Review and Herald, Vol. 23, No. 4. (12/22/1863)

Review and Herald

Dec 22, 1863

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 22, 1863

Intemperance Increasing.

It is unnecessary to preach to any who believe and practice the present truth, a sermon on the evils of intemperance to deter them from the use of spirituous liquors. A standard of piety which roots out such indulgences as tobacco, and even tea and coffee, will of course give no place for an instant to the more grossly sensual indulgence of intoxicating beverages. Yet we cannot overlook this great evil of this evil-increasing age. And to note how this burning iniquity is treated by a class who should stand like a wall of adamant against it; to see how it is purposely ignored by some, winked at by others, and neglected by nearly all of this class, will serve to give us as clearly as perhaps anything else, an idea of the downward tendency of this age, as noted in prophecy. Geo. Trask, in an address to ministers, entitled, "The Pulpit divorced from the Temperance Cause," sets forth the recreancy of the popular pulpit on this question, and the dangers which threaten our land from the fast-increasing evil of intemperance. He speaks as follows:

DEAR BRETHREN : We shall not waste King's English to prove that intemperance is getting the upper hand of us, and like a sea of fire, threatens to roll over the nation.

Sad demonstrations of this boldly stare us in the face, and the watchman on Zion's walls who fails to discover this is blind in a significant sense. A change has come over our profession touching this cause. We have preachers—successors of the very men who inaugurated the temperance movement—who year by year totally ignore it, alike in sermons and in prayers! Pulpits which thirty years ago roared like Sinai against this abomination, are now silent as the grave, whilst others give it merely a passing notice.

Whence this change—whence this "divorce" from a great and suffering cause? Are clergymen wine-bibbers? Are clergymen sots? Does conscious guilt seal their lips in criminal silence! God forbid! Such an imputation would be false—basely false. Compared with men in other vocations—lawyers, doctors, and the like—clergymen are eminently temperate—bright specimens of the virtue.

Churlish men say the "pulpit is shorn of strength, and has had its day." True it has lost its stronghold on the populace in some measure. True it is not invested with a halo of superstitious veneration as in dark ages. But, thank God, we have pulpits still which have not lost an iota of vital energy to battle an evil which "drowns men in destruction." What power equals pulpit-power when in right hands? When a preacher, a true man, stands up in his place, and wields the law of God and the gospel of Christ against this giant iniquity, he is the impersonation of moral power, and he creates moral power in all about him—the very power which is indispensable to carry this reform into the strongholds of sin and Satan. He is a water-wheel which sets ten thousand spindles whirling.

How, then, has it come to pass that pulpits once so effective, preachers now so able, do comparatively so little against this destroyer? What causes have wrought this change, and rendered pulpits so inefficient?

Other agents, we answer, have arisen, and in some sense become our substitutes, and assumed our responsibilities; and our failing to stand up in our places and faithfully to apply the word of God to this evil, has occasioned infinite mischief to a cause we all profess to love.

1. We have placed undue reliance on Washingtonians. These reformed inebriates came from Baltimore and other cities, from theaters, gin-palaces, and "breathing holes of hell!" They were eloquent men. Delirium tremens made them eloquent, and they taught us a new and magnificent lesson, that the drunkard is not beyond the compassion of God, and, though possessed of a legion of devils, he can be restored and sit at the feet of Jesus. They accomplished a grand work in their own way, and we cease not to thank God for it.

But they were not men of culture. They had no science, and many of them no religion. They were unable to analyze poisonous drugs and drinks, and of course unable to instruct the public relative to important principles involved in this reform. Hence, when ministers of Christ relaxed their efforts, as many did when Washingtonians took the field, and imagined that these new lights would perfect a work which they had begun, they made a capital mistake. The substitution of their instructions for the luminous instructions of a faithful and fearless pulpit, was like substituting the fitful, fiery flashes of Ætna or Vesuvius for the light of the sun.

2. Many of us have placed undue reliance on Prohibitory Laws. Believing such laws against a nefarious traffic indispensable, we labored indefatigably to secure them. When secured, we imagined our civil authorities would execute them, irrespective of what clergymen in their pulpits might or might not do. Having secured wholesome laws, we seemed disposed to have the comfort of them; we suspended our vigilance, and reposed on our laurels. *Hence, laws just and good, precisely adapted to meet the "greatest evil of the age," are not executed in our cities and large towns. Purse-proof, ruby-faced distillers and venders make them a "by-word and hissing," stir up riots, trample down all law, in disregard of God and man. Why, we ask, is prohibitory law a failure? Because moral power does not come forward to support it. Churches do little or nothing about it, because pulpits do nothing about it; and as the execution of the law is committed to men who care little or nothing about it, of course it is not executed, and we mournfully fail in as grand a legislative measure as was ever devised.

3. We have placed undue reliance on professional lectures. A preacher, entrenched in the prayers of his church, entrenched amidst the elements of the law and gospel, amidst motives drawn from time and from eternity, may wield, if he will, a power well nigh divine.

Thirty-four years ago, several sermons on the nature and effects of intoxicating liquors were delivered in the theological chapel at Andover. They were delivered on consecutive Sabbaths, in the presence of Stuart, Porter, Woods—men of might—and in the presence of a most fastidious audience. Now, we have gladly listened to many professional lectures since then; we have admired the dramatic genius and matchless eloquence of Gough; laughed and cried under the wit and poetry of Jewett, and thanked him for his scientific instructions; but those sermons made deeper impressions than all the lectures we ever heard. Those sermons, we dare say, still live in the minds of many clergymen now laboring wide asunder over our vast territory. The momentum they gave still "operates unspent."

The fact is, questions of salvation and damnation are involved in this theme. Hence, when a godly man takes the pulpit, prepared to preach on this as on other Bible themes, the hallowed associations of prayer, time and place, wonderfully combine to give him power, and as a prince he prevails.

Brethren, let us do our appropriate work, and give noble, worthy lecturers every encouragement to do theirs; but no longer substitute their appeals, however captivating, for the instructions of God's word. Why exchange the pulpit for the platform? Why exhaust our zeal by raising a hundred dollars for some "eloquent orator," and do nothing till he comes, and when he comes lend him with noisy applause, and do nothing afterward?

We have given a dozen years and more to the temperance cause. We have been everywhere, preaching against tobacco and strong drink. Wherever we have labored, we have seen here clergymen fully awake, battling the monster with Christian weapons in a fearless and successful manner. Dram-shops and the whole paraphernalia of drunkards have gone down under

their scathing tongues. We fix no limits to the power of an honest pulpit. We have seen thirteen dram-shops demolished by a couple of sermons from a young preacher, and the plowshare of reform driven completely through the place. Glorious men. They do much to atone for the defects of a whole profession. Their reward is on high!

We have seen others—fine gentlemen, fine preachers—who treat this as a vulgar cause, and who fear they may compromise their dignity if they "touch it with one of their fingers." The subject was about to come under discussion in a clerical body of late. A member objected, and with a swell of grandiloquence moved "that it be not entertained, as it did not comport with the dignity of the body!"

We have seen others, who have never investigated the deadly nature of intoxicating agents, and know nothing of their fatal power on the souls of their hearers, and nothing of their fatal power to render them useless as preachers of the gospel. They remind us of a young and popular preacher, who said, "It is a fine thing to have a man come round and tell us all about rum and tobacco, and save us the trouble." Their idol is polite literature.

We see clergymen who do but little themselves, but censure what others do, in a lordly style. What pulpits, or order of pulpits, what societies old or new, are doing anything, comparatively anything, in this terrible crisis?

We see clergymen who consider the pulpit too sacred to admit this theme. They think it well enough to reason on temperance on secular occasions—to give it a slight touch on fast-days and stormy days; but to preach a sermon on this mighty evil on a fair Sabbath, when influential sinners are at church, would violate the sanctity of God's house, and all notions of pulpit etiquette.

We ask such brethren, Does not the use of intoxicating drinks transgress the laws of life, and is not such transgression the very essence of sin? And should not pulpits preach against sin? We ask, Are not such drugs and drinks obstacles to the conversion of sinners? and should not pulpits preach against that which subverts their own purpose?

What sin, we ask, does the Bible assault with such power as that of intemperance? Not the formidable type of intemperance which now infuriates our mobs, and sometimes leads our armies; not the type of intemperance whose ailment is "liquid death and distilled damnation;" but the Bible hurls its denunciations against intemperance in far milder forms—intemperance in the use of wines—the juice of the grape!

Pulpits too holy! What place is too holy in which to work for God? When, brethren, shall we rid our profession of this pious legerdemain? When shall we view this glorious reform from a Christian standpoint, place it among Christian ethics, and so preach that we shall impress perishing thousands about us with the terrible truth that "no drunkard can inherit the kingdom of God?"

The profession is infinitely in debt to the temperance cause, and gratitude should arm our pulpits against "the great evil of the age." Fifty years ago clergymen generally indulged in the cup, and many were drunken. They drank in their parochial calls from home to house, they drank at tea-parties, weddings, and funerals, and in all ministerial conventions. They marched to sparkling decanters no less promptly than topers marched to dram-shops by the bells which rung out the toddy-hour. Many drank to utter degradation, and the winds of heaven whistled over the bones of many whom drunkenness buried from pulpits into dishonored graves. Hence, dear brethren, consider "the rock whence we were hewn"—consider the terrible crisis through which we are passing. Scorn no more this bleeding cause, but "play the man."

"The temperance cause," said a titled divine, when addressing an immense body of clergymen in Brooklyn, N. Y., "the temperance cause—a cause without an effect!" How becoming the occasion, the presence, and an epoch when the flood-gates of intemperance are lifted up, had a counter sentiment been offered: The temperance cause—a blessing in every nation, people, and tongue. As ambassadors of the world's Redeemer—ourselves redeemed from drunkards' graves—we will declare with unfaltering tongue the whole counsel of God against an evil which threatens to whelm the nation in destruction.

Let your Light Shine.

By J. D. Hough

WHILE passing down the stream of time, In days and weeks and months and years, We are onward hastening to that clime, Where God shall wipe away our tears.

If we are of that humble few, That live by faith, and not by sight, Who would our Saviour's track pursue, Count all God's laws and precepts right,

Though we are wronged in many a way Let us with Christ-like meekness bear What evil ones against us say; That we may in God's promise share.

May all my works and actions be, A pattern of my heavenly King, That all, the light in me may see, And so to Christ their homage bring.

The prayers of all I humbly crave, Who in God's promises can hope, That I sustaining grace may have, To cheer me on and buoy me up,

Till Christ our Saviour shall proclaim Deliverance to his followers true, And then may my unworthy name Be numbered with the faithful few. J. D. Hough. Rochester, Mich.

Counsel for the Soldiers of Jesus.

BRO. WHITE: I send you the following article for the Review, if you think proper to publish it. It is taken from a chapter in Pike’s Guide to Young Disciples, entitled, “The Spiritual Conflicts and Sorrows of the Disciples of Christ,” and will, I trust, encourage and comfort the humble followers of Jesus. What I have selected is under the heading of Persecution and Temptation.

M. F. MAXSON. Adams’ Center, N. Y.

The Christian’s path to Heaven is a chequered path. Many are the sacred pleasures of the followers of the Lamb; but they have also pains and trials peculiar to themselves.

“Much in sorrow, much in woe, Onward, Christian, onward go; Fight the fight, and, worn with strife, Steep with tears the bread of life, Onward, Christian, onward go! Join the war, and face the foe.”

Every disciple of Jesus will find that the Christian life is truly a warfare. Would you behold those who have no foes without, no foe within; whom no fears distract, no dangers threaten? It must be when you meet them in the upper world; and if you ever join them there, assisted from above, you must persevere in the warfare which they have triumphantly ended.

“Life is the scene of conflict, not of rest; Man’s is laborious happiness at best; On this side death his dangers never cease, His joys are joys of conquest, not of peace.”

The spiritual sorrows and conflicts which the Christian has to endure are of various kinds. Many of his trials proceed from within. He feels the correctness of the statement made in the word of truth, “The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the other; so that ye do not the things that ye would.” By the expression, the flesh, in the Scriptures, appears frequently to be meant human corruption, or those remains of depravity with which the believer has to struggle. This is one of the Christian’s principal enemies. The world occasionally allures by its charms, or alarms by its terrors. The assaults of Satan take place at times, though not constantly continued; but the flesh is like a body of death, with which the Christian is perpetually burdened. The Scriptures represent the conquest and destruction of this constant enemy as a painful and difficult achievement. It is not described as dying by a sudden wound, but by a slow and lingering death. “They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.” The young Christian commencing his course full of hope, may for a while be comparatively insensible to the pressure of this constant enemy; but soon he will find that he has to struggle with an evil heart, and has need to crucify the flesh with its affections and desires.

Perhaps with all the inward conflicts and sorrows, you have to encounter outward opposition. The world reviles and slanders you because you are no longer conformed to its corruptions. You are perhaps represented as a schismatic, an enthusiast, or a fanatic, or as a melancholy creature, going out of your senses, because you will follow the dictates of Jesus, and tread where he trod before you. Your regard to his precepts is deemed unnecessary preciseness; your religion is pronounced hypocrisy, and your wisdom folly. Your former associates make you the butt of their ridicule. Your nearest relatives oppose your holy choice, and are changed into enemies because you have embraced the religion of Jesus.

Perhaps some who read these lines may have parents who even threaten to disown them, and to cast them helpless on the wide world if they adhere to their religion; or employers who will dismiss them from their service if they faithfully follow Jesus Christ. This kind of persecution still exists. The carnal mind is as much enmity against God as it was when Nero, or Pliny, or Trojan, or Diocletian, ravaged with persecution the church of God. In the midst of trials of this kind you have cause for joy rather than sorrow. They are what the holy Jesus told his first disciples to expect. “Ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake; but he that endureth to the end shall be saved.” “And ye shall be betrayed both by parents, and brethren, and kinsfolk, and friends, and some of you shall they cause to be put to death.” “A man’s foes shall be they of his own household.” They are what he himself encountered, and need we wonder that a world which hated him should hate his followers? “If they have called the Master of the house Beelzebub, how much more them of his household.” If they represented him as a glutton, a drunkard, and a stirrer of sedition, surely you need not be surprised, and should not be pained at any scandal they may cast on you. If friends oppose your choice, and deem your wisdom folly, remember his brethren at one time did not believe in him, but said he was beside himself. If the haters of holiness revile and mock and injure you, hearken while your Lord says, “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own; but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.” Since he was hated, why should it grieve you to be hated by a world that hated him? Why should you mourn at being reviled, when he was reviled before you? Rather rejoice; and if ever disposed to mourn and droop on account of the opposition you experience, then hear him saying, “Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake; for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad; for great is your reward in Heaven; for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.”

Thus expect little from the world that hated him; but rejoice, that if you are dead with him, you shall also live with him; if you confess him on earth, he will also confess you before his Father, and before his angels. Important period! How trifling then will appear the ridicule of the gay, and the more open enmity of the hostile! Then all the trials of faithful piety will end. Look therefore to the crown, and you will not tremble at the cross. Think of hearing from the lips of the Master those gladdening words, Well done, good and faithful; and the enmity and contempt of the haters of holiness will be as trifling as the chattering of a magpie, and will no more prevent your pressing on to Heaven, than the buzzing of an angry fly.

Had the disciples of Jesus no other enemies than the flesh and the world to oppose their progress to Heaven, the Christian life would be in reality a warfare. But the word of God discloses to your view other enemies not less formidable. However Unitarians and infidels may reject or ridicule the notion of Satanic opposition directed against the growth of piety, no truth is revealed in the divine word with more clearness.

In your warfare with the prince of darkness you have no occasion for surprise or alarm at the strength, the reputation, or the horrid nature, of his suggestions to temptations. Read the history of our Lord’s temptation, and it may furnish you many useful lessons. Satan tempted Jesus, hence you may learn that the most pious may expect his assaults. He persevered in tempting Jesus, and when foiled at one temptation, employed another. Hence it is evident that Satan will not easily depart from those whose faith and piety he is anxious to destroy. He tempted Jesus with the most horrid of temptations, even that of falling down and worshiping himself—a Devil. Need the Christian then be surprised if the enemy, who presented a temptation so horrid to his Lord, should harass him with suggestions equally dreadful? His last and principal offer to the Saviour, was the world. “All this will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.” This is the most successful of the false but alluring offers that he still employs to keep or draw the soul from God. When tempting Jesus, he backed his impious suggestions by passages from even the word of God, and by wrestling the Scriptures. Thus the kingdom of Satan is still upheld, and multitudes undone forever. Yet consider that Jesus, though tempted even to worship the Devil, continued holy, harmless, and undefiled. It is not therefore temptation, but yielding to temptation, that stains the soul with sin. Often are the friends of Jesus distressed and perplexed from not regarding this distinction. They think they cannot be his followers who have such horrid thoughts or

temptations as they have. At such times they should look to their Lord, and think, Am I, or can I be, tempted worse than he? Why then despond?

That you may overcome in your warfare, watchfulness is a most imperative Christian duty. The Lord Jesus inculcates a watchful spirit. “Take ye heed, watch and pray; for ye know not when the time is. I say unto you all, Watch.” “Blessed is he that watcheth.” “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” Take unto you the whole armor of God, and you will, through Jesus’ strength, triumph over the wicked one. Pray much. By prayer you will conquer. Avoid idleness. The slothful are peculiarly open to the assaults of the wicked one. With prayer unite reading the Scriptures and devout meditation. Above all, endeavor to live under the influence of faith in God and Christ in Heaven.

To communicate your trials and temptations to Christian friends may also assist you in overcoming the wicked one. Amidst all the discouragement and distress of your spiritual warfare, never forget that you have a faithful High Priest who has passed into the Heavens, but who knows how to succor them that are tempted, as he was in all points tempted like as they are, yet without sin.

Jesus felt the sting of affliction, the assaults of Satan, and the sorrows of spiritual desertion. In your darkest hour you may approach him and say, Blessed Lord, behold in me a case that once was thine—harassed by those hellish foes that once harassed thee; but thou hast conquered, and wilt thou not give thy poor follower grace and strength to conquer too? Why distrust the gracious Saviour? Are not his promises as rich as heavenly love can make them? as firm as eternal truth can fix them? as free as an undone world can want? Art thou his servant? He says, “Where I am, there shall also my servant be.” Art thou one of his flock? he declares, “My sheep shall never perish, neither shall any one (neither man nor devil) pluck them out of my hand.” Or art thou laden with sin and full of fears? he says, “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” In your Christian pilgrimage, in your spiritual warfare, forget not that you have a Saviour; and let that Saviour be your comfort and support. Think of your heavenly Father’s love. Richer mercy you cannot need than that which God displays. Think of him as a father. Does not a father pity his feeble child? If the child be sick and afflicted, unable to utter anything but sobs and moans, will he pity that child the less?

God is a Father to those that seek him; a kinder Father than any earthly parent; he knows his children’s sorrows; he sees their feebleness, and knows their frame is dust. He pities them. Trust in his tender love. Take courage. Press onward. Soon life’s conflicts will cease, and a crown of life will be yours.

I Don't Like My Business.

THERE is no greater fallacy in the world than that entertained by many young men that some pursuit in life can be found wholly suited to their tastes, whims and fancies. This philosopher's stone can never be discovered; and every one who makes his life a search for it will be ruined. Much truth is contained in the Irishman's remark: "It is never aisy to work hard." Let, therefore, the fact be always remembered by the young, that no life-work can be found entirely agreeable to a man. Success always lies at the top of a hill; if we would reach it, we can do so only by hard persevering effort, while beset with difficulties of every kind. Genius counts nothing in the battle of life. Determined, obstinate perseverance in one single channel, is everything. Hence, should any one of our young readers be debating in his mind a change of business, imagining he has a genius for some other, let him at once dismiss the thought, as he would a temptation to do evil. If you think you made a mistake in choosing the pursuit or profession you did, don't make another by leaving it. Spend all your energies in working for and clinging to it, as you would to the life-boat that sustained you in the midst of the ocean. If you leave it, it is almost certain that you will go down; but if you cling to it, informing yourself about it until you are its master, bending your every energy to the work, success is certain. Good, hard, honest effort, steadily persevered in, will make your love for your business or profession grow; since no one should expect to reach a period when he can feel that his life-work is just the one he could have done best, and would have liked best. We are allowed to see, and feel the roughness in our own pathway, but not in others; yet all have them.—Hunt's Merchant's Magazine.

The Night Cometh.

By Bonar

THE night cometh! Nor does it seem far off. It never appeared so nigh! The shadows are lengthening out, and falling with ominous gloom upon the valleys of earth. The dimness of twilight is beginning to make itself felt. It is settling down densely upon our cities, and on our solitudes; upon the towers of our strength, and the palaces of our pomp; nor can the noisy rush of eager multitudes, hurrying to and fro for gain or pleasure, wholly stifle the utterance of fear and awe. Men cannot help foreboding evil, for who can tell them what may be in the womb of darkness? The night shades are already around us, and reminding us of the descending night.

"Yet it is a matter of joy, also, that the day is at hand. The night, though, is brief, and is soon succeeded by a glorious day. But still of that day, the night is the forerunner. And the world's night is surely near, else why so many indications of closing day?" But, has it not been always thus? Have not other ages as well as the present been equally crowded with signs of trouble? Have not certain men always loved to be prophets of evil, and to interpret gloomily the events of their day? Is there not among many a morbid and unhealthy love of the dark and the ominous?

Be it so. It will not, however, be denied that the time must come when the crisis will arrive; and that before its arrival, it will give notice of its approach, by casting its shadows before. If such a crisis remains yet to be realized, then some age or other must be its precursor—must lie next the precipice, and see with its own eyes the gulf below. It is right, no doubt, that we should be cautious, not mistaking events, nor miscalculating times, nor misjudging signs; but it is far safer to take swift alarm at what seem like tokens of evil, even though the alarm should prove false, than with incredulous, it may be with derisive skepticism, to reject every sign, and refuse to be forewarned. It is bad, certainly, to be taking needless alarm at all, as, if the day of the Lord would never really come, but was a mere empty name, hung over us for terror, age after age, as a check upon the world, and a stimulus to the church. If, then, that day be a certainty, a reality, who will affirm that, when about to arrive, it will not foreshow itself? Surely a dislike to give heed to the forebodings of judgment, must arise from a dislike to entertain even the thought of that crisis. We will not see in the events of the day, premonitory shocks of the last earthquake, because we would fain discredit or postpone that day of calamity and terror.

This is not wisdom, neither is it magnanimity. It is folly and littleness of soul. It is a reckless resolution to blind ourselves to the evil as long as possible, and then to brave it as best we may, when it does burst upon us.—Bonar.

Christian Cheerfulness.

CHRISTIAN cheerfulness is honorable to God, and of happy influence on man. Let the cheering and tranquilizing power of the gospel break forth and shine from your character. Jeremiah sung psalms in the dungeon; Luther translated the Bible while in prison; John beheld the brightest visions of the New Jerusalem in Patmos; Bunyan in later days, composed his Pilgrim in confinement. There is very impressive power in Christian happiness, on those who see it from without. It is a sunshine amid dripping clouds—a Sabbath heart in a week-day body, and Sabbath speech amid the dialects of Babel. It is brightest when all around it is blackest. When our natural affections cease their music, we then hear, sung out of the sky, unutterable melodies which ear hath not heard; when the world is all gloom, a regenerated soul treads glories out of every pebble, and sees the stars as arteries along which pulsations of felicity reach him. He can say with Habakkuk—"Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be on the vines; the labor of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the field, and there shall be no herd in the stalls; yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation."

A Starless Crown.

By Dr. S. J. Spaulding

Dr. Dolson told me that a man in the General Hospital greatly desired to see a chaplain, and accordingly I went to see him. When the nurse had put aside the mosquito netting, the poor man began to converse with me very freely, speaking of his home in Hopkinton, N. H., where he had a wife and two children. He had once been a member of a Freewill Baptist church in that vicinity. He asked me if I thought it possible that his great desire would be gratified before he died. I told him I could hardly judge without knowing what it was. "Oh," said he, "I want to be the instrument in the conversion of one soul. I cannot die and wear a starless crown, a starless crown!" There was a depth of earnestness in his expression and manner very affecting, and the whole fear of the man in dying was, not that he was an unforgiven sinner—not that he should fail of heaven—not that his friends would not come to Jesus, but that he should wear a starless crown.—Dr. S. J. Spaulding.

The Fruit of Prayer.

If He prayed, who was without sin, how much more is the sinner bound to pray? And if He, watching through the whole night, prayed with continued supplications, how much more ought we, night and day, to watch in frequent prayer?—St. Cyprian.

When we send the dove of prayer to Heaven, it brings back an olive-branch in its mouth. We must send prayer before, as a harbinger to bespeak a blessing. Do men think the tree of blessing will drop its fruit into their mouth, when they never shake it by prayer? — Watson.

Female Inebriate Asylum

A FEMALE Inebriate Asylum is talked of in Boston. Was there ever a more startling evidence of the deep-reaching might of the liquor curse? In the homes of wealth and fashion the skeleton is working its terrible results.

Coming Events.

A WRITER in the Christian Advocate and Journal speaks of coming events thus:

"That we are on the eve of great events, that we are even now moving close up to the world's great crisis, is the general, if not the universal, belief. Like the signs that presaged the coming of Christ; like the wonders that heralded the downfall of Jerusalem; so the signs of these times, wars and rumors of wars, perplexity of nations, and men's hearts failing them for fear, are the ascending dust of the world's gathering squadrons for the decisive conflict. Debates in Congress, and Parliament, and Chambers; insurrections in the Ottoman Empire and Greece; the upheaval of society in Russia; the Italian difficulties; the discontent of Hungary and of Poland; the dissensions of Germany; the unrest of France, and Spain, and England; the tramp of foreign mercenaries in Mexico, and the rage of civil conflict and the boom of cannon on our own shores, are voices in the advance, shouting on the hosts of the whole earth to the final battle of the day of God Almighty.

"Again. The mutterings of the coming crisis swell from all lands. For that earthquake, great and mighty, the way is even now being prepared. Already the earth quivers to the shock, and thrones and dynasties are trembling to their final fall.

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