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Review and Herald, Vol. 85, No. 24.

Important Publications

Review and Herald

Jun 11, 1908

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 11, 1908

Important Publications

for

SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISTS

Early Writings

Mrs. E. G. White
The first writings of Sister White, including “Spiritual Gifts” and “Experience and Views.”
This book contains the pith of the messages sent to Seventh-day Adventists. It is really a text-book, which should be read and studied by every member of the denomination.
How necessary that we should read and study these chapters which describe the experiences soon to be passed through by this people.
Such chapters as “The Shaking,” “The Little Flock,” “The Seven Last Plagues and the Judgment,” and “The Sealing,” will be read many times with increasing interest.
PRICES Cloth .......................... $ .75 Leather ........................ 1.25 Pocket Edition Paper covers ................... $ .35 Flexible leather ............... 1.25

Testimonies for the Church

Volumes I-VIII
Contain the messages of warning and encouragement sent direct to the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Every member should have access to these volumes. Especially is this so just now, when every method is being tried to draw the attention of our people away from the work they have to do.
If you do not have a set in your home, wouldn’t it be well to order one now?
Possibly the church library is without these books also. Then you should lose no time in bringing the matter before the members.
PRICES Full sets: Red flexible leather...... $11.50             Cloth .................... 7.50 Single Volumes: I-VI, red leather...... $1.50, post-paid VII, VIII, red leather.. 1.25 " I-VI, cloth ............. 1.00 " VII, VIII, cloth ....... .75 "

Keep a Permanent Record of Your Work

It is necessary for every conference laborer to have, in some convenient form, a record of his work. To meet this demand we have just prepared the—
CONFERENCE LABORERS’ RECORD
Every worker will want a copy of this book in which to keep a permanent record of his work. It will make the task of preparing a monthly, quarterly, or annual report a very simple matter.
The book is intended to last one year. The first part is devoted to the monthly record, one space for each day. This is followed by two pages for the annual summary. A section is then left for a cash account, and the balance of the book is ruled with spaces for appointments, addresses, and committees.
Substantially bound. Size, 4¼ x 6¾ inches.
Price, post-paid ............ $.50

A Few Copies Left

If you are still without the “Year-Book” for 1908, you should send in your order now. This pamphlet marks another milestone in the progress of the Seventh-day Adventist denomination. Its contents are inspiring.
The New Maps show the territory of each union and local conference and mission field. The conference headquarters and the location of each institution are also shown.
The Statistical Tables will interest you. They show the substantial gains in membership, and the financial prosperity, which have attended the institutional efforts.
The Directories are another feature not to be overlooked. They give the office address of each conference, institution, and mission field; also the addresses of all the regular conference laborers.
If you wish to keep informed on the progress of the work in all parts of the world, order the “Year-Book.”
Price ........................ $ .25
Address any tract society or publishing house, or
REVIEW AND HERALD PUBLISHING ASSN.
Battle Creek, Mich.    WASHINGTON, D. C.    New York City

Christian Living Is Practical

CHRISTIAN living is intensely practical. It means the application of the right principles in the daily experience of life. It means discharging every duty as unto the Lord and not unto man. It means the exhibition of a forgiving spirit under all circumstances, even under actual injury. It means to esteem others better than ourselves. It means to think on the things which are pure, and lovely, and of good report. It means to be considerate of the feelings and the misfortunes of others. It means temperance in all things, refusing entirely the things which are harmful, and using in a proper way the things which are good. It means faithfulness in little things as the basis of faithfulness in greater things. It means all this and much more, all included in that comprehensive rule, “All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.” The world needs the testimony and the influence of such Christian experience.

The Old-New Gospel

Saved by Believing

ETERNAL life is a gift from God. “The wages of sin is death; but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
This gift of life is received by receiving Christ the Son of God. “The witness is this, that God gave unto us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath the life; he that hath not the Son of God hath not the life.”
Christ is received by believing on him. “As many as received him, to them gave he the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name.”
This is the experience for which the apostle Paul prayed in behalf of all believers: “For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, that ye may be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; to the end that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled unto all the fulness of God.”
This is the gospel of Christ, set forth in these few words: “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life.” But the Christ who is our life is also our righteousness: “Of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness.” And as life is the gift of God, so also is righteousness: “For if, by the trespass of the one, death reigned through the one; much more shall they that receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one, even Jesus Christ.”
This righteousness is received by believing on Christ (or receiving Christ), and is in marked contrast with the righteousness of the law or righteousness by works: “If any other man thinketh to have confidence in the flesh, I yet more: circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee; as touching zeal, persecuting the church; as touching the righteousness which is in the law, found blameless. Howbeit what things were gain to me, these have I counted loss for Christ. Yea verily, and I count all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but refuse, that I may gain Christ, and be found in him, not having a righteousness of mine own, even that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith.” The righteousness thus received through faith in Christ is not an excuse for sin nor a substitute for good works. The instruction concerning this is clear: “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein?” “We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God afore prepared that we should walk in them.”
Neither does the faith which apprehends this righteousness set aside the law of God. Read these words: “Now apart from the law a righteousness of God hath been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ unto all them that believe; for there is no distinction; for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God set forth to be a propitiation, through faith, in his blood, to show his righteousness because of the passing over of the sins done aforetime, in the forbearance of God; for the showing, I say, of his righteousness at this present season: that he might himself be just, and the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus. . . . Do we then make the law of none effect through faith? God forbid: nay,we establish the law.” The purpose of the gospel is to restore the moral image of God in man in order that the divine character may be revealed in conduct in harmony with God’s law, the transcript of his character. This was the aim in the gift of Christ: “What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”
A brief outline of the essential features of the gospel may be deduced from the passages of scripture already quoted: (1) Eternal life is the gift of God; (2) this life is inseparable from Christ, and is imparted by giving Christ to the human family; (3) Christ is received as our life by believing on him; (4) when thus received, he dwells in the heart as the very life of our life; (5) he who is our life is also our righteousness; (6) thus life and righteousness are equally the gift of God, and both are received by believing; (7) life and righteousness are bestowed, not in order to perpetuate sin, but as a means of salvation from sin; (8) the experience of salvation from sin, is manifested in a life of obedience to the law of God—the obedience of faith.
This is the gospel for all times, all places, and all peoples; and there has never been any other gospel, and there never can be any other gospel. It is true that the full light of this gospel did not shine out all at once, but there has been no change in the way of salvation since the good news of victory over sin and Satan was made known in the garden of Eden. In the various crises in the history of God’s work in the earth the gospel message has been proclaimed with special reference to the needs of the time, or in view of some impending event, as the flood, the first advent, etc., but the vital features of salvation by faith have ever been the same.
The threefold message of Rev. 14: 6-12 is “the everlasting gospel” preached in all the world as a means of preparing a people to meet the Lord. It is not a new gospel, neither does it present a new way of salvation. Like John the Baptist, it says, “Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of repentance;” and it insists that this fruit means obedience to the commandments of God, but it also teaches that this obedience must be the fruit of salvation and not the price of salvation. The coming of the Lord is the key-note of this last gospel message, and righteousness by faith—saved by believing rather than by doing—should be its burden. In no other way can a people be prepared to stand with boldness in this closing hour of God’s judgment.
The thoughts presented in this article may aid in the study of the Sabbath-school lesson for June 20, the subject of which is “The Everlasting Gospel.”

Editorial

By Editor

CHRISTIAN experience consists in living like a Christian, and to live like a Christian is to live like Christ, and to live like Christ is to live the life of Christ, and Christ dwelling in the heart by faith is the only one who can live his own life. It is plain therefore that a genuine Christian experience requires an indwelling Saviour.
“Wonderful Saviour is Christ within!”

Accept Christ as Your Saviour

In the face of the most complete provision for our salvation we may be lost if we refuse to exercise the faith by which we lay hold upon this provision. God has given his Son to be the Saviour of the world, but this wondrous gift is in vain, so far as any individual is concerned who will not accept Christ as his personal Saviour. “There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.”
“O believe, and receive, and confess him, That all his salvation may know.”

The Rise and Fall of Religious Liberty in America

By C. M. S.

The Brave Stand of the Anabaptists

THE exaltation of the pope above Christ; the papal determination to extinguish the gospel and traffic in the “souls of men” (Rev. 18:13); the cruel persecutions of the Roman Catholic Church against those who would be free in Christ,—these ripened the world for the great religious revolution of the sixteenth century.
The gospel of soul-freedom proclaimed by Luther and others, together with their later denial of, and opposition to, the principles of that freedom, ripened the world for a vigorous campaign in the interests of a free conscience. The first step out of bondage was justification by faith; the second was its logical result,—religious liberty.
Two citations here must suffice to show the conditions in Reformation times. Rev. S. A. Swaine, in his work, “The Religious Revolution in the Sixteenth Century,” page 108, says: “In the same year [1519], six men and a woman were burnt alive at Coventry [England], for the crime of teaching their children the Lord’s prayer, the Apostles’ Creed, and the Ten Commandments, in the common tongue. In 1521, the year in which Henry received the title of Defender of the Faith, the most horrible cruelties were practised on some simple folk in the diocese of Lincoln for their adhesion to evangelical doctrines.” Tyndale had translated the New Testament into the speech of the common people. Concerning its reception Swaine says: “The most energetic measures were being taken against that formidable book—formidable to the papacy and the devil—the New Testament. The clergy everywhere inveighed against it, as containing an ‘infectious poison.’ The bishop of London, on the 24th of October, 1526, enjoined on his archdeacons the seizure of all English translations of the Scriptures, ‘with or without glosses;’ and the archbishop of Canterbury went so far as to issue a mandate against all the books which contained ‘any particle of the New Testament.’ So ‘exceeding mad’ were they against the Gospel.”—“Religious Revolution,” page 113. Out of that condition, similar in all the European countries, grew the Reformation.
In 1529, because of the attempt of the German emperor, at the pope’s instigation, to crush out what liberty of conscience had been achieved, there was drawn up and presented to the authorities that celebrated protest from which comes down to us the name “Protestant.” The protestants refused to consent to the repeal of the liberties already secured—
because it concerns the glory of God and the salvation of our souls, and that in such matters we ought to have regard, above all, to the commandment of God, who is King of kings and Lord of lords, each of us rendering him account for himself, without caring the least in the world about majority or minority. . . . Moreover, the new edict declaring the ministers shall preach the gospel, explaining it according to the writings accepted by the holy Christian Church; we think that, for this regulation to have any value, we should first agree on what is meant by the true and holy Church. Now, seeing there is great diversity of opinion in this respect; that there is no sure doctrine but such as is conformable to the Word of God; that the Lord forbids the teaching of any other doctrine; that each text of the Holy Scriptures ought to be explained by other and clearer texts; that this holy book is, in all things, necessary for the Christian, easy of understanding, and calculated to scatter the darkness; we are resolved, with the grace of God, to maintain the pure and exclusive teaching of his HolyWord, such as it is contained in the Biblical books of the Old and New Testaments, without adding anything thereto that may be contrary to it. This Word is the only truth; it is the sure rule of all doctrine and of all life, and can never fail or deceive us.
That meant “the Bible and the Bible only” as the Christian’s guide, and it also meant freedom of conscience. Upon this matter Luther himself said: “No man can command, or ought to command, the soul except God, who alone can show it the way to heaven. It is futile and impossible to command, or by force to compel, any man’s belief.” There were thousands of honest-hearted souls to whom that doctrine was as the bread of life and the water of life. Hungry and thirsty, their souls cried out for it; and having feasted upon it, they could never go back to the husks of papal dogmas, doctrines, traditions, and with them the slavery of the soul. They practised those precepts; and when, from the study of the Word, they learned new truths, long hidden under the rubbish of tradition, they began to practise their new-found freedom in believing and teaching their new-found truths. Where these truths were beyond, or were not understood by, the leaders of the Reformation, or where persons of a fanatical disposition mixed truth with error and taught that, the Reformers themselves began to feel that it was necessary to put a restriction upon religious liberty, and they did it. We showed last week how dangerous it became for men and women to believe and teach contrary to the doctrines of the Reformers; how the same instruments used by the papal power to suppress the gospel were used by the Reformers to suppress teachings not in harmony with their creeds, till men and women were tortured and burned and drowned for no other crime than exercising liberty of belief and practise in things purely religious. The statue of Zwingli, erected at Zurich in 1885, holding the Bible in one hand and a sword in the other, is a concrete characterization of later Reformation times.
Out of those times and conditions grew the Anabaptist movement. Misrepresented by many fanatics who were called Anabaptists, misunderstood and maligned by others, their very name a contemptuous title invented by their enemies (re-baptizers), they grew in spite of sword and fire and water, all of which were made instruments of death to them because of their faith. They had drunk in the doctrines of soul-freedom from the sermons and writings of Luther, from the famous protest to the Diet of Spires, but chiefly from the Word of God itself. This sect, “everywhere spoken against” by Catholic and Protestant alike, and everywhere persecuted by both with similar cruelty became the heralds of religious liberty not only for the Old World, but for the New as well. Concerning them we read:—
Among the few and scattered European voices for religious liberty, heard in the two hundred fifty years from the day of Luther, the place of honor is undoubtedly to be accorded to the Anabaptists. Their doctrine is one of the most remarkable things which appeared in that wonderful age. It comes to speech with a clearness and fulness which suggests a revelation, just as to Luther dawned justification by faith, soul enlightening and uplifting. And no less notable, this doctrine came at the very opening of the Reformation, in the year 1524, just after the famous Diet of Worms, and while Luther was secluded in the Wartburg—“Rise of Religious Liberty in America,” page 63.
It will be of interest to know what they believed and taught. They insisted that freedom of conscience and of worship were essential to spiritual growth; that religion should be entirely exempt from the regulation or interference of the civil power, so that “a man’s religion should not work his civil disability.” They held that the church “should be composed exclusively of the regenerate, membership therein to be conditioned” upon “the work of grace in the heart.” “In this last point,” says Cobb, “they anticipated, by more than two centuries, that distinction by Edwards which shattered the union of church and State in America.” In the plea for religious liberty written by Prof. Hubmeyer, rector of the University of Ingolstadt (himself an Anabaptist), we find these declarations:—
If men can not be convinced by appeals to reason or to the Word of God, they should be let alone. One can not be made to see his errors either by fire or sword.
He proclaimed these principles openly, lost the friendship of Luther and Zwingli for doing so, and in the year 1528 suffered martyrdom, being tortured with red-hot pincers, beheaded, and his body burned. Just one year previous to his martyrdom the Swiss Anabaptists issued a Confession of Faith, which is said to have been the first ever published “in which Christian men claimed absolute religious freedom for themselves, and granted absolute religious freedom to others.” Following are some of the principles held in common by the Anabaptist body:—
That secular authority has no concern with religious belief; that the Christian resists no evil, and therefore needs no law courts, nor should ever make use of the tribunals; that Christians do not kill or punish with imprisonment or the sword, but only with exclusion from the body of believers; that no man should be compelled by force to believe, nor should any be slain on account of his faith; that infant baptism is of the pope and the devil; that adult baptism is the only true Christian baptism.
On those principles they stood unflinchingly, and for doing so were tortured or drowned or burned or beheaded. The whole world was arrayed against them and the principles they espoused. A hundred years of persistent persecution succeeded in crushing out the Anabaptist movement in Germany and Switzerland. As the Waldenses fled from Catholic persecution, so fled the Anabaptists from Lutheranism and Calvinism. “They scattered all over continental Europe, and increased in numbers marvelously.” Before Germany and Switzerland had extinguished the torch of this new Reformation, its adherents had kindled fresh fires in the western part of Europe and in England. In the Netherlands they became known as the Mennonites, and under Charles V more than fifty thousand persons, mostly Anabaptists or Mennonites, paid with their lives for maintaining an unshackled conscience. But they were not exterminated. Prince William of Orange finally championed their rights, declaring to the magistrates of Middleburg: “You have no right to trouble yourselves with any man’s conscience, so long as nothing is done to cause private harm or public scandal. We, therefore, expressly ordain that you desist from molesting these Baptists.”
Of the influence of the Anabaptist movement upon religious liberty in America, we shall learn in our next article.
C. M. S.

Wesley on the Revelation

By W. A. S.

Over one hundred years ago, as the time of the end was drawing near, that man of God, John Wesley, realized that prophecy was about to be fulfilled in a special manner. In his “Notes on the New Testament” he makes the following comments on Rev. 1:3 (“Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand”):—
Some have miserably handled this book. Hence others are afraid to touch it. . . . They inquire after anything rather than this; as if it were written, “Happy is he that doth not read this prophecy.” Nay, but happy is he that readeth, and they that hear, and keep the words thereof [italics his]—especially at this time, when so considerable a part of them is on the point of being fulfilled.
John Wesley warned against the no-law teaching, affirmed the office of the law of God in conversion to righteousness, and was watching for the fulfilment of prophecy with an open mind. Seventh-day Adventists are preaching just what John Wesley would be found preaching had he lived till our day, and followed on in the principles which he taught. Over a century has passed, the “time of the end” has come, and that considerable part of the prophecies of Revelation has been, or is being, fulfilled. Methodists to-day may hear Wesley’s voice summoning them to the study of the Revelation. Of the three messages of Revelation 14, Wesley wrote: “Happy are they who make the right use of these divine messages.”
W. A. S.

A Greeting From Russia

By W. A. S.

THE following address from our brethren in Russia to the brethren in America has been in the hands of workers and church elders as one of the last week of prayer circulars of mission-field news, but it has never been published in the REVIEW. These words from the Russian believers, on the occasion of the organization of the Russian Union Conference, should be read by all:—
The undersigned delegates to the Russian Union, assembled in Riga, Oct. 24-29, 1907, to the Seventh-day Adventist General Conference at Washington, D. C.
Psalm 133, Greeting. We rejoice that during the last twenty-one years Almighty God has so blessed the humble efforts of his children in this vast empire, with its one hundred forty millions of people, speaking one hundred languages, that it is now possible, in harmony with the recommendation of the General Conference Committee, meeting in Gland, to organize a new mission field, two local conferences, and a union conference, the union composed of three conferences and three mission fields, with a membership of twenty-five hundred.
We most heartily thank the brethren in America and throughout the world for their generous aid and sympathy in former years, when we suffered persecution and imprisonment and banishment for the faith, and we assure themof our loyalty to the third angel’s message, and promise them our hearty co-operation in spreading the gospel of the kingdom in time to come; and, as the youngest in the sisterhood of union conferences, we ask them still to remember us in their prayers and offerings, that we may be true to God in all, so that his work may go forward as never before—“not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord.”
J. T. BOETTCHER, DANIEL ISAAK, H. J. LOEBSACK, H. K. LOEBSACK, D. P. GAEDE, J. SPROHGE, O. WILDGRUBE, L. R. CONRADI, and forty-seven others, representatives at the organization of the Russian Union Conference.
In twenty-one years our cause in Russia attained its majority. A rugged growth it had indeed; for until recently the believers endured imprisonment, exile, and all manner of persecution. Nothing could turn the onward march of the advent message; and now, with liberty to develop, unhindered by proscription, the truth is being spread abroad in European and Asiatic Russia. Now, taking even as never before, is the time to help with means and workers, that our brethren in Russia may develop school and evangelistic enterprises quickly to carry the message through the vast empire while there is liberty to work.
W. A. S.

The Thanksgiving Ingathering

By I. H. Evans

THE General Conference Committee, at its late meeting in April, recommended that Thanksgiving week, November 22-28, be set apart as a time for a special ingathering of funds for foreign mission work.
The season of the year is favorable for such an effort. The crops will be nearly harvested; the fall work on the farm mostly done. The national holiday, Thanksgiving, comes November 26. At this season of the year, Americans naturally turn their thoughts toward deeds of charity, and multitudes are glad to know of some beneficent object upon which they can intelligently bestow their thank-offering to the Lord.
Nothing can appeal to the majority of our fellow citizens more than to extend help to a mission board that is carrying on a world-wide gospel campaign.
Until the present time, Seventh-day Adventists have furnished their own funds for nearly all they have undertaken. Seldom have unbelievers been called upon to assist in our general work. We have been before the world for half a century. During this fifty years, Seventh-day Adventists have built many sanitariums, the benefits of which are largely reaped by the world. We have gratuitously distributed hundreds of millions of pages of gospel literature, and sold hundreds of millions more at a great sacrifice of time and money, that others might be benefited.
During Thanksgiving week it was thought advisable to ask our people everywhere to give that week to soliciting funds for foreign mission work.
The General Conference Committee has invited the Review and Herald Publishing Association to bring out a special Mission Number of the REVIEW AND HERALD, which will contain a report of what Seventh-day Adventists are doing in heathen lands and Catholic countries. It will be a thirty-two page number, amply illustrated, and filled with such information as will surely interest all who receive it.
This paper we recommend to be given to the people, at the same time calling their attention to the lines of work we are doing. A short canvass will be prepared on the contents of the paper, so that all can be well informed as to what to say to their friends and neighbors.
The paper is to be given away. Those taking a copy will be urged to read it, and study its contents. Each one to whom a copy of the special number is given, is to be asked for a donation to our mission funds. Each can give what he likes; but few will care to give less than twenty-five cents. Some will wish to give much more. The business firms with whom people have traded for many years will often give liberally. The rich, if approached in the right manner, will often donate without stint.
This ingathering of funds should be the greatest event in our financial history. It should bring into the treasury of the Mission Board a large sum of money with which to help on the work in foreign fields. A united army of sixty thousand Seventh-day Adventists filled with the Holy Spirit ought to do much for God in a week's consecrated effort.
All our schools could plan for a foreign mission week. All our office employees could gain a rich experience by helping to gather in this fund. This week can mark a new era in our foreign mission work, if we arise, as did the Jews in the days of Mordecai, and seek God with all the heart. If Israel's God goes before us, if the fiery pillar leads the way, there will be great blessings before us.
Let us not forget the date,—Thanksgiving week,—nor the idea,—a large ingathering of funds for foreign missions. I. H. EVANS.

The Wealth of the Nations

“THE wealth of the nations shall come unto thee. The multitude of camels shall cover thee, the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah; all they from Sheba shall come; they shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praises of Jehovah.”

Note and Comment

Biblical Preaching Still Wanted

A PRESBYTERIAN layman recently sent out some hundreds of letters asking other laymen what kind of sermons they most wished to hear. Out of one hundred two replies, he made up the following summary:—
Guidance in Christian Life .....93 Evangelistic ..................63 Expository ....................51 Doctrinal .....................22 Current topics ................16 Critical ....................... 5
Some of these named more than one kind of sermon. It will be noted that out of two hundred fifty votes cast, only twenty-one are for sermons other than those which are Biblical and evangelical. Had a similar plebiscite been taken among “up-to-date” clergymen as to what kind of sermons they preferred to preach, their utterances in pulpit and in press compel us to believe that the ratio would have been reversed.

An Agency for Good

By Editor

WE find in the following extract from the Outlook an illustration of the gradual turning toward Catholicism which close observers of the present day can but recognize. Professed Protestants are glossing over the records of the past, and encouraging one another to believe that the Roman Church is to-day a great power in the world for good. One of the writers for the Outlook, having visited the Vatican, knelt before the pope, and kissed his hand, speaks thus:—
The pope himself, mere man as he is to our Protestant consciousness, stands for a mighty agency for good, and is in very truth to millions of people the vicegerent of God. The stately room in the Vatican was a place of profound religious significance, and the ceremony one of the experiences to live always in memory, not because the Spectator had knelt before the chosen head of a great church, in compliance with ancient custom, but because he thus caught a fleeting but actual glimpse of the mighty influence on human history and individual lives which has been, and is being, exerted by the tremendous organization which we in America know as the Roman Catholic Church.
There is no question about the greatness of the organization; but the history of that organization, the self-asserted vicegerency of its head, its own authoritative declaration that it never changes, its unalterable opposition to freedom of conscience and liberty in worship, its antagonism to everything good that the Reformation has given to the world, ought to make it impossible for any one to be deceived as to Rome’s power for good, and the one purpose for which alone she will use the power of her “tremendous organization.”

In the Far East

EVERY visitor to the Orient recognizes the rapid and marvelous changes which are taking place, and is impressed with the thought that there must be a significance in this transformation after many centuries of lethargy. The following extracts from a recent article show how the situation is interpreted by one observer:—
The present time presents opportunities for the evangelization of the Orient which are in every way extraordinary. This is especially true in China and Korea. No more revolutionary action was ever taken by any nation than that which China took several years ago when she absolutely abolished an educational system two thousand years old, and substituted in its place a system patterned after our own. The full significance of this move, and its relation to the propagation of Christianity, can only be understood when one realizes that up to the time of this change, the literati, or educated leaders of the Chinese, were, with but very few exceptions, beyond the reach of the missionaries. Now they are the most accessible class in many respects because of their great anxiety to learn everything that is Western. . . .
In Korea a condition exists which is unparalleled in the annals of missions. The prophecy of the hymn which speaks of the coming of “a nation in a day” is literally being fulfilled in the Hermit Kingdom. The wonderful revivals, the unprecedented activity of Korean converts in evangelizing their own people, the eagerness to learn and teach,—all signify a condition which warrants all the help from us in the way of workers and equipment which the missionaries deem wise. . . .
In both China and Korea the opportunities for medical missions are especially obvious, not only for the influence upon the patients treated, but even more for the training up of the modern medical fraternity of these nations.
To believers in the nearness of the coming of the Lord, there is a meaning in these facts which is not apprehended by others. The whole world is being opened for the last proclamation of the gospel. Surely the messengers and the means for their support must be forthcoming, in order to carry the third angel's message to the far East. This responsibility is upon us, and must be accepted.

The Socialist Platform

At the recent convention of the Socialist party in Chicago a platform was adopted which indicates quite clearly the general aims of socialism. The demands of this party, as summarized in the Independent (New York), are these:—
1. The national ownership of railroads, telegraphs, telephones, steamships, and all other means of transportation and communication.
2. The national ownership of all industries which are organized on a national scale, and in which competition has virtually ceased to exist.
3. The extension of the public domain to include mines, quarries, oil-wells, forests, and water-power.
4. The scientific reforestation of timber lands and reclamation of swamp lands.
5. The absolute freedom of press, speech, and assemblage.
6. That religion be treated as a private matter—a question of individual conscience. No toleration of clericalism as a political power, and no discrimination as to taxes in favor of religious bodies.
7. The improvement of the industrial conditions of the workers:— (a) By shortening the workday in keeping with the increased productiveness of machinery. (b) By securing to every worker a rest period of not less than a day and a half in each week, including Sunday when practicable. (c) By securing a more vigorous inspection of workshops and factories. (d) By forbidding the employment of women in all industries harmful to their morals or health. (e) By forbidding the employment of children under sixteen years of age. (f) By forbidding the interstate transportation of the products of child labor, of convict labor, and of all uninspected factories. (g) By abolishing public charity, and substituting in its place compulsory insurance against unemployment, illness, and accidents, invalidism, old age, and death.
It is not within the province of this paper to deal with political issues as such; and we present this abstract of the socialist platform without comment, merely as a matter of general information.

Brief but Significant

THE whole principle of evolution is conceded in saying three words: “Creation is continuous.” In direct contrast with this statement is the plain declaration of the Scriptures: “The works were finished from the foundation of the world.” There is a vast difference between creating a world where nothing appeared before, and re-organizing material already in existence. There is a vast difference between the process of creating and the process of upholding that which has already been created. It is the difference between being saved and saving one's self,—between righteousness by faith and righteousness by works.

Mohammedan Activity

THERE has been a revival of Mohammedanism recently, not alone in declarations of a warlike nature but in missionary work among other peoples. According to a writer in the German magazine Ueber Land und Meer, large numbers of the followers of the false prophet settle in different countries of the Western world, and make energetic efforts to propagate their doctrines. There are six hundred converts to Mohammedanism in Liverpool alone, and some of these are men of prominence. A Mohammedan mosque is to be built in New York City and another in Australia. In Germany also the propaganda is being carried on. Not until recent years has Mohammedanism taken up the work of teaching its faith among professedly Christian nations. This new departure together with the marvelous activity of the Mohammedan propaganda among the natives of Africa is one of the most striking developments of our times.
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