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Review and Herald, Vol. 86, No. 51.

Our Father's Admonition

Review and Herald

Dec 23, 1909

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 23, 1909

Our Father's Admonition

*My son, forget not My law; But let thy heart keep My commandments: For length of days, and years of life, And peace, will they add to thee. Let not kindness and truth forsake thee: Bind them about thy neck; Write them upon the tablet of thy heart: So shalt thou find favor and good understanding In the sight of God and man. Trust in Jehovah with all thy heart, And lean not upon thine own understanding; In all thy ways acknowledge Him, And He will direct thy paths. Proverbs 3 : 1-6.*

The Work—and—the Workers

By Editor

“I DO NOT KNOW of any paper I appreciate as much as I do the Youth’s Instructor. I would want it were I seventy-five years old.”
THE Indiana Reporter of November 10 says: “Are any questioning the propriety of giving their influence and help to the temperance work on account of its being associated with the National Reform movement? We recommend that such read ‘Liberty in Prohibition,’ in Liberty for the fourth quarter.”
ONE young lady who has had considerable experience in the periodical work paid her way from the last General Conference to her home in the Central West by selling the Temperance number of the Youth’s Instructor. In speaking of her experiences she said: “I think it is the best-selling paper I ever worked with.”
HAVE you seen it?—that new tract order list. It’s free; send for it. It contains the titles of many new tracts recently published; just what you want to use in missionary work among your friends and neighbors, also in your correspondence. Get the list, then get the tracts, and by and by get the reward for well-doing.
THE Youth’s Instructor seems to appeal to the fathers and mothers as well as to the children. In fact, the grandfathers and grandmothers demand it. We have many names upon our Instructor list that represent men and women in their seventies, and they assure us that they derive much benefit from the Instructor. The following is from a father: “Our boy is away at school now, and we thought we would drop the Instructor for a season, but we miss it so much that we have concluded to renew the subscription.”
THERE is much in a name, especially in the name of a publication. Oftentimes the mere title of a book sells it. The name Protestant Magazine, so some of our agents say, immediately interests both Catholics and Protestants sufficiently to cause some of them to purchase it without any explanation.
WE do not know whether the following is from a Protestant or a Catholic, but he acknowledges that the magazine aroused his curiosity at first, and finally interested him enough to secure his subscription. He writes: “Gentlemen: The Protestant Magazine came into my hands a few days ago accidentally, and I was curious enough to read it from A to Z. I am enclosing twenty-five cents for the magazine. I suppose this is the first issue. If not, send me the first one, or as many as have been printed; and if the amount I enclose is not sufficient, please let me know. I desire to subscribe for the Protestant Magazine.” Let each reader of these lines subscribe for this magazine for at least one friend.
IN behalf of Christian Education T. L. Copeland cites a good example for all other tract societies to follow. He says: “We have received a sample copy of Christian Education. It certainly is a valuable magazine, giving helpful suggestions for properly educating the youth. We are writing to each family in our conference, asking them to subscribe for the magazine.”
THE January number of Life and Health begins the new year with a feast of good things upon a large variety of social and health topics.
As we examine its contents, we find ourselves questioning the possibility of its editor bettering it, and thereby maintaining the reputation he has justly won through making each number better than the previous issue. It begins with nine short, crisp, and highly instructive editorial comments upon as many of the leading health topics of the day.
The contributed matter of this number is unusually strong, and contains some of the most needed and very practical instruction upon vital social and health topics; such as, The Girl as a Factor in the Social Fabric, by Mrs. W. H. McKee, matron of the Michigan Home for Girls; A Plea to Mothers, by John M. Connolly, A. M., M. D.; The Maintenance of Health by Physical Culture, by Herbert M. Lome; Bread Making—how to properly produce the “staff of life”—by George E. Cornforth; Anemia, or poverty of blood, by D. H. Kress, M. D.; and Pellagra, or corn-meal disease, by O. C. Godsmark, D. D. S., M. D.
The Current Comment department is filled with such timely topics as: The Effect of Tobacco; The Cause of Leprosy; Rabies Due to Indifference; Make a Business of Getting Well—of tuberculosis; Home Treatment of Scarlet Fever; Roller Skating; and Bovine Tuberculosis.
The abstracts made from various articles written for the profession, deal principally with the important topics, the Alcohol Question from Various Standpoints, and Starch Digestion in Babies.
The Editorial department deals with, Coal-Tar Remedies, The Tropics and Health, and Scarlet Fever Infection.
The thirty-four news notes on current health topics, published in the January number are, in and of themselves, worth more to any adult than the price of the magazine. Being short, they present in condensed form facts upon such important questions as, Evils of Poor Ventilation; Pure Food Law Enforcement; Adulteration of Olive Oil; Ill Health and Poverty; Instruction in the Care of Babies; Scarlet Fever From Udder Disease; Communicable Diseases in Rural Schools; A Movement to Abate Tenement Evils; Contributing Causes of Pellagra; Amebic Dysentery Gaining a Foothold; Hospitals Using Less Drugs; Typhoid Epidemic Traced to Milk; Early Treatment of Insanity; Camphor in Pneumonia.
The January number of Life and Health, in general information and practical application, sets a high standard for its succeeding issues during the year 1910, but the outline for—

The February Number

reveals an apparent possibility of possessing an excellence not yet attained in any previous issue. In that number will be the beginning of a series of articles on “The Boy”—his life and needs. All who have to deal with the “Boy Puzzle,” and who have been at a loss to know what to do with “That Boy of Mine,” and who desire to have the best condensed suggestions obtainable upon “The Boy Problem,” may find much in these articles that they would not exchange for many times the price of Life and Health during the entire coming year.

New Prices

Beginning with the January number, the following prices will go into effect:— Yearly subscription, $1; six months, 50 cents. Clubs: 3 to 20 copies, one year, cash with order, 60 cents a copy. Single copy, 10 cents; 5 to 40 copies of any one issue to one address, 5 cents a copy; 50 or more copies of any one issue to one address, 4 cents a copy. Send all orders through the State tract societies.
OUR Liberty agents, who are so faithfully circulating this magazine, may be sure of favorable results following their efforts. The following, from J. B. Wright, is an illustration: “Dear Sirs: You will find enclosed 25 cents for one subscription for the magazine of religious freedom—Liberty. I purchased a copy from a lady. I heartily approve of every sentence, and I wish to do what I can to advertise and assist the magazine and the great principles it contains. They should be brought to every American citizen’s attention. Will you give me some information in regard to your prices? I may be able to get several subscribers for you.”
THE following from Mrs. C. G. Bunnell illustrates how Life and Health is meeting favor wherever it goes: “Enclosed please find a money-order for $1 for one year’s subscription to Life and Health. Have taken this magazine one year, and feel that I can not get along without it. I am going to take subscriptions for it as soon as I can, and God bless the health reform movement.”

A Clear Commission

By Editor

Editorial

A Clear Commission. — In No. 4 of our first paper, the Present Truth (September, 1849), the leading article, by James White, was on “Repairing the Breach in the Law of God,” and the leading text: “And thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in. If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath,” etc.
Repairing the Breach. — We rejoice now with the early pioneers in spirit, as we think how delighted they were, as they studied, to see more and more clearly unfolded the setting of the Sabbath truth in the grand scheme of fulfilling prophecy. Here was the call of the Lord by Isaiah for a people to repair the breach in God’s law. The article said:—
If we repair a breach by teaching and observing the Sabbath according to the fourth commandment, then it necessarily follows that the breach has been caused by those who have been trampling down this commandment. Therefore the breach that has been made, and is now being repaired, is in the law of God.
The Time of Prophecy. — This prophecy of Isaiah, with its call to Sabbath reform, fitted exactly into the prophecy of Daniel, with which the advent believers were so familiar. Elder White further wrote:—
It seems plain that Isaiah looked down in prophetic vision to this very time, when the breach in the law, first made by the little horn (see Dan. 7:25) is being repaired. Ezekiel speaks of the same breach, “Ye have not gone up into the gaps [“breaches,” margin], neither made up the hedge for the house of Israel to stand in the battle in the day of the Lord.” Eze. 13:5. The day of the Lord has but one place, and that is just before us. This prophecy has not been fulfilled in past time; for its fulfilment is closely connected with the day of the Lord, which is future.
The little paper gave the trumpet a certain sound in calling the scattered advent believers to the work of repairing the breach. Thus the great Sabbath reform message, that closes the gospel work, began to go to the world.
In the Setting of Prophecy. — It is its place in prophecy that gives the Sabbath reform its power to lay hold with compelling force on hearts. It is when the Lord says that his salvation is near to come and his righteousness to be revealed that he pronounces the beatitude, “Blessed is the man that doeth this, and the son of man that layeth hold on it; that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and keepeth his hand from doing any evil.” Isa. 56:2. The Sabbath truth finds its true setting at this time in the third angel’s message of Revelation 14. When the Seventh-day Baptists, who had had the light of the true Sabbath for centuries, failed to follow on into the advent truths, they lost the opportunity to lead the Sabbath reformation; while the little band of Adventists who saw the place of the Sabbath reform in prophecy have spread into all the world.

Daily Providences in Mission Wilds

By W. A. S.

Is it not remarkable that in all the history of missions there is scarcely an instance—some say not one—of the death of a missionary or a member of his family by serpent or wild beast?
In his book, “The Cobra’s Den,” Dr. Jacob Chamberlain, of the Telegu country, India, says that one day a large cobra darted across the veranda of the mission house and disappeared among some flower-pots in the yard. On looking carefully he found a hole in the ground, between two flower-pots in which were roses that Mrs. Chamberlain carefully tended every day. Throwing a ray of sunlight down the hole by a mirror, he could see the bright scales of the cobra coiling only a foot or so below the surface. Stopping the hole partially, and firing into it with a revolver, two great cobras were wounded and crawled out, to be quickly despatched. Dr. Chamberlain says:—
Their hole shows that they had evidently been living there right among the flower-pots that were daily tended, and within six feet of our veranda, for weeks or months. A short time after, some expert snake-charmers were summoned to rid our compound of serpents. In half an hour, while we were intently watching, they had, with their weird, enchanting music, charmed and enticed from their holes not noted by me before, in the grass and under the shrubbery about our dooryard, and dextrously captured, one by one, five more full-sized cobras. And though the cobra is the deadliest serpent known, and thousands of persons die of their bite yearly in India, no one in our mission has ever been harmed by one. Verily, “He shall give his angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways,” is the unbidden exclamation of many a missionary in such a time.
In the same book the missionary tells of meeting a spotted tiger early one morning on a mountain path. Mr. Chamberlain was alone, and armed only with a big white umbrella. The tiger was evidently hunting something to eat, the author says, for only great hunger sends them out in broad daylight. Giving a great war-whoop, which he had learned as a boy among the Indians of Michigan, and opening the umbrella, he charged the tiger. The animal stood its ground for a moment. But as the war-cry was repeated, and as the big umbrella was suddenly closed and raised to strike, the tiger turned and fled. Dr. Chamberlain says:—
I am thankful to say that such incidents are not common in our preaching tours. I have never known of a missionary being seriously injured by ravenous beasts or venomous reptiles. But such an incident forcibly reminds us of the protection promised in the last few verses of the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, in connection with the giving of the great commission, and that promise is wonderfully fulfilled.
When the Saviour sent forth the seventy, he said to them: “Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven.” Luke 10:19, 20. The privilege of being counted a child of God, and of having a part in the work of the Lord, is the greatest thing of all. Yet, truly, with the missionary army so continually subject to dangers in many places, the special protection of the Lord alone accounts for the immunity from harm.
It is impossible to list these daily providences. It is the protection from theminor unseen dangers that demands constant recognition. One of our sisters in India was once making her bed, and discovered a snake whose bite is deadly crushed to death between the mattress and the wire spring, where it had crawled in. More than one station could duplicate Dr. Chamberlain’s story of poisonous serpents about garden and verandas. Yet it is remarkable how seldom these dangers appear near enough to alarm. However, life and health are precious things in this work of saving the lost, and it is our privilege daily to pray that God’s protecting providence may shield the gospel laborers.
W. A. S.

“The Bible Only”

By W. W. P.

IN just that proportion that we put some other authority in place of the Scripture, to the same degree do we become feeble and uncertain in our Christian experience. There is no exposition of the Bible that can take the place of the Bible itself. There are no helps to the study of the Bible that can profitably be substituted for the Bible itself. We need, therefore, to be often reminded of the inspired estimate placed upon the Sacred Writings:—
“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” 2 Tim. 3:16, 17.
In the earlier history of Protestantism, the Bible was more generally recognized as the only reliable repository of truth, and as a sufficient rule of faith and practise. As illustrating this fact and as containing instruction valuable at the present time, we take the following from the “Homilies of the Church of England,” “almost unknown to the multitudes of the present time, which were written and published by authority, and designed not merely to be perused in private, but also to be read in the churches by such ministers as have no gift for preaching.” The opening words are these:—
Unto a Christian man there can be nothing either more necessary or profitable than the knowledge of Holy Scripture, forasmuch as in it is contained God’s true word, setting forth his glory and also man’s duty. And there is no truth nor doctrine necessary for our justification and everlasting salvation but that is or may be drawn out of that fountain and well of truth. Therefore as many as be desirous to enter into the right and perfect way unto God, must apply their minds to know Holy Scripture; without the which they can neither sufficiently know God and his will, neither their office and duty. And as drink is pleasant to them that be dry and meat to them that be hungry, so is the reading, hearing, searching of Holy Scripture to them that be desirous to know God, or themselves, and to do his will. . . . Let us reverently study and read Holy Scripture, which is the food of the soul. Let us diligently search for the well of life in the books of the Old and the New Testament, and not run to the stinking puddles of men’s traditions, devised by men’s imaginations for our justification and salvation. For in Holy Scripture is fully contained what we ought to do, and what to eschew, what to believe, what to love, and what to look for at God’s hand at length.
The teachers of the message for this time who lay much stress upon the Scriptures as the only source of true doctrine, owe it to themselves and to the people whom they instruct, to make such a study of the Scriptures that they shall be able to draw from this storehouse of truth, clear and convincing proofs for every position taken, and every doctrine inculcated. There surely needs to be one religious body in the world holding constantly to the Protestant principle: “The Bible, the Bible only, is the religion of Protestants.”
W. W. P.

Building for Eternity

By C. M. S.

JESUS CHRIST, the carpenter of Nazareth, was more than a builder of structures of stone and wood, which time and the elements must harry into ruin. The temporal structures upon which he wrought in Palestine have crumbled into decay. But there are buildings in every nation of the world to-day, fashioned by the hand and eye of Jesus, the carpenter of Nazareth for a time, but the architect of more enduring structures that are to give glory to his name throughout eternity.
These are not made of wood or stone, or thatched with straw—they are temples of God, characters fashioned by the Word of God. That is the kind of building Christ came into the world pre-eminently to do. When we look at that work and see its eternal possibilities, how insignificant appear the relics of temporal things whose beauty and whose very form have tarnished and crumbled with time!
Paul declares: “We are a temple of the living God; even as God said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them.” 2 Cor. 6:16. But Christ is the builder and the beautifier of that temple. Man's efforts in that direction will avail nothing without the direction and help of him who builds the spiritual temple of the soul for the dwelling-place of its Maker. Into that temple there can nothing enter that is unclean, unlovely, transitory. Eternity is to be stamped on every stone that is to enter this age-abiding temple. Therefore the apostle declares again: “If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.” 1 Cor. 3:17.
In many lands there stand to-day relics of the temples builded by the hand of man for the worship of idols, or for the glory of man. But these crumbling relics are giving mute testimony to the truth that all things that have not upon them the stamp of righteousness must pass away. All lustings after the things of this world, all the yieldings to the flesh, all the practises whose trend is earthward, are defilements, whose tendency is to destroy what God designed should be a temple fitted to endure. When that work has gone on and on till the work of defilement is complete, God will pronounce upon it the decree of everlasting destruction, and it will crumble into ruin, as have all the heathen temples of old where God was mocked and souls polluted. Christ drove out from the Hebrew temple those who were making merchandise of it and its sacred mission, doing the work of defilement. But afterward that work went on as before, until even he whose dwelling-place it was meant to be was slain by its trustees, and the veil was rent, and final destruction came, swift, sudden, and complete. That was a type of the end of all those who continue in the work of defiling the temple of this body, or who, having been cleansed by the power of his Word, have again embraced the ways and deeds that dishonor and defile. Verily, “him shall God destroy.”
But having sought the better way, having yielded to the purifying and edifying process of God, He begins the work of fitting up there a temple for the indwelling of his presence. Then the work of ruin and annihilation ceases, and the work of building for eternity begins—not with dead stones and dying timbers, not with perishable material; but as the apostle says, “Ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house” upon that “living Stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God and precious.”
And this is not done with us in the way that we work upon lifeless, unresponsive material: “for we are laborers together with God: ye are God's husbandry; ye are God's building.” 1 Cor. 3:9. “In whom [Christ] all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: in whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.” Eph. 2:21, 22. “Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith.” Col. 2:7. Of that building Jesus Christ himself is the corner-stone. His righteousness upon it is the stamp, the seal, of its eternal endurance. Of that work there will be found no relics, no symbols of a greater glory and a greater work sunk into decay. But through and around and over that structure will breathe from age to age the living breath of eternal spring, the fragrance of undyingflowers. Within its walls will ring to all eternity the jubilee bells of glad release from the tyranny of sin.
God has given to every soul the opportunity of building for eternity. It is the privilege of all to be fashioned by the hand of the Master Builder into that which will endure, to be a living stone built upon Christ in the glorious spiritual temple structure of God. To go out of that temple would mean death; so of the one who becomes a stone, a pillar, in that temple it is declared, “He shall go no more out; and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is New Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.” Sealed with that seal, clothed with his righteousness, the victory over death and decay is accomplished forever, and the relics of time and sin will be seen no more. Let us, with God's help, so build that we may become a part of that enduring edifice.
C. M. S.

Personal Experience Necessary

By F. M. W.

The Lord deals directly and personally with every one of his children. If this truth could be borne in mind, it would save many from discouragement. Again and again the Lord warns us against looking to our fellow men or taking them for an example; and in no department of human experience is this exhortation so pertinent and necessary as in the field of Christian experience. We compare ourselves among ourselves, we gage our own experience with the experience of others, and the devil leads us to feel that unless the experience given to us tallies with the experience given to some other soul, our experience is not a genuine one.
But this is a mistaken notion. Every man must give an account of himself to God. Every soul must stand or fall for himself. Every man or woman is responsible alone to God for the exercise of the ability that God has bestowed. The Lord does not deal with his church collectively, but with each individual member as a separate, personal actor. The relationship existing between God and every one of his children is just as distinct and independent as though there were not another soul in the world.
Suppose every human being but myself were cut off from this earth, and I stood alone as the sole representative of the human family. Then certainly I could not help but feel that the relationship between me and my God was an independent, distinct relationship. But even though I am not the sole representative of the human family, and though there are one billion and a half of people in this world, I still sustain precisely the same independent relationship to God; and every one of my fellows sustains the same.
I say there is comfort in this thought. To realize that the great God, in looking down upon the millions of earth’s inhabitants, can single me out, as he can every other soul, and think directly of me, and create an independent line of communication between himself and me,—in this thought there is comfort and encouragement.
And if we will but realize the privilege this gives us of direct audience with the Majesty of heaven, it will bring strength into our lives. We have not to wait in his antechamber for audience. We have not to do business with him through prophet, priest, or apostle. Our business is not to be inquired of by his chief clerk. But we can go directly to God for ourselves. We can gain an instant audience. We can stay as long as we may desire, and we may be sure that whatever we unburden to him of our trials and struggles, be they ever so minute, he will not turn a deaf ear, but will give to every one particular and patient consideration.
This independent experience in God is brought to view in the method of giving names, or of changing names, as in the cases of Jacob, Abraham, and others. When Jacob was born, by God’s direction he was given the name of Jacob, meaning “a supplanter.” This was indicative of his nature. It indicated the experience he would have in the flesh. He was true to his name,—he was a supplanter during all his early life; and during all his experience he had to fight against this evil trait. But there came a time when he gained the victory, and in commemoration of this triumph, and to indicate his changed nature and his changed relationship to God, the Lord bestowed upon him the name of Israel, meaning, “a prince that has power to prevail.” After Abram became the recipient of God’s promises and received them by faith, his name was changed to Abraham, indicating the change of relationship he sustained to the Lord.
To the overcomer, the Lord says, “will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.” The new name, engraved in the white stone, conferred upon the believer, is a name indicating his experience, and as he has had an experience wholly his own, unlike the experience of any other soul, so it is that no man can know the name save he that receives it. No others have had the same experience; hence no others can understand the meaning of the name. It is written of those who are redeemed from among men at the second coming of Christ, the one hundred forty-four thousand who gain the victory over sin and over the power of sin, even to the extent of coming off triumphant over death, “They sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth.” The same principle holds good here. The experience of the one hundred forty-four thousand will be unlike the experience of any other people who have ever lived on the earth. The song is the song of their experience, and none can learn the song only those who have had the experience to which the song relates.
Then it is not for us to become discouraged if God deals with us in such a way as he deals with no other soul in the world. Let him lead us where he will. Let him give us the trials that he sees will be for our good. Let us all the while follow trustingly, believingly, realizing that if we but submit to his providences, he can make no mistake in the treatment of our case. The members of the human family are all poor, sin-sick souls. They need the application of the one universal remedy, the grace of God. But the application of that grace must be made in wisdom, and only with the wisdom that God possesses. An intelligent physician may have a hundred patients suffering from the same malady, and yet, though every one is afflicted with the same general disease, he must treat every case upon its merits, administering remedies suited to the strength, the stage of the disease, and its various complications. For him to blindly apply the same treatment in the same degree in every case would be but to do machine work without intelligence or conscientiousness. We are in the hands of an intelligent, conscientious Physician for the soul and body. We do not even know what we ought to pray for as we ought. Of ourselves we can not discern between good and evil.
Then let us not repine, or murmur, or complain. One with infinite wisdom is leading. Let us patiently submit to the processes by which he shall fit us for the place he designs us to occupy in his eternal purpose. All the experiences of lifeare his workmen, hewing, and scoring, and polishing us as rough stones taken from a quarry, to make of us beautiful pillars in the temple of our God. If we will but submit as clay in the hands of the potter, God will make of us vessels to his glory; and we shall see sometime, if not now, that all the way he led us was the way of wisdom, and only that which could work out in our lives and experiences his all-wise purpose.
F. M. W.

Bible Finance

“Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth.
“For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
“Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning; and ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately.”

The Authority for Sunday Observance

By W. W. P.

THOSE who sincerely desire to know how it was that the observance of Sunday was substituted for the observance of the Sabbath of the Lord can easily learn the truth of this matter. It is all contained in a nutshell. The prophet clearly foretells that the Papacy would think to change the law, and the Papacy claims the authority for so doing, and declares that it has done this very thing. Numerous testimonies to this fact have been submitted, but one has recently come to our attention which seems to be well worth reproducing. From an article entitled “The Observance of Sunday,” printed in the supplement of the Messenger of the Sacred Heart (Roman Catholic) for August, 1901, we take these paragraphs:—
What makes this fact [the general observance of Sunday in the United States] more remarkable still is that there is no clear ordinance in Scripture for the institution or observance of the Sunday. It is purely an ecclesiastical institution originating at the time of the apostles. It would seem to be the “Lord’s day” mentioned in the Apocalypse 1:10. The first day of the week was surely a day of meeting for common worship, as we gather from the Acts 20:7, and from the first epistle to the Corinthians 16:1. Such passages as these only report what was customary. To know that the observance of Sunday was obligatory from the first, we must accept the tradition of the Church. From this source we learn that it was an apostolical institution, a substitute for the Sabbath of the old law, designed to commemorate our Lord’s resurrection, and observed, now one way, now another, always by worship in common, especially by the celebration of the eucharist, and always as a day of rest from servile labor. It is surely wonderful that the Reformers of the sixteenth century, who repudiated tradition, should have allowed their followers to adhere to this sacred institution of the Church without the Scriptural warrant they always demanded for observances far less burdensome than this.
From the beginning the Church has “remembered” to keep holy a day known as the Lord’s own day. When abrogating the Sabbath of the Jewish covenant, she did not lessen the number of days on which public worship should be paid to God, but simply substituted the first for the last day of the week and so, honoring, consecrated it, first by making it a day of rest, and then by sanctifying it in his name. From the beginning it was a day of public worship, especially for the celebration of the eucharistic mysteries. The tradition of this practise is so clear and unquestioned, and the practise itself is so thoroughly in accord with the spirit of our faith, that we never think of inquiring for any special ordinance or sanction for our obligation to sanctify Sunday by hearing mass. If it be the providence of God that the sects which have separated from the Church still maintain some observance of this day, it is a special blessing of his providence that we still keep it just as the apostles and early Christians did in the beginning; and who will deny that the example of ten million Catholics scattered in every town and village of this country, assembling faithfully every Sunday in their churches to assist at the same august sacrifice, to hear the same divine doctrine, helps more than any other influence to keep alive the spirit of religion among our fellow countrymen not of our faith?
We do not consent to the claim that Sunday was the “Lord’s day” of Rev. 1:10, or that the mere mention of one meeting on the first day of the week (Acts 20:7) and the instruction for laying by an offering at home (1 Cor. 16:1) indicated that the custom of observing Sunday was already established, but we are heartily in accord with the idea that the obligatory observance of Sunday rests wholly upon the tradition of the Church. It is high time for those who wish to obey God rather than man to turn away from all observances which rest upon mere tradition, and to accept in their obvious meaning, the commandments of God.
W. W. P.

Note and Comment

By Editor

The Crop Report

THE annual report of Secretary Wilson of the Agricultural Department is thus summed up by the Outlook:—
This year's report is the most cheerful of any yet issued, in that it reports the most prosperous of all years. The value of farm products for this year is no less than eight billion seven hundred million dollars, a gain of eleven per cent over 1908. Nor is this all. The value of the products has nearly doubled in ten years—there is a sum of seventy billion dollars for the decade. As Secretary Wilson says, “it has paid off mortgages, it has established banks, it has made better homes, it has helped to make the farmer a citizen of the world, and it has provided him with means for improving his soil and making it more productive. The 1909 corn crop alone tallies one billion seven hundred twenty million dollars.”
We thank God for all that this has meant to our brethren on their farms and to all of us, who share in the bounties of nature. “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof.” He is still giving the fruitful seasons, and bearing witness to all of his care for his creatures. But how few recognize the Giver, to give glory to him and to render to him his own.

The Limits of Science

As a comment on the question in Job, “Canst thou by searching find out God?” note the following words of Lord Kelvin, one of the leading scientists of Britain, uttered just before his death:—
One word characterizes the most strenuous of the efforts for the advancement of science that I have made perseveringly for fifty-five years; that word is failure. I know no more of electric and magnetic force, or of the relation between ether, electricity, and ponderable matter, or of chemical affinity, than I knew and tried to teach my class-students in my first session as professor.

Cost of Education

Our own schools are not alone in calling for financial aid in providing for the proper training of the student, over and above the tuition. In fact, it is evident our schools have gone a long way in advance in the matter of school finance, judging by the following words of Judge Joseph Buffington, of Pittsburg, at a university celebration:—
It is well for a college man to realize what his college course costs the world. Taking into account grounds, buildings, expenses of maintenance and interest on endowment, the average American college has from $2,000 to $3,000 invested in every student at graduation in excess of what he has paid the college. The public, therefore, has the right to expect something more than self-seeking from the college graduate who starts out a debtor.
The great college endowments and gifts come in to meet this investment in students.

Working for Health

Continuing his speech, Judge Buffington uttered these true words for school hygiene and care of health:—
We hear much in these days of the tremendous waste in our natural resources and the need of conservation. No greater thing did Mr. Roosevelt do than to awaken the nation to the imperative call for such conserving; but I can not but wish we might have some national apostle of health, who would stir our people to the conservation of its own life. And am I not right when I say that the college world is false to real education if it sends out as world workers men who have not in college learned the duty and acquired the habit of conserving, of daily strengthening their bodies to replace the daily consumption of strength the world's work consumes?
As I go through the world I am surprised to find how many big men, the men who are really doing things, the President of the United States and his predecessor, too, have taken hold of the idea that to do things and keep doing things a man must work for health as persistently as he follows his work, and that in the simple, persistent, daily natural care of body and food and air lies the secret of sustained work.
Continue reading: Mrs. White's Labors in Michigan and Indiana