Review and Herald, Vol. 84, No. 22. (5/30/1907)

Review and Herald

May 30, 1907

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 30, 1907

The True Education Readers

While the special purpose of True Education Readers Nos. One, Two, and Three is to put the child in possession of a complete key to English reading, they also familiarize him with the most important Bible truths. Three times over they tell of God’s plan for the earth in the beginning, the successive steps in the work of creation, something about each of these steps, and give a sketch of certain selected Bible child biographies, including the life of the perfect Child, Jesus. It deals also with his work, his sacrifice, the finished plan of salvation, and the new earth.

The First Time In simple language, by attractive pictures, and the best methods of teaching reading, True Education Reader No. 1 fixes upon the child’s mind in his first school year an outline of the beautiful gospel story from creation to redemption.

The Second Time Enriched by many illustrations, enlarged by additional topics, made more interesting by sketches from the lives of insects, birds, and animals, the incidents of the gospel story are given the second time in True Education Reader No. 2.

The Third Time True Education Reader No. 3 tells it again, and in connection with it brings in a variety of other matter, such as poems, biographical sketches, Bible selections, our Saviour’s parables, simple lessons on physiology, geography, and botany, and adapts it all to the growing intelligence of the child in his third school year, for whose use it is intended.

How the Mind is Prepared for This Thrice-told Story The oral Bible lessons which follow the same outline as the readers are given by the teacher or parent before (perhaps one or two weeks) the child comes to the subject in his reading, so when he does come to the lesson in his reading, he recognizes it, and reads with greater interest and understanding.

And Then the Story is Reviewed The regular text-book for Bible study which is now being prepared for grades or school years four, five, and six, is developed from this same outline. Hence, the child’s fourth, fifth, and sixth years’ work in Bible will be in the nature of a review of the lessons, the general features of which he has been made familiar with during the preceding three years.

An Illustration Suppose a child with his parents takes a trip across the continent. Before he reaches each point of special interest, he is told a story concerning it by his parents. When the point is reached, he has developed an interest in it, and is likely to remember something about it.

The next year the trip is taken again. The same method is followed by the parents. More points are visited, and much more is learned about those seen the first time.

The succeeding year he takes the same journey, but with various side trips, and spends more time at each point. Old memories are revived and strengthened, new facts concerning familiar places are learned, and all is vividly impressed upon his mind by the thrice-told story to which he has listened and the threefold view he has enjoyed.

The Application This is the kind of trip and the method of instruction enjoyed by the child who learns to read by use of True Education Reader Series, books One, Two, and Three.

The Harmony of This Plan So you see the True Education Reader Series harmonizes with the plans and methods adopted by the Educational Department of the General Conference in behalf of our church-schools.

DESCRIPTION AND PRICES

No. 1 contains 204 pages, post-paid . . . . . . . 75c No. 2 contains 256 pages, post-paid . . . . . . . 75c No. 3 contains 304 pages, post-paid . . . . . . . 90c

These books are all durably bound in cloth.

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Editorial

By William Warren Prescott

Editorial Letter

Jottings from the Editor’s Note-Book

It was decided at the conference at Shanghai that Dr. H. W. Miller, one of the members of the General Mission Committee from Honan, should accompany us in our visit to the stations in South China, and he accordingly left Shanghai with Brethren J. N. Anderson, W. C. Hankins, B. L. Anderson, and myself Thursday evening, February 21. After a very comfortable run we reached Amoy, our first stopping-place, Sunday forenoon, and were soon at the house jointly occupied by Brethren W. C. Hankins and B. L. Anderson. Their home is on the island of Kulangsu, where the most of the foreigners of that section live, separated by a passage about a quarter of a mile wide from the larger island on which Amoy is located. Although there are many Chinese who live on Kulangsu, yet a considerable portion of it presents the appearance of a foreign settlement. Our brethren have a pleasant and comfortable home directly on the shore of the bay, with a beautiful outlook to the south. The house was built as a home by a foreigner, but a change in circumstances put it in the market for rent, and our workers secured it.

The native helpers employed in Amoy and its vicinity had been called together, and we began meetings with them at once in the place regularly occupied by the Amoy church. I was especially pleased to meet here Brother Keh and family, a picture of whom appeared in a recent REVIEW. I found them well settled and happy in the truth, but with an earnest interest to hear more. At this meeting Brethren Anderson and Miller did their share of the speaking, but were compelled to use an interpreter, just as I was, as neither of them spoke the Amoy dialect.

One circumstance at this gathering is worth mentioning as illustrating the language problem in China. One afternoon Dr. Miller spoke in Chinese to Brother Keh, who in turn translated his talk into Chinese for the benefit of a Chinese audience, while Brother J. N. Anderson, who had studied Chinese for about five years, could not understand what either of them said. Dr. Miller speaks the Mandarin, Brother Keh understands Mandarin and translated into the Amoy, while Brother Anderson speaks only the Cantonese. This will incidentally explain the difficulty of moving workers from one part of China to another.

In our councils at Amoy the local work was considered, and a committee was appointed to have direct charge of it, in co-operation with the general committee: W. C. Hankins (Chairman), B. L. Anderson (Secretary), and Brother Keh. Under their supervision will come the work at Swatow, Tsoan Chiu, and other places in the vicinity where the message has obtained a foothold. The story of the opening of the work in the province of Fukien seems much like that of the work in Korea, and the message is still spreading in the same way. While I was at Amoy, Brother Keh received a letter from the vicinity of Swatow, from which he judged that a whole church of Christians there had begun to keep the Sabbath, and they desired a visit from him for further instruction. Of course it was decided to respond to their request. ‘We would that the light might break forth in every province in China in the same way.’

The whole country around Amoy is intersected by waterways, and all traveling in that section is done on boats. Steam launches ply between Amoy and many neighboring places, and on one of these Brethren Miller, Hankins, and I took a day’s trip into the country to a village where a native evangelist is laboring. This gave an opportunity to see something of the surrounding country and to get a little experience in the local method of travel. The article by Brother Hankins in the REVIEW of April 4 may be taken as a typical chapter in the story of the work in that part of China.

I also improved the opportunity to make one visit in the native city of Amoy. I learned that this city had the reputation of being the dirtiest one in China, and after I had walked through it and back, I had no disposition to contradict the claim. I became fully satisfied that the germ theory breaks down in China, as otherwise there ought to be a plague or a pestilence in every city. The filthy streets sometimes almost blocked with débris of all kinds, the ponds of standing water generally covered with green slime, the shocking condition of the public conveniences, and the dark and ill-ventilated and ill-smelling homes would call loudly in the West for the organization of a sanitary commission with plenary powers, but in China all these things have existed century after century, in bold defiance of all the well-established theories and laws of hygiene, and there are no outward indications of any intended reforms. “The Chinese know nothing either of ventilation or privacy, and they do not seem to appreciate these conditions when they are realized. Every little Chinese village is built on the plan of a city without a plan. . . . Hence narrow courts, cramped accommodations, unhealthful crowding, even where there is abundant space to be had close at hand and at a moderate rate.” Dr. Selmon told me that he and Dr. Miller saw two Chinese on a boat one rainy night get into a box just large enough to contain them, and then draw the lid down tight over themselves for a comfortable night’s sleep. The brethren fully expected that the two Chinese would be dead in the morning, but on the contrary they were as sprightly as ever. Dr. Arthur Smith, a faithful observer of the habits of the Chinese, maintains that it is optional with them whether they breathe or not! While walking through their cities, I sometimes wished that I had the same option, and Amoy certainly was no exception.

We left for Hongkong and Canton on the afternoon of February 28. The following day we had a few hours on shore at Swatow, where the ship called. We visited the native city, including one or two mission stations, and found a cleaner city than Amoy, but otherwise nothing especially distinctive. We anchored in the harbor of Hongkong about noon of the next day, which was the Sabbath; but according to an arrangement made

before taking passage, we were permitted to remain quietly on board until the next morning. As there was no boat to Canton until Sunday night, of necessity we spent Sunday in Hongkong.

Strictly speaking, it is the island upon which the city is located that is named Hongkong, while the name of the city is Victoria; but common usage has applied the name of the island to the city. Hongkong is the most like a Western city of any of the ports of the East. There are many large and imposing buildings, and there is a Western atmosphere about the whole place. We attended service at the English cathedral, and I could easily have imagined myself in one of the churches of London. As for the service itself, it seemed to be but little removed from the intoning of the liturgy which I had heard in the temples of Japan and China. How can the heathen ever be reached by such means! The view from the lofty hill back of Hongkong is a beautiful one, and as the day was a clear one, we had the full benefit of it. The harbor below where scores of steamships and other craft too many to count are lying at anchor, the city far down at the foot of the steep bank, and the many hills on three sides of the observer, make a picture long to be remembered.

We left Hongkong at 9:30 that night on the steamers of the French line for Canton, where we arrived safely the next morning. A ride of half an hour or more in a sampan brought us to the home of Brother J. N. Anderson, where we were welcomed by Sister Anderson and others. Of our experiences in Canton I will speak in my next letter.

W. W. P.

The Head of Every Man

By C. M. S.

CHRIST came to this earth to conquer where Adam failed; and not only that, but to make the conquest so complete that what had been lost through Adam’s fall could be regained through Christ’s triumph. Man had not only forfeited his own life, but had lost the possession which had been given to him. So there is more involved in Christ’s triumph over Satan than the demonstration of his own ability to live above sin. That is in it, but there is also in it the redemption of man from the bondage of sin and Satan, and the redemption of the earth from Satan’s domination. In other words, Christ triumphs over Satan, and makes a way possible for all who will to be free again in God, to share in his triumph. He “was made flesh, and dwelt among us,” “that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.” Heb. 2:14, 15. “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” 1 Cor. 15:22.

In this Christ has demonstrated his right to be the head of the human family. He became human, partook of flesh and blood, in order that humanity might triumph in his victory. The human had failed, but humanity must triumph over its failure and over its traducer; so he became one of us. In this he brought humanity again in touch with divinity, for both were united in him. As the Son of God, he vindicated the love and justice and forbearance and wisdom of the Father; as the Son of man, he purchased by his own blood the inheritance which man had lost. All is complete in him. As He has won the right by conquest and by purchase to be “the head of every man.”

When God called a people out of the sin of this world to be his peculiar people, he purposed to establish his rule of love in that portion of the human family. He gave them his law that they might know his character and seek to be like him; and he established prophets among them, through whom he would speak to them his will, concerning them. He would be their ruler and their deliverer from all their enemies. But there came a time when sin came among them to such an extent that they clamored for a king that they might be like the nations around them. They got their king, and they became like the nations around them. The nations of this world were under the controlling influence of the enemy of God. Idolatry, with all the evils that go with it, was rampant in them all. Those nations had forgotten God. Israel had the wish of their hearts; and in that wish God tells his prophet, “They have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.” 1 Sam. 8:7. So in becoming a nation like the nations around them, they became one of the nations of the world. Still God held to them for the sake of the honest ones who remained faithful to him among them. His prophets anointed their kings; but their kings wandered so far from God that at last he declared to Israel’s ruler: “And thou, profane wicked prince of Israel, whose day is come, when iniquity shall have an end, thus saith the Lord God: Remove the diadem, and take off the crown: . . . I will overturn, overturn, overturn, it: and it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him.” Eze. 21:25-27.

In this language the Lord declares that he will no longer have a ruler ruling in his name the people of his choice, until One should come who had the right to rule them. When that One comes, God will make him the ruler of his people. That One was the Babe of Bethlehem; Jesus, the Saviour; Emmanuel, God with us; Messiah, the anointed one. “Thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel. . . . And he shall stand and rule [margin] in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.” Micah 5:2-4. He is the Branch that was to build the temple of the Lord. Zech. 6:12, 13. He is the “root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.” Rev. 22:16. He is “the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David” (Rev. 5:5), and the only one who has the power and authority to “open the book, and loose the seven seals.” He is the one who has suffered “in the flesh” in order that he might put an end to all suffering in the flesh. He has conquered him who conquered man. Satan overcame man and took his dominion from him. Christ has overcome Satan, and taken his usurped dominion from him. So in him alone rests the right to the rulership of this world, the right to be “the head of every man.” As he partook of the nature of man, he has brought the dominion back to man.

Christ has demonstrated his right to rule, and his coronation will soon occur. Then, when the New Jerusalem comes down from heaven, and the earth has been purged of sin by fire, will it be true that “the kingdoms” of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for-ever and ever.” Rev. 11:15. He will rule not only in this earth, but in the hearts of his subjects as well. In fact, only those in whose hearts Christ reigns before he comes to receive his own will be permitted to be subjects of that kingdom whose scepter is a scepter of righteousness.

So out of this great maelstrom of wickedness and rebellion Christ is saving some who will acknowledge his ownership, his rulership, his headship, and these will be the jewels of his crown.

C. M. S.

Two Things About Job

By W. A. S.

“Ye have heard of the patience of Job.” James 5:11.

Yes; we have all heard of it. For thirty centuries it has been talked about.

But we have heard another thing of Job also. We have heard of his trials. In fact, had it not been for his trials, we never should have heard of his patience.

That is an important part of the lesson that comes to us from the ancient land of Uz. Many long for the patience of Job, who forget the trials amid which he obtained it. “Tribulation worketh patience.” Rom. 5:3. As we pray for patience, let us not be dismayed as the

trials come which are to develop that grace in our souls.

The natural thought is that we might be very patient if it were not for the trials. It appears that the trials, the things that go wrong, are the things that make us impatient. But the very reverse is the truth. It is the trial that works the patience.

Knowing this, we may heartily and joyfully “glory in tribulations also.” They are not against us, but “for us.” Jesus is proving his fellowship with us in suffering. “In all their affliction he was afflicted.” Christ walks through the heat furnace of trial with his own. The tribulation works that sweet grace of patience because Jesus himself is touched with the feeling of our infirmity, and his all-sufficient grace bestows upon the tried one his own patience.

The remnant church is specially characterized as a patient church. “Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” Rev. 14:12. The tribulations, then, must come. The prophet describes them—the wrath of the dragon against the remnant, the experiences that will try every soul in the time of shaking and testing.

The faith of Jesus and the patience of Jesus will keep us if we hold fast. He sends the message for this time: “Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth. Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown.” Rev. 3:10, 11.

But while seeking grace for the great trials, let us not overlook the need of patience in the common trials of the daily routine. There is grace for tired nerves and hasty spirits. Thank God for the lesson of Job’s trials and patience.

W. A. S.

Organization in Foreign Fields

By G. B. Thompson

THE organization of any work is necessary in order to secure the greatest efficiency. Nowhere is this more true than in the successful carrying forward of a message like that of the third angel—world-wide in its scope. As the work expands, and increases in power, it will always be necessary to have a growing organization through which it can express itself, and thus secure the co-operation of all the departments and agencies employed.

Warfare against organization is always to be deplored. It may produce heat, but not light. Emotion may be displayed, but it is not the conviction born from an intelligent and careful consideration of all the facts.

Nowhere is organization more necessary than in carrying forward our work in foreign mission fields. Workers who leave home and friends and cross the seas have a high and a holy function, and they feel the need of having behind them some organized body to help them in planning their work. They do not care to go to these distant fields depending on some local church. A few have done so, but it has proved in each instance disastrous to the best interests of the work. Those who advocate different schemes of disorganization should go into some distant land, and in the heat and malaria of some tropic jungle, amid superstition and ignorance, put their theories to a practical test. They will then be able to speak from experience. But it will require only one such experience to dissipate forever their views against organization. The futility of attempting to carry on a missionary campaign without an organization behind it will then be perfectly apparent. Organization does not hinder the work, nor does it rob the cause of God of the power and energy of the Holy Spirit.

The writer is now in an important foreign field, and for a time has had the privilege of associating with the workers here. While all believe in organization, and help to take advance steps, I see no evidence that they are in any sense trusting in organization itself for power to carry the message to the millions of heathen, or that organization is in any way a hindrance to the work. Knowing full well that there is no life in a mere form, they earnestly seek God for the power of the Holy Spirit to give life. But because there is no life in a skeleton, shall we conclude that bones in the structural make-up of man are injurious and a hindrance to the performance of his proper functions?

How could it be any better for one sent to a foreign field if he should have to look to a local church for counsel and support rather than to a conference? Is it better to trust in a fragment than in the whole? Are we to conclude that it is better to trust in a few than in many?

Then if organization is an evil thing, why organize a church? If organization is an evil principle in which people trust for power, why do we find this so-called evil thing placed by the Lord in the church? There is no difference in principle between a small organization and a large one. Conference organization is simply an extension of the principle of organization which the Lord himself placed in the church that the church may systematically carry forward her work in the earth.

Our missionary work abroad should be carefully and thoroughly organized. My visit to India—one of the greatest mission fields of the world—has served to impress this very deeply on my mind.

As the work increases here and in other fields as well, great and varied agencies will necessarily be created, and it will require careful planning to execute the work well. Fragmentary operation will result only in collision and confusion. At our late meeting, for example, the place had been reached in our work when it was necessary in order to properly carry on the work to form a legal organization to hold property. If, however, the principle of organization is wrong, then legal organizations in home and foreign lands are wrong in principle, and we must have no system in financial matters. Why should the financial department of our work have organization, and the evangelical department no organization? There is no difference in principle between a legal organization to hold a certain property, and an evangelical organization to manage and carry forward the work in that property.

No one believes that matters of detail in the missionary operations in distant fields should be autocratically directed by a Board thousands of miles away. Those on the ground must have a very large voice in conducting the affairs of the work in which they are engaged. But in the furtherance of our work as a whole it is certainly an aid to have the counsel and help of men of large experience who are in full sympathy and close touch with this work. And it is just this that the splendid system of organization in this work affords.

Suggestions and well-formed plans, from time to time, from a central home committee will always be helpful. No mission can succeed where policy is shaped by the caprice of some individual. Think what a babel would result from trying to carry forward a world-wide missionary work with as many different policies as there are churches or individuals in the denomination!

To have no fixed policy is like shooting without having a target, and a policy should be shaped only by study, counsel, prayer, and careful deliberation. This can be done only through organization. Why should it hinder the outpouring of the Holy Spirit any more for a committee to outline a policy, and suggest to laborers some lines of work, than for a local church to do so, or even for a single individual to follow his own plan? It is quite within the bounds of possibility for one person to set in operation a plan with which the Lord has nothing to do, and a plan born of one individual is as dangerous as one born of a committee. It is quite possible we believe for a number of persons alike interested in a work to ascertain the mind of the Lord, and in doing this they in no sense take the place of God, or hinder any individual from seeking God for light and direction.

Our work in the foreign fields is taking on rapid growth. And one hopeful feature is that it is not in an unorganized condition. We have the same general organization extending throughout the world, not as a stiff, iron-clad thing, but with life and growth in it, so that it adjusts itself to the needs and development of the work in the various fields. As the work grows in the fields, it is necessary from time to time to strengthen and further develop the organization. The babel of confusion that would result if we should seek to do aggressive evangelical work, operate printing houses, sanitariums, and our great educational work, with no system of organization is beyond human conception. That any thinking mind would advocate such a ruinous policy is strange indeed. Yet printed documents reach us in this far-away field, which, followed to their logical conclusion, mean just this.

The work of this message has been persistently opposed by the confederacy of evil from its very beginning, but it has gone steadily on. Satan well knows that he will be unable to check the advance of the disciplined and organized hosts, that, clothed with the preparation of the gospel and bearing the weapons of truth, are giving God’s last message to the world. So, while having his own legions under a perfect organization (see Eph. 6: 6-12), he is making a special effort at the present time to seduce the church of God into the idea that they can best cope with his cohorts as a disorganized mass, without any unity of action. Let the church of the Lord stand firm, giving no countenance to this voice out of the darkness, but hold fast and strengthen the principles of organized effort which have been with us from the beginning.

G. B. Thompson.

Note and Comment

According to the Lutheran Observer the chaplain of the California Senate has acceded to the request of certain Jewish Senators, that he omit the name of Christ from his prayers. Concerning this the Observer remarks:—

If it is true, one must wonder what sort of man he is. Christian courtesy toward men of other faiths would never justify a Christian minister in denying his Lord in any public prayer. What if an atheist next requests the chaplain to omit all reference to a God as well?

Concerning this remark the Lutheran Witness has the following:—

This instance again shows that the chaplain of the State legislatures and in Congress is just as much of an anomaly as religion in the public schools, for certainly the Jew has the same right to demand the omission of the name of Jesus, and the atheist to demand the omission of the name of God, that the Christian has to demand that these names be used.

The Lutheran Witness also truly remarks that in demanding Christian prayers in the legislatures, Christians “are desecrating the holy name of Jesus and God.” Those who are conversant with the principles of religious liberty know that the whole matter of chaplaincy in these institutions is a relic of the union of church and state, and is entirely out of harmony with the spirit of true religious liberty, and the principles of the gospel as well.

The War on Graft

In a recent issue of the Woman's National Daily appears a striking editorial entitled “The War on Graft.” The crookedness therein set forth has become so open and flagrant that none can deny the seriousness of the situation. Nevertheless, as it is fashionable to be optimistic, the multitude professes to believe that somehow this old world will yet be cleaned up by the better element in the human race asserting itself. Concerning these conditions the Daily says:—

News of current events from many directions indicates that the war on graft is going merrily on. In spite of the “sweep of the reform wave” through the country, and the good work that has been done in some of the large cities, the evil breaks out afresh in some new locality with almost disheartening regularity, until it has come to look as though the war must be a sort of continuous performance. There were startling revelations in St. Louis, in New York, in Pittsburg, in Philadelphia, and in a number of other cities, two or three years ago, and there were prosecutions that landed some local statesmen, usually of small caliber, behind the bars. A great deal was printed, and there was much talking on the hustings of the moral regeneration that was coming in public affairs, and especially in municipal government. Some people were sanguine enough to think that regeneration had already been started, and the grafter would be soon driven from the land. From the news of the day, however, it would seem that the locking up or the driving out of one grafter had simply made room for another. In Kansas City, Mo., the Board of Police Commissioners have just begun the investigation of charges of graft against the police force, which, if sustained even in part, will cause the things that have been revealed in some other cities to pale into insignificance. So serious and so sweeping are these charges, that Gov. Joseph W. Polk, the man who as circuit attorney in St. Louis, made himself such a terror to corrupt public servants, has announced that he will go there and in person take part in the investigation.

At the same time the grand jury at Chicago, in a special report, indict four members of the police force, and recommend that their successors take up the work where the time limit compelled them to let go of it, and push the probe with vigor. That there is general crook-

The Persistence of Political Corruption

edness, and that there is a loud demand for reform measures that will purge the Chicago police force, the report declares is beyond all doubt. In San Francisco, at the same time, an official investigation is uncovering sensational bribery and crookedness in high and low official circles. In several other cities, and even in some of the smaller towns, there are charges pending, or investigations are in progress. From these developments it would seem that even while grafters and corruptionists were being run to earth and punished in some places, they were boldly planning or carrying out campaigns of crime in others, seemingly undeterred by the prosecutions and convictions of others of their ilk.

While the writer of the above admits that these conditions are discouraging to those desirous of bringing about a better condition of things, he professes to believe that giving more attention to the selection of good men for public office will remedy the conditions. He expects that “the decent people” will “take hold of politics and make them pure.” But the Word of God bears positive testimony against any such redemption of this world. At the same time it proves that it is the Word of God by outlining the very conditions which we see to-day. “Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.”

Bibles Burned in Madeira

IN the United States Rome poses as an advocate of Bible distribution and Bible study. That this is a policy of expediency only is shown by such experiences as the following, told by Rev. W. G. Smart in one of our exchanges:—

Recently the British and Foreign Bible Society of London sent a colporteur from their central depot in Lisbon, Portugal, to sell Portuguese Scriptures in Madeira. He was there two months and a half, and during that time sold one hundred and twenty Bibles, about two hundred Testaments and three hundred and fifty-five portions of the Scriptures. I advised him to go to Sancta Cruce, nine miles from Funchal. He went and sold several Bibles there. A priest followed him to the steamer, and gave him a severe reprimand. The next day was Sunday, and after mass the priest, having gathered together the Bibles which had been sold, burned them in the presence of the people, and many of them applauded the act. The Portuguese Protestants in Funchal are full of indignation at this vandalism, and intend to write about it in the local Portuguese papers.

As “Rome never changes,” her purpose is the same in all parts of the earth. Why does she not, therefore, burn Bibles in the United States? The only possible answer is that it is not yet expedient so to do. There was a time when the Pharisees and rulers dared not lay hands on Jesus “because they feared the people.” The time came when that fear did not restrain them.

One Hundred and Fifty Thousand Dollar Fund

By W. J. Stone

For Special Work at Home and Abroad

Evidence of Sincere Love

SIMPLY saying that we love God or our fellow man is not real evidence of our love. The Lord says that if we see a person in need, and simply say, “Depart in peace,” but do not give him the things he needs, it profiteth nothing. Here we are taught that giving is the evidence of our sincere love.

In the eighth chapter of Second Corinthians, the Lord commends the spirit of giving as manifested by the churches of Macedonia, and tells us that the grace, or love of God, bestowed upon them, was manifested in the riches of their liberality. Verse 2.

Their great love for the cause which they had espoused led them to pray Paul with much entreaty to receive the gift, and as Paul witnessed the blessed fellowship and willing sacrifices of these brethren, he desired Titus to labor for the perfecting of this grace also in the Corinthian brethren, that as they abounded in every other grace, to see that they abounded in the grace of giving also.

He further says that there is no commandment that they should give, but he urges it that they may prove the sincerity of their love. Then, if giving proves the sincerity of our love, what does withholding prove?

In the ninth verse, Paul reaches the climax of the proof of love, and says, “For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.” Christ made the greatest sacrifice ever made by any being in order that he might save a rebellious world, thus proving the sincerity of his love. The great plan of salvation was laid in sacrifice, the greatest sacrifice ever witnessed in the universe of God, and it is to be carried forward by sacrifices; and when poor mortal man is genuinely converted, and has the love of Christ shed abroad in his heart, he will possess the same spirit of giving as did the brethren of Macedonia.

There will be no wishing that the calls would not come so often, and no shirking of responsibilities, when we are genuinely converted; but it will be a pleasure to give, and such a one will have a happy realization that it is more blessed to give than to receive. God asks no man to give more than he is able. God’s plan is, “first a willing mind,” then “it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not.”

In the raising of the $150,000 it is not the plan that each person shall pay a stipulated sum of three dollars, more or less; for that is not the Bible plan. The pro-rata method was adopted simply as a convenience to apportion the full amount to the several union and State conferences, that they might have a basis upon which to work. The Bible plan is for persons to give as God hath “prospered them,” that there may be “equality.”

A man who has an income of fifty dollars a week can give ten times as much as the man whose income is only five dollars, and there would be no equality in expecting the same gift from each; so in making our gifts to this fund there are those who can pay from ten to one hundred dollars easier than others can pay from one to five dollars.

We are glad to say that in Indiana this spirit has been manifested to quite a degree. Those who have means have helped to make up the lack of those whom God has not blessed with so much of this world’s goods. Persons have given all the way from a few cents to five hundred dollars, and by so doing there has been an equality, and the Scriptural injunction fulfilled, that the “strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak;” and God has greatly blessed, so that we have now raised over four thousand dollars, or about three fourths of our apportionment, and a few weeks will witness the completion of our portion of this fund.

For months we have printed in our conference paper a tabulated report of what was being done, and it has had its influence, and I am glad that the end of this task is now so near in our conference. I might add that while our brethren have been giving so liberally to this $150,000 fund, our tithe has been larger than during any other corresponding month in the history of the work in the Indiana Conference. So we have the evidence that giving does not impoverish or lessen the funds to our regular channels. May the Lord hasten the completion of this work.

W. J. STONE.

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