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Review and Herald, Vol. 82, No. 28.

The Garden of Gethsemane

Review and Herald

Jul 13, 1905

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Jul 13, 1905

The Garden of Gethsemane

THE GARDEN OF GETHSEMANE
THE GARDEN OF GETHSEMANE
THIS view shows a plot of ground memorable for its association with the most tragic night in earth’s history,—the night when the destiny of the human family trembled in the balance, while from Him whose petitions had never been denied there went up to the throne of God the prayer, “If it be possible, let this cup pass from me.” The Garden is situated on the east side of Jerusalem, about half a mile from the city walls, and at the foot of the Mount of Olives. The location is marked by an enclosure measuring about fifty-seven yards square, and containing eight ancient olive trees, some of which are shown in the accompanying view.
Here, on this little plot of ground, without sound of contending hosts or sight of carnage and ruin, was fought the mightiest conflict, and here was won the greatest victory, that earth ever knew. Here took place the last decisive battle between Christ and Satan for the mastery of the earth and its inhabitants, for the perpetuation or the final overthrow of Satan’s kingdom.
“In the wilderness of temptation the destiny of the human race had been at stake. Christ was then conqueror. Now the tempter had come for the last fearful struggle. For this he had been preparing during the three years of Christ’s ministry. Everything was at stake with him. If he failed here, his hope of mastery was lost; the kingdoms of the world would finally become Christ’s; he himself would be overthrown and cast out. But if Christ could be overcome, the earth would become Satan’s kingdom, and the human race would be forever in his power.”—“Desire of Ages,” page 687.
“The history of the human race comes up before the world’s Redeemer. He sees that the transgressors of the law, if left to themselves, must perish. He sees the helplessness of man. He sees the power of sin. The woes and lamentations of a doomed world rise before him. He beholds its impending fate, and his decision is made. He will save man at any cost to himself. He accepts his baptism of blood, that through him perishing millions may gain everlasting life.”—Id., page 690.

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Editorial

Gardening

THE original home of man was in a garden surrounded by every manifestation of the goodness and power of his Creator. In spite of the weeds and thorns and thistles which have appeared as the result of the curse of sin, every garden bears testimony to the fact that the Lord has not forsaken the earth, and that his mighty power will reveal righteousness in every sinner who will submit to his working. “For as the earth bringeth forth its bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth; so the Lord himself Jehovah will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.” We can not explain the process by which things grow in a garden, but we are sure of the fact. By the hidden working of the same power the Lord Jehovah will impart righteousness in the life of the believer, and the evidence of his working will be equally clear in both cases. We do not refuse to plant a garden because we are unable to understand just how things grow, and we enjoy co-operating with the divine plan in the cultivation of the soil; so we should not refuse to believe in Jesus because of our inability to fathom the depths of divine wisdom in the plan of salvation, and we can take delight in being workers together with God even though we can not analyze the divine processes of growth in the Christian life. Soil and seed, planting and cultivating, are all necessary, “but unless infinite power is exercised day and night, the seed will yield no return.” In the same way, we are to work out our own salvation, but it is God that worketh in us both to will and to do. The same power which causes the earth to bring forth “first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear,” will fill us with the fruits of righteousness, if we will yield to its working. It is the Lord’s will that we should grow in grace, being called “trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified.”

Leaving the Body

TOWARD the close of the first century the “falling away” had developed to such an extent that there was an open division in the church, and it became evident to all that there had been a departure from the faith. The acceptance of tradition and speculative philosophy in the place of the revealed truth upon which the church was established, and the repudiation of this teaching by the loyal believers brought on the crisis, and the result is set forth by the apostle John in these words: “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they all are not of us.” So it has always been, and so it is to-day. The acceptance of some new philosophy in the place of the original gospel is in itself a separation from the church, unless the whole church can be persuaded to receive the new light. When the church remains faithful to its original and fundamental principles, and the advocates of new doctrines persist in maintaining their own views, the inevitable result is that the teachers of error go out from the body, and there are of necessity two parties. But who is to blame for the division? Shall the church be censured for contending earnestly for “the faith which was once delivered unto the saints?” A division in the church is a sad thing, but when harmony can be maintained only by compromising the essential principles of the gospel, then the responsibility for a division rests upon those who depart from the truth and refuse to give heed to the counsel of the Spirit of God. The foundation of the papacy was laid when men arose “speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them,” and those who give the message against the papacy must repudiate the very beginnings of the course of the papacy. When this principle is disregarded, the third angel’s message becomes a mere form of words,—“sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.” It means something to give this message.

Dishonesty in Official Life

THE use of public office for private gain has become so wide-spread and so notorious that it is being commented upon in various quarters. It is evidently causing uneasiness in the minds of those who do not deliberately shut their eyes to unimpeachable evidence.
Even United States senators have been convicted of violating the laws of the land by selling their influence to those who were defrauding the government, the latest case of this kind being that of Senator Mitchell, of Oregon.
A Pennsylvania judge, when he recently imposed sentences of imprisonment and fine upon some school directors who had been indicted and pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy, bribery, and extortion, said:—
The system of graft seems to have pervaded the entire State, menacing its government.
A New York paper published the following paragraph in one of its recent editorials:—
The old idea that honesty is one of the essential qualities of business life seems entirely abandoned to-day. Are we to think that the financial community of New York City, which is rapidly becoming the financial center of the world, is made up of men with no sense of honor, with no feeling of noblesse oblige? Are the methods of Standard Oil, the Steel Trust, the International Shipping Trust, the methods which characterize all our financiers and their institutions?
Another New York paper draws a sarcastic comparison between the methods employed by Boss Tweed in defrauding the public and those used now to obtain “honest graft.” It says:—
Some thirty-odd years ago there flourished in New York an arrogant, ostentatious person named Tweed. . . . His methods were crude. He sold cuspidors and carpets and chairs to the city at absurd prices, and paid himself out of the city treasury over and over again. He issued fraudulent warrants and flagrantly stole. But, after all, he stole only a few millions, much less than a little street railroad or gas franchise is worth, and the lawyers and the blackmailers took most of those few millions away from him. He was a benightedman who, in his ignorance, overlooked his best opportunities.
They do things better now, lawfully and honestly, using the word honestly in the sense the courts of law construe it. Nobody in politics does crude and criminal things now. Those are left nowadays to the high financiers in Wall Street, to life insurance officials, and the great banks and trust companies. No more stealing, no more corruption. Nothing left but what George Washington Plunkitt calls “honest graft.”
A Federal grand jury, in Chicago, after an investigation of several months, during which more than one hundred witnesses were examined, has returned indictments against seventeen of the prominent business men of that city for alleged conspiracy in restraint of trade.
The Cook County grand jury, sitting in the same city during a portion of the same time, has returned a long list of indictments against various persons for conspiracy to injure the business of other parties, and in its report used the following language:—
That the city of Chicago for years past has been infested with moral lepers who have preyed upon its financial and social strength is known to most informed citizens. That reputable business men and reputable citizens employed in all fields of labor have been subjects of blackmail and the greed of these vampires, is also a well-known fact.
The present grand jury has had laid before it facts and conditions so convincing and positive along these lines that it feels in duty bound to report to the court and the public the situation as it has been given them by witnesses, some of whom at least were brazen enough to flaunt not only flagrant acts of moral turpitude of others in the face of this body, but who, with an air of great glee, told of their own debauched and criminal acts and methods.
And thus the facts might be cited from all parts of the country and relating to all the walks of life. The daily papers are full of these things, and the magazines seem to be vying with one another in their exposure of dishonesty in business and civic life, until one is inclined to wonder if integrity of character has been wholly thrown to the winds in the race for wealth and power.
It is increasingly evident that we are in the perils of the last days, and that we are facing the conditions that are foretold as indicating the mighty working of Satan in his final effort to sweep as many as possible to destruction. We have no well-grounded hope that things will grow better, but on the contrary we may expect that “evil men and seducers will wax worse and worse.” The only remedy will be in the coming of the Lord to overthrow evil and to restore righteousness to the earth.
In the meantime we are to bear a telling testimony in favor of honesty by scorning to take advantage of our neighbor, and in all our official acts we are to shun even the appearance of personal benefit. “What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.” So shall we witness to the reality and the value of the message of deliverance which the Lord is now sending to the world to prepare a people for his coming.

Preachers of the Message

THERE is a cry from all the fields to-day for men and women who can preach the message of God for this hour. Nothing can take the place of the ministry of the word to men, by public effort, by house-to-house Bible work, by putting the literature in the hands of the people.
It is the word of the living God that produces results. God has so ordained it, and in these last days our commission especially emphasizes the gospel method—“Preach the Word.” The Missionary Review of the World some time ago summed up the lessons of the special quickenings and victories in the whole century of missions as follows:—
1. God has set special honor upon his own gospel. Where it has been most simply and purely preached, the largest fruits have ultimately followed.
2. The translation, publication, and public and private reading of the Scriptures have been particularly owned by the Spirit.
3. Schools, distinctively Christian, and consecrated to the purposes of education of a thoroughly Christian type, have been schools of the Spirit of God.
4. The organization of native churches, on a self-supporting basis with native pastors, and sending out their own members as lay evangelists, has been sealed with blessing.
5. The crisis has always been turned by prayer. At the most disheartening periods, when all seemed hopeless, patient waiting on God in faith has brought sudden and abundant floods of blessing.
6. The more complete self-surrender of missionaries themselves, and their new equipment by the Holy Spirit, has often been the opening of a new era to the native church and the whole work.
The word of God is the thing that works. The growth of our own work emphasizes the same lessons. There is danger, with the elaboration of method, and the specializing in related departments, that we shall undervalue the real thing that has been the strength and brought the success in this movement. By the preaching of the word—the definite message of warning and salvation for this hour—the foundation of this cause was laid. This preaching of the judgment hour and the coming of the Lord brought into being all our educational, our publishing, and our medical missionary work. Everything that is of any value or has any place in this world-wide movement is the product of the preaching of the definite message God has given us. It is all the fruitage of the gospel ministry.
Whenever in our fields, at home or abroad, most attention has been given to evangelistic work, to the preaching and teaching of the Word of God among the people and to the scattering of our literature bearing this judgment-hour message, there we have seen the most rapid and substantial progress. God calls in a very special way at this time for our young people to devote themselves to evangelistic lines of work. This is the most powerful and most productive factor in all our work. In fact, this is the work, and all other departments are but incidental and contributory to the one work of crying out this message to the ends of the earth.
There are calls for teachers, there are calls for nurses and physicians, there are calls for those who have had a more technical or professional training, but the overmastering call the world over to-day is for workers to go in among the masses preaching and teaching the Word that brings souls into the truth, and builds up an ever-growing and developing work.
The divine order still stands, “first apostles,” missionaries, men and women sent of God to herald the message from place to place. And the Lord’s voice among us, and the voice of his providence in the waiting mission fields call for far more of our youth to turn their attention to evangelistic work. Let our schools turn out workmen who know how to handle the sacred Word of God, and who have their eyes upon the unwarned millions all about. Let the young man or woman who has the ministry or the Bible work in mind be ready to give the same thorough study and energy to preparation for evangelistic work that is given to preparation for work in more professional lines.
God called Jonah, saying, “Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.” It was time for a short, sharp, direct work. The doomed Ninevehs and all this perishing world to-day need the messengers who can quickly go through the world’s great highways and byways preaching the preaching that God bids us. The Word must do the work. “Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth.” The world has discovered nothing to take the place of the “foolishness of preaching.” It is so simple a method that multitudes are led to look to something more elaborate. But as for us, let us throw ourselves into the heralding of this message by voice and printed page. This was the one work of the believers in the early days when this message grew from weakness into strength against all opposition. Now, while the Lord has brought into being many incidental and related methods of work, the one great work still, and the work that will bring this movement to a finish in our day, is the same old plan of going to the people with the definite message which now indeed they can no longer put off with safety. Let us press into the evangelistic field. Pray God to lay the burden for just the old-fashioned face-to-face evangelistic work upon the hearts of young and old. W. A. S.

Four Greatest Things

THE greatest truth in the world,—the final message of the everlasting gospel which is to prepare earth's inhabitants for the return of Christ as King.
The greatest enterprise in the world,—the work of proclaiming this last message to every nation, tribe, and people.
The greatest mistake in the world,—that of knowing the truth but refusing to obey it because of the sacrifice which obedience involves; the mistake of selling the heavenly birthright for a mess of earthly pottage.
The greatest victory in the world,—the soul victory over the world and self, which is won for all eternity, and the fruit of which is a character fitted for the kingdom of God. L. A. S.

The Man of Lawlessness

THE mayor of Philadelphia is conducting a reform campaign in municipal affairs, and is seeking to enforce obedience to State laws and city ordinances. An experience in this campaign is thus described by one of our exchanges:—
At this writing (June 10), the very latest act of the new administration in the interest of public morals is the suppression of a raffle or lottery conducted by a Roman Catholic church, in which a dwelling-house worth twenty-five hundred dollars was to be disposed of by lot, the tickets for the drawing being sold for twenty-five cents. The proceeds were to be devoted to a parochial school. The new director of public safety forbade the drawing and the sale of tickets for it, said that churches ought to uphold the laws and not transgress them, and announced that he would suppress all similar enterprises by whomsoever promoted.
What a spectacle is this! The municipal officers of a notoriously corrupt city being compelled to restrain a professed church of Christ from breaking the law against gambling! A director of public safety warning all the churches that they will not be permitted to conduct lotteries! Under these circumstances how much respect can the officers of the law be expected to entertain for these lawless churches?
All this, however, is only the legitimate result of that spirit of lawlessness which reveals itself in thinking to change God’s law and in substituting the precepts of men for the commandments of God. Those who refuse to acknowledge their obligation to obey the law of God do, by this very act, destroy all foundation for respect for the laws of men, and do themselves become promoters of lawlessness. Truly “Babylon is fallen, is fallen.”

The Socialist Deluge

ONE of the greatest phenomena of recent times in the political world is the rise and growth of socialism. The home of this movement is Germany, and it has attained much larger proportions in Europe than in the Western hemisphere; still it has become in the United States a political factor not to be disregarded. Speaking of the four hundred thousand votes cast for the socialist ticket at the national election last November, one who is conversant with the subject says:—
The four hundred thousand votes cast for Mr. Debs in the last election look insignificant enough when considered in themselves; but when they are viewed as the advance ripples of a mighty tidal wave that is rolling in from distant shores, they receive a terrible significance,—they mean nothing less than that the socialist deluge, which is inundating Europe to-day, will be upon us to-morrow, unless timely measures be taken to divert it from its course.
Of the present proportions of the socialist movement in the different countries of the world, the same authority says that in Germany, “in the general election of 1903, the total vote cast was nine millions and a half, and of this one third, or over three million votes, were polled by the socialists, giving them eighty-one seats in the Reichstag.”
In Austria, “in the last elections the socialists polled nearly a million votes, resulting, however, in the return of only about a dozen representatives to Parliament.”
In Belgium also the socialist element is strong. “The latest data available are those furnished by the elections of 1902, in which half a million votes were cast for socialist candidates, giving the party thirty-four seats in the legislature.”
In France the socialists “command about a million votes, and the last election gave them forty-six deputies in the Chamber and one minister in the Cabinet.”
In Holland, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, socialism is strongly represented. “In Italy and Spain international socialism is still in its infancy; but in the former country it is gaining ground fast.” About three hundred thousand socialist votes were cast in Italy at the last general election, resulting in the election of nearly thirty deputies.
In Russia, the Social Democratic party is recognized as one of the strongest elements opposed to the reigning autocracy, and this party has the active sympathy and support of socialists in other countries. Events which are now taking place in Russia can hardly fail to give a great stimulus to the socialist movement throughout the world.
From a political standpoint, much may be said in favor of socialism as compared with other political systems; but for the ills which socialism seeks to ameliorate or remove, the Christian’s panacea is not found in any political system or any movement of human origin, but in the provisions of that gospel which is “the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.” He sees in the coming kingdom of Christ the speediest and most effective means of removing injustice and inequality from the earth.
L. A. S.

Walking According to Tradition

To the Pharisees who asked him, “Why walk not thy disciples according to the tradition of the elders?” Jesus applied the prophecy of Isaiah: “This people honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. But in vain do they worship me, teaching as their doctrines the precepts of men.” If Jesus were on earth now, what would he say to those who assert divine authority for the observance of Sunday, “the wild solar holiday of all pagan times,” and who declare that to treat that day as a secular day “is a violation of the commandment of God respecting the observance of the Sabbath”? And yet this is being constantly done by Protestants who profess to believe that the Bible, and the Bible alone, is a sufficient rule of faith and practise.
The latest and one of the most flagrant instances of this determined effort to make God responsible for the transgression of his own law is found in resolutions adopted by a Methodist church and by the Methodist preachers’ meeting of Chicago, asking that the United States government should grant an annual holiday to the mail-carriers of that city so that they might not be compelled to hold their annual picnic on Sunday. In two short preambles and two short resolutions Sunday is called “God’s day” four times, the violation of this day is characterized as “a sin against God,” and it is declared that “Sunday kept in quiet as God meant it,” etc.
In commenting upon this action, the Northwestern Christian Advocate, whose editor is one of the committee to carry out the design of the resolution, says:—We hope that the recommendation of the congregation of St. James church and of the preachers’ meeting will receive the favorable consideration of the President and postmaster-general, and that an annual holiday will be set apart as a national holiday on which government employees may hold their annual picnic.
Here is an attempt to secure from the officers of the general government an action based upon governmental recognition of Sunday as the Sabbath, —one more effort to commit this government to the settlement of a religious controversy, and to the support of a religious observance which rests solely upon human authority and is directly contrary to the commandment of God.
We can only hope that many who lend their influence to such movements do so in ignorance of the real issue involved, and that when the light from God’s Word comes to them, they will repudiate their former course in rejecting God’s commandment for the precepts of men, and will become loyal observers of the only genuine “God’s day.” “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” It is this day which the Lord calls “my holy day.”

A Modern Sodom

THE condition of things in the social and moral world is one of the signs of the end and of the coming of the Lord. “Likewise even as it came to pass in the days of Lot; they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; but in the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.”
We have been plainly told that “cities, and even country towns, are becoming like Sodom and Gomorrah,” and that “the world over, the large cities are fast becoming hotbeds of iniquity.” Facts which testify to the truthfulness of this terrible indictment are constantly coming to light, but we do not remember ever having read in current history such wholesale confirmation of this description of corruption in the cities as the account of a recent raid by the police of Philadelphia upon resorts where the law was being transgressed.
A press dispatch gives the following summary of this raid:—
One hundred and fifty houses, consisting of “speak-easies,” disorderly resorts, places of assignation, and political clubs entered. Close upon 2,000 prisoners, men and women, taken. Approximate amount of fines imposed upon men found in the places, $5,000. Approximate amount of bail imposed upon proprietors and inmates, $100,000. Three hundred quarts of champagne and hundreds of cases of fine liquors, whisky, and beer, hundreds of boxes of cigars, dozens of roulette wheels, poker tables, slot machines, and gambling devices of all kinds confiscated. Number of police employed in the raid, 400.
From the report of this affair, as printed in the daily papers, we take the following paragraphs as indicating the standing in the community of some of those who were found in these places of ill repute:—
Simultaneously at eleven o’clock the net began to close in. Over twenty square miles were dragged.
In five station-houses sat magistrates ready for the names of the victims. By midnight these station-houses were filled, ten others were jammed to the doors, and the great cell room in the city hall could hold no more. Every few minutes saw fresh patrol loads of the drag before the doors.
To the Tenderloin the thing was not new, and the painted women of the section smoked cigarettes, laughed, and swore and cried, as the mood took them. But mixed with the painted women, with drunken negroes, and the vicious hangers-on of the slums were men in full dress, clubmen, men of refinement, politicians, lawyers, and men whose faces are familiar in public gatherings and in the higher walks of life. Crouching in corners of the police stations, trying to hide behind the tinsel and the occasional too-scanty clothing of the Tenderloin women, were other women—women whose faces showed that they were of gentle families, women of birth and breeding. There were girls not out of their teens, whose clothing spoke of luxury, and who bore the indelible touch of a gentle home. There were women who were beautiful, and none of all these bore a mark of the Tenderloin.
Of the many women from these houses of assignation who, desperate and hysterical, tried to cover shame with death, two almost succeeded. One stabbed herself; the other threw herself down a flight of stairs. Both were taken to hospitals under assumed names.
In the station-house at Tenth and Thompson Streets, a man portly and kindly looking, whose face is known at every event of importance in Philadelphia, stood and saw the woman who was arrested with him led to a cell. . . .
The portly man paid his fine and rushed out. Later he came back with bail, and the woman, fainting and almost dead from shame, was led out of the room. She was recognized as a beauty whose face is familiar at the opera, and who has a charming family and home.
Who can read these extracts without thinking of Sodom? Note that among the prisoners were “men of refinement, politicians, lawyers, and men whose faces are familiar in public gatherings and in the higher walks of life,” as well as “women whose faces showed that they were of gentle families, women of birth and breeding.” This is a view beneath the veneer of so-called good society. And what is true of Philadelphia is doubtless true of many other large cities. It is a glimpse of the moral corruption which is festering beneath the surface of our modern and boasted civilization.
Any humanly devised scheme of reform will be utterly inadequate to meet the needs of the world at this time. It is not simply reform, but regeneration which is demanded. And only that complete gospel which is “the power of God unto salvation” will save any one from the perils of the hour, and make him meet for the inheritance of the saints in light. Only the message of God for this generation will save the people of this generation from the peculiar temptations and the powerful delusions of this generation. The third angel’s message must speedily be given in its fulness to all the world. In this is the only hope of deliverance.

“Altruism” and “Egoism”

THE recognition of a vital discrepancy between the ethics of Christianity and the ethics of imperialism, has led the author of a book on “The Ethics of Imperialism,” Mr. Albert R. Carman, to devote some space in the same to a consideration of this subject. Mr. Carman comes to the conclusion that “Christian ethics,” as exemplified in the practise of the people of the world’s “Christian nations,” are based not upon altruism (that is, caring for the interests of others first), but upon egoism,—“the principle of seeking first one’s own life and happiness.” He is driven to this conclusion by the evident fact that “the teachings of Christian ethics—as we hear and accept them in the calm of peace—are diametrically opposed at nearly every point touching foreign peoples to the practical code of imperialism.” He draws the following contrast between the two:—
Christian ethics—by which I mean the modern ethics of Christian peoples—ignores national boundaries, and knows no difference of race. Its only recognition of an enemy is an instruction to love him. Its working principle is “the brotherhood of man,” as a necessary corollary to “the fatherhood of God.” . . . It teaches the equality of men and the doing “unto others as ye would they should do unto you,” the extension of equal rights to all people. It refuses to see inferiority of rights in color, race, or feebleness. Its message is, “One Father and one family.”
The imperialistic spirit, on the other hand, makes much of national boundaries and differences of race. Its recognition of an enemy is to prepare for war with him. Its working principle is the division of man into hostile nations; and it always has the hated people of some modern “Samaria” to present to the “elect” of its own household as types of the public enemy. It teaches the essential inequality of men, the duty of recognizing that inequality, the duty of doing unto others precisely what you hope they will not be able to do unto you, the refusal of equal rights to some people. It sees inferiority of rights in color, race, and feebleness—especiallyin the latter. Its message is, “One Father, and he is on our side.”
This is a clear and correct statement of the contrast between the ethics of Christianity and those of imperialism, and in the light of this contrast no one can mistake the falsity of the idea that it is the divinely appointed mission of the “Christian” powers of the world to overrun the territory of weaker races and peoples and hold the latter in subjection without their consent. The divinely appointed means for uplifting the weaker races of the earth is the same as that for uplifting all earth’s peoples, small and great; namely, the gospel. The inferior race is not able to imitate the virtues of the superior race, nor to resist its vices, and the touch of “civilization” is therefore to them the touch of death rather than of life. All history shows this to be the case. Imperialism finds no justification in the ethics of Christianity. Those who attempt to justify it on Christian grounds put the sword of the civil power in the place of the gospel; they put the mission of the former in the place of that of the latter. Christianity means and must mean that which its Author said of it,—the sacrifice of self, and the seeking first of the welfare of others; doing unto others as we would wish them to do to us; seeking not to be ministered unto, but to serve; and seeking not to save one’s life, but rather to lose it in the service of others, believing the word of the divine authority that in the end those who have sought to save their lives will be found to have lost them, and those who have lost their lives for the sake of Christ and the gospel, will be found to have saved them for all time.
L. A. S.
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