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Signs of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 6.

THE INVITATION OF MERCY

Signs of the Times

Feb 10, 1887

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 10, 1887

THE INVITATION OF MERCY.

By Ellen G. White

“If any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”
THERE is a work for all to do to open the door of the heart to the heavenly visitor. The Lord of glory, who has redeemed us by his own blood, seeks admittance; but too often we do not welcome him in. Worldliness does not incline us to throw wide open the door of the heart at the knock of him who is seeking entrance. Some open the door slightly, and permit a little light from his presence to enter; but they do not bid him hearty welcome. There is no room for Jesus; the place which should have been reserved for him is occupied with other things. He entreats, and for a time they feel inclined to hear and open the door; but even this inclination departs, and they fail to secure the communion with the heavenly guest which it was their privilege to have.
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock,” says the Saviour. The mansions in glory are his, and the joy of that heavenly abode; yet he humbles himself to seek an entrance at the door of the heart, that he may bless us with his light, and make us to rejoice in his glory. His work is to seek and to save that which is lost and ready to perish. He will redeem from sin and death all who will come to him; and will elevate them to his throne, and give them everlasting life.
Jesus will not force open the door of the heart. We must open it ourselves, and show that we desire his presence by giving him a sincere welcome. If all would make thorough work of clearing away the world’s rubbish, and preparing a place for Jesus, he would enter, and abide with them, and would do a great work through them for the salvation of others. But many receive not the tokens of God’s mercy and loving-kindness with thankful hearts; they do not bend their energies and unite their interests in his work, and they do not share in the blessing that he is waiting to bestow.
“If any man hear my voice,” says Christ, “and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.” These words are not addressed simply to the more intelligent and refined, but to all, without respect of persons. A man may not bear the most pleasant exterior; he may be deficient in many respects; but if he will come to Christ, he will in nowise be cast out. The trouble is that many who make a profession of Christ are controlled by feeling. Their heart has not been renewed by the transforming influence of the Spirit of God. They have not depth and stability of character. Principle does not reach down deep, underlying the springs of action. And when sacrifices are to be made for the cause of Christ, they are found wanting.
To such cold-hearted professors I would say, Be entreated to seek Christ while he invites you to come to him that you may have life. I wish I could alarm you; I wish I could arouse you to action. You have no time to lose. Make mighty efforts to rescue yourselves from Satan’s snare. He is vigilant in his efforts; his perseverance is untiring, his zeal earnest and unabated. He does not wait for his prey to come to him; he seeks for it. To wrench souls from the hand of Christ is his determined purpose. Yet if you will come to Christ, and make him your trust, you will be in no danger. He will fight the battle for you, and will overcome the powers of darkness in your behalf.
You need to humble your hearts before God, and seek meekness and righteousness, that you may be hid in the day of the Lord’s fierce anger. You need to be forming a character for Heaven and eternal life. What account will you render to God for the time he has given you,—for the use you make of the privileges he has placed within your reach? To you the gracious words are spoken: “If any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.” If you neglect the invitation, the mercy that you have despised will condemn you in the Judgment.
Dedicate yourselves unreservedly to the Lord; then it will not be difficult to serve him, and you can do good in the world. You can “let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven.”
It is not enough that we admit Christ into our hearts; he must abide there. We must encourage his presence by a life of prayer. Jesus is our example in all things; and when our human nature was upon him, prayer became to him a necessity and a privilege. He found joy and comfort in communion with his Father. Here he could unburden the sorrows that were crushing him; for he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and he needed all the divine support and comfort which the Father was ready to impart to his Son, who had left the joys of Heaven, and chosen his home, for the benefit of man, in a cold and thankless world.
Jesus had select places of prayer. He loved the solitude of the mountain in which to hold communion with his Father. Through the day he labored earnestly to save men from destruction. He healed the sick, comforted the mourning, called the dead to life, and brought cheerfulness and hope to the despairing. After his work was finished for the day, he went forth, evening after evening, away from the confusion of the city, and his form was bowed in supplication to his Father. At times the bright beams of the moon shone upon him, and then again the clouds and darkness shut away all light. He frequently continued his petitions through the entire night, and the dew and frost rested upon his head and beard while in the attitude of supplication. And he came forth from these seasons of prayer invigorated and refreshed, braced for duty and trial.
In thus becoming a suppliant, a mighty petitioner, seeking from his Father fresh supplies of strength, he identified himself with our needs and our weaknesses. As he is our example in all things, so he became a brother in our infirmities, but not a companion in our sins. His nature recoiled from evil, and in a sinful world he endured anguish and torture of soul. If the Saviour of men, with his divine strength, felt the need of prayer, how much more should feeble, sinful mortals feel the necessity of prayer, fervent, constant, importunate prayer!
Watch, pray, and work, are the Christian’s watchwords. The life of a living Christian is a life of constant prayer. The light and strength of one day will not be sufficient for the trials and conflicts of the next. Satan is constantly changing his temptations, as he did with Christ. Every day we may be placed in new positions. And in the untriedscenes that await us, we shall be surrounded by new dangers, and constantly assailed by new and unexpected temptations; but the strength and grace which we may gain from the accessible Heavens will enable us to meet the new temptations and bear the heavier responsibilities that are ever before us. Here, and here only, is our source of light and strength.
It is of the highest consequence that God manifest his will to us in the daily concerns of life; for the most important results frequently depend upon small occurrences. We cannot trust our own judgment, and the more we learn of the character and providence of God, the more fully we shall realize our own weakness and imperfection, and our dependence on divine strength and wisdom. We shall realize that in him we have what we so much need,—a sure guide to direct our faltering steps.
“The path of the just is as a shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” The Christian’s life is one of progression. He goes forward from strength to strength, from grace to grace, from glory to glory, receiving from Heaven the light which Christ, at infinite cost to himself, made it possible for man to obtain. But the Christian cannot let his light shine properly unless he receives, day by day, an increase of the divine illumination, corresponding with his growth in the knowledge of Bible truth. It would be as inconsistent to expect to be sustained on the morrow by food eaten to-day, as to depend on present light and present blessings for future strength.
The Master requires his servants not only to grow in grace, but to improve upon the talents that he has committed to them. The good works of God’s people have a more powerful influence than words. Their virtuous life and unselfish acts testify for God, and lead the beholder to desire the same righteousness which has produced such good fruit in their characters. He is charmed with the power from God which transforms selfish human beings into the divine image, and God is honored, his name glorified.
Oh! why will not God’s people comply with the conditions laid down in his word? If they would, they would not fail to realize the excellent blessings freely given to the humble and obedient. Perfection, holiness, nothing short of this, would give them success in carrying out the principles he has given them. Without this holiness, the human heart is selfish, sinful, and vicious; but holiness of heart will produce right actions, and will lead its possessor to abound in all good works. The Christian will never become weary in well doing, neither will he look for promotion in this world. He will look forward for promotion to the time when the Majesty of Heaven shall exalt the sanctified ones to his throne. Then, enumerating the works of self-denial and mercy, compassion and righteousness, which they have wrought, he will say unto them, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”
Jesus is now inviting us to come unto him; who will listen to his voice? Let us take a higher stand than we have hitherto done. Let us make it our first business to gain the kingdom of Heaven and the righteousness of Christ, and the eternal reward will be ours at the end of the race.

BE THOU WITH ME.

Be thou with me; the way is dark and drear, Vouchsafe, O God, to make the pathway clear. Doubtful and devious still my way must be If thou dost guide me not—be thou with me.
Life's bitter chalice to its dregs I sip, Its fair fruits turn to ashes on my lip; O thou who wept in dark Gethsemane, I too have suffered—oh, be thou with me!
Lonely, adrift upon a troubled sea, The cold waves, pitiless, break over me; O thou who stilled the waves of Galilee, Still thou my troubled soul—be thou with me.
O Cross to which I cling, illumine the night; O Lamp unto my feet, shed forth the light; O Love divine that brightened Calvary, Descend upon my heart—be thou with me. —Advance.

THE CREDULITY OF UNBELIEF.

It is often charged against the firm believer in God, and in the Bible as the word of God, that such a belief involves a large measure of credulity. And there are many who pride themselves on their freedom from credulousness, as evidenced in their refusal to believe in the personality of God, or in any explicit revelation of God to man. Yet it is a simple matter of fact, that the beliefs which are held to-day by many scientific and critical scholars who refuse to accept the Bible as the direct result of divine inspiration, and as the record of a revelation from God, involve a larger measure of credulity than would be necessary for the full acceptance of the Christian scheme—even on its face as a reasonable view of truth.
Modern science discloses a system and a progression in the order of nature, which are every way consistent with the idea of an Infinite Mind as the source of all that is. Modern science fails to find the possibility of even the lowest conceivable form of animal life, save as the outcome of a prior form of animal life. Yet many a modern scientist believes that life itself, and the entire order of the universe, somehow came to be, and keeps on being, as the result of a primal senseless wriggle, and of a spontaneous undirected movement of soulless matter. What credulity is shown in this belief, compared with that simple faith in God as the Author of life and as the Creator of the universe, which is exercised by him who accepts the Bible view of God and of the works of God!
Modern science shows that the one invariable distinction between the lowest type of mankind and the highest type of the inferior animals, is in man’s capacity to conceive of spiritual existences as such, and to imagine the possibility of a revelation from the Great Unseen. Modern research shows that no race of men has fallen so low, and that no race of men has risen so high, as to be without a belief in the existence of God, or of gods, or as to reject the thought of communication with the Divine. Yet there are scientists who believe that a man’s glory as a reasonable being consists in his refusal to exercise the one capacity of his nature which distinguishes him from the brute; or who, again, believe that if there be a God he is somehow the Great Unknowable, incapable of revealing himself, or a knowledge of himself, to mankind. Refusing to accept the Bible record of God’s revelation of himself to primitive man, as fully accounting for the beliefs and the perversions of belief concerning God among the various races of mankind, such scientists endeavor to account for these universal conceptions of God, as a natural evolution of ideas from the customs of pre-human animal existence. Thus Herbert Spencer, one of the finest specimens of the scientific credulous unbeliever, actually suggests that the ordinary salutations of mankind are developments of the customs of brutes. In an African tribe’s habit of a man’s throwing himself on his back and rolling from side to side, while slapping his thighs with his hands, Spencer finds a survival of a little dog’s custom of throwing itself on its back with its legs in the air, when before a superior dog. And kissing as a social custom—as he views it—had its start in a dog’s habit of licking one whom he liked. Was there ever such credulity as this, on the part of a believer in the Bible as a revelation from God?Modern research finds, practically, all the world over, a tradition of a departed golden day of man’s primal purity, and a hope of an ultimate restoration of such a day. In ancient Egypt the serpent represents the embodiment of evil, and a struggle with that serpent is the chiefest work of the pre-eminent son of the gods. In India the thousand-headed serpent is a means of destroying the very world itself, at the close of each distinctive æon. In primitive North America, the serpent figures as a source of evil to all who share its nature or who feel its power. And these are but specimens of a world-wide similarity of symbolism. The idea of a tree of life is, again, as nearly universal in the race as the idea of the evil-symbolizing serpent. Accepting the Bible story of Eden, and the fall of man, and the promise of redemption, as an inspired record of truth,—all these perverted traditions of that primal truth are simple and natural. But there are scientists and critics who actually believe that primitive men everywhere—howsoever circumstanced or trained—happened to imagine almost precisely the same state of things, as to the beginning of evil in their race, with the employment of the same symbols of the serpent of evil and the tree of life. It requires wonderful credulity to be one of that class of believers.
Modern research has brought to light the so-called sacred books of the principal religions of the ages, and has laid them in comparison with the Bible as the Book of books. Not one of those books can be said, even by its warmest Christian admirers, to contain a single new truth; to be free from the teaching of gross error; to have a trustworthy historic value; or even to be composed in large part of other matter than puerile absurdities. The best that can be said of any one of them is, that it contains vestiges of primal truth. Yet there are both scientists and critics who speak of those books as if they had a similar origin to that Book which furnishes in itself the proofs of divine origin, and which in its substance commands the admiration of the loftiest human intellect, while its spiritual teachings satisfy the uttermost longings of the holiest human soul. The credulity which would put any one of the ethnic sacred books on a corresponding plane with the Bible is in itself a marvel of marvels.
An unreasonable credulity is essential to an acceptance of the principal beliefs of the unbelieving scientist and critic of to-day. A reasonable faith is all that is required of one who believes in God, and the Bible as the word of God. It is reasonable to believe that God is the Creator of all things. It is reasonable to believe that God, having created man with a capacity to conceive of his Maker, should make a revelation of himself to man. It is reasonable to believe that such a revelation of God, and of man's origin and destiny, as is found in the Bible as it stands, is the truth without any admixture of error. Credulity and faith stand over against each other for our choice. Man by searching cannot find out God. God by revelation discloses himself to man. "For seeing that in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom knew not God, it was God's good pleasure through the foolishness [or the simplicity] of the preaching [or the heralding of God's revelation of himself] to save them that believe."
—S. S. Times.

Unthankful for Daily Mercies

By Bishop Reynolds

As THE Dead Sea drinks in the River Jordan and is never the sweeter, and the ocean all other rivers and is never the fresher, so we are apt to receive daily mercies from God, and still remain insensible to them, unthankful for them.—Bishop Reynolds.

WALKING WITH GOD.

By H. Clay Trumbull

NOAH walked with God. Not because God would have no other man than Noah to walk with him, but because Noah preferred to walk in God’s way, while all other men preferred to walk in their own way, does the record stand that Noah walked with God. God welcomes every one of his human family to his holy companionship; but he gives to every one of these the privilege of walking with God or of walking apart from God. In order to walk with God, Noah had to choose another way than the way of his fellow-men. He must be all by himself, in his conduct and in his course. It required courage, it required independence of character, it required faith to walk with God when no one else on earth was going in that direction. Yet Noah was the gainer above all his fellows, through his walking with God, at the cost of parting with his fellows. And no man was ever the loser through walking with God. Yet it is not an easy matter to walk with God, when all one’s fellows are walking in the opposite direction, and are insisting that theirs is the way to walk.
He who walks with God has nothing to fear from the power of God, or from the judgments of God. Being at one with God, he is a sharer in all that promotes the glory of God. But he who chooses the way of evil enters upon a campaign against God. Unless he can overthrow God, he must be overthrown of God; for God and evil are in necessary and in inevitable conflict. It is not that God issues an arbitrary decree of destruction against individual sinners as such; but it is that God is against evil, and that he who is with God has a part in God’s triumph over evil; while he who is against God must fall with the evil to which he has given himself up.—H. Clay Trumbull.

GROWTH OF ROMANISM.

By Editor

A SUBSCRIBER writing from Washington, D. C., says, "This city is the hot-bed of Romanism. May the Lord help us." There is not a large city in the United States of which the same cannot be said. Romanism is increasing in power and numbers at an amazing rate, notwithstanding that many of its votaries are turning away from it. Governor Pattison, of Pennsylvania, in a long and interesting article in the New York Christian Advocate, gives the statistics of the Roman Catholic Church in that State as follows: 464 churches, 556 priests, and 515,000 members—the latter including all the members of Roman Catholic families.
In the Archdiocese of New York the Roman Catholic population is given in the official directory as 600,000, and in Chicago 400,000; other cities follow in proportion. Immigration has greatly contributed to this growth, but it must also be taken into account that these immigrants are very prolific, six or seven children in a Roman Catholic family being by no means exceptional.
At the regular fall session of the Brooklyn Presbytery, held in the Franklin Avenue Presbyterian Church, Oct. 4, 1886, Rev. Dr. Talmage, the moderator, in the chair, Rev. Dr. L. T. Chamberlain, from the Committee on Home Missions, said:—
"Look at the immigration to our shores, three-quarters of a million each year. Including the children of the first generation, there was, according to the reckonings of the last census, a foreign population already in our country of not less than 15,000,000. It needs no argument of words to show that missionary work for this foreign population should be more generously sustained than heretofore. Look at Romanism, increasing in the United States from 100,000 at the opening of the century to nearly 7,000,000 in 1880.
"From 1800 to 1880 the population of the United States increased ninefold, the membership of our evangelical churches twenty-seven-fold, and the Roman Catholic population sixty-three-fold.
"Since 1850 the population of the United States increased 116 per cent.; our evangelical membership, 185 per cent., but the Roman Catholic population, 294 per cent. As to the population in cities, sixty-two per cent. of Cincinnati is foreign, sixty-three per cent. of Boston, sixty-nine per cent. of Cleveland, seventy per cent. of Brooklyn, eighty-eight per cent. of New York, and ninety-one per cent. of Chicago. Said a Supreme Court Judge of New York: 'There is a large class of the population of New York and Brooklyn who just live, and to whom the rearing of two or more children means inevitably a boy for the penitentiary and a girl for the brothel.'"—Converted Catholic.

THE SUNDAY LAW COMING!

By W. A. Blakely

(Concluded.)

WHAT ITS FRIENDS ARE ALREADY DOING.

SABBATARIANS have been indicted and arrested during the past year in Tennessee, Massachusetts, and Arkansas, for working on Sunday after having conscientiously observed the seventh day. In Tennessee a test case was carried to the Supreme Court, of the State, and the decision of the lower courts, fining the offenders, was sustained. The Nashville (Tenn.) Daily American of Oct. 19, 1886, says:—
"The readers of the American are aware that three of the members of the Seventh-day Adventists are lying in jail at Paris [Tenn.] for carrying out the principles of their faith concerning the Sabbath of the decalogue."
Another account says:—
"The trial of the cases was a mere farce. Fines and costs are imposed upon the defendants, which it will take them nearly six months to serve out in jail. Three of them go to jail under this sentence, two of them between sixty and sixty-five years of age. The place of their imprisonment is in Paris, Henry County."
The report from Worcester, Massachusetts, gives us the following:—
"The arrest of Albert Ware and G. W. Bailey for working last Sunday, is a matter of intense interest, and has caused the right to labor on the 'Lord's day' (Sunday) to be quite freely discussed here. They were arrested while quietly pursuing their usual vocations, following the example of the great apostle in laboring on the first day of the week. "At the same time the officers came to arrest these persons, a score or more of men were celebrating the Sunday by laying tracks for our street-cars on one of the principal thoroughfares of Worcester, and, furthermore, it was estimated that between four and five thousand of our good citizens were enjoying a gala day at Lake Quinsigamond. Why not arrest these railroad contractors and the pleasure seekers who make no pretense of keeping God's Sabbath? "The law on the statute-book of the commonwealth of Massachusetts reads thus: 'That all persons who conscientiously observe the seventh day of the week as a day of rest, shall be exempt from a fine imposed on those who violate the Sunday law or ordinance, providing they do not disturb or annoy their neighbors.' Yet the only witnesses brought against these persons were the officers who made the arrest."
In the Christian Cynosure of August 12, 1886, a writer says:—
"Two years ago a church of Seventh-day Adventists was raised up in this place (Springdale, Ark.). Last fall they erected a house of worship, and for painting, one Sunday, on the rear of the house, unseen from the road, Elder J. W. Scoles was indicted by the Grand Jury at Fayetteville, Washington County, Ark., tried, convicted, and fined by the Circuit Court. An appeal was taken, and the case is now pending the action of the Supreme Court of the State. [The Supreme Court has since sustained the decision of the Circuit Court.] James Poole, of the same county, a conscientious Sabbath-keeper, for pulling weeds in his garden on Sunday morning, was indicted by the Grand Jury and fined by the same court, though he had attended public worship in the forenoon and afternoon, four miles from his home. William Martin was indicted by the same jury for sowing oats, and tried before the Circuit Court, but the jury disagreed. J. M. Davis was indicted by the Grand Jury for 'harrowing oats on the Christian Sabbath, or Sunday,' and tried before the Circuit Court, but failing to sustain the charge, the court picked up a man who swore that he saw Mr. Davis hauling wood on Sunday, and without even an indictment for said offense, the court fined him and taxed him the costs. F. M. Elmore, for three minutes' labor on Sunday, was indicted, convicted, and fined in the Circuit Court of this county. The second arrest of J. A. Armstrong, of Springdale, was effected July 9, for digging potatoes on Sunday for the table. In four hours after his arrest he was on his way to jail at Fayetteville, where he was kept five days to commute the fine imposed upon him, which he refused to pay and thus honor an unjust law and a partial administration which oppressed the conscientious observers of the fourth commandment, while others who observed neither day were permitted to go unmolested. The railroad cars could rumble, and carry their heavy burdens, and the loud voice of the locomotive could be heard more than once every Sunday, and yet go unrebuked; the factory could ply its vocation and keep its servants at work every Sunday; the hotels could send their runners to each train soliciting patronage and collect their fees for labor performed on Sunday without a word of censure from the authorities; our citizens could drive their hogs to market; livery teams could be hired to pleasure-seekers and money exchanged for such service, and no one was disturbed enough to take cognizance of the matter, and report it to the Grand Jury; and when the jury was told of these breaches of the law, by a Sabbath-keeper who was summoned to testify against a brother, no notice was taken of them, while the brother was arrested and fined for wielding, quietly, a paint-brush, after he had conscientiously observed the day before as the Sabbath, according to the commandment of God. "Allen Meek, of Star of the West, Pike County, was indicted by the Grand Jury for planting potatoes on Sunday morning, on the testimony forced from a friend who was visiting him. While the case was pending in thecourt he was cited to appear on Monday morning twenty-five miles distant. The road being rough, he was compelled to repair the break in his wagon on Sunday. He was again indicted and fined for that offense, on the testimony of a man who came to see him on business. The man who came on business could go home free after causing the arrest of the Sabbath-keeper. Others with whom I am personally acquainted in this same county, and whose names I could give, have also been arrested and fined in this same manner. "Anyone can see that it is not because the Sunday law is broken, or that these good and conscientious Sabbath-keepers make more noise or disturbance than others; but the strong arm of the law is the best argument that can be wielded against their faith and practice. However 'abhorrent to our Constitution such persecution' may appear to the editor of the Cynosure, we are now realizing its effects."
If such work is not persecution, and does not savor strongly of the Inquisition and the “Star Chamber,” then what does? When, under the penalty of the law, brother must testify against brother, and that, too, when he knows that his brother will be imprisoned for his faith, it is but a repetition of the “legal Christianity” of Rome for several hundred years, and worthy only of those to-day who, like the Catholics, must have the aid of human laws to uphold their human institutions. But this is only an introduction to the work. It is rapidly spreading in every part of the country. Yet history has proved, over and over again, that whenever the civil power legislates on religion, oppression and persecution are sure to follow.
The following extract from an article in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, on the trials of the Seventh-day Adventists in Arkansas, is to the point. After introducing the article by alluding to the success of the missionaries in the State, it says (italics mine):—
“They have been from the first apparently an industrious and God-fearing people, the chief difference between them and other Christian bodies being that they observe the seventh day as the Sabbath, according to the commandment. But it seems that sectionalism cannot lay down its arms even when the sacred precincts of religion are entered, so among the first things performed by the Legislature at its session last winter, less than a year after these people had come into the State, was the repeal of the clause which gave them the liberty to keep the day of their choice. This may be a part of the ‘reform’ connected with the new machine; but if so, it seems to be directed by a very bigoted spirit. “As the law now stands, all parties, irrespective of their religious belief, are compelled to observe the first day of the week as the Christian Sabbath, and under this law three indictments were found against members of the above denomination, one of the cases being against Elder Scoles, one of their ministers, whose case is to be made the test in the Supreme Court as to the constitutionality of the recent act of the Legislature. It is a little singular that no one else has been troubled on account of the law, with perhaps one minor exception, while members of the above denomination are being arrested over the whole State. It savors just a trifle of the religious persecution which characterized the Dark Ages. A minister of the gospel pleading in a court of justice, with the open Bible in his hand, for the liberty to keep God’s commands is a strange sight in this country; but, according to the rulings of the court in this case, a man has no rights of conscience outside of the dictation of the law. If this be the case, and if our law-makers are to control the religious opinions of their constituents, there is no telling what we may yet see in the way of enforcing their peculiar creeds and dogmas. Much interest is manifested here over this matter, and a decision from the higher courts is anxiously looked for.”
Yet every individual, even their opponents, cannot but admit that these persons have at least the letter of the commandment of God; and because they take the plain word of God in Ex. 20:8–11, they are brought before the court of man, as Christ, Paul, and other martyrs were, and condemned. Can anyone in the face of all this believe that there is no danger of persecution; that the Sunday law is all nonsense—as has been said over and over again? With all of this evidence those who cannot see must be in the same condition as were the Jews:— “For the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.” Acts 28:27. W. A. BLAKELY.

UNBELIEF AND INDIFFERENCE.

The Rev. Brooke Herford, of Boston, stated recently, that in his opinion about half the people in this country do not attend any church. He said: "There are indeed some careful observers who estimate the number of non-church-goers at a much larger number. In reply to all such statements the churches would probably say that all estimates of this kind are misleading, and that there is a tendency in many quarters to make out as bad a case for religion as possible. Doubtless that is so, but nevertheless it is a fact patent to all that a large percentage of the adults in every community are to all intents and purposes outside of the pale of Christianity. Either because of unbelief or indifference they live and die without accepting for themselves the teachings of the church. That such large numbers of people, many of them entirely respectable and moral in their lives, should reject Christianity in a professedly Christian land, ought to be an anomalous circumstance. It is for the churches to say why it is not."

CHRIST THE SON OF GOD.

It is Christ’s being the Son of God that gives divine authority to all his teachings, and which makes it our duty to receive his word as the word of the living God. “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son.” When Jesus was on the mount of transfiguration there came a voice to him from the excellent glory, saying, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.” “Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. For if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward; how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him?”
The divine sonship of Jesus is that which makes it the bounden duty of every individual and of all nations to receive him as their Lord and Saviour, and which makes the rejection of him a just ground of condemnation. “He that believeth on him is not condemned; but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
It is Christ’s being the Son of God that is the only ground of the Christian’s hope of a blessed immortality. The enjoyment of that inestimable blessing depends entirely upon the power and faithfulness of him who says, “I am the resurrection, and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.” “Because I live, ye shall live also.”
This, then, is the great fundamental truth of our religion, upon which rests our eternal all. For if Jesus is not the Son of God, we have no Saviour, our faith is vain; we are yet in our sins; and they also who are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. How precious, therefore, should be to our hearts the great and glorious truth that the Saviour that God has given us is “the Son of God” as well as the Son of man! That he “is over all, God blessed forever”! Let us realize more and more fully the infinite and vital importance of this great and fundamental truth of our religion; let it be the rock upon which we rest our faith and hope for eternity; let it be the great animating and governing principle of our lives, and let our earnest prayers be that the Father may reveal this truth to us more and more clearly, so that, like Peter of old, we may be able to say to Jesus in the fullness of a true and living faith, “Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.”
—Rev. Wm. Robertson, in United Presbyterian.

HEALTHY CHRISTIANITY.

ALTHOUGH Christianity is sometimes called the religion of a book, healthy Christianity can never be a mere book-religion. And yet there is a danger to all of us practically to make it so. When the adult Christian worker becomes so absorbed in the reading of devout biographies, or essays on personal religion, or manuals of prayer, that a distaste for actual service is created, he is displacing personal religion by book-religion. So is the Sunday-school scholar when he thinks that he is fulfilling all the claims of religion upon him, as he bends his head for hours over some half-sentimental, half-sensational religious story. The truth about religious reading is that half of it is not religious reading at all, but only a convenient way of soothing the spirit with pseudo-religious luxury when it ought to be braced by really religious work. There is a gain in varied religious reading, and no Christiancan afford to be lacking in close and personal study of the word of God; but to attempt to satisfy the claims of duty by religious reading, when religious doing is called for, is to attempt to pass counterfeit coin into the treasury of Heaven.—Selected.

GROWTH OF SIN.

By A. F. Schauffler

SIN left alone, always goes from bad to worse. Each sin makes the next easier, and each generation tends to become worse than the one which preceded it. Were it not for the counteracting grace of God, there is no telling how vile this world would now be. In the centuries between Adam and Noah this tendency made itself felt, until the whole inhabited world was full of violence. At last things came to such a pass that God, in his justice, determined to interfere. But before he struck, he warned. For a hundred and twenty years Noah was a preacher of righteousness to that generation. But he preached in vain; and his warnings were as ineffectual as those of Lot in Sodom centuries later. At last the end came. God carried out his threats, and the flood carried every living man away. God has as good a right to carry men off by flood as by disease, and to take them all at once, or one by one, as it pleases him. But he tempered his judgment with mercy, in that he gave men a hundred and twenty years of warning.
Some people in our days demur to the justice and sovereignty of God, and want him rather to dance attendance on the whims of sinful man. It would please them to have the universe governed by the votes of men, rather than by the fiat of the Almighty. But the kingdom of God is an absolute monarchy, and not a republic. Had it been a republic, it would have gone to pieces long ago. God fulfills his pleasure in the armies of Heaven, and among the children of men; and it behooves sinners to obey, rather than criticize. Yet if, to any, God’s actions seem stern, we have only to point to Calvary to see that he who “so loved the world” has a tender heart as well as a strong hand. Calvary forever disproves any affirmation that God is an unjust or unfeeling God. He who gave his Son for men would never inflict any punishment on them from which it was possible to save them. The antediluvian world was past saving, and it was only when it reached that point that the judgment fell. Ten godly men would have saved Sodom, but there were not two such to be found in all these cities of the plains.—A. F. Schauffler.
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