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Review and Herald, Vol. 86, No. 32.

My Assurance

Review and Herald

Aug 12, 1909

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · Aug 12, 1909

My Assurance

By Samuel Longfellow

Father, I need Thee; troubles abound, Billows on billows break all around; Hold out Thy saving hand, Help me in faith to stand; Thou dost the waves command— I shall not sink.
Father, I need Thee! dangers are near; Thine arm around me, I will not fear. Teach me Thy voice to know, Speaking so clear and low, “Fear not, with thee I go. Thou shalt o’ercome.”
Father, I hear Thee!—hear and obey, Know Thou art near me, near me alway— Near me when troubles lower, Near in temptation’s hour, Near me, O Love and Power! Yea, more than near!
Father, I trust Thee! Thou wilt defend, Comfort, and guard me on to the end. Still would I do my part, Keep a brave, cheerful heart; Since Thou my helper art, I shall not fall.
—Samuel Longfellow.

THE WORK

— AND —

THE WORKERS

Have you seen the August Life and Health? In contents and appearance it is ahead of all previous numbers.
Elder T. H. Jeys, president of the South Carolina Conference, orders 1,000 of our various magazines, to sell during their camp-meeting.
Elder Morris Lukens, president of the Indiana Conference, reports that their magazine scholarship company sold 2,000 magazines the first week and 3,000 the second.
The Northern Illinois Tract Society orders 3,000 copies of the August Life and Health. Elder Wm. Covert says that they are determined to raise their monthly order to 5,000 copies soon.
“Simple Treatments for Common Ailments,” by Dr. Maria Edwards, is a tract of twenty pages, which is probably the simplest and most condensed treatise on the treatment of common diseases ever published. Price, 2 cents.
“Bible Nature Series,” No. 1, is the title of an excellent book on elementary science, by Prof. M. E. Cady. It includes the study of elementary geography. The price of No. 1 of this series is $1.20. No. 2 of the series will be brought out some time between now and the first of the new year.
“Please send me 100 copies of Life and Health at once,” writes one of our lady agents in New Orleans. “I sold one man 50 copies. He said he wanted them to use in his business. He is a cottonseed-oil dealer, and may want more copies.” This agent did well in suiting her canvass to her customer. She read his need, and canvassed him accordingly.
A Methodist Sunday-school superintendent in St. Louis, Mo., has just bought 300 copies of the Temperance number of the Youth’s Instructor for use in his Sunday-school. Why not introduce this excellent number to Sunday-school officers in your town? Prices: 25 to 99 copies, 4 cents each; 100 to 499 copies, 3¾; 500 to 800 copies, 3½ cents; 1,000 or more, 3 cents each. Send $3.75 for 100 copies to sell among your neighbors.
Brother D. W. Percy, of the West Virginia Conference, writes: “We are planning to take a few hours off every day during our camp-meeting, in order that our people who are willing may take part in a systematic campaign of house-to-house and street work with our ten-cent magazines.” A portion of the profits will be turned in to help defray the camp-meeting expenses. If churches in Pennsylvania and other States can pay off their church debts (as they have done), and if individuals can pay off their private debts (as many have done), through the sale of our ten-cent magazines for a few weeks, why should this remunerative, self-supporting missionary work not be utilized to defray other necessary expenses?
Mrs. S. N. Haskell, of the Northern California Conference, sends an order for 1,000 copies of the August Life and Health.
How many copies of the July Life and Health were circulated in your State? See article “Where the July Life and Health Went,” on page 22.
We can now supply the Review and Herald new illustrated Scholarship booklet, which gives full instructions in regard to earning a scholarship in our leading schools, also a medical scholarship in the George Washington University, of Washington, D. C. Sent free on application to Book Department.
“Enclosed find post-office money-order for $1, to pay for the 25 copies of Life and Health received,” writes a sister from Missouri. “I have had very good success. Working twelve hours in Farmington this week, I sold twenty copies of Life and Health, and also ten copies of the Signs Monthly magazine.
“I enclose check for $11.25, for which please send the Protestant Magazine one year to the 75 names and addresses on the enclosed list,” writes Mrs. Catherine D. Elford, of Alabama. We are glad to note that most of these names are those of ministers residing in one of Alabama’s largest cities. Will not others take up this good work? The Protestant Magazine presents the great underlying principles of Protestantism and of Seventh-day Adventism in a drawing manner.
“At our camp-meeting in the eastern part of the province, we had a temperance meeting,” writes Miss Bertha Lofstad, secretary of the Sabbath-school and young people’s department of the British Columbia Conference, “and after the meeting we sold 500 copies of the Temperance number of the Youth’s Instructor in just a few minutes. I think this was good for a small meeting, the attendance being only seventy.” The little meetings are ofttimes the best. The writer recalls, for instance, a California camp-meeting where 5,000 copies of Life and Health and Liberty were sold to our people for them to take home and sell. Yet there were only about thirty family tents on the ground. It took a large dray to bring the magazines from the post-office.
Brother Frank Hiner, secretary of the East Michigan Tract Society, has just ordered 4,000 of our ten-cent magazines (1,000 copies each of Life and Health, Liberty, the Protestant Magazine, and the Temperance number of the Youth’s Instructor), to be used in their camp-meeting periodical campaign. They plan to hold a good, old-fashioned workers’ meeting, the workers to visit the townspeople, selling the magazines, and inviting the people to the services. At the close of the camp-meeting the workers from the various churches will carry home supplies of the magazines, and sell them in their home communities. Several other conferences are also sending in large orders for magazines to be used in a similar manner. The California Conference brethren have just disposed of several thousand copies of our ten-cent magazines in this way. The plan is no longer an experiment.
We advise all Liberty agents to acquire additional selling points by a careful perusal of Religious Liberty Leaflets Nos. 1-15. Price of the set (136 pages), 10 cents, post-paid. Our most successful lady agent for Liberty ascribes her success to the reading of these leaflets and three or four numbers of the magazine itself.
“We were in St. Paul and Minneapolis sixteen days,” write a brother and sister, “and sold 1,050 copies of Liberty and 350 Life and Health, besides attending nearly all of the services at the camp-meeting. Other workers sold about 1,500 magazines. We sold 1,440 copies in all. So you see this is a field that should be looked after.”
Have not all experienced the embarrassment of not being able to turn immediately to the text desired when in conversation upon Scriptural topics? At such times, the “Bible Text-Book” would be very helpful; for its arrangement renders it valuable as a text-book for study. It contains a large amount of valuable information in a very compact form. While it is only 3½ x 6¾ inches in size, it treats of forty-nine of the most important Biblical topics. As a reference book, it will help all to readily refer to the texts appertaining to these forty-nine topics. Cloth, 30 cents; leather, 50 cents.
“The Liquor Traffic and Prohibition”—an unusually strong four-page temperance tract, by Mrs. E. G. White, dealing forcibly and practically with “The Vital Question of the Nations,” “Must the Evil Continue,” “Universal Peril,” “Inconsistency of Licensing the Liquor Traffic,” “No Revenue Can Compensate for the Evil Entailed,” “An Earnest Appeal.” The tract is condensed, and cheap in price, but is one of the strongest presentations of the evils of intemperance and the responsibility and inconsistency of the government in permitting the sale of liquor through the license law that has ever been written. It ought to be in every home in the world. Price, 25 cents a hundred, post-paid. Order of your tract society.
“Bible Lessons in Old and New Testament History” is the title of a series of four books being published by the Pacific Press. The purpose of the series is to aid the teacher and the parent in solving the problem of teaching the children the sacred Word of God. The history given in the Bible is the child’s true field of Bible study, and his effort in this, as in all else, should be systematic and thorough. In nothing that man has written, can there be found anything that has such a hold upon the heart of the little ones as the stories of the Bible. In these simple stories the great principle of the law of God may be made plain. “Bible Lessons” is not intended merely to make the children familiar with Bible stories, but to cause them, by means of these stories, to understand the principles of the law of God, which is the true end of all Bible study and teaching. The first book of this series is now completed. Price, 90 cents, post-paid. Remaining copies of the books will be issued later.

Editorial

By Editor

“Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.”
“Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.”
“Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the Lord, till he come and rain righteousness upon you.” Yes, “it is time to seek the Lord.” The Lord’s coming is near, even at the very doors. “The storm is gathering, the clouds are loading, ready to burst upon the world, and to many will it be as a thief in the night.” Kind reader, how will you stand at that fearful time? Your good name will not prove a passport; your worldly riches will not answer as a ransom; worldly influence can not change the decision of the great Judge. All these will prove but dross, but clogs and hindrances to the soul. In Christ only can you find a refuge from the gathering storm. His is the only righteousness which will prove a covering in the day of wrath. “We are standing upon the threshold of great and solemn events.” Little do we know or realize the startling developments which the future will reveal to us. The closing judgment work is fast hastening. “Get ready, get ready,” is the message of God to-day to every soul. The indulgence of sin can no longer be afforded. The gratification of selfish desires and propensities must no longer be enjoyed. Personalities must be laid aside. Self must sink out of sight behind the cross, while Christ, the hope of glory, must be formed in the life. If religion in the past has been with us a feeling, a theory, a mere sentiment, it must now become a living principle within, the settled business and purpose of the life. Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation. While mercy lingers, and the Spirit calls, make peace with Him who will prove in the day of coming wrath our Shield, our Refuge, and our Rock of defense.

Restrained by an Unseen Agency

By W. A. S.

THE psalmist says that in olden time God rebuked heathen kings for the sake of his children, saying, “Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm.” Often since then even fierce barbarians have felt the presence of unseen guardians about the servants of the Lord. John G. Paton, on the island of Tanna, in the wild New Hebrides, was surrounded by fierce cannibals. They had gathered one day to kill the missionary and all friendly to him. Paton says:—
Frenzy of excitement prevailed, and the blood-fiend seemed to override the whole assembly; when, under an impulse that surely came from the Lord of pity, one great warrior chief who had hitherto kept silent, rose, swung aloft a mighty club, and smashing it earthward, cried aloud:—
“The man that kills Missi must first kill me; the men that kill the mission teachers must first kill me and my people; for we shall stand by them and defend them till death.”
Instantaneously, another chief thundered in with the same declaration; and the great assembly broke up in dismay. All the more remarkable was this deliverance, as these two chiefs lived nearly four miles inland, and, as reputed disease makers and sacred men, were regarded as among our bitterest enemies.
Again, the missionary says:—
One day while toiling away at my house, the war chief and a large party of armed men surrounded the plot where I was working. They all had muskets. They watched me for some time in silence, and then every man leveled a musket straight at my head. Escape was impossible. My eyesight came and went for a few moments. I prayed to my Lord Jesus. I tried to keep on with my task, as if no one was near me. In that moment, as never before, the words came to me, “Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do,” and I knew I was safe. Retiring a little, they took up the same attitude, and seemed to be urging one another to fire the first shot. But my dear Lord restrained them once again, and they withdrew.
A few days later natives in large numbers were assembled about his house:—
A man furiously rushed on me with his ax; but a Kaserumni chief snatched a spade with which I had been working, and dexterously defended me from instant death. Life in such circumstances led me to cling very near to the Lord Jesus; I knew not, for one brief hour, when or how attack might be made; and yet, with my trembling hand clasped in the hand once nailed on Calvary, and now swaying the scepter of the universe, calmness and peace and resignation abode in my soul.
Next day, a wild chief followed me about for four hours with his loaded musket, and, though often directed toward me, God restrained his hand. I spoke kindly to him, and attended to my work as if he had not been there, fully persuaded that my God had placed me there, and would protect me till my allotted task was finished. Looking up in unceasing prayer to our dear Lord Jesus, I left all in his hands, and felt immortal till my work was done. Trials and hair-breadth escapes strengthened my faith, and seemed only to nerve me for more to follow; and they did tread swiftly upon each other’s heels. Without that abiding consciousness of the presence and power of my dear Lord and Saviour, nothing else in all the world could have preserved me from losing my reason and perishing miserably. His words, “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world,” became to me so real that it would not have startled me to behold him, as Stephen did, gazing down upon the scene.
Yet again:—
One evening I awoke three times to hear a chief and his men trying to force the door of my house. Though armed with muskets, they had some sense of doing wrong, and were wholesomely afraid of a little retriever dog which had often stood betwixt me and death. God restrained them again; and next morning the report went all round the harbor that those who tried to shoot me were “smitten weak with fear,” and that shooting would not do.
A powerfully built sacred man of the island, having publicly suffered defeat in an attempt to kill the missionary by sorcery, now determined to kill him with a warrior’s spear. Paton says:—
For weeks thereafter, go where I would, he would suddenly appear on the path behind me, poising in his right hand that same Goliath spear. God only kept it from being thrown, and I, using every lawful precaution, had all the same to attend to my work, as if no enemy were there, leaving all other results in the hands of Jesus.
Still later a savage aimed a blow at the missionary with a tomahawk. Paton avoided it, and said: “My Jehovah God is here to defend me now.”
Trembling, the man looked fearfully about and dared not follow farther. The fear of Jehovah again restrained the savage heart. We need to learn that God is indeed a present help, and his angels fellow servants with the children of God on earth.
W. A. S.

Preach the Word

By F. M. W.

In this day of much-vaunted Bible knowledge, the Bible, after all, is but little preached. Sensational subjects are advertised to draw the people. Partizan views and theological dogmas having foundation only in the minds of the advocates, are proclaimed. Apparently greater effort is made by many to display scholarship, eloquence, and wit, and thus draw plaudits from the admiring multitude, than to hold up the gospel truth of the Saviour of the world. Discussion and debate between contending denominations and church factions engender strife, bitterness, and hatred; and as the result of it all, the plain, simple story of the cross is but little told, and still less emphasized.
In the midst of all this, how great a rule the need for every child of God to manifest in all of his relations to men the spirit of his divine Master. Christ’s meekness and tenderness should characterize all of his words and ways. Says the apostle Peter: “Be pitiful, be courteous: not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing.”
Again and again is the idea emphasized in the Scriptures, that the ambassador of Christ should preach the gospel, preach the word, not turning aside to debate with error, or to expose false science, only as the straightforward preaching of the truth will accomplish that result. The great apostle of the Gentiles exhorts: “Keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called.” “Strive not about words to no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers.” “Shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness.”
And after all, is not the best way to meet and expose error to be found in the preaching of the gospel of Christ? The study of the life of Jesus will show that this was his plan. We find him taking part in no joint debate, in no noisy rabble. True, he was asked searching questions, but these were answered not by a thrust at the questioner, nor yet by an attack upon his views, only as the straightforward truth revealing the inconsistency of error could be said to constitute such an attack.
In “Desire of Ages,” pages 352, 299, and 455, we read: “Christ himself did not suppress one word of truth, but he spoke it always in love. He exercised the greatest tact, and thoughtful, kind attention in his intercourse with the people. He was never rude, never needlessly spoke a severe word, never gave needless pain to a sensitive soul. He did not censure human weakness. He fearlessly denounced hypocrisy, unbelief, and iniquity, but tears were in his voice as he uttered his scathing rebukes.”
“He did not make a direct attack on the errors of the people. . . . He taught them of something infinitely better than they had known. Without combatting their ideas of the kingdom of God, he told them the conditions of entrance therein, leaving them to draw their own conclusions as to its nature.” “The question of these cavilers Jesus met, not by answering the cavil, but by opening up truth vital to the salvation of the soul.”
By the example of the Great Teacher, his followers to-day should be guided. Preach the gospel; this is the commission. The temptation may often be presented to hold up the ideas of others to ridicule, to meet the advocates of error in debate and controversy; but as a rule, such negative methods of proclaiming the truth of the gospel fall far short in accomplishing the results obtained by the presentation of the simple story of the cross. Of course, there may be instances where the enemies of Christ should be met directly, and to keep silence would be to deny the truth as it is in Jesus. But such cases are rare. Generally where error should be exposed, its weakness may be most effectually shown, not by dealing with its absurdities, but in preaching the word. By the penetrating rays of the gospel of Christ, darkness will be dispelled, and the hearts and minds of men illuminated.
As the advocates of unpopular truths, how greatly do our workers need to imitate closely in all of their labors the spirit and practise of the Saviour of men. Not alone by the theory which they present, but even more by the lives they live, will men be brought to a saving knowledge of the truth. Many admit that the doctrines we hold are perfect in theory, and most harmonious in all their relations to one another. But for the great evidence of their genuineness they look to see the practical workings of the theory in the lives of its advocates. This is reasonable. The wise buyer makes purchases upon the intrinsic value of the article secured, not upon some glowing representation of the same. Hence the word must be preached, and Christ must be exalted, not alone in theory, but above all in the lives of his followers. Living Christ is the most effectual way of preaching Christ to others. F. M. W.

The Spread of Ir reverence

By C. M. S.

In one particular at least there is a striking similarity between the church history of Constantine’s day and the church history of our own day. In those early days there came such a letting down of the standards of discipline that the church became literally swamped with a partially converted mass of people, who, instead of going on into the fuller light of the gospel, turned the great bulk of the church’s membership into the darkness of the great apostasy. In these days the great church organizations have so eased upon the requirements of membership that gradually and insidiously there has come in a striking change in the general sentiment of the church body. The salt of the organization is becoming so highly diluted through this means that it is losing its power to preserve, and conditions that would not have been tolerated a half century, or even a quarter century, ago are “quite the thing” at the present time. The minister has quite largely ceased to be the spokesman of the Almighty with a message from heaven; and it has become his business to entertain his audience for the length of time that his audience shall choose to permit the entertainment to go on. He is circumscribed and limited to an address of from twenty to forty minutes, and the trend of his remarks must be such as will please rather than reprove, as will deal with popular themes rather than the requirements of God’s law, as will tickle the ears of the listeners rather than make sinners uncomfortable. Through this transformation within the church body, the ministry, the church edifice, and what they both stand for, are losing the place they once occupied in the reverent regard of the people. The minister’s utterance has come to be regarded more as the opinion of a man than as a message from heaven, more as an interlude in the musical program than as God’s winnowing instrument to separate the chaff from the wheat; and wherever the pulpit has yielded to the unconverted pew in the matter of the character and quantity of the discourse, the pew’s estimate of the pulpit is about right.
In the July 14 issue of the Northwestern Christian Advocate there appeared a lengthy article under the heading given to this article, from which we take the following:—
That we are living in a light, flippant age, few people will deny, and thoughtful men and women everywhere view with real alarm the hold irreverence has upon the present generation. It seems to be in the very air, and is spreading to such an extent that there are few sacred things left in the world. . . .
To most people the word irreverence calls up only thoughts of disregard for God and his institutions. If you speak ofpeople being irreverent, they immediately think of the things that have crept into churches and church life, to dishonor God and bring reproach to his cause. To be sure, there is plenty of irreverence in churches and church work to-day, but it is not all confined there. The light, operatic music, the sermonette, the “attractions,” and other things that modern churches must have to “draw the crowds,” are not the only forms of irreverence in life, by any means. The time was when the church was regarded as a place dedicated to the worship of God, but nowadays it would be difficult to find out what many of them really stand for.
This writer then pictures the inattention, flippancy, and positive irreverence manifest in the Sunday-schools, and the carelessness of parents in reference thereto; the substitution of concerts for sermons, and lectures for prayer-meetings; the turning of the house of God into a place for social gatherings, suppers, concerts, fairs, and money-making schemes; the prevalence of a spirit to joke about Bible facts and turn Scriptural truths into laughable themes; the growing use of slang, vulgarity, and even profanity among society women and girls; the increasing lack of modesty in so many walks of life, with an increasing boldness in discussing delicate subjects; the increasing restlessness of women and their desire to be more prominent in public affairs (the writer of that article is a woman); the growing tendency to look upon housework as drudgery and live upon store foods; and with it all the increasing disregard for human life manifested in various ways, and the gratification of appetite at the expense of the health of both parents and children.
The picture which that writer gives of present conditions is “true to life;” and the conditions furnish a striking fulfilment of the prophetic Word. “Evil men and seducers” are waxing “worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.” “The love of the many” for the things of God is waxing cold—all evidences of the near approach of the time when our Redeemer, as he faithfully promised, will return. But the sad part of it is that the blinded leaders of such organizations do not see in such conditions any sign of that great event. Even the writer of the article from which we have quoted sees nothing in the portrayed conditions that fulfils the prophecy relating to our times. The article closes thus:—
And yet we are told the world is growing better. Yes, it is growing better, and one of these days we will return to safe and sane thought and living. Once more religion and life and labor and modesty and all the best things of life will be exalted and restored to their rightful positions, and everything will be well.
Thus are the people lulled to sleep on the very eve of eternity in the assurance that all is well with them, or will be soon; that the new generation, schooled in irreverence, immodesty, and doubt will soon, by some magic metamorphosis, blossom out into the very kingdom of God, and peace and righteousness and brotherly love will permeate every stratum of society. In the place of that ignis fatuus the truth as it is in the Inspired Word must be made known, that the blood of souls may not be upon the garments of those to whom God has committed this world’s last message of warning and mercy.
C. M. S.

Radical Criticism Paralleled

By W. W. P.

The advocates of liberal views in theology are creating a new literature in which their destructive criticism is put into permanent form. Books of reference, such as Bible dictionaries and Bible encyclopedias, edited by some of the advanced thinkers whose teachings tend to unsettle those positions which have been firmly maintained for centuries, are now being published. Some of the views set forth in these publications illustrate the extreme results of radical criticism, and show how fully the idea of the authoritative inspiration of the Scriptures has been abandoned by many who still profess the Christian faith. Speculation takes the place of revelation, and no theory seems to be too ridiculous to advance in the wholesale departure from the old standards and in the effort to explain the Biblical narrative as being in many parts mythical rather than historical.
Among the reference books of this class is a Dictionary of the Bible, edited by James Hastings, D. D., whose merits are being widely advertised just now by the publishers. A review of this work, written by James Wallace, Ph. D., appeared in the Bible Record for April, which, while speaking favorably of the treatment accorded to a large number of subjects, characterizes in no uncertain terms those articles prepared by the representatives of liberalism. We quote a paragraph:—
The dictionary aims to present or represent “the average scholarship of its day” (preface). This aim is probably reached by the English contributors fairly well. So far as American Biblical scholarship is concerned, Barton, Craig, and H. P. Smith, as their articles show, represent as radical Old Testament scholarship as can be found in America. That a Bible dictionary that professes not “to take up an extreme position” (preface) should number, for example, Henry Preserved Smith among its contributors is indeed preposterous.
In his review of this dictionary, Dr. Wallace deals more particularly with the effort to expound the meaning of the journey of Abraham to the promised land, and introduces a fine bit of sarcasm in his deductions from etymology to establish a new theory concerning the nationality of our first parents. While the argument can hardly be regarded as a final one, it may yet help some persons to perceive the ridiculous folly displayed by a class of professedly learned men in their vaporings concerning the Scripture record. We therefore introduce a few paragraphs from this portion of Dr. Wallace’s article:—
The story of creation is of no historical or scientific value, and in tracing the early history of Israel the beacon light for Professor Barton, of Bryn Mawr, shines from Tuebingen.
“The destruction of Sodom and other of the cities of the plain is a story which grew up to account for the Dead Sea.” It matters nothing that this flatly contradicts the account in Genesis. Dr. Barton simply ought to know better.
“The story of Abraham’s migration is the narration of the westward movement of a tribe or group of tribes.”
Six sons of Jacob are said to be sons of Leah. Leah (continues the doctor) probably (sic) means “wild cow.” This apparently (sic) means that these tribes were near of kin, and possessed as a common totem the “wild cow” or “bovine antelope.” In like manner Rachel means “ewe,” and that means that the tribes Manasseh, Ephraim, and Benjamin had a different totem! Yes, indeed! This is, “probably,” “apparently” what it all “means”—or something else. It makes no difference that nobody knows certainly what Leah does mean; we need a “totem” at this point in our theory, and “wild cow” makes as good a totem as anything else, though if we had been consulted, we should have preferred a “wild ass” to a “wild cow.” This Leah-totem business is about as conclusive as Mark Twain’s etymology of “horse.” It is derived from the Latin “equus.” The quus is dropped, and “e” is changed to “horse” for euphony!
This spinning out of history from etymology is a delightful pastime, albeit the history evolved is “probably” all “moonshine.”
We have an itching of pen to try it ourselves. Our first parents were both Greeks. Adam is clearly derived from a-privative and “dam” seen in the Greek verb damáō, “subdue;” “conquer.” So Adam was called the “unsubdued” or “subduer,” and as it was his business to “subdue” the garden, what name could be more appropriate!
In like manner Eve is plainly derived from the Greek “Hebe,” “youth.” To this day the Greek “b” is pronounced “v;” “h” is a mere breathing and does not count. Now what could be more beautiful and appropriate than that the first mother of mankind should be called “youth”! We are sure that Adam and Eve were alike charmed with the name. But their children were Greeks, too, of course. Cain is derived from the Greek “kainos,” “new,” and for a first son this simply “beats the band” for appropriateness. If proof is wanted, we find it in the fact that even now we know people called “New” and “Newman,” and then there is the case of the bright woman who called her tenth son “Nothing New.”
In the same manner Abel is easily derived from “a”-prothelic or intensive and “bel” from the root of “ballo,” “throw” (cf. belos, a dart). Hence,Abel was a “mighty thrower.” He no doubt became such from stoning the dogs, “wild cows,” and “bovine antelopes” off his sheep! So we conclude that our first parents and the two sons were pure-blooded Ionian Greeks. Of course they were!
We are glad to note that the Bible League of North America proposes as a part of its aggressive program to provide for the publication of Biblical reference books which will embody the results of the best conservative scholarship. Of late this field of work has been almost wholly abandoned to the representatives of destructive criticism, until the impression may have gained ground that there is no longer any one ready to defend the old-fashioned view of Bible inspiration.
In spite of all the attacks of its avowed enemies and its professed friends, the old Book still maintains its standing, and still proves itself to be the Word of God to those who receive it as such, by working effectually in them. The value of such proof as this is not to be underestimated. W. W. P.

Almost Right

By F. M. W.

AMONG the excellent journals which come to our table, the Western Recorder is particularly frank and outspoken in its religious convictions. In its issue of July 15, it earnestly takes to task its Baptist brethren for using in their Sunday-schools “Moninger’s Manual,” which teaches that Easter should be observed in honor of the resurrection of Christ. To quote:—
The thing against which we enter our unqualified protest is the long ritual on the “observance of days.” . . . Paul said to the Galatians: “Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain.” Yet this “Manual” recommends the observance of twenty-four Sundays out of the fifty-two in the year to be set apart for special observance.
One of the Sundays to be specially observed, according to the “Manual,” is Easter Sunday. Regarding this the editor states:—
O, why will brethren go headlong toward Rome so heedless of consequences? Surely our Southern Baptists are not going to ape the Romanist in this fashion. The idea of leading our children astray by teaching them to observe this semipagan Romish festival! Baptists do not need to go to the heathen, nor to Rome, to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. We celebrate the resurrection every Lord’s day, by observing it instead of the old Jewish Sabbath. Especially do we celebrate this resurrection Scripturally and impressively every time we administer Scriptural baptism. “Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also [raised] in the likeness of his resurrection.”
We agree with the Recorder that “we celebrate this resurrection Scripturally and impressively every time we administer Scriptural baptism.” This is clearly taught in the scripture the editor quotes, as well as in other texts which might be cited. But where is the Scriptural proof that the resurrection should be celebrated in the observance of Sunday? We have no such proof in the Bible. God gave one memorial of the resurrection, he had no need to give another. The Bible nowhere enjoins the religious observance of Sunday in any sense. It is an ordinary laboring day, the same as the other five common days of the week. Sunday observance must look to the same source for its authority as must the Easter festival. They are sister institutions, both possessing the same pagan mother and the same papal godmother.
Our Baptist brother is almost right, but he does not go quite far enough in his deductions and in the advice he proffers. In rejecting the authority of Rome as relates to the Easter festival, he should reject the same authority as pertains to the Sunday sabbath. Indeed, Rome sets forth the latter festival as the particular mark of her authority, which she boldly flaunts in the faces of Protestants, charging them with admitting her power to ordain as many feasts and holy days as she may choose, in that they observe the weekly rest day commanded by her.
Read her words as copied direct from “A Doctrinal Catechism,” page 174, published by the Catholic Publishing House of New York, and bearing the sanction of John Cardinal McCloskey:—
Question.—Have you any other way of proving that the church has power to institute festivals of precept?
Answer.—Had she not such power, she could not have done that in which all modern religionists agree with her, she could not have substituted the observance of Sunday, the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday, the seventh day of the week, a change for which there is no Scriptural authority.
In “An Abridgment of the Christian Doctrine,” published by John Doyle in New York in 1833, and sent out under the approval of the Bishop of Boston, page 58, we read:—
Question.—How prove you that the church hath power to command feasts and holy days?
Answer.—By the very act of changing the Sabbath into Sunday, which Protestants allow of; and therefore they fondly contradict themselves, by keeping the Sunday strictly, and breaking most other feasts commanded by the same church.
Q.—How prove you that?
A.—Because by keeping Sunday, they acknowledge the church’s power to ordain feasts, and to command them under sin: and by not keeping the rest by her commanded, they again deny, in fact, the same power.
The denomination represented by the Recorder has stood for the right many times in their denominational history. They do well to-day that they stand against the spirit of ritualism, which is fast supplanting the simplicity of gospel worship in the great churches of the world. They do well to be wary of those influences and institutions which have been engrafted upon the Christian world by the Roman Church, but while they are rejecting one tradition of the “fathers,” and taking their stand for Bible truth, let them reject in toto the whole fabric of superstition and fallacy which has come down to us from the ages of degeneracy, and stand squarely on the Word of truth, which alone is able to build us up, and to present us faultless before the presence of His glory. Will Protestants of to-day be true to their profession, or does their name stand for a past experience, and for a faith succumbing to the insidious influences against which they should ever stand in consistent protest?
F. M. W.
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