 50 times in Amos, 24 times in Malachi. All the minor prophets sound the same note. It is like the roar of Heaven’s artillery all along the line, “thus saith the Lord.” In the New Testament the marvelous differences in the gospels and the wonderful peculiarities of every epistle are to be accounted for, by being attributed not to the weak and finite minds of the human penman, but to the omniscient mind of an infinite God. Nor does this belief interfere with the human element in inspiration. These men were not like brass trumpets through whom God spoke, but they wrote in language which accorded with their education and temperament, and yet they were so led by the Spirit that God alone is responsible for what they have written.
Students and teachers, hold fast to this, that the Bible not only contains the word of God but that it is the word of God. Canon Ryle forcibly says: “Give me the plenary verbal theory with all its difficulties rather than doubt. I accept the difficulties and humbly wait for their solution; but while I wait, I am standing on a rock.”
How precious is the Book Divine
By inspiration given.
Bright as a lamp its doctrines shine,
To guide our way to Heaven.
—Rev. William Walton Clark.
The Fourth Commandment of Universal Authority.
By Watchman
THE first thing to observe is that the Sabbath did not originate with the Mosaic law.
As one of the ten commandments, it is indeed a part of that law, but not only does the decalogue have a peculiar place and prominence in the law, but this commandment owes its place in the decalogue to the fact that it is the universal law for man from the beginning of his existence. The command, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy,” is no less God’s law for all men of every nation than the command, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”
Our Lord’s treatment of the Sabbath and the whole experience of mankind in respect to Sabbatic observance confirm the opinion that the fourth commandment is a moral law of universal authority. The relation in which it is put to creation shows the same. The fourth commandment, therefore, could no more be abrogated by Christ than the sixth. He certainly issued no decree for its repeal. Rather he observed it himself, said the day was for man, and so interpreted it as to free it from the bondage of Judaism.
What Paul says to the Galatians concerning the observance of days (Gal. 4:10), and to the Colossians concerning “a Sabbath day” (Col. 2:16, new version), certainly was not intended to condemn the practice and word of our Lord, or to teach that the Gentiles owed no allegiance to the moral law. . . . We turn, therefore, to the decalogue to learn what God’s law concerning the Sabbath day is. What we find there, with Christ’s interpretation thereof, will guide us into the truth for which we are seeking. —Watchman.
Repentance.
Without repentance there is no remission of sins. He who wishes to be saved, must confess his sins and do the work of repentance. To confess sins is to know evils, to see them in himself, to acknowledge them, to make himself guilty, and to condemn himself on account of them. When this is done before God, it constitutes the confession of sins. To do the work of repentance is to desist from sins when he has thus confessed them, and from a humble heart has made supplication about remission; and further, to lead a new life according to the precepts of faith.
He who only acknowledges universally that he is a sinner, and makes himself guilty of all evils, and does not explore himself, that is, see his sins, makes confession but not the confession of repentance; for he lives afterwards as before. He who lives the life of faith, does daily the work of repentance; for he reflects upon the evils appertaining to himself, acknowledges them, shuns them, and supplicates the Lord for aid. For man of himself is continually lapsing, but is continually raised up by the Lord. He lapses of himself when he wills to think evil, and is raised up by the Lord when he resists evil, and hence does it not.
The work of repentance which is done in a free state, is of avail; but that which is done in a state of compulsion, is of no avail. A state of compulsion is a state of sickness, a state of dejection of mind in consequence of misfortunes, a state of imminent death; in a word, it is every state of fear which takes away the use of sound reason. He who is evil, and in a state of compulsion promises repentance and also does good, when he comes into a free state returns unto his former life of evil. The case is otherwise with a good man, the above states being to him states of temptation in which he conquers.—Arcana Cœlestia.
Preparing the Mind to See Truth
By Rev. John Clifford, D. D.
The greater care we take to free the mind from selfish bias, personal prejudgment, hardness, want of spiritual sympathy, the more likely shall we be to see the truth. “The integrity of the upright shall guide them.” A holy purpose keeps an open road between the soul and God.
Add to these precautions and qualifications strenuous toil and daily communion with God, and though we may never wholly escape mistake and error, yet we shall enjoy a growth in capability to read the will of God, which will register itself at once in the radiant holiness of our lives, and in the satisfying and strengthening convictions of our minds that we are possessed of the thoughts, and sure of the voice of the Spirit of God.—Rev. John Clifford, D. D.
Conscience
By Joseph Cook
CONSCIENCE expresses the instinctive sense of obligation to moral law. This law was not enacted and is not reversible by the human will; it is imposed by an authority outside of ourselves. The instinct of obligation is active when we are separated from all human government and society; we cannot imagine ourselves to obliterate this obligation by the obliteration of all finite beings; we know that we must answer to a Power outside of ourselves. In the nature of things this implies that the Power to which we are answerable knows what we do and what we ought to do; approves the right and disapproves the wrong, and has the power and purpose to reward us according to our character and conduct.—Joseph Cook.
Sorrow
By F. W. Robertson
SORROW is not an accident, occurring now and then. It is the woof which is woven into the warp of life, and he who has not discerned the divine sacredness of sorrow, and the profound meaning which is concealed in pain, has yet to learn what life is. The cross, manifested as the necessity of the highest life, alone interprets it.—F. W. Robertson.
The Scriptures
THE Scriptures are wonderful with respect to the matter which they contain, the manner in which they are written, and the effect which they produce.—Bishop Horne.
The Spirit of Reverence
By Rev. A. T. Dunn
It were well if our houses of worship were closed to everything that does not directly contribute to strengthen and deepen the spirit of worship, so that each visit paid should result in a blessed meeting with God. The spirit of irreverence endangers all departments of life, and cannot be supported without great loss of spiritual power.—Rev. A. T. Dunn.