Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Mar 9, 1905
The Law of God
And God spake all these words, saying,
I am Jehovah thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, nor any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them; for I Jehovah thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation of them that hate me, and showing loving-kindness unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.
Thou shalt not take the name of Jehovah thy God in vain; for Jehovah will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is a sabbath unto Jehovah thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days Jehovah made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore Jehovah blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in the land which Jehovah thy God giveth thee.
Thou shalt not kill.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor’s.
Publishers' Page
By Editor
Conducted By the Department of Circulation of the Review and Herald Publishing Association
Appeal to Clergy
EVERY mail brings liberal orders for “Appeal to Clergy.” Though it was not issued until the first of January, about 500,000 copies had been circulated up to March 1. With the orders come encouraging reports of the results produced by the “Appeal,” and words of appreciation of it by thousands who have received it from our workers.
Throughout the country individuals have taken up the work with the “Appeal” in a thorough, systematic method, and are continuing its circulation without cessation or interruption. This is the kind of work required to give the message and bring profitable results.
“Appeal to Clergy” contains the Sabbath message for this time. It is brief enough to be read by the busiest people, and it is conclusive and convincing on all points. It has awakened and is maintaining the greatest Sabbath interest ever produced by any periodical issued by the denomination. A million copies should be circulated during the month of March.
Price, 40 cents a hundred; $3.75 a thousand.
Life and Health
By Editor
For March
THIS issue of the appreciated health journal Life and Health will give the public information and counsel especially needed for the month of March. The following represents some of the good things it will contain:—
General Hygiene, the first of a series of articles by Mrs. E. G. White. This series of articles will be much appreciated by those who are acquainted with Mrs. White's former writings on health topics.
Colds, Their Prevention and Cure, by F. M. Rossiter, M. D. A timely article on an important topic by a practical physician. Every one can profit by this article.
Cattle Feeding, by J. E. Froom, M. D., relating some of the methods by which much of the beef is now prepared for market, citing instances where impure food and unhealthful surroundings are combined in the production of beef for the markets.
Revolutionary Dietetics, by the editor. A discussion of the remarkable results of the experimental work carried on at the Sheffield Scientific School (Yale) by Prof. R. H. Chittenden. The remarkable results reached in these series of experiments show that the dietary standards now generally accepted are entirely at fault; also that nearly every one eats too much, and that limiting the food in certain directions would be a great advantage healthfully as well as economically.
Prevention of La Grippe, a short article, which will be found timely in many localities.
This number also contains excellent medical missionary reports, valuable hints and suggestions for the mistress of the household, practical and interesting answers to questions, important editorials, together with excellent news notes.
Life and Health is furnished at the following rates:—
25 or more copies to one address, 2½ cents a copy.
Less than 25 copies, one order, 3 cents each.
10 or more copies to one address, 30 cents a copy.
Regular subscription price, 50 cents a year.
40 per cent discount is given to agents on yearly subscriptions.
Do You Have a Cold?
If you have, this notice will interest you. Its contents are of sufficient importance to claim your attention, even though you are not now suffering with this most common malady, for it announces the completion of the—
New Book on Colds
by Dr. G. H. Heald, editor of Life and Health.
The object of this little book is to enable you not only to treat successfully all colds, but to so live that you will not be susceptible either to colds or to any of the common ailments.
Symptoms of Colds
This book emphasizes the necessity of giving immediate attention to the symptoms which indicate a cold, and enumerates certain serious maladies, the symptoms of which are similar to those of a cold.
Colds Classified
The doctor speaks of Hot-weather Colds, Epidemic of Colds, Predisposing Causes, and tells what part the imagination sometimes acts in the taking of a cold.
Prevention of Colds
In the chapter on “Prevention,” instruction is given concerning the temperature of living rooms, especially in winter, with simple diagrams illustrating proper and improper methods of ventilation; important suggestions on bathing, diet, exercise, etc., are also given.
Their Treatment
“Treatment of Colds” is the chapter which will be most eagerly studied by those who need its help. Here will be found practical suggestions for “breaking up” a cold, not by the use of drugs, but by simple means. Sore throat, including laryngitis and tonsillitis; cold on the chest; (tracheitis or bronchitis) and coughs, all receive due attention.
Use of Hurtful Drugs
The use of such palliatives as quinine, opium, and cocaine usually increases the difficulty, and prolongs the attack, or at least renders the user more liable to future attacks.
Study Dr. Heald’s book, and learn how to treat your cold rationally, and thus prolong your life.
“Colds” is beautifully bound in white leatherette, stamped in brown ink.
Price, 25 cents.
Order of Review & Herald, Washington, D. C.; Battle Creek, Mich.; Pacific Press, Mountain View, Cal.; Kansas City, Mo.; Southern Publishing Assn., Nashville, Tenn.; or your State Tract Society.
Do You Know
What gave rise to the Adventist denomination and its work?
When, and by whom, the second coming of Christ and the end of the world was first preached?
Who first presented the Sabbath to Adventists?
The first English and foreign publications? The details of the rapid increase in the publishing work in all languages?
Who was our first foreign missionary?
How many nations are now receiving the message?
How the third angel’s message has marvelously developed along all lines?
You may know all this and over 2,000 interesting, important, historical facts about the rise and progress of the denomination with its fundamental principles, directories, and present classified organization in all countries by securing a copy of
The
NEW YEAR-BOOK
For 1905
which will meet a demand long felt by furnishing honest, inquiring people with a statement of the belief of the church in a condensed outline of the fundamental principles, together with a comprehensive history of the church and a display of its present thorough organization, and in supplying the members of the church in convenient form the information they constantly need in connection with the work of the church. It
Contains Information
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Paper CoversPrice, 25 cents
The Situation and the Remedy
By Editor
One of the resolutions presented to the meeting of clergymen and laymen recently held in this city, and mentioned in our last issue, reads as follows:—
Resolved, That a careful study of the moral life of our people reveals symptoms of decay, which seriously threaten the soundness and stability of the body politic. When we consider the abnormal increase of crime in the last twenty-five years,—it has grown four times as fast as the population,—we can not but feel that we are face to face with a national peril of a most serious character.
This resolution was prepared by one of the leading clergymen of this city, and although it was not passed by the meeting, but was referred in connection with others to a committee for further consideration, yet there is much significance in the fact that “the abnormal increase of crime,” which was declared to indicate “a national peril of a most serious character” was made the principal basis for the movement to secure in the public schools “instruction in the fundamental principles of morality and religion.”
This resolution sets forth a truth which many thinking men are no longer able to deny. An editorial in the REVIEW of December 8 dealt quite fully with this matter, and quoted at some length from a magazine article in which the testimony of leading writers and thinkers and carefully compiled statistics covering a period of years, were given. The daily record of crimes of violence of all kinds, of robbery and embezzlement, and of offenses against the law on the part of prominent men in the financial, political, and social world, constitutes a terrible indictment against public morality, and is seriously disturbing the confidence of many in the idea that the world is growing better. We agree with the general tenor of the resolution. We furthermore agree with the claim that this “ominous and alarming increase of crime” is due in large degree to the “neglect of moral and religious instruction,” but we locate the neglect in the church and the home, and not in the public schools. And we place the first and the chief responsibility upon the religious teachers who, in order to avoid the claims of the fourth commandment,4have failed to press home upon the consciences of the people the law of God as the rule of conduct, and, on the contrary, by their acceptance of the conclusions of an infidel science, have weakened the confidence of the people in the authority of the Word of God, and have removed the barriers against the spirit of lawlessness.
Here is the root of the difficulty. God’s law has been made void in the churches. The standard of righteousness has been lowered, and sin, the transgression of God’s law, has been permitted to pass unrebuked, while human tradition and philosophical speculation have been exalted in the place of divinely revealed truth. But now, when the inevitable fruit of all this departure from God begins to appear, it is declared that “one of the obvious and potent causes of this ominous and alarming increase of crime is to be found in the too frequent neglect of moral and religious instruction in our schools—public and private.” When put into a brief form, the argument runs thus: There is an alarming increase of crime; religion has not been taught in the public schools; therefore the increase of crime is due to this cause, and religious instruction must be given in these schools. Those who fail to be convinced by this reasoning, and who oppose the movement to introduce religious instruction in state schools, are charged with hindering the effort to stay the further increase of crime. If those who propose this remedy for a serious situation really knew what was involved in it, they would realize that their proposed action would end in making a bad matter worse. The only religion which Cæsar can teach is Cæsar’s religion, and “all the persecutions of the Romish Church, and, indeed, all the persecutions that have existed in the name of Christianity, have had their basis in state theology.”
In another resolution it was affirmed that “the code of precepts known as the ten commandments forms incomparably the best basis for the teaching of morality,” and it was therefore urged that the Board of Education be petitioned to introduce the study of these ten commandments into the public schools. It is certain that the law of God is the best and only basis for genuine morality, and if the observance of this law had been urged upon the people under the convicting power of the Spirit of God, the condition of things in the world might have been vastly different from what it is at the present time, but the state was never ordained of God to teach his law. This confusion of ideas upon the whole subject indicates the need of presenting clearly to the people the principles of truth found in the third angel’s message. While granting the great increase of crime, and admitting that the ten commandments ought to be taught as the only sound basis for morality, we call upon the church to do its duty instead of petitioning the state to undertake a work wholly outside of the purpose for which it exists. Let the eternal and unchangeable law of God be taught in the church and in the home. Let the Word of God be restored to its place of undisputed authority. Let the family altars be erected again in the homes where prayer is neglected. Then there will be in the hearts of those willing to receive it a power which makes for righteousness, and an influence will be exerted to hold in check the spirit of lawlessness. This is the only proper remedy for the situation.
Editorial
By Editor
A People With a Mission
Of the forerunner of Jesus it is said: “There came a man, sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, that he might bear witness of the light.” John the Baptist was a man of providence who had a divine commission. He was sent from God to bear witness of the light. In fulfilling this commission he prepared the way for the first advent of Christ. It is just as certain that in these last days the Lord has raised up a people to bear witness of the light, and in doing so they will prepare the way for the second advent of Christ. This people has a mission. We are to be witnesses for the truth. In public and in private, by word of mouth and through the medium of the printed page, in every legitimate way we are to set forth the truth for this time. “The Lord has a work to be done in this world, and it will be done, even though all the host of the powers of darkness shall be summoned to obstruct the way. In his own time God will cause the truth to triumph. We must be wide-awake, quick to recognize the movings of the providence of God. We must keep our own counsel, not giving the enemy any advantage. The Lord is looking on; the Lord is opening ways whereby the truth shall gain the ascendancy; for truth is the habitation of his throne.” Just now is the time to come up “to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty.” Higher than ever is the standard to be raised bearing the inscription, “The commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.” The time of test is upon us, and this people must be true to its mission to bear witness to the truth.
Pantheistic Atheism
THERE are various ways of denying the existence of the true God, as revealed in his Word. Some do this openly. “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.” There is no difficulty in recognizing this kind of atheism. It wears no mask with which to conceal its hideous folly. Another way of denying the true God is to acknowledge many gods. The heathenism of the Athenians was broad enough to include “the unknown god,” to whom they erected an altar, but their city “full of idols” testified to their rejection of the living God. The modern way of denying the existence of God is to hold such a false conception of his nature and being as gives no place for him as a real, personal God. The present tendency to evolve the thought of God from the human interpretation of the teaching of nature, rather than to accept the teaching of the Bible, is simply latter-day atheism. “Of himself he [man] can not interpret nature without placing it above God. . . . In its human wisdom the world knows not God. Its wise men gather an imperfect knowledge of him from his created works; but this knowledge . . . tends to make men idolaters.” What is really involved in the idea of “the Immanent God,” now being urged as the very essence of religion, has been well expressed in the following quotation from an English writer: “For want of the restraining guidance of a true religion, men to whom these thoughts of the nearness of God to man and to all that is, have come home, as flowing from any worthy, even natural, thought about God and nature, have thrown them, sometimes (not always), into a pantheistic, and so untrue and dangerous, form and connection; when they have so dwelt on the universal, ever and everywhere, present immanence of God in nature and in man as to identify and confound God with creation; to the loss of the overpowering and controlling thought of his awful and transcendent personality, and of the absolute incomprehensible, purely spiritual, nature of his supreme essence and being. Such a system is clearly atheistic. An impersonal God is no God at all. The very conception of such a God is to us impossible, any true sense of the word ‘God’ being maintained.” And this pantheistic atheism is the most dangerous form of atheism.
The Enlarging Work
By William Ambrose Spicer
THERE has been cheering expansion of our work into new fields in recent years. The work itself has forged ahead. New territory has been annexed almost without the effort of any man. The duty of our mission organizations has been to follow on after the extending work, lagging often far behind the compelling providences of God.
We have a new geography of missions to learn. Names not often on our lips a few years ago now designate lands where this message is winning victories. Within a few months we have had to learn in a new way of war-swept Korea, of Amoy and the Fuhkien province of China, Burma, Ceylon, Singapore and the Straits Settlements, Ecuador, Peru, Portugal, Cuba, and Barotseland, beyond the Zambesi. The work has pressed into new regions in all the older mission fields. It is coming literally to pass: “Thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left.”
This rapid expansion brings tremendous pressure upon mission finance. Just a little added to each of forty or fifty stations means a large sum total. And the natural thing, after the seed of truth has been planted in new and vast fields, and the fruits begin to appear, is a call for more help and added resources to cope with the stirring situation. The field of operations has extended in greater proportion than the increase of mission funds. In consequence, the Mission Board has had painfully but resolutely to settle down to the policy of sending no new recruits to the fields for the present, save as the ordinary income increases, or special cases are met by special funds.
This means no little disappointment to needy fields and to workers longing to go. But the fields respond nobly, and will press forward with the resources at command and join in praying for a great missionary awakening that shall build up the regular sources of income. As these are enlarged, the work may be enlarged.
Dr. Pierson has aptly illustrated this demand for enlarged income to correspond with growth in the field by the case of the healthy lad who is continually making new demands by outgrowing his clothes. He adds:—
If any are inclined to find occasion for fault-finding in the fact that the work of our missionary societies expands so as to exceed their income, I could take such to see a mother whose boy, though twenty years old, is still an infant, and can wear the same garments as ten years ago. But what mother would not gladly exchange such a cripple for a healthy, roistering boy, that it is impossible to keep in trousers and shoes! Never let us complain because God's work perpetually demands larger supplies: that is the grand evidence of its divine progress and success.
No complaint can come from us, at any rate, on this score; for our very existence demands constant expansion into new territory until every nation and tongue is brought within the bounds of our work. We must enlarge the place of our tent, and stretch forth the curtain of our habitation. This means increasing effort, and that is what we Seventh-day Adventists live for, and the only thing for which we are in this cause. If in a business-like way every believer plans to regularly sustain the mission funds week by week, it will be but a little time ere the Mission Board can again begin to send out new recruits.
As it is, volunteers for the fields are being held back for a time. Dr. Law Keen has arranged to work for the summer with our California friends in building up the San Francisco Chinese work, instead of going on to China. The Brethren Bond will work in this country for a time, instead of returning to Spain, a great field now for a time left with only Elder W. Robinson and his wife. Requests for increased appropriations in various fields are denied. The staff in the West Indies is to be reduced somewhat, to bring its operations within former appropriations. Thus, all round, the fields must feel the pressure as they endeavor to keep the growing work within the estimates of former years. The truth will march on, and will annex still more territory. This message is going to the world. But the situation calls for a continuous and systematic increase of the regular funds for missions. Isaiah's words are for us at this time: “Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations; spare not: lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes. For thou shalt spread abroad on the right hand and on the left; and thy seed shall possess the nations.” Isaiah 54.
W. A. S.
A Significant Episode in Life Insurance Management
By L. A. S.
LIFE insurance circles were recently agitated by some disclosures relating to the management of an insurance company which is spoken of as “perhaps the most conspicuous institution in the whole world of insurance and finance,” which are not calculated to increase public confidence in such organizations. The company in question is the Equitable Life Assurance Society, of New York City. This organization has six hundred thousand policy-holders, assets of over four hundred millions of dollars, and includes among its directors many men of note in the financial world.
This society is a stock company, capitalized at one hundred thousand dollars, consisting of one thousand shares of the par value of one hundred dollars each, and limited as to dividends to seven per cent per annum. The income which can be legitimately derived from the entire capital stock is seven thousand dollars per annum. The society was controlled by the shares of stock, and the policy-holders had no voice in its management. Something over half this stock is owned by the family of one man, Mr. James H. Hyde, son of the founder of the Equitable Life, from whom he derived his interest in the same by inheritance. Mr. Hyde is vice-president of the organization.
For this controlling interest in the society, the whole legitimate income from whose entire capital stock could be, as stated, but seven thousand dollars per annum, it is stated that Mr. Hyde was offered by Mr. E. H. Harriman and his associates the sum of five million dollars. The reader can judge as to the purpose for which Mr. Harriman wished to get control of the Equitable’s stock; that is, as to whether he wished it for its legitimate or for its speculative value. Certainly this vast sum was not offered to purchase the legitimate use of less than one hundred thousand dollars’ worth of property. But, as the New York Sun observed, “The speculative value of Mr. Hyde’s shares makes them cheap on the basis of five million dollars of cash for fifty-one thousand dollars’ worth of actual property.” To control the management of the vast interests of this great corporation, with its enormous resources and business which reaches out across the ocean, and to use this control to back up transactions of a speculative and stock-jobbing character, is worth more than five million dollars from a monetary point of view.
This offer precipitated trouble in the organization, and a petition was presented to the board of directors by the society’s officials, calling for the removal of Mr. Hyde from office, and asking that policy-holders be invested with the right to vote on questions relating to the management of their own property. At a meeting of the directors it was decided that policy-holders should be given this right, and the internal dissensions were quieted without taking the contemplated action against the vice-president, thus removing the threatened danger of control of the organization for purposes wholly foreign to those for which it was founded. But the incident throws a shadow over the whole realm of life insurance corporations, and leaves open a field for disquieting contemplation. The problem of regenerating the corporation, so as to make it the friend, and not the enemy, of the common people, and bar out the increasing tendency to use its resources for speculative rather than legitimate business purposes, is coming to be, says Judge Grosscup of the Chicago federal court, “the paramount political problem of our time.” In the case of the Equitable Life Assurance Society we have, says the New York Sun, “the broad disclosure of the stock-jobbing possibilities of a life insurance corporation, which are inseparable from its pseudo-mutual character.” The whole tendency of the times, in business, in politics, and in religion, is to cut loose from safe and legitimate principles and methods, and plunge into the new and untried realm of speculation, in the hope of greater achievements than have been reached by the sober men of the past. On all sides are to be seen the evidences of it. And these things should remind the people of God that it is high time to cut loose from the world, and make sure of their connection with a better realm.
L. A. S.
“Behold How He Loved Him”
By I. H. Evans
A HOME had been stricken with death; the black pall of desolation was covering the hearts of Mary and Martha. Their brother Lazarus was dead, and in yonder grave they had laid him, and placed the silent stone to guard his sleeping. To them the home circle had been broken forever, and they awaited the resurrection, ere the wound could be healed.
Jesus had often been an inmate of that household; well did he know the sweet perfume of that loving family. None could feel the sting of death more keenly than he who had come to give life. Jesus stood outside the city while the sisters told the sad tale of their brother’s decease and burial, and how he longed to behold the face of Jesus before he died.
Touched with the grief and sorrow of those he so tenderly loved, the heart of Jesus could no longer hold its sorrow, and he poured forth his soul in a flood of tears. “Jesus wept.”
In all his earthly ministry, what event in the life of Christ has comforted more hearts than this? We see him in the wilderness amid temptations, and we triumph in his strength; we see him in the temple, overturning the tables of the money-changers, driving the extortioners thence, and we rejoice in his power; we behold him before the multitude, warning them against the hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees, and we adore his courage; upon yonder mountain we gaze with worshipful admiration as we behold his glory in his transfiguration; we see him before Pilate and Herod, and dying in agony upon the cross without a murmur, and we worship at his feet: but here,—here in a home of grief and sorrow, while our hearts are bleeding from the cruel wounds of death, and our flood-tide of tears will not stay their flowing, we see our blessed Jesus weeping, too, and now we love him.
The Jews were touched as they saw the Son of God in tears, and they said, “Behold how he loved him!”
For nineteen hundred years these words have echoed from heart to heart, “Behold how he loved him!” If all the tongues of all the ages should give voice to that one phrase, “Behold how he loved him!” still the half would be never told.
The consciousness of sympathetic love is one of the strongest supports that can come to mortals’ aid, and is excelled only by love itself. Gold can not buy it, nor power nor honor among men equal it; it stands paramount to every outside consideration.
What strength has been imparted to many a young man when once he has realized a mother’s love! Won by a mother’s devotion, how he has resolved to quit the life of sin, and walk in the paths of obedience. A clergyman’s wayward son was in a strong revival meeting; many were giving themselves to God. One servant after another had gone to this youth to win him to yield to the Spirit’s wooings, but all in vain. His mother, an invalid, and who soon must die, at last went to his side, and placed her hand of love upon his shoulder, and said to him, “My boy, you know I love you. While I live, let me have the unspeakable joy of seeing you give your heart to God.” A flood of tears ran down his cheeks, and he said, “Mother, your love compels me; I will be a different boy; I will serve God henceforth.”
Who has not read the story of that nobleman’s son in France, who ran away and left his home? His father spent a fortune trying to find him, and when the mother had died, and the old man had spent all in vain in a search for his wayward son, he heard that he was in6America. He came to New York and wandered from city to city, making inquiry on every hand, endeavoring to find his boy, but all in vain. Year after year he wandered from city to city, and from hamlet to hamlet, and when he was about to die, he said, “I must do something to convey to my child my undying love.” Among the rocks and forests of the wild West, he wrote upon stone and tree, “Jean Baptiste, your father loves you.” One day his son was passing through the country, and he saw these words on a rock: “Jean Baptiste, your father loves you.” It went to his heart. He said, “That is my name, can it be that my father is still living, and still can love me?” He wrote to Paris, and found that his father had come to America years before in search of his son, and now he began the search for his father, and at last they met. Won by a father’s love.
Dear reader, take your Bible, and read the whole of Isaiah 53, and tell me if there is not described in that chapter the heights and depths of unmeasurable love. It matters little about your failings and weaknesses, your Father loves you in spite of all these. Wanderer from the voice of God, only listen to these words of love: “Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.” “Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands,” and again, “He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye.”
“Wondrous words; how rich in blessing,
Deeper than the unfathomed sea;
Broader than its world of waters,
Boundless, infinite, and free.
Higher than the heavens above,
Is thine everlasting love.”
To know that God loves, and to live in the sunshine of that love, is the privilege of every Christian. In the hour of temptation, it will be a tower of strength; in the time of storm and tempest, it will be a beacon light to guide our course; in the hour of grief and sorrow, when desolation has swept everything before it, and our lives seem but wrecks, then we are comforted to behold Jesus, weeping in sympathetic sorrow by our side, and we can say, “Behold how he loves us.”
Who can see love unrequited without a tear? I have seen wives whose companions no longer loved them, and, as I saw their grief and sorrow chiseling its furrows in their brows my heart was stirred to pity. Have you never seen some one that truly loved, and yet that love and devotion found no response? How you have tried to comfort the aching heart. “O!” you say, “it breaks my heart to see love unanswered. I can not endure it.” But look at Jesus, and behold how much he loves you, not in a weak, passionate strain, but with a broad, deep, abiding love, a love so deep that no human heart has ever yet sounded its depths, and no human soul has ascended to its heights, and no life has ever yet measured its length and breadth. Before it we bow in adoration, and say, “Behold how he loves me;” and as we contemplate his unselfish, his undying love, our hearts cry out, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” Is there not some service that we can render to show our appreciation of such unselfish love?
“O Christ, Redeemer, Master! I who stand
Beneath the pressure of thy gracious hand,
What is the service thou wouldst have for me?
What is the burden to be borne for thee?
I, too, would say, though care and fear exhaust,
What matters it? Love counteth not the cost.”
I. H. EVANS.
The Educational Controversy in Washington
By W. A. Colcord
Why Sunday Laws and Religious Instruction in Public Schools Are Demanded
THERE is a decided determination on the part of a certain class in Washington to make religion a part of the government system. This is manifested, first, in the effort to secure Sunday legislation for the District of Columbia; and, second, in a movement recently started, to introduce a system of religious instruction into the public schools of Washington, a report of which appeared in last week's REVIEW.
The church having left the pure doctrines and principles of the gospel, and failing to look to the Holy Spirit for guidance and for power with which to carry on the work of the church, we can quite understand how certain church leaders of to-day are making this false move and this fatal attempt to reform matters by an appeal to the state. Much of the religion of the present time lacks vitality. The real inspiration, the living breath, of God is not in it. The form of godliness is retained, but a course is taken which denies the presence of the living power of God to save men from sin. Hence power is looked for from another source. And, as to the natural eye and understanding nothing is in sight which seems to possess so much available power and active machinery for accomplishing results as does the state, appeal is made by these leaders of religious thought to the state to do the work which should be done by the church. The power of God having been not only lost, but lost sight of, the strong arm of the state is very naturally sought.
And why is this power sought first of all in the matters of Sabbath observance and religious instruction? This also is easy to understand. The Sabbath and the family are two divine institutions which have come down to us from Eden. Preserved in their purity and rightly regarded, they are two connecting links between earth and heaven, between man and God. The Sabbath is the sign and the constant reminder of the Creator. The family is the heaven-appointed school where the children are to be instructed in the knowledge and fear of God. There is no reminder of God like the Sabbath; there is no school like the home. But when the Sabbath is disregarded, or when the institution as originally ordained is changed or perverted; and when religion is no longer taught in the home, and the children grow up without hearing from the lips of father and mother of the God who made them, and the Saviour who died for them, the high and holy ends of these two great institutions are frustrated, and irreligion, godlessness, crime, and lawlessness are the sure and inevitable results.
This being so, the only logical and consistent corrective for this irreligious and demoralized state of things, as must be apparent to every one, is a return to the keeping of the Sabbath of the Lord and to the teaching of religion in the home. A true Sabbath reform and a genuine educational reform is the only real solution to the question. But, unwilling to go to the root of the evil and make these necessary reforms, men are asking the state to enforce the observance of a sabbath for which there is no divine command, and to teach in its schools that which it is neither adapted nor ordained to teach.
Thus it is in Washington. This is exactly the course which is being pursued by religious leaders at the capital of the nation. First, Sunday laws are demanded, and then religious instruction in the public schools is called for. These two things—the enforcement of the false sabbath and a state-taught religion—naturally go together, just as the keeping of the true Sabbath and the true method of education go hand in hand. With the willingness and the desire to obey God and keep all his commandments go the willingness and the desire to bring up the children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. On the other hand, with the unwillingness to keep God's commandments, and especially the fourth commandment, go the unwillingness and the unfitness to teach the children the way of the Lord. But realizing nevertheless that the children need such instruction, and that the present7irreligious and demoralized state of society is largely due to the lack of such instruction, men are seeking to shift the burden and responsibility of this work from the home and the church, where it rightly belongs, to the public-school teacher and the state, where it does not and never can rightly belong.
And this situation is not peculiar to Washington. What is demanded here is being demanded everywhere. The condition which we face here is the condition we must face everywhere. The general disregard of the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, and the almost total neglect of religion in the home, are bringing about a fearful state of things morally. And as men refuse to reform and to accept God's way out of the difficulty, we must expect that the demands upon the state for help, both in the matter of Sabbath observance and in that of religious instruction, will likewise become universal. And all this only emphasizes the fact that we must be prepared to meet the situation as it is wherever we are, and to set forth both by example and by precept the real reform and solution to the whole question. Let us be sure that we do not neglect religion in our own homes. And let it be of that sort that has light, and breadth, and joy, and love, and sweetness in it.