That the family relation in spiritual things is recognized and taught in the Scriptures is clear. This, like every other doctrine therein expressed, is for the comfort of all who walk the narrow way. God is not arbitrary. Such a disposition is foreign to his nature. All of his dealings and instruction are based upon the principle of love, and are the outgrowth of that infinite wisdom which guided the great Architect in creation, and which enables him to justly weigh every thought and act of man.
The following expressions of Scripture recognize in the people of earth but two families: “Our Father which art in heaven.” Matt. 6:9. “Ye do the deeds of your father.” “Ye are of your father the devil.” John 8:41, 44. Each family has its head; the children of each reveal its plan of government, and each bear the fruit of that of which they are born. John 3:6.
Adam was a son of God. Luke 3:38. Had he not sinned, all would have been members of the heavenly family; but sin deprived them of their beautiful home, and made them “strangers and foreigners” to “the household of God.” Eph. 2:19. Thus they were made the servants of sin, the wages of which is death. But to all “God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.” Gal. 4:4, 5. “For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God.” Eph. 2:18, 19. “For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.” Rom. 8:15. “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God; therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” 1 John 3:1, 2.
While the Scriptures do not, in just those words, speak of Christ as our elder brother, yet the thought has already not only been implied, but clearly expressed, in the language quoted above. But, further, does not the word say that he “was made in the likeness of men?” And is he not called “the Man Christ Jesus?” Read again the following words: “For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one; for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren, . . . I will declare thy name unto my brethren.” “Wherefore in all things it became him to be made like unto his brethren.” Heb. 2:11, 12, 17. “Verily I say to you, That inasmuch as ye did so to one of these my little brothers, ye did so to me.” Matt. 25:40 (Syriac).
Conditions of Adoption.
“But as many as received him, to them gave he power [right or privilege] to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.” John 1:12. “For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.” Gal. 3:26. It is legitimate and proper that those who were by fraud deprived of their home, should have the opportunity and privilege of returning to the home of parental love. Thus God in Christ has provided a way by which all who so desire may return and enjoy the comforts of unselfish but yet often despised and abused love. “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.” 2 Cor. 6:17, 18.
It is a common expression, “Like produces like,” and in every case the children partake of their parents’ nature. So those who are adopted into the family of heaven partake of the nature of its Head. “Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” 2 Peter 1:4.
These two natures and the government of the two families being so different, it is reasonable that the one presenting himself for adoption should cheerfully submit to the family discipline, expect to become acquainted with its rules and regulations, and to work in harmony with its government. A child adopted into a family on earth may have a wayward disposition, and sometimes think the requirements are arbitrary; and to all outward appearances there may be but little to encourage those who have undertaken to remodel the young life; but gradually, and perhaps to the child unconsciously, the habits and manners are changed, requirements become privileges, and the wholesome influence of the new relation is apparent to all.
Respect for Those Who Do Right
“EVEN wrong-doers respect a man who does right.”
Fear of Sin
“IF people feared sin as they do cholera, it would be easily quarantined.”
STATE OF ALABAMA VS. W. J. HASTY.
W. J. HASTY, of Columbia, Ala., is now in jail charged with “compelling his child to perform labor on Sunday which was not the customary domestic duties of daily necessity or comfort.” A true bill was found against him by the grand jury of the fall term of Circuit Court, in ’95, and he was tried and convicted in the spring term, April 30, ’96.
The state brought three witnesses to prove that the work was merely done by the child on Sunday, which was not denied by the defendant, only to the effect that it was not compulsory, as was also testified by the eighteen-year-old boy “child,” in whose interest and for whose defense the suit was brought by the grand jury. This “child” testified that he was a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church; that he joined this church on his own convictions, and of his free-will, and that he observed the Sabbath and worked on Sunday from a sense of duty; that his father never even asked him to work on Sunday, and that on the day in question, he himself proposed to his father that they plow a certain field of peas on that day. Neither of the witnesses testified that the boy was compelled to do the work. They only knew that the work was done by the boy, and presumed that he was forced to do it; for, as the attorney general said, “It is unlike an Alabama boy to work of his own free-will on any day.”
The usual arguments justifying the Sunday legislation upon civil basis were eloquently dwelt upon by the prosecuting attorney, and were forcibly met by Hon. R. H. Walker, of Columbia, who volunteered his services in the defense of the defendant. After showing that the civil law has no right to enforce disobedience to the plain command of God, or even to enforce obedience to his command, he traced the history of the Bible Sabbath from Moses to its change by Constantine, A.D. 321, establishing the fact that Christ and the apostles kept that day, and, it being the Sabbath of the most ancient law-book, and never having been repealed, it was binding upon all to this day, and that legislation upon this institution was emphatically religious legislation, and for that reason, according the Constitution of the United States, and that of Alabama, such legislation was void, and therefore no law. Mr. Walker then explained that the intent of the Alabama Sunday law was to protect the rights of minors or servants who desired to observe Sunday, when employed by those who were not under the restrictions of Sunday laws themselves, but that if the minor or the servant should engage in labor, not forbidden by the law, of their own free-will, and not having been forced to do it, the law could not hold that such labor was compelled by employer or guardian; and the judge, in his charge to the jury, recognized this purpose of the law in the following:—
“It is not whether the boy of the defendant worked on Sunday, but whether the defendant compelled him to do so, that is, did he force him to do such work. Before the jury can reach a conviction of the defendant in the case, they must believe from the evidence, beyond all reasonable doubt, and to a moral certainty, that the defendant compelled his son to work on the first Sunday in June, 1895; and unless this has been proven by evidence to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt, the jury should acquit the defendant.
“If the jury should believe from the evidence, that the minor children of the defendant worked at the time, said by the state, of their own volition, and not compelled to do so by the father, then the defendant would not be guilty, and it would be the duty of the jury to acquit the defendant.”
In the face of the above testimony and charge, the jury was out only a short time before they reached a verdict of “guilty,” with an imposed fine of $20, the limit of the law, and the costs, $31.70.
The defendant refused to give bond for the payment of the amounts, and was lodged in jail in default immediately after trial.
He will be taken to the mines, to work out the above amount at thirty cents per day.
Public feeling is very much against Seventh-day Adventists in Columbia, yet Mr. Hasty has many friends, and, as he was locked in the jail, there was intense feeling against such treatment of so good a man. Tears were seen in many eyes, and many proposed to pay him out, and we would not be surprised if he would soon be released by friends paying his fine and costs for him.—Southern Review.
SUN-WORSHIP, SUNDAY, AND CHRISTIANITY.
By W. N. G.
April 5, 3,000 Knights Templar of Boston, headed by brass bands, escorted Rev. Dr. Lorimer and the Right Eminent Grand Commander Lawrence through the principal streets of Boston to Music Hall, where annual Easter services were held. A marked feature of the occasion was the presentation of a handsome bronze pulpit to the pastor of Tremont Temple, which will grace the platform of that edifice. Boston presented the spectacle of a prominent pastor being unequally yoked, not only with modern sun-worshipers, but with the prince of modern distillers, Grand Commander Lawrence, whose Medford rum is the curse of Africa, and who assisted Dr. Lorimer in the services.—Christian Cynosure.
Inasmuch as the pastor and the church of which he has charge religiously observe the day originally set apart for sun-worship, and inasmuch as he is also united to these “modern sun-worshipers,” it was logically fitting that the “Right Eminent Grand Commander” should join forces with the pastor on Sunday. The illegitimate feature of the transaction was that it should be done in the name of Christianity. There is no ground for criticism on the assumption that any part of the ceremony was Christian.
We do not aim to controvert the Cynosure’s reference to the Masonic fraternity as “sun-worshipers,” as, personally, we know nothing about Masonic worship, as such; but taking for granted that its editor knows what he is talking about in this instance, and knowing him to be a leading National Reformer, we note two other instances which he may cite in confirmation of his charge. One is an item in the Christian Statesman, a colaborer of the Cynosure in numerous “reforms,” and is as follows:—
“Senator Quay and wife have donated sixteen acres of land and $10,000 in money for a Masonic university at Beaver, Pa., and the agent of the proposed institution publishes that a subscription of $400,000 at Pittsburg and another of $100,000 at Philadelphia, for the same purpose, are already assured. This is a bid for Masonic support in this presidential campaign.”
The other point, and one which forms a significant connection between “these modern sun-worshipers” and the National Reform combination, is found in the senator’s public record on the matter of Sunday legislation. When the bill proposing an appropriation for the Chicago Exposition was under consideration in the Senate, Mr. Quay introduced and successfully supported the provision that the exposition should be closed on Sunday. At that time we did not hear any of the National Reformers accusing him of being a “sun-worshiper;” but if he and his fellow-Masons are to be classed in that category, that bit of evidence should not be overlooked. W. N. G.
“PINCHING YOURSELF TO GIVE.”
By Mark Guy Pearse
Mr. Horn often used to say: “There’s one thing that lots of good people will never know in this world, and ’tis one o’ the things we sha’n’t know anything about in heaven itself,—the joy of really pinching yourself to give. I often think that that is the blessed thing about being hard up, when you do give—then you feel it.”
It was with a merry laugh that he would tell the younger members that, when he had been at the class meeting three or four times, he said one evening, “Put me down, please, for a penny a week.” The leader looked at me through his spectacles, and opened his mouth wide, and, after a minute or two, said, “What!” as if he was quite frightened.
“A penny a week, sir,” I said, putting down the money for each evening I had been at class. The leader was what you might call a common sort of a man—for they are the commonest sort of people that I know. He thought that the less he could give the better, and, if he could do without giving at all, it would be better still, just as if the Lord did not see what was left behind. The man was in good work and had no family, and yet a penny a week was all he gave. It looked so bad for a lad like I was to give so much.
“You can’t afford it, Jim; you know you can’t.”
“Put it down, sir,” I replied, “put it down. There it is, and there it will be as long as ever I’ve got the love of Jesus in my heart.”
Soon after that came the time for renewal of the quarterly tickets. The leader headed the list with what Mr. Horn used to call a “beggarly threepenny bit.” “Why, the fellow spends twice as much in the week for10tobacco,” he would say indignantly, as if interrupting himself—“sixpence for smoke, and threepence for the work of God!”
“Well, the minister went through the names, and they all sung to the low key that had been pitched, till they came to my name. Then what did the leader do but lean over and whisper that I was young and could not give anything, and he had better not ask me. The minister nodded his head and took up the hymn-book.
“‘Please, sir, I love God too,’ I said; ‘why mayn’t I give anything?’”
“The minister looked at me kindly and said, ‘Brother Skimes tells me that you can’t afford anything.’”
“I replied, ‘The rule says a shilling at least, sir, every week except in extreme poverty, and that isn’t the state of any of us, I am sure, and I wish you to put down a shilling for me.’”
“‘A shilling!’ cried the leader, and he jumped off his seat as if some one had pricked him.”
“‘There’s the money,’ said I, as I put the shilling on the table. ‘I would afford it somehow, sir, however it might pinch me.’ And I looked at Brother Skimes so much as to say, ‘Though it should even put my pipe out.’”
“‘Ay, I used to pinch myself too!’ continued Mr. Horn. ‘More than once I’ve gone on dry bread, and then done so much as any of ’em. Now and then I used to buy a lot of broken herrings for sixpence, and then I had a bit of relish. You know they say that there is nothing like bitters to give you an appetite, and it is when you give away what you want that you enjoy what’s left. Try it. Give away half of your dinner, and then the other half, bless ye! the lord mayor of London might envy it. If anybody wants to taste a bit o’ real joy, let ’em just go and do that. I’ve often turned it over in my mind that love is real true love when it has got a bit of real hard, pinchin’ sacrifice about it, and not till then.’”
“‘Kindness and pity will give you, perhaps, what it thinks it can do without, but love gives everything. “He spared not his own Son”—that is love. “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us.” Kindness and pity will send the scraps and bones to the shivering beggar at the door, but love brings him in and gives up its place and its plate and will stand behind waiting and helping. Ah! that’s how the blessed Lord treated us when we came home from the far country perishing with hunger. No old, cast-off clothes, but the best robes. No scraps—all bones and crusts—but the fatted calf. No pitiful words, but himself. His arms about the neck and his kiss upon the cheek, and all his heart to welcome us. But we, when he comes to ask anything of us, keep him waiting at the door for an answer, and then we send him out our miserable scrapings—just what we think we can spare without feeling it. Depend upon it, we don’t know much about love if love don’t pinch us now and then.’”—Mark Guy Pearse, in “Mister Horn.”
WHERE'S MOTHER?
By J. R. Eastwood
BY J. R. EASTWOOD.
Bursting in from school or play,
This is what the children say;
Trooping, crowding, big and small,
On the threshold, in the hall—
Joining in the constant cry,
Ever as the days go by,
“Where’s mother?”
From the weary bed of pain
This same question comes again;
From the boy with sparkling eyes
Bearing home his earliest prize;
From the bronzed and bearded son,
Perils past and honors won:
“Where’s mother?”
Burdened with a lonely task,
One day we may vainly ask
For the comfort of her face,
For the rest of her embrace;
Let us love her while we may,
Well for us that we can say,
“Where’s mother?”
Mother with untiring hands
At the post of duty stands,
Patient, seeking not her own,
Anxious for the good alone
Of the children as they cry,
Ever as the days go by,
“Where’s mother?”
—The Quiver.
ABOUT TEETH.
By Lizzie Leonard Martin
BY LIZZIE LEONARD MARTIN.
CHILDREN should be trained when very young to clean their teeth regularly, and to rinse out their mouth after each meal. The best dentifrice is charcoal powder. Besides cleaning the teeth, it acts as a deodorizer, leaving the mouth fresh, and free from any fetid odor. There should be no indulgence in sugar, candy, etc. “A sweet tooth” is likely to become a “decayed tooth.”
Tartar is an earthy-like incrustation deposited on the teeth from the saliva. If, from neglect, it has been allowed to collect around the roots of the teeth, it should be carefully scraped off with some sharp instrument. It is best to have a dentist remove it. Some people are so negligent as to allow such a quantity to collect that several teeth become soldered together, and if one of them decays, and it is necessary to extract it, it becomes almost impossible for the dentist to do so without removing all.
A decayed tooth, however painless, which has a sharp edge, or which in breaking off leaves a pointed stump behind it, should be at once filled, as the irritation caused by the tongue rubbing upon it is a frequent origin of cancer. It is well to wash the mouth several times a day with milk or magnesia.—The Housekeeper.
Pure Air
By John Harvey Kellogg
BY J. H. KELLOGG, M.D.
A GENEROUS Creator has placed at man’s disposal an ocean of air, many miles in depth. Man, and all living things, vegetable as well as animal, are dependent for life upon the life-giving oxygen contained in this aerial ocean. A man may live more than a month without food, and a few days without drink; but when deprived of air or oxygen, he dies in a few moments, showing that pure air is the most essential of all the necessities of life.
Impure air is as potent an agent of death and disease as is pure air of life and health. Poison taken into the stomach is slowly absorbed and distributed to the body; but poison taken into the lungs is in a gaseous form, and at once comes in contact with almost the entire volume of blood in the body, being separated from it only by a membrane of almost inconceivable thinness, the lining membrane of the air passages and air cells, which, if spread out, would cover a surface of nearly two thousand square feet.
Germs.—Tho microscopic in size, they are most potent agents for mischief, on account of their immense numbers, and the marvelous rapidity with which they multiply. Bad air is dangerous partly on account of the presence of these germs, and partly from the presence of foul and poisonous gases.
There are numerous causes of impure air, among the most common and dangerous of which may be mentioned the following:—
Vaults and cesspools are common receptacles of all kinds of filth and are to be found connected with nearly all houses in the country, and in small towns and villages. They send into the air volumes of pestilential, germ-laden gases, which not only contaminate the out-of-door air, but are carried by the winds into human dwellings and breathed by human lungs, often communicating disease and death, which is mistakenly attributed to Providence.
Drains from the house, which usually communicate with a vault, cesspool, or sewer, in most cases constitute an open door for the entrance of germs and dangerous gases. Drain pipes should always be ventilated.
The kitchen sink, stationary wash-bowls and bath tubs, and water-closets, are likely to become sources of danger, through the accumulation of impurities about them, or the entrance of gases from the sewer through defective plumbing. Avoid stationary wash-bowls in bedrooms. Have the water-closet and bath tub in a room separated from the living rooms, and well ventilated. Clean underneath daily.
Hen-coops, piggeries, barn-yards, and cow-pens, are among the chief contributors to air impurity in the country, and in small towns. These should be kept clean and disinfected.
The house cellar, with its decomposing meats and vegetables, its general accumulation of rubbish, its moldy walls, and damp, germ-infected air, is a magazine of disease under thousands of households. Cellars are healthful if well drained, well ventilated, frequently sunned, and never made the receptacle of decomposable substances.
Unkempt pantries, full of sour, moldy odors, and dark, unventilated closets, rank with the odors of soiled and musty garments, are potent sources of bad air, the remedy for which is obvious.
Carpets filled with dust throw up a cloud of germs when trodden upon or swept, and moldy walls, poisonous wall-paper, and filthy wood-boxes, intensify the impurity of the air of sitting-rooms, which may be already made hazardous to breathe from other sources. Cover the floor when necessary with rugs instead of carpets. Keep free from dust by shaking daily. Have no paper upon the walls, and no wood-boxes in living rooms.
Dark, damp, fusty parlors, into which the sun never shines, keep bright carpets and upholstery, but make pale faces and lack-luster eyes.
Damp, unventilated bedrooms, with beds and bedding damp, unaired, unsunned, and musty, are veritable death traps. Many an itinerant clergyman has traced a fatal illness to a horrible night spent in the clammy embrace of a “spare bed.” Such a bed and such a bedroom teem with germs.
Thousands of lives are annually sacrificed by breathing the poison-laden and overheated air of rooms warmed by coal stoves, with defective draft and leaky furnaces.
But the most constant and dangerous source of air impurities is human beings. Each breath thrown off from the lungs, contains impurities sufficient to render three cubic feet, or three-fourths of a barrel, of air unfit to breathe again. It is apparent, then, that the air of an unventilated room of ordinary size must very soon become not only unfit to breathe, but absolutely poisonous. Yet there are plenty of persons who, altho most fastidious as regards what they eat and drink, will breathe air the most impure for hours with entire complacency.
Why stifle and gasp and pine within air-tight walls, with every crack and crevice barricaded against God’s life-giving oxygen, which is “free as air” to all who will accept it, and which, even at this moment, perhaps, is moaning and sighing, even howling about outside, for a chance to come in and invigorate you?
The sovereign remedy for bad air is cleanliness. Nothing should be left to decay or mold within, beneath, or around a dwelling-house. Garbage, and other household waste, should not be left to accumulate, but should, so far as possible, be burned each day, while it is still incapable of harm. Whatever can not be destroyed should be removed from the premises.
Disinfection is an important means of combating bad air. Sulphur is a cheap and efficient disinfectant for musty or moldy rooms, or rooms in which persons have been sick with offensive or contagious diseases. The room should be tightly closed, and the sulphur burned in an iron vessel, set on bricks. Burn five ounces of sulphur to each hundred cubic feet of air to be disinfected.
To disinfect drains and cesspools, pour into them several gallons of water containing two pounds of copperas to the gallon. Abundance of fresh air and sunshine are excellent disinfectants, which should never be forgotten.
THE HERMIT CHRISTIAN NATION OF AFRICA.
By George H. Schodde
BY PROF. DR. GEORGE H. SCHODDE.
None have better reasons than the Christians to feel a deep interest in the Abyssinians. In reality they are the hermit Christian people of the globe, the oldest national church in existence. Organized as early as the fourth century, and adopting the tenets and teachings of the Greek Church of that period, Abyssinian Christianity of to-day has still preserved, altho in the form of a petrified formalism, the doctrines and liturgies, the morals and literature, of the age which witnessed the conversion of this unique and gifted people.
Ever since the conquest of Egypt by the Moslems, the Abyssinians have been separated from the church at large. In fact, the rupture between it and the mother Greek Church took place as early as A.D. 451, when the synod of Chalcedon condemned as heretical the Monophysitic dogmas of the Egyptian and other churches. With the exception of a passing and unfortunate acquaintance with the Portuguese in the fifth century, which led to the temporary establishment of a Jesuitic supremacy and the acknowledgment of the jurisdiction of the see of Rome, Abyssinian Christianity has been an unknown quantity to western Christianity for more than a dozen centuries, a vague knowledge of it being traditionally spread under the name of “the Christianity of the Presbyter John.” Even to the present day, the type of ecclesiastical life here represented has been an enigma to western minds, as neither Protestant nor Roman Catholic missionaries have succeeded in bringing these people into touch and tone with the living Christianity of the west.
All these data, together with the surprising experiences of the Italians in Abyssinia during the past decade, have naturally aroused the inquiry as to what manner of men these people are. The Abyssinian, who is the modern representative of the Ethiopian of history, can boast of an excellent kinship, pedigree, and descent. He is really no Ethiopian at all,—that is, he is not black, nor a member of the negro race. He is of purely Semitic extraction, a brother of the Hebrew, the Arab, the Babylonian, the Assyrian, the Phenician, the Syrian, and other history-making peoples. His physiology, his language, his method of thought, clearly indicate his extraction. His color is, indeed, to use a word employed by a prominent German missionary, Krapft, “coffee-colored,” but this is manifestly the result of climatic influences. Between his tongue and that of the Old Testament and of the Koran, there exists as close a relationship as is found, on the one hand, between French, Spanish, and Italian, and on the other between the German and the Scandinavian languages.
The religious traditions of the Abyssinians are exceedingly old. The royal house traces its origin back to Solomon—the first king of Abyssinia, Menelik, being regarded as a son of the wise king of Israel from the queen of Sheba. The native chronicles, as these are reproduced in the monumental thesaurus of Ludolf, Historia Æthiopica, trace this line through all its members up to the son of David, and the royal house of Abyssinia claims an ancestry as ancient as the houses of China and Japan. Tradition also claims that this first Menelik, who was educated at Jerusalem, took with him the original ark of the covenant from the temple, and brought it to his own capital city of Axum, the ruins of which are still in existence. In this tradition there is evidently a kernel of truth. Altho the Abyssinians are Christians, yet in their faith and church life they have many Jewish elements. Thus they still practice circumcision as well as baptism; they observe the seventh day as well as the first; they have an abundance of fast days after Jewish models.
It seems highly probable that, before they became Christians, the Abyssinians had adopted the tenets of Judaism. The existence in their midst of a peculiar people called “Falashas,” or “Black Jews,” with a Jewish type of faith of the ante-Talmudic period, makes this view probable, as the Falashas would then be that portion of the people who would not exchange their Jewish faith for the Christian. That there was a mighty struggle between these two faiths in Abyssinia is indicated by the undoubted fact that, probably during the eleventh century, a Jewish dynasty ruled Abyssinia for several decades, and was suppressed only after a bitter contest. This whole Jewish interlude in Abyssinian history strongly recalls the Hyksos episode in the early annals of Egypt.
Abyssinian Christianity has a noble record in defending its existence against Moslem aggression. While the Mohammedan propaganda of fire and sword was able to overthrow the Christian Orient, and the green flag of the prophet of Mecca was carried in triumph over northern Africa and in western Europe almost to the Rhine, and in eastern Europe to the very gates of Vienna, this same power was not able to supplant the cross by the crescent in the mountain fastnesses of the “Switzerland of Africa,” just across the Red Sea from Mecca and Medina, and bring to the feet of the false prophet the kindred people of Abyssinia.
For more than twelve hundred years, down to the last war between the Madhi and the Negus John, the Abyssinians have defended and maintained against fearful odds the cause of Christian culture and civilization against the Moslem foe. It is true that the Christianity and civilization of Abyssinia is not much to boast of, being a stereotype petrification of the Christian Greek culture of the fourth century; yet, with such historic factors and forces to deal with, the surprise really consists in the fact that even a semblance of Christianity is left to tell the story of former greatness. As it is, the Abyssinian church is probably the greatest, as it is the old ecclesiastical ruin of Christianity, and, as such, has its story to tell and its lesson to teach.
Of special value has the peculiar history of Abyssinia been for the Christian church in this, that it has, in its isolation and separation, preserved a large number of valuable works of early Christianity, which have been lost to the Græco-Latin literature of the church. To these belong, among other works, also the book of Enoch, the book of Jubilees, and a number of excellent texts of patristic writings. The literature of Abyssinia is fairly large, but is almost entirely composed of translations, and is throughout, either directly or indirectly, theological and Christian. Much of it yet remains to be published and examined.—S. S. Times.
FAITH
By Melissa Barton
BY MRS. MELISSA BARTON.
PRAYER is the strength of the Christian;
Pray always, and never faint.
Pray in faith and submission,
Prayer is the life of the saint.
Work, ere probation closes;
Work, ere man's race is run;
Work, ere time discloses
That work for man is done.
. . . . . . .
Rejoice, for our Lord is coming;
Rejoice, pray do not fear;
For the chariot wheels now rumbling
Show the time is drawing near
When, gloriously appearing,
Our Lord in state shall come.
To yon bright world of promise
He'll take his children home.
We'll rise to realms of glory,
His dead shall leave their grave,
We'll sing his love in story
Who for us his life gave.
Denver, Colo.
COTTON VALLEY, ALA.
A TEACHER in the Congregational school in the Cotton Valley sends an interesting account of the work there to the American Missionary, from which we take the following items:—
There are many features about the work here that make it a most interesting one. First, it is situated in a dense black belt, where the people are anxious to improve, and are appreciative of all that is done for them. Next, Cotton Valley is quiet and retired, being 40 miles from Montgomery, 9 from Union Springs, and 13 from Tuskegee, so that, while we are enabled to teach without interruptions that break into school life in cities, we are yet not so far removed as to be incommoded when business necessitates our going to a city.
Ten years ago Miss Lilla V. Davis left her home in Boston, Mass., and, coming down here under the most adverse circumstances, and in the midst of the lowest humanity, established this school. Her teaching in those days was not so much from books, but she went into the homes of the people and made them feel that she was one of them. She talked and read to them, taught them the rules of decency and virtue and cleanliness. Thus step by step has she been leading them on, until now, instead of a valley of ignorance, it is as “a city set on a hill,” whose light can not be hid; for, instead of a one-room log cabin, we have a nice, comfortable school building, planned and furnished in modern style. I mean by this that what we have is up to date, and not that we have all we need.
Our school this year is larger than ever, and our students, I think, would compare well with those of more favored schools in cities. The present enrollment is nearly two hundred, and when the weather is good, and all are in, we find the work rather heavy, as there are only three teachers, and we all believe in thorough work.
Perhaps it would be interesting to say that the relation of the white people of the settlement to the school is most friendly. They respect Miss Davis to the highest degree, and are willing and glad to show any favors to her or her teachers.
Thus far, I have shown you only the favorable side of the picture, but I would beg my readers to remember that it has also a painful side. Those who are teaching are the children of ancestors who have lived for centuries in darkness and ignorance, with only eleven years of light; and there is still a great work to be done here. We find it necessary to instruct them, not only in books, but along the lines of all the virtues which go to make a man a man, and a woman a woman.
The Living Sermon of a Christian Life
“SINNERS may refuse to listen to the minister, but they can not escape the force of the living sermon that is being preached in the life of every consistent Christian, who faithfully performs life’s duties day by day.”
