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Review and Herald, Vol. 82, No. 6.

Publishers’ Page

Review and Herald

Feb 9, 1905

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Feb 9, 1905

Publishers’ Page

By Editor

Conducted by the Department of Circulation of the Review and Herald Publishing Association

Important Missionary Work

If there is one work more important than another, it is that of getting our publications before the people, thus leading them to search the Scriptures. Missionary work—introducing our publications into families, conversing, and praying with and for them—is a good work, and one which will educate men and women to do pastoral labor. Churches in every place should feel the deepest interest in the tract and missionary work.
Few have any adequate idea of what the distribution of tracts and papers is doing. The missionary work, in circulating the publications upon present truth, is opening doors everywhere, and preparing minds to receive the truth when the living preacher shall come among them. The success which attends the efforts of ministers in the field is not due alone to their efforts, but in a great degree to the influence of the reading-matter which has enlightened the minds of the people and removed prejudice. — “Gospel Workers.”
The people are now greatly assisting the ministers in their work in the liberal circulation of—

An Appeal to Clergy

On the nineteenth of January an announcement was made in the REVIEW of the printing in tract form of “An Appeal to Clergy,” containing an Open Letter sent to the Protestant ministers of Washington, D. C., and on February 1 orders had been received for 150,000 copies, and every mail still brings liberal orders. By the time this issue of the REVIEW is out, the orders will doubtless amount to over 200,000.
This hearty response demonstrates a willingness on the part of the people to use favorable opportunities for the proclaiming of the message due the world at this time. With the orders received come words of hearty appreciation of the letter itself, and approval of printing it in tract form for general distribution.
“An Appeal to Clergy” contains the best presentation of the Sabbath question ever issued. Only those who are wilfully blind can possibly fail to see the truth it contains relative to the Sabbath question. The spirit of this tract will command the attention and respect of the general public; and the circumstances associated with its appearance clothe it with a special and general interest. It will be a good tract to circulate for all time; but while it is fresh, and the circumstances are favorable, a million copies ought to be placed in circulation. No church ought to be satisfied unless a large number have been purchased and distributed in its community. A few dollars expended for the circulation of this tract will accomplish more for the work than much more expended along other lines. Every person ought to realize that no more effectual work can be done at the present time in advancing the work than to place “An Appeal to Clergy” in the homes of the people. It will be sent, post-paid, for $3.75 a thousand, or 40 cents a hundred.

Life and Health

THE mission of Life and Health is to apply the fundamental principles of life and health in a simple, practical manner, and to render helpful service in encouraging all classes to follow the plain pathway to true happiness.
The February issue is full of the instruction the people need at this time. The talk to mothers and daughters, by Margaret Evans, M. D., in the article under the title “The Girl of Fourteen,” contains important information every mother in the land ought to have; and when this one article is properly explained, there are but few mothers who will not want it, with all the other good matter contained in the February number.
The illustrated article on “The Healing of the Soul,” by Mrs. E. G. White, contains a message of the love and compassion of the Great Physician for the world to-day as illustrated in the physical and moral healing of the paralytic. The world is not only sick physically, but morally, and greatly needs the lessons impressed in this article as well as in all those articles on the ministry of healing by the same author. These two articles alone in the February issue of Life and Health render this number very attractive and important to the people, and when explained, the journal is readily purchased.
Agents are reporting excellent success with the February issue. They say it is the best of all. We want to secure an agent in every community to sell single copies and to solicit subscriptions.
The subscription price of the journal is 50 cents a year, with the November and December issues for 1904 given as a premium as long as these editions last. In clubs of ten or more copies to one address for one year, 30 cents a copy. Copies to sell can be secured for 2½ cents in orders of twenty-five or more. Liberal discount is given to the agent on annual subscriptions.
We solicit correspondence from those who would like to work with the journal. Address 222 North Capitol St., Washington, D. C., or State Tract Societies.

Religious Liberty Leaflets

LEAFLET No. 1 bears the title of “Principles Too Little Understood.” It contains a short, practical, impressive discussion of the fundamental principles of personal, national, and religious liberty. Eight pages; price, 38 cents per hundred.
Leaflet No. 2 is an eight-page tract on “Sunday Laws,” Their Origin, Nature, and Object.” Any one reading this tract will not fail to discern the true spirit of these religious enactments. This tract alone, circulated in any community where Sunday legislation is in progress, will be sufficient for the time being to prevent the enforcement of Sunday laws.
Leaflet No. 3 exposes the evil of Sabbath legislation, and reveals the true meaning of Sabbath laws. The title of this tract is “The Logic of Sabbath Legislation.” It contains eight pages; price, 38 cents per hundred.
Leaflet No. 4 is entitled “The Civil Sabbath.” It exposes the arguments that are so prevalent for the establishment of the civil sabbath in the United States. Associated with this exposition are principles of true Sabbath observance contrasted with enforced observance. Twelve pages; 55 cents per hundred.
These four tracts, together with the tract “An Appeal to Clergy,” completely settle the Sabbath question and the enforcement of Sunday observance by law.

Sabbath School Worker

THE Sabbath-school is one of the greatest instrumentalities in bringing souls to Christ, and now as never before its work should be exalted. Each member in every school should feel the reviving influence of the greater power that is to attend the work of the message in this generation. The Sabbath School Worker is devoted exclusively to the Sabbath-school work and its interests, and will be of great benefit in supplying the officers, teachers, and the parents with important information from month to month, and will prove to be in every particular a great help to every person who may have access to its columns.
Single copy, one year, 35 cents. Two or more copies to one address, each 25 cents.

Conflict Between Capital and Labor

The appearance of this new book at this time is very opportune, as it will be of great service in revealing the meaning of the great conflict between capital and labor, and in calling the attention of thousands of people to the great controversy between Christ and Satan, which could not be done through any other subject than that of capital and labor, which is completely engrossing their minds.
The work contains a clear, concise treatise on the following topics: The Conflict On, The Increase of Wealth, Gold and Silver Cankered, Trusts, Vast Accumulation of Wealth Not Conducive to Stability of Government, Unions, Boycotting, Distress of Nations, Causes of Distress, A Remedy for Existing Evils, Our Present Social Conditions Productive of Anarchy, The Coming Revolution, Parallels in History, Cities Storm Centers, Misery Awaits the Rich, Scripture Admonitions, The End—A Type.
The matter composing this book has been thoroughly examined by competent critics, and it is presented to the public with the assurance that the positions taken are correct, and in harmony with the principles of the message for this time.
The book is bound in board, is illustrated, and sells for 50 cents a copy.
The Signs of the Times makes a special offer to furnish the book for 55 cents, with a copy of the special number of The Signs of the Times on Capital and Labor.

Order Review & Herald

Order of Review & Herald, Washington, D. C.; Battle Creek, Mich.; Pacific Press, Mountain View, Cal.; Kansas City, Mo.; Southern Publishing Assn., Nashville, Tenn.; or your State Tract Society.

Editorial

By Editor

The Voice of Current History

THOSE who are observing the signs of the times in the light of the prophecies must note with an increasing interest the large number of significant events which are found in current history. Here is a partial enumeration of them: the war in the East; the controversy between France and the Vatican; the colonial policy of the United States in its practical working in the Philippines; the remarkable increase of lawlessness; the condition of the financial world as shown by the revelations of “Frenzied Finance;” the condition of the political world as shown by recent magazine articles upon the corruption existing in various States and large cities; the condition of the commercial world as shown by the revelations concerning the great “Trusts;” the death roll of disaster by land and by sea; the ever-present strife between capital and labor, with no signs of permanent settlement; the bold assertions of an infidel science in unsettling faith in the revealed religion of Jesus, and the repudiation of the fundamental principles of the gospel of Christ in the “New Theology;” and the indications of internal trouble in many countries. As showing the extent of this distress among the nations, we call attention to the revolutionary outbreak in Russia, and the recent cabinet crises in Austria and Hungary, in Greece, in Rumania and Denmark, in Spain, and in France. The very foundations of society seem to be weakening, and there are indications of a general breaking up. A remarkable intensity is taking hold of every earthly element, and the supreme moment of the great controversy is not far away. Just now there ought to be the revelation of a new power from above to deliver from all the working of evil and to perfect holiness of character at the very time when iniquity abounds. The voice of current events declares that the end is near, and calls for the preaching of the third angel’s message with a loud cry. Let us heed this voice.

Offending the Pharisees

ON one occasion when he was teaching, Jesus said, “Not that which entereth into the mouth defileth the man; but that which proceedeth out of the mouth, this defileth the man.” Referring to this statement afterward, his disciples asked, “Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended, when they heard this saying?” From the connection it is plain that Jesus was not dealing with the nature of the food eaten, but with the pharisaical tradition of defilement from eating the food with unwashed hands; for in his further explanation to his disciples he said, “To eat with unwashed hands defileth not the man.” Any effort to replace mere formalism with the genuine principles of Christianity will offend the Pharisees to-day just as much as in the time of Christ. Many who wear the cross as an ornament refuse to bear the cross in their daily experience, and are offended if the duty is pressed upon them. The name of nominal church-members is Legion, for they are many, but on the invisible church books a large proportion of them are entered as belonging to the sect of the Pharisees. The substitution of the human for the divine in religion has been carried to such an extent that but little of primitive Christianity remains in the belief and experience of many. There certainly needs to be “a revulsion against the skepticism which has been dominant for so long,” but if there is to be such a revival, it will have to begin, as even a secular paper has the discernment to perceive, “with a reawakening of faith in the church itself. Dr. Lyman Abbott, in his recent rejection of the old religious theory of the government and guidance of the universe by a personal God, and in his substitution for it of the theory of an immanent force or energy, represented a form of skepticism which is now extensive in theological seminaries and pulpits nominally Christian. A personal God, with a loving heart, movable by human supplications, is displaced by this new school in favor of a coldly scientific explanation of the order of the universe which is practically atheistic.” There must be lifted up the standard upon which is inscribed “The Commandments of God and the Faith of Jesus.” This is the rallying cry for the last message of truth to the world. The Pharisees must needs be offended.

Reasons for Encouragement

THERE are many encouraging indications in the work of God for this time. From many places comes the report that a new life is being experienced in the churches, and there is an increasing willingness to work for the spread of the message. The present missionary campaign is the most successful one upon which we have ever entered. The reports from the field, both at home and abroad, indicate that additions are being made to the number of believers in all parts of the world. While there is nothing of which to boast, and we are still weak where we ought to be strong, yet there are some hopeful indications, for which we are thankful. We are more confident than ever that the Lord has set his hand to finish this work, and that we are just upon the eve of great and important changes. “Cast not away therefore your boldness, which hath great recompense of reward. For ye have need of patience, that, having done the will of God, ye may receive the promise. For yet a very little while, he that cometh shall come, and shall not tarry.” During this “little while” we must labor earnestly to turn as many as possible from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God. We are in the time of the latter rain, and soon we shall reap the result of a long period of patient sowing of the seed. Faithful believers have many reasons for encouragement. “Lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.”
“Hallelujah, Amen! Hallelujah, again! Soon, if faithful, we all shall be there; O, be watchful, be hopeful, be joyful till then, And a crown of bright glory we’ll wear.”
Faithful devotion to the work of God will hasten the coming of the glad day when the redeemed shall come to Zion.

A Personal Saviour and a Real Work in a Definite Place

THERE was a work to be done to prepare the way for the first advent of Jesus. John the Baptist was raised up to do this work as the forerunner of Jesus. His message was based upon the prophecies, and especially upon the prophecy of Isaiah. Here is the fundamental text of his message: “The voice of one saying, Cry. And one said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, because the breath of Jehovah bloweth upon it; surely the people is grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth; but the word of our God shall stand forever. O thou that tellest good tidings [the gospel] to Zion, get thee up on a high mountain; O thou that tellest good tidings [the gospel] to Jerusalem, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold, your God! Behold, the Lord Jehovah will come as a mighty one, and his arm will rule for him: behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.”
“All flesh is grass. . . . The grass withereth. . . . But the word of our God shall stand forever. . . . Behold, your God! Behold, the Lord Jehovah will come.” Such was the message of the voice in the wilderness.
In the mouth of John the Baptist this prophetic declaration became the preaching of repentance for sin and faith in the revealed Saviour. He repudiated all confidence in the flesh and fleshly descent. To the Pharisees and Sadducees who came to his baptism he said: “Think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. And even now the ax lieth at the root of the trees: every tree therefore that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.” In a time when formalism had taken the place of genuine religion, when human tradition had superseded the divine command, and when men were feared and reverenced rather than God, the greatest confidence being placed in the flesh, the words of the old prophet were interpreted (not merely quoted) to the people with an authority which caused hardened hypocrites to tremble: “All flesh is grass. . . . Behold, your God!” And this was the message to prepare this same people to receive Jesus as the divine Son of God when he should be manifested in the flesh.
When Jesus appeared among men to begin his ministry, God gave to John a token of his Messiahship, and he immediately testified, saying, “Behold, the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man who is become before me: for he was before me. And I knew him not; but that he should be made manifest to Israel, for this cause came I baptizing in water. And John bare witness, saying, I have beheld the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven; and it abode upon him. And I knew him not; but he that sent me to baptize in water, he said unto me, Upon whomsoever thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and abiding upon him, the same is he that baptizeth in the Holy Spirit. And I have seen, and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.” In the man Jesus of Nazareth, whose flesh was the same as the flesh of other men, John the Baptist was led to recognize God manifested in the flesh, and in giving his message, “All flesh is grass. . . . Behold, your God!” he pointed definitely to one in the flesh, and gave to Isaiah’s cry the setting demanded by the time and the circumstances. When Immanuel, “God with us,” was among men, the message of Isaiah, “Behold, your God!” had a definite interpretation and a personal application in the words of John the Baptist as he pointed to Jesus here upon the earth, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world!” He did not call attention to trees and grass and flowers, in which the power of God is manifested, and say, “All flesh is grass. . . . Behold, your God!” but he designated a person, and emphasized the special work of that person in the gospel plan. “Behold, the Lamb of God,” means that the Son of God was come in the flesh, “manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” To those who were familiar with the gospel as taught in the sacrificial offerings, the words, “Behold, the Lamb of God,” would be an interpretation both of the services of the sanctuary and of the mission of Jesus. They would indicate to them that the true and efficacious offering for sin was the Son of God, who had taken the flesh in order that he might give himself a ransom for many. His person, his work, and his place were all made clear. Thus the people were directed to a personal Saviour and a real work in a definite place.
The cry of Isaiah’s voice, which was the basis of the message of John the Baptist to prepare the way for the first advent of Christ, is the basis of the message in this generation to prepare the way for the second advent of Christ. The full statement now is, “All flesh is grass. . . . Behold, your God! Behold, the Lord Jehovah will come. . . . Behold, his reward is with him.” “Behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to render to each man according as his work is.” Those who proclaim this message must put it into the divine setting intended for it,—in order to give to it such an interpretation as will enable it to accomplish its work in this last generation. This setting is found in the threefold message of Revelation 14,—a message concerning the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus in this judgment hour, when, according to the prophecy, the sanctuary will be cleansed. In the light of this threefold message those who interpret to the world Isaiah’s words as a message of preparation for the coming of the Lord will not make it the burden of their work to direct attention to the trees and the grass and the flowers in which the power of God is manifested, and to say, “Behold, your God!” but, following the example of John the Baptist, they will point to a personal Saviour and a real work in a definite place. They will point to Jesus, not now upon earth as the sacrifice for sin, and not as being everywhere in general but nowhere in particular, but in the most holy place of the heavenly sanctuary, engaged in the antitypical work of the great day of atonement. They will call upon the people to repent of their sins, and they will preach a crucified, a risen, an ascended Christ, a great High Priest, an all-sufficient Saviour and the coming King. “Behold, your God!” “Behold, the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world!” “We have such a high priest, who sat down on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man.” “Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him.” And soon this will change into the glad shout, “Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us: this is Jehovah; we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation.” “Behold, your God!”
Before leaving the subject we ought to state that this pointing to Jesus in his work in the most holy place of the heavenly sanctuary not only prepares the way for his visible coming with clouds, but also for his coming in the person of the Holy Spirit to dwell in the heart of the believer, and thus to make him the temple of the living God. This same Jesus who dwells in the highest heaven dwells also in the heart of the humble penitent who will receive him. When we cry, “Behold, your God!” and point to Jesus our great High Priest in the heavenly sanctuary, we are not proclaiming “an absentee God.” On the contrary, in this third angel’s message will be found the only antidote for that perversion of the truth which seems tobring God so near while it really makes him “an absentee God,” dissipated into nothingness, and substitutes for him an Infinite Energy having a personality according to the definition of science, but entirely distinct from the Biblical teaching of a personal being. The third angel’s message is diametrically opposed to pantheistic or spiritualistic teachings in any of their many forms.
Many discouraged souls need to behold Jesus as a personal Saviour doing a real work for sinners in a definite place.
“Lift him up in all his glory, ’Tis the Son of God on high; Lift him up, his love shall draw them, E’en the careless shall draw nigh; Let them hear again the story Of the cross, the death of shame; And from tongue to tongue repeat it; Mighty throngs shall bless his name.”

Another Threefold Message

It is interesting, if not especially instructive, to note that a leading teacher of the “New Theology” declares that every minister now has a threefold message for the people—the message of science, the message of history, and the message of literature. He introduces Herbert Spencer as the interpreter of the message of science, Matthew Arnold as the interpreter of the message of history, and Tennyson as the interpreter of the message of literature. Of these three, Herbert Spencer and Matthew Arnold could hardly be classed among even the nominal believers in the Bible and the God of the Bible, and yet their conclusions concerning God and religion are quoted and emphasized as the basis of a better conception of God and his truth than has been held in the past by religious teachers.
How much additional help would be brought to those who are struggling with the daily trials and temptations of life if they should substitute for the God of Jacob, “a very present help in trouble,” Herbert Spencer’s “Infinite Energy” or Matthew Arnold’s “power working for righteousness” ? “There is but one power that can break the hold of evil from the hearts of men, and that is the power of God in Jesus Christ. Only through the blood of the crucified One is there cleansing from sin. His grace alone can enable us to resist and subdue the tendencies of our fallen nature.” It is true that there is a revelation of infinite energy in the work of God in upholding the things that are made, but it is only in Jesus Christ, Son of man and Son of God, that this power is revealed for salvation from sin. It is God manifested in the flesh who is the Saviour of sinners. “And in none other is there salvation: for neither is there any other name under heaven, that is given among men, wherein we must be saved.”
He who accepts the threefold message of science, history, and literature in place of the threefold message which God is sending to this generation, rejects the living Word of God for human speculation, and will find himself robbed of the power to overcome sin. And this is the real purpose of the inspiration which is behind the “New Theology.” Beware of it.

The Sabbath in Ancient Scotland

By William Ambrose Spicer

THE Roman missionaries to Britain in the fifth and sixth centuries found a far purer church than that of Rome. They never rested until they had vanquished it by corrupting it. Columba, the apostle of Scotland (in the sixth century), won the Picts and Scots to a faith that was doubtless even less tinctured with tradition than might be supposed from the accounts left by his biographers. He had a regard for God's Word and for the Sabbath. His own brief testimony for the Sabbath, as he was dying, has been quoted in Andrews' “History of the Sabbath.” More emphatic than this as an evidence of his regard for the Sabbath is the fact that centuries afterward multitudes of his followers were still keeping the seventh day as the day of rest, and working on Sunday.
Malcolm, of Scotland, married Margaret, the Saxon princess, in 1069. She was an ardent Catholic, and her first move was to set about the process of Romanizing the Scottish people. She gave crucifixes to the churches, and her royal husband acted as interpreter in Gaelic, while she held long conferences with the Scottish church leaders to persuade them to bring their practises into harmony with Rome.
On the controversy she had with them over the Sabbath question, Skeene, in his “Celtic Scotland” (book 2, chap. 8), following ancient chroniclers, speaks as follows:—
Her next point was that they did not duly reverence the Lord's day, but in this latter instance they seem to have followed a custom of which we find traces in the early monastic church of Ireland, by which they held Saturday to be the Sabbath on which they rested from all their labors, and on Sunday, on the Lord's day, they celebrated the resurrection by the service in church. Thus Adamnan tells us that St. Columba, on the last Saturday of his life, said to his attendant, Diormit, “This day, in the Holy Scriptures, is called the Sabbath, which means rest, and this day is indeed a Sabbath to me, for it is the last day of my present laborious life, and on it I rest after the fatigues of my labors; and this night at midnight, which commences the solemn Lord's day, I shall, according to the sayings of Scripture, go the way of our fathers.” There was no want of veneration for Sunday, though they held that Saturday was, properly, the Sabbath on which they abstained from work.
We have Queen Margaret's final argument for Sunday in the record of the chronicler, quoted by Skeene. She said:—
Let us keep the Lord's day in reverence, on account of the rest of our Lord on that day on which, we know, we were redeemed from the slavery of the devil. The blessed Pope Gregory lays this down, saying that “we must cease from earthly labor on the Lord's day, and continue instant in prayer, so that, if aught has been done amiss during the six days, it may be expiated by our prayers on the day of our Lord's resurrection.” Being unable to oppose anything to these weighty arguments of the queen, they ever after observed the due reverence of the Lord's day, no one being allowed to carry burdens, or to compel others to do so, on these days.
Thus, in the eleventh century, by the aid of the pope's decree and her husband's royal authority, Queen Margaret succeeded in turning the Scottish people from the Sabbath of the Lord to the papal Sunday. Now, after over eight hundred years of Sabbath-breaking, the people of Scotland are to hear the call to turn from papal innovations and return to the Sabbath-keeping of their fathers. Many have already heard the call, and a growing band are heeding it. Pray for Scotland, and for the workers who are pressing into lowland and highland with the message of Sabbath reform.
W. A. S.

Revelation and Speculation

It is astonishing to see how readily some who profess to regard the Bible as a revelation from God will yet assent to the undemonstrated claims of geologists, even when these claims squarely contradict the plain statements of the Scriptures. With the observed facts of geology there can be no quarrel, but when deductions are drawn from these facts which impugn the reliability of the inspired account of creation, it is time for those who really believe the Bible to be the word of God to take their stand squarely and uncompromisingly upon revealed truth, and against those human speculations which would overthrow the very foundations of the gospel of salvation from sin.
When geology came with its message that the world was not created in six literal days, but that this world was slowly evolved into its present habitable condition through immensely long periods of time, and the theologians sided with the geologists as against the simple statements of the record in Genesis, those who should have stood as defenders of the faith yielded in principle all that has since been logically developedinto a complete evolutionary system of religion. The work of creation, accomplished by the direct action of a personal God through the eternal Word in a series of unique acts in a definite time, is the groundwork, the concrete constitution as it were, of the plan of salvation from sin through faith in the atoning work and the renewing power of the same eternal Word, who “became flesh, and dwelt among us.” There is, therefore, a deep significance in the fact that in the opening chapters of the Bible we have a brief and simple but comprehensive account of the creation of the heavens and the earth. Here is found the true genesis of the gospel, “the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”
It is further remarkable that so many will still cling to the theories of a certain class of scientists, even after these same men have been compelled to abandon as untenable so many of the positions at one time advocated by them with the greatest positiveness. In almost any other department of human effort such experiences would cast a strong suspicion upon other undemonstrated claims, but there seems to be a kind of glamour surrounding a great scientist which gives to mere assertions of opinion all the air of certainty. And it is still further a matter of surprise that when the confident predictions of scientific men relating to matters within the range of actual experience have been proved to be utterly contrary to fact, still so many will accept without the possibility of proof the theories of these same men concerning the method of creation, even though they contradict the Creator’s own account of his work. A paragraph in a recent issue of The Church Standard, a leading organ of the Episcopal Church, has set this matter out in a clear light.
It says:—
The world hears so much of scientific certainties in dealing with physical operations extending through myriads of millions of miles, that it is startling to learn how utterly worthless scientific prognostications may be within a very narrow field. In the construction of the Simplon tunnel, the prophecies of geologists have been completely falsified at every step. The geologists predicted that the rock strata through which the tunnel was to be made would be found nearly or quite perpendicular; as a matter of fact they were found to be nearly or quite horizontal, and the difference of labor and cost owing to this unexpected variation was very great. Again, the geologists predicted that there would be very little water on the Italian side of the tunnel; as a matter of fact the amount of water was enormous, and for the last four years and a half a stream of more than two hundred and fifty gallons a second has been pouring from the south end. At the north end of the cut, where the geologists predicted that the water would be troublesome, the rock was found perfectly dry. It was foretold that the maximum temperature would probably be one hundred and seven degrees Fahrenheit, but suddenly the temperature rose to one hundred and thirty-one degrees, and when the refrigerating apparatus had been adjusted to meet this new condition, the temperature fell again as suddenly to its original level. The history of the Simplon tunnel will long remain to testify to the uncertainties of scientific prediction.
We do not wish to cast any reflections upon true science, or upon really Christian scientists, but we are unwilling to cast aside the fundamental principles of the gospel of Christ at the command of men whose investigations give us an Infinite Energy in the place of a personal God, a cosmic Force in the place of the eternal Father. The firm foundation of God still stands, and it will stand forever. Be sure that you are building upon that sure foundation.

Revelation, Law, and Government

By L. A. S.

THE following words, which were spoken in Washington a few days ago before a committee of the United States Senate, should be of interest to readers of the REVIEW:—
How can government exist if the law be not supreme? How can the law of the land be supreme if a God, known to the subject of that law, to be of infinite goodness, power, and wisdom, directly speaks to that subject of the law? Whatever the respect we accord to one who sustains to the Almighty such a relation, how can such a one participate in a man-made government?
Among those who believe in present revelation from God, but one government can by right exist—a government by God, a theocracy.
The speaker was ex-Representative R. W. Tayler, of Ohio, who is about to be sworn in as a United States district judge. He was speaking on the question of the admission to the United States Senate of Senator-elect Smoot, of Utah.
Mr. Tayler urged the exclusion of Mr. Smoot from the Senate on the ground that the Mormon senator-elect felt bound by what he regarded as a higher law than that of the United States government. Referring to Mr. Smoot and his associates in the Mormon hierarchy, Mr. Tayler said:—
I do not speak of these because they are lawless, but because they are not lawless. If it were a mere question of law-breaking, this case would not cause a ripple. The country is filled with law-breakers; the jails are filled with them. It is because the law they obey is higher than the law of the land. When man-made law comes into conflict with a higher law, Senator Smoot says he would go to another country where the law of God and man would not conflict. I am ready to admit the Mormons are not breaking the laws from a spirit of lawlessness. If they were, the question would be easy to deal with.
Is there in this anything like a precedent for determining the attitude that will be taken by the government toward another class of people in this country who “believe in present revelation from God” and acknowledge the superior authority of his law over human enactments?
L. A. S.
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