Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 19, 1883
General Articles.
By Ellen G. White
Luther's Royal Protector.
BY MRS. E. G. WHITE.
At the news of Luther's departure from Augsburg, the papal legate was overwhelmed with surprise and anger. He had expected to receive great honor for his wisdom and firmness in dealing with this disturber of the church, but now this hope was disappointed. He gave expression to his wrath in a letter to the elector, bitterly denouncing Luther:—
"Since Brother Martin cannot be brought by parental measures to acknowledge his errors, and continue faithful to the Catholic Church, I request your highness to send him to Rome, or to banish him from your territories. Be assured that this complicated, evil-intentioned affair cannot be long protracted, for as soon as I shall have informed our most holy lord of all this artifice and malice, he will bring it to a speedy end." In a postscript he begs the elector not to tarnish with shame his own honor and that of his illustrious ancestors for the cause of a contemptible monk.
The elector sent Luther a copy of this letter, to which the Reformer answered: "Let the reverend legate, or the pope himself, specify any errors in writing; let them bring forward their reasons; let them instruct me, who desire instruction, who beg and long for it, so that even a Turk would not refuse to satisfy me. If I do not retract and condemn myself, when they have proved to me that the passages of Scripture that I have quoted ought to be considered in a different sense from mine; then most excellent elector, let your highness be the first to prosecute and expel me; let the university reject me, and overwhelm me with indignation. I will go farther; call Heaven and earth to witness; let the Lord Jesus Christ himself reject and condemn me.
"These are not words of vain presumption, but of firm conviction. Let the Lord deprive me of his grace, and every creature of God refuse to countenance me, if, when I have been shown a better doctrine, I do not embrace it." In closing, he says: "I am still, thanks to be God, full of joy, and praise him that Christ, the Son of God, counts me worthy to suffer in so holy a cause. May he ever preserve your illustrious highness! Amen."
This letter made a deep impression upon the mind of the elector. He had never thought of giving up Luther, an innocent man, to be put to death by the power of Rome. Now he resolved to stand firm in his defense. In answer to the letter of the legate he wrote: "Since Dr. Martin has appeared before you at Augsburg, you ought to be satisfied. We did not expect that without convincing him of error, you would claim to oblige him to retract. Not one of the learned men in our states has intimated to us an opinion that Martin's doctrine is impious, anti-Christian, or heretical." He declined sending Luther to Rome, or expelling him from his territories. Luther, having seen this letter, exclaimed: "With what joy I read and re-read it; for I know what confidence I may repose in these words, at once so forcible and so discreet." God in his providence had raised up a man in high position to defend his servant.
The elector saw that there was a general breaking down of the moral restraints of society. The extensive and perfect organization of the Romish Church, and her immense outlay of money, time, and labor to secure order and harmony, was no indication of the real virtue and integrity of her members. A great work of reform was needed. All the complicated and expensive arrangements to restrain and punish crime would be unnecessary if the members of the church individually acknowledged and obeyed the requirements of God and the dictates of an enlightened conscience.
He saw that Luther was laboring to secure this object, and he secretly rejoiced that a better influence was making itself felt in the church.
He saw, also, that as a professor in the university, Luther was eminently successful. All his associates there spoke warmly in his favor. From all parts of Germany flocked students to listen to his teachings. Young men coming in sight of the steeples of Wittenberg for the first time, would stop, and raising their hands toward Heaven, would praise God that he had caused the light of his truth to shine forth from Wittenberg as in former ages from Mount Zion, thence to penetrate to the most remote countries.
Luther is, as yet, but partially converted from the errors of Romanism. But he is forced to battle constantly in defense of the truth which he has already accepted, and in this warfare he is driven for comfort and support to Christ and the Word. And as he compares the holy oracles with papal decrees and constitutions, he is filled with wonder.
"I am reading," he writes to Spalatin, "the decretals of the popes, and let me whisper in your ear, that I know not whether the pope is anti-Christ himself, or whether he is his apostle, so misrepresented and even crucified does Christ appear in them." Yet at this time Luther was still a supporter of the Roman Church, and had no thought that he would ever separate from her communion.
The Reformer continued searching the Scriptures, praying, preaching, and writing. He knew not how soon his work might close, and he be deprived of liberty or even life; but so long as314God should will it, he determined to labor for the upbuilding of Christ's kingdom. The knowledge that precious souls were everywhere receiving the truth, filled him with joy.
It was his work to build in the temple of the Lord. There were living stones buried from sight amid the papal rubbish of false doctrines, forms, and ceremonies, and he must search them out, and lay them on the true foundation. The followers of Christ were not then united as a peculiar and holy people separate from the world. They were mingled with the sons of Belial, and must be separated by the power of divine truth.
Luther was not blinded to his own peril or to the peril of his converts. He knew that the subjects of Prince Immanuel are not called to the enjoyment of ease and honor and riches, of titles and possessions; but to a life of conflict with the prince of darkness; they are to wrestle against principalities and powers, and they must put on the whole armor of God, that they may be able to stand. They are called to endure privation, hardship, imprisonment, torture, and death, even as the Captain of their salvation endured before them. The riches and co-operation of the wicked were subject to his command if he so willed it; but he declares, "My kingdom is not of this world." And again, "The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me." In like manner the servants of Christ have no home, no treasure here. It is only because Jesus reigns, that they are kept from the cruel power of the prince of evil.
Luther's voice as a reformer was no longer confined to Germany. His writings and his doctrine were extending to every nation in Christendom. The work spread to Switzerland and Holland. Multitudes of copies of his writings had found their way to France and Spain, and the truth was working in many hearts, reforming the life, and arousing the understanding to perceive the corruption of Romanism. In England the Reformer's teachings were received as the word of life. In Belgium and Italy also the work was spreading. Thousands were awakening from their death-like stupor to the joy and hope of a life of faith.
In this little moment of calm, Luther works on with renewed hope and courage. His friends urge him to be content with the victories already gained, and to give over the conflict. But he replies, "God does not conduct, but drives me forward. I am not master of my own actions. I would gladly live in peace; but I am cast into the midst of tumult and changes."
The Reformer pressed on in the path in which God was leading him; and as he continued to defend the truth, it constantly became more clear to his understanding, and he perceived more fully the arrogant assumptions of the papal power.
He says: "How hard it is to unlearn the errors which the whole world confirms by its example, and which, by long use, have become to us a second nature. I had for seven years read and hourly expounded the Scriptures with much zeal, so that I knew them almost all by heart. I had also all the first-fruits of the knowledge and faith of my Lord Jesus Christ; that is, I knew that we were justified and saved, not by our works, but by faith in Jesus Christ; and I even openly maintained that it is not by divine right that the pope is chief of the Christian church. And yet . . . I could not see the conclusion from all this; namely, that of necessity, and beyond doubt, the pope is of the devil; for what is not of God must needs be of the devil." Again, he says: "I do not now give free utterance to my indignation against those who still adhere to the pope, since I, who had for so many years read the Holy Scriptures with so much care, yet held to papacy with so much obstinacy."
The battle went on. Rome was becoming more and more exasperated by the attacks of Luther. And now it was secretly declared by some of his fanatical opponents, that he who should kill Luther would be without sin. One day a stranger with a pistol concealed in his sleeve, approached the Reformer, and inquired why he went thus alone. Luther answered, "I am in the hands of God. He is my help and my shield. What can men do unto me?" Upon hearing these words, the stranger turned pale, and fled away as from the presence of the angels of God.
Rome was bent upon the destruction of Luther; but God was his defense. His doctrines were sounding everywhere; in convents, in cottages, in the castles of the nobles, in the academies, and in the palaces of kings; and noble men were rising on every hand to sustain his efforts.
"WHAT SHALL I BE?"
By E. C. G. Langbecker
"Beloved, now are we the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be." 1 John 3:2.
What shall I be? My Lord, when I behold thee
In awful majesty at God's right hand;
And mid th' eternal glories that enfold me,
In strange bewilderment, O Lord, I stand,
What shall I be? These tears they dim my sight
I cannot catch the blissful vision right.
What shall I be? Lord, when thy radiant glory,
As from the grave I rise, encircles me;
When brightly pictured in the light before me,
What eye hath never seen, my eyes shall see,
What shall I be? Ah, blessed and sublime
Is the dim prospect of that glorious time!
What shall I be? When days of grief are ended,
From earthly fetters set forever free;
When from the harps of saints and angels blended,
I hear the burst of joyful melody,
What shall I be? When risen from the dead,
Sin, death, and hell I never more shall dread.
What shall I be? When all around are thronging
The loved of earth, where I have come to dwell;
When all is joy and praise,—no anxious longing,
No bitter parting, and no sad farewell,
What shall I be? Ah, how the streaming light
Can lend a brightness to this dreary night!
Yes, faith can never know the full salvation,
Which Jesus for his people will prepare;
Then will I wait in peaceful expectation
Till the Good Shepherd comes to take me there.
My Lord, my God, a blissful end I see,
Though now I know not what I yet shall be!
—E. C. G. Langbecker.
Dr. Chalmers on the Law.
The Lectures of Dr. Chalmers on the book of Romans is a work of no ordinary merit. The following from his lecture on chap. 8: 7, on the carnal mind, contains a lesson worthy of careful consideration:—
"Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." Rom. 8: 7.
It was a contradiction in terms, to say otherwise of the carnal mind than that it was enmity against God—for how, if all its preferences be toward the creature, can it be otherwise affected toward that Creator, who looks with a jealous eye on all such preference, and fastens upon it the guilt of idolatry—how, if its regards are wholly directed to sense and time, can it be otherwise than in a state of disregard to Him who is a spirit and invisible? If the law of God be a law of supreme love toward himself, how is it possible for that mind to be in subjection to such a law, whose affections are wholly set on the things and the interests of a passing world? It not only is not subject to this law, but it cannot be so—else it were no longer carnal. It would instantly be stripped of this epithet, and become a different thing from what it was before, did it undergo a transference in its likings from the things that are made to Him who is the maker of them all. It has the certainty in it of an identical proposition, when it is said of the carnal mind that it neither is nor can be subject to God's law. Ere it become subject, it must resign its present nature and be carnal no longer. The epithet then will not apply to it; and though a mind before carnal should now have gathered upon it the character of Heaven, and become a devoted and willing and most affectionate subject under the government of God—still it holds true of the carnal mind that it is not so subject, neither indeed can be.
But it is not only logically true that the carnal mind cannot be subject to God's law—the same thing is also true physically and experimentally. There is no power in the mind by which it can change itself. It has a natural sovereignty, we admit, which extends a certain way over the doings of the outer man; but it has no such sovereignty over the desires of the inner man. It can, for example, constrain the man in whom it resides to eat a sour apple rather than a sweet. But it cannot constrain him to like a sour apple rather than a sweet. There are many things which it finds to be practicable, which it does not find to be palatable; and it has just as little power over the taste and affections of the mind toward God, as it has over the bodily organ of taste, or the law of its various relishes for the various food which is offered to it. There are a thousand religious-looking things which can be done; but without such a renewal of the spirit as the spirit itself cannot achieve, these things cannot be delighted in, cannot be rejoiced in. But if not rejoiced in, they really are not religious, however religious they may look. And this is the great moral helplessness under which we labor. We can compel our feet to the house of God, but we cannot compel our feelings to a sacred pleasure in its exercises. We can take a voluntary part in the music of its psalms, but we cannot force into our hearts the melody of praise. We can bid our hands away from depredation and violence, but we cannot bid away the appetite of covetousness from our bosoms. We can refrain ourselves from the infliction of all outward hurt upon our neighbor; but tell me if we can so muster and so dispose of our affections at the word of command as that we shall love him as we do ourselves. And, ascending from the second commandment to the first great commandment of the law, we can, it may be thought, keep the Sabbaths of the Lord and acquit ourselves of many of the drudgeries of a carnal obedience—while, instead of loving him with all our heart and soul and strength and mind, there exists against him an antipathy, which we can no more extirpate than we can cause a sycamine tree to be plucked up by the roots at the utterance of a voice—so that, in reference to the law which claims a supremacy over the heart, and taketh cognizance of all its affections, we are not and we cannot be subject to it.
And here I am sensible that, when I charge you with a positive enmity against God—when I say that he is not merely the object of indifference, but of hatred—when I affirm of the human heart, not merely a light and heedless unconcern about him, but also the virulency of a strong hostile affection against him—I might not, in all this assertion, obtain the exact or the willing respondency of your own consciences. You may be ready to answer that really we are not at all aware of anything half so foul or so enormous at work in our bosoms as any ill-will towards God. We may be abundantly regardless of him and of his laws; but we feel nothing that approaches to a resentful emotion excited within us by his name. We may not think of him often; and perhaps are very well satisfied to do without him, if he would but let us alone. But, examine ourselves as we may, we can detect no affirmative malignity in our affections towards him; and for once we have lighted upon a case where the dogmata of a stern theology are really not at one with the decisions of our own intimate and personal experience.
Now on this we have to observe that the greatest enemy whom you have in the world will excite no malevolent feelings in your heart, so long as you do not think of him. All the time that he is absent from your remembrance, he has no more power to stir up the painful and the bitter feeling of hostility within you than if he were blotted out from the map of existence. And so let it not be wondered at that you should not be ruffled out of your complacency by the thought of God, when, in fact, for days or hours together, the thought is utterly away from you—that no acrimony about him should ever disturb you, during the whole of that period, when at play or pleasing yourselves with his gifts, the giver is wholly unminded—that, instead of carrying the tone or the aspect of an enraged adversary toward God or any one else, you should simply appear in the light of an easy, comfortable, good-humored man, while, busied with the enjoyments of life, you have no room in your regards for him who gave the life, and scattered these enjoyments over it. When one is in a deep and dreamless slumber, his very resentments are hushed, along with all his other sensibilities, into oblivion; and though in the latent dormitory within, there should lie a fell and unextinguishable hatred against the deadliest of his foes, yet even the presence of that foe would awaken no asperity; and while under the immediate eye of him who with implacable revenge could call forth to the field of mutual extermination, might he lie in all the meekness of infancy. And so of you who are not awake unto God—who are sunk in dullest apathy about him and all his concerns—who, profoundly asleep and forgetful, are really no judges of the recoil that would come upon your spirits, did he but stand before you in all his characters of uncompromising truth, and the inflexible justice, and sacred jealousy, and awful unapproachable holiness. By the thought of this being you are not disturbed, because, steeped in the lethargy of nature, it is a thought that does not come with a realizing touch upon your perceptions. You may even hear his name, and this may stir up some vague conception of an unseen spirit; and you still have no feeling of that enmity which our text has charged upon you. But the conception of whom or of what we would ask? Is it of the true God in his true attributes—or a being of your own imagination? Is it of that God who is a spirit and claims of you those spiritual services which are due unto the character that belongs to him? Is it of him, the very view and aspect of whom would mar all your earthly gratifications, or put them utterly to flight, because of his paramount demand for the affections and pursuits of godliness? Oh how little do we know of ourselves, or of the mysteries of our inner man, which may lie hid and dormant for years—till some untried circumstances shall form the occasion that proves us, and reveals to us all which is in our hearts. And thus the manifestation to our understandings of God, not as we fancy him to be, but of God as he actually is, would call forth of its hiding-place the unappeasable enmity of nature against him; and would make it plain to the conscience of the carnal man, how little sufferance he hath for the God that would bereave him of his present affections, and implant others in their room. The disrelish would be just as strong as are the disrelish and opposition between the life of sense and the life of faith. Did God reveal himself now to the unconverted sinner, he would strike the same arrow into his heart that will be felt by the condemned sinner, who eyes on the day of reckoning the sacredness and the majesty of that being whom he has offended. You have heard him by the hearing of the ear, and yet remain unconvinced of nature's enmity. Could you say with Job that now mine eye seeth, then would you see cause with him, wherefore you should abhor yourself, and repent in dust and in ashes.
The Jewish Day.
THE Israelites counted time, as to the beginning and ending of the day, not as modern Gentiles do, but from sunset to sunset; and so did some of the ancient heathen nations. In speaking of the beginning of the civil day, Ferguson says: "The ancient Greeks, Jews, Bohemians, Silesians . . . begin it at sun-setting; and the ancient Babylonians, Persians, Syrians, with the modern Greeks, at sun-rising."
Says the Union Bible Dictionary: "The Jewish day was reckoned from evening to evening. Their Sabbath, or seventh, began on what we call Friday, at sunset, and ended on what we call Saturday, at sunset. This mode of reckoning days was not uncommon in other Eastern nations."
Says Dr. Malcom: "The Hebrews began in the evening." And this agrees with Bible testimony: "From even unto even shall ye celebrate your Sabbath." Lev. 23: 32. And as the seventh day began where the sixth day ended, and the sixth began where the fifth ended, so the first day began where the seventh ended—at even, or at sunset. As far back as the creation Moses introduces this count as the prevailing one, saying, "The evening and the morning were the first day"—beginning his count of each day with the "evening."
Keeping this in memory, we are driven to the conclusion that when Paul preached to the disciples at Troas who had come "together to break bread" upon "the first day of the week" ("there being many lights in the upper chamber," Paul continuing his speech "till midnight"), this "first day" having commenced at sunset on our Saturday night, the breaking of bread was on Saturday night, there being no other night on "the first day of the week" as the Jews counted time; nor will it change this conclusion if we conjecture that they were then counting time as the rest of the people did at Troas, instead of keeping the Jewish count, for it turns out that Troas was inhabited by the ancient Greeks, who always began their day at sunset, just like the Jews. Acts 20:7. If they had gathered to break bread on Sunday night, that would have been on the second day of the week, the first day having ended at sunset on Sunday, and the second day beginning at the same point. We do not protest against breaking bread on Sunday night, or any other night of the week (as the Jews did not institute the ordinance on the first day, so it was not always celebrated on that day); but we do protest against insisting upon observing this ordinance on Sunday night on the plea that it should be upon the first day of the week, when, in fact, Sunday night, in Bible time, is on the second day of the week. If we were to insist upon restricting its observance to the night of the first day, we should also insist on observing it on our Saturday night; and, indeed, without being dogmatical, we much prefer Saturday night, it being the only night that can claim apostolic precedence, aside from the night of Jesus' betrayal—Wednesday night.—W. S., in World's Crisis.
The Weariness of Spiritual Duty
By Charles Haddon Spurgeon
We never read that Joshua's hand was weary with wielding the sword, but Moses' hand was weary with holding the rod. The more spiritual the duty, the more apt we are to tire of it.—Spurgeon.
Infidels not Martyrs.
MODERN infidelity waxes eloquent over the Romish and sectarian persecutions. We have no objections to this, when the transactions are properly located, and duly credited where they belong. But there is a wholesale way of throwing all the iniquity in one direction, and quietly appropriating all the honors of martyrdom, which is not only unjust, but absolutely untruthful.
How quietly, for instance, the French revolution with its unparalleled horrors is slipped over by infidel orators and writers. The evident reason for this is that it was solely the work of infidelity. The infidel legislature of France declared, "There is no God but reason." They wrote upon the church-yard gates "Death is an eternal sleep," and proclaimed liberty of conscience to all; but, inside of forty-eight hours, with genuine infidel consistency, they began to lead to the rack or the guillotine every man or woman who dared to assert that liberty.
"Infidelity is liberty"—yes, liberty to destroy—liberty to defame—liberty to crush all true religion—and when it holds the reins of power here as it held them in France, the purest blood of the nation will run through our streets as it ran through the streets of Paris in 1792 and 1794. History declares that 2,730 murders were committed in the name and for the sake of infidelity, during the space of sixteen months.
Nero was an infidel, and we commend the history of his reign to the attention of every man and woman. Tacitus tells us that Nero inflicted the most exquisite torture upon the Christians. He says they died in torments, and their torments were embittered by insult. Some were nailed upon crosses, others were sewed up in the skins of wild animals and exposed to the fury of dogs, others again were smeared over with combustible materials and used as torches to illuminate the darkness of night." Says Gibbon: "The most skeptical criticism is obliged to respect the truth of this most extraordinary fact, and the integrity of this celebrated passage from Tacitus." Domitian and Caligula were infidels, and every historian is aware of the fact that panoramic views of their reigns are horrible companion pieces to the reign of Nero. Says Prof. Tyndall, "The sufferings of the early Christians and the extraordinary exaltation of mind, which enabled them to triumph over the diabolical tortures, to which they were subjected, must have left traces not easily effaced."
And yet a prominent skeptic declares in the face of an intelligent public, "You have burned us at the stake—roasted us upon slow fires—torn our flesh with irons—you have covered us with chains—you have filled the world with fear—you have taken our wives and children from our arms, etc."
We ask in the name of simple truth and common justice, Who is it that have suffered these things? The answer comes from every page of history, that it is the followers of Christ who have clung to him, through the fires of persecution and floods of misfortune. They were believers in the Bible who went to the stake, else why were Bibles burned with them in the flames? Men do not go to the rack, the stake, or the guillotine rather than renounce their faith, when they have no faith to renounce. Men and women do not choose to be placed in red hot iron chains rather than to deny a Lord on whom they have never believed. Men do not submit to have their tongues cut out, to be thrown to wild beasts, or to perish in slow fires, in preference to recanting from a position which they have never assumed.
Celsus was not crucified. Porphyry was not banished. Julian did not suffer, save at the hands of his own conscience. Voltaire was not thrown into a caldron of boiling oil. Paine was not burned at the stake, and modern skeptics are not placed in the stocks or whipped in the streets.
It was men, women, yes and children who clung to the written Word, when fire and flame and irons and lash were the reward for their fidelity. They have been driven to mountains and caverns, to wander in sheep skins and goat skins; they of whom the world was not worthy.
The same hands burned Christians that burned Bibles. They sought to crush the Book and its believers by the same means. But the old Book lives on, unmindful of the waves that beat against its unfailing foundations.
It is still the "pillar of cloud" by day, and the "pillar of fire" in the night-time of persecution and thus it will ever be, until the weary feet of God's little ones find rest upon the evergreen shores of eternal life.—Mrs. H. V. Reed, in Bible Banner.
Aptness of Christ's Discourses.
"There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi," etc. John 3 : 1, 2.
It is a remarkable and characteristic feature of the discourses of our Lord, that they are often prompted, or shaped, or illustrated, by the event of the moment; by some scene or incident that presented itself to him at the time he was speaking. It is scarcely necessary to give examples of a fact so undisputed. Thus it was the day after the miracle of the loaves, and it was to the persons who had witnessed that miracle, and profited by it, that Jesus said, "Labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life." And much more to the same effect. It was at Jacob's well, and in reply to the question of the woman, "How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria?" that Jesus spake so much at large of the water whereof "whosoever drank should never thirst." It was whilst tarrying in this same rural spot, that calling the attention of his disciples to the scene around them, he said, "Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields, for they are white already to harvest;" and he then goes on to remind them of sowing and reaping to be done in another and higher sense. These are the few instances out of many which might be produced, where the incident that gave rise to the remarks is actually related; and by which the habit of our Lord's discourses is proved to be such as I have described. But in other places, the incident itself is omitted, and but for some casual expression which is let fall, it would be impossible to connect the discourse with it; by means, however, of some such expression, apparently intended to serve no such purpose, we are enabled to get at the incident, and so discover the propriety of the discourse. In such cases we are furnished once more with the argument of coincidence without design—as in the following passage: "In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." Now but for the expression, "In the last day, that great day of the feast," we should have been at a loss to know the circumstances in which that speech of our Lord originated. But the day when it was delivered being named, we are enabled to gather from other sources, that on that day, the eighth of the Feast of Tabernacles, it was a custom to offer to God a pot of water drawn from the pool of Siloam. Coupling this fact, therefore, with our Lord's practice, already established by other evidence, of allowing the spectacle before him to give the turn to his address, we may conclude that he spake these words whilst he happened to be observing the ceremony of the water-pot. And an argument thus arises, that the speech here reported is genuine, and was really delivered by our Lord.
The passage then in St. John, with which I have headed this paragraph, furnishes testimony of the same kind. It describes Nicodemus as coming to Jesus by night—fear, no doubt, prompting him to use this secrecy. Now observe a good deal of the language which Jesus directs to him—"And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth, cometh to the light that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God" (verses 19, 22). When we remember that the interview was a nocturnal one, and that Jesus was accustomed to speak with reference to the circumstances about him at the instant, what more natural than the turn of this discourse? What more satisfactory evidence could we have, than this casual evidence that the visit was paid, and the speech spoken as St. John describes? that his narrative, in short, is true?—Blunt's Coincidences.
OUR ENEMY AND OUR TRIUMPH.
By Hector Maiben
MAKE grave-yards like to gardens if you will,
As is the fashion of the present day,
Plant them with flowers, lay them out with walks,
Rear costly monuments with sculpture decked,
And let the gay and godless gather there
And pass the sunny hours in idle talk;
'Tis all in vain: death is not thereby changed,
'Tis still the same relentless enemy,
And bleeding hearts and rending groans will still
Attest its fearful and malignant sway;
And still the grave opes its rapacious maw,
And, swallowing those we love, shuts it again
Hiding them thus forever from our sight.
Oh, doleful grave! Oh, melancholy pit!
Thy loathsome cavity mars every joy,
While the small mound which covers up thy mouth,
Till 'tis re-opened to engulf more prey,
Is watered daily with the bitter tears
Of widows and of orphans left to mourn.
But if 'tis vain to ornament the grave,
'Tis worse than vain to linger by its side,
And dwell upon its triumphs; they are known
Alas! too well; but Oh! most glorious truth!
They will not last forever; death shall die,
And the grave close to ope its mouth no more;
For Christ hath died and, therefore death shall die,
And life, eternal life, shall bear the sway,
And even now, death is a vanquished foe,
That fell before the power of Him who died
Upon the cross in Calvary's awful hour.
Dying in weakness, He within the tomb
Lay for a season in the grasp of death,
When lo! the earthquake shook the solid ground,
And, casting off death's chains like burning tow,
The Lord came forth raised by the power of God,
The first-fruits from among the silent dead,
The first-fruits only; for the time will come
When all His saints will triumph over death,
For oh, God wills not they should ever lie
In the stern grasp of a relentless foe,
No! they will rise again, for Christ will come
With shout and voice and trumpet's potent blast,
And through death's dark dominion life will dart
Like an electric shock, and instantly;
Aye, in the sudden twinkling of an eye,
Myriads on myriads of the saints of God
Shall rise with shouts of joy, and soar aloft,
To meet their loving Saviour in the air.
Then will arise the loud triumphant strain,
"O death!" thou dreadful foe, where is thy sting?
"O conquering grave!" where is thy victory?
Then look not at the grave,-'tis all in vain,
And only tends to sadden the poor heart,
Look to the Lord, the mighty Conqueror,
Who, dying for the sinner, broke death's sway,
And burst its shackles like a thing of nought.
Look to the glorious resurrection morn,
That "morning without clouds," which soon will dawn,
When Christ will come to free his own from death,
Making them glorious as its glorious self,
To dwell with Him in everlasting joy.
That morn will soon be here; ere yet the sun
Has dawned again upon this slumbering world
The Lord may come to take His people home,
Oh, blessed hope! Oh, truth divinely true!
Most joyful news for thee, O Church of God!"
—Hector Maiben, in Messiah's Herald.
Dean Stanley on Baptism.
The following summary is given by the Christian Commonwealth as the views of the late Dean Stanley on the subject of baptism:—
“1. Immersion was wisely selected, not only because it was ‘a most delightful, ordinary, and salutary observance,’ but because it was significantly expressive of the design of baptism.
“2. The word which Christ used to express baptism is literally translated immersion.
“3. Christ himself was immersed.
“4. The apostles uniformly practiced immersion.
“5. Immersion was the invariable practice of the Primitive Church.
“6. It was the almost universal practice of Christians for thirteen centuries.
“7. When the substitution of sprinkling for immersion began to find favor, it was stoutly resisted as an innovation.
“8. Even in some of the cold countries (Russia, for instance,) the innovation has been up to the present time successfully resisted.
“9. Immersion ‘even in the Church of England, is still observed in theory. Elizabeth and Edward VI. were both immersed. The Rubric in the Public Baptism for Infants enjoins that, unless for special cases, they are to be dipped, not sprinkled.’
“10. The change from immersion to sprinkling is greater than that which the Roman Catholic Church has made in administering the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper in the bread without wine,” — Morning Star.