Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 21, 1883
General Articles.
By Ellen G. White
Luther's Source of Strength.
BY MRS. E. G. WHITE.
LUTHER trembled as he looked upon himself, one man opposed to the mightiest powers of earth. He sometimes doubted whether he had indeed been led of God to array against himself the whole authority of the church. "Who was I," he writes, "to oppose the pope's majesty, before which the kings of the earth and the whole world tremble? No one can know what I suffered in those first two years, and in what dejection and despair I was often plunged."
But he was not left to become utterly disheartened. When human support failed him, he looked to God alone, and learned that he could lean in perfect safety upon that all-powerful arm. Steadfastly the Reformer labored to clear away the rubbish beneath which true faith had been buried for ages. The dust of ancient errors sometimes obscured his own vision, so that he could not see the truth with perfect clearness; but as he pressed resolutely on, rays of light flashed forth from God's word, banishing the darkness of superstition, and filling his soul with the brightness of a purer and holier faith. He rose above despondency; his courage and hope revived. Ere-long friends began to rally around him. But he did not forget the Source of his strength. To Spalatin, the elector's chaplain, and a true friend of the Reformation, Luther wrote:—
"We cannot attain to the understanding of Scripture either by study or strength of intellect. Therefore your first duty must be to begin with prayer. Entreat the Lord to deign to grant you, in his rich mercy, rightly to understand his word. There is no other interpreter of the word but the Author of that word himself. Even as he has said, 'They shall be all taught of God.' Hope nothing from your study and strength of intellect; but simply put your trust in God, and in the guidance of his Spirit. Believe one who has made trial of this matter."
Here we see how Luther came in possession of the truth that waked up the Reformation. It is men of humility and prayer that become mighty men in the Scriptures. They search the word of truth as for hidden treasures. And as they read and pray, and pray and read, they become living channels of light and truth. Here is a lesson of vital importance to those who feel that God has called them to present to others the solemn truths for this time. These truths will stir the enmity of Satan and of men who love the fables that he has devised. In the conflict with the powers of hell, there is need of something more than intellect and human wisdom.
Tetzel, in his rage against Luther, met his theses with antitheses, in which he attempted to defend the doctrine of indulgences, and sustain the power of the pope. Luther advanced with joy to the contest, hoping that the truth, to him so precious, might be revealed to many minds. "Do not wonder," he wrote to a friend, "that they revile me so unsparingly. I hear their revilings with joy. If they did not curse me, I could not be so firmly assured that the cause I have undertaken is the cause of God." Yet Luther loved peace. He possessed a tender, sympathetic heart, and while urged by the Spirit of God to defend the truth, he shrunk from causing strife in the church or in the State. "I tremble, I shudder," said he, "to think that I may be an occasion of discord to such mighty princes."
As Luther, with noble firmness, stood in defense of the gospel, his doctrines spread, and priests and people rallied about him as their standard-bearer. Hard as it was for them to change their opinions, the light of truth was dispelling the darkness of error. Some who secretly rejoiced in the work, took at first no active part in it; but the determined opposition against Luther and the truths he preached, brought these persons to the front, and changed their doubts to the certainty of faith. In the hearts of those who would obey his word, the Lord placed a firmness and decision that nothing could move.
Satan was perseveringly at work to tear down all that God was moving his servants to build up. One of the adversary's ablest instruments was Prierias, the master of the pontifical palace, who also filled the office of censor. The leading men in the Catholic Church were divided as to the true authority for interpreting the Scriptures. A part believed that the authority rested in general councils, as representatives of the church; while another part steadfastly maintained that to the pope alone was granted the power of interpretation, and that no one had a right to explain the Scriptures contrary to his decree. Prierias was among the most zealous supporters of the pope. "Whosoever does not accept and rely upon the teachings of the Roman Church and the Roman pontiff as the infallible rule of faith, and as that from which Holy Scripture itself derives its obligation and authority, is a heretic." Thus spoke the haughty Prierias, and then he proceeded to attack Luther with the spirit of a buffoon and inquisitor, rather than with the spirit of a calm and dignified defender of the church of Christ.
Luther met this opponent with the same fearless firmness which he displayed toward other adversaries. He had given himself to the service of truth, and the Spirit of truth gave him wisdom, strength, and understanding. Prierias had begun his work by laying down certain principles. "Following your example," said Luther, "I also will lay down certain principles. The first is the passage of St. Paul: 'If any one preach unto you another gospel than that is preached, though he be an angel from Heaven, let him be accursed.' The second is from St. Augustine: 'I have learned to render to the inspired Scriptures alone the homage of a firm belief that they have never erred: as to others, I do not believe in the things they teach, simply because it is they who teach them.'"
Luther adds: "If you rightly understand these principles, you will also understand that your whole dialogue is overturned." To the insinuations and threats of Prierias he responds in these brave words: "Do you thirst for blood? I protest that these menaces of yours give me not the slightest alarm. For what if I were to lose my life? Christ still lives; Christ my Lord, and the Lord of all, blessed forever."278
It should be remembered that Luther was attacking with determined blows the institutions of ages. This could not be done without exciting hatred and opposition. No arguments against him could be drawn from the word of God; for his feet were firmly planted upon the foundation of the prophets and apostles, Christ himself being the chief corner-stone. When his enemies appealed to custom and tradition, or to the assertions and authority of the Roman pontiff, Luther met them with the Bible and the Bible alone. Here were arguments which they could not answer. Therefore the slaves of formalism and superstition clamored for his blood, as the Jews had clamored for the blood of Christ.
"He is a heretic," cried these Roman zealots; "it is a sin to allow him to live an hour longer! Away with him at once to the scaffold!" But Luther did not fall a prey to their fury. God had a work for him to do, and angels of Heaven were sent to protect him. Many, however, who had received from Luther the precious light, were made the objects of Satan's wrath, and for the truth's sake fearlessly suffered torture and death.
Opposition is the portion of all whom God employs to make an advance move in his work by presenting truth specially applicable to their time. The controversy between Christ and Satan is to increase in intensity to the close of this earth's history. Those who dare to present truths that are not in harmony with the popular churches and with the world, will thereby become the objects of slander, reproach, and falsehood. Many who at first but partially unite with scoffers, finally lend themselves fully to Satan, to oppose and overthrow what God would build up.
There is to-day the same disposition to substitute the theories and traditions of men for the word of God as in the days of Christ, of Paul, or of Luther. Ministers advance doctrines which have no foundation in the Scriptures of truth, and in place of Bible proof, they present their own assertions as authority. The people accept the minister's interpretation of the word, without earnest prayer that they may know what is truth. There is no safety in depending upon human wisdom and judgment. Said our Saviour, "Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life; and they are they which testify of me."
All who possess reasoning powers can know for themselves what is truth. Those who pray and search for light, will receive light. The reason why so many are groping their way in the fog of error is, that they take the assertions of men, instead of searching the word of God for themselves. "To the law and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." Worldlings and superficial Christians will accept nothing which interferes with their selfish love of pleasure; hence they are willingly ignorant of the truth which would save their souls. Satan works with all his deceptive art to present pleasing fables before the people, and he takes thousands in his snare.
The advocates of truth in our day should not expect their message to be received with greater favor than was that of the early Reformers. Nay, rather, they should expect greater difficulties and more determined opposition than were experienced by Luther and his fellow-laborers. Satan's hatred for the truth is the same in all ages; but as he sees that his time is short, he makes one last mighty effort, by signs and lying wonders, to deceive and destroy, not merely the unbelieving world, but the great mass of professed Christians who have not received the love of the truth that they might be saved. In the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, Paul declares that the second coming of Christ will be preceded by "the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause, God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness."
There was a present truth—a truth at that time of special importance—in the days of Christ, of Paul, of Luther; there is a present truth for the church to-day. But truth is no more desired by the men of to-day than it was by the Jews in the time of Christ, or by papists in the days of Luther. Therefore Satan, working now with tenfold greater power, succeeds as of old in blinding the eyes of men and darkening their understanding.
As those who now labor in the cause of reform, experience conflicts and trials, as they find their path hedged in by difficulties, and obstructed by the rubbish of error, let them remember that they are traveling the same road that prophets, apostles, and reformers of every age have traveled before them. Christ himself trod a more thorny path than any of his followers. They may comfort themselves with the thought that they are in good company. One mightier than Satan is their leader, and he will give them strength to be steadfast in the faith, and will bring them off victorious.
"HE CARETH."
By Marianne Farningham
What can it mean? Is it aught to Him
That the nights are long and the days are dim?
Can he be touched by the griefs I bear,
Which sadden the heart and whiten the hair?
About his throne are eternal calms,
And strong, glad music of happy psalms,
And bliss, unruffled by any strife,--
How can he care for my little life?
And yet I want him to care for me
While I live in this world where the sorrows be!
When the lights die down from the path I take,
When strength is feeble, and friends forsake,
When love and music that once did bless
Have left me to silence and loneliness,
And my life-song changes to sobbing prayers,--
Then my heart cries out for a God who cares.
When shadows hang over the whole day long,
And my spirit is bowed with shame and wrong,
When I am not good, and the deeper shade
Of conscious sin makes my heart afraid,
And the busy world has too much to do
To stay in its courses to help me through,
And I long for a Saviour--can it be
That the God of the universe cares for me?
Oh, wonderful story of deathless love!
Each child is dear to that Heart above;
He fights for me when I cannot fight,
He comforts me in the gloom of night,
He lifts the burden, for he is strong,
He stills the sigh, and awakes the song;
The sorrow that bowed me down he bears,
And loves and pardons because he cares!
Let all who are sad take heart again;
We are not alone in our hours of pain;
Our Father stoops from his throne above
To soothe and quiet us with his love;
He leaves us not when the storm is high,
And we have safety, for he is nigh.
Can it be trouble which he doth share?
Oh, rest in peace, for the Lord will care!
—Marianne Farningham, in Christian World.
Every-Day Life in Palestine.
By W. M. Jones
A SYRIAN BISHOP AND THE DAYS OF THE WEEK.
THE ARABS AND THE AYAM UL-USBOO-AH.
FOR several weeks past I have intended a visit to the patriarch of Antioch and the bishop of Jerusalem, ecclesiastics of the Syrian Church, who have been some months in England on a mission in behalf of their schools. Their churches are few and have been much oppressed, doubtless because of their independence of the papacy, which has done all it could to get every one of the ancient Eastern churches into its power.
The patriarch is the acknowledged spiritual head of his people. The language of the church service is Syriac, or Aramæan, and is nearly, if not quite, the language spoken by our Lord and the Hebrew nation of his time. Once I listened to the church service, and was charmed by the music of the read and spoken tongue. I have often referred to the occasion and, at the time, called the attention of my learned friend, the late Rev. John Mills, to what seemed to be one-third Hebrew, one-third Arabic, and one-third Chaldaic. The language is deeply guttural, but soft to the ear and very expressive.
Three or four villages of this people in the Lebanon mountains, speak Syriac in common with the Arabic, which last is used by all the people about them. In the other localities the Syriac is used only in the church service. The Syriac is therefore to them the holy language; that is, it is for worship and religious purposes; just as Hebrew, Arabic, Armenian, Greek, and Latin are used by the several religious faiths—Jew, Christian, and Mohammedan.
The outgoing old year and the incoming new year brought with them an increased press of work, so that I began to despair of a chat with these native Arabs. But to-day I broke away from home. An hour's walk, and half an hour on the underground railway brought me to their lodgings in Hammersmith. An English gentleman, who was born and brought up in Jerusalem, was the first to extend to me the hand of welcome. The arrangement of the reception room was half oriental. Presently the bishop, with a pleasant countenance and affable bearing, was ushered into the room and seated by my side on the divan. His dragoman followed and stood at a little distance, with his eyes intently fixed upon his master, otherwise there was no show of dignity.
I was instantly at home, and as the Arabic began to flow from the lips of the Bishop, I thought (as in former years) that it was the most delightful music I had heard for a long time. I was embarrassed for words, and all the more because of my obliging English friend's presence. He was perfectly at home in his native Arabic. To me fourteen years had caused quite a loss of the ready use of sentences. The bishop's rapid utterance was distinct enough; but it would have been fun to have thrown me into deep water and to have allowed me to swim for dear life; yet my friend was so glib that I allowed him to row the boat while I took the helm; i. e., I managed the simple sentences and he the compound ones. In fact in three-quarters of an hour we had gone over enough Arabic for a student's practice for a twelve month, and could the interview have been prolonged for another three-quarters of an hour I might have been nearly myself again in the practice of the wonderful tongue of that wonderful people—the Arabs.
You must imagine the gestures, the one-sided tip of the head, and the shrug of the shoulders, the uplifted hands, the glistening eyes, the contrast in our dress, opinions, and dogmas, the gentleness and the fervor of the endeared companionship of that hour. You would have thought us old friends. At first I rose to salute the dragoman, and meeting no recognition, I took my seat, fully aware of my blunder, but the politeness of the company forbade any notice of the ludicrous mistake. The dragoman (turjoman—interpreter, but really a valet, a courier, and a general manager) would have been unfaithful to have acknowledged a recognition which belonged wholly to his lord and master. Young, of a commanding physique, and neatly attired in native costume, not the least of which was the zunnar, or girdle, he was an important complement to the company.
During our rapid conversation the dragoman stood at a distance intently watching the bishop for a movement of the hand to indicate anything that might be wanted. For the hundredth time I witnessed the illustration of Ps. 123:2: "Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters," &c. The bishop is apparently forty, has dark, olive complexion, frank countenance, and very graceful manners. The patriarch was too ill, or too fatigued to be seen. Soon, however, I introduced the question of the Names and the Order of the Days of the Week. I asked him: "What do you call, or what other name do you give to the days of sevens?" The word usboo-ah or sevens, is used in Arabic for week. "Shoof, ya akhee," said the bishop; that is "Look here, O brother," and taking his left hand in his right, as the Arabs do when about to count, and touching each finger and counting, he said:—
“El-had, (The first,
El-ithneen, The Second,
E-thalathee, The Third,
El-arbah, The Fourth,
El-khamees, The Fifth,
El-joomah, The Assembly,
El-Sabt.” The Sabbath.)
The more literal translation is, the one, the two, the three, the four, the five, the assembly, the Sabbath—with day understood, but pronounced, when required, before the words one, two, three, &c., thus making the meaning to be day of the ONE, day of the two, &c.; so with the last yom, or day, is understood to belong to the word, or name Sabbath, as much as to the other days thus: yom es-sabt or day of the Sabbath.
My next question was: "Do you ever call them by the names, Sunday, Monday, and Saturday? Bishop: "Never, never; in every place among the Arabs, no matter where, nor what the dialect may be, among all Arabs it is the same: THEY KNOW NO OTHER NAMES BUT THE NUMBERS AND JOOMAH AND ES-SABT."
"Do you ever speak of El-had (the first) as yom ir-Rub (day of the Lord)?" At this the bishop slightly shrugged the shoulder, and replied quickly: "It is not the custom to speak of it as such. You may sometimes hear it, but only occasionally, and then when treating of religious matters; but even then only rarely." "Is it found in your church books or liturgy?" Bishop: "It can be found in our writings, but rarely, yet we give it no heed, or rather it has no effect to change the universal practice of calling it El-had" (the first).
As it was Wednesday, I said, "What do you call to-night?" Bishop: What, the night that is coming?" "Yes." Bishop: "Why, El-khamees" (the fifth). "And what do you call this night?" (That's the night belonging to this DAY.) Bishop: "Layl-at-El-arbah," i. e., night of the fourth day.
Observe that these questions were not leading ones. The bishop is a responsible representative of the oldest of the Christian churches in the East, if not of the first church at Jerusalem. Whatever of error that church has it has never been guilty of robbing the first day and the Sabbath day of their Scriptural names, and more, of attempting to blot out the name Sabbath and foist into its place the name of an idol.
During my residence in Jerusalem, had I been impressed with the importance of an accumulation of evidence, I might have made a record of thousands of instances where these old Scriptural names were used by all classes. The only exception being the case of appointments for the first day by foreign Protestant missionaries who sometimes used "Lord's day," but not Sabbath. Even this had no effect upon the natives; and God grant that it may never affect them in the way of sanctifying what he has not ordained. The Syrian church like all Eastern churches, is not a Sabbath-keeping church. Its worship day is the first day. But let the reader bear in mind that more than one hundred millions of Arabs, and those influenced by their customs, inhabiting nearly all of Northern Africa and Western Asia, use the names of the days of the week as stated above.
I asked the bishop: "Have you books published in English which give an account of your church?" His answer was: "There are such, but unfortunately they abound in mistakes."
At parting, our brother of the cloth, inquired if I had any children, and how many. He wished very hearty blessings for them and for my wife—blessings expressed in a style purely Biblical and Oriental, but at which Western usage hints silence; we bade each other farewell with a Kheirak and a Salaam—good will and peace.—W. M. Jones, in Sabbath Memorial.
Religion in Colleges, at Home, and Abroad.
By Joseph Cook
It is said that three bad men give a tone to a regiment. Six bad men will give a tone to almost any college class. With such great classes as our universities of the first rank now have, it is very uncommon not to find that number of bad men in a class. Under the subtle operation of precedents in college life they may give a lasting taint to many a society organized in their university. A class, a college full of undergraduates is a world in itself; but its members are not selected to match each other in moral matters. A young man who goes into college cringing and ducking, and acts like a poltroon in his first few weeks, in presence of these rough-shod moral misleaders, is very likely to be trampled on through his whole four years. A young man who allows himself to be ridden over by the moral roughs of a college for four years is likely to be ridden over by the moral roughs of professional life, and most especially by those of politics and commerce. He is not likely to have courage to stand erect against the huge vices of time. It is, therefore, of the utmost consequence that a young man entering college should be taught, in the first place, manliness. I have great sympathy with a sentiment I once heard uttered by a distinguished college professor that, if a young man is ruined in college, it is, at least, possible that he is not worth saving. Speaking from the point of view of affairs on this side the grave, this is not too stern a censure. If a young man, after such training as now usually precedes a college course, cannot stand up in college against the ordinary moral temptations of the place, against the sneers of a few dissipated classmates, against the persecution that may be organized against him in his earlier years, because of his moral attitude, then I say that such a young man is probably not worth saving for the great purposes of a courageous public life.
—Extract from a Lecture by Joseph Cook.
Idleness and Industry
IDLENESS always envies industry.
Danger of Religious Anarchy.
REV. L. H. PIERCE, pastor of one of the Baltimore M. E. Churches, said in a recent sermon:--
"We live in the last days, here meant—a period extending from the ascension of Christ to his coming again. How near we may be to the close of human history no man knows. Certain it is that the state of the world at this hour is one of peril. There is hardly a royal head in Europe that rests on an easy pillow, scarcely a parliament or a national assembly that is not menaced by some dangerous political factor. The church is suffering terrible loss along some of her lines. One peril of the hour is the appeal to dynamite; in other words, to terrorizing agencies as a means of reform. With the advance of the principles of civil and religious liberty and the spread of knowledge, the class who are discontented with existing forms and with the constitution of society have greatly multiplied. Within this class is a dynamite faction—a class of desperate agitators, of violent plotters—who have despaired of reform by constitutional measures, or believe that terrorism is both just, and potent. In Russia it is nihilism; in Germany, socialism; in France, communism; in Spain, blackhandism; in England, it is specifically dynamitism. Our people are too busy in developing the amazing resources of the land and building great institutions to be greatly discontented, but our peril is great—made great by the very things of which we boast, such as freedom of speech and the marvelous immigration. What complications are almost sure to rise! But in this argument it is coercion as an argument that is to engage our thoughts. In all leading constitutional governments of this day, when liberty is in the very air of the world, appeal to reason, the agitation of thought, the advocacy of right and the protest of good men, are a thousand times more potent than appeal to force. In the realm of religion, force is most dangerous. No man, or class of men, nor church, has a right to dictate, under pains and penalties, what any man shall believe or do. We blush for the holy name of religion when we think of the horrid engines of cruelty which have been invoked in support of the edicts of the Church. There is danger of a baneful reaction against the imperialism of force in the church. We are in danger of religious anarchy."
Without Guile.
The Episcopal "Book of Common Prayer," in the forms for family devotion, attaches to the Prayer of Confession of Sin the direction, "Here let him who reads make a pause, that every one may secretly confess the sins and failings of that day." Whether this direction is generally complied with we do not know; whether the opportunity, if offered, is availed of by those who are being led in prayer, we suspect is very doubtful. But the direction is suggestive. It indicates that the framers of the "Book of Common Prayer" recognized the fact that confession to be of any value must be specific. Public confession cannot well be phrased other than in general terms; but private confession should be of special faults. There are, indeed, times when the soul is bowed down by a sense of guiltiness, and can find no other language in which to express its sense of sin and shame than "God be merciful to me a sinner." But these are exceptional experiences; and, in general, that is the truest confession which is the most definite. If a child should come to his father at night with the kind of confession which the father rattled off so glibly in the prayer-meeting, "Father, I have done the things which I ought not to have done, and I have left undone those things which I ought to have done, and I am a miserable offender. Good night!" the father would call for specifications. "Hold on, my boy," he would say, "what are the things which you ought to have done that you have left undone; and what are the things that you have done which you ought not to have done?" What men call confession is often only profession; it is only a public exhibition of the virtue of humility and contrition. If David's implication is true, and the Lord imputeth not iniquity only to the man in whose confession there is no guile, a great deal of confession receives no absolution. A general confession of total depravity costs nothing; it is only an item in the general inventory of orthodox experiences. To say, even to the Lord, and in closet prayer, "I was snap pish this morning at breakfast, I was unjust to my boy, I was cross to my servant, I lied by my silence in order to get advantage in that bargain, I coveted my neighbor's horse when he drove by me while I walked, I have been cross, false, mean, selfish," that requires real contrition; that is real confession. And one such confession as that at night would have some efficacy to prevent snappishness at breakfast, and lying in the store tomorrow morning.
Being specific in confession would go far to prevent lying confessions. Some one has said the tallest lying is done on the knees. Men imagine that if they put their prayers in Bible phraseology they are sound. Bible phraseology is admirable to express a Bible experience, but to use the words without the experience is the most impious form of lying. A good deacon, after a successful day of business and a good supper, with a heart full of self-satisfaction, whom all the world has treated well and who, on the whole, has treated all the world well, will answer the parson's call to prayer with the woeful declaration, "All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; from the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in us, but we are full of wounds and bruises and putrefying sores." Does he believe it? Not a bit of it. Let his pastor say to him, in the way of private rebuke, "All your righteousnesses are as filthy rags," and either the deacon or the parson would have to leave the parish. There is no more confession in a self-satisfied, well-fed, prosperous, rubicund deacon's repeating of phrases from the first chapter of Isaiah, or the fifty-first psalm, than there is piety in a well-trained parrot's repeating phrases from the Lord's Prayer. There is considerable complaint of long prayers at the prayer-meetings. The remedy is a very simple one. If the people that pray will confess no sins and acknowledge no gratitude which they do not really feel in their inmost hearts, the prayers will be shortened amazingly; they will be more than make up in quality what they lose in quantity.
-Christian Union.
Courage to Be Ignorant
Sidney Smith said: "Have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything."
A great fortune is a great slavery.
Christian Sensitiveness.
By Charles Haddon Spurgeon
The church of God seems to have lost her delicacy of touch and sensation. There are some members of Christ's body who do things in business they ought not to do, and they are not conscious of doing wrong, because they have not enough life in them to be delicately sensitive of the approach of sin. Some good people neglect their Christian duty, and they are scarcely aware of it; they do not attach any importance to it, because they have not life enough to make them sensitive. If we are ever to do anything for God, we must get back the delicate touch of abundant life.
There are some persons who may lose an arm and scarcely suffer so much as another having an ordinary wound, because they are constituted with abundance of life. There is something in the constitution of the brain that makes them sensitive all over, and they will have greater pain. Do not try to escape from spiritual pain. I would like to feel the burden of the Lord pressing upon me day and night, till the thought of a soul being lost will not let me rest. There is not the feeling that there ought to be; and till God gives us life which will make us feel for sinners so as to weep over cities as Christ did, we will not see any great work done. The Lord wants us ministers, especially, to be delicately sensitive against everything that is wrong and would lead us to neglect the souls of others! We want to have more and more of that delicacy and quickness of apprehension. We read of our Lord that he was quick of understanding. We want to be just like that.
You who employ servants know the difference between those who must be told every time there is a thing to be done, and those whose eye is on their mistress; just a look from you, and that is enough. You need not speak at all; they know what they should do, and do it with alacrity. We want that kind of delicacy restored to us that we may know the Lord's will quickly, and not be as the horse or the mule, but ready to be moved at once by the will of God. We should not be like the Great Eastern, that wants a huge wave to move it, but like the feather on the lake, that is driven along by the softest breeze of the gale. Oh, to be delicately apprehensive of the mind of God, to know it, and to follow it! Sometimes life in certain parts of the body has been cultivated to such a high degree, that our bodily system is capable of much more than it has ever displayed.
Look at the red Indian, as he puts his ear to the ground and listens, and says, "They come!" Just so, if our ears get quickened, we shall hear the footsteps of the coming Lord, and say when others hear it not, "He comes!" We shall be like the Highland woman at Lucknow, who cried, "They are coming, they are coming!" She could hear the music of the Highlanders. Oh! to be able to hear the music of Heaven, and to say—
"Home of my soul, how near at times
Thy golden gates appear!"
To get sensitive to unseen things, and realize and see the things that are yet to be revealed to us!—Spurgeon.
Reasoning of Arctic Foxes.
By Waverley
DESIRING to obtain some Arctic foxes, Dr. Rae set various kinds of traps, but as the foxes knew these traps from previous experience, he was unsuccessful. Accordingly, he set a trap with which foxes in that part of the country are not familiar. This consisted of a loaded gun set upon a stand, pointing at the bait. A string connected the trigger of the gun with the bait, so that when the fox seized the bait he discharged the gun, and thus committed suicide. In this arrangement the gun was separated from the bait by a distance of about twenty yards, and the string which connected the trigger with the bait was concealed throughout nearly its whole distance in the snow.
The gun-trap thus set was successful in killing one fox, but not in killing a second, for the foxes afterward adopted either of two devices whereby to share the bait without injuring themselves. One of these devices was to bite through the string at its exposed part near the trigger, and the other device was to burrow up to the bait through the snow, at right angles to the line of fire, so that, although in this way they discharged the gun, they escaped without injury—the bait being pulled below the line of fire, before the string was drawn sufficiently tight to discharge the gun.
Now, both of these devices exhibited a wonderful degree of what, I think, must fairly be called the power of reasoning. I have carefully interrogated Dr. Rae on all the circumstances of the case, and he tells me that in that part of the world traps are never set with strings, so that there could have been no special association in the foxes' minds between strings and traps. Moreover, after the death of fox No. 1., the tracks on the snow showed that fox No. 2., notwithstanding the temptations offered by the bait, had expended a great deal of scientific observation on the gun before he undertook to sever the cord. Lastly, with regard to burrowing at right angles to the line of fire, Dr. Rae and a friend in whom he has confidence, observed the fact a sufficient number of times to satisfy themselves that the direction of the burrowing was really to be attributed to thought and not to chance.—Waverley.
Theology and the Bible
It was a good point which was made by a clergyman, at a recent ministerial gathering in Boston, that all true progress in theology must be secured through a better understanding of the Bible teachings; not through any un-biblical theories as to what God might have taught, or ought to have taught, to man. If any uninspired formulas of the ages are found to be at variance with the letter and spirit of the Bible text, they will have to give way before the pressure of intellectual and spiritual progress. But if any new theology is based only upon what uninspired men think is the fair or reasonable view of God's ways of working, without any Bible teachings on which to rest their thinking, that theology will not secure any permanent hold on the Christian mind, whether its advocacy be by European or American professors. There is no better way of finding out what God has said than to examine God's Bible.—S. S. Times.
Lying and the Truth
LYING is like trying to hide in a fog. If you move about, you are in danger of bumping your head against the truth; as soon as the fog blows up, you are gone anyhow.