Review and Herald, Vol. 77, No. 29. (7/17/1900)

Review and Herald

Jul 17, 1900

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 17, 1900

THE LORD'S VINEYARD.

By Ellen G. White

MRS. E. G. WHITE.

During the Jewish economy, at appointed times God sent prophets and messengers to receive his portion from the husbandmen. These messengers saw that everything was being appropriated to a wrong use, and the Spirit of God inspired them to warn the people of their unfaithfulness. But though the people were convicted in regard to their unrighteous course, they would not yield, but became more stubborn. Entreaties and arguments were of no avail. They hated reproof.

“When the time of the fruit drew near,” Christ said, in giving the parable of the vineyard, “he sent his servants to the husbandmen, that they might receive the fruits of it. And the husbandmen took his servants, and beat one, and killed another, and stoned another. Again, he sent other servants more than the first: and they did unto them likewise.”

Paul records the treatment received by God's messengers. “Women received their dead raised to life again,” he declares; “and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection: and others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword; they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented (of whom the world was not worthy); they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.”

For centuries God looked with patience and forbearance upon the cruel treatment given to his ambassadors, at his holy law prostrate, despised, trampled underfoot. He swept away the inhabitants of the Noachian world with a flood. But when the earth was again peopled, men drew away from God, and renewed their hostility to him, manifesting bold defiance. Those whom God rescued from Egyptian bondage followed in the footsteps of those who had preceded them. Cause was followed by effect; the earth was being corrupted.

A crisis had arrived in the government of God. The earth was filled with transgression. The voices of those who had been sacrificed to human envy and hatred were crying beneath the altar for retribution. All heaven was prepared at the word of God to move to the help of his elect. One word from him, and the bolts of heaven would have fallen upon the earth, filling it with fire and flame. God had but to speak, and there would have been thunderings and lightnings and earthquakes and destruction.

The heavenly intelligences were prepared for a fearful manifestation of Almighty power. Every move was watched with intense anxiety. The exercise of justice was expected. The angels looked for God to punish the inhabitants of the earth. But “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that, whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” “I will send my beloved Son,” he said. “It may be they will reverence him.” Amazing grace! Christ came not to condemn the world, but to save the world. “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

The heavenly universe was amazed at God's patience and love. To save fallen humanity the Son of God took humanity upon himself, laying aside his kingly crown and royal robe. He became poor, that we through his poverty might be made rich. One with God, he alone was capable of accomplishing the work of redemption, and he consented to an actual union with man. In his sinlessness, he would bear every transgression.

The love that Christ manifested can not be comprehended by mortal man. It is a mystery too deep for the human mind to fathom. Christ did in reality unite the offending nature of man with his own sinless nature, because by this act of condescension he would be enabled to pour out his blessings in behalf of the fallen race. Thus he has made it possible for us to partake of his nature. By making himself an offering for sin, he opened a way whereby human beings might be made one with him. He placed himself in man's position, becoming capable of suffering. The whole of his earthly life was a preparation for the altar.

Christ points us to the key of all his suffering and humiliation,—the love of God. We read in the parable, “Last of all he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence my son.” Again and again the Jewish nation had apostatized. Christ came to see what he could do for his vineyard that he had not done. With his divinity clothed with humanity, he stood before the people, presenting to them their true condition.

How was the Son of God received?—When the husbandmen saw him, they said, within themselves, “This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance. And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him.” Christ came to his own, but his own received him not. They rewarded him evil for good, and hatred for love. His soul was filled with grief as he saw the backsliding of Israel. As he looked at the devoted city, and thought of the punishment to come upon it, he exclaimed, with weeping, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.”

Christ was “despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” By wicked hands he was taken and crucified. Speaking of his death, the psalmist writes: “The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid. The sorrows of hell compassed me about: the snares of death prevented me. In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried unto my God: he

heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, even into his ears. Then the earth shook and trembled: the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken, because he was wroth. There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it. He bowed the heavens also, and came down: and darkness was under his feet. And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly: yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind. He made darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies.”

After giving the parable of the vineyard, Christ put to his hearers the question, “When the Lord therefore of the vineyard cometh, what will he do unto those wicked husbandmen?” Among Christ's hearers were the very men then planning how they could take his life. But so engrossed had they become in the narrative, that they answered, “He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons.” They did not realize that by their denunciation of the husbandmen they had pronounced their own sentence. But Jesus now fastened the guilt where it belonged.

“Did ye never read in the Scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner?” he asked. “Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.”

As Christ made the application of his words, the Pharisees saw the meaning of the parable. His words struck home to their hearts, and they cried out, in dismay, “God forbid.” The Lord permitted them to see and realize their peril. They saw a true picture of their condition. They were given a vivid, momentary view of their course of action and its result. But they closed their eyes against light, and hardened their hearts against conviction. They were determined to carry out their satanic purpose.

“And whosoever shall fall on this stone,” Christ continued, “shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.” Those who remain impenitent will understand the meaning of the wrath of the Lamb. The punishment that was to fall upon the Jewish people would be all the more terrible because of the poor return they had made for God's great mercy and love. Not long after this parable was given, the Son of God stood in Pilate's judgment hall, before a human tribunal, and there he was condemned by false witnesses. Though declared innocent by a heathen judge, he was delivered into the hands of the cruellest power that earth can produce,—a mob inspired by Satan.

“What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it?” God asks. “Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes brought it forth wild grapes?” When God called for fruit in its season, the Jewish people were surprised that he expected anything of the kind. They professed to be the most pious people on the earth. They had been employed as guardians and almoners of truth, and they should have used the Lord's goods to bless and benefit the world. But they abused the messengers sent to them; and when God sent his Son, the heir to the inheritance, they lifted him upon the cross of Calvary. One day they will see the result of their impenitence. No longer will be heard the pleadings of infinite love; but the wrath of the Lamb, the power they defied, will fall upon them as a rock, grinding them to powder.

“What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision? Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.” But that which would have been their greatest blessing became their condemnation, because they were disobedient, unthankful, unholy.

The Lord declared that he required his husbandmen to give him the returns of his vineyard. Men are not to use their possessions as their own, but only as intrusted to them. The Lord's portion is to be faithfully returned to him. “All the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land, or of the fruit of the tree, is the Lord's: it is holy unto the Lord. And if a man will at all redeem aught of his tithes, he shall add thereto the fifth part thereof. And concerning the tithe of the herd, or of the flock, even of whatsoever passeth under the rod, the tenth shall be holy unto the Lord. He shall not search whether it be good or bad, neither shall he change it: and if he change it at all, then both it and the change thereof shall be holy; it shall not be redeemed.”

The statutes regarding the Lord's portion were often repeated that the people might not forget them. They were to return to God his rental money. This he claimed as his portion. Their physical and mental powers as well as their money were to be used for him. His vineyard was to be faithfully cultivated, so that a large income could be returned to him in tithes and offerings. A portion was to be set apart for the sustenance of the ministry, and was to be used for no other purpose. Gifts and offerings were to be made to relieve the necessity of the church. Means was to be appropriated for the relief of the poor and suffering.

The history of the children of Israel shows us the many privileges they enjoyed. And the richest blessings were in store for them if they kept the Lord's commandments. “Know therefore,” God declared, “that the Lord thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations.” “Therefore thou shalt keep the commandments of the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, and to fear him.” “What doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, to keep the commandments of the Lord, and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good?”

Shall we profit by the teaching of the parable of the vineyard? “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.”

Christ has a church in every age. Obedience to the commandments of God gives us a right to the privileges of this church. There are those in the church who are made no better by their connection with it. They themselves break the terms of their election. If we comply with the conditions God has made, we shall secure our election to salvation. Perfect obedience to his commandments is the evidence that we love God.

“I had planted thee a noble vine,” God declares, “wholly a right seed: how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me?” The lesson is for us. Paul declares, “And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert grafted in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree; boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in. Well, because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not high-minded, but fear.” This message comes to all who share the privileges once given to ancient Israel. “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy. Happy is the man that feareth alway: but he that hardeneth his heart shall fall into mischief.” “Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.”

ABIDE WITH ME:

By Mrs. L. D. Avery-Stuttle

MRS. L. D. AVERY-STUTTLE.

Bide Thou with me! The hour is late, Fast locked and closed the city’s gate, The solemn night-bird sounds her call, The watchmen guard the massive wall; But if thou guard not hill and plain, The watchmen waketh but in vain.

So, bide with me: when thou art near, I know nor danger, doubt, nor fear; E’en sorrow, with her mantle gray, And grief and anguish, flee away. O my Beloved! on thy breast Hold thou me in thine arms to rest.

I will not—will not—let thee go! Too well thy blessed peace I know, I do not say, “Be thou my guest, Abide one blessed hour,” lest When that sweet hour had passed away, Behold, my Lord had gone for aye.

And so I plead, Abide with me! How can I live apart from thee? To walk with thee as Enoch walked, To talk with thee as Moses talked, To live and move and breathe in thee,— O blessed Christ! abide with me.

What, my Beloved! dost thou wait? And have my sins fast barred the gate? Those sins which have my soul undone, I loathe, abhor them every one. Thy pierced feet stand at my door; Come in, and bide forevermore.

He came: his voice was music sweet; I bowed me at his blessed feet. My sins, which seemed like scarlet flame, White as the driven snow became. He healed my soul, he set me free; And lo! he doth abide with me.

Seeking the Living Springs of God's Word

“THE words of God are the well-springs of life. As you seek unto those living springs, you will, through the Holy Spirit, be brought into communion with Christ.”

FULL OF FAITH AND POWER.

By Charles Inwood

Rev. Charles Inwood.

“A man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost.” Acts 6:5. That was God’s estimate of Stephen. Is it God’s estimate of you?

A man!—not an angel—a man, fallible, liable to err, with a nature offering as many points of access and attack to the devil as yours or mine—a man with passions and appetites, and temper and feelings, just like ours—a man with a real human body and real human feelings, with thinking powers and willing powers, just like you and me.

Beloved, sanctity does not change our physical and mental structure; and I pray you to remember that, in view of some errors current just now. It simply places these under new and divine control. But, however completely possessed by God we may be, we are men and women still. Stephen was a real man, and not a whit less a man because he was really and truly a saint.

God does not torture our manhood in the process of making us holy. God is not at war with man; he is only at war with the sin and self which are darkening and defiling and paralyzing the man, and preventing him from realizing God’s purpose. One of the greatest comforts to my own soul in the study of the word of God is to notice the intense humanness of Bible saints. Stephen was a man just like you and me.

Let me now point out the two distinguishing features that constituted him a saint; and I praise God for the intense simplicity of the Scriptural conception. I fear some of you get a little bewildered. You have heard this, that, and the other view presented, until you hardly know where you are, and what is and what is not possible. Oh that, with the power of the Spirit, God may just bring you back to the simple conception expressed in this single sentence!

What is it that makes a man a saint?—Full of faith, full of the Holy Ghost—that is all: faith, the human side, the attitude of the man toward God; the fullness of the Holy Ghost, the response of God to the need of man. If you have that, then praise God with all your heart, and don’t trouble about trying to square this, that, and the other little bit of theology which has, perhaps, troubled you.

“A man full of faith.” What does that mean?

It means, manifestly, one who trusts God fully; one who believes all God says; one who believes all God says about experimental holiness; one who believes that God means him to prove it in his own soul and life day by day; one who believes God without reservation and without questioning; one who believes God in the utter absence of feeling and emotion; one who looks God in the face, and with his broken heart says, “O God, thy promise is enough for me,” and who shows that he means it by resting content with the promise of God alone. That is trusting fully—trusting has become a habit.

We talk a great deal about the power of habit; and a more solemn and awful truth for an unconverted man I do not know. But the power of habit is as great in the realm of right as in the realm of wrong. How does a man form a bad habit?—Simply by repeated single acts. And as surely as a man by a series of acts can form a wrong habit, so by a series of acts he can form a right habit. Some of you would not be in a chronic condition of doubt, if you had not repeated single acts of doubting until the habit of doubting holds you as much as the habit of strong drink holds others.

Praise God, the power of habit is just as strong in the realm of what is good; and if by persistent acts of doubt a Christian forms the habit of doubting, so, I believe, by simple persistence in trusting, a Christian can form, through the Spirit of God, the habit of trusting; and there comes into the whole realm of our spiritual life a new ease and rest and sweetness when once we come under the habit of taking God at his word, and trust him, no matter what men say.

But there is the other side. It also means one whom God can fully trust. There is the idea of faithfulness, and only those who trust God fully can be fully trusted by God; but they can, for God knows them. What a precious word that was which God uttered long ago about Abraham: “I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him.” Gen. 18:19. That simply meant, I can lean on Abraham, I can trust him; he is faithful. I can trust him with great duties, great crises, great honors, great difficulties, great trials. Yes, yes, it is a sign that God has confidence in us when he lets great and overwhelming trials come to us. And I tell you, beloved, God will do anything up to the limit of his promise, for the man who will trust him, the man on whom he can lean. And if God can trust you fully, everybody who deals with you in business or in daily life can trust you, too.

“A man full of faith”—one who trusts God fully, and one whom God can fully trust.

Now a word about the other, “Full of the Holy Ghost”—not a transient and temporary inspiration, but a permanent and abiding endowment. As the tree in spring time is full of sap, as the white-heat metal is full of fire, so it is possible for you and me to be interpenetrated, possessed, mastered, held by the power of the Spirit of God, who is dwelling in us—so possessed by him that every thought we think, every word we utter, every act we perform, and the whole influence of our life, are all on fire through the indwelling of the Spirit in our soul.

I dare not say that, if God’s word did not reveal it. “Full of the Holy Ghost.” Stephen had learned the secret of abiding in fullness—in the sixth chapter—before the storm came on, and at the end of the seventh chapter,—when he had gone through the terrible storm,—he was still filled with the Spirit.

TO HOPE.

By Eliza Cummings Hatch

O HOPE, stay thou near by! Point ever upward to a clearer sky, A fairer day. Keep close beside through all the stormy way, Dear hope, And give me strength with darkest ills to cope.

Thy bright and sunny smile Has brought me cheer in many a gloomy while In times now past, When storms swept ’round, and skies were overcast; Leave me not now, But let me feel thy touch upon my brow.

· True friend of mine! So let me place this trusting hand in thine, As years roll on; Until, thy mission gone, I say at last, on heaven’s sunny slope, Farewell, dear hope!

— Eliza Cummings Hatch.

ROME IN THE PHILIPPINES.

By Editor

Two weeks ago, on page 420 of the REVIEW, we reprinted from the New York Times an editorial on “Rome in the Philippines,” relative to seditious leaflets that had been distributed everywhere among the natives in Manila. There was pointed out a close parallel of sentiment between the matter in the leaflets and that in a late sermon by Archbishop Nozaleda.

We had seen mention of those leaflets, and had read extracts from them; but the matter was so brazen that we could hardly believe that it could have been circulated by the Catholic authorities, or with their knowledge. The evidence presented by the Times convinced us that it was really so. And since that, we have received a copy of the Manila Times, which presents the subject in such a shape as to leave no room for doubt. The thing, being so manifestly true, should be as fully as possible known in the United States.

The matter was published in the Manila Times of April 19, 1900, from which we copy direct. The leading editorial is as follows:—

THE CHURCH MILITANT.

When the Rev. Father McKinnon made a public exhibition of himself recently, as a furious fanatic, a coarse slanderer of honest men and high principles, and an instigator of racial and religious strife, it was a surprise and a sorrow to us, and to all his friends; and many said, gravely, that he injured his church, and that his ideas did not accurately represent the ideas of that church. But now a greater surprise has come. The church itself has gone further and offended worse than McKinnon, not officially, but effectively; for the leaflets which have been scattered broadcast in the churches and homes of Manila are not indeed published in the name of any church dignitary, but they are full of quotations from the pope himself.

Nothing could be more defiant. They say, as clearly as words can say, that the decrees of General Otis count for nothing, and that it is very reprehensible of General Otis to consider himself supreme in the Philippines. They quote chapter and verse, to show that any who disagree will suffer the extreme penalty of divine wrath.

This agrees substantially with what Archbishop Chappelle has said, in newspaper interviews before he left the United States, and in conversations since he reached Manila. He has said, over and over again, that the church will and must do exactly what it wishes, without tolerating the slightest interference on the part of the government. He has talked big about how he pacified Cuba and Porto Rico when the government could not; and how he could pacify the Philippines, and the government could not. He has emphatically asserted that if the government refused to agree to his demands, there would be trouble. Now the trouble is beginning.

This is no new situation. Just before the outbreak of the war between Spain and the United States, the superiors of all the orders of friars in the Philippines sent home a long memorial to the Spanish government, in which they said, frankly: “If the government does not aid the church, the revolutionary movement will increase every day. . . . The civil authority ought to be a bulwark of the church.” The church refuses to be a bulwark of the state, and is ready to undermine it if not granted supremacy. The threat which they threw at King Alfonzo is transferred to General Otis; the priests are, in effect, inciting sedition.

If these pious humbugs have their way, the people of Manila will see a revival of the ancient annual service in the cathedral, at which the archbishop, with magnificent pomp and ceremony, laid the national flag on the floor before the altar, and trampled it underfoot, in token of the supremacy of the church. This document says not only that the church and state must not be separated, but that the church is the greater of the two, and the laws of the state are nothing. “You are not to obey the civil authorities,” it says; “you are to condemn and reject their acts and decrees.” This means nothing less than war to the knife. Very well, let it be war, and we shall soon see who will win. It had to come sometime; it may as well come now as later. It can only end as Governor Leary’s little religious war in Guam ended.

FRIARS FLATLY DEFY AMERICAN GOVERNMENT

On the same editorial page is the following:—

FRIARS FLATLY DEFY AMERICAN GOVERNMENT.

PAMPHLET PRINTED BY PRIESTS AND DISTRIBUTED IN CHURCHES AND HOMES, STRICTLY CONDEMNING ACTS OF THE AMERICAN AUTHORITIES.

Encouraged by the forbearance shown them hitherto, the friars have gone so far as to declare open war on the present administration. Here is their statement exactly translated; it speaks for itself:—

SACRED EXERCISES.

TRUTHS WHICH CHRISTIANS MUST MAINTAIN.

I. The commands of the church must be obeyed in the same manner as the law of God.

(He that heareth you heareth me; and he that despiseth you despiseth me. Luke 10:16. But if any neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as a heathen and a publican. Matt. 18:17.)

II. You must subject your own judgment to that of the church, and think exactly as the church thinks; for the church can not be overcome, according to the promises made by Jesus Christ and the obligations imposed on us to believe just what the church tells us.

(Teach all the nations; I am with you to the end of the world. Matt. 28:19, 20. The gates of hell shall not prevail against the church. Matt. 16:18.)

III. You must reject and condemn the Masonic sect, so frequently rejected and condemned by the supreme pontiffs.

IV. You must also reject and condemn liberty of worship, liberty of the press, liberty of thought, and other liberties of perdition (as Pope Leo XIII calls them) condemned and rejected by the church (Prop. 77, 78, and 79 of the Syllabus and Encyclical “Libertas,” by Pope Leo XIII).

V. You must also reject and condemn liberalism, and also modern progress and civilization, as being false progress and false civilization (Prop. 19 of Syllabus).

VI. You must utterly abominate civil marriage, and regard it as pure concubinage (Prop. 73 of the Syllabus and Encyclical “Arcanum,” by Pope Leo XIII; Encyclical “Acerbissimum,” by Pope Pius IX).

VII. You must also condemn and reject the interference of the civil authorities in any ecclesiastical affairs, so much in vogue nowadays (Prop. 44, Syllabus).

VIII. Finally, you must hold the belief that the church has a divine and supernatural authority, by its origin, and is moreover superior to the civil authorities; and reject and condemn the doctrine that the church should submit to the state, or that the state is independent or ought to separate itself from the church (Prop. 54 and 55, Syllabus).

Children must be brought up in the above views, . . . condemning whatever the church condemns. And children must be educated solely in Catholic schools by genuinely Catholic teachers, and not on any account in unsectarian or mixed schools, which are strictly forbidden by the church (Pope Pius IX, letter of 14th July 1864; Pope Leo XIII, letter of 16th August, 1897).

The foregoing is a literal translation of leaflets that are now being distributed in the churches and delivered at houses throughout the town. It bears no signature nor impress of authority, but is of similar print to the “Estrella de Antipolo,” printed in the Dominican Friars’ establishment at Calle Santo Thomas, Manila. There is a strict rule of the Church of Rome prohibiting priests from publishing anything without express authority of their superiors, and therefore the “Estrella” and the “Libertas” pretend to be published by laymen; but it is a thin pretense, if ever one was thin.

The things herein so vehemently condemned are the things that the United States is pledged to carry out. Civil marriages are established by general order of the military governor, and these truculent priests defy him and his general orders. Freedom of worship and freedom of thought are established in the proclamation of General Merritt, on the occupation of Manila; again, in the proclamation of President McKinley, published officially by General Otis, in January, 1899; and again in the proclamation of the commissioners last April. These pamphlets disseminated broadcast in the churches and homes of Manila, roundly “reject and condemn” McKinley, Otis, Merritt, the commissioners, and the American nation at large.

Nay, more. They “reject and condemn” the whole civilized world, calling modern civilization a false and reprehensible thing. They will not tolerate the existence of a civil government, except under the control of the church.

They defy the state; they defy the United States government; and they forbid the trembling Filipinos to obey the law, on pain of the utmost penalties of eternal perdition. They proudly claim to hold in their hand the wrath of God before the eyes of the people, to terrorize them out of their respect for the law, to make them ignore and despise the American government and every American thought of freedom, for fear their immortal souls should suffer everlasting torment. They play on the feelings of an ignorant and intensely superstitious populace, and bid them choose side with the church against the state, or suffer the punishment of eternal damnation.

Every Revelation of God Increases Our Capacity to Love

“EVERY revelation of God to the soul increases the capacity to know and to love.”

RESPONSE TO “THE ANCHOR HOLDS.”

By Mrs. S. L. Stout

MRS. S. L. STOUT.

(Mackinaw, Ill.)

Canst thou sing, on the height of the mountain, ’Mid the lightning’s mad flash in the rain, Through the strife and the tumult and passion Of the world in its rush after gain? Does the anchor hold there, O my brother! As you hear the wild cries of brave men, And behold all the pain and the anguish, As you wander o’er hilltop and plain?

The anchor holds! Nor time, nor place, Nor wrath of men, in life’s mad race, Nor breakers’ roar, nor blinding rain, Can loose the hold of anchor chain— Thank God, the anchor holds!

So in the dark shade of the mountain, At the foot of the storm-riven crest, I sing, “It is Faith’s blessed anchor; In the cleft of the Rock let it rest.” The cedar and cypress and yew-tree, All speak of God’s love and his care, And the heart’s open chambers now show me The place of my idols made bare.

Praise God, the anchor’s hold is sure, The pledge and promise stand secure! Nor life, nor death, nor scorn’s rude blast Can move the Rock that holds it fast— Praise God, the anchor holds!

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