Review and Herald, Vol. 87, No. 13. (3/31/1910)

Review and Herald

Mar 31, 1910

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 31, 1910

Now Is the Time

WHEN I have time, so many things I'll do To make life happier and more fair For those whose lives are crowded now with care. I'll help to lift them from their low despair, When I have time.

When I have time, the friend I love so well Shall know no more these weary, toiling days; I'll lead her feet in pleasure paths always, And cheer her heart with words of sweetest praise, When I have time.

When you have time, the friend you hold so dear May be beyond the reach of your sweet intent! May never know that you so kindly meant To fill her life with sweet content When you had time.

Now is the time! Ah, friend! no longer wait To scatter loving smiles and words of cheer To those around whose lives are now so dear; They may not meet you in the coming year — Now is the time.

— Selected.

Every Sabbath-school Teacher and Student Should Have This Book

By Editor

The Sabbath-school lessons for the remainder of 1910 will continue to be upon the life of Christ. No one lesson help is so complete and comprehensive as this great work, “The Desire of Ages.” Every teacher and student should have a copy of this book at hand when studying the Sabbath-school lesson. It will throw greater light upon the texts, the places, the people, the conditions, and give a truer insight into the active, living features of the lessons than almost any other work that can be consulted. “The Desire of Ages” is considered by many the most striking example of the eloquence and instructiveness to be found in the works of Mrs. E. G. White.

No Seventh-day Adventist library is complete without it. The price in cloth, marbled edges, as illustrated, is $3; half morocco, $4.50; full morocco, $6. Orders may be sent either through your tract society or direct to the publishing house.

Book News

We have just received from the publishing house a supply of copies of “Boy Wanted,” by Nixon Waterman. This book is wholly inspirational, and is written for the purpose of training boys into men of the caliber that “do things.” Every parent who has a real, live, human boy should have a copy, and should see that that boy has a chance to read it. $1.25 each, post-paid.

❧ ❧ ❧

Another book which we have just stocked is “Happy School Days,” by Margaret E. Sangster; and as the book previously mentioned is intended to make boys of the right stamp, so is this book prepared for the purpose of developing the right kind of girls.

Any girl will be proud to own a copy of this book, and the ownership will be an incentive to read it and profit from its valuable advice. It will help mothers, too, to get in closer touch with their daughters, and to sympathize with their school-day experiences. $1.25 each, post-paid.

Sabbath-school Problems Solved

The problem of paying for Sabbath-school supplies, and of buying new equipment without robbing the foreign mission donations, can be readily met by every Sabbath-school in the country, if the opportunity now presented is seized.

Superintendents and teachers should lay plans immediately for an active, energetic campaign with the Temperance number of the YOUTH’S INSTRUCTOR. This is an unusually good number, and the people everywhere will buy it readily.

No school in the country ought to have any difficulty in disposing of at least one thousand copies. One thousand copies at an average profit of six cents each means $60 to be devoted to the purchase of supplies or new equipment. In a Sabbath-school of fifty members this means that only twenty copies need be sold by each member, or an average of one a day for less than a month.

What easier way could be devised for meeting Sabbath-school expenses?

Incidentally, a campaign of this kind will do a world of good in arousing and stimulating interest on the part of the students. Nothing so tends to success in Sabbath-school work as actual working experience.

Superintendents and workers interested in this plan would do well to correspond with the Circulation Department of the Review and Herald Pub. Assn. We want active workers everywhere with the Temperance INSTRUCTOR.

Read the advertisement in the YOUTH’S INSTRUCTOR of April 5.

¶ The May, June, July, and August numbers of LIFE AND HEALTH will be the best ever placed in the hands of the periodical workers. We are receiving many good words regarding the April issue and its excellent appearance. The May

LIFE & HEALTH

THE NATIONAL HEALTH MAGAZINE

will be even better, and the June, July, and August numbers are now being planned with the idea of making them worthy of a tremendous circulation. We hope to make them the most attractive publications ever issued from the Review and Herald presses. Agents should get ready now for a big summer business.

“Thoughts From the Mount of Blessing”

is a book calculated to do a world of good wherever it is known. In the old edition this was one of the most attractive books we had; but now that it has been reset, re-illustrated, and brought out in much more attractive fashion in every way, it is certainly a gem, and will form a most desirable addition to any library. Nothing more appropriate for a gift book. In cloth, 75 cents; paper binding, 25 cents.

Review and Herald Publishing Assn.

Takoma Park = = WASHINGTON, D. C.

The World's Need

By Ellen G. White

MRS. E. G. WHITE

In this age of boasted enlightenment, the Christian church is confronted with a world lying in midnight darkness, almost wholly given over to idolatry. A well-nigh universal disregard of the law of Jehovah is rapidly making the world like the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. As in the days before the flood, violence is filling the land. Gambling and robbery are coming to be common evils. The use of intoxicating liquors is on the increase. Many who have followed their own unsanctified will, seek to end their unprofitable lives by suicide. Iniquity and crime of every order are found in the high places of the earth, and those who assent to these wrongs are seeking to shield the guilty ones from punishment. Not one hundredth part of the corruptions that exist is being made plain to the world. Little of the cruelty that is carried on is known. The wickedness of men has almost reached its limit.

In many ways Satan is revealing that he rules the world. He is influencing the hearts of men, and corrupting their minds. Men in high places are giving evidence that their thoughts are evil continually. Many are seeking after riches, and scruple not to add to their wealth through fraudulent transactions. The Lord is permitting these men to expose one another in their evil deeds. Some of their iniquitous practices are being laid open before the world, that thinking men who still have a desire in their hearts to be honest and just with their fellow men, may understand why God is beginning to send his judgments on the earth. The Lord will surely punish the world for its iniquity; “the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.”

This age presents a sad picture to those whose eyes have been opened to discern the evils that prevail on every hand. The fear and love of God have almost left the world. This is the time prophesied of by Isaiah, when “darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people.” Multitudes are led away by the delusions of a faithless generation, and are living in the darkness of error. The prevailing spirit of our time is that of infidelity and apostasy,—a spirit of pretended illumination because of a supposed knowledge of truth, but in reality of the blindest presumption. There is a spirit of opposition to the plain word of God, and to the testimony of his Spirit. There is a spirit of idolatrous exaltation of mere human reason above the revealed wisdom of God.

The baleful spirit of unbelief is found in every land, and is permeating all ranks of society. It is taught freely in many of the universities, colleges, and high schools, and it comes even into the lessons taught in the common schools and the nurseries. Thousands who profess to be Christians give heed to lying spirits. Everywhere the spirit of darkness in the garb of religion confronts the seeker after truth.

The Lord in compassion is seeking to enlighten the understanding of those who are now groping in the darkness of error. He is delaying his judgments upon an impenitent world, in order that his light-bearers may seek and save that which is lost. He is now calling upon his church on the earth to awake from the lethargy that Satan has sought to bring upon them, and fulfil their heaven-appointed work of enlightening the world. His message to his church at this time is, “Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.” To meet the conditions existing at the time when darkness covers the earth, and gross darkness the people, the church of God has been commissioned to co-operate with God in shedding abroad the light of Bible truth. To those who seek to do their part faithfully as bearers of precious light, is given the assurance: “The Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.”

The world to-day is in crying need of a revelation of Christ Jesus in the person of his saints. God desires that his people shall stand before the world a holy people. Why?—Because there is a world to be saved by the light of gospel truth; and as the message of truth that is to call men out of darkness into God's marvelous light, is given by the church, the lives of its members, sanctified by the Spirit of truth, are to bear witness to the verity of the messages proclaimed. God desires his people to place themselves in right relation to him, that they may understand what he requires of them above all things else. They are to reveal to every struggling soul in the world what it means “to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly” with their God. Wherever they are, at home or abroad, they are to be his commandment-keeping people. They are to have the assurance that their sins are forgiven, and that they are accepted as children of the Most High.

The world is in need of a demonstration of practical Christianity. In view of the fact that those who claim to be followers of Christ are a spectacle to an unbelieving world, it behooves them to make sure that they are in right relation with God. They can not afford to let one day pass in which they do not lay hold by living faith on the God of Israel. In order to stand as lights in the world, they need to have the clear light of the Sun of Righteousness constantly shining upon them. Ever are they to remember that all about them is a world lying in darkness, and perishing for lack of knowledge.

When God's people so fully separate themselves from evil that he can let the light of heaven rest upon them in rich measure, and shine forth from them to the world, then there will be fulfilled, more fully than it has ever been fulfilled in the past, the prophecy of Isaiah, in which the servant of God declared of the remnant church in the last days: “The Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising. Lift up thine eyes round about, and see: all they gather themselves together, they come to thee: thy sons shall come from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side. Then thou shalt see, and flow together, and thine heart shall fear, and be enlarged; because the abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee, the forces of the Gentiles shall come unto thee.”

The world is in need of the saving truth that God has entrusted to his people. The world will perish unless it be given a knowledge of God through his chosen agencies. In the power of the Holy Spirit, those who are laborers together with God are to labor with unflagging zeal, and shed abroad in the

world the light of precious truth. As they enter the highways and the byways, as they labor in the waste places of the earth, at home and in the regions beyond, they will see the salvation of God revealed in a remarkable manner.

God's faithful messengers are to seek to carry forward the Lord's work in his appointed way. They are to place themselves in close connection with the Great Teacher, that they may be daily taught of God. They are to wrestle with God in earnest prayer for a baptism of the Holy Spirit, that they may meet the needs of a world perishing in sin. All power is promised those who go forth in faith to proclaim the everlasting gospel. As the servants of God bear to the world a living message fresh from the throne of glory, the light of truth will shine forth as a lamp that burneth, reaching to all parts of the world. Thus the darkness of error and unbelief will be dispelled from the minds of the honest in heart in all lands, who are now seeking after God, if haply they may ‘feel after him, and find him.’

J. O. CORLISS

By J. O. Corliss

The History of the Hebrew Sanctuary — No. 10

J. O. CORLISS

Its Rival Institutions

THERE occurs one significant statement regarding Solomon, which leads one to suspect that the separation of the ark from the sanctuary, in the days of Eli, had brought to all Israel a waning respect for the original service of the tabernacle set up by Moses. Although the record testifies that Solomon took for a wife the daughter of Pharaoh, it is careful to state that he “loved the Lord,” and then adds, “Only he sacrificed and burnt incense in high places.” 1 Kings 3:1-3. Gibeon, where the arkless sanctuary stood, being considered the great “high place,” more offerings were made there than upon other altars (verse 4), but the people in general considered it proper to sacrifice in various “high places,” because, the ark being absent from Gibeon, they felt that they had no house in which the “name of the Lord” was found.

This lack, however, was to be supplied in the building of the temple. But though Solomon assiduously labored to provide a “house” for the name of the Lord, yet, notwithstanding the foremost part he acted at its dedication, it is doubtful if he or the Hebrew people ever fully appreciated God’s intent in having such a place prepared. Had the king done so, he could not have taken into his household and bosom so many heathen women from among the Egyptians, Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites, who were sure to estrange his heart from God and his worship. Ex. 34:16; Deut. 7:3, 4; 1 Kings 11:1-8.

So far, indeed, was the heart of the king alienated from God that he built “high places” for the worship of the gods of his wives. “In the hill that is before Jerusalem,” that is, on the prominent heights of Olivet, over against the royal gardens, were three sanctuary altars, one on each of its three distinct summits, dedicated respectively to Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Zidonians, Chemosh, the war-god of Moab, and Milcom, or Molech, the “divine king” of the Ammonites. 2 Kings 23:13.

So licentious and brutal were the rites practised at these altars, that they fastened an odious name upon the entire hill; namely, “the mount of corruption,” or offense. This appellation, together with the name “Olivet,” was retained by the entire famous eminence until the Christian era, when the shady name was confined to the most southern peak of the range.

The depraved morals thus introduced, could not fail to leave their mark upon Solomon’s administration, upon which he entered so auspiciously. True, little detail of the king’s changed policy is noted by inspiration, but enough is given to show that the love and esteem in which he was held at first perceptibly waned before his death. A “grievous service” and “heavy yoke” of taxation rapidly followed the king’s departure from the true worship, and when this was resisted, the people were “chastened” with whips, until they chafed to the point of rebellion. 1 Kings 12:11.

But this was not the full extent of calamity to the Hebrew empire. The storm destined to overthrow the kingdom was first shown in the revolt of the chiefs of Edom and Syria, who had formerly been subject to Israel. 1 Kings 11:14, 23. Another serious problem was

the act of Jeroboam, an immediate subject who “lifted up his hand against the king.” Verse 26.

However, the worst was yet to come; the darkest cloud was about to cast its shadow over the fair domain of Israel. Solomon had given no visible encouragement during his reign to the prophetic gift. Of the prophet Nathan, Solomon’s early tutor, nothing is recorded following the king’s coronation. His two sons, Azariah and Zabud, were distinguished officers at the royal court (1 Kings 4:5), but no word of counsel from heaven came through Nathan himself.

The only prophet mentioned as giving any divine instruction in Solomon’s reign, is Ahijah, of Shiloh. It was he who met Jeroboam in the field and predicted the rending of Israel, and the crowning of Jeroboam king over the ten tribes. 1 Kings 11:29-38. This was a significant token of the greatest calamity of the age—no word of comfort from God’s chosen messengers to the king. Such an attempt would have been useless indeed, since the king’s heart had gone after heathen gods. In this the wisdom of Solomon was turned into folly. The promise of his youth was overcast by passion. His early justice became tyranny, and his first prosperity wrought his ruin. Had he craved God’s counsel in his later reign, all this might have been saved through the voice of the prophet; but alas, for the environments of passion’s choice! Godliness was sacrificed on the king’s part, and an influence exerted that carried ruin to all the northern tribes of Palestine. But the study of that phase of the subject must be reserved for a following paper.

Mountain View, Cal.

The Test

By G. B. Thompson

G. B. THOMPSON

“And this commandment have we from him, that he who loveth God love his brother also.” 1 John 4:21.

Here is a gage by which we can test our love for God. In an engine-room there may be several boilers. It is impossible to look into these great boilers and see how much water each contains. But running up the side of each there is found a little glass tube which serves as a gage. The height of the water in the tube determines how much there is in the boiler.

Do you love God? How are you to tell, you say? Why, look at the gage. You may have been testing your love by the wrong gage. Perhaps you have looked at the number of missionary visits you have made, the size of your gifts to missions, the amount of tithe paid, your faithfulness in attending prayer-meeting, or your faithfulness in practising health reform, and thinking your faithfulness in these things showed how much you love God. These are all good, and necessary, but they are not the test of love. We might do all these things, and even more. We could give all our goods to feed the poor, and our body to the burning flame, and yet not come up to the test. Look at the right gage. Your love for your brother is the measure of your love for God.

How does the gage stand, brother? It is well to examine ourselves occasionally to see if we are really in the faith. Do we love the brethren, not a few of them, but all of them? Says the apostle John again, “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren.” 1 John 3:14.

As we look into our hearts by the aid of the Holy Spirit, what do we find? Do we find some variance, emulation, strife, jealousy, envy, grudging, criticism, suspicion, spiteful feelings, antipathy, aversion, malice, rancor, resentment, revenge, animosity, or something of the kind? These are all members of a family. Where these exist, though in the remotest degree, the love for God in the gage is correspondingly decreased. Brother, how does the gage stand,—not less five, ten, or twenty years ago, but to-day?

Takoma Park, D. C.

The Coming Tempest

By L. D. Santee

L. D. SANTEE

“Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand.” Joel 2:1.

THERE'S a hush before the tempest, but that hush is the hush of fear; And the heart of the world is troubled, for the day of the Lord is near. No pause or stay in the stream of time, but resistless its waters be, As its waves flow on with a rhythm sublime to the sea of eternity.

The winds are held by the angels till the sealing work is done, And “the Father’s name in their foreheads” is received by each waiting one. Till the truth has gone for a witness to the nations in the dark, And the “seal of the living God” is preached, to warn of the papal mark.

The sun in the shining heavens grew strangely dark at noon, While faces of fear looked upward,— they thought ’twas the day of doom,— And the moon, in her peaceful sailing, was changed to the hue of blood, Fit type of the Armageddon and the wine-press’s crimson flood.

The lights in the darkened azure fell fast in a rain of fire, Bright heralds of the advent and the day of Jehovah’s ire, When from earth’s guilty nations the hopeless prayer shall rise For shelter in earth’s caverns from the Saviour in the skies.

O day of wrath and of mourning! O solemn day of the Lord! When the vine of the earth will be gathered, and the vials of wrath be poured. List to the pleadings of mercy while offers of pardon are given, For the tares will go to the burning, while the wheat finds place in heaven.

Moline, Ill.

Revising the Decalogue

WHEN people no longer believe the inspiration of the Bible, when they consider the Word of God a book like all other books, when they claim the right to revise its contents and to decide what is genuine in it and what spurious, one need not be surprised to hear that some of these modern wiseacres are also attempting to lay their sacrilegious hands on the decalogue. Not long since, a Harvard professor courted notoriety by declaring that the ten commandments ought to be rewritten. He wants a commandment inserted forbidding drunkenness, and the third commandment, against profanity, he considers to be no longer necessary; not so much because people are no longer profane, but because profanity has lost its significance, because a curse does not any longer mean what it used to. Well, perhaps it doesn’t to the Harvard professor and to some other people, who have lost their faith in, and reverence for, all that is sacred. But it certainly does still mean the same to “old-fashioned” Christians; and God himself has nowhere revealed that he has changed with regard to the profaning of his holy name. As for the proposal to add a commandment prohibiting drunkenness, this proposal, as an exchange very appropriately remarks, “suggests the intellectual caliber of the man who does not see that drunkenness, and all other sins against bodily life and welfare, are forbidden in the sixth commandment,” as well as in the seventh, because drunkenness as daily experience abundantly testifies, is a fruitful source of sins against both these commandments.

No, the decalogue needs no revision. We can spare none of its commandments, and there is no need of any additional ones. Just as the Lord’s prayer is a wonderful summary of all the things that we can possibly ask of God in prayer, so the decalogue is a no less wonderful compend of all our duties to God and to our fellow man. Both of them are equally wonderful in their comprehensive brevity and their simplicity of diction and their beauty of arrangement. Both of them, by their unapproachable excellence, plainly reveal their heavenly origin. He who studies these divine masterpieces and penetrates only a little into the depths of their contents, will be constrained to exclaim with Paul: “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” Such a one would shrink with holy horror from making the suggestion that either of these divine utterances stands in need of revision.

But here comes the learned editor of the Homiletic Review, who by the suggestion of the Harvard professor is moved to this wise observation:— “It is, if reported correctly, another ‘Thou shalt not,’ banning intoxication with strong drink. This won’t do. The distinctively Christian decalogue needed by the modern world runs upon the line of ‘do,’ not of ‘don’t!’ This is the defect of the Hebrew decalogue; it consists mainly of don’t’s, addressed to a people in the moral grade of the young children, to whom we have to address many don’t’s. That the Westminster Confession calls it a perfect rule of righteousness only shows the defective conception of Christian ethics that existed in our forefathers’ time. That Jesus was not of their mind is plain in the sermon on the mount. His golden rule said, ‘Do.’”

That the decalogue consists mainly of “don’t’s” lies in the nature of the case. So far from being a defect, it is rather another revelation of the divine wisdom which framed it. It is the simplest, most direct, and most easily understood way of impressing upon all sinful men of all times, not only upon “a people in the moral grade of children,” their duties toward their God and their fellow beings. So natural is this “don’t” manner of framing laws, that all the lawgivers of all times, from the most ancient to the most modern, have adopted this form for such of their laws as set forth the duties of their subjects, and laws of this character that do not have the form of prohibitions are indeed few and far between. But what of the assertion of the Homiletic Review that Jesus improved upon

the negative form of the decalogue by his golden rule: “Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them”? If the editor of the magazine, instead of picking out a single word of the Master from his great exposition of the law, had taken the trouble to examine the whole of it, he would have found, perhaps to his utter astonishment, that in addition to this “do” of the golden rule, and numerous others like it, it contains perhaps an equal, if not greater, number of “don’t’s.” Here are a few of them: “But I say unto you, Swear not at all;” “But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil;” “Take heed that ye do not your alms before men;” “But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions;” “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth;” “Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life;” etc. That the editor in question has not read the mind of the Saviour aright, is also evident from the words with which he prefaces his exposition of the spiritual sense of the divine law: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” Does that sound as if he intended to revise the law by what he was about to say? Nay, more, the golden rule itself disavows any such intention by the explanatory words immediately following it, “for this is the law and the prophets.” It is simply a summary of the law, then, expressing, in a positive way, what in the decalogue is expressed mostly in the negative form.

Neither the editor of the Homiletic Review nor the Harvard professor has made out his case. God’s law is perfect, both in contents and in form, and it does not stand in need of revision from either one of these view-points. It is, as an exchange happily remarks, an anvil upon which every hammer will be broken. “Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law.” And again: “It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail.” “The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.” Ps. 19:7, 8.—Editorial in Lutheran Witness, March 3, 1910.

A Man Should Never Be Ashamed

A MAN should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser to-day than he was yesterday.—Pope.

Eliminate What Holds You Back

By Col. William C. Hunter

ELIMINATE every habit that holds you back; every practise that unfits you for progress; every person who depresses you; every move that is not necessary; every footless idea that crowds your brain.—Col. William C. Hunter.

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