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Signs of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 10.

Christ’s Help in Temptation

Signs of the Times

Mar 11, 1889

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 11, 1889

Christ’s Help in Temptation

No Christian is ever called upon to meet any temptation single-handed and alone. In every such moment the Lord Jesus Christ is an ever-present help. He “is a Friend that sticketh closer than a brother.”
Touched with a sympathy within, He knows our feeble frame; He knows what sore temptations mean, For he has felt the same.
This sympathy may be secured for the asking; yea, our Lord makes a standing offer of it, and the tried and tempted soul need only accept it; and with the sympathy comes strength and deliverance to the trusting soul; for we have the blessed assurance that God is faithful and will not suffer us to be tempted above that we are able; but will with every temptation also make a way of escape, that we may be able to bear it.

LET YOUR LIGHT SHINE.

By Ellen G. White

BY MRS. E. G. WHITE.
“No man, when he hath lighted a candle, covereth it with a vessel, or putteth it under a bed, but setteth it on a candle-stick.” Your life is to be set on a candle-stick. It is not to be inclosed in four walls, but is to shine forth unto the world. “Ye are the salt of the earth;” but if the salt has lost its saving quality, of what use is it? You are to exert an influence that shall be as far-reaching as eternity. What is the savor, or saving quality, of the Christian’s life?—It is the divine nature of which you are to be a partaker. It is the heavenly light which you are to diffuse to those around you. Society is to be better for your having lived, and eternity will show that your efforts have been blessed to the salvation of souls.
We are to be God’s peculiar people, whom he has called out of darkness into his marvelous light to show forth his praise, zealous of good works. This is to be our work; we are to show forth his praise. How many of us have done this in the past? How many have given unbelievers the impression that the religion of Christ is the most desirable thing in the world? Unbelievers have said, “We do not want to be Christians. There is no joy in serving God. Religion is only a dead round of lifeless ceremonies. We want the attractions of the world.” Satan will see that they have these things. But Christ cangive them rest and life and fullness of joy. When you see the glory of the Christian's hope, I know what you will do; you who have tasted and seen that the Lord is good, will reveal the praises of God. Have you not realized that Christ can save to the uttermost all who come unto God by him? When this fullness of salvation takes hold of your soul, you will have more and more of the praises of God on your lips, and more and more decided will be your testimony of the goodness of God. It will not be as it has been in the past.
When Satan comes to you to tell you that you are a great sinner, begin to look up to your Redeemer and to talk of his merits; that which will help you is to look to his light. Acknowledge your sin; but who was it that Christ came to save? Tell the enemy that “Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners,” and that you are saved by his matchless love. Jesus asked Simon a question in regard to two debtors. One owed his lord a small sum, and the other owed him a larger sum; but he forgave them both, and he asked Simon which debtor would love him most. He answered, “He to whom he forgave most.” We have been great sinners, but Christ died that we might be forgiven. The merits of his sacrifice are sufficient to present to his Father in our behalf. Those to whom he has forgiven most will love him most, and will stand nearest to his throne to praise him for his great love and infinite sacrifice. It is when we most fully comprehend the love of God that we best realize the sinfulness of sin, and the fullness of salvation. When we see the length of the chain that was let down for us, and understand something of the merits of that infinite sacrifice that Christ has made for us, the heart is melted with tenderness and contrition.
Why is it that you have not loved the Saviour more?—It is because you have been satisfied with your own goodness. You have been content to appear in the filthy garments of your own righteousness. But when self is crucified, and you come to Christ for his righteousness, your words of self-justification are gone. You speak, melted by the matchless love of your Saviour. You see his attractiveness, and lay hold of him who is the sinner's only hope. Then when you have found him, you are interested for somebody else. It is everything with us what kind of an influence we are exerting in the world. Shall we gather with Christ? Shall we draw men to the Man of Calvary? Lift him up. Self has been lifted up; but let self be humbled. Let self die. Educate the lips to talk of Jesus, and the heart to praise him, and it will become second nature to speak forth his matchless grace. You will go forth everywhere saying, “Hear what the Lord has done for my soul.” The more you tell of his mercy, the more you will have to tell. Let it be your testimony, “The life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God.” “When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.”
I love him; for he is my love. I want to talk of him by the way. I want to praise him now and forever. Now will each one of us become a missionary? Shall it be written in the records of Heaven opposite our names, “Missionaries, co-laborers with Jesus Christ”?
Do not disappoint our heavenly Father; and may God help you that you may say, “I live, yet not I; but Christ liveth in me.”
Christ is coming, and he is coming for his people. He says, “I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands.” The marks of the crucifixion are in his palms for us, and when he comes, “he shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied.” We are to seek to save souls; we are to present his sacrifice to the perishing; for when he comes, we want to enter into the joy of our Lord; and his joy is to see souls in his kingdom for whom he has died. We are to go on from strength to strength, growing more happy in his service, settled, rooted, grounded, in his love. He says: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.” Oh, what exaltation for fallen humanity! We are almost home. Christ is coming in the clouds of heaven, and he knows his sheep by name. He knows every soul who has come to him in faith, just as he knew that woman who touched him with the touch of faith. Jesus asked, “Who touched me?” The disciples were astonished that he should ask this. They answered, “Thou seest the multitude thronging thee, and sayest thou, Who touched me?” When the woman saw that she was not hid, she came and fell at his feet, and told her story, and praised him for his healing power. At the touch of her faith he perceived that virtue had gone out of him. Faith had taken it from him. No one else knew that she had touched him; but he knew it. The crowding multitude had not felt the restoration that she realized. The actual contact of her faith with him had brought the blessing. And this will bring Christ's virtue to us, that we may be prepared for his service and his kingdom.
When he comes, he will say to those who are looking for him, “Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” “Well done”—what have they done? They have built up his kingdom. They have shared in his trials, his sufferings, his labors; and he gives them a place among the blessed. What exaltation, what privilege is ours! We may have the worthiest ambition which Heaven can approve, in saving souls for eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Religious and European News

By Editor

Commenting upon the European war cloud and the recent visit of the Duke of Cambridge to Spain, the London Post dwells upon the necessity of keeping Gibraltar and Malta impregnable, and hints at the sending of heavier and better guns to those strongholds.
“For the second time in the history of the world,” says the Standard, “a bishopric has been declined. The first instance, so far as known, was that of John Hooper, in England, about three hundred years ago. The second is that of Dr. Henry Satterlee, of New York, who declines the Episcopal bishopric of Michigan.”
March 2 was the Pope’s seventy-ninth birthday, which he celebrated by receiving a number of Cardinals, who tendered their congratulations. In reply the Pope said that it was impossible for him in the present position of the Papacy to perform his duties as the head of the church in an independent manner. He complained of the delay in the granting of royal exequaturs to the Italian bishops, and said his appointments were subjected to scrutiny. He referred to the oppressions of the new Penal Code, and the suppression of the funds of fraternities.
The Standard (Baptist) complains that in Washington City “the first day of the week is not the day of repose required by the fourth commandment.” If by this the Standard means that the first day of the week is not the seventh (for that is the one specified in the commandment), the statement certainly cannot be disputed; but if by it the Standard means that Sunday is not observed as required by the fourth commandment, it only remains to say that the fourth command says nothing of Sunday observance.

Bishop of Lincoln Faces Trial

Right Rev. Edward King, D. D., Bishop of Lincoln, England, is accused of violating the laws of the Church of England for praying towards the east, using altar lights, using a mixed chalice, i. e., a communion cup containing wine and water, and other Papal abominations. The Bishop was brought to trial before the Archbishop of Canterbury and a council of all the provincial bishops, but denying the jurisdiction of the court, a further hearing has been postponed till the 12th inst.

Sunday Attractions Keep People from Church

By Editor

"It is believed that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of persons in New York City," says the Observer, "who were members of the church before they came here to reside, but who have not connected themselves with any church in the city." The reason assigned by the Observer is the numerous Sunday attractions! We presume that this will be regarded by many as another evidence that Sunday attractions ought to be prohibited by law, in order that Christians may not be kept away from church.

The Continental Sunday

By Editor

The Lutheran Observer in a recent article entitled “The Continental Sunday” says:—
“Sunday is the great holiday of the German nation—the day devoted to pleasure and amusement. . . . Nor is Sunday regarded and observed in a different manner by the religious part of the community. Although a small proportion of them attend church in the forenoon, even the pious among them have no thought of it as a sacred day.”
And what is there remarkable about this, we should like to know. Indeed, it seems very strange that anyone should regard Sunday as sacred. Nowadays people generally know that its observance is not enjoined in the Scriptures, and it is little wonder that its false claims to sanctity are so generally disregarded.

Cardinal Gibbons on Civil Liberty

By Editor

WHATEVER the real sentiments of Cardinal Gibbons may be, it is certain that nobody can talk better than he on civil and religious liberty. At the dedication of a Catholic Church in Baltimore, January 27, he said:—
“We were informed recently by the daily newspapers that a certain antichristian Sunday-school was organized in this city for the purpose of advocating an infidel doctrine. Several ministers appealed to the municipal authorities to suppress the school. For my part, I would be sorry to see the arm of the civil law used toward the suppression of this school. Coercion is not conversion. Our divine Saviour never had recourse to the arm of the law or the sword in teaching his doctrine. The only weapons we ought to use are the weapons of argument and persuasion in dealing with this school. The sword I would draw against the enemy of Christ would be the sword of the Spirit.”
It is very probable that the Cardinal speaks his own personal feelings in this matter; but, unfortunately, he is a part of a vast religio-political machine that has never acted on such principles, and he cannot alter either its record or its present condition, nor can he carry out the course that he professes to believe in.

THE BIBLE.

By Robert Pollok

Most wondrous book, bright candle of the Lord, Star of eternity! the only star By which the bark of man could navigate The sea of life, and gain the coast of bliss Securely; only star which rose on time, And, on its dark and troubled billows still, As generation, drifting swiftly by, Succeeded generation, threw a ray Of Heaven's own light, and to the hills of God, The everlasting hills, pointed the sinner's eye. This book, this glorious book, on every line Marked with the seal of high divinity; On every leaf bedewed with drops of love Divine, and with the eternal heraldry And signature of God Almighty stamped From first to last, this ray of sacred light, The lamp from off the everlasting throne, Mercy took down, and in the light of time Stood, casting on the dark her gracious bow; And even now beseeching men, with tears And earnest sighs, to read, believe, and live. —Pollok.

ROMAN CATHOLICISM.

By Rev. W. S. Bovard

Catholics are exultant over the project of establishing a great university at Washington, where it may impress its character upon the whole nation. Relative to the completion of this enterprise, Bishop Spalding recently said:
"The Catholic Church will then be the center of light in America, moulding public opinion and appealing to all men. The Catholic Church will lead the intellectual purpose of the land, and will make itself a power among American thinkers and educators. Politicians at Washington will receive a wider education, higher, nobler aim in life, a better purpose to make this country live in faith, in hope, and in thought."
The Bishop says, "The Catholic Church will then be the center of light in America."
To this apparently joyful statement we would reply, in the language of the scripture, "If the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!" Whatever may be the extent of the ground for fear that Rome, with her seven million subjects in America, may seize and hold the strategic points in our nation, enough is apparent to cause every lover of American liberty to consider the wisdom of Washington, when he said, "Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens), the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of Republican government."—Rev. W. S. Bovard, in California Christian Advocate.

"SEEING IS BELIEVING."

By Obadiah Oldschool

I WAS traveling by rail. I met on the cars a man whom I had known for many years. He is a sensible and a moral man, but he is not a Christian. In trying to tell me why he was not, he said: "Somehow or other I can't exercise faith as you Christians seem to. I am constitutionally skeptical. I never could believe in anything that I could not see and understand."
"That is very sad," I replied. "It must embarrass you a great deal in your business, your studies, and your social intercourse. By the way, how can you, with this constitutional peculiarity that you tell of, sit here so quietly, with the train rushing on at the rate of forty miles an hour? Have you been out on the cab to see if there is an engineer there? Have you examined him so as to be sure that he is competent and thoroughly reliable? If there is not an engineer and we are running by chance, there is no telling what may happen. If there is an engineer, and he is ignorant, he may not be able to control his engine. If there is an engineer, and he is vicious, he may want to tumble us all over some embankment. Perhaps he is an Anarchist, or is afflicted with the homicidal mania. How dreadful that would be! Are you sure, positively sure, that there is an honest and skillful man in charge of the engine?"
My skeptical friend had to admit that his constitutional infirmity had not prevented him from trusting himself on a train without seeing the engineer. And he could not deny that it was less unreasonable to trust in an unseen Saviour than in an unseen engineer.
In the course of our conversation I urged upon him the duty of prayer. He said: "Now there again I am troubled. I have tried to pray, and it seems like talking to the wind. I can't realize that there is anybody who hears my prayer." In the midst of our talk we reached a way-station, and my friend said, "I must telegraph from here to a man who is to meet me in New York." He went out, and when he came back I said, "Did you telegraph to that man to meet you?" "Yes," he replied. "Did you see him?" "Of course not." "Well, tell me just what you did." "You know already. I wrote a dispatch and handed it to the telegraph operator." "Did you know the operator? Did you examine his instrument? Did you trace the wire all the way from that station to New York?"
"Now you are quizzing me again. But you can't catch me this time. That was a telegraph station. There was a sign up, and the paper I wrote on had the caption, 'Western Union Telegraph Company.'"
"So you trusted to what was printed on a slip of paper, and sent your message to a man whom you had never seen, and who, if there is any such man, is five hundred miles away. And yet you won't believe in the Bible when it says, 'Before they call I will answer, and while they are yet speaking I will hear.' You may say you know of instances in which dispatches have been sent by the Western Union Telegraph Company and answers received. But the Bible tells again and again of answers to prayer. Abraham and Moses, David and Solomon, Elijah and Daniel, prayed, and the response came promptly from the unseen heavens. Paul and the other apostles prayed, and God gave them the very things they asked for. Now, is not the Bible, which has been tested for so many ages, as reliable as this telegraph company, which has been in existence less than thirty years? I tell you it does not require half as much faith to pray to the invisible God of the Bible, who has been hearing and answering prayer for nearly six thousand years, as to send a message from a railroad way-station and expect that it will reach its destination."
Again we were interrupted by the whistle announcing that we were entering the town of W. This was a railroad center, and my friend had some letters that he wanted to mail there. We went out when the train stopped, and seeing in the depot an iron box with the words "U. S. Mail" upon it, he put his letters in it and we returned to the cars. As soon as we were seated I said:—
"I am now astonished beyond measure. You, a constitutional skeptic, who cannot trust in an invisible God, trusting in an iron box because it has the letters "U. S. Mail" upon it. Nobody told you that it was a letter-box. You did not see anybody there waiting to take your letters and carry them to their destination. But just because you saw the box you believed that somebody would come, and, reading the direction on those letters, would see to it that they went to the right place and were delivered to the right person. You have unbounded confidence in the postal service of the United States, but you have no confidence in the gospel of Jesus Christ."
My fellow-traveler had thought a good deal about Heaven, but he could not realize that there was any such place. Yet he confessed to me that he believed in New York City, though he had never been there. He believed in it because he had read about it in books and newspapers. And so great was his faith in New York as a real place, and one worth visiting, that he had bought a ticket for it and was going there. I could not understand how he could confide in men's statements about New York, and yet doubt God's statements about Heaven.
It came out again in conversation that he had made investments in New York through persons whom he had never seen, and whom he was induced to trust on the recommendation of others. And yet when he was exhorted to lay up treasures in Heaven he could not realize that it would be a good investment, though God himself promised a profit of an hundred-fold.
The more I talked with this man the more fully I realized how utterly unreasonable is the skepticism of multitudes in regard to spiritual things. If they would exercise the same faith in God that they exercise daily in their fellow-men, they would soon become Christians. The gospel comes to us with stronger proofs of its reality and value than anything else, and it only asks us to apply to it the principles on which we act in other things. Though its basis is faith, it is not a faith that rests on visions and dreams, but on solid facts which not only justify, but demand, our confidence.—Obadiah Oldschool, in Interior.

"MORE WEAK THAN WICKED."

By Silas P. Mason

Nobody ever thought that Steve Morgan was a bad boy. To be sure, Steve had been caught in several scrapes of a decidedly compromising character, but they were generally overlooked, because "Steve is so easily influenced by bad boys." And so it was, that when Steve betrayed his trust, and appropriated various small sums, aggregating nearly eighty dollars, of his employer's money, everybody was astonished to the greatest degree.
Now, I want to show the fallacy of their reasoning, the reason that they not only should not have been surprised, but that they should, to a certain extent, have been expecting just such an outcome. When our friend Steve, who is a good example of a large, and, I am inclined to say, growing class of young men and boys,—when he committed his first offense against the laws of common honesty, instead of being promptly punished and reprimanded, advised of the wrongness of his behavior, of the utter outrageousness of his conduct, what little punishment he received was more than counteracted by some such phrase as that which stands at the head of this article, and he was thus led to look upon his punishment as a kind of martyrdom, and his crime as a mere peccadillo to be repeated at pleasure, if he were not guilty of being found out. Because, "everybody knew that he didn't mean anything bad; he was only a little weak and foolish, and perhaps unduly influenced by associates of a little looser morals than himself." Right here I want to say that this very fact that he was so easily influenced was a more cogent reason that his every wrong act should have been strictly punished instead of excused. As a result of this pernicious doctrine, his escapades became of more and more frequent occurrence, of more and more reckless character, and finally culminated in an act which drove him, a criminal outcast, from home.
Parents, guardians, friends, do not help the boys downward to a life of hardened sin and criminality by condoning their faults, and excusing their boyish escapades, because "the boy isn't bad at heart, only a little weak and foolish, not wicked." A boy, seeing that his parents and friends overlook his peccadillos in this manner, soon learns to regard them with complacency himself, and when his moral senses become so blunted that he can commit small (?) sins without compunction, then the progress is easy, and by rapid stages, to absolute criminality. Many a man is today serving out his long term in the penitentiary, many a one sleeping in an unhallowed grave, brought there by his own sinfulness, and all because he was not properly checked when he began to sow his wild oats. And I believe that a just God will hold the parents or guardian of such a one to strict accountability for neglecting the golden opportunities of leading that young life into a higher, nobler sphere of existence, and of guarding that precious soul from the perils that environ young men.
Teach your sons that the slightest deviation from God's law is sin, and that the wages of sin (which does not mean some sins, but all sins) is death; and not that the petty, popular vices of our young men are necessary experiences through which every young man has to pass before he can take his position as a useful and respectable member of society, and I will guarantee that the number of well-to-do, respectable young men who astonish their friends by some act that places them under the ban of the law will decrease in a very perceptible degree. Someone has well said that "a good man gone wrong is usually a bad man found out;" and so it is with these young men of whom I have been speaking—not bad naturally, but with the "old father Adam" inherent in their natures, nursed under the names of various amiable weaknesses by weak and foolish parents and guardians, who believe that "every young man must sow his wild oats."
My Christian friends, you who are parents or guardians, do not err in this respect. While it may seem hard to hold them in check, you will be more than repaid in having your sons grow up ornaments of society, pillars of the church, and strong staves on which to lean in your old age; veritable blessings to the circle in which they live, instead of blots on the escutcheons of otherwise honorable families, and living monuments of grace to the incapacity of parents or guardians.—Silas P. Mason, in the Examiner.

FROM NATURE'S BOOK.

By Fred Allison Howe

BY FRED ALLISON HOWE.
ERE yonder glorious sun fades quite away, And dips his plumage in the western sea, From Nature's book, with his departing ray, Peruse the tale of human destiny. Bright orbs of hope! like yonder setting sun, Ye rise and briefly shine with golden light, Then, leaving but a shadow, one by one, 'Neath life's horizon, sink in deepest night.
Yet, e'en as sunlight sparkling on the sea, Directs and cheers the sailor all the day, So your fair beams are comforting, and ye Are guiding lights until ye pass away. God's loving promises bring sweet relief, And light the way where trembling feet must go; Bright gleaming stars to cheer the night of grief, That shine the brightest in the darkest woe.
Yon white and crimson clouds, like freighted craft With snowy sails, athwart the western dome, How peacefully the wandering breezes waft Away beyond their sand-girt ocean home! Yet, torn by gales, or weeping gentle rain, Swept on by mountain torrent fierce and free, Shall those bright clouds thro' endless change, again, Like truant children, hasten to the sea.
'Tis thus the weary spirit, worn with strife, Swept on by fate, torn by adversity, Some day shall lave in crystal streams of life Its tired, snowy pinions, and be free! He who is faithful to each sacred trust, Like yonder sun, shall rise beyond the night, With white-clad throngs of all the good and just, Shall shine forever in the realms of light.
Battle Creek, Mich.

IF A MAN DIE SHALL HE LIVE AGAIN?

By Ethan Lamphear

JOB 14:14.

IN Gen. 2:17, we read God's command to Adam, after placing him in the garden: "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." In Gen. 3:19 is the sentence pronounced after man had eaten: "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." Thus the question seems to be settled that man must die, though the serpent declared that he should not die. But all human experience proves that God was true; that all men must really die. All men shrink at death's door, especially those without hope. The last enemy to man is death. 1 Cor. 15:26.
To stop here would leave man out of the world at death as he was before he was created. Did Job believe this when he asked the question, "If a man die shall he live again?" Job 19:26: "And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God." Job, though afflicted in this life, had hope beyond. Was there any ground for such hope? Isa. 12:2: "Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid; for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song; he also is become my salvation." John 13:16: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life;" or, "have life age-abiding." (Rotherham's translation.) Light now breaks in. Jesus Christ "hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel." 2 Tim. 1:10. "I am the resurrection, and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die." John 11:25, 26.
Thus we find that our life, our immortality, comes through Christ. And how?—He gave himself a ransom for all (1 Tim. 2:6)—"freely by his grace." But who shall receive this salvation, this immortality, this new life? Luke 14:14: "And thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee; for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just." John 5:21: "For as the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom he will." The fifteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians (as well as other passages) is conclusive upon this question. Verses 51,52: "We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump." Christ comes to fulfill his promise. How miraculous the change! "So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory." Verse 54. What a triumph over death and the grave through faith in "our Lord Jesus Christ"! "Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection." "Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord."
But it will not be so with the wicked. Matt. 13:49, 50: "So shall it be at the end of the world; the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth." Now mark Jesus' question: "Have ye understood all these things?" There are none so blind as those who will not heed and understand Christ's words. "As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be" when the Son of man cometh. 2 Peter 2:6: "And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample to those that after should live ungodly." The wicked shall be as stubble, and shall be burned up root and branch. Mal. 4:1. This is the second death. See also Heb. 6:8, the parable of the tares, and other passages.
But what of those who have kept the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus? (Rev. 14:12.) "On such the second death hath no power." Reader, do you believe these teachings? or do you say there is no "resurrection of the dead," as did the Sadducees? But "if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised; and if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished." 1 Cor. 15:16-18. And we are without a Saviour! But we thank God through our Lord Jesus Christ that we are not without a good hope of eternal life.
ETHAN LAMPHEAR.

"KEEP SHORT ACCOUNTS WITH GOD."

By Parish Visitor

If there is the smallest sin resting upon the conscience, there can be no true peace. Every sin has its shadow, and the least shadow is sufficient to come between the soul and God. The Father's smile is not the privilege, merely, but the right of each child in the divine household, and nothing but the consciousness of sin—sin unpardoned—can interfere with this privilege. How important, then, is it that the conscience should be kept free from the shadows which arise from sin unconfessed, and therefore unforgiven!
We are not inclined in these days to regard confession in its true light. We look upon it as a stern and unwelcome duty, and seldom, if at all, consider it the privilege which it really is. The result is, we shrink from availing ourselves of it, and allow sins to accumulate on our conscience till their shadows grow into a thick cloud, completely hiding the Father's face. That this should be so, arises, we think, partly from the fact that we are apt to attach too large a meaning to the word itself. Confession means, simply, to admit, to acknowledge, to disclose; nothing more; whereas many seem to regard it as also implying deep sorrow for sin, and self-abasement before God—in other words, a certain condition of soul which must be arrived at, and for which they require a certain amount of time.
The consequence is that, instead of taking each sin at once, as soon as they are aware of it, and transferring it from themselves to the great Sin-bearer, they wait, with its heavy load upon them, for a more convenient season, afraid and unable, meanwhile, to look up into their Father's face without his pardon and without his smile.
O child of such a Father, resolve to keep "short accounts" with him! Let the moment when his Spirit within you tells you of a faint sin, be the moment for saying, "I will arise, and go to my Father, and say unto him, Father, I have sinned." That very sin has already been judged by him, when laid by him upon Christ; but he wants you to judge it and lay it upon Christ yourself. And the very moment you do this, "as far as the east is from the west," so far doth he remove that transgression from you, and pronounce you clean.
Yes, "keep short accounts with God." "Let your garments be always white;" "for then shalt thou lift up thy face without spot," and shalt "have confidence, and not be ashamed before him."—Parish Visitor.
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