Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 15, 1902
OUR ELDER BROTHER.
By Ellen G. White
"THEN cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto the disciples, Sit ye here while I go and pray yonder. And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful, and very heavy. Then saith He unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death; tarry ye here, and watch with Me. And He went a little farther, and fell on His face, and prayed."
Christ felt that by sin He was being separated from His Father. The gulf was so broad, so black, so deep, that His spirit shuddered before it. This agony He must not exert His divine power to escape. As man He must suffer the consequences of man's sin. As man He must endure the wrath of God against transgression.
Only a short time before, Christ had offered His intercessory prayer to the Father, not as one overcome in battle, but as one who had gained the victory at each step as He approached the consummation of His work. As one already glorified, He had claimed oneness with God.
But now the hour of Satan's apparent triumph had come. The storm of wrath was about to beat upon the Saviour. A horror of great darkness oppressed His soul. Everything was at stake with Him. In its hardest features Satan pressed the situation upon the Redeemer: "The people who claim to be above all others in temporal and spiritual advantages, have rejected you. They are seeking to destroy you, the foundation, the center and seal, of the promises made to them as a peculiar people. One of your own disciples, who has listened to your instruction, and has been among the foremost in church activities, will betray you. One of your most zealous followers will deny you. All will forsake you." Christ's whole being abhorred the thought. That those whom He had undertaken to save, those whom He loved so much, should unite in the plots of Satan, pierced His soul. The conflict was terrible. The sins of men weighed heavily upon the Saviour, and the sense of God's wrath against sin was crushing out His life. From His pale lips came the bitter cry, "O My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt."
"And He cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep." Had He found them praying, He would have been relieved. Had they been seeking refuge in God, that Satanic agencies might not prevail against them, He would have been comforted by their steadfast faith. But they had not heeded the repeated warning, "Watch and pray." At first they had been much troubled to see their Master, usually so calm and dignified, wrestling with a sorrow that was beyond comprehension. They had prayed as they heard the strong cries of the sufferer. They did not intend to forsake their Lord, but they seemed paralyzed with a stupor which they might have shaken off had they continued pleading with God.
The weakness of the disciples awakened the sympathy of Jesus. Addressing Peter, He said, "Simon, sleepest thou? Couldst thou not watch with Me one hour?" He feared that they would not be able to endure the test that would come upon them in His betrayal and death; and He said, "Watch and pray, lest ye enter into temptation." Even in His great agony He sought to excuse their weakness. "The spirit truly is willing," He said, "but the flesh is weak."
Once more Christ sought His place of prayer, and His voice was heard on the still evening air, not in tones of triumph, but full of human anguish. The words of the Saviour were borne to the ears of the drowsy disciples: "O My Father, if this cup may not pass away from Me, except I drink it, Thy will be done."
Again Christ felt a longing for companionship, for some words from His disciples that would bring relief. Once more He came to them, "but their eyes were heavy; neither wist they what to answer Him."
Turning away, Jesus sought His retreat, and fell prostrate to the ground, overcome by the horror of a great darkness. The humanity of the Son of God trembled in that trying hour. He prayed not now for His disciples that their faith might not fail, but for His own anguished, agonized soul. The awful moment had come,—that moment which was to decide the destiny of the world. The fate of humanity trembled in the balance. Christ might even now refuse to drink the cup apportioned to guilty man. It was not yet too late. He might leave man to perish in his iniquity. He might say, "Let the transgressor receive the penalty of his sin; and I will go back to My Father." Will the Son of God drink the bitter cup of humility and agony? Will the innocent suffer the consequences of the curse of sin, to save the guilty? The words fall tremblingly from His lips, "O My Father, if this cup may not pass away from Me, except I drink it, Thy will be done."
Three times has He uttered that prayer. Three times has humanity shrunk from the last, crowning sacrifice. But now the history of the human race comes up before the world's Redeemer. He sees that the transgressors of the law, if left to themselves, must perish. He sees the power of sin. The woes and lamentations of a doomed world rise before Him. He beholds its impending fate, and His decision is made. He will save man at any cost to Himself. He will become the propitiation of a race that has willed to sin.
O tried, tempted soul, remember that He who suffered in Gethsemane is your Saviour. He is touched with the feeling of your infirmities; for He was "in all points tempted like as we are." Because of this, "He is able to succor them that are tempted." He was made perfect through suffering. He is watching over you, trembling child of God. Are you tempted? He will deliver. Are you weak? He will strengthen. Are you ignorant? He will enlighten. "He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds." Whatever your anxieties and trials, spread out your case before the Lord. Your spirit will be braced for endurance. The way will be opened for you to disentangle yourself from embarrassment and difficulty. The weaker and more helpless you know yourself to be, the stronger will you become in His strength.
To all who are reaching out to feel the guiding hand of God, the moment of greatest discouragement is the time when divine help is nearest. They will look back with thankfulness on the darkest part of their way. From every temptation and every trial they will come forth with finer faith and a richer experience.
MRS. E. G. WHITE.
THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
By Geo. W. Rine
Its Place in the Gospel Scheme.
THE first and the second coming of Christ to this world are sharply discriminated in the sacred Scriptures. The fact that Jesus will come to save saints is just as dogmatically asserted as the fact that He did come to save sinners. In the beginning God promised to send His beloved Son into the world to taste death for every man. We all know2that the Son did come; that He did die, the just for the unjust; that He did rise from the dead and ascend to the right hand of the Father on high. Equally definite and positive is His promise, "I will come again." If the one promise was literally fulfilled, why will not the other be?
If taught and guided by the divine Word, we must believe that the second coming of our Lord will be just as certain, just as palpable and personal, as was His first coming. If His first advent was necessary to the realization of the Gospel mission, His second advent is equally necessary. "I will come again" is, in short, the keystone to the Gospel arch. In that mighty fact the Gospel culminates—finds its crowning glory. In more than fifty places is the second appearing of the Lord referred to in the Scriptures. It is identified with the paramount blessing, the supreme hope of the Christian. Repeatedly the divine Word speaks comfort and consolation to the sorrowing, suffering believer by assuring him that his Lord will come and will not tarry.
The disciples, having been intimately associated with their Master for more than three years, had become ardently attached to Him. To be in His personal presence was to them one and the same thing as to be happy. They could conceive of no higher joy than to be in personal touch and communion with Jesus. Hence they could hardly endure the thought of being separated from Him.
Accordingly, when He disclosed to them the fact that He would soon part from them and return to His Father, their hearts were wrung with grief. In His love and pity He at once assuaged their sorrow by assuring them of His personal return to this world. "Let not your heart be troubled," He began; "in My Father's house are many mansions; . . . and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." John 14:1-3. Would not even a child understand that the Saviour's language here teaches that if the saints shall ever be where He is, in the world to come, He must appear again to receive them unto Himself? No language can teach more clearly that if the people of God shall ever be delivered from this present evil world, Jesus must and will return for them; and His returning is the pledge that they shall be with Him in eternity. This assurance is the balm He lays upon the sorrowing hearts of His disciples.
When consoling those who sorrow for their dead, the Holy Spirit seizes upon that supreme event, the coming again of Jesus; and declares the sequel of that event to be the raising from the dead of those who sleep in Jesus. For "I would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. . . . For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord." Then follows this significant precept: "Wherefore comfort one another with these words." 1 Thess. 4:13-18. Again we see that the only pledge God has given us that the righteous dead shall be raised and delivered from the power of the grave, and that they and the righteous living shall ever be with the Lord in glory, is that Jesus will come again.
And why should not the promise of the Master's return be supremely precious to His church, when the Bible itself declares His returning to be "that blessed hope"? Titus 2:13. For the blessed hope we are commanded to look; that is, we are joyfully to expect it. Again (Heb. 9:28): "And unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation." There is no promise whatever that He will bring salvation to those who refuse to look for Him. Observe, too, that this scripture unequivocally teaches that ultimate salvation, or final and eternal deliverance from the power and reach of sin and death, can be compassed in no other way than by the personal coming again of our Lord and Saviour. He Himself declares, "Behold, I come quickly; and My reward is with Me, to give every man according as His work shall be." Rev. 22:12. How emphatically is here enunciated the great truth that the Saviour must come again if His saints shall ever receive their final reward. "If the dead rise not,"—(and their rising is contingent upon the appearing of Christ)—"then are we [Christians] of all men most miserable." No future advent of Christ, no deliverance; that lost, all is lost. See also Luke 14:12-14.
It is the fashion in these days to spiritualize the doctrine of the second advent. Many profess to believe that the promise of our Lord's coming again finds its fulfilment in His coming to His saints by His Spirit when they die. But in this sense He is constantly coming to them, while they live as well as when they die. The language of Inspiration effectually precludes a mere spiritual application of the doctrine. Let us make the test: "And as they thus spake, Jesus Himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. . . . Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself; handle Me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see Me have." Luke 24:36-39. It was the tangible, personal Christ that stood before the disciples on the evening of the resurrection day. Now note again the language of Scripture: "When He had spoken these things, while they beheld, He was taken up; and a cloud received Him out of their sight." Acts 1:9. As the eyes of the sorrowing disciples wistfully followed their ascending Lord, two angels, fresh from the courts of glory, declared unto them: "This same Jesus, who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven." Verses 10, 11. He ascended visibly, bodily; so He will likewise come again. "Behold, He cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see Him." Rev. 1:7. "The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout," etc. 1 Thess. 4:16. What, then, shall we believe—human conjecture or divine affirmation? Shall not each one of us say, "As for me and my house, we will believe the voice of the Lord"?
We see, accordingly, that the Gospel would utterly fail of its mission in the earth were the second personal appearing of our Lord never to be realized. Just as certainly as He came the first time to save sinners, He will come the second time to save the righteous. As certainly as He once came in solitariness, humility, and poverty, so certainly will He come again "with all the holy angels with Him," "in power and great glory" and with all the riches of heaven. He came once to be despised and rejected of men, to be set at naught and crucified; He will again come "to be glorified in His saints, and to be admired of all them that believe, in that day." He came nineteen centuries ago to wear a crown of thorns; He is soon coming with the fadeless crown of universal sovereignty upon His sacred head. That will be a glad day to those that believe, and watch, and pray, and look. Then "the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." Isa. 35:10.
MY PATHWAY.
By Mrs. L. D. Avery-Stuttle
THERE is a pathway all marked out for me
Along the shores of life's tempestuous sea;
And many burdens in that pathway lie
That none on earth may bear as well as I.
Thy loving hand, O Christ, hath poised and weighed,
Thy gentle voice hath said, "Be not dismayed."
Shall gloomy shades of dark Gethsemane
Frighten my feet from following after Thee?
There is a cross that I alone must bear;
But shall I sink in darkness and despair,
Because, forsooth, the weary years have flown,
And still my cross hath no whit lighter grown?
So many years I've prayed the self-same prayer:
"Father, remove the weary cross I bear;"
And still the self-same answer comes to me,
"Thy Father knoweth it is best for thee."
There is a work to do ere set of sun,
That I must do, or leave the work undone,—
Some tender offering that I must make,
Some toilsome task perform for love's sweet sake,
Some deed of grace, some kindly word of cheer,
A warm handclasp, a sympathetic tear,—
These may I give, tho poor in worldly store,
These may I give in love, if nothing more.
O Father, grant the strength I ask of Thee,
That I may do the work Thou gavest me;
That I may say, as sinks life's westering sun:
"See, Master, see, the task Thou gav'st is done;"
And hear at last Thy gentle voice so mild:
"Thy mansion is prepared; come home, My child."
MRS. L. D. AVERY-STUTTLE.
Battle Creek, Mich.
CHRISTIANS AND THEATER-GOING.
By M. O. Huber
To my mind one sad evidence of the decline of spirituality in the present age is the tendency of professed Christians to visit theaters. Many ask, What is the harm? I answer, What is the good? Is it not a waste of much precious time, time that might have been used in a far better way? Does it not fascinate young people, and give them a taste for worldly frivolities which often leads to a downward road? Does not the presence of professed Christians encourage others thus to squander God's mercies in worse than useless folly? Do not the innuendos used in such places, also the sensuous spectacles witnessed there, tend to defile the mind and to blunt the taste for more solid and serious exercises?
Has not the theater often been the first downward step to destruction? Does not the theater de facto belong to the people of this world, who have no desire for God or His Word? Let me give the reader an incident to show what a genuine Christian thinks of such a place.
Some years ago there was in Mussorie Hills a noted retired general who had been converted to God in his old age by reading some of Mr. Spurgeon's sermons. His delight was to place copies of these sermons in the hands of all the officers of the army whom he knew throughout India. One day a lady, high up in the social scale, called at his house, and said,—
"General, I suppose you will be at the theater to-night?"
He said, "No, madam; I am now a Christian, and have given up the devil's house for the house of God."
The great lady was shocked, and said,—
"What, am not I a Christian?"
"Madam," was the reply, "what is a true Christian? I take a true Christian to be one who follows Christ, and I ask you, Do you think if Christ were here, He would go to the theater?"
"O, no," the lady said, "He would not go."
"Then, if He would not, should His people go where Christ would not go? If they dare go where He is not, they go into danger. So better not go, for it is the devil's ground. I ask you again, Would you like to die in a theater?"
This touched the conscience, and the answer was, "God forbid." After all she went, hoping she would not die in such a place!
Another excuse is, "People must have some enjoyment." I would ask, Are there no other and better enjoyments for the true Christian? Carrion may be relished by vultures, but the dove will flee from it; and the people who can relish theatricals remind one of him who would fain have filled himself with "the husks which the swine did eat."
The sad declension in family worship is another certain sign of the down-grade tendency of the age. Does it not deeply pain one to see the fire of the family altar going out, while footballs, concerts, etc., etc., are in full swing? Are we not losing our relish for the Bible and the means of grace? It looks like it; and what will be the result?—Worldliness and popery swamping the land. What urgent need there is for a wave of earnest and united prayer all over the land on the part of God's people.
M. O. HUBER.
Fresno, Cal.
The “Letter that fell from Heaven”
By E. A. Axon
“A Sunday-Sabbath Forgery”
ARTICLE TWO.
IV. In the Crusades.
PET-ER THE HERMIT, when preaching the crusade, had with him “a letter which had fallen from heaven,” but apparently it contained only an exhortation to the holy war. The mention of it by his biographers shows, however, that the idea of a “Christ letter” was common; and it may possibly have been an adaptation of that which we are now considering. A MS. of the eleventh century, in the Munich library, gives the “heavenly letter” without the introduction, and threatens dreadful punishments on those who fail to observe the Sunday. They are not to visit another locality except for the purpose of visiting the sick or pacifying quarrels. At the end is the declaration that the epistle was not written by the hand of man, but “by the finger of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ, and sent from the seventh heaven and the throne of God on to earth in order that the holy Sunday should be observed.”
Sigebert Gemblacensis records, under the year 1032, that a certain bishop declared he had received a letter from on high, inculcating certain precepts for the advantage of his people. Abstinence from flesh on Saturday was one of the recommendations, but Sigebert's description does not make it certain that the document was identical with the Sunday letter.
There is a MS. in the British Museum, written in Spain in the eleventh century, in which the recipient of the heavenly letter is said to be Peter, bishop of Nimes. Mention is made in the “Chronicon S. Maxenti,” under date of 1100, of a letter which descended from heaven at Jerusalem, and dealt with the observance of the Lord’s day. Early in the twelfth century Ekkehard of Aura speaks of a letter received by the archangel Gabriel from the Saviour and dispersed throughout the world.
V. In the Twelfth Century.
A lengthy version of the “heavenly letter” is found in a twelfth-century MS. in the French Bibliotheque Nationale. This came from Corbie, and contains the introduction stating that the letter fell from heaven before the Effrem gate of Jerusalem, where it was found by Achor the priest, who sent it to another priest, Ioram, “ad Armeniam civitatem,” who in turn sent it to Machabeum, a priest at Bethany, who sent it “ad montem Garganum,” where there is the church of St. Michael. Then by the will of God the letter came to the tomb of St. Peter at Rome. All who were in the city made a three-days’ fast, with prayers and almsgiving.
There is another copy of the “heavenly letter” in the same library, and also from Corbie. The introduction states that this epistle fell from heaven upon the altar of St. Peter in Jerusalem, inscribed on a marble tablet, the light from which was like lightning. An angel of the Lord held it in his hand, and all the people, for fear, fell upon their faces and exclaimed, “Kyrie eleyson.” The “letter” has been published by Amaduzzi from a MS. of Todi of the twelfth century. The introduction is lacking. The aim of the epistle is to lay stress upon the observance of Sunday from the ninth hour of Saturday to the first hour of Monday. The duty of tithe-paying is also enforced. At the end is apparently an allusion to a previous “heavenly letter,” which had not produced the desired effect.
VI. Eustace, Abbot of Flaye.
When Eustace, the abbot of Flaye, went through England in the thirteenth century, preaching the stricter observance of the first day, he made use of the “heavenly letter,” and the text is preserved by Roger of Hoveden, and other chroniclers. In this edition the letter is said to have fallen upon “the altar of St. Simeon, which is in Golgotha, where Christ was crucified for the sins of the world.”
The Toulouse library contains a MS. of the thirteenth century, in which there is a copy of the “heavenly letter.” To this century also belongs a Syriac MS. in the British Museum, in which the epistle is said to have fallen in the church of St. Paul in Constantinople, in the year A.D. 746. It refers to two previous missives sent in A.D. 731 and A.D. 746. It is to be noticed that Licinianus, in the earliest reference we have to the Christ letter, speaks of it as inculcating the worship of Sunday. The word “colatur” which he uses is not found in the texts we now have, but it may have been in one of the two preceding heavenly letters which are mentioned in some of the versions.
VII. In the Fourteenth Century.
Dr. Priebsch prints from MS. 1355 (v) of the Vienna Library a fourteenth-century Latin edition of the Christ letter. It is said to have been sent down from heaven to Jerusalem by the archangel Michael, and to have been found “ad portam Effrem” by the priest Ichor, etc. The German Flagellants, some of whom were burned at Sauderhausen, believed in three heavenly letters, sent at intervals of ten years. Two had been concealed by the authorities. The third was written in marble and shone like lightning. The Flemish Flagellants likewise had this letter. There are also two German and a Spanish version. A fragment in the old Czech language is preserved in the Strachon Library at Prague, in which the recipient of the letter is Peter of Gaza.
VIII. In the Fifteenth Century.
Early in the fifteenth century John Awdelay, a monk at Haghmon in Shropshire, wrote a poem, which is preserved in MS. Douce 302, fol. 16. In this we are invited to hear an epistle, since “Christ wrote it with His own hand,” and sent it to Peter, bishop of Gaza. In this letter dreadful judgments are threatened on nations for the non-observance of Sunday. Their correctness will be invalid, and they will become subject to “wicked tyrants,” unless there is a warning against the non-payment of tithes; and there is a threat against the priests who will not teach this epistle. Peter of Gaza is made to swear to the truth of the “heavenly letter” by God’s power, by Jesus Christ, by the Trinity, by the four evangelists, by the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, by the angels and archangels, by Mary, and by all the saints in heaven. The poem ends with a request from the poet for the prayers of those that hear the epistle,
My name hit is ye blynd Awdlay.
THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
By J. O. Corliss
THE testimony of the Spirit by which men were called into church fellowship under the early disciples, was direct and decisive. No effort was made to win popular applause, or to soothe sinful consciences. On the other hand, the sins of the time were laid bare, and the guilty ones pointed out. At Pentecost, especially, when men spoke "as the Spirit gave them utterance," Peter presented Christ to the multitude as One whom God had openly and fully approved, as they themselves knew. He then charged them with the terrible sin of deliberately murdering the Christ of God, who had been sent by divine grace to their rescue from Satan's power. Acts 2:22, 23.
Proof was then offered to confirm Christ's mission to earth as divine, in the fact that after they, the professed people of God, had slain the just One, God had raised Him from the dead, as One over whom death could not hold the mastery. The resurrection of Christ was to them such a clearly established reality that they did not attempt to deny it; yet the lesson it had for them would still have been lost, had not the prophecies relating to it been cited, and their ultimatum presented. This revealed Christ as an occupant of heaven's throne after His resurrection, where He was to remain until all his enemies were overthrown.
As believers in the prophecies, this direct recital appealed emphatically to their yet somewhat sensitive consciences. In distress of mind at the thought of their guilt, they appealed to the apostles to tell them what they ought to do in the matter. The Spirit, having so strongly convicted them, again directed the speech of the chief speaker of the day. Said Peter, "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." Acts 2:38.
What a thought! Here was a numerous people, all charged with the awful crime of making the Son of God the victim of their malicious hatred; and when asking how to make amendment for the same, they were told that to do so, they must submit to have placed on them through the public act of baptism, the name of Him whom they had so greatly sinned against. It was a great humiliation, but it was the only way by which they could fully reveal true sorrow for their past course.
Indeed, this was the only condition under which the gift of the Holy Spirit, now so much desired by them, could be theirs to enjoy. With this indwelling, they would have, in addition to the name of Christ assumed at the baptismal ceremony, His actual power of direction, which was then so plainly in evidence by the faithful boldness of the apostles. No less preparation than this was considered sufficient for membership in the early church. It was a consistent requirement, too, considering the nature of the church and its mission in the earth. Since the church is the "body of Christ" (Eph. 1:22, 23), and believers in Christ are to be members of that body (Rom. 12:5), how fitting that aspirants for this position in the heavenly economy should be asked to have self yield its place to the One whose name they profess to adopt, as the sign of their allegiance.4Then, again, when we consider that the church is set in the earth to be Christ's light-bearer to darkened sinners, why should not those who compose its membership, as parts of the body of Christ, unite to let their light shine before men, that they may see their good works, and so glorify the God of heaven? Matt. 5:16. But this witnessing for God can not be done without the indwelling power of Christ to control the mind and direct the action. With this, Christ is still revealed in humanity, and the world has opportunity to see Him as He is.
The early church maintained just such a record. Altho three thousand were received into fellowship as the result of the Pentecostal outpouring, we are told that they all continued steadfast in the doctrines they were taught, and in brotherly intimacy. So great, indeed, was their love for the cause they had espoused, and their confidence in each other, that they disposed of their "possessions and goods," and distributed them among all, as each had need. They were of "one heart" and of "one soul," so much so that no one claimed legal title to anything in his possession in order to exclude others from its use. So no one of the early believers lacked for needed supplies, and none cared for more than enough to supply daily wants. Acts 2:44, 45; 4:32-34.
This was a giving up all for Him who had first given up all for them. It was indeed the manifestation of Christly living, the development of every sublime attribute. Such simple, trusting faith in the divine promise (Matt. 6:33), such earnest love and devotion to Christ in the person of His saints (Matt. 25:40), could only be possible through an indwelling Christ, and was nothing short of the "faith of Jesus," exhibited by Him through the lives of the persons in whom He dwelt. Gal. 2:20.
In view of such devotion, it ceases to be a wonder that through the power of the early church as many as five thousand were converted in a day, in one city alone. Acts 4:4. How different would be the success of the modern church, if the same conditions obtained in it that marked the course of the early one. But, sad to say, the conditions of church life are now altogether changed, and so are the visible results of its efforts. The great question is, Will it ever be different? Will the modern church slumber on in the embrace of selfish ease, until the last of the precious promises of God's Word is fulfilled, and then awake to find itself in the toils of an enemy?
O church of God, awake! awake!
Accept the power He presents,
And witness to His grace.
The time has come for thee to rise,
And in the strength of God
Go forward in the heavenly way,
Clear opened by His Word.
J. O. CORLISS.
AS OTHERS SEE US.
WHAT a man gives out, not what he keeps, determines his appearance in the eyes of the world. Beauty, brightness, color, consist not in what a thing keeps, but in what it gives out. A well-known law of optics teaches us that a thing is seen, not in the color which it takes in and keeps, but in that color which it gives back again. The thing that we call red is the one which is, in one sense, blue; that is, it takes in the blue rays and keeps them for itself, but gives back the red ones in color. Gold has kept all the green rays, and gives back the yellow ones, so we think it is yellow. The object which we call black takes in every ray of light, and keeps them for itself, and we have strikingly enough seen in it the symbol of all evil.
The object which we call white keeps nothing of the sun's rays, but gives them all out again, and we have seen in it the symbol of all good. So a man is seen and known, not by what he receives and keeps for himself, but by what he gives forth to others. The rich man who keeps everything for himself is seen and known to be a poor, mean man. The wise man who holds haughtily his learning to himself, will, in the judgment of men, be very apt to seem a proud fool.
"Measure thy life by loss, instead of gain;
Not by the wine drunk, but by the wine poured forth;
For life's strength standeth in life's sacrifice;
And whoso gives the most has most to give."
—Sunday-School Times.