Signs of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 4. (1/23/1901)

Signs of the Times

Jan 23, 1901

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 23, 1901

SORROWS AND BEYOND.

SURELY this sinful old earth has its share of sorrows. Like Jerusalem of old, it can say to its sister spheres, “Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow.” Lam. 1:12. From the time that man took the serpent sin to his bosom and nursed it by his life he has known sorrow, and earth has been the befitting home of the sad angel.

WHEN God spoke to the transgressors in Eden, He uttered no arbitrary decree which brought with it the pain and the grief. To the woman He said, “I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception.” To the man, “Cursed is the ground for thy sake: in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life.” Not in these words, however, began the sorrow, the curse: they began in the first departure in disobedience; in the cherishing of the first principle of disloyalty to God’s law, harmony with which was their life. The Lord only told them what would be the inevitable result of their transgression, what had already begun to be,

THUS has it been. Every son and daughter of Adam have eaten of the heritage. They have tasted of the fruit of sin. They have companied with the pain, the disappointment, the suffering, the sorrow. Earth’s brightest stars of hope have set in impenetrable night. Earth’s seemingly most luscious fruits have turned to Dead Sea apples when plucked and eaten. Earth’s gleaming gold and gems have proved worthless shining sand. Earth’s flowers fade and die, and sometimes the sweetest perfume hides the deadliest poison. Earth’s princes that have seemed like sturdy oaks have proved broken reeds. Earth’s mightiest kingdoms of iron have crumbled like brittle clay.

O, IT is a sad, sorrowful world! From Eden lost to the present wrecked characters, wrecked homes, wrecked churches, wrecked cities, wrecked kingdoms, blasted virtue, dethroned wisdom, debased honor, rampant vice, cruel war, crueler greed, high-handed oppression, gorgon-headed disease and death, the world has been one great house of sorrow and mourning, of wailing and anguish. And often is the proverb true, “Even in laughter the heart is sorrowful.”

BUT it is all—the pain, the grief, the hopelessness, the incurable sorrow—the fruit of sin. But the sin is not of God. “The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich, and He addeth no sorrow therewith.” The only way to be rid of the sorrow is to get rid of the sin. The only way to triumph over the incurable sorrow is to partake of the sorrow which issues in joy.

FOR there are two kinds of sorrow in this old world; there is, first, “the sorrow of the world,” that “worketh death.” That is the sorrow which mourns the effect of the deed, not the deed from which sprang the effect. It would continue the cause and sorrow over

the effect. It would steal the horse and mourn because caught. It would live the life of the debauchee, the rake, the drunkard, and sorrow over ruined mind, broken constitution, diseased body, blasted prospects. It would follow the cruel, tyrannical laws of Dame Fashion, and mourn a burdensome life and weakened offspring. Aye, “the sorrow of the world worketh death.”

BUT there is another kind: “Godly sorrow worketh repentance unto salvation, a repentance which bringeth no regret.” 2 Cor. 7:10, R.V. This is sorrow against sin; and sin is inharmony with God. All else is nothing to the great Creator. Beyond all earth’s sadness, beyond even its grave-gloom, are eternal brightness and joy to all not allied with sin; but sin and all its allies go out in the eternal night of oblivion.

IT was sorrow against sin which moved the heart of God’s eternal Son. It was because His own creatures were under its cruel dominion that He left the joy of heaven’s purity, and became, for the sake of the children of earth, the “Man of Sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” It was the ungrateful indifference to the eternal Sacrifice of Heaven, nay, more, the open opposition to the law of God, that wrung from His heroic lips, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death,” and that at last broke His great heart upon the cross.

BUT His sorrow against sin for our sakes, dear reader, was not limited to Gethsemane and other resorts which knew Him “in the days of His flesh,” when He “offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears.” O, no, this is but one act in the long drama of sin, a little disclosure to those of earth of God’s great love—in His Son Jesus Christ!

THE name of our picture is Via Dolorosa, “The Dolorous Way,” “The Way of Sorrows.” It is a part of the road, one of the streets, which Jesus trod on the way to Golgotha, the culminating act of His earthly sacrifice. People traverse it, mourn over it, and narrow their minds to its limited walls. But it is only at best an earth glimpse of the great, long way of suffering and sorrow felt by the great heart of God from the time that His children fell under sin’s power, till the present. Nay, do we not read that hundreds of years before “the Man of Sorrows” walked the earth, “in all their affliction He was afflicted, and the Angel of His presence saved them; in His love and in His pity He redeemed them; and He bare them, and carried them all the days of old.” Isa. 63:9. And does it not say hundreds of years earlier still, “His soul was grieved for the misery of Israel” (Judges 10:16)? He is “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.” If not “Man of Sorrows,” then truly He was the “Angel of Sorrows.”

BUT the Man of Sorrows came to give joy, and that “joy no man [no one] taketh from you.” He bore our sins that we might be righteous, our sorrows that we might have joy, our death that we might have life forevermore. But to know His joy we must share His sorrow against sin. If we have it not, He will give it. God exalted Him at His own right hand “to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance.” Do you wish it? Ask in faith. See sin as God sees it. See all the world’s anguish and wo and sorrow, as the results of delusive sin. See what it has cost the universe, and let godly sorrow against sin cleanse your heart. Let it do the work it will do in those who are “made sorry after a godly sort.” “What earnest care it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what longing, yea, what zeal, yea, what avenging! In everything ye approved yourselves to be pure in the matter.” 2 Cor. 7:11, R.V.

IN sorrow against sin there is no despair; the soul may be ever rejoicing. 2 Cor. 6:10. He will mourn, as Jesus mourns, for the sake of others, but he rejoices in the power of God to save even here. And beyond all earth’s sorrow, sin, gloom, trouble, anguish, death, he sees by faith the better land, when death shall be no more, when the sorrow of the saints shall be “turned into joy,” when “sorrow and sighing shall flee away,” when “the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the reproach of His people shall He take away from off all the earth.” Go forth with rejoicing, ye who sorrow in Christ. “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.” Thru the glistening drops of true penitence or sorrow for others’ wo, is visible the covenant bow of God’s everlasting promises.

Relation of Law to Moral and Civil Duties.

By Cyrus Simmons

TWO KINDS OF CITIZENSHIP.—A citizen as generally regarded is one who owes allegiance to some government or sovereignty. He is entitled to certain rights and privileges. Some personal rights are surrendered when he associates himself in a corporate capacity with others; and he receives in return a protection of life, limb, and property, the inalienable rights that he might not enjoy if he lived in a community unorganized.

There is another kind of citizenship which is taught in the Word of God. It also accords certain rights and privileges to all allegiants to Christ as king. The rights, we may say, are in becoming, of their own choice, members of the heavenly family (Eph. 3:15); in being the “sons of God” (John 1:12, margin; 1 John 3:1); in being “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4); and in being heirs with Abraham “of the world” (Rom. 4:13), or of the “new heavens and a new earth” (2 Peter 3:13). “Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God.” Eph. 2:19.

The privileges of a heavenly citizenship, we may say, are in following Christ (Matt. 16:24); in passing from “death unto life” (John 5:24; 1 John 3:14); in becoming “a new creature” (2 Cor. 5:17); in being “kings and priests unto God” (Rev. 1:6); in sitting with Christ in His throne (Rev. 3:21); and in judging fallen angels and the wicked world (1 Cor. 6:2, 3).

These are some of the glorious promises revealed. “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.” 1 Cor. 2:9. Behold the possibilities of such a citizenship. This unparalleled exaltation is the reward of humility. James 4:6. “Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure.” 2 Peter 1:10. Whose reward is an “incorruptible” crown. 1 Cor. 9:25. “For our citizenship is in heaven.” Phil. 3:20, R.V.

Civility and Morality.—Good citizenship on earth is obedience to laws prohibiting incivility. Good citizenship in heaven harmonizes with the ten precepts of the moral code. These two relations of man to law co-exist while the Christian passes the time of his sojourning here on earth. God has so ordained it that all may worship Him without doing violence to the civil rights, or, for the matter of that, any rights of others. He has distinctly and indelibly drawn the line that demarcates the duties one owes to his fellows from the duties he owes to his God. And the duties we owe to our fellows do not and should not conflict with the duties we owe to God. Nothing that God has told man to do will interfere with the civil rights of others nor his civil duties to others.

Faith Not Law.—The adoption into the family in “heaven and earth” is a question of faith. It is a reception of the Holy Spirit by the mental operation of the believer; therefore, no human judge can righteously decide when one is perfidious or faithful, when one thinks loyally or treasonably with regard to the Sovereign of the universe.

“But ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.” Rom. 8:15. A breach of allegiance is treason. The shameful trial and condemnation of Christ evidenced to the world the everlasting inability of sinful man to interpret the law of God, and the inability of the State to pass upon questions of religion or to punish such alleged actions of infidelity. Christ was convicted of blasphemy. “The Jews answered him [Pilate], We have a law; and by our law He ought to die, because He made Himself the Son of God.” John 19:7. Is not this the privilege of all? “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed on us, that we should be called the sons of God.” 1 John 3:1. In passing upon the question of blasphemy, or what the Sanhedrin decided to be derogatory to the power and to the reverence of God, they ignorantly condemned to death the very God who “giveth breath unto the people” (Isa. 42:5), and who gave them life.

After such ignorance and worse than blasphemy, who will dare to be an arbiter of another’s conscience? Christ was condemned of treason. The alleged crime consisted in asserting that he is King. “The Jews cried out, saying, If thou let this Man go, thou art not Cæsar’s friend; whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Cæsar.” “We have no king but Cæsar.” John 19:12, 15. The crucified, this same King lives. And because He lives, all who overcome shall sit with Him in His throne (Rev. 3:10); shall receive a “crown of righteousness” (2 Tim. 4:8); shall be also “kings and priests unto God” (Rev. 1:6). What was adjudged to be treason in Christ has proven to be an eternal truth to which every follower of the crucified Saviour is privileged to testify. This egregious and dreadful blunder

proves that there is a dual obligation of fidelity resting upon every subject; that these obligations do not conflict, and that neither man nor the State can righteously judge of the duty we owe to God. Our subjection to earthly powers ought not to interfere with our obedience to the “King of kings, and Lord of lords.” 1 Tim. 6:15.

Cæsar and God.—The words of the Saviour are, “Render therefore unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.” Matt. 22:21. This quotation shows that man is in subjection to two sovereigns; that there are “things” or duties to be rendered to Cæsar, or to the State, and there are “things” or duties to be rendered to God. The text also shows that there are duties which belong exclusively to the State, and there are duties which belong to God alone. Has the Christian divine authority for disobeying the law of the land if it commands him to do contrary to the law of God?

In the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, the king passed a law that at a given time all in his kingdom should “fall down and worship the golden image” (Dan. 3:5) that he had set up. All violators of this law should be “cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace.” Verse 6. Three Hebrew captives, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, refused to obey this law. Verses 8, 12. The conflict was evident. God in His law told them, “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them.” Ex. 20:4, 5. Nebuchadnezzar in his law said they should fall down and worship the image he had set up. For their disobedience to the law of the State, and their obedience to the law of God, they were cast bound into the fiery furnace heated seven times hotter than usual. Dan. 3:19, 23. To their miraculous deliverance let the king himself testify: “Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.” Verse 25. God approved of this violation of the law; for upon their “bodies the fire had no power, nor was an hair of their head singed, neither were their coats changed, nor the smell of fire had passed on them.” Verse 27.

While Daniel was prime minister of the Medo-Persian Kingdom (Dan. 6:1, 3), Darius, the king, made a law that for thirty days no one should ask a petition of any God or man save of the king. The one who broke this law should be “cast into the den of lions.” Verse 7. Notwithstanding this law, Daniel “went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime.” Verse 10. The law of God says, “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.” Ex. 20:3. The laws of the land commanded Daniel to pray to no God or man for thirty days, but to the king. Daniel decided to obey the law of God. He was accordingly cast “into the den of lions.” Dan. 6:16. Early the next morning the king found Daniel unhurt, and he cried with a lamentable voice, “O Daniel, servant of the living God, is thy God, whom thou servest continually, able to deliver thee from the lions?” Verse 20. Altho Daniel disobeyed the law of the king, he related to him that the angel of God had “shut the lions’ mouths,” and he said, “Also before thee, O king, have I done no hurt.” Verse 22. God’s approval of Daniel’s disobedience to the law of the land was shown to the king in three ways: First, Daniel’s miraculous deliverance; second, in the fact that God sent His angel to shut the lions’ mouths; and, third, in Daniel telling the king it was not wrong for him to disobey such a law. “Before thee, O king, have I done no hurt.”

The Christian’s loyalty to the selfsame law is brought into question nowadays. God states explicitly that “the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” Ex. 20:10. The Sabbath is not any seventh day, nor any seventh part of a division of time, but it is the identical seventh day of the week. The Lord in the beginning of creation divided time by the week, and called the seventh part of the week as He made it, “His holy Sabbath.” Gen. 2:1, 3; Isa. 58:13. The States, however, have passed laws designating the first day of the week, or Sunday, as the day to be observed for the Sabbath. Whom shall Christians obey, the law of the land, or the law of God?

But the conflict does not stop here. The Lord in His law not only tells what day of the week is His Sabbath, but He also tells on what days of the week to work. “Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work.” Ex. 20:9. If Saturday, or the seventh day, “is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God,” and all are enjoined to work six days, then the commandment is as plain to work on Sunday, the first day of the week, as it is to rest on the seventh day. The law of the land makes it criminal to work or to do any secular labor on Sunday. The law of God says, “Do all thy work” in six days, which includes Sunday, or the first day of the week. The observance of the Sabbath according to the commands of Jehovah consists in working six days, including the first day of the week, as well as in resting on the seventh-day Sabbath. A law, then, that prohibits secular labor on Sunday, or prevents a citizen from doing his (“thy”) work, interferes with the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath in harmony with the divine will, and is contrary to the law of God.

Coercive Sunday legislation involves the same principles that confronted the three Hebrew captives and Daniel. If God sanctioned their disobedience to the State laws which ran counter to His precepts, have not those who conscientiously observe the seventh-day Sabbath a divine right to oppose laws that presume to tell what day of the week they shall keep holy, what day of the week is the Lord’s day, or on what day they shall rest and refrain from doing their work? If Daniel did “no hurt” to the king in violating Darius’ law, is it a derogation of civil duty to disobey State Sunday laws?

CYRUS SIMMONS.

WHEN WILL THE WICKED BE PUNISHED?

By G. B. Thompson

THAT there is a place of punishment for all the finally impenitent, a gehenna into which all the nations which forget God will finally be turned, the Bible clearly teaches.

Place your finger upon your pulse and mark the throb of that great organ of life, the heart. At every beat a soul, somewhere on the earth, has fallen in death, and gone into a Christless grave. Popular theology, in harmony with the heathen dogma of the inherent immortality of the soul, teaches that these Christless souls are being poured in an ever-flowing stream into the torments of hell fire as fast as they die; that they are not dead in fact, but living in the torments of an endless hell; that now myriads of the lost are gnawing their tongues with pain, and uttering blasphemies in a shoreless lake of lurid flame, with no hope of deliverance. At least this was once taught.

With this view the Scripture is at complete variance. It teaches that sinners will reap their reward at the end of the world, when every wrong act has borne its full harvest of results. The judgment is not a work which has been continually going on since the fall of man. It was an event future in the days of Paul; for he reasoned before Felix of a “judgment to come.” Acts 24:25. God has “appointed a day, in the which He will judge the world.” Acts 17:31. And to the writer it would seem wholly inconsistent that He would consign any to the regions of final punishment until they have been judged. Think of that awful spectacle, the opening of the tribunal of the eternal God. Imagine Him summoning before Him the pale nations of the dead to be judged, when from the torments of hell unnumbered millions come forth, seared and burned, some of them with thousands of years of punishment, to be judged to see if they should receive such a doom! What an awful travesty to be charged up to the God of infinite wisdom and omniscience! It transforms the solemn scenes of the judgment into a farce. Yet such conclusions must follow if man enters on his reward at death.

But all is plain and clear in God’s Word, which places the work of the judgment the last in the ministrations of Christ as our high priest, and the giving afterward of the rewards determined in this tribunal. Notice carefully the following texts:—

“For ye say, Where is the house of the prince? and where are the dwelling-places of the wicked? Have ye not asked them that go by the way? and do ye not know their tokens, that the wicked is reserved to the day of destruction?” Job 21:28-30. To what time are they reserved?—“But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.” 2 Peter 3:7. The time, then, to which they are reserved is when this earth is cleansed and purified by fire, and fitted up as the home of God’s people.

The place of their punishment is on the earth. Prov. 11:31. At the close of the one thousand years, when the Saviour and His saints come to take their abode in the purchased possession, the wicked dead are summoned from their tombs. “And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city; and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.” Rev. 20:9. It is at the end of the world that the tares, or sinners, are cast into the fire. Matt. 13:40-42.

From this fire will come forth a new heaven and a new earth, and the universe will be cleansed from all the curse. The scar of sin which has rested upon it for six thousand years will be forever eradicated.

“And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever.” Rev. 5:13.

Reader, do you not rejoice that such a glad hour hastens? Beyond the ruin and wretchedness which sin has wrought lies a land where sin and sinner will not be. The wicked will have passed into the embrace of the second death, from which there is no resurrection. The righteous enter upon a life as eternal as the life of their Creator, at whose right hand there are pleasures and joy forevermore.

G. B. THOMPSON.

CHILD-TRAINING

By Ellen G. White

OUR artificial habits deprive us of many privileges and much enjoyment, and unfit us for living as useful lives as we might otherwise live. A life of fashion is a hard, thankless life. How much time and money women sacrifice in order to make a sensation! At the cost of their health they beautify the dress. Thus they lose their self-control, overtax their patience, and encourage pride and vanity in their children. Many parents fail to realize that their every action tells upon the future of their children. Mothers complain of weariness. They say that they have so much to do that they can not take time to instruct their children. They have no time to sympathize with them in their little disappointments and trials. I have heard mothers refuse to gratify the innocent desires of their children. They were too hurried to grant their little ones that which would have been to them a great pleasure. The busy fingers and weary eyes were embroidering a garment. But children yearn for sympathy, and if they do not obtain it from their parents, they seek it from other sources, which may prove dangerous to their welfare.

Many mothers teach their daughters to vie with other girls in outward display. To dress as well as others dress—this is the ambition of their worse than useless lives. As the twig is bent, the tree is inclined. As the children approach manhood and womanhood, their parents deplore their errors. They forget that they have given these youth the lessons which have made them what they are. Parents, remember that the harvest you reap is the fruit of your own planting.

If half the time that mothers spend in preparing the dress in accordance with the demands of fashion, were spent in beautifying the characters of their children, what a change would be seen in families! The inspired apostle writes of women, “Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.” Outward display and needless adorning can bear no comparison with the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit. The desire for outward show proceeds from the pride and vanity of a corrupt heart, and will perish with the user. The inward adorning is as enduring as eternity.

Many mothers spend much time in beautifying their houses. Cleanliness is next to godliness, and it is well to be clean; but this, like many other good things, can be carried too far, to the neglect of things of greater importance. Many mothers beautify their houses to the neglect of weightier matters, judgment, mercy, and the love of God.

Not long ago I heard a mother express great anxiety to see perfect arrangement and finish in the building of her home. I do not condemn this feeling, but I regretted that this mother could not have brought the same desire for symmetry into the government of her children. In her home she was building and fashioning characters; but she failed to realize the importance of this work, and therefore did not see the mistakes she was making. Passion and self-will ruled in the home. Her children were rough and selfish, uncourteous and uncultured, seeming to have no sense of true politeness. Their character revealed no uniformity. As I looked upon these self-willed, stubborn pieces of humanity, mismatched indeed, symmetry painfully lacking everywhere, I asked myself involuntarily, Why is the mother so blind? Why is the arrangement of her house of so much more consequence in her eyes than the proper training of her children?

Parents, upon you God has laid the work of educating your children for usefulness. Do not, under any consideration, neglect this work. Do not trust the training of your little ones to any other hands. Take up your life duty bravely and cheerfully, facing your responsibilities candidly. To you has been given the work of bringing your children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Make the Word of God your standard. Do not allow the fashions of the world to prevent you from doing your duty. Take great pains to prepare the soil of the heart for the great Sower to scatter in it the seeds of truth.

Mothers, make the education of your children the highest aim of life. Their future happiness depends upon the education they receive in their early years. Do not send them away from you to school when they are young. If your habits and dress are as simple as they should be, you will find ample time to make your children happy, and to lead them to obey you. God will help you to teach them how to submit cheerfully and willingly. Take up your duties, inspired by the noble resolve to do your work faithfully and well. Do not become discouraged. In due time you will reap if you faint not. You will see your children growing up into Christian men and Christian women.

MRS. E. G. WHITE.

CANDID ADMISSIONS.

By G. W. Reaser

[From one of the foremost Spiritualists of the Nineteenth Century.]

SPIRITISM, which is sometimes called “Spiritualism,” has inspired hundreds and thousands of noble hearts with the fondest hopes for humanity. Highly-endowed intellects have been, by its immense promises, filled with the most brilliant anticipations. Many of these fond hopes have perished; many a bright promise has been toned down to the verge of despair. Hundreds of the professors of Spiritualism have retired into the frigid, barren, and inhospitable yet popular territories of conservatism.

The movement was, and is, full of aggressive and progressive minds; and it is correspondingly empty of constructive and charitable labors for human advancement. Nowhere on the good Father’s footstool can be found a richer soil so utterly grainless and unproductive. No other existing movement embraces so many enlarged ideas, quickens so many generous instincts, inspires so many impressible minds, opens so many grand scenes to mankind; and yet, to tell the plain truth, no other movement, of the same age and with the same wealth of opportunities, ever exhibited more miserly stinginess in its appropriations for worthy enterprises, or more senseless extravagance in rewarding individuals for the selfish use of their powers.

Says Mr. Davis in his book “The Fountain with Jets of New Meaning”:—

The beautiful tree bears but little practical fruit for the millions of the globe, because of the existence of an error, which, like a devouring worm, lives in the very foundation, and which is day by day eating out its finest roots.

This destructive error is the general misapprehension, entertained by the intelligent and ignorant alike, that the fact of communication with the other world is worthy of exaltation to the dignity of a religion, and that the constant prayer for and enjoyment of such intercourse is the practice of religion.

“In all kindness,” says one of our most prominent writers, “we ask, Is not Spiritualism founded on the revelations of mediums? Could it have sprung into existence without them?” My reply is, “Certainly not; and, simply because Spiritualism has no other foundation, it is radically incapable of becoming a practical religion.” What is such a religion reduced to practise?—It is simply and only and forever nothing more than the private drawing-room developments of mediums, and the night-after-night communications with spirits of every name and nature—with friends and foes alike—and for no purpose other than the immediate gratification which may arise from having your great mental powers applauded and flattered, your fond hopes illuminated with immense promises of wonderful works in store for you, and your feelings poetically excited, and your industry lulled to sleep by assurances that “angels will take care of you,” and that the slowly rolling ages will bring everything straight and smooth all the rough places.

With such delightful convictions, the illogical professor of Spiritualism goes out into the busy world dreamily, like an opium eater, full of enchanting subjective sensations and thoughtful ambitions, but really and practically with but one ever-present and all-mastering motive, personally to enjoy the present life. [Italics in all quotations above are those of Mr. Davis.]

A little later in his book the author says “that he has made the statements quoted without wishing to give a grain of comfort to the enemies of Spiritualism.”

How could the weakness of Spiritism be more plainly set forth, even by its greatest “enemies”? And how could confession be more damaging? Yet perhaps some of its special points of weakness, as indicated in the foregoing, are worthy of brief comment. What can be the strength of a system of religion, claiming the respect of mankind, which has “inspired thousands of noble hearts with the fondest hopes for humanity,” and “filled with the most brilliant anticipations highly-endowed intellects,” “by its immense promises,” only to dash both to the ground, and bring its deluded followers “down to the verge of despair”? Again, a religion that “is full of progressive minds,” and is “correspondingly empty of constructive and charitable labors for human advancement,” is certainly not of divine origin, nor

adapted to the necessities of a world full of want and sorrow; nor is it a system that can in anywise elevate the race.

One of the chief characteristics of the only religion which contains the elements of salvation for the race, is that its Author “went about doing good,” and its true adherents are “zealous of good works;” and instead of “senseless extravagance in rewarding individuals for the selfish use of their powers,” it advocates meekness and humility as among the essential graces of its constituents, and emphatically teaches self-denial and self-abnegation. But Spiritualism is quite fully accomplishing its purpose in the world, notwithstanding its confessedly inherent weaknesses; for it was never designed by its author as a means of help or salvation for humanity, but, contrariwise, as an agency to deceive, if possible, the whole world, and thus cause bitter disappointment and destruction at last.

Like all of Satan’s masterful deceptions, the “tree” is made to appear “beautiful,” but he lacks the power, and has no desire, to make it bear the fruits of the Spirit. While acknowledging an “error” at the root of Spiritism, the author does not go back far enough in the history of the world in locating the error. He should have gone to that statement made by the “old serpent”—the father of Spiritism—in the Garden of Eden, when he said, “Ye shall not surely die.” Then, in the light of the Book of Holy Writ, he could have learned the true source of the original “error” which produced the “beautiful tree” out of whose roots and on whose branches have grown all of the systems of “destructive error” which have plunged the world into darkness, and which will cause the vast majority of the “millions of the globe” to come short of eternal life—as an inevitable result of believing a lie and having “pleasure in unrighteousness,” instead of loving and obeying the truth. How could there be anything other than a “devouring worm” “in the very foundation” of Spiritism, when we recognize its founder as Apollyon, the destroyer? Among the manifold religions invented for the deception and destruction of mankind, all appear to be “beautiful trees,” but are devoid of the fruits of the Spirit, and lack the regenerating power to create in their followers holiness of life and purity of heart, without which no man can see God. “Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.”

Note the questions of Mr. Davis: “We ask, Is not Spiritism founded on the revelations of mediums? Could it have sprung into existence without them?—Certainly not.” Observe this confession, which so accurately fulfils the prophecy made concerning Spiritism over eighteen hundred years ago. “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils” (1 Tim. 4:1), instead of being built upon the only true foundation, the Word of God. The “night-after-night communications” with spirits would obviously signify that they love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil, but as to their being of “every name and nature,” we would, on Bible ground, be compelled to take issue with the Spiritist; for the Scripture classes them all, if they speak not according to this Word, as “seducing spirits,” and names them as “spirits of devils,” not spirits of either good or bad men nor holy angels. The author reluctantly confesses the corruption and mercenary motives of Spiritistic mediums, but are these traits not natural results of communion with “seducing spirits”?

Again, this professor of Spiritism says that “if Christianity relied wholly upon miracles for its existence, it would have died when the miracles were suspended. Interior ideas, and not wonderful works, were the vitals of the movement; therefore the cessation of the miracles, which only illustrated the ideas, did not destroy Christianity.” Submit Spiritism to the same test and how long would it live? Remove, if possible, the wonders of Spiritism, including the supposed communications with the spirits of the departed, and how long would it survive? But its communications will not fail, nor its wonders cease, until Christ’s coming, that event which shall consume all the deceived inhabitants of this world. But till that time Spiritism, incapable of perpetuating its existence elsewhere, for it has no underlying principles of truth but rather falsehood, will cling to its “destructive error,” “the fact of communication with the other world;” for, as foretold, Satan will work with “all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they receive not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.”

It is literally true that Christianity is not dependent on miracles, in the commonly-accepted view of what constitutes miracles, for its perpetuation; for prophecies fulfilled—some of them even in the condemnation of Spiritualism—and truth inherent in the tidings sent, are stronger proofs of its genuineness and unfailing nature than miracles, signs, and wonders.

The writer has no antipathy against men of any or no religious persuasion, but trusts that in making the above comments the love of Christ and of precious souls for whom He died has constrained him; and he has but one desire for those who may now be in the meshes of Spiritism, namely, that, by heeding the warning and accepting deliverance at the hand of One who is able to take the prey from the strong, they may be snatched as brands from the burning, before the harvest is past and the summer ended, when many will utter the words, full of anguish, “And my soul is not saved.” G. W. REASER.

Continue reading: GLIMPSES OF THE GREAT CONTROVERSY