1. When the earth was prepared for the home of man, what did Jehovah say?
"Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness." Gen. 1:26.
2. To whom did the Creator speak?
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." John 1:1.
"But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him." 1 Cor. 8:6.
3. In whom, then, was man chosen even before sin entered?
"Who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ; according as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world." Eph. 1:3, 4.
4. When man sinned, what did God do?
"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16.
5. What part had the Son in this?
"Who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." Titus 2:14.
6. Has God changed in His purpose respecting man?
"I am the Lord, I change not." Mal. 3:6.
"With whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." James 1:17.
Freedom of Choice — Faith
7. What awful power does He give man?
"I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live." Deut. 30:19.
NOTE.—The awful responsibility of freedom of choice God gives to all His reasoning creatures, and God Himself will not enter that sacred circle of personal responsibility and free choice without the consent of man's free will. And this is most reasonable; for God demands of man righteous character, and righteous character demands freedom of choice. Compulsory righteousness is a contradiction of terms. God demands love, but love must render willing service.
8. How alone could man choose character, life, and salvation?
"But without faith it is impossible to please Him." Heb. 11:6.
NOTE.—Faith is not a power to be exercised by man since sin entered only. It is a foundation of character in all ages of human history and conditions. Man had no power to please God apart from faith before he sinned. Had he been able to lead a righteous life of himself, he would have given himself all the glory, and so a race of selfish, differing ones would have been developed. But faith in the Infinite would have developed truest love for the ways of the Infinite. The finite creature would have ever developed toward the infinite God, and would thus progress as in no other way. All would seek God's glory, and all would be bound by the law of His life. So life and right living and character can only be perpetuated by faith, the open channel between the soul and God.
10. With what typical person was this covenant established in the patriarchal age?
"And I [Jehovah] will establish My covenant between Me and thee [ABRAHAM] and thy seed after thee in their generations for an EVERLASTING COVENANT, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee." Gen. 17:7.
11. How much did God's covenant to Abraham include?
It included the atonement, or oneness with God, hence forgiveness of sin, life eternal, and immortality, and the perpetual inheritance of a sinless earth, from which all enemies of the seed are banished forever.
"By Myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the seashore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed My voice." Gen. 22:16-18.
12. By what means did Abraham come into this covenant relationship?
"He believed in the Lord; and He counted it to him for righteousness." Gen. 15:6; Gal. 3:6; James 2:23.
13. What did it lead Abraham to do?
"Abraham obeyed My voice, and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws." Gen. 26:5.
"Faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect." James 2:22.
14. How much is embraced in the inheritance promised?
"The promise, that he [Abraham] should be the heir of the world, was . . . through the righteousness of faith." Rom. 4:13.
"Thy Seed shall possess the gate of His enemies." Gen. 22:17.
15. Who is this Seed through whom all the covenant blessings come?
"Now to Abraham and his Seed [posterity] were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds [posterities], as of many; but as of one, And to thy Seed, which is Christ." Gal. 3:16.
"And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." Gal. 3:29.
Establishing the Covenant
16. How was the covenant established to Noah?
By promise and covenant token. "I establish My covenant with you, and with your seed after you." "And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the EVERLASTING COVENANT." Gen. 9:9, 16.
17. How was it established to Abraham?
By promise and oath. "For when God made promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no greater, He sware by Himself, saying, Surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee. And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise. For men verily swear by the greater: and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife. Wherein God, willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath: that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us." Heb. 6:13-18.
18. When was that everlasting covenant forever confirmed, or ratified?
"For this is My blood of the new testament ["covenant," the same word in the Greek], which is shed for many for the remission of sins." Matt. 26:28. See also Heb. 9:14, 15.
NOTE.—The covenant is also called a testament, or will, because it is expressive of God's great loving purpose for His children. It is called the "new" covenant, because it was confirmed later by the death of Christ. All God's blessings of all the ages were the blessings of the covenant. As before a man's death he can give of his estate to his children, in harmony with his general purpose, so God, by virtue of Christ's offering and His own love, has ever bestowed His covenant blessings upon His children in harmony with His great and everlasting purpose. When Christ died upon the cross, that unchangeable purpose was, for the benefit of His children, ratified by His blood forever, that they might know the surety of His promises. Unchangeable in love and wisdom was God's purpose before its confirmation by the death of Christ; that death fixes it unchangeable forevermore. When Christ died, that man might never question God's covenant of justice, mercy, wisdom, and love, it was sealed forever by the death of Christ. Heb. 9:16, 17. "Tho it be but a man's covenant, yet if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth, or addeth thereto." Gal. 3:15. Whatever was in that covenant prior to Christ's death, abides forever. Whatsoever man has endeavored to introduce into that covenant, even tho it be but a second this side of His death, is false and fraudulent, whether it be called "Lord's day," or infant baptism, or any other perversion of truth. Christ on the cross forever fixed God's immutable law and gospel.
The Old Covenant
19. How is this "new covenant" contrasted with the "old covenant"?
"But now hath He obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also He is the Mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second. For finding fault with them, He saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued7not in My covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord." Heb. 8: 6-9.
NOTE.—The making of the "old covenant" between God and Israel is recorded in Ex. 19: 3-8 and 24: 3-8. In it God declared that if they would obey HIS VOICE and keep HIS COVENANT (see Deut. 4:13), by faith, of course, they would then be His peculiar treasure, a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation. These things were told to the elders of the people, and they declared, "All that the Lord hath spoken we will do."
Then God came down upon Mount Sinai, uttered His voice, declared His law, His will; and their sin-filled hearts trembled. But instead of pleading that God would come in and take away their sin, they pleaded that He would not speak to them any more. Ex. 20: 19. Yet when they again had heard the conditions of the covenant, after Moses had written them all out in a book, and read them to the people, they declared, "All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient." Then the book and the people were sprinkled with blood, and Moses said, "Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord hath made with you CONCERNING ALL THESE WORDS," that is, the words of God's voice which they promised to obey. Ex. 24: 3-8.
We know the sequel: Israel failed. They SHOULD have learned — and we MAY learn — two great lessons: (1) That man is utterly powerless to do God's will in his own strength, or apart from faith. (2) That a covenant made with a whole people can not save individuals. Those apart from Christ, trusting in their own righteousness, are still striving and failing as did Israel; and every attempt to make righteousness by vote or promise or human efforts is a demonstration that the world has not learned the second lesson. Used in either way, it "gendereth to bondage." Gal. 4: 24.
Yet in God's providence it did serve a purpose; it helped to hold together that people in one nation till Christ came according to the flesh; but it saved no one.
20. Wherein lay the fault of the first covenant?
"Finding fault with THEM." Heb. 8: 8.
21. Wherein is the everlasting covenant superior to the old?
It "was established upon better promises." Heb. 8: 6.
NOTE.—The difference between the two covenants is the difference between the weak, puny promises of sinful men, trusting in their own strength, afraid of God's voice, and the infinite promises of God, asking only simple faith and submission on the part of His children.
What the New Covenant Does for Man
22. What will the new covenant do for him who by faith yields to its claims?
"For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put My laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to Me a people: and they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know Me, from the least to the greatest. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." Heb. 8: 10-12; Jer. 31: 31-34.
23. What would the life of this covenant relation cause man to do?
"A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes, and ye shall keep My judgments, and do them." Eze. 36: 26, 27.
24. In what condition does that covenant relation place the sinner?
"There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." Rom. 8: 1.
25. What sets us free?
"For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." Verse 2.
26. Why could not the law alone do this?
"It was weak through the flesh." Verse 3.
27. What does the new covenant do?
"God [did; that is, He saved, by] sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law ["the requirement of the law," A.R.V., margin] might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Verses 3, 4.
28. What mind only hates God's law?
"Because the CARNAL MIND is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." Verse 7.
29. How does the new-covenant mind regard God's law?
"For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not grievous." 1 John 5: 3.
30. With whom is the new covenant made and confirmed?
"The house of Israel." Heb. 8: 10.
"Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the COVENANTS, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises." Rom. 9: 4.
31. What do those Gentiles become who embrace Christ?
"Now therefore ye are no more strangers ["from the covenants of promise," verse 12] and foreigners ["from the commonwealth of Israel," "having no hope, and without God in the world," verse 12], but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God." Eph. 2: 19.
32. What is one of the covenant blessings which God gives to Israel?
"Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant." Ex. 31: 16.
33. What is said of God's remnant people of "the everlasting covenant" brought into covenant relationship through "the everlasting gospel"?
"Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus." Rev. 14: 12.
"And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." Gal. 3: 29.
BIBLE STUDIES
OF VITAL IMPORT
Our Enemies’ Powerlessness
By D. L. Moody
IN the second century, they brought a martyr before a king. The king wanted him to give up Christ and Christianity, but the man spurned the proposition. The king said, “If you don’t do it, I will banish you.” The man smiled, and answered, “You can’t banish me from Christ, for He says He will never leave me nor forsake me.” The king got angry, and said, “Well, I will confiscate your property.” And the man replied, “My treasures are laid up on high; you can not get them.” The king became still more angry, and said, “I will kill you.” “Why,” the man answered, “I have been dead forty years; I have been dead to the world, and my life is hid with Christ in God, and you can not touch it.” And so, let persecution come, we can rejoice continually; for our inheritance is sure, reserved for us unto the day when He who is our life shall appear, and we shall appear with Him in glory.—D. L. Moody.
The Religion of To-Day
I HAVE been reading lately some “up-to-date” sermons, quite in harmony with Mr. Eliot’s new religion. No “effete theology” is set forth in those pages; crisply epigrammatic, perfumed with odors from the laboratory, they relegate the supernatural to the region of “serious fiction,” banish all authority except that of “the inner light,” and, in a word, show us how far from Puritanism the heirs of the Puritans have declined. If I dared, I would send the brilliant preacher these verses by Alfred Ainger, whose intellect was keener even than his; but perhaps he may read them if I print them here:
“On Reading a Volume of Modern Sermons
“With eager knife that oft has sliced
At Gentile gloss or Jewish fable,
Before the crowd you lay the Christ
Upon the lecture table.
“From bondage to the old beliefs
You say our rescue must begin—
But I want refuge from my griefs,
And saving from my sin.
“The strong, the easy, and the glad
Hang, blandly listening, on your word;
But I am sick, and I am sad,
And I need Thee, O Lord!”
—Detroit News-Journal.
Duty Without Worry
By Mark Twain
The thing for us to do is our duty, and not worry about whether anybody sees us or not.—Mark Twain.
“It was not the design of Christ to revoke any part of the law. It can not be broken. Every part of it remains in force upon all men in all ages. Neither time, place, nor circumstances make it liable to change.”
Noble Work for Humanity
By Editor
We are glad to chronicle in our Outlook department from time to time the noble effort that many are putting forth in various ways for the benefit of humanity. This is especially true in the work against some of the diseases that prey upon the human family. The one thing which has demanded more effort of this kind than anything else has been the "great white plague," or tuberculosis, which sweeps away so many millions every year. Fear doubtless has been at the base of the effort, but many noble people who are connected with it are doing it from other motives than that.
The National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis, with its headquarters 105 East Twenty-second Street, New York City, the secretary of which is Dr. Livingstone Farrand, has been doing excellent work in enlightening the public. One of its last statements is that out of forty-one state legislatures in session during the season of 1913, laws dealing with tuberculosis were enacted in thirty states, while in thirty-four consideration was given to bills dealing with the prevention of the disease. Appropriations amounting to more than five million dollars have been set aside for the treatment and prevention of consumption by the various state legislatures, while Congress itself will probably set aside nearly one million dollars for the maintenance of the United States public health, the army and navy sanitoria, and the tuberculosis hospital of the District of Columbia.
Among the advances in legislative enactments worthy of note are the tuberculosis registration law of Colorado, laws providing for subsidies to local hospitals in Minnesota and Wisconsin, and an act for the establishing of county hospitals in Indiana. State bureaus have been provided in Ohio and California. Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, and Mississippi are the only states which have made no hospital or sanitorium provision for tuberculosis victims. Other states have as many as 33,000 beds for patients of this kind, and this is very inadequate.
Owing to these efforts, the death-rate from tuberculosis has declined steadily for the last twenty-five years. At the present time, the city death-rates in this country range from eight or nine per one thousand living to as high as thirty-five or forty, with the average around fifteen or sixteen.
The Needy Victims
There are at the present time, the National Association estimates, over a million consumptives in the United States, one third of whom, at least, are unable to provide for themselves the necessary treatment at home.
Running parallel with this are the efforts to check bovine tuberculosis, or tuberculosis among cattle. It is the greatest scourge of the livestock grower at the present time. Efforts are being put forth in some of the states to have all the dairy herds tested by tuberculin, the infected cattle either killed or separated from the healthy herds. Some of the states are paying for the cattle thus killed. Others are inducing the farmers to meet this themselves, and build up healthy herds as being a paying investment in the end. At the present time, California has a law prohibiting importation of stock into the state unless tested by a trained veterinarian. Wisconsin is holding the disease in check.
Work in Wisconsin
In fact, Wisconsin seems to be the leading state in its war against tuberculosis. The disease has attracted more attention in that commonwealth than anywhere else. At least Wisconsin has done more in an educational way for the prevention of this awful plague. It has its society, or anti-tuberculosis association, as the center of the movement; and this association has adhered strictly to the policy of a purely educational campaign. It has been besieged to do relief work, but has consistently held that that was not its purpose; and there are two good reasons for this: in the first place, the funds of the association would be inadequate to do any great amount of local work; and secondly, it would be inclined to exhaust the limited resources of the association in work that was purely local. Therefore the association has confined its efforts to educational work, and the policy has been vindicated. Advanced legislation has resulted, and there have many sanitoria been established, with visiting nurses and medical inspection, in the principal cities of the state. These agencies, established as the result of the educational campaign, are doing very much more than the association itself could.
Wide-Spread Effects
One of the unique things which Wisconsin has done is to carry on a propaganda of gospel sanitation and good health to the rural sections of the state. A lecturer and an assistant have been sent out on a motorcycle, visiting the most remote sections of the state, giving lectures, holding private consultations, and posting the fences and bill-boards with placards calling attention to the most important rules of right living. It is an economical propaganda, too, for the two men travel on one machine, carrying with them a complete camp equipment, which makes them independent of hotels, as well as railways. They sleep out-of-doors, and do most of their own cooking. With their outfit they carry a stereopticon machine with over one hundred slides for their evening lectures, which are usually given out-of-doors. The assistant operates the picture machine from the luggage carrier of the motorcycle, it being connected with the gas-tank which supplies the headlight for riding at night-time. As many people can be reached by this means in a given time in the rural sections as by the ordinary city lecture tour, and in all probability the lecturer gets a great deal better attention in the country than he would in the city, because of the fewer attractions in the country.
By carrying their own camping outfit, the cost of the work is comparatively small, and the officers of the association consider that the large number of people reached by the rural campaign offers a greater return for the money expended than similar work formerly done in cities. This campaign will be carried on until late in November.
The "Signs of the Times" wishes to say, God bless these men in their work, and help the people to appreciate this work that is done for them. It surely is not God's design that His people should die of consumption, and in this enlightened age there should be far fewer deaths than there are. Just sufficient exercise, an abundance of pure, fresh air — night and day alike — and a superabundance of food where such can be taken, will, if used betimes, cure most cases of pulmonary tuberculosis. We would say to all our readers who are affected or who have relatives that are victims of the dread disease, Give heed to the instructions.
Alcohol's Army
By Editor
THE passing of persons singly does not particularly affect us. Unless we know him personally, or are related to him in some way, the passing of a single drunken man has but little effect upon us. A few do not impress greatly the mass of people. Take it in any of our large cities, and there are thousands and thousands of workmen that pass a given central point every day. No one is impressed by them in any way; but if it was said that at a certain hour there was to be a procession of all the individuals that passed that point, the town itself would be attracted. The mass would really affect people. We wish sometimes it were possible to mass in the great cities a procession of alcohol's victims, the bloated-faced, blear-eyed wrecks of humanity, and that that procession could carry banners and present floats showing the actual work that alcohol is doing. It seems as tho it would impress that city9so that the trade and commerce in alcohol would be forever revolting and prohibited.
In the year 1908 there were 131,000 arrested in Massachusetts alone for drunkenness. What a procession that would be! About one in a dozen would be a woman. There would be children in it, more than five thousand of them under seventeen years of age, just enlisting in the army. There would be young men and young women in it, more than 40,000 of them between twenty and thirty years of age; and there you would find the old veterans, all the way up to seventy years old and more. How the veterans of the Civil War, the Old Guard, command attention when they walk,—wounded, scarred, infirm! Alcohol's veterans are wounded and scarred and infirm; but O, how differently would they be regarded! The Old Guard of the Civil War fought honorably and conquered. And even their foes are regarded honorably; for tho they fought for a "lost cause," yet to them it was a patriotic struggle. But these in alcohol's army are all fighting for everlasting defeat.
The great procession moves on to the court-house, and from there many of them to the jail, where some of them have been all the way from one to twenty and thirty times before, some few of this 131,000 a hundred times before; but at the end of their confinement there they go back and join the same procession. "Tramp, tramp, tramp, to the drunkard's grave march" not only these, but all the millions in the various states and countries of the world.
It would seem, friends, that every one of us ought to do all that we can to stop the procession, to stop the captain that is rallying them to this,—alcohol, with all its cursed associations and recruiting agencies. Do everything in your power to help.
--- ★ ---
The New York "World" sees hope, in the overthrow of Governor Sulzer, that Murphy of Tammany fame will be the next to go. We are often told by the press, as some corrupt politician seems about to be overthrown, that we are making great reforms, and soon we will have things quite respectably clean in our politics. We were told this when Gill and Wapenstein were overthrown in Seattle. We were told the same thing when Schmitz and Ruef were overthrown in San Francisco. We are continually asked to note the progress of "the reform wave" whenever any grafting politician is forced to surrender to the law. We have been told that publicity would create a "moral sentiment" that would sweep corruption from the political camp. It may be very pleasing to dream of such things, but the facts will not warrant an intelligent hope of realizing the fulfillment of our dreams. The Bible plainly says that "evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived." Some men say that the world is getting better and better. God says it will get worse and worse until it finally becomes a reproduction of old Sodom. If we believe God and His word, we will stand with Him, and be on the side of actual fact and truth. If we reject His plain word, we will go on with our dreaming of things that can not be realized, and finally go down in destruction.
Sunday Agitation in Oregon
By W. F. Martin
FOR some time, the little town of Oregon City has been the center of attraction in the north-western part of the state. The reasons are as follows:
A traveling circus known as the Oklahoma Ranch Wild West Show was billed to show in Oregon City, Sunday, August 3. The ministers of the city raised a severe protest, not against the show as such, but against its performing on Sunday. They secured the aid of the sheriff, who promised to prohibit the performance.
The managers of the show procured counsel, and secured an injunction from the court, restraining the sheriff from interfering with the show. When this became known; the opponents of the circus appealed to the governor. It was represented to him that nobody but saloon bums wanted the show. Acting on this advice, the governor declared martial law, and taking with him some guards from the penitentiary, went to Oregon City to prohibit the show.
Soon after he landed in the town, a council was called of all the parties concerned; and as a result, it was decided to postpone the show till Monday, with the understanding that the governor would attend, and that it should be announced in all the churches Sunday night, and that the pastors would boost for the show. The attorney for the opposition said he would send his family, and persuade the people of the Presbyterian Church to attend.
Now, the query naturally arises, Is a show more immoral on Sunday than on Monday? Why did the ministers oppose the giving of the show on Sunday, and tacitly, at least, commend it on Monday? Can a thing be immoral on Sunday, and a fit place to send a woman and children on Monday? In the very nature of things, such can not be the case. If a show is a fit place for women and children to attend, why should it be closed on Sunday? This is even more strange when the endeavor to close it comes from a source entirely separated from the management of the enterprise.
Have not people a right to go where they please on Sunday just as much as on Monday? It is granted that church is a better place to go than a circus; yet if one chooses to go to a circus, has he not as much right to do so, as another has to go to church? It would seem so. Back of it all is the desire on the part of some to compel others to do a certain way, not from a sense of duty on the part of the compelled, but because of a spirit of intolerance on the part of those in power.
W. F. MARTIN.
NEGLECT OF BIBLE PROPHECY
Socialism Biblical and Political.
Biblical socialism is purely voluntary, resting with each man and each man's heart to do as he will. Political socialism, or, as it sometimes is called, political Christian socialism, is an effort on man's part to compel politically what God has placed with each man voluntarily. We hear so many times the reference to Acts 2:44, 45: "And all that believed were together, and had all things common; and they sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all, according as any man had need." And that was good; and the time and the occasion demanded it, and the people of God yielded to the time and the occasion and the Spirit of God. That was a blessed, mighty, welding, flowing unity; but it was not brought about by legislation of any sort or kind. It was not brought about by decree or council. This is shown in some of the things that followed. Naturally, where men were possessed of great wealth and gave it, they were honored, as was Barnabas. Acts 4:36, 37. Others thought they would get honor by selling their property, pretending to give it all, and keeping back a part for themselves, as did Ananias and Sapphira. The summary judgment of God was visited upon them on account of their falsehood and pretension; but we learn this from the apostle,—that God did not demand it unless they were willing to give it: "While it remained, did it not remain thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thy power?" Acts 5:4. The very question of the apostle Peter shows that they knew and that all understood that it was voluntary on the part of each one to give or to withhold whatsoever he desired. The only power that moved upon the hearts of those who gave their all and brought that into the church which then existed was the power of the Spirit of God which rested upon the whole congregation. They were baptized—immersed—into it; and when that time comes again in the marvelous full outpouring of the latter rain, the same thing will come among God's people wherever they are. But we can not anticipate that time by forcing the conditions. God's service is never forced. Uniformity by compulsion is the dead-line of true spiritual life. The true motive is love. And love needs no compulsion; it renders glad, willing service. Religion without love is a dead form.
