Signs of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 19. (5/20/1889)

Signs of the Times

May 20, 1889

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 20, 1889

Sabbatarian or Saturdarian

Wilbur F. Crafts finds fault with the Occident for speaking of those who keep Saturday as the Sabbath as Sabbatarians. He says: "That term is more properly applied to all who believe that 'there remains a keeping of the Sabbath to the people of God,' as contrasted with those who deny the present and perpetual authority of the fourth commandment. I suggest as a name for those who make a fetich of Saturday, Saturdarians." Mr. Crafts may suggest what he pleases, but it will nevertheless be true that the term Sabbatarian belongs alone to those who observe the Sabbath, and according to the Scriptures of truth, and the fourth commandment, which he professes to revive, "the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord." Mr. Crafts well knows that while the first day of the week is a (man-made) sabbath it is not the Sabbath. If he could place his finger upon any divine law for its observance he would not be so zealous for a civil law to enforce a religious institution.

IT IS BEST TO BE CHRISTIANS.

By Ellen G. White

BY MRS. E. G. WHITE.

A SOLEMN responsibility rests upon everyone to engage in the work of saving souls. We cannot afford to fold our hands, and engage in interesting nothings, gratifying our tastes and inclinations. We are to win souls for the Master. We should be constantly growing in the knowledge of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. If men loved God supremely, they would dedicate themselves unreservedly to his service; they would devote their means and their talents to the upbuilding of his cause; they would train up their children for Heaven.

It brings agony to my heart to see how few know how to deal with their children. Mothers need a great amount of patience and love. The mother who looks with compassion upon her own children, who conscientiously seeks to educate them for God and Heaven, will look with compassion upon the children of others. She will love others because she loves her own. She will be a blessing to her family and to the neighborhood. The same ability that fits her to be a wise mother will fit her to be a wise missionary for God. The greatest missionary work that is done is in the home circle. To educate and develop the best and highest faculties of your children's minds is to do a work that will have a moulding influence upon society. If you have educated one in the fear of the Lord, you may say you have educated one hundred. There is an atmosphere that surrounds every soul, an influence, either conscious or unconscious, that emanates from every person for good or evil; and to discipline a family so that the members shall meet the high claims of

Heaven is a work that is counted of highest value in the sight of God.

It is of great importance to know how to keep the affairs of home in running order without friction. The oil of patience must be poured in when things go hard, and our children must be bound to our hearts by the silken cords of love. Parents should know how to sympathize with their children in their little troubles, that look as large to them as older people's trials look to them. We should not neglect our children. It is in the early years that we have the best opportunity for sowing good seed in their hearts. If we neglect to do this work in their childhood, we shall find that Satan will preoccupy the field. Why not preoccupy the field yourself, and before the Evil one has a chance to plant his seeds of evil, fill the mind with that which is good and pure? The angels of God will help you in the work of forming your child's character, if you will work in harmony with the plan of God. Do not let impatience control you. Be patient, be forbearing, and may God help you to realize your accountability to him.

When you become weary, go to Jesus with all your care. He says, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." If you are bearing a yoke of your own manufacture, just lay it aside, and take the yoke of Christ, and nothing will disturb your peace, for you will have the peace of Christ that passeth all understanding.

Your children should not be driven off, and shut away from your sympathies. They should be encouraged to make confidants of father and mother. I have known children who had been so trained that even when they were grown men and women they counted it a privilege to counsel with their parents, though they were old and feeble. Is it not best, brethren, to be Christians? Is it not best to bring all the happiness possible into your life here, and prepare yourselves for the eternal world?

Each one of us will have to engage in the battle for good or evil, and we desire that you should battle on the Lord's side, and know how to come off victorious in your own behalf through the merits of a crucified and risen Saviour. Divine power will unite with human effort. God will co-operate with you in your struggle against evil, and when the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him. We must look to the source of our strength. We cannot afford to lose eternal life. We want to be missionaries for God. We want to know how to minister to the necessities of others. Christ is our example. Let us follow in his steps.

We should know how to direct the mind of friends and neighbors to Christ when they are in trouble. We should know how to lead repentant souls to "the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." How many go to human friends to pour out their griefs and sorrows, instead of seeking Christ, who alone can heal the broken in heart. There are many who do not know how to come to Jesus with their burden, and, feeling their need of support, they turn to human hearts for comfort. But they are only leaning on broken props. God is the one to whom the troubled soul should go. Why put man in his place? We should seek to direct souls to the open door of Heaven, where we can see within the vail our Substitute and Surety. In every trial and perplexity, we should look to him; for in him is help for the fallen sons of men. Christ is the star of hope that illumines our darkness. The serpent may bruise the heel of the seed of the woman, but Christ will bruise the serpent's head and take away his power at last.

The plan of salvation was revealed to Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. They were made to understand how the Son of God would come and bear their sin, and redeem them from the curse of the law. But when Christ came into the world how few recognized his divinity or comprehended the nature of his work! He was not acknowledged as the Prince of life. The earth was the battle-field where the Prince of light and the prince of darkness met to contend for the fallen race. Christ had laid aside his crown and his royal robe, he had stepped down from his throne, and had clothed his divinity with humanity. For our sakes he became poor, that we through his poverty might be made rich. He came into a world all marred and scarred by the curse. He took upon him humanity that he might know the infirmities and temptations of humanity, that he might know how to help and save men. The Captain of our salvation was made perfect through suffering. Was he not perfect before?—Yes. But he was made a perfect Saviour, learning obedience by the things which he suffered, that humanity might have a perfect character and be fitted for the society of the angels of Heaven. Man was not able, in his own behalf, to meet and overcome the prince of darkness; but Christ overcame him in man's behalf and broke his power over the human race, so that through his merits they might be overcomers in their own behalf.

New Missionaries Without College Training

It is said that the London Missionary Society is appealing for money to extend its operations, and will try the experiment of sending out a new order of missionaries who have not passed through a college training.

Objections to Christian Science

By Editor

Robert Collyer, the gifted Unitarian preacher, says: "I have two objections to the so-called Christian Science. The first is that it is not Christian, the second is that it is not science." We do not know that Mr. Collyer is always a safe judge of what is Christian, but in this instance he has certainly stated the truth very tersely.

Christian Books in China’s Imperial Palace

THE following item from the Missionary Herald will be of interest to all who love to hear of the spread of the truth of God's word in heathen lands:—

"Pleasant reports are reaching us as to the reception of Christian books in the Imperial Palace of China. It is probably inexpedient to say more here than that some who are near to the new emperor and his wife have recently received and welcomed instruction as to the Christian religion, and have now the word of life in their hands. May that word bring light to them and to their people."

The Sabbath Made for All Mankind

The commandment of the Sabbath, as given by God from Mt. Sinai, is based upon that which concerns man universally; viz., the creation of the heavens and the earth. The earth was created, not for the Jews alone, nor for any other one race, but for all men; therefore the Sabbath was made for the whole of mankind. Hence also our Saviour's words, "The Sabbath was made for man." The obligation of the Sabbath rests upon all who live upon the earth. This conclusion is unavoidable.

Protestants and Holy Week

By Editor

SAYS the Congregationalist: "It seems to be a growing practice in our Congregational Churches to recognize Holy Week." And what is this but a growing tendency to ape Roman Catholicism? The only time which, according to the Scriptures, is indeed holy, namely, the Sabbath of the Lord, is utterly disregarded by the so-called Protestant churches, for no better reason than that "the church" does it; but the festivals of that same church are honored because it is fashionable. Where are the Protestants?

God’s Pardon for the Backslider

The question is sometimes asked, "Will God accept and pardon the backslider?" For answer, read Jer. 3. Even Inspiration has exhausted human language and similitude to tell the love of God for his people. Israel is likened unto a woman who has forsaken her husband and become another man's, and yet the Lord says: "Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the Lord; and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you; for I am merciful, saith the Lord, and I will not keep anger forever. Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the Lord thy God, and hast scattered thy ways to the strangers under every green tree, and ye have not obeyed my voice, saith the Lord. Turn, O backsliding children, saith the Lord; for I am married unto you; and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion." Jer 3:12-14.

Justification by Faith and Obedience

"By the deeds of the law," says the apostle, "shall no flesh be justified in his sight" (Rom. 3:20), hence some conclude that it is useless to attempt to keep the law. But in this they overlook the reason stated by the apostle, namely, "for by the law is the knowledge of sin." It is evident that the law cannot justify one who has transgressed it, and that is just the point which the apostle makes to show all men their need of Christ. All have sinned, transgressed the law, and having transgressed it they cannot be justified by it, therefore they must be justified by faith or not at all.

The case of the justified sinner may be feebly illustrated by the pardoned criminal. The law of the land condemns the man, but the governor, as an act of unmerited favor, pardons him. The law never could have forgiven his crime, it could only condemn him, but the governor pardons him; shall he then say: The law could not justify me, therefore I will not henceforth keep the law? Certainly not; what he ought to say would be: I was deserving of punishment but the governor has pardoned me, and now I will testify my gratitude by being a good, law-abiding citizen of the commonwealth. And can the penitent and forgiven sinner say less? Shall we not say with the psalmist: "O Lord, put me not to shame. I will run in the way of thy commandments, when thou shalt enlarge my heart"?

BROKEN THINGS.

By George Bancroft Griffith

THE grain must be crushed ere man is fed, Plants must be bruised to restore his health; From a wasted barrel and empty cruse The prophet restored the widow's wealth. 'Twas by broken pitchers that Gideon won. On the vessel's broken pieces, Paul And his friends were saved; and even Christ By his broken life has ransomed all! By the broken bodies of saints, the truth Was made to triumph, and glorious, too, Was the broken box—earth's broken hopes May bring Heaven's joy and our crown in view; And precious in God's sight appear The broken things that grieved us here. —George Bancroft Griffith.

TOLERATION AND LIBERTY.

By Philip Schaff

THERE is a wide difference between religious toleration and religious liberty. The one is a concession, the other a right; the one is a matter of expediency, the other a principle; the one is a gift of man, the other a gift of God.

Toleration implies more or less censure or disapproval. We tolerate or endure what we dislike, but cannot prevent. The most despotic Governments are tolerant toward subjects who are too numerous or too useful to be killed or exiled. Russia tolerates Romanists, Protestants, Jews, and Mohammedans; Turkey tolerates "Christian dogs," and likes them to prey upon each other; but woe to him in either country who apostatizes from the State religion, or attempts to induce any member of the same to apostasy. "Toleration is first sought and granted as a favor, then demanded and conceded as a right, and at last spurned as an insult." In a free country nobody wants to be tolerated for his religious opinions or sacred convictions.

Religious liberty is a natural, fundamental, and inalienable right of every man. It is founded in the sacredness of conscience, which is the voice of God in man and above the reach and control of human authority. There is a law above all human laws. It is written, not on parchment and tables of stone, but on the heart of man by the finger of God. It is that law which commands with the categorical imperative, and which filled the philosopher Kant with ever-growing reverence and awe. "We must obey God more than man." He and he alone is the Author and Lord of conscience, and no power on earth has a right to interpose itself between them. "Every man stands or falls to his own lord." Liberty of conscience requires liberty of worship as its manifestation. To grant the former and to deny the latter is to imprison conscience and to promote hypocrisy and infidelity. Religion is in its nature voluntary, and ceases to be religion in proportion as it is forced. God wants free worshipers, and no others.

Toleration is an intermediate state between religious persecution and religious liberty. Persecution results from the union of Church and State; toleration, from a relaxation of that union. Full religious liberty and legal equality require a peaceful separation of the spiritual and secular powers.—Philip Schaff, D. D., LL.D., in N. Y. Independent of April 18.

POWERS OF THE RESURRECTION STATE.

By S. M. Campbell, D. D.

THE foreshadowing of these superior powers is sometimes witnessed even here; and what is quite remarkable is, it is seen in the organization of what we call the lower orders of being. The horse is better organized for certain purposes than is man, and so is the bird and even the dog. You went quite extensively over the city a few days ago, leaving your favorite dog shut up at home, so that he should not follow you; but after you had gone a great way, making many a winding and many a turn, and reaching a distance far from your dwelling, up came the sagacious creature, and with every demonstration of delight said in plain dog-talk, "Here we are; I have found you!" That dog had tracked you all the way; your footfall had left an impression on the pavement that he at once recognized, and which he distinguished from every like impression, made by other footfalls, as your own; and following that through every crook and turn you had made, he came where you were. No human faculties were ever equal to such an achievement. Neither our microscopic tests nor our chemical analysis could ever have discovered the impression made by those footfalls, as that brute sense could do. And if in so lowly a creature this humble faculty could be so exalted, what may we not expect for the higher senses in the perfected organization of man?—S. M. Campbell, D. D.

French-Canadian Immigration and Jesuit Influence

THE Quebec Provincial Government has published statistics showing that the population of the province, outside of Montreal, is less by 239,340 than it was five years ago. These are startling figures, and they have a grave significance to the United States, for the decrease is due to the immigration of French-Canadians to the New England States. Of course, such immigrants are nearly all Roman Catholics. With the coming of this flood the influence of the Jesuits grows apace. —America.

STUDY THE SCRIPTURES.

By Fleming

STUDY the Scriptures, and become thus the humble, impartial, and obedient scholars of Christ. Let me put you in mind of one thing, than which nothing is more neglected and yet nothing is more necessary in order to profit truly by the Bible, viz., that ye have a care of laying down any opinion or scheme of opinions in matters religious, previously to your having impartially examined the sacred Scriptures in such matters. For they that do so, come not to be taught of God, but to dictate to the Almighty, and are not afraid often to wiredraw the sacred text, in order to force it to speak, not what it really does, but what they would have it do, as best suits with their prejudices, passions, and party designs, that I say not lusts also. Therefore, let me desire you, as I often have done from the pulpit, to make the Bible itself, and particularly the New Testament, your chief (and in a proper sense only) system, confession of faith, and creed. For whatever excellency there is in any human composures of this kind, we are to own them no farther than we find them to agree and harmonize with the divine oracles.—Fleming.

GOD'S OBJECT LESSONS. NO. 5.

By H. F. Phelps

Our God is a God of truth. He hates the sin of lying. He tells us that the devil "is a liar, and the father of it." And those who lie are of the devil. Said the Saviour to those Jews who were maligning and misrepresenting him: "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do." John 8:44. God says: "Thou shalt not bear false witness." "Thou shalt not raise up an evil report." "Keep thee far from an evil matter." God hates a false oath, the false report, a false tongue, false lips, false teachers, false prophets, false balances, false gifts, false visions, false dreams, and every false way.

False shepherds have always led the flock away from the true, away from the green and fresh pastures. False brethren were once a great hindrance to the work of the apostle Paul; and in all ages of the world they have been but hangers-on, and a positive drawback to the work of God. We read, "He that telleth lies shall not tarry in my sight." And "he that speaketh lies shall perish." Paul exhorts, "Lie not one to another," and James, "Lie not against the truth." And the beloved apostle says, "He that believeth not God hath made him a liar." That is, when we do not believe God's word, we virtually say that he is a liar.

Some would not lie by word of mouth, but do not hesitate to act a lie. Some tell what they call "white lies." There is no such thing. Every lie, whether in word or by act, is from beneath, and is of the evil one. No wonder the wise man says, "A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver;" and again, "Let not truth forsake thee;" and, "My mouth shall speak the truth;" and again, "The lip of truth shall be established;" yet again, "Buy the truth and sell it not." The prophet Isaiah very pathetically exclaims, "Truth is fallen in the streets!" "yea, truth faileth; and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey." And Hosea very discouragingly exclaims, "There is no truth or mercy in the land!"

God loves truth, and those who keep it. The gates of the city of God will open by and by "to the nation that keepeth the truth," while outside will be found "whosoever loveth and maketh a lie." "And all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone." God once set before us an example, an object lesson, if you please, to show his abhorrence of a lie. In Acts 5 is found the history of the case of Ananias and his wife, who acted and told a lie. Before they sold the land it was theirs. After the sale the money was theirs. It was customary at that day to sell and lay at the apostles' feet the proceeds of the sale for the furtherance of the gospel. In action they said that they also did this, and when asked a question, they spoke a lie, and quick justice was meted out to them. And it was written for our admonition. Oh, that all would heed it! H. F. PHELPS.

THE BIBLE.

By N. Y. Observer

THE greatest and best books of the world would never have been written if the Bible had not existed. The three great books that, for intensity of thought, mastery of language, and scope of imagination, are unequaled, derive their being from the Bible. They are the only books that have sought to set forth, so far as human language can, the facts of the other world—the books of Dante, Milton, and Bunyan.

What book then can afford so great and abundant supplies for study and entertainment, such realms of literary pursuit, such historical and biographical surveys, such demonstrations of the moral and spiritual agencies that have wrought out and are working out the racial, national, social, domestic, and individual character and destiny of humanity? Consider the men and women of whom it makes mention, and all that with which they were concerned; the avenues which it opens to the dim realms of the farthest past, the clearings which it cuts along its descending path toward the future, which become the starting-points into all its contemporaneous history; the themes of its various books, their development and illustration; its concern with everything relating to man from his infancy to the grave, everything included in his relations in time and eternity.

It is manifest that this is the Book of books, and of all books the one, not only for private and pious study, but for social study and entertainment. Besides the invaluable Sabbath-school and Bible-class study, we wish that Bible clubs might be formed throughout our country upon the plan of the Shakespeare clubs, conducted by similar methods. These clubs are composed of a limited number of ladies and gentlemen, who meet one evening in the week to study and discuss a selected portion of the work. At the last meeting in the month invited guests are present, and a carefully prepared paper is read, after which the evening is devoted to social enjoyment and discussion. This has vastly increased the number of students and careful readers of English classics, and has made them more widely understood. We are sure that similar engagement with the inspired writers of the Scriptures would furnish the most agreeable, elevating, and stimulating intellectual enjoyment possible to be obtained by thoughtful persons.—N. Y. Observer.

THOU GOD OF BETHEL, LEAVE US NOT.

By J. E. Rankin, D. D.

THOU God of Bethel, leave us not, Though we so soon forget thee, The sacred day, and hour, and spot, Where in our need we met thee; The angel ministries of youth, Stern voices uttered later To hold us steadfast to the truth, To thee, our great Creator.

The vows we made thee in distress, Vows of our need begotten, Since lost in our unthankfulness, Or in our joys forgotten; The altar, in our straits we made, And in our zeal anointed; Thy house, where our warm vows we paid, In sacred ways appointed.

Thou God of Bethel, here we kneel, These broken vows renewing; Us to a true repentance seal, Our upward path pursuing. Go thou before us, in the road, All our sad past forgiven; Make life itself the house of God, The very gate of Heaven. —J. E. Rankin, D. D.

PREPARING FOR WAR.

AFTER giving some interesting facts relative to the progress which China has made within the past few years in the arts of peace, the Asiatic Quarterly Review says:—

The improvement in the system of national defense is still more striking. Huge arsenals under foreign direction are springing up in various directions, and the vast army of China is being gradually supplied with weapons of the latest pattern, while great battalions are being incessantly drilled and disciplined by European officers. The Chinese navy already consists of twenty-six foreign-built men-of-war, some of them large and powerful iron-clads, and about one hundred gunboats, built in the arsenals of the empire. Referring to the notorious industry and enterprise of the Chinese abroad, Mr. Dunlop prophesies that when the subjects of the Celestial Empire enjoy, under the new and more enlightened policy, the same privileges and opportunities at home as are afforded to them abroad, there will be no room for doubt as to what is to be the dominating power of the future in the far east of Asia.

SELF-RESPECT VERSUS SELF-ESTEEM.

SELF-RESPECT ought to be counted precious by every person. No man ought to forfeit his self-respect out of regard to any human being. But let a man beware lest he confound self-respect with self-esteem. A man may refuse to do right at the request of another simply because by changing his course he would practically admit that his opinions had been wrong on the subject up to this time. Many a man makes a mistake at this point. It is better to mortify one's self-esteem than to maintain it at the cost of continuing in a wrong course. True self-respect would prompt us to avoid being controlled by our self-esteem; and it is often the case that another man's judgment as to the dictates of our self-respect is better than our own.—S. S. Times.

REJECTED BECAUSE NOT UNDERSTOOD.

By L. Gaussen, D. D.

You do not, it seems, comprehend the divinity, the propriety, the wisdom, the utility of such or such a passage of the Scriptures; and on that account, you deny their inspiration! Is this an argument that can have any real value, we do not say in our eyes, but in yours? Who are you? "Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God," feeble child of man, "and be more ready to hear, than to give the sacrifice of fools; for they consider not that they do evil. Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything before God; for God is in Heaven, and thou upon earth." Eccl. 5:1, 2. Who art thou, then, who wouldst judge the oracles of God? Hath not the Scripture itself told us beforehand that it would be to some a stumbling-block, and to others foolishness (1 Cor. 1:23); that the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, and that he even cannot do so, and that they are spiritually discerned (1 Cor. 2:14)? Ought you not, therefore, to expect to feel at first some repugnance in mind, in heart, in conscience, even to its first teachings? Man must first return to his place as a weak, ignorant, and demoralized creature! He cannot comprehend God until he has humbled himself. Let him go and cast himself upon his knees in his closet; let him pray, and he will comprehend what it means! An argument is ill-grounded because you do not seize its scope! A doctrine is a prejudice because you do not admit it! A quotation is not to the point because its true meaning has escaped you! What would remain in the world were God to leave nothing there but what you could explain? The emperors of Rome, incapable of understanding either the lives or the faith of our martyrs, threw them to the wild beasts in the amphitheater, and had their bodies dragged to the Tiber. It is thus that people strike their own defective knowledge, like an impure hook, into the word of God, and drag to the public dung-hill whatever they have been unable to understand, and have condemned!

While tracing these lines, we are reminded of a teacher of divinity, in other respects an honorable man, but imbued with the wisdom of his own age, who set himself to prove that the reasonings of St. Paul are not inspired. Now, how went he about to demonstrate this? Why, he quoted as a convincing example a passage (Gal. 3:16) in which St. Paul proposes, not to prove (mark this well—the whole solution lies here), not to prove, but to AFFIRM that the promise made by God to Abraham and his posterity regarded not all his posterities (since it was evident enough that his posterities by Agar, by Keturah, by Esau, were rejected), but one special, elected, and personal posterity. And what think you the professor did to establish his thesis on this passage? Why, he palmed on the apostle an argument so puerile that the merest child among the Galatians might have reproved him for it! St. Paul, according to him, instead of doing no more than affirm a fact, meant to argue from the singular of a collective noun that such a word could designate no more than a single person! Absurd as it is for us, said he, this argument might be good for the Jews, or for the gross-minded Gauls of Asia Minor. We give this example; a hundred more of the same value might easily be produced.

May the author venture here to refer to his own experience? He recollects, with no less humiliation than gratitude, his earliest and his latest impressions on the epistles of St. Paul. He was enabled, from his earliest years, to come to the conviction that the Bible was from God; but he did not yet understand the doctrines which it taught. He wished to respect the apostle's pages, because he saw, through other marks, that the not-to-be-counterfeited seals of the most high God are suspended there; but in reading them he was agitated with a secret uneasiness, which drove him to other books. St. Paul appeared to him to reason wrong—not to go straight to his point; to discourse in a roundabout and embarrassed manner; to wind about his subject in long, spiral turnings, and to say the things that were attributed to him quite differently from what one himself would have wished to have done. In a word, he felt, in reading them, somewhat of the painful discomfort of a tenderly affectionate son as he waits on a declining parent whose memory is beginning to fail, and who stammers in his attempts to speak. Oh, how anxiously would he conceal from others, and dissemble to himself, that his venerated father totters, and seems no longer to be himself!

But no sooner had divine grace revealed to us that doctrine of the righteousness of faith, which is the burning and shining flame of the Scriptures, than every word became light, harmony, and life; the apostle's reasonings seemed limpid as the water that flows from the rock; his thoughts, profound and practical; all his epistles, a power of God unto salvation for those who believe. We saw abundant proofs of divinity shine forth from those very parts of the Scriptures which had long given us such uneasiness; and we could say, with the joy of one who has made a discovery, and with the gratitude of a tender adoration, as we felt inimitable, and until then silent, chords vibrate within us, in unison with the word of God, "Yes, my God, all the Scriptures are divinely inspired!"—L. Gaussen, D. D.

CONVENIENCE AND WORLDLY FAVOR.

By E. R. Jones

WHEN the duty to observe the fourth commandment is pressed home upon the consideration of the people, many say that if the seventh day was generally regarded, they certainly would keep it; for they are fully persuaded that it alone is the day the Scriptures enjoin. But the great majority do not keep it, and look with disfavor on those that do. It is evident at once that those who make such a plea regard their own convenience and the good opinion of their fellow-men as of more importance than obedience to God. Many would serve him if it involved no sacrifice of worldly goods and comforts and of the favor of others.

What vast multitudes would follow Christ if there were no cross to bear in so doing! Few indeed have had an ear to hear from him, "And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple." Worldly convenience and favor are to them superior to all other claims; and, like some in the days of old, they love the praise of men more than the praise of God. "Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil," is the positive word of the Lord. And yet how many look to the course of the multitude as the highest authority by which they are to be governed, in utter forgetfulness or neglect of the Scripture declaration that the way to destruction is broad and many walk therein; while the way to life is narrow, and few find it.

The ancient worthies did not so lightly regard their duty to obey God. The world mocked and scourged them. They were bound and cast into prison; they were stoned, and slain with the sword; they wandered in deserts and in mountains, in dens and caves of the earth; they wandered about in sheep-skins and goat-skins, and were destitute, afflicted, tormented; "of whom the world was not worthy." These looked not to the world for their example, nor chose its paths of ease. They sought not its favors nor their own convenience and comfort. By so doing, they could have escaped all this affliction and sorrow; for the world will love its own. Choosing rather to suffer the loss of home and friends, and all that this world holds dear, that they might gain the better and enduring substance, they walked in the narrow path, with its little company and many trials, because they knew it was the way of God's own choosing.

The apostles, too, were few in number, and were also reviled and persecuted and shamefully handled; they learned, alas! too well, that all who would live godly in Christ Jesus should suffer persecution. They braved the wrath of their enemies because they had been taught by the Master that whosoever would be the friend of the world was the enemy of God. They were not of the world, and therefore the world hated them. Their persecutors were met with the potent inquiry, "Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye." To bear the cross of the Saviour and do his bidding was their only thought. In the way the masses went they could not go, for it was the way of disobedience and death. Their example is for us to follow; and these things are written for our learning, that we may shun

the way where the many go, and be among the little flock who choose the narrow way because it leads unto life. E. R. JONES.

SHE KNEW THE BIBLE.

A Romish priest asked the daughter of an ex-Papist why she didn't attend catechism class any longer. She replied that her father had forbidden her to enter his church any more. The priest told her she should obey him, not her father. But she replied, "We are taught in the Bible to honor our father and mother."

"You have no business to read the Bible," said the priest.

"But, sir, our Saviour told us to search the Scriptures."

"That was only to the Jews, and not to children, and you don't understand it."

"But Paul said to Timothy, that from a child he knew the Scriptures."

"Oh," said his reverence, "Timothy was then being trained for a bishop and was taught by the authorities of the church."

But she told him that Timothy's mother and grandmother did the blessed work. Whereupon this priest of antichrist turned away saying she knew enough of the Bible to poison a whole parish.—Primitive Catholic.

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