Earlier text: Crossing the Bridge before you Come to ItSketch of Experience.
By Zerviah B. Chipman
I WISH to respond a hearty amen to the remarks of Bro. Butler in a late REVIEW upon the subject of dress and conformity to the world. As I have read and re-read, I have felt to exclaim, Thank God for this. My own experience has led me to the positive belief that the apostle James was not mistaken when he says that the friendship of the world is enmity with God; that whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. When connected with the Methodist church, previous to my embracing the Sabbath, I often felt distressed to see so much conformity to the world in dress and other things, and I could not go with them in it. But by degrees I kept yielding, conforming a little here and there, thinking perhaps I was too particular in these things; but as I did so I felt the terrible fact that the Spirit of God was leaving me; and in my heart was a void the world could never fill. I was then, through God's mercy, led to see that he required obedience to his perfect law; and I decided to obey. I then resolved that in all things I would try to be a Bible Christian. Almost my first work was to take in hand a dress that I had made a short time before, trimmed with ruffles, &c., though to a moderate degree, compared with some. I took off the trimmings, and endeavored to square it by the gospel rule. Said one to me on learning what I had done, “If I were you, I would not be a fool.” But I thought I would rather be called a fool than to go contrary to the plain teachings of God's word, and grieve his tender Spirit. I have a great love for order and neatness, and have no sympathy for slack untidiness; but I would plead that we as a people, and individually, beware of drinking in the spirit of the world, and arraying ourselves with the furbelows of fashion which will surely lower the standard of Bible piety, and lead us away from God. It does seem to me that our time would be much better spent in reading our Bibles than in making these useless things; and surely the Lord's money should not be wasted to buy them. I have often asked myself, How can any one whose heart is filled with the Spirit of God, enjoying communion with him, have such love for these vanities as some appear to have? As for the remedy for this evil, I would suggest that all who profess to have any love for God and his truth, should get so near to the Lord, and be so filled with his Spirit, that it shall lift us above the world, and destroy all our love for its pride and vanity, and make us realize that in a little from this we must give an account of how we spend both time and money; and for the influence we exert either for or against the truth. May the Lord help us to square our lives by the Bible rule. ZERVIAH B. CHIPMAN. FATHER, take my hand.
I reach and grope about for friendly aid.
The way seems dark; I'm weak and am afraid
To choose my path. Be thou my light, my guide;
So shall I walk, and shall be satisfied.
Father, take my hand. Father, hold my hand.
I'm toiling up a steep and rocky cliff;
I dare not halt, nor backward turn; a whiff,
A feather's weight, would send me down the wild
Abyss below. Dear Father, hear thy child,
And hold my hand. Father, keep my hand.
With thee I'm safe, O, do not let me go.
I grasp, I clasp, mid conflicts here below;
I dare not lose my hold life's journey through,
Or till my Lord's appearing I shall view;
Dear Father, keep my hand. —Sel. If you have gifts, whatever they are, of beauty, consecrate them. If you have the gift of art, consecrate it. If you have the gift of eloquence, consecrate it. If you have the gift of poetry, consecrate it. If you have the gift of emotion, consecrate it. If you have any gift, whatever it is, make sure that you root it in genuine sympathy, and that you exercise it. With a whole Heaven before you, child of God, child of eternity, brother of the whole race, now sing; now go forth in your gayety. There is a moral meaning to it that will redeem it from all possibility of perversion. It has a meaning that will annihilate the distance which there is between your heart and the hearts of other people. It will draw people to you. You want people baptized in the fountain of your sympathy and love. That which is wanted above everything else, is to draw men to your heart.—Beecher. THERE are many toiling ones whose time is not at their own command. But there is not one who cannot hold converse with God. His ear can hear amid the clang and roar of machinery, or the hum of hundreds of voices. The heart can go up to him no matter what the surroundings. Wherever Abraham pitched his tent, there he raised up an altar to the Lord. So wherever the Christian heart is, there is also an acceptable altar from which the incense of prayer and praise may ascend. Yet there are few who may not, if they will, find time and place for private communion with God before entering on the morning's duties. Luther, in his busiest seasons, felt that praying-time was never lost. When remarkably pressed with labors, he would say, “I have so much to do that I cannot get on without three hours a day praying.” Sir Matthew Hale also bears testimony: “If I omit praying and reading God's word in the morning, nothing goes well all day.” How many of us may find here the cause of many of our failures, and consequent discontent and loss of happiness!—Sel. Every age has its besetting sins; every condition its attendant evils; every state of society its diseases that it is especially liable to be attacked by. One of the pests which dog civilization, the more so the further it advances, is the fear of ridicule; and seldom has the contagion been so obnoxious as at this day. Is there any body living, among the upper classes at least, who has not often been laughed out of what he ought to have done, and laughed into what he ought not to have done? Who has not sinned? Who has not been a runagate from duty? Who has not stifled his best feelings? Who has not mortified his noblest desires, solely to escape being laughed at, and not once merely, but time after time, till that which has so often been checked, becomes stunted, and no longer dares lift up its head? And then, after having been laughed down ourselves, we too join the pack who go about laughing down others.—Sel. How to Be the Lord’s.
By M. Wood
“GREATER love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13. Thus says Jesus, “Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.” Then there are conditions whereby we may claim Jesus as our friend. What are those conditions? Keep my commandments, he says again, and you shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love. John 15:10. Will Jesus be our friend if we continue in the path of sin and folly? Will Jesus love us if we trample God’s law underfoot? Let us not deceive ourselves. It will be a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Nowhere in the Bible can be found a single promise of eternal life to the transgressor of God’s holy law. It is the overcomer only that shall sit down at the marriage supper of the Lamb. “Blessed are they that do his [God’s] commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.” Rev. 22:14. The commandment-keepers, and not the law-breakers, are those who shall obtain the promised reward of entering into God’s holy kingdom. When we think of the sufferings of Christ and how much he has done and is still doing for us, it is enough to stir us to immediate action. It should cause us to awake out of sleep, and to pray more unitedly and with more faith that God may pour his Holy Spirit out upon us, that great power may be given to God’s ministering servants, that they may proclaim the third angel’s message with much power, that many precious souls may be brought to a knowledge of the truth as it is in Christ Jesus. Let us be up and doing the work of the Lord while there is yet time and opportunity. Striving.
By W. H. Blaisdell
JESUS said, “Strive to enter in at the strait gate.” Luke 13: 24. By these, and other words of his, we may learn that he designed to impress upon our minds the truthful fact that if we would walk in the narrow way that leads to everlasting life, it would require our greatest efforts. His apostles taught the same fact, and compared the struggle to running a race, engaging in battle, fighting a warfare, &c., always setting forth the idea that those who indulge in carelessness, indifference, and stupidity, cannot be successful in the Christian warfare. On the other hand, we may learn from the Scripture that it will cost no great effort to walk securely in the road that leads to destruction. Not much exertion need be made to insure the success, such as it is, of those who chose to walk in the broad way. If they simply stay away from the light and neglect to interest themselves in the truth, destruction will be their sure portion. Heb. 2: 3. But there are many persons who act as if they were determined to be lost and were striving hard to have it so. They take special pains to oppose the truth and are very persistent in watching and finding fault with God's people, and often make themselves much inconvenience and even expense that they may hinder the advancement of the cause of truth and hedge up the way of those who are striving to do right. They act as if they feared they should be saved and thought there was a probability of its being so, unless they strove hard to avoid it. To such it might be said, that they are taking too much pains and are making needless efforts to secure the end they appear to have in view. They are in the broad way that leads to destruction, and will no doubt find its end without any such extraordinary efforts. Oh! that they might see the folly of their present course, speedily repent and strive as hard to promote the cause of truth as they now do to hinder its progress. Let those who claim to be walking in the narrow way remember the words of Jesus if they would gain the reward of the overcomer. “Strive to enter in at the strait gate.” W. H. BLAISDELL. Striving for Another’s Happiness
In striving for another's happiness, we secure our own. If the effect prove abortive through any means, still there is left the satisfaction of knowing that we strove to do well. God will not cast us out from favor because we failed, when our whole soul leaped and struggled for the victory. The Sabbath History.
By Uriah Smith
HAVING returned to the Office, it may gratify a feeling of inquiry in many minds, if I say a word respecting the forth-coming History of the Sabbath, on which I have been endeavoring to assist Bro. Andrews somewhat, during my sojourn East the past summer. The frequency with which the question has been asked by those I have met since I left Boston, “How is the work on the History of the Sabbath prospering?” shows that a wide-spread interest exists in the hearts of our people in reference to this work, and that they are alive to its importance. This is as it should be, and is a good omen for the prospective usefulness of the work, when it shall be completed. Among the first things to be done in the erection of a building, is the collection of material. The stone, the lumber, the brick, &c., &c., must be procured; and when thus lying promiscuously together, they convey to the mind of the observer but a faint idea of the office of beauty and utility they are to fill, when combined in the stately edifice. In about this condition, the History of the Sabbath, at present stands. Our work has chiefly been the collection of material; and while all has not been searched up that it is designed to procure, some valuable testimony has been found, which is well worth all the time and expense that would be involved in extensive research. The work, so far as it has been my privilege to share it, has enlisted my deepest interest. Three things, as the result, have been very strongly impressed upon my mind: First, the extent of ground covered by the first edition of Bro. Andrews’ History. Secondly, the utter poverty of the evidence in behalf of Sunday. Thirdly, the vast amount, and contradictory nature, of the efforts put forth to sustain the first-day institution. The strange and unnatural industry with which men have labored in this direction, the invisible hairs they have endeavored to split, the subtle distinctions they have tried to draw, are such as no person would form any adequate conception of, who has not looked upon a collection of their efforts in some large library, or attempted to wade through the ocean of their sophistries. Take the following for a single example: One old writer drew out at length, and with ludicrous assurance, an argument for Sunday-keeping, based on the following points: 1. The Sabbath commandment requires the observance of the seventh day of the week. 2. There are but two seventh days in a week. These are, first, the last day of the week, which is the seventh day, as related to the six days which precede it, and secondly, the first day of the week, which is the seventh, as related to the six days which follow it! 3. That seventh day which is the last day of the week, was the old Jewish Sabbath, and has gone by the board. The first day of the week is therefore the only seventh day now left; and as the commandment still requires the observance of the seventh day, it now enjoins the keeping of the first day of the week! If this reasoning can be paralleled on any other subject except that of the Sabbath, it will prove that men have found themselves under the necessity of laboring equally hard to extricate themselves from straits equally desperate, on some theory equally groundless with the first-day Sabbath; which we shall be excused for not believing without some evidence. However much charity we may have for the rank and file of those who have heretofore believed in the strict observance of Sunday, what we have seen is calculated to lessen somewhat the exercise of that grace toward those who have taken it upon themselves to lead the people in this practice; for it would seem that the very amount of labor they found it necessary to put forth, and the kind of arguments they found themselves driven to use, should have convinced them that they were on the tortuous track of error, and not traveling in company with Truth, who, with unveiled face, and plain and simple claims, never drives her defenders to such distortion of facts, nor to such grimaces of logic. Verily the language penned in “Word for the Sabbath” nearly sixteen years since, was vastly truer than we then dreamed: O Fourth Command! what trouble hast thou been,
Source of vexation to the sons of men!
How have they tugged and toiled with various plans,
To break thy power and shirk thy just demands!
Have chafed and fretted to secure their aim,
And render null and void thy obvious claim!
Vast circuits they through logic’s fields have run,
And found themselves at last where they begun! The whole arena of the Sabbath controversy is flooded with the light of day. Its advocates may boldly say that they have reached the point of absolute knowledge. They know that it is an institution of Heaven, immovable as Jehovah’s throne. They know that all the theories that are urged against it are shams and shadows, phantasms and fallacies. They know that what the poet says of truth, that the eternal years of God are hers, is especially true of Jehovah’s hallowed Rest-day. To borrow the figure of another, should we take hammer and chisel and engrave the Sabbath argument on the wall of Gibralter, no one could say which would be the more impregnable, the logic or the rock. My association with Bro. Andrews the past summer has been of the most agreeable character. The privilege I have had of once more meeting old friends, and forming acquaintance with new ones, I have highly prized. During my absence of thirteen weeks, besides my regular work on the Sabbath History, I have spoken twenty-three times. And since my return home, I receive the cheering intelligence that the remaining one of my two brothers, whom I found interested, if not well-nigh convinced, on the Sabbath question, has commenced the observance of the Rest-day of the Lord. With excellent health, and with a heart full of gratitude to God for his goodness, and full of hope and courage for the future of this blessed cause, I again take up the thread of duty in my wonted sphere of Office labor. U. S. Victoria C. Woodhull.
By Uriah Smith
The career of this woman, planned, and executed thus far, wholly by the spirits, through her as one of the most obsequious and controllable of mediums, has now arrested public attention to such an extent that the readers of the REVIEW will be interested to learn some of the particulars of her history and her pretensions. This woman some time since, put herself in nomination for the presidency of the United States, for the purpose, especially, it is said, of bringing to an issue before the people the question of woman suffrage and of testing the equality of woman's claim to office, with that of man. She has since become the regular nominee of a rapidly growing association of individuals known as the “Victoria League,” for the purpose, and with the expectation, of actually securing that high office. Our view of the future of spiritualism, prepares us to place within the range of possibilities, and even of probabilities, projects which under other circumstances would be regarded as the wildest chimeras of a shattered brain. We have all the more interest therefore in watching this movement. From a biographical sketch by Theodore Tilton, who has become an enthusiastic admirer of Mrs. Woodhull, and whose statements, were it not for the evident tokens he gives of sincere admiration, would be taken as a burlesque, we gather the following facts respecting her history. Her father is represented as a monster of cruelty, exercising his savagery impartially upon all his children. In a barrel of rainwater he kept a number of braided green withes of willow or walnut, and sometimes with these, and sometimes with a handsaw or a stick of firewood, he would cut the quivering flesh of the children till their tears and blood melted him into mercy. “Coming home after the children were in bed, on learning some offense which they had committed, he has been known to waken them out of sleep, and to whip them till morning.” The mother is represented as from her youth, “a religious monomaniac—a spiritualist before the name of spiritualism was coined.” Respecting her treatment of her children, Mr. Tilton says that on some occasions she has “tormented and harried” them “until they would be thrown into spasms, whereat she would hysterically laugh, clap her hands, and look as fiercely delighted as a cat in playing with a mouse. At other times her tenderness toward her offspring would appear almost angelic. She would fondle them, weep over them, lift her arms and thank God for such children, caress them with ecstatic joy, and then smite them as if seeking to destroy at a blow both body and soul. This eccentric old lady, compounded in equal parts of Heaven and hell, will pray till her eyes are full of tears, and in the same hour curse till her lips are white with foam. The father exhibits a more tranquil bitterness, with fewer spasms. These parental peculiarities were lately made witnesses against their possessors in a court of justice.” Inasmuch as Heaven never maintains a partnership with hell, and as the elements of hell are very apparent in the character here described, we think Heaven should be excused from the charge of having any part in the aforesaid compound. A child, we know, is not responsible for being the offspring of a particular father or mother, nor is it to be blamed should such father and mother chance to be fiends in human shape; but when such child puts forth claims to a position of vast responsibility, influence, and power, we have a right in weighing his or her probable fitness for the place, to take into consideration the question whether or not a bitter fountain is apt to send forth sweet water. From her earliest childhood, she claims to have lived and worked by the help of spirits. They are her constant companions. They abide with her night and day. They dictate her life with daily revelations. Her enterprises are their invention. Her writings and speeches are the product of their absolute control of her brain and tongue. She does nothing without consulting them; and she is never disobedient to their decrees. A goodly portion of the time which other people pass in sleep, she spends in communion with spirits of devils. All this her biographer declares, except that he would not admit that the spirits are other than spirits from the heavenly world. She was born in Homer, Ohio, Sept. 23, 1838, the seventh of ten children, of Roxana and Buckman Claflin. She is consequently now in her 34th year. At the age of 14 she married Dr. Canning Woodhull, aged 28. By this move she withdrew from the cruelty of her parents to enter the more unendurable cruelty of her new domestic relation. Her husband proved to be the most debauched of debauchees, too licentious to do a virtuous act, and too drunken to draw a sober breath. With this man she lived eleven years of unmitigated abuse, deprivation, neglect and misery. The second year after her marriage she bore a son whose antenatal conditions stamped him with semi-idiocy. She undertook, with the aid of the spirits, to reclaim her husband; but he proved more than a match for them all; chiefly owing, we suspect, to the fact that the spirits with whom she had to do, were of that character which made them too willing to have him pursue the course he was pursuing. She took him to California hoping to induce him there to begin a new and better life. Strangers and almost beggars in a strange city, she endeavored to support herself for a while with her needle, but soon brought up in a theater, where for six weeks she earned fifty-two dollars a week as an actress. And then occurred an incident which shows the blind impetuosity with which she follows the bidding of the spirits. While on the stage, one evening, a spirit voice told her to go home to Ohio. Whereupon she broke from the scenes, and without even stopping to change her theatrical wardrobe, rushed to her hotel, packed her trunk in the hours of the night like a criminal hard pressed by the officers of justice, and early in the morning, started with her husband and child, for Ohio. Whether she owned the “pink silk dress,” &c., with which she quitted the theater, or whether she left the place with some of the property of the theater in her possession, we are not informed. Reaching home, the spirits directed her to repair to Indianapolis, announce herself as a medium, and treat patients for the cure of disease. In this she succeeded in creating so remarkable a stir that up to 1869, when this work was discontinued by the direction of the spirits, her receipts had reached the enormous figure of seven hundred thousand dollars. She and her sister Tennie Claflin, are now carrying on the business of brokers in the city of New York, and publishing a paper entitled Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly, a paper which Mr. Tilton says “is edited in one world, and published in another;” and which makes “free love” the burden of its unhallowed mission. In 1863, she applied in Chicago for a divorce from her husband, and obtained it. Some time subsequently she was called on by Col. J. H. Blood, who came to consult her as a spiritualistic physician, having never met her before. She immediately went into the trance state and made to him the startling announcement that his destiny was to be linked with hers in marriage. They were married according to due form of law; but afterward deeming the legal tie a yoke upon that freedom to which they aspired, they were divorced according to the statutes of Illinois. To this man she still retains the relation of wife, so far as a relation can be called such which has the sanction of no law either human or divine. The chief among her spiritual visitants, her guardian from her youth up, she describes as a stately and mature man clad in a Greek tunic. This spirit for a long time refused to divulge his name, but finally declared it as “Demosthenes.” Some remarkable cures claim to have been performed through her mediumship; and this incident is related respecting herself and son: “One day, during a severe illness of her son, she left him to visit her patients, and on her return was startled with the news that the boy had died two hours before. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I will not permit his death.’ And with frantic energy she stripped her bosom naked, caught up his lifeless form, pressed it to her own, and sitting thus flesh to flesh, glided insensibly into a trance in which she remained seven hours; at the end of which time she awoke, a perspiration started from his clammy skin, and the child that had been thought dead was brought back again to life, and lives to this day in sad half-death. It is her belief that the spirit of Jesus Christ brooded over the lifeless form and re-wrought the miracle of Lazarus for a sorrowing woman’s sake.” On another occasion she undertook the case of a woman who had been given up to die and had received extreme unction by a Catholic priest. She is said to have stood over her constantly, neither eating nor sleeping for ten days and nights, and at the end of that time found the woman recovered, and herself, instead of weary and exhausted by the loss of sleep and food, more fresh and bright than at the beginning. Such is the woman who now bids for the highest office in the gift of the nation. The spirits have in past years made many prophecies respecting her; such as that she would emerge from her poverty and live in a stately mansion; that she would amass great wealth in a maritime city; that she would found a bank and publish a paper; that she would speak in public, and that her first speech would be delivered in the capital of the nation. All these have been realized. And the spirits added, as the climax of their predictions, and the crowning event of her career, that she would finally become the ruler of her people. To this position she now aspires, and in this aspiration is backed by the myriads of demons that swarm the land, and will no doubt be seconded by Spiritualists who can wield the more tangible weapon of the ballot. Respecting her success in this thing, we make no prediction; but inasmuch as things as strange have happened, it will perhaps do the reader no hurt to try for a moment to imagine what the condition of our country will be when a woman more familiar with familiar spirits, and a more fanatical devotee of the unhallowed intercourse, than even the witch of Endor, shall sit in the chair of its chief executive. U. S. Last Days' Covetousness.
By Uriah Smith
The warning uttered by Paul over eighteen hundred years ago, has come down through earth's degenerating centuries to our own time: “In the last days men shall be covetous.” The terrible meaning of that quiet prediction is seen in the developments of to-day. The following description from the Methodist is a true picture of the evil as it exists in our land at this moment. How many times must it be repeated before people will believe that Paul's prophecy is fulfilled, and that these are the last days of which he spoke? Speaking of the exposure of the unparalleled frauds and peculations of New York officials, the Methodist says:— “It is our hope rather than our firm belief that some lasting good will spring from the exposure of these frauds. They reveal the weak spot in the body politic, the unsightly and dangerous cancer which must not be allowed to spread unchecked. The vice of the age is avarice—a vice stimulated by advancing civilization, which increases the wants of men. There is a mad haste to be rich, which, uncontrolled, is the source of violence and crime, and political history has taught to unprincipled aspirants the lesson which they have readily learned, that “to117the victors belong the spoils.” Run for office, get into office, and then, neither fearing God nor regarding man, grasp all you can, and achieve wealth, even at the price of infamy. The evil of using political position to amass dishonest wealth is not confined to a few men in New York City. It is found, more or less, in all lands, and under all forms of government. It is a source of national weakness, and, if unchecked, leads to national decay.” • U. S. THE following from the Detroit Post of Sept. 23, 1871, very clearly indicates the tendency of the public mind at the present time, in regard to this delusion. That the predictions respecting its future progress will shortly be fulfilled we have no doubt; for the word of God assures us that thus Satan shall work in the last days:— “The Golden Age has what seems to us a just rebuke of the light and flippant treatment which some journals visit upon Spiritualism. With many, indeed with every one who has given the subject an investigation, there is a conviction of an underlying truth in Spiritualism which is covered up and degraded by many false, absurd, and disgusting phenomena. Many believe ‘there is something in it,’ who are by no means prepared to define what that something is, or to accept present manifestations as the highest outgrowth of it. But it is not all ‘mumbling and ‘raving,’ and its assurances of a future life and of immortality have comforted many souls who could place an abiding faith in future existence upon no other foundation. Much has yet to be explained, more to be purged away from the doctrines of Spiritualism. But those who believe that it has the germ of a very precious truth, which is to be developed into higher uses and its processes scientifically, if not altogether satisfactorily, explained, are on the increase. Both for their numbers and for their intelligence they are not to be despised nor wantonly abused. In this connection, we quote from the Golden Age the following paragraph:—
“‘The spirit of Henry J. Raymond lately came (as we are informed), to Mrs. J. H. Conant, in Boston, and spoke as follows: ‘The time is now fast hastening when they whom the living call dead will be able to so clearly represent themselves here to your physical senses that death will be no longer death—that they who are dead will be no longer out of sight, for you can see them and hear them.’
“This statement will be received with more or less credulity according to the reader’s belief in Spiritualism. But we do not hesitate to say that many who do not believe Mr. Raymond capable of sending a message to this world, or that the time is hastening when such modes of communication will be unnecessary, do nevertheless look forward to a day when the intercourse between all souls, the souls of the living as well as of the dead, will be in more direct and active communication with each other than they now are; and that forces, powers, and media, now lying dormant and unsuspected, will supplant our present rude methods of conveyance by electricity, and writing and speech.”
Faith almost Gone.
By C. A. Ogdan
“When the Son of Man cometh shall he find faith on the earth?” Our Lord when he asked this question was sojourning in this world. He had already “come” to this earth, the first time. Hence the coming referred to in this inquiry, is his second coming, when he shall appear in his glory to save those who “look for him.” The question suggests the answer to itself; that just before his second coming there will be but little faith on the earth; that but few persons, compared with the whole of mankind, will be expecting the great event. The last days of time, as we are taught in the Scriptures, are to be times when unbelievers will scoff, saying, “Where is the promise of his coming?” The vast multitude of the world’s inhabitants will be asleep on this subject. We have evidently reached the last days, “the time of the end.” Men scoff in consequence of a want of faith. The multitudes are all engrossed in worldly business, and pleasure seeking; making arrangements not only for their own comfort and profit, but also for generations yet to come; without the remotest thought that the day of God is at hand! The word of God assures us, “When they shall say peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them.” The Universalist cries, “Peace and safety, while he promises life to the sinner, and tells him that there is no danger; that the coming of the Saviour took place long centuries ago.” The Spiritualist tells the people that there will be no such thing as the literal coming of Jesus Christ the second time, to reward the saints and punish sinners, and that they need not be alarmed. The world of sinners, bent to secure worldly gains, honors, and pleasures, cry, “Peace,” while moved along by the mighty torrent of worldliness downward. They have not time to study God’s word; have not time to think of the awful future. They lull each other to sleep, and are insensible about coming events and the coming One. Many are stupefied by moral narcotics, tales of fiction, so that they have no love for divine truth, no sense of their terrible danger. The orthodox churches and ministers are loud in proclaiming this cry of “Peace,” where God has not spoken peace. They encourage men to go on in sin by telling them that the millennium will soon dawn, that there will be no temptation of Satan, but all will be peaceful, holy, and happy, for a thousand years before the return of Christ personally. All these cries result from unbelief, and they produce unbelief. Unbelief will hinder men from preparing to meet the Lord. As the Lord has not come so soon as some expected, some servants begin to say in their hearts, “My Lord delayeth his coming,” and “eat and drink with the drunken.” Such, if they continue in their present course, will have their part with “hypocrites and unbelievers.” Being overcharged with eating and drinking and cares of this life, stupefies the mind so that that day will come upon some unawares, some that for a time were looking for it. Oh! let us not be like the unbelieving Jews in the wilderness, who fell by unbelief. Worldly and Heavenly Interests Contrasted.
By S. PIERCE.
WORLDLY men may tell us of the friendship of great men: but we will tell them of the friendship of One that sticketh closer than a brother. They may tell us of the love of dignified associates: we will tell them of the matchless depths of a Saviour's love. They may tell us of the wealth of splendid cities here: we will tell them of a city, the streets of which, are pure gold, like unto transparent glass. And if they have a taste for costly gems and pearls, we will show them that the walls of that city are built of jasper and its foundation garnished with all manner of precious stones, and the twelve stupendous gates each of one solid pearl. They may tell us of the honors of men; we will tell them of the honor which comes from God only. Jesus says “If any man will serve me, him will my Father honor.” Who, oh! who, can estimate or describe that honor? They may tell us even of crowns, scepters and thrones, without any certainty of being secure for a day: we will tell them of One on whose head are many crowns, whose scepter sways the universe, and whose throne has rainbow beauties all about it, in sight like unto an emerald. And those who are nearest that throne, are they who are redeemed by the blood of the Lamb; while all the holy angels stand back in the rear ranks; and if they aspire after these crowns, scepters, and thrones, we will inform them what course to pursue in this life in order to become kings and priests to God and reign on the earth, not for days nor months nor years; but for a long eternity, when the righteous shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of our Father, and shall die no more. They may tell us of realms more genial on account of the more efficient rays of nature's sun: we will tell them of a realm that has no need of the sun nor of the moon; for the glory of God doth lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And the nations of them that are saved shall walk in the light of it; and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honor into it. Oh! who would not have such possessions as these? A Wonderful Work.
By J. MATTESON
MANY authors have appeared in the world. Their various productions are innumerable, like the stars. And of making many books, there is no end. But it is a fact worthy of everlasting remembrance, that the great God himself has condescended to furnish us with a work of which he is the author, a work which he wrote with his own finger, “two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.” Ex. 31: 18. It is a very small book, and yet comprises more than all others. “I have seen an end of all perfection; but thy commandment is exceeding broad.” Ps. 119: 96. It is so perfect a work that without the proper understanding and acceptance of it, all other books, the Bible not excepted, are of no real value to us. Without it, we would not inquire after the Saviour or the gospel, for “they that be whole need not a physician,” and “by the law is the knowledge of sin.” Jesus has left us no such personal writing. How vastly important must these ten commandments be, which God thought best thus to execute with his own hand. It is his holy will that the same shall be written in living characters in the heart (mind or affections) of all those who belong to his kingdom. Jesus himself is thus distinguished: “I delight to do thy will, O my God! yea, thy law is within my heart.” Ps. 40: 8. So, likewise, the righteous, who shall inherit the new earth, will submit to this divine law, will obtain a live copy of it by the Spirit of God in their heart. “The mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdom, and his tongue talketh of judgment. The law of his God is in his heart; none of his steps shall slide.” Ps. 37: 30, 31. For this object, indeed, was the divine Teacher sent from Heaven: “That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” Rom. 8: 4. Six hundred thousand men were witnesses when the divine Law-giver with his own voice publicly proclaimed this royal law. And after a space of more than three thousand years, their posterity is still preserved, scattered over the earth, and everywhere willing to testify to the divine origin of this holy work. And not only they, but also all those servants of God who “delight in the law of God after the inward man” have testified, and do testify, that “the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.” And they know by experience whereof they affirm. Let us, then, “hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man.” Eccl. 12: 13. J. MATTESON.