A REVIEW OF SUNDAY LEGISLATION IN CENTURY NINETEEN. NO. 6.
THE INQUISITION.
PAPAL ROME finds precedent for all her doctrines and practices in Holy Writ. I do not say that Holy Writ contains precedent for all or any of her doctrines and practices. I simply aver that she thinks she finds it there; but that is not saying that it is there. The Roman Catholic Church quotes the Bible in support of her theories; so did Satan in support of his. Matt. 4:1-11.
The Inquisition is one of the most diabolically gross abuses that ever disgraced humanity. Nevertheless, Rome is blasphemous enough to rest the authority of this infamous tribunal on the word of God.
According to a well-known Roman Catholic historian, God himself was the first Inquisitor General. In the death penalty announced to Adam and Eve,—"In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Gen. 2: 17),—precedent is found for inflicting capital punishment on heretics. Because our first parents were heretics, they had left the true faith. Again, the Lord turned them out of the Garden of Eden; this was the confiscation of the property of heretics. Thirdly, the Almighty made them "coats of skins, and clothed them." Gen. 3:21. This was the model of the san benito. The san benito were coarse woolen garments, in which the heretic was arrayed for the auto da fé, the name given to the ceremony accompanying the burning of the victims. These garments were brought close round the neck, and descended like a frock, down to the knees. They were of a yellow color, embroidered with a scarlet cross, and well garnished with figures of devils and flames of fire, which, typical of the heretic's destiny hereafter, served to make him more odious in the eyes of the superstitious multitude. In certain cases the garment was also adorned with the picture of the wearer, burning in flames, with several figures of dragons and devils in the act of fanning them.
Such is a papal exegesis of Gen. 2:3. I cite it thus fully that the people of the United States may know the origin of the religion which they possess, according to the finding of the Supreme Court.
Again I quote from Puighblanch:—
The defenders of the Inquisition, unmindful of the proofs just alleged, or, rather, without having fully weighed their merits, or examined the matter with due consideration, pretend to find in Jesus Christ and his apostles examples to authorize this rigor. Our divine Saviour, say they, with a scourge drove the traders from the temple who bought and sold therein. After his ascension to heaven he also appeared to Saul when persecuting the Christians, and struck him down from his horse, leaving him without sight.
So much for the divine (?) origin of the Inquisition, the religion of the American people, according to Justice Brewer. This is an example of the Roman Catholic method, if method it can be called, of interpreting Scripture. This is the way in which the most diabolical institution ever conceived of in the mind of man is warranted (?) by the word of God.
THE RISE OF THE INQUISITION.
The Inquisition has existed in principle ever since the fourth century, when Christianity became the established religion of the Roman Empire; but acts of intolerance do not seem to have flowed from any systematized plan of persecution until the papal authority had risen to a considerable height.
Inquisitorial missions were first sent out by Pope Innocent III., 1210-1215, against the Albigenses, who dwelt under the shadow of the lofty Pyrenees in Southern France. They were a most peaceable and polished people, and the only national crime of which they had ever been guilty was that of rejecting with shrinking horror the blasphemous doctrines and blood-curdling practices of the Roman Catholic Church, whose clergy were regarded with loathing and contempt. "Viler than a priest," "I would as soon be a priest," became proverbial expressions. "The Papacy had lost all authority with all classes, from the great feudal princes down to the cultivators of the soil." How beautiful their land, how elegant their manners, how advanced, for that barbarous age, their scientific research, how cruel their extermination, the pen of Lord Macaulay has perfectly delineated.
THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN.
In the year 1480, during the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Holy Office was established in Spain. It was inaugurated for the benefit of the Jews, not primarily because they were heretics, but because they were wealthy, and Rome needed money. This is a serious charge, but, nevertheless, a true one, and I am prepared to sustain it.
These unfortunate members of the race of Israel were not only wealthy, but they had gradually risen in political eminence, until they were the incumbents of the highest civil offices. They made great advancement in various departments of letters. The schools of Cardova, Toledo, Barcelona, and Granada were crowded with students. It was the Jews and the Arabs who kept alive the flame of learning, during the mythological twilight of the Middle Ages. They frequently resided at the courts of Catholic princes, as ministers of finance, situations which they were eminently qualified to fill.
But royal patronage proved incompetent to save them from the bloody hand of Rome, when their "flourishing fortunes had risen to a133sufficient height" to excite her envy. I quote from Prescott:—
Stories were circulated of their contempt for the Catholic worship, their desecration of its most holy symbols, and of their crucifixion, or other sacrifice, of Christian children, at the celebration of their own passover. . . . At length toward the close of the fourteenth century the fanatical populace, stimulated in many instances by the no less fanatical clergy, and perhaps encouraged by the numerous class of debtors to the Jews, who found this a convenient mode of settling their accounts, made a fierce assault on this unfortunate people in Castile and Aragon, breaking into their houses, violating their most private sanctuaries, scattering their costly collections and furniture, and consigning the wretched proprietors to indiscriminate massacre, without regard to sex or age.
On account of this barbarous treatment many of the Spanish Jews feigned conversion to Christianity. Such was their spiritual condition when Ferdinand and Isabella assumed the reins of government. During their reign complaints against Jewish heresy became more and more frequent, and the throne was repeatedly beset with petitions to devise some means for its extirpation. The words of the Curate of Los Palacios, who lived at this time, throw considerable light on "the real as well as pretended motives of the subsequent persecution":—
This accursed race were either unwilling to bring their children to be baptized, or, if they did, they washed away the stain on returning home. They dressed their stews and other dishes with oil, instead of lard; abstained from pork; kept the passover; ate meat in Lent; and sent oil to replenish the lamps in their synagogues, with many other abominable ceremonies of their religion. . . . They were an exceeding politic and ambitious people, engrossing the most lucrative municipal offices.
No wonder Prescott remarks, after quoting the above:—
It is easy to discern in this medley of credulity and superstition the secret envy entertained by the Castilians of the superior skill and industry of their Hebrew brethren, and of the superior riches which these qualities secured to them; and it is impossible not to suspect that the zeal of the most orthodox was considerably sharpened by worldly motives. . . . FERDINAND LISTENED WITH COMPLACENCY TO A SCHEME WHICH PROMISED AN AMPLE SOURCE OF REVENUE IN THE CONFISCATIONS IT INVOLVED.
To Isabella's honor be it spoken, frequent importunities on the part of the clergy were necessary before she yielded her consent to having the Inquisition established in her dominions. But she at last gave way, "Sixtus the Fourth, who at that time filled the pontifical chair, easily discerning the sources of wealth and influence which this measure [the establishment of the Inquisition in Spain] opened to the court of Rome, readily complied with the petitions of the sovereigns, and expedited a bull, bearing date November 1, 1478, authorizing them to appoint two or three ecclesiastics, Inquisitors for the detection and suppression of heresy throughout their dominions."
Ferdinand and Isabella issued a decree expelling from Spain every Jew who refused to deny his faith, so that the soil of Spain might be no longer polluted by the presence of unbelievers. To make them Christians, or, failing in that, to exterminate them, was the business of the Inquisition.
Of course many of the Jews declared, when the terrible words which constituted the form of arrest, "DELIVER YOURSELF UP A PRISONER TO THE INQUISITION!" were whispered in their ear, that they were not Jews but Catholics. It then became necessary to prove that they were Jews. Here are some of the points by which the charge of Judaism was established against them:—
It was considered good evidence of the fact if the prisoner wore better clothes or cleaner linen on the Jewish Sabbath than on any other day of the week; if he had no fire in his house the preceding evening; if he sat at table with Jews, or ate the meat of animals slaughtered by their hands, or drank a certain beverage held in much estimation by them; if he washed a corpse in warm water, or when dying turned his face to the wall; or, finally, if he gave Hebrew names to his children, a provision most whimsically cruel, since, by a law of Henry the second, he was prohibited under severe penalties from giving them Christian names. He must have found it difficult to extricate himself from the horns of this dilemma. Such are a few of the circumstances, some of them purely accidental in their nature, others the result of early habit, which might well have continued after a sincere conversion to Christianity, and all of them trivial, on which capital accusations were to be alleged, and even satisfactorily established.
I give this quotation from Llorente, as he is a writer most competent to unveil the hidden mysteries of the Inquisition. He was secretary to that tribunal in Madrid from 1790-1792. He devoted several years to a thorough investigation of the records of the tribunals, as well as of other original documents contained in their archives.
And all of this wickedness, according to the finding of the Supreme Court, is the religion of the American people. I do not agree with the learned judge in his application of his "historical citations," but Rome does, and she will, as surely as the sun rises and sets, seek to enforce her dogmas by means of the Inquisition, upon those of the American people who disagree with her and the Supreme Court. And woe be to the rich among the American people, for she will confiscate their property to her own coffers; even although they may accept her dogmas, they will not be safe. Her history shows clearly that the more you give her, the more she wants. You may accept her creeds and dogmas, you may profess Catholicism; but just as certainly as you do, she will drain your purse of all its wealth, and she will tax you as individuals and as a nation till bankruptcy, personal and national, stares you in the face. I say this advisedly, because all history confirms it. If not, I ask her, "Why was it that those German princes, inveterate enemies of Luther and the reformed doctrines, arose at the Diet of Worms, in 1521, and declaimed against her?" And there were such speeches, and here is one, made before that august assembly by Duke George of Saxony, a man who hated Luther from the depth of his soul:—
The Diet must not forget its grievances against the court of Rome. . . . The annats, which the emperor granted for the good of Christianity, now exacted as a due; the Roman courtiers daily inventing new regulations to monopolize, sell, and lease the ecclesiastical benefices; a multitude of transgressions connived at; rich transgressors undeservedly tolerated, while those who have no money to purchase impunity are punished without mercy; . . . stalls for the sale of indulgences set up in every street and public place of our cities; . . . companies purchasing at Rome the right to hold such markets, and then buying permission of their bishop to display their wares, and squeezing and draining the pockets of the poor to obtain money. . . . All shame has been put aside, and their only object is money, money, money.
Duke George of Saxony was a Roman Catholic; so were all the men who composed the Diet of Worms. Roman Catholicism was the religion of the country; it was their own creed. But they saw it meant
NATIONAL RUIN.
And we desire that every American should see that also,—that the Papacy as the religion of America means spiritual ruin to the individual who accepts it, and national ruin to the government that indorses it.
I have shown how it was in Germany, and here is a record of the crisis in England:—
When England began to resist the Papacy, it began to grow in power and wealth. Loosening its neck from the yoke of Rome, it lifted up its head proudly among the nations. [Pope] Innocent III., crowning a series of usurpations by the submission of King John—an act of baseness that stands alone in the annals of England—had sustained himself master of the kingdom. But the great pontiff was bidden, somewhat gruffly, stand off. The Northern nobles, who knew little about theology but cared a great deal for independence, would be masters in their own isle, and they let the haughty wearer of the tiara know this when they framed the Magna Charta. . . .
This was the moment chosen by [Pope] Urban V. to advance his insolent demand. . . . The king [Edward III.] . . . was in no mood for repairing to Rome, as Urban commanded, and paying down a thousand marks for permission to wear the crown which he was so well able to defend with his sword. Edward assembled his parliament in 1366, and, laying the pope's letter before it, bade it take counsel and say what answer should be returned. . . . They assembled again on the morrow—prelates, lords, and commons.
Several barons spoke against the papal extortions and usurpations. Then arose one, who, following in the line of other speakers, said:—
"The pope . . . calls himself the servant of the servants of God. Very well; he can claim recompense only for service done. But where are the services which he renders to this land? Does he minister to us in spirituals? Does he help us in temporals? Does he not rather greedily drain our treasuries, and often for the benefit of our enemies? I give my voice against this tribute."
"On what grounds was this tribute originally demanded?" asked another. "Was it not for absolving King John, and relieving the kingdom from interdict? But to bestow spiritual benefits for money is sheer simony; it is a piece of ecclesiastical swindling. Let the lords spiritual and temporal wash their hands of a transaction so disgraceful. But if it is as feudal superior of the kingdom that the pope demands this tribute, why ask a thousand marks? why not ask the throne, the soil, the people of England? If his title is good for a thousand marks, it is good for a great deal more. The pope, on the same principle, may declare the throne vacant, and fill it with whomsoever he pleases." . . . "Let us," said the last speaker, "go at once to the root of this matter. King John had no right to gift away the kingdom of England without the consent of the nation. That consent was never given."
Let all true Americans, aye, and all true Christians, say amen. For well would it be for this people if they would "go to the root of this matter," and say with a mighty shout that the Supreme Court "had no right to gift away" the United States "without the consent of the nation." And well would it be for them if they would add, as did that gallant knight of England, "We hold the bargain null and void from the beginning."
I give these quotations at length so that all may see what the statesmen of the two greatest countries of the Old World have seen to be the inevitable result of papal domination, i.e., NATIONAL RUIN. They threw off the Roman yoke, and their lives were prolonged. Rome134is a cruel foe, and to be dreaded; but ten thousand times more so is she a cruel mistress, and as such to be resisted. Every country that she has ever ruled, she has ruined, ruined in things temporal and ruined in things spiritual. Will you indorse her domination, as purchased by the Supreme Court, with the ruin it involves? or will you repudiate it, by standing under the blood-stained banner of Jesus, awaiting the reward he is so soon to bring?
CHRIST SEEKS THE LOST THROUGH HUMAN AGENTS.
By Mrs. E. G. White
"God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
The scribes and Pharisees had built up a wall of separation between their nation and every other people. They passed by the publicans and sinners, as though communication with them would bring upon them some moral defilement. Imagine their contempt of Christ when he received publicans and sinners and ate with them. The Lord desired to break down the wall of separation; for he loved the souls who had never known a better way. He is no respecter of persons, and will-eth not the death of any sinner, but would that all men might come unto him and live.
In this age, as then, there are lost sheep to be sought and saved. There are many who need personal labor. No prophet, like John the Baptist, has cried out the message of warning to them. No one has pointed them to "the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." But this is not because the Lord has no interest in these souls who are ready to perish, represented as lost sheep. But the Lord is not chargeable with any neglect on his part. Look to Calvary and answer decidedly, No, no. The Lord has made every provision to save men in giving his Son. Jesus thought it not robbery to be equal with God, for in him dwelleth all the fullness of the godhead bodily. When he claimed the highest prerogatives, he did not make an empty boast. Yet when he was among men, he did not call together a concourse of people, and sound a trumpet before him, and command attention. The great Teacher came in simplicity, though he was the light of the world. He taught the people in plain, simple words, which all could understand. He said, "As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father. . . . My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one." "All things that the Father hath are mine." With the familiarity and ease of eternal habitude, Jesus lays his hand on the throne of God.135In giving Jesus to the world God gave all heaven in one gift. Then why is it, when God has left nothing undone that could be done, that there are not more brought from darkness to light?—It is because the human will does not coöperate with the divine intelligences. If the Lord's will and way were carried out, humanity would be reached through humanity, and every lost prodigal would be brought home, and saved through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who tasted death for every man. Sin would no longer exist. But it is humanity that bars the way. It is for lack of the copartnership of man, because of rebellion, that the way is blocked up. The revelation of God's truth comes to us through human agents. Christ came to the world as the Son of Man. This was the only way in which he could reach humanity. Jesus enters into humanity, that through his power and grace humanity may become partaker of the divine nature. "Ye are laborers together with God." Man must coöperate with Jesus Christ, and through earnest endeavor work out his own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God that worketh in us to will and to do of his good pleasure. Man works out what God works in, not by means of finite endeavor, but by the strength imparted through the divine nature. Those who are building up a Christlike character, will not, cannot, withhold their interest from the work of aiding Christ in seeking and saving that which is lost.
The Jews looked upon the whole world as cursed, and Satan claimed the world. He claimed the publicans and sinners as his own subjects, but Christ came to dispute his claims and challenge his usurped authority. In this work man is brought into coöperation with God, and is to work as God works for the salvation of fallen men. What are we individually doing to let our light shine forth to others? It is the neglect of men in failing to coöperate with Jesus that leaves the world so long unreclaimed. Jesus has said of his followers, "As Thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I sent them into the world." As Christ represented the Father, so he has commissioned his believing ones to represent him in character. We are to show forth his self-denial and self-sacrifice, and to establish his kingdom in righteousness. We are to speak the words that Christ has spoken, and do the works that Christ has done. The work of Christ was not to destroy, but to save. He gave his disciples lessons that are of the highest value; for through their words many are to come to the knowledge of Bible truth, and teach others also the lessons which they have learned. The disciples were to know that they were not simply combating the influence of finite enemies, but that they were also contending with demons. Light and darkness were in opposition, truth and delusion, good and evil, heaven and hell. Satanic supernatural agencies were united with evil men to corrupt and destroy.
The publicans and sinners, so despised by the Pharisees, were drawn to Christ, and their hearts were awakened to ask, "What is truth?" The Pharisees closed their eyes and their ears lest they should see and hear and be converted from the error of their ways, and thus be saved. Heavenly intelligences watched the battle with awe and reverence. As those who are lost, and bound by Satan, struggle to burst the bands that enchain them, they are led to fly to Christ, the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. The sinful, repenting soul becomes hopeful, follows Jesus, and catches the words from his lips. Heaven looks upon the scene with rejoicing; but the scribes and Pharisees look on with lowering brow and with sneering, contemptuous words.
What a contrast is the attitude of the Pharisees to that of the angels! The angels look upon Jesus as the Commander of heaven, the Son of the highest, and see him contending with the prince of darkness. The prize for which they are battling is the human soul, for which Christ has come to die, that he may redeem the lost. It is well to contemplate the divine condescension, the sacrifice, the self-denial, the humiliation, the resistance the Son of God must encounter in doing his work for fallen men. Well may we come forth from contemplation of his sufferings, exclaiming, Amazing condescension! Angels marvel as with intense interest they watch the Son of God descending step by step the path of humiliation. It is the mystery of godliness. It is the glory of God to conceal himself and his ways, not by keeping men in ignorance of heavenly light and knowledge, but by surpassing the uttermost capacity of men to know. Humanity can comprehend in part, but that is all that man can bear. The love of Christ passes knowledge. The mystery of redemption will continue to be the mystery, the unexhausted science and everlasting song of eternity. Well may humanity exclaim, Who can know God? We may, as did Elijah, wrap our mantles about us, and listen to hear the still, small voice of God.
THE SUNDAY SCHOOLS OF THE WORLD.
THE statistics presented at the Sunday school convention in St. Louis show that the United States leads, with 123,173 Sunday schools, 1,305,949 teachers, and 9,718,422 scholars; next come England and Wales, with 37,201 Sunday schools, 585,457 teachers, and 5,976,537 scholars; Canada, with 8,336 schools, 69,521 teachers, and 576,064 scholars. Finland has 6,853 schools, with 11,534 teachers and 147,134 scholars; Switzerland, 6,637 schools, 6,916 teachers, and 113,382 scholars; Scotland, 6,275 schools, 62,994 teachers, and 694,860 scholars; Germany, 5,900 schools, 34,983 teachers, and 749,736 scholars; Sweden, 5,750 schools, 17,200 teachers, and 242,150 scholars; Australasia, 4,766 schools, 54,211 teachers, and 586,029 scholars; Ireland, 3,584 schools, 27,740 teachers, and 308,516 scholars; West Indies, 2,185 schools, 9,673 teachers, and 110,233 scholars; Holland, 1,560 schools, 4,600 teachers, and 163,000 scholars; Fiji Islands, 1,474 schools, 2,700 teachers, and 42,909 scholars; France, 1,450 schools, 3,800 teachers, and 60,000 scholars. These are all that have over 1,000 schools. Other countries are in the following order: Norway and Central America and Mexico, each 550 schools; Denmark, 506; Italy, 403; Newfoundland and Labrador, 359; South America, 350; Hawaiian Islands, 230; other islands in the Pacific, 210; Austria, 212; Belgium, 89; Spain, 88; Russia, 83; European Turkey, 35; Portugal, 11, and Greece, 4. There are no reports from most of the foreign mission fields—from Africa, India, China, Japan, Asiatic Turkey, and Persia, etc. The total given is 213,824 schools, 2,216,271 teachers, and 19,855,994 pupils.—Independent.
A HAPPY NEW YEAR.
By Hezekiah Butterworth
I SOMETIMES feel the thread of life is slender,
And soon with me the labor will be wrought;
Then grows my heart to other hearts more tender.
The time, the time is short.
A shepherd's tent of reeds and flowers decaying,
That night winds soon will crumble into naught,
So seems my life, for some rude blasts delaying.
The time, the time is short.
Up, up, my soul, the long-spent time redeeming;
Sow thou the seeds of better deed and thought;
Light other lamps while yet thy light is beaming.
The time, the time is short.
Think of the good thou might'st have done when brightly
The suns to thee life's choicest seasons brought,
Hours lost to God in pleasures passing lightly.
The time, the time is short.
Think of the drooping eyes that might have lifted
To see the good that heaven to thee hath taught;
The unhelped wrecks that past life's bark have drifted.
The time, the time is short.
Think of the feet that fall by misdirection,
Of noblest souls to loss and ruin brought,
Because their lives are barren of affection.
The time, the time is short.
The time is short. Then be thy heart a brother's
To every heart that needs thy help in aught;
Soon thou may'st need the sympathy of others.
The time, the time is short.
If thou hast friends, give them thy best endeavor,
Thy warmest impulse, and thy purest thought,
Keeping in mind, in word and action ever,
The time, the time is short.
Each thought resentful from thy mind be driven,
And cherish love by sweet forgiveness bought;
Thou soon wilt need the pitying love of heaven.
The time, the time is short.
Where summer winds, aroma-laden, hover,
Companions rest, their work forever wrought;
Soon other graves the moss and fern will cover.
The time, the time is short.
Up, up, my soul, the shade will soon be falling;
Some good return in later seasons wrought;
Forget thyself at duty's angel's calling.
The time, the time is short.
By all the lapses thou hast been forgiven,
By all the lessons prayer to thee hath taught,
To others teach the sympathies of heaven.
The time, the time is short.
To others teach the overcoming power
That thee at last to God's sweet peace hath brought;
Glad memories make to bless life's final hour.
The time, the time is short.
From what thou art each day, whate'er thy station,
Are new creations good or evil wrought;
Seek thou thy joy in others' elevation.
The time, the time is short.
—Hezekiah Butterworth.
Every Day Is Doomsday
By Ralph Waldo Emerson
ONE of the illusions is that the present hour is not the critical, decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. No man has learned anything rightly until he has learned that every day is doomsday.—Emerson.
HANDBOOK ON GEOGRAPHY.
WE heard a minister say from the pulpit the other Sabbath, "I would not go to the Bible to study geography." If he had said "modern geography," it would be true. But, as a matter of fact, the Bible is the best book on ancient geography known. There is no better handbook for modern Palestine now than the old Bible. If you are going to visit either Egypt or Palestine, you will find your Bible your best guidebook. You cannot convict Moses and Joshua and the authors of the historical books of making even geographical mistakes. The Bible is the very best text-book on even geography for all those lands, in the centuries during which it was composed.—The Occident.
DID THE DISCIPLES EXPECT CHRIST TO ARISE FROM THE DEAD?
By William Covert
BY ELDER WILLIAM COVERT.
THE accepted belief of the Jews in the days when Christ was upon the earth, was that the Messiah would build up a mighty kingdom, and rule over the nations. Of course they expected to be greatly favored under his reign. The disciples whom Jesus called to be with him during his ministry shared in the common belief of their people. They followed at his call, believing him to be the Messiah. With their understanding of what their Master's mission was, they would naturally expect that those whom he had chosen to be with him would be favored above all others, with offices of trust and honor in his kingdom.
The mighty truths of salvation from sin through the sacrifice of Christ had no place in their minds at the time they were called. It was not until after he had taught much and performed many miracles in their presence that Christ undertook to give his disciples direct instruction concerning the nature of his kingdom, and the sacrifice of himself in order to secure for them a place in it.
When he gave them their first lesson regarding his death and resurrection, "Peter took him, and began to rebuke him," and it became necessary that he should be rebuked in the presence of the other disciples. Mark 8: 31-33. Peter seems to have boastfully declared that he would by force prevent such an occurrence as the putting to death of his Master and King.
Soon after the above-mentioned interview the Saviour called the people together with his disciples, and showed them the great value of eternal life over the wealth of the world; but the disciples did not comprehend the force of the lesson, because it cut across their worldly notion about the kingdom of Israel.
The transfiguration brought the truth pertaining to the kingdom most clearly before them; and, that they might be enabled to understand the means to be provided by which they could have a part in that kingdom, there appeared in glory, at the transfiguration, Moses and Elijah, and talked with him about the decease that he should accomplish at Jerusalem. And yet they did not comprehend it, for on the way down from the mount the Saviour told them not to tell the vision to anyone until the Son of Man be risen from the dead. But they questioned "one with another what the rising from the dead should mean." It is seen, therefore, that the transfiguration, with all the accompanying instruction, did not at the time accomplish a change in their minds as to the nature of the kingdom, nor enable them to understand about the death and resurrection of Christ, nor to see the nature of the atonement. A little while after this Jesus told his disciples that he should be delivered into the hands of men, and they should kill him, and after that he should rise the third day. "But they understood not that saying, and were afraid to ask him." Mark 9: 31, 32.
Receiving instruction from the above scripture, we know that they did not yet know about the resurrection of Christ, neither did they believe that such things as he had been telling them about himself would ever take place. Besides all this, their wills were so set against having their Master die by the violence of his enemies, and, as they then thought, blast all their hopes by such an occurrence, that they did not then desire to be taught on that subject.
Notwithstanding their dullness in the matter, the Saviour proceeded to repeat the instruction as he was in the way to Jerusalem just before his crucifixion. He said to them: "The Son of Man shall be delivered unto the chief priests, and unto the scribes; and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver him to the Gentiles; and they shall mock him, and shall scourge him, and shall spit upon him, and shall kill him; and the third day he shall rise again." Mark 10: 33, 34. Luke testifies to their continued blindness regarding the death and the resurrection of Christ even after listening to this plain teaching. He says, "They understood none of these things; and this saying was hid from them, neither knew they the things which were spoken." Luke 18: 34.
This was the last lesson delivered to them on the subject before the final entry into Jerusalem, and this one was also rejected; and their minds were so dark in regard to these things that it seems that, almost immediately after it was given, James and John, through their mother, besought him to bestow upon them the first offices in the kingdom which they thought he would soon establish in Jerusalem. See Mark 10: 35; Matt. 20: 20, 21. This selfish request shows how illy prepared they were to withstand the trying ordeal that would come upon them when at last the chief temptation, arrest, trial, and death of the Saviour should come.
When the evening of the great event came, Christ knew his disciples were not prepared for the conflict upon which they were entering, because they had not received his teaching touching his humiliation and death; he therefore told them that they all should be offended because of him that night, and that they would forsake him. But they all declared with great emphasis that they would do nothing of that kind. Peter was especially emphatic as to his constancy for the Saviour. Even if all others should forsake him, he said he never should do such a fickle thing as to forsake his Lord. He was quite positive that he would go with him, if it need be so, even to prison or to death. But the sad sequel shows how worthless are all the resolutions of the unyielded heart. Not one of all who had been so confident in their professed attachment, acknowledged the Lord while he was in the hands of his enemies, and the one who had been most confident of all, thrice denied that he knew him, before the dawn of the coming morning. Had the disciples understood, and believed, what they had been taught in regard to the death and the resurrection of the Son of God, their conduct would have been very different from what it was. And to them all their hopes perished when Christ was crucified, and they were left of all men the most wretched and forlorn. They felt that they were left to endure a life of shame and disgrace, while the One on whom all their hopes had centered must molder in the tomb. As none were expecting his return to life again, the women who had been privileged to be with him in his ministry proceeded to prepare spices and ointments, that they might fitly prepare his body for resting in the grave. Mark 16: 1; Luke 23: 56; 24: 1.
(Concluded next week.)
Love Wins Where Logic Fails
“The best way to convince doubters is not to argue with them, but to labor and pray for their salvation. Love wins where logic fails.”