Review and Herald, Vol. 36, No. 17. (10/11/1870)

Review and Herald

Oct 11, 1870

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 11, 1870

Science of the Bible.

THE LESSON OF THE CARDIFF GIANT.

The best geologists and archæologists of the State examined the Cardiff humbug. Some of them pronounced it a petrifaction of a once living man. Others pronounced it a “very high work of art,” and declared, “upon scientific principles,” that it must have been buried there by some unknown race, anterior to the history of the State, etc. Now, after such scientific humbug as this, in the name of common sense, we would like to ask those sage inspectors of fossils, if they expect us to throw away our Bibles upon such testimony as their science renders.

We happen to know one of these worshipers of “infallible science.” We have looked at some pictures in his book, which are said to represent bits of human skeletons fifty or one hundred thousand years old. Now, from their appearance to our dull eyes, and from the lesson of the Cardiff giant, we can but question whether they were more human than he, and whether their origin may not, after all, have been almost as recent as “His Highness from Fort Dodge.” Natural science is in its incipiency; and we may say of it as the Indian said of the white men, It is “mighty uncertain.” Thanks to the giant for this lesson; and let us keep our Bibles a little longer.

Ever since the modern revival of natural science, the Bible has been the object of periodical assault by the students of nature, and in the providence of God the force of these attacks has always been broken by later discoveries of men in their own ranks. Indeed, natural science in its developments has proved to be a “comedy of errors.” Some new thing is found in the bowels of the earth; some high priest of nature at once arises and announces with proud assurance the “unerring law of nature,” and draws some amazing conclusion, which overturns Moses’ account of the recent creation and unity of the human race. Soon another savant arises, institutes fresh researches, exposes the fallacious foundation of the former theory, and down comes the whole superstructure, like the “baseless fabric of a vision.” Eighty theories of natural science have from time to time been approved by the French Academy, all of which are now condemned by that association of nature’s interpreters.

The Bible cannot tally with all the theories of natural science; and it is really one presumptive proof of its divinity, that it does not perfectly tally with any. Some geologists hold that the universe at first consisted of matter in a gaseous or nebular state. Others, as eminent, reject the theory. Some fill the earth with molten matter in furious combustion; others with gas; and still others have lately assured us that granite, hitherto considered of igneous formation, and the oldest rock is of comparative recent origin, that it was elaborated with water, and that there is no more heat at the center of the earth than at the surface.

Graphite, magnetic iron, and even fossils, have been found in granite, which could not be if it were of igneous formation. Moreover, it is found that the temperature diminishes as you approach the center of the earth, in some places, as in Chicago, which facts are held to evince that, though fire exists near the surface in various parts, the great central portion of the earth is not in a state of combustion. If this be true, every modern system of geology must be modified or abandoned.

Dr. Robert Patterson, of Chicago, has adduced a large number of interesting blunders of geologists which bear upon the alleged antiquity of man. He might now add that of the Cardiff Giant. He says:

“These men seem to be like men who dream, or as if their imaginations have become so accustomed to ages and milleniums that they are incapable of sober calculations of years and days. When they venture on such calculation for the future, they are almost invariably disappointed. For instance, when in 1820 the Russian philosopher, Dr. Hamel, and his party, were swept along the grand plateau of Mt. Blanc by an avalanche of snow, carrying three of his guides into a crevasse, where they perished, he alluded to the possibility of the re-appearance of their remains, by the slow action of the glacier, after an interval of some thousands of years. In August, 1861, they were discovered and recognized upon the surface of the glacier. From the correctness of this calculation of a future date, we may infer the accuracy of geological chronology of the unknown past.

“Peat bogs, in which human remains have been found at the depth of twelve feet, whence a great antiquity was inferred, have been found to grow a foot in five years. In thirty-six hours a green tree is converted into a fossil in California, and into lignite in a week; while before your eyes you behold the hardest porphyry converted into potter’s clay, and the hardest granite so softened by the acidulated atmosphere that you can crush or cut it as easily as unbaked bread. I have seen this metamorphic action affecting all the strata of the Nepa Valley. Vegetation runs riot amid this excess of carbonic acid. This discovery at once accelerates the formation of the carboniferous plants many milleniums, besides showing the folly of Lyell’s calculations of the slow erosion of lavas by streams in Auvergne.

On the coast of England, flints have been found, the stony covering of which has so completely the aspect of ancient rock, as to warrant the conclusion that they were the growth of countless ages; but on removing the flinty matrix you find a coin bearing the head of an Edward, a James, even a George; or a bolt or an anchor bearing the mark of some existing firm. We have had men counting the successive thin layers of delta and sedimentary deposits as indications of so many floods; but we know now that these give no such traces, as a mass of fine clay deposited in quiet water will stratify in a few hours, into dozens of layers.

The best modern geologists now prove that the river beds were not excavated by the existing rivers, and some of them not by rivers at all, but that they are earthquake chasms.

Lyell, and a score of other savants, gravely cite the researches of Herner, who bored down seventy feet into the soil of Egypt for bits of brick and pottery, and calculated that the Nile had been depositing that seventy feet of mud over them during the last thirty thousand years. The matter was solemnly reported to the British Association, and the French Institute, and not one of these learned men had common sense enough to put the question in its proper form, namely, How long will a brickbat require to sink seventy feet into a mud bank? The whole valley of the Nile is only a vast mud bed every year during the inundation; and the brickbats probably reach their bed in one season. At any rate, bricks of the reign of Mohammed Ali have been found deeper than Herner’s.

Such facts as these, which are frequently occurring, should teach us the uncertainty of science, and the folly of allowing its transient theories to shake our faith in the sure word of God. We close by simply stating them, with a word of counsel for each case.

1. The meaning of the Bible may be obscure, and the revelation of science may be clear. Then let science interpret the Bible.

2. Science may be obscure, and the Bible clear. Now let the Bible interpret science.

3. If both Bible and science should appear clear and contradictory, hold on to the Bible, and wait for further developments in science.—Selected.

THE HARVEST IS PASSING.

By A. M. A. Cornell

TUNE—Eden Above.

Come, sinner, to Jesus while now he invites thee, To his earnest pleading thy willing ear lend. Then Oh! linger not, for he soon may reject thee; The harvest is passing, the summer will end.

Cho.—Will you come, will you come, will you come, will you come? Oh! come to the Saviour; no longer delay.

The Spirit is wooing and angels are waiting, And Jesus the message of pardon will send; Then bow at his feet thy transgressions confessing; The harvest is passing, the summer will end.

Cho.—Will you come? &c.

Oh! think not to gain, while thou livest in pleasure, The favor of Jesus, the sinner’s dear friend; But seek for, and lay up in Heaven, thy treasure; The harvest is passing, the summer will end.

Cho.—Will you come? &c.

The last warning message is now being given, And soon in the clouds will the Saviour descend, The work now is closing on earth and in Heaven; The harvest is passing, the summer will end.

Cho.—Will you come? &c.

Then hasten thy flight from destruction impending, And cease with thy Maker to longer contend; Despise not the Saviour for thee interceding, The harvest is passing, the summer will end.

Cho.—Will you come? &c.

Oh! give thy Redeemer thy heart’s best affections, And now to his lessons of wisdom attend, Let his blessed teachings be thy meditations; The harvest is passing, the summer will end.

Cho.—Will you come? &c.

A. M. A. Cornell.

Keep Thy Shop, and Thy Shop Will Keep Thee

Keep thy shop, and thy shop will keep thee.

The Aspect of Europe.

The swift progress of great events in Europe may well fill him who watches them with an unspeakable sense of wonder and awe. The life of centuries seems to be crowded into a single year. The whole aspect of a continent passes from one phase to another as swiftly as the scenes of a magic lantern. All prophecy is baffled; the most self-confident lose courage to predict, and can only look in mute wonder for the birth of the next hour. We have seen the two foremost nations of Europe clash together in sudden shock; from the one there has shone out courage, discipline, intelligence, in their highest forms, while the other has revealed an all-pervading and almost hopeless weakness. Victory has followed victory in dazzling succession; but with such loss of life and infliction of suffering as were never known before. At the same time the government of the empire has fallen like a dead tree before a storm, and France again calls herself Republican. Now the proudest and most brilliant capital of Europe is closely beleaguered by confident foes. Meanwhile Rome has been seized by the kingdom of Italy, and the pope’s temporal power has fallen. Vague tremors and throes throughout Europe have responded to the Republican war-cry of France. The Italian monarchy feels the ground uncertain under its feet. England stands openly confessing that it has no longer any power to influence continental affairs. And now word comes that Russia is turning an armed front toward the jewel of her eye, the long-coveted Constantinople. From such a chaos of accomplished wonders and looming portents, who can say what forms will at last emerge?

There are certain aspects on which the eye dwells with especial intentness. It seems next to certain that the first issue joined is already settled, that France must become by the side of Prussia what Austria already is, and a great Germanic nation be the dominant power of Central and Southern Europe. Then comes the absorbing inquiry as to what form national governments will assume. Shall we see now that great triumph of the Democratic impulse which has so long been predicted? Here we feel our scrutiny for the present entirely baffled. It is a bad augury for the Democratic cause that France, which was expected to be its foremost representative, has suffered such loss and shown such weakness. A Republic within it, born of defeat and humiliation, could hardly be the terrible leader in a crusade against kings that was the France of ’92. Of Italy no one knows what to expect. If national good fortune could avert internal change, her monarchy might be thought safe. For the third time within eleven years, it has richly profited by the quarrels of its neighbors. Rome has fallen to it, as Lombardy and Venice fell to it, as an incident in the struggles of greater powers. Yet there is something volcanic in the Italian people, which may be only stimulated to greater activity by this last triumph. No one can say that in a week Victor Emmanuel may not be a fugitive before Garibaldi and Mazzini, yet no one would dare predict such an event.

From this we turn to a wholly different side of affairs, the bearing of the pope’s loss of Rome upon the religious question. This seems to be generally regarded as but slight; it being assumed that the spiritual power of the papacy will be little affected by the event. But as a sign, rather than as a cause, it seems to us of the greatest moment. The party that triumphed in the Council and controls the church is the Ultramontane school. That party has been devoted to the pope’s temporal power; and now on this great point they have been utterly worsted in the Catholic Kingdom of Italy. It is a sign that the power of the Ultramontanists, and of the Catholic church, is utterly feeble in Italy, where they have been so completely overridden on this important point. The will of the Catholic church on what it considers a great matter, has been contemptuously overborne. If the papacy is weak in Italy, where is it strong? Of Italy’s Catholic neighbors, probably France and Austria are even more alienated than herself. Spain may perhaps be counted firm, and so may Ireland. But Southern Europe for the most part is rapidly becoming lost to the Church of Rome. No wonder she puts forth her best efforts in England and America,—she has good need.

We shall touch briefly on another point, for the reason that the facts regarding it do not yet seem to be strongly authenticated. Russia is said to be massing her troops on the borders of Turkey, and giving signs of aggression there. It will be strange if the news is not true. For this seems the very conjuncture for which Russia has been watching long and patiently. If she demands Constantinople, who shall say her nay? Not England, for out of her own dominions England is nobody. Not France; not Austria; not Prussia, who when less engaged might be disposed to make this the issue on which to try her strength with her only remaining rival. Turkey would be but the sheep in the bear’s paw. Let Russia win Constantinople, and make the Black Sea a Russian lake, and her power will be what would hitherto have been thought more than a match for any single European State. We might then see events which would fulfill the first Napoleon’s words, that in fifty years Europe would be all Cossack or all Republican.

We are like those who look upon a thunder storm, in which man’s fate seems to hang on mighty causes before whose power he trembles and is powerless. —Christian Union.

The Book of Books.

By R. Payne Smith

“WHATSOEVER things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.” Rom. 15:4.

We, most of us, are so used to the proposition affirmed by St. Paul, that probably it does not strike us with the force which so remarkable a phenomenon would exert upon us, if we were brought face to face with it for the first time. For the assertion is this, that in a considerable number of short treatises, several of them, themselves compiled from more ancient documents, written by the men of one nation, but at distant intervals, under very different states of outward circumstances and inward development, there is a unity of purpose, common in a greater or less degree to them all; and that this purpose was not anything national, not anything contemporaneous with the writers, nor even fully understood by them, but was something future, and for the weal or woe of all mankind. . . . Add to their works the writings of a few more Jews: some fishermen, a tax-gatherer, a physician of Antioch, and a citizen of Tarsus, and you have a book with few external charms, which does not allure its readers by its beauty, of one part of which the language is so alien to our studies that even of the clergy few know the letters of its alphabet, while of the other part the Greek is so unpolished that your fastidious student, who prefers his style to his soul, shuns its perusal; yet this book is in every house, is read daily by countless multitudes, is said by these multitudes to give them strength for the struggle of life, and comfort under its sorrows. It is translated into all languages, and poured forth from the press by millions, is the subject of daily debate and controversy, divides nations into hostile parties according as they take one view or another of its meaning, so that even the gender of a pronoun becomes in it a matter of earnest debate. A bad translation of this book exercises a depressing influence upon a nation's advance in civilization; a good translation is one of the great levers in a nation's rise. By translating this book, Luther molded the German language into shape and consistency, and made it a fit vehicle for expressing the thoughts of those great writers whose names are now everywhere as household words. Our own translation, so elevated and noble, however deficient it may be in exactness, is the mainstay of our language, the means whereby its purity is maintained at home and abroad, and the bond which unites our colonists to their mother-land. Nor is this all. In proportion as men study this book and act upon it, they become more just, more temperate, more self-denying, more willing to labor for the good of others; while its neglect leads to luxury, to self-indulgence, to the loosening of the reins of our passions, to national weakness and private infamy. Destroy this book, with its “enthusiasm for humanity,” and no one can even suggest any other influence capable of counterbalancing the materialism of life, and of checking the tendency of increased wealth, and larger command over the powers of nature, to pleasure and an effeminate luxury. Destroy this book, and the poverty which grows more deep and dark and desperate as the wealth of the nation in the aggregate increases, will have nothing to give it consolation; nothing to alleviate it with lessons of patience; nothing to ennoble it and strengthen it by faith in a future world, where the cruel inequalities of our present social state will exist no more. Destroy this book, and the bond between rich and poor is gone. There is nothing henceforward to speak to both alike of a God who is no respecter of persons; whom rich and poor must both obey, and who will surely succor the poor who trust in him. The suffering Christ, the Man of Sorrows, the cross meekly borne, leading onward to the immortal crown,—there will be naught of this to comfort the afflicted. The glorified Christ, coming with all power as judge of quick and dead, and in that judgment putting the poor into his own place,—there will be naught of this to bid the rich man seek out the poor, and minister to him. To eat and drink and die, that will be man's all.

Among the mass of mankind,—and we must remember that the object of religion is to find a motive power that will influence, not one or two extraordinary minds, but the great mass of ordinary people;—among the mass of mankind, a man is, in the main, just, sober, industrious, temperate, chaste, in exact proportion as he studies and values his Bible. So general, in short, is its influence, that the very student of physical science takes more interest in his facts and theories in proportion as they seem to bear upon some statement of Holy Scripture, or upon some gloss currently put upon its words: and many a so-called scientific treatise is in reality a theological argument.

Spoken, then, primarily of the Old Testament, St. Paul's Scriptures, “they were written for our learning;” and the whole atmosphere of English thought still, in the middle of this nineteenth century, is saturated with their teaching. The very bitterness with which they are attacked, is an unconscious testimony to their importance. If they were powerless, without influence; if men could even shake themselves personally free from their influence, they would then be regarded with philosophic indifference—with that calmness with which thinking men profess to study the problems of human life. Now it would be contrary to the whole tenor of the Bible to expect such a state of calm; to expect a time in which there would not be strong opposition to Christianity; in which it would not have an up-hill fight, and men be compelled to win their way to its peace and blessedness by a severe struggle. It would be contrary, too, to the whole tenor of the Bible to expect that even in the church the fierce contest of passion will cease; that it will not be rent by opposing parties, and weakened in doing its Master's work far more by schisms within than by any and all opposition from without. But that sword of which our Lord spake is still wielded as trenchantly as ever. With unabated earnestness we still contend against one another and against the world. Our religious opinions or irreligious, our faith or our skepticism, hold the foremost, the dearest place in our minds. None but the tame and feeble and irresolute are indifferent in the strife. Christianity is not dead nor dying. It is not yet a stagnant pool of moribund and worn-out theories; the spirit of life still broods over its waters, and quickens it with energy, with activity, with power. Strange that it should be so! Strange, humanly speaking! Strange, unless there be in the Bible something more than human, some direct speaking and utterance of God! How could the words of a Galilean peasant, and the few fishermen with whom he consorted, thus for eighteen centuries be a law to the civilized world, if they were merely human? And why should scientific men, in this advanced and advancing age, care to look so constantly behind them, and busy themselves with the inquiry whether every statement in a Jewish cosmogony

written many thousand years ago, agrees exactly and literally with their theories, if that cosmogony was a mere speculation? We do not quarrel over the egg in which Brahm created himself, and then floated majestically over the waters during a period of countless ages, till finally, growing tired of his narrow quarters, he parted it asunder, and formed the sky and the earth from its divided portions. We have no counter theories with which to explain, defend, or attack that egg. Nothing in the world depends upon it. In India itself no one cares for it. But a great deal does depend upon the first chapter of Genesis; and it is a note of the value of Holy Scripture that, written as that record was for an entirely different purpose, it should yet excite so great and sustained an interest in a matter completely subsidiary to its main object.—DR. R. PAYNE SMITH, in Prophecy a Preparation for Christ.

Signs of the Times.

By A. H. Lewis

These are years in which revolutions come like avalanches, unlooked-for, and swift. Little children remember when the “first gun was fired on Sumpter.” Those a little older recall the time when none but “half-crazy” dreamers dared to predict any such change in American politics within a century as has taken place within a decade. Three months ago, men talked about the possibility of a war in Europe. The cloud gathered there in an hour. The first shock of the storm is over. Haughty Napoleon, and that poor old man, the “Infallible,” lie in the dust together. Tortured France struggles for a better government, while a victorious foe tightens his grasp upon her throat, dictates peace at the gates of her capital. Rome is surrendered, and the long-delayed dream of “Italian unity” is changing to reality. The “Sublime Porte” is arming hastily, and self-reliant Russia threatens war, lest Germany become too strong, and the traditional “balance of power” be lost. Between these greater events of this decade, are sandwiched scores of lesser ones, which pass unregarded, while the world holds its breath in wonder at the scenes amid which things whirl along.

These political revolutions are preparing the way for corresponding ones in religion. The thoughts relative to the establishment of the papal power in the United States, which we expressed three weeks ago, are being confirmed by the events of each day. The means for successfully opposing such a result, are wanting. The internal religious life of “orthodox” Protestantism grows weaker daily. It fares badly, being ground between the upper millstone of Spiritualism and the nether one of Rationalism, while its own compromises weaken and drag backward toward the papacy. Thus the true spiritual power of American Protestantism is steadily lessening, while the growing tendency toward a practical union of Church and State, affords a powerful impulse in the wrong direction.

If the currents of the world were sent back a few years, Mexico might open a door to the fleeing “Infallible One,” and offer a hope of temporal power with royal surroundings. But the tragic fate of Maximilian is too close at hand, and the people have tasted too deeply of Republicanism, to accept or permit another monarchy. A few years ago, they might have done this through religious allegiance; but that day is also passed. We are assured by a friend—Wm. B. Maxson, Esq., Plainfield, N. J.—who has lately spent some months in Mexico, that the best minds and the most earnest hearts, in both political and religious circles, are joining in what is called the “Protestant movement.” At least twenty congregations in the city of Mexico are worshiping with primitive Christian simplicity, and gathering daily from among all ranks of the people those who “hear the word gladly.”

Thus the influences at home and abroad combine to turn the tide of papal influence into the United States, and our disordered and weakened religious life gives great promise of its success.

Amid the din of this increasing storm, there are voices of hope for the cause of the Sabbath. Through these hurtling clouds, there come gleams of light. The Sabbath will be accepted only when the Sunday dies. Sunday will die, as all great errors die, by that reaction which comes whenever, like “vaulting ambition,” they overleap themselves. To bring this about, Sunday must meet with vigorous opposition, such as will arouse its pride and its ire. The elements of such an opposition are at work in the United States—are growing rapidly.

Thus, in ways unseen by men, God has prepared the channels, and is pouring the influences upon these shores, which are to make this the theater of a grand struggle on the Sabbath question. It is blessed to be accounted worthy of a place among those who stand for the truth.—A. H. LEWIS, in Sabbath Recorder.

How Some People Die.

ALL death-beds resemble each other in suffering, in seriousness, in solitude. One look of death makes everybody in earnest. Every death-bed is hung round and round with photographs of sin, of hell, of eternity. There is overwhelming interest in watching a young man moving up reluctantly to the sword of the king of terrors. Old age waiting for the final stroke moves our pity. If we were not wicked in heart, no preacher on earth would impress us like death.

Having one day accidentally met a doctor, I was requested by him to visit one of his patients who was near her end. I found her in an upper room of a poor tavern, in almost every kind of discomfort. It was not difficult to see “death's pale ensign” over her face. Having set the Lord Jesus before her as tenderly as I could, and having endeavored to suit the message of mercy, by varieties of simple language, to her condition, I wished to know the workings of her mind, and asked her—Will you come to Jesus for pardon and redemption? Once and again she answered me—it was the only answer I could get—“Yes, when I am better.” A few hours after, when I again called, she was dead.

Have you ever considered, my reader, the hardship the laboring poor have to suffer for want of suitable houses to live in? It may be that you have a ceiled and cedared mansion of your own, the comforts of which prevent you from thinking of life in a hut or a garret. That men with minds and bodies like your own should be doomed in such large numbers to the tenancy of rooms unfit for human habitation—and that at a time when riches and their attendant luxuries are so largely possessed around them, is surely a great evil under the sun—an evil for which God will visit.

Of all the abodes of the poor, the garret of a public house is the worst. There is no peace—there is no Sabbath—there is no home. And there are the foul scenes of intoxication to be witnessed day and night. The ameliorating influences of society, education, and religion, are generally shut out. Brought up among the orgies of drink, what can the poor man's children be?—what can his wife be!—what can he be himself! Habits of worship, of cleanliness, of industry, of sobriety, are gradually given up; and the family has started on their career of ruin.

My poor dying friend, I found, had lived for years in the tavern, had probably made too free with drink, had lived an ungodly life; and now, while face to face with death, refused to see the danger, and clung to the hope of life when there was no hope. She felt that the work of suffering was enough for her just then; and, as to the salvation of Christ, it should be attended to when she got well.

The conduct of the dying woman impressed me much. She spoke out fearlessly what many other people feel, but do not say. She was unwilling and unfit to die. She had no doubt about that—and she would seek Christ, but not now. She could not die at this time, and she would not. She had years to live yet; and when health would come back, she would lead a virtuous life. Oh! fearful delusion—deep as hell.

The unsaved, when drawing near their end, open the Bible and send for the minister. They are attentive to his teachings, and earnestly unite with him in his prayers. They will quote texts, and profess penitence, and express confidence in Christ. They generally enter the ocean of eternity in the ship called “Carnal Security.” They have no bands in their death. They are quite sure of entering the kingdom of Heaven.

I have found that the greatest sinners frequently leave the world in this way. Is it not strange, my reader, that there are many men whose eyes are so shut that not even death can open them? Sin is not sin to them; hell is not hell to them; the Jehovah of the Bible is a God with whom they have nothing to do.

My poor acquaintance had once, I understood, made a profession of religion. When the bloom of youth was upon her, she had attended the house of God, and heard the gospel of his grace. Marriage came, and a charge of home came, and little children came, and drink came, and apostasy came, and death came, and then came—Oh! my God, what a fearful history this—to how many, poor and rich, does it apply!

It is not often that a man or a woman who lays the religious profession aside through sin, ever seriously takes it up again. The green tree blasted by lightning withers away. The heart that, knowing better, deliberately chooses sinful things, is generally abandoned to them. There is an accursed calm about backsliders as they live without God, and dispense, like brute beasts, with even the semblance of religion. It settles down on them gradually. They are placid as a mountain lake—no storm nor trouble can ruffle their bosom. The deepest and most helpless sleepers I know are those who, having once enjoyed a powerful gospel ministry, are fallen into the arms of spiritual death. They are comfortable in sin.

The poor woman put off her salvation till health came; and alas! she perished. Are you sure, my gentle reader, that you are not doing the same? You intend to seek the Lord when you grow up to maturity—when you have learned your trade, or left school and college—when you get a house of your own—when your fortune is made, and a serene old age is reached. You are very busy now—working, sinning, suffering—and you cannot come to Jesus. Your plans of pleasure and profit are ripening every hour, and when you have drained the cup of indulgence and success, you expect to turn to the Lord.

This is the way souls have sinned and perished from the beginning of the world. Sinner, pause and pray. You have a soul to be saved. You are under sentence of death—a sentence that may be executed any moment. To perish in your sins is to perish eternally. God is just, and will by no means clear you. Beware of that life of placid ease which irreligious men generally lead. Through the faith of the name of the Lord Jesus, you may have the remission of sins. By the grace of the Holy Ghost you may enter the strait gate. Oh, think of eternal life, and serve Him who bestows it. There is nothing on earth so awful as an impenitent death-bed.—Sterling Tract.

The Last Argument.

HERE is an item which may be of interest to you sometime. If at any time you may attend a controversy on religious matters, and notice that either of the parties become angry or abusive, you may almost be sure he is on the wrong side. He who is always contending for what he regards as truth, with the love of truth in his heart, will never need to become angry, or act in any way unworthy of a gentleman. Abuse is the last resort of those who cannot maintain a position, and yet are determined to adhere to it, right or wrong. The last argument the chief priests and Pharisees brought against the teachings of Jesus was the scourge, the thorny crown, and the Roman cross. And when the Jews disputed with Stephen, and were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake, they gnashed on him with their teeth, thrust him out of their city, and stoned him. The same spirit is still in the world; but it is never found with them who love the truth, and are determined to follow it.—Sel.

Writing Your Name in Kindness and Mercy

WRITE your name in kindness, love, and mercy, on the hearts of those with whom you come in contact, and you will never be forgotten.

A.D. 1844: The Close of the 2300 Years

By R. F. Cottrell

A. D. 1844.

AROUND this date cluster many important events which are noted in prophecy; so much so, that it forms a new era in prophetic fulfillment. The believing student of prophecy and its fulfillment can see that a great change took place there, and that momentous predicted events hinge upon, and radiate from, this date.

Here terminated the great prophetic period of 2300 years. Of this there can be no doubt in the mind of any one who has thoroughly investigated the subject. “To seal up the vision and prophecy,”—to make it certain beyond the possibility of mistake—the gauge of seventy weeks or 490 years is given. This seventy weeks is cut off from the 2300 years, and consequently begins with, and gives date to, the whole. Examining this gauge or measuring rod, we find at its commencement the commandment to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. Passing along seven weeks, or forty nine years, we find a spur in the gauge indicating the end of the work of rebuilding. At the end of “threescore and two weeks” more, that is, sixty-nine weeks or 483 years from the first date, another spur points out the commencement of the personal ministry of “Messiah the Prince;” three years and a half further on, in the midst of the seventieth and last week, another points to the crucifixion; and still three and a half years onward, at the end of the confirmation of the gospel covenant especially with the Jewish people and the turning to the Gentiles, we find the last spur of the gauge. Laying this gauge upon the period of 2300 years, supposing it to commence in the fall of the year, 457 before Christ, we find each spur pointing to the exact time of the several events indicated. Forty-nine years from this date the restoring and building of Jerusalem is complete; 434 years more, or 483 from the first date, and we find the Messiah proclaiming to Israel, “The time is fulfilled; repent and believe the gospel;” three and a half years more, in the spring of A. D. 31, Messiah is “cut off in the midst of the week;” and three and a half more, and the special work for the Jews is done, bringing us to the fall of A. D. 34. Here is complete harmony throughout.

But supposing the 2300 years to commence at any other date besides 457 before Christ, and every spur or point in the measuring rod given by the angel will be out of place—they will not point the place of one of the events we have named—and hence we are shut up to the conclusion that the beginning date is B. C. 457, and hence the 2300 days end in A. D. 1844.

Besides the chronological and historical proof that the period began in B. C. 457, we have several events confirmatory of the view that they did actually terminate in 1844.

1. As we drew near to that point of time the predicted proclamation of Rev. 14: 6, 7, was raised. “Fear God, and give glory to him, for the hour of his judgment is come,” was indeed proclaimed with a loud voice.

2. A general spirit of awakening and revival prevailed, and thousands sought the Lord, as the fruit of the advent proclamation.

3. But before reaching the fall of 1844, a general spirit of opposition to the Advent doctrine was manifest with the leading religionists of the time, so much so that earnest Christians were rejected from churches for no other reason than that they cherished and rejoiced in the hope that Jesus was soon coming; and living and acting as though they believed it, and were anxious that themselves and others should be prepared to pass the searching test of the Judgment.

4. Here the cry was raised, as predicted in Rev. 14: 8, “Babylon is fallen, is fallen;” and when the point of time was reached, the Adventists stood out by themselves, disappointed, and exposed to the scoffs and jeers of those who had rejected them and despised their hope.

5. Here a “dead calm ensues, and Heaven no breezes gives.” Those who loved the Lord were using the “oar of prayer,” while their exulting foes were made to feel that they themselves had been forsaken by the Spirit of God, and that, instead of a spirit of revival, a “great spiritual dearth” was everywhere prevalent. During this calm, which lasted till about 1848 (a date remarkable for its startling events), the way was preparing for future action.

6. Here Spiritualism was let loose upon a spiritless church, and the scripture had a striking fulfillment which says, “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.” Truth had been rejected and despised, and Satan is permitted to come in with a flood of infidelity. Of the wonderful and unprecedented “progress” of this delusion I need not speak. This did not come without a cause. Satan was as ready to work before; but he was not permitted till a certain point in apostasy had been reached.

7. Here, too, that spirit of revival came into those meetings called “Union”—a mere conglomeration of heterogeneous and discordant materials—which would not tolerate a prayer for the oppressed and downtrodden slave. Since that a military conversion on this subject has been experienced.

8. Here too the anger of the nations begins which will not be appeased till it is crushed out in the “battle of the great day,” when God shall make “wars to cease unto the end of the earth,” by breaking the bow, cutting the spear in sunder, and burning the chariots in the fire. Witness the revolutions in Europe of 1848, and the unceasing preparations for war throughout the world ever since.

9. And last, but, though apparently small, not the least, in my estimation, the light of the last message of mercy, Rev. 14: 9-12, was seen arising like the dawn of the morning. Amid the noisy croakings of unclean spirits and the premonitory throbs of political, as well as physical, earthquakes, it is doing its solemn and fearful work. Other movements look great compared with this, but this is great, because it is of God. His right hand will get the victory.

Truly 1844 is a remarkable date.

R. F. COTTRELL.

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