Review and Herald, Vol. 26, No. 16. (9/19/1865)

Review and Herald

Sep 19, 1865

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 19, 1865

The Sabbatarian Argument

By A. H. Lewis

From the Springfield (Mass.) Daily Republican.

The Sabbatarian Argument.

THE FUTURE OF THE SABBATH AND THE SUNDAY IN AMERICA.

PRACTICALLY and theologically this question is full of interest. The necessity of a weekly rest-day, and the character of its observance is generally conceded, but it is a remarkable fact that, thus far in the history of the church, whatever discussion has arisen has been mainly concerning a Sabbath or no Sabbath, rather than the Sabbath. Let us glance at the past and present of the question, and so judge of the future, remembering that in our brief space, we can do scarcely more than speak in general and in outline, holding ourself responsible for each statement.

The popular opinion concerning the authority, time and manner of the change from the Sabbath to the Sunday, is full of error. In the half-dozen passages in the New Testament where reference is made to the first of the week, no reference is ever made to it as a Sabbath, or even as a commemorative festival. The history given in the book of Acts, has abundant proof of the observance of the Sabbath for many years after Christ. The term Sabbath is never applied to any day but the seventh, for more than one thousand years after Christ.

In secular history, there is no evidence of any observance of the Sunday, earlier than about the middle of the second century. It then began to be a sort of a festival in common with the Wednesday and Friday, the three commemorating the passion and resurrection, made such by custom of the church, and without claim to divine authority. During the third century, opposition to Judaism and loose ideas concerning the nature of the law and its abrogation, led to the adoption of the "no Sabbath" theory, by the leading men of the western church. Some of them went so far as to oppose the festival observance of the dominical day, as it was beginning to be called. The tendency to festival days, however, increased; and soon came the introduction of those commemorating the ascension, the pentecost, the birth of Christ, the saints' day, &c. By the close of this century, the Sabbath was stigmatized as Jewish and odious, and in the churches in and about Rome was made a fast, and thus distasteful. It was, however, observed for some time after in this part of the church, and in the eastern church was prominent even down to the sixth and eighth centuries, while in Abyssinia and Armenia it has continued to be observed until the present time.

The opening of the fourth century, and the assumption of the control of the church by Constantine the Great, brought in this, as in many other respects, great changes into the church.

He was born and educated a heathen. His whole life shows him to have been selfish, cruel, treacherous, unscrupulous and proud, loving to be compared to Apollo, the god of the sun, his patron deity. He never avowed himself, in any full degree, a Christian, even in theory, until two or three years after the passage of his Sunday edict, and did not submit to baptism until on his death bed, many years after.

The first Sabbatic character ever given to the Sunday, was by his edict of the 7th of March, A. D. 321, in which he ordered that the "venerable day of the sun" should be honored by a closing of the courts of justice, and the cessation of general labor in the cities, but giving free scope to all agricultural labor. Similar laws were common concerning many of the heathen festivals. On the day following, he passed another purely heathen edict relative to the consulting of the soothsayers in case of public calamity. This "venerable day of the sun," being identical with the resurrection festival, and this law being enforced gradually upon all classes, the Sunday came in time, into a prominence over the other weekly festivals, and, by virtue of a civil and ecclesiastical law, grew to be a sort of Sabbath, although agricultural labor, and many kinds of public amusements were not suppressed until the 12th and 13th centuries in many parts of Europe; and then only by the most incredible falsehoods concerning alleged miracles and the arm of the law. In all this time it was never claimed as a Sabbath other than by church appointment, and Constantine's edict makes no sort of mention of the day as a Christian institution, or as relating to the church, or connected with the resurrection, or in any way, other than the heathen "day of the sun." (For a fuller account of Constantine, and this and the other heathen festivals, see Andrew's History of the Sabbath, Dr. Schaff, in the Continental Monthly for August, 1864, Stanley's History of the Eastern Church, Bingham's Antiquities, &c.)

In the reformation, the doctrine that there was no Sabbath by divine appointment, was prominent, and the opposite idea that none was needed except on grounds of convenience or policy, was taught by the leading men. See the Augsburg confession, Calvin's institutes, Bullinger's sermons, the works of Frith and Tyndale and others. No doctrine is more clearly set forth by these men than this, that there is no sacred time under the gospel.

In the second wave of the reformation, which arose out of the political and ecclesiastical agitations in England, and during which Puritanism came to the surface, is found the first ideas of a sacred Sabbath in the Protestant church, and it is only where the footprints of Puritanism are found in Europe, that there has ever been, or is now, even any theoretical, much less practical recognition of a Sabbath claiming sacredness by virtue of the fourth commandment. It came about in this way: Among the many things which the parliamentary party sought to reform, was the manner of observing the so-called Lord's Day. Discarding as they did the authority of the church, something was requisite to show cause why the Sunday should be more strictly observed, or even observed at all. The true idea of a Sabbath was in some degree recognized, and in 1595, Nicholas Bound, D. D., of Norton, in Suffolk, put forth the first work advocating a Sabbath as taught in the Decalogue, and founded upon God's example at creation. Arguing well and truthfully the doctrine of the Sabbath, he then by a sort of a slipshod logic applied the argument to the Sunday. This became the doctrine of the Puritans and was most rigidly enforced by the parliamentary party while it retained the civil power, the day being made outwardly sacred in observance by the greatest care on the part of the civil officers, all infringement of statute laws being punished by fine or imprisonment. When the royal or church party regained control of the government, these restrictions were removed, and the day took its place with the other institutions of the church.

Puritanism found a resting place on our shores, and with it these ideas of a Sabbath. With the decline in the theory and practice on this point in our theology, your readers are acquainted. With the present reactionary tendencies, they are familiar, which brings us to ask what are the elements of agitation at the present time? I answer—

1. The reaction now going on. We can scarcely overestimate the power of such tendencies. History is full of examples of it. That it is rapidly increasing in our own land is too evident to be questioned. The efforts of such organizations as the New York Sabbath committee, and kindred efforts, however noble in their spirit or wisely put forth, will increase the agitation. It is like the meeting of two opposing currents, or, perhaps, more nearly like an effort to check a current already strongly setting seaward. The large foreign population, the money-loving spirit of the age, the tendencies of all classes to free thinking, and the manifest necessity, when pressed, of acknowledging no divine, and only an ecclesiastical authority for the observance of the Sunday, all conspire to accelerate this reaction. Left to itself, there can

be little question as to the result. A holiday, and not a Sabbath, is all that we could hope for in a little time, especially when not a few leading men in the church are tending to such a point.

2. ELEMENTS WHICH OPPOSE THE SUNDAY AND DEFEND THE SABBATH. (a.) The Seventh-day Baptists: In the Puritanic reformation in Europe, not a few were found, who, by word and pen defended, and in practice conformed to the law of the Sabbath, and Seventh-day Baptist churches were early organized in England and probably on the continent. In 1664, one Stephen Mumford, a Seventh-day Baptist, coming from England, settled at Newport, R. I., where he united with a First-day Baptist church. His difference from the main body provoked discussion. Others, on investigation, agreed with him, and, as the result "the first Seventh-day Baptist church in America was organized at Newport, December 23, 1671." Soon after, by immigration, or otherwise, Sabbath-keepers appeared in New Jersey. From these points the Seventh-day Baptists have spread westward until they are now found in Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania. Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska, &c., with scattered families in many other localities. They number about sixty churches, with a membership of a little more than six thousand. They are largely identified with all reformatory and educational movements, have six academies, a university with academic, collegiate, and theological departments, publishing interests and many other elements of strength resulting from the slow growth of almost two centuries, under constant opposition and necessary self-defense. All this is backed by a growing spirit of agitation with reference to the question before us.

(b.) The Seventh-day Adventists: The history of this people and their position on this question, is full of significance and worthy of study.

After the disappointment in 1844, many honest ones, believing that we were still in the closing years of the world's history, sought to know what great work was yet to be done before the final consummation. The conclusion was soon reached that the apostasy foretold in Dan. vii, 25, referred to the change of the Sabbath by the papist power, and that the work of the "three angels' messages" of Rev. xiv, marks the restoration of the observance of all of God's commandments by his honest children. They found the Sabbath argument, as do the Seventh-day Baptist, upon the immutability of all law in the higher sense of the term, and the fact that no change has ever been authorized by any divine authority. They have the enthusiasm which youth and the consciousness of an especial and important mission inspires, and devote themselves most earnestly to their work.

The following, from the pen of the editor of their weekly organ, will give an idea of their present strength:

"We send single papers to about one thousand different post-offices, to one family or perhaps one individual Sabbath-keeper in the place. Probably not more than half of our people are organized into churches. The whole number is estimated at about twelve thousand. We have thirty-five evangelists in the field. We issue of our weekly Review and Herald, 4000 copies . . . publishing department has a capital stock of $25,215.11, . . . business for the year ending May, 1865, $64,029.58, . . . issued from the press within thirty months, 9,172,608 pages, past thirteen years 34,230,608 pages in books and tracts."

Thus has God evidently called out another people to aid in the agitation and reform on this subject, and we may sum up the elements now at work as follows:

1. The reaction from former Puritanic vigor, the tendency of the age to free thinking and disregard of former landmarks, and the efforts of the friends of the Sunday to prevent this reaction.

2. The Seventh-day Baptists with the experience and appliances of age.

3. The Seventh-day Adventists with the enthusiasm and devotion of youth (their earliest tract in favor of the Sabbath, dating back only to 1845), and the zeal which the consciousness of an especial mission and a brief period of time in which to perform it, naturally inspires.

The agitation is before us. The results God only knows, and time only will reveal to us.—A. H. Lewis

Pray at all Times.

PRAY, child of sorrow! Pour out thy weight of grief upon the Ear That never turneth from the sad one's prayer, Or heart oppressed. Thy grief shall turn to hope—sorrow to joy; A tender Father wipe thy tears away, And thou shalt rest.

Pray, child of joy! Lest in thy happiness thou turn from him Who filled thy cup of gladness to the brim; Thou needest prayer To temper to thy heart the joy it feels, For even bliss must have a stay and shield, Its weight to bear.

Pray, child of love! Lest, basking in its sunlight, thou forget The One whose sun of love will never set, During all time; Lest thou, rejoicing in the love of earth, Turn from the fountain pure that gave it birth, The source divine.

Pray at all times! When sorrows press like lead upon thy heart, Or when deep joy maketh the glad tears start, Or yet when love Sheldeth its bright effulgence o'er thy brow, Pray that through every scene thy heart may bow To God above. [Sab. Rec.

Like Father, Like Family.

By Cuyler

MANY a sermon has been preached to mothers; many a tract and treatise written on the mother's influence. But how often are sermons preached to fathers? Is there any power for good or evil greater than the influence of him who leads the family, who propagates his own character in the persons and the souls of his children, who lives his own life over again in the lives of those whom he has begotten?

Like father, like family. Set this down as a philosophical principle. Occasional exceptions do not undermine the rule; it is an organic one. The father impresses himself upon his children just as undesignedly, but just as surely, as I impress my shadow on the ground when I walk into the sunshine. The father cannot help it, if he would. The father leads, by God's decree. He makes the home-law; fixes the precedents; creates the home-atmosphere, and the "odor of the house" clings to the garments of the children, if they go around the globe. "His father was a Papist, or his father was a Protestant, or his father was a Democrat before him," is the sufficient reason that determines most men's religion or their political opinions. "He is a chip of the old block," said some one, when he heard the younger Pitt's first speech. "Nay," replied Burke, "he is the old block himself."

In nothing is this so true as in moral resemblances. A father's devoted godliness is often reproduced in his children. But still oftener are his errors and his vices. He commonly sets the habits of the household. Whatever "fires the father kindles, the children gather the wood." If the father rises late on the Sabbath morning, the boys come down late and ill-humored to the table. If he goes on a Sunday excursion, they must carry the lunch and the fishing-tackle, and share in the guilty sports. If he wishes to read a Sunday paper, then George or Tom must go out to buy it. If he sips his wine at the dinner-table, they are apt to hanker for the residuary glass, or at least they grow familiar with the sight of a decanter on the board. To do that, is like hanging up lascivious pictures on the walls of the sitting-room. The lads get familiarized with evil; and woe to the youth who gets "used to" the face of the tempter!

In looking over my congregation, I find that, while several pious fathers have unconverted children, there are but few prayerless fathers who have converted sons. The pull of the father downward, is too strong for the upward pull of the Sabbath-School and the pulpit. If the father talks money constantly, he usually rears a family for Mammon. If he talks pictures and books at his table, he is likely to awaken a thirst for literature or art. If he talks horses, and games, and prize-fights, he brings up a family of jockeys and sportsmen. If he makes his own fireside attractive in the evening, he will probably succeed in anchoring his children at home. But if he hears the clock strike eleven in the theater or the club-house, he need not be surprised if his boys hear it strike twelve in the gambling-house, the drinking-saloon, or the brothel. If he leads in irreligion, what, but the grace of God can keep his imitative household from following him to perdition? The history of such a family is commonly written in that sadly-frequent description given in the Old Testament—"He walked in all the sins of his father, which he had done before him."

I find two very different types of paternal religion. Both are nominally Christian. The one parent prays at his family altar for the conversion of his children. He then labors to fulfill his own prayers. He makes religion prominent in his family; it is as pervasive as the atmosphere. The books that are brought home, the papers selected, the amusements chosen, the society that is sought, the aims in life that are set before those children, all bear in one direction, and that the right one. God is not mocked by that father to convert his offspring to godliness, while he is doing his utmost to pervert them to worldliness, or self-seeking, or frivolity, no more than he would ask God to restore his sick child, while he was giving the poor boy huge doses of opium or strychnine.

Yet there is a class of professing Christians who do this very thing. They pray for a soul's conversion, and yet on the very evenings when the revival discourses are being delivered, they take that son or daughter to the opera or the fashionable rout. They pray that their households may live for God, and then set them an example of most intense money-clutching, and mammon-worship. One father prays for a son's salvation, and then flashes a wine-cup before his eyes. Another sits down with solemn face to the communion-table, and then comes home to gossip, to crack jokes, to talk politics, to entertain Sunday visitors at a sumptuous feast, to do anything and everything which tends to dissipate the impressions of God's worship, and the sacramental service. Such fathers never follow up a pungent sermon, never watch for opportunities to lead their children Christ-ward, never co-operate with God's Spirit for the conversion of an impenitent son or daughter. What must an ingenuous child think of such a father's prayers?

I entreat parents most solemnly, not to stand in the way of their children's salvation. If you do not help the good work, pray do not hinder it. The selfish or inconsistent life of some fathers, is enough to neutralize all the teachings and appeals of both pulpit and Sabbath-School. To Paul's question, "How knowest thou, oh! wife, if thou mayest save thy husband?" we would add the startling query, How knowest thou, oh! father, but thou mayest damn thy own children?

How many a devoted, praying wife, is struggling to lead her children Heavenward, and finds her every effort nullified by the open irreligion of an ungodly father! She toils on alone, prays on alone, works alone, and weeps alone, over their perils and the fatal example at their own fireside. God pity, and support her! She is striving to bear her children on her own shoulders toward virtue, toward purity and Christ; but to-day her sad failure is written in the homely adage, Like father, like family.—Cuyler.

Worldly-Mindedness.

THIS has been an evil in the church ever since there have been those who profess to love God, and yet, by wicked works, deny him. But why are Christians ever found to be in possession of such a disposition? They have vowed to leave the world with all its follies behind them. "They have vowed to "renounce the world, with all its vain pomp and show, with all covetous desires of the same," so that they will not be governed or led by them.

But we often see those who have these vows, engaging in things that pertain strictly to the world, not to Christianity. Anything in which we engage, that hinders us from the pure spiritual worship of God, tends to weaken faith in him, and strengthen dependence on the world. The pure worship of God is spiritual. If we are led by things sensual, are we right in the sight of God? In other words, if we find greater pleasure in anything of a mere worldly nature than we do in the service of God, are we not worldly-minded? We will instance a few cases:

Dancing is a worldly pleasure, and sensual. If we love to attend places where this is carried on, and to participate in it, more than we do to attend upon and participate in the worship of God, are we not worldly-minded? "Social parties," as they are conducted now-a-days, should be called "sensual parties." They take the form of worldly pleasures. Those who engage in them, do not profess to do so because they love God, far from it; but some church members would rather go there than to church, and do attend them to the neglect of the house of God. "Too cold to go to meeting, Christmas, wasn't it? Oh, but didn't we have a fine time at the social party at ———, Christmas?" Such persons are worldly-minded, are they not? But to save fifty dollars, you rode all day in the rain; the other Sunday it misted a little, and was so damp and chilly, you was afraid you would take a death cold if you went to meeting—worldly-minded. Yes, you drove old Jack in the harness six days without rest. He was too tired to ride to meeting Sunday; you couldn't go—six for the world, and none for God. Yes, madam, you paid thirty dollars for that dress to show off in, and then thought it hard to give thirty cents to the missionary cause. Yes, sir, and

you, too;

you paid three hundred dollars for that carriage, and then thought it hard when you was called upon to give thirty dollars towards the support of your preacher and his family—three hundred to the world, and thirty to the gospel. Yes, and you said you were too poor to help any towards supporting the gospel, especially these hard times. Stop, sir, I saw you buy a plug of tobacco, twenty-five cents, once per week; one year, twelve dollars; can't spare the preacher a two-fifty? But the tobacco was chewed and gaubed about, wasn't it? Your preacher had to do as best he could without money, among strangers, too. "O, it's good enough for him; he can stand it, if he is a true itinerant." The Sunday-School went down for want of books, but you were too poor to help it. I thought so when I saw you pay five dollars for toys for the children to use up. "I am too poor, actually too poor to take the Advocate." Yes, but you take two political papers. Why didn't you go to the class-meeting last Sunday? "O, I had company; I couldn't leave them and go." Come out from the world.

In short, the love of dress, sensual pleasures, to please our neighbors, our children, ourselves, have all to be attended to before the support of the gospel, the work of God in other ways, and attendance to the direct worship of God. Worldly-minded—Ichabod, must be written.—Sel.

The Love of God.

"Keep yourselves in the love of God" is an injunction probably never more warranted in the history of the Christian church than at the present day. The greatest danger to which we as Christians are exposed, is that of declining in our love to God. Some of us know, by bitter experience, that the world not only gives us no assistance in walking the "narrow path," but actually proves a powerful hindrance. Love to God is not born of earth. Every Christian can well remember a time when there was no beauty nor loveliness in the character of Christ that he should desire it, and, though redemption had sounded in his ears again and again, it had failed to awaken his love or excite his gratitude.

A plant, transferred to an unfriendly soil, and to a climate less congenial than that of Heaven,—love to God—needs to be guarded with the utmost vigilance, lest the roots of bitterness spring up in our hearts and choke it. We are not only surrounded by objects calculated to draw out our warmest affections, setting themselves up as rivals to God, but the very tendency of our nature is to depart from Him. The truth—though a humiliating one—is, that we love sin without an effort, and ere we are aware of it, are "rolling it as a sweet morsel under our tongues." The physical is often leading the moral nature into forbidden paths, by seeking to make it believe that those objects alone are worthy our love and worship which we can see and feel.—Hence the necessity for a continued warfare against the influence without, lest our love to God gradually decline until it ceases to exercise any power over our lives.

In the early stages of Christian experience, love is warm and ardent. When for the first time the grace of God enters the recreated soul, and life and immortality are brought to light, God becomes all in all—the soul and center of the believer's world, and Jesus the "chiefest among ten thousand and the one altogether lovely." The very depths of the soul are stirred up, and grateful thanks spring from the lips—"I love the Lord because he hath heard my voice and my supplication—because he hath inclined his ear unto me—therefore I will call upon him as long as I live." "Bless the Lord, O my soul! and forget not all his benefits!" At this time, we cannot think it possible that we shall ever forget or love him less who has done so much for us; but when years have passed over us with their accumulated cares and temptations—when our dearest earthly hopes lie trampled in the dust—happy indeed shall we be if they have left no blight upon our hearts, nor lessened our love for God.

Experience has doubtless taught many of us that, in declining from our "first love," we are not immediately sensible of it. Our friends often observe the change sooner than we, and should they neglect to admonish us of our wanderings, we are oblivious to the fact until we find ourselves cherishing some known sin—taking pleasure in what God has forbidden, or in entering into some of the most spiritual exercises of religion with assumed zeal and formality. It is not wonderful that Joshua, when for the last time he addressed the assembled people of Israel, should most solemnly enjoin upon them to "take good heed therefore unto themselves that they love the Lord their God." Though it is the philosophy of some that our first love will of necessity lose some of its fervor; yet such an inference is not deducible either from the Bible or the experience of true Christians. If we follow on to know the Lord, as the beauty and perfection of his character become better known to us, we shall find our hearts more and still more firmly attached to him, until "neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor hight, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus."

Let us then cherish this love, lying as it does at the very foundation of not only our happiness here, but of that hereafter. Let obstacles only draw us near to the Great Head of the church, and we shall welcome everything which shall increase our affection for Him and draw us so completely within the fold of the Good Shepherd that we shall never more desire to wander. —Sel.

Gems from John Mason.

By John Mason

1. It is not talking, but walking with God, that gives a man the denomination of a Christian.

2. The gate which leads to life is a strait gate, therefore we should fear; it is an open gate, therefore we should hope.

3. God repented that he made man, but never repented that he redeemed man.

4. Nothing grieves Christ more than to have his love slighted; nothing pleaseth him more than to have it accepted.

5. If believers are condemned by the world, let them remember that they shall not be condemned with the world. Sin may live in a believer, but a believer cannot live in sin. It may lose its dominion, though not leave its habitation.

6. A child of God had rather ten thousand times suffer for Christ, than that Christ should suffer by him.

7. Reliance is the essence of faith, Christ is the object, the Word is the food, and obedience is the proof; so that the true faith is a depending upon Christ for salvation in a way of obedience as he is offered in the Word.

8. God will either keep his saints from temptation by his preventing mercy, or in temptations by his supporting mercy, or find a way of escape by his delivering mercy.

9. As Christ came out of his Father's bosom, so the promise came out of Christ's side.

10. Prayer doth not consist in gifted expressions and a volubility of speech, but in a brokenness of heart.

11. They are the safest who are most in their closets; who pray not to be seen of men, but to be heard of God.

12. Inherent righteousness is the evidence of our salvation; imputed righteousness the foundation of it.

13. Let no day pass without a review of God's carriage toward you, and of yours toward him; of mercies and afflictions; of duties and your frame of heart in them; of your sins and inclinations to sin. And let God have the glory of what is good.

14. God doth sometimes on purpose show us the creatures' emptiness, that we may go to his fullness. He makes us to see the creatures to be broken cisterns, that we may know him to be the fountain.

The Cure of the Drunkard.

A MAN, long noted for intemperate habits, was induced by Rev. John Abbott to sign the pledge "in his own way," which he did in these words. "I pledge myself to drink no more intoxicating drinks for one year." Few believed he could keep it, but near the end of the year he again appeared at a temperance meeting, without once having touched a drop. "Are you not going to sign again?" asked Mr. Abbott. "Yes," replied he, "if I can do it in my own way," and, accordingly he wrote, "I sign this pledge for nine hundred and ninety-nine years, and if I live to that time, I intend to take out a life-lease!" A few days after, he called upon the tavern keeper, who welcomed him back to his old haunt. "Oh! landlord," said he, as in pain, "I have such a lump on my side!" "That's because you've stopped drinking," said the landlord, "you won't live long if you keep on." "Will drink take the lump away?" "Yes, and if you don't drink you'll soon have a lump on the other side. Come, let's drink together," and he poured out two glasses of whisky. "I guess I won't drink," said the former inebriate, "especially if keeping the pledge will bring another lump, for it isn't very hard to bear, after all," and with this he drew the lump, a roll of greenbacks from his side pocket, and walked off, leaving the landlord to his reflections.

Lost and Found.

WE shall not forget an hour's experience in the vast wilderness of Northern New York, illustrating the expression of joy over the prodigal's return, "The lost is found."

In going from one solitary lake to another, we started in advance of the Indian guide along a narrow path, quite sure we were taking the right direction. All sounds of human life disappeared, and the stillness was suddenly broken by the noise of a rushing stream. We awoke as from a dream, to find that we were lost. The little path of the hunter led, we knew not whither in the great forest, through which the panther's scream was often heard.

We stood and fired the rifle, providentially with us. Oh the horror of the long, long moments, till the responsive report of a gun reached the ear. Soon after the Indian appeared, looking like an angel of light and mercy. The re-action in feeling was too great for expression.

Never had I so deeply felt the utter desolation, however unrealized by himself or any of us, of the sinner's condition in the dark wilderness of sin. Nor had I before had such an appreciation of the joy in Heaven, where both facts are seen as they are, over one recovered wanderer from God and glory. The Holy Spirit estimated the truth when he declared, "Let him know that he that converteth a sinner from the error of his ways shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins."

Cleaving to Christ.

By Rev. William Arnet

I HAVE seen a heavy piece of solid iron hanging on another, not welded, not linked, not glued to the spot, and yet it cleaved with such tenacity as to bear not only its own weight, but mine too, if I chose to seize and hang upon it.—A wire charged with an electric current, is in contact with its mass, and hence its adhesion. Cut that wire through, or remove it by a hair's breadth, and the piece of iron drops dead to the ground, like any other unsupported weight.

A stream of life from the Lord, brought into contact with a human spirit, keeps the spirit cleaving to the Lord so firmly, that no power on earth or hell can wrench the two assunder. From Christ, the mysterious life-stream flows, through the being of a disciple it spreads, and to the Lord it returns again. In that circle the feeblest Christian is held safely. But if the circle be broken, the dependent spirit instantly drops off.—Rev. William Arnet.

Old Age

OLD AGE.—Old age is a public good. Do not feel sad because you are old. Whenever you are walking, no one ever opens the gate for you to pass through, no one ever honors you with any kind of help, without being himself the better for what he does; for fellow-feeling with the aged ripens the soul.

Why Christians Are Saved

CHRISTIANS wonder why they should be saved; sinners why they should be lost.

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