Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 15, 1882
General Articles.
By Ellen G. White
“The Fear of the Lord Tendeth to Life.”
BY MRS. E. G. WHITE.
“Wisdom’s ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.”
The opinion is widely held, that spirituality and devotion to God are detrimental to health. While this conclusion is radically false, it is not without apparent foundation. Many who profess to be Christians are ever walking under a cloud. They seem to think it a virtue to complain of depression of spirits, great trials, and severe conflicts.
But these persons do not correctly represent the religion of the Bible. So far from being antagonistic to health and happiness, the fear of the Lord lies at the foundation of all real prosperity. “What man is he that desireth life, and loveth many days, that he may see good? Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile; depart from evil, and do good, seek peace, and pursue it. The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry. The face of the Lord is against them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth. The righteous cry, and the Lord heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles.”
The consciousness of right-doing, is the best medicine for diseased bodies and minds. He who is at peace with God has secured the most important requisite to health. The blessing of the Lord is life to the receiver. The assurance that the eye of the Lord is upon us, and his ear open to our prayer, is a never-failing source of satisfaction. To know that we have an all-wise friend, to whom we can confide all the secrets of the soul, is a privilege which words can never express.
The gloom and despondency supposed to be caused by obedience to God’s moral law, is often attributable to disregard of his physical laws. Those whose moral faculties are beclouded by disease, are not the ones to rightly represent the Christian life, to show forth the joys of salvation, or the beauties of holiness. They are too often in the fire of fanaticism, or the water of cold indifference or stolid gloom.
The Saviour of mankind declared. “I am the light of the world. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life;” and he bade his disciples, “Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven.” It is the duty of every Christian to follow closely the example of Christ; to cultivate peace and hope and joy, which will be manifested in unfeigned cheerfulness, and habitual serenity. Thus may they shed light upon all around them, instead of casting the dark shadow of discouragement and gloom.
Many are constantly craving excitement and diversion. They are restless and dissatisfied when not absorbed in mirth, frivolity, and pleasure-seeking. These persons may make a profession of religion, but they are deceiving their own souls. They do not possess the genuine article. Their life is not hid with Christ in God. They do not find in Jesus their joy and peace.
The vain and trifling amusements of the world may divert for a time, but when the excitement is past, when the mind reflects, and conscience arouses and makes her voice heard, then the pleasure-seeker feels how powerless are his pursuits to give health to the body or peace to the soul.
Undue excitement is invariably followed by corresponding depression. Transgression yields only disappointment and remorse. Those who walk in the path of wisdom and holiness, will not be troubled with vain regrets for their misspent hours; they will not need to plunge into the round of gayety or dissipation to banish gloomy or harassing thoughts. Useful, active labor that quickens the circulation and gives strength to the muscles, will also give tone and vigor to the mind, and will prove a most effective agent in the restoration of health.
The religion of Christ is first pure, then peaceable, full of righteousness and good fruits. Such religion is needed in the world to-day. Many young persons who profess to be followers of Christ, are indulging in romantic sentimentalism which is deteriorating in its influence, and dangerous in its tendency. They indulge day-dreaming and castle-building, and thus squander their precious hours, and unfit themselves for usefulness.
With great self-complacency many flatter themselves that if circumstances were only favorable they would do some great and good work. They do not view things from a correct stand-point. They have lived in an imaginary world, and have been imaginary martyrs, and imaginary Christians. Their character is destitute of sterling virtue, and real stamina.
Young ladies of this class sometimes imagine that they possess exquisite delicacy and refinement of character, and a keenly sensitive nature, which must receive sympathy and encouragement from all around them. They put on an appearance of languor and indolent ease, and imagine that they are not appreciated. These sickly fancies are an injury to themselves and to others.
Despondent feelings are frequently the result of undue leisure. Idleness gives time to brood over imaginary sorrows. Many who have no real trials or hardships in the present, are sure to borrow them from the future. If these persons would seek to lighten the burdens of others, they would forget their own. Energetic labor that would call into action both the mental and physical powers, would prove an inestimable blessing to mind and body.
Invalids should not allow themselves to sink down into a state of inaction. This is highly detrimental to health. The power of the will must be asserted; aversion to active exercise, and the dread of all responsibility must be conquered. They can never recover health, unless they shake off this listless, dreamy condition of mind, and arouse themselves to action.
There is much deception practiced under the cover of religion. Passion controls the minds of many who flatter themselves that they have reached high spiritual attainments. Their experience consists of idle fancies and love-sick sentimentalism, rather than of purity and true goodness.
The mind should be trained to look away from self, to dwell upon themes which are elevated and ennobling. Let not the precious hours of life be wasted in dreaming of some great work to be performed in the future, while the little duties of the present are neglected.
The heart must be in the work or it will drag heavily, whatever it may be. The Lord tests our ability by giving us small duties to perform. If we turn from these with contempt or dissatisfaction, no more will be entrusted to us. If we take hold of them with cheerfulness, and perform them well, greater responsibilities will be committed to our trust.
Talents have been committed to us, not to be squandered, but to be put out to the exchangers, that at the Master’s coming he may receive his own with usury. These talents have not been unjustly distributed. God has dispensed his sacred trusts according to the known ability of his servants. “To every man his work.”
As he bestows his gifts upon each, he expects from each a corresponding return. If faithfully perform our duty, the amount intrusted to us will be increased, be it large or small. All who thus prove their fidelity, will be accounted as wise stewards, and will be intrusted with the true riches, even the gift of everlasting life.
“No man liveth to himself.” True happiness will not be found by those who live merely for self-gratification. He who would secure the highest, and most satisfactory enjoyment of this life, as well as a right hold upon the future immortal life, must make it his highest aim to glorify God, and do good to his fellow-men. “Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him, and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh? Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily, and thy righteousness shall go before thee, and the glory of the Lord shall be thy rearward.
“Pure religion before God and the Father is this: To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.” True religion ennobles the mind, refines the taste, and sanctifies the judgment. It makes the soul a partaker of the purity of Heaven, brings angels near, and separates more and more from the spirit and influence of the world.
It reveals to man an infinite and all-wise Protector, a Redeemer from sin, a Comforter in sorrow, a Light in darkness, a Guide in obscurity. It invites man to become a son of God, an heir of Heaven. It fills the soul with “joy unspeakable, and full of glory.”
This precious gift of Heaven is freely offered to all who will accept it. Our brightest hopes, our loftiest aspirations can ask nothing more complete, more noble, more exalted. The tokens of infinite love, the pleadings of divine mercy, are ever wooing us to turn to God. “Why do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labor for that which satisfieth not? Hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. Incline your ear and come unto me; hear, and your soul shall live.”
LIVE UP HIGHER.
By Hallie C. Young
BY HALLIE C. YOUNG.
Oh! 'tis darksome in the valley,
For the twilight hour is come,
And the glory of the sunset
Nestles in its mountain home.
Oh, 'tis dreary in the valley,
Where the mists and shadows lie;
And the clouds are gray and somber,
And the night-winds weep and sigh.
Oh, dwell not within the valley
Where the sable shadows wait;
Where the sun in gold and amber,
Hastens through the western gate.
Day-beams linger on the mountain,
High above the mists and snow;
And the sun in gold and amber,
Never, never fails to glow.
Let us live upon the mountain,
Near the starry vault of blue,
Through whose rifts, the blooming Aden
Flashes half its glory though.
Clarendon, Ark.
Impatience Reveals Weakness
By Landor
IMPATIENCE is a proof of inferior strength, and a destroyer of what little there may be.--Landor.
God's Purpose Concerning the Earth.
By John Norton Loughborough
BY ELD. J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH.
We will now inquire, What is the purpose of God respecting the earth? In answering this question it will be of interest to trace the opinions of sages, and devout Bible students, but our final conclusion must accord with the plain statements of the word of God. If he has been pleased to reveal, in the Scriptures, his purpose concerning our earth, we shall surely not be on forbidden ground in the study of what is revealed.
Was it, then, we inquire, the plan of God that this earth should remain in the hands of the wicked for about six thousand years, and then be burned up, and exist no more? Is this system of planets thus to be thrown into confusion, and destroyed?
When we appeal to the Scriptures, they are not silent on this topic. They tell us not only why God made the earth, but also why he placed man upon it. We read, "For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited." Here we have, plainly stated, the design of God in creating the earth, "He formed it to be inhabited." But, say you, It has been inhabited. Yes, but mostly by a race of rebels against him. Shall we conclude that the possession of the earth by such a class fulfills all of God's purpose?
That his purpose relates to an inhabiting of the earth by man is evident from the fact that when he had formed the earth he gave it to man as his kingdom. In the proposition for the formation of man we are plainly told why he was made: "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth on the earth."
The psalmist, in speaking of the creation of man, says, "Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet; all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas." St. Paul quotes this testimony when writing to the Hebrews, but comments on it in such a manner as to show that the state of things contemplated does not now exist, but that it will when Christ comes: "Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he put all in subjection under him; he left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man."
THE EARTH GIVEN TO MAN.
When the earth was "given to man," he was in an upright state, and the Lord had pronounced him, with the rest of his creation, "very good." Solomon says, "This only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions." As we think of the manner in which the Lord has dealt with man, we should conclude his purpose was that man, in an upright state, should possess the earth; for he was in an upright state when God gave him dominion over the earth. When he became sinful, he lost that dominion.
The purpose of God has not been frustrated by the fall of man. God's original design will yet be carried out, and the earth be possessed by man in an upright state. As St. Peter says, "We look for new heavens and a new earth [renewed earth] wherein dwelleth righteousness." Some paraphrase this text, "Wherein the righteous shall dwell," which probably gives the correct idea, and shows that God's purpose concerning the earth will be accomplished when he fills the earth with his immortal saints, composed of those who have believed and obeyed him.
From early times the opinion has prevailed that there is finally to be a renovation of the earth. This has not been only true of Jewish and Christian writers, but also of the heathen philosophers. These latter undoubtedly borrowed their idea from Bible teachings.
Josephus gives a singular tradition concerning Seth, who, he says, having found out the knowledge of the celestial bodies, and having received from Adam a prophecy that the world should have a double destruction, one by fire and the other by water, raised two pillars with inscriptions upon them to survive the fire, and so transmit their astronomical knowledge to posterity—"Which," says Burnett, "seems to imply a foreknowledge of this fiery destruction, even from the beginning." Burnett further says, "We find little in antiquity contrary to this doctrine." He quotes Plato as a sample of those so teaching.
Democritus and Epicurus taught a renovation of the earth. The Ionic philosophers among the Greeks taught the same. Origen, in his answer to Celsus, tells us, that his own (the heathen) authors did believe and teach the renovation of the world after certain ages or periods. Zoroaster, an ancient Persian philosopher, taught the appearance of a Sosioch (Messiah) under whose reign the dead are raised, judgment takes place, and the earth is renovated and glorified. The translation of a passage from Ovid speaks thus of the same event:—
"A time decreed by fate at length will come,
When heaven and earth and sea shall see their doom;
A fiery doom; and nature's mighty fame,
Shall break and be dissolved into a flame."
Rev. H. H. Milman says, "The future dominion of some great king, to descend from the line of David, to triumph over all his enemies, and to establish a universal kingdom of peace and happiness, was probably an authorized opinion long before the advent."
"Rabbi Gamaliel, the preceptor of St. Paul, was asked by the Sadducees whence he could prove that God would raise the dead, and he finally silenced them on the authority of Deut. 11:21, 'Which land the Lord, moreover, sware he would give to your fathers.' The Rabbi argued, as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had it not, and God cannot lie, therefore they must be raised from the dead to inherit it."
Of the vast number of Christian writers who have taught the future restoration of the earth as the abode of the saints, we have only room to note a few. As a sample of the sayings of the writers of the first four centuries, we quote from St. Augustine. In A. D. 490, he said: "By the change of things the world will not entirely perish or be annihilated. Its form, or external appearance will be changed, but not its substance."
As we come to the times of the Reformation, when there was such an eager search for Bible truth, we find abundance of testimony to the doctrine of an inheritance on the earth made new, by such men as Luther, Melancthon, and their associates. Hugh Latimer, who was made bishop of Worcester by Henry VIII., in 1535, in his third sermon on the Lord's prayer, said, "There will be such alterations of the earth and elements, they will lose their former nature, and be endued with another nature." John Bradford, who, with John Rogers and others, was burned at the stake at Smithfield, London, in 1555, said on Rom. 8, "This renovation of all things, the prophets do seem to promise, when they promise new heavens and a new earth."
In Cranmer's Catechism, authorized by Edward VI., A. D. 1550, we read, "The world, like as we see in the refining of gold, shall be wholly purged with fire, and shall be brought to its utmost perfection; man imitating, shall likewise be freed from corruption and change. And so, for man's sake, for whose use the great world was created, being at length renovated, it shall put on a face that shall be far more pleasant and beautiful."
John Calvin, in his notes on Isa. 11:6-8, remarks, "He asserts here the change of the nature of wild beasts, and the restitution of the creation as at first;" and on Isa. 24:23, he says, "Christ shall hereafter establish his church on earth in a most glorious estate." John Knox, the founder of the Presbyterian Church, of whom Queen Mary said she feared his prayers more than an army of twenty thousand men, said of Christ's work, "To reform the face of the whole earth, which never was, nor yet shall be till that righteous King and judge appear for the restoration of all things." Acts 3. Thomas Goodwin, one of the "patriarchs of independency," quoting Heb. 2:5, and 2 Pet. 3, as proof of his position, says, "God doth take the same world that Adam's and make it new and glorious." The "illustrious Joseph Meade," of the English Church, writing in 1720, taught the doctrine of a renovation of the earth and Christ's reign upon it. John Milton, who has been styled "The Christian Homer," said:—
"The world shall burn, and from her ashes spring
New heaven and earth wherein the just shall dwell,
And after all their tribulations long,
See golden days."
Richard Baxter, of Shropshire, England, born 1615, said, "I believe there will be a new heaven and earth on which will dwell righteousness." John Bunyan, the Baptist of Bedfordshire, England, said, "None ever saw this world as it was in its first creation but Adam and his wife, and neither will any see it until the manifestation of the children of God; that is, until the redemption or resurrection of the saints." The Baptist Confession of Faith, approved by 20,000 of their denomination, and presented to Charles II., in 1660, says of Christ's coming, "He will not only raise the dead, and judge and restore the world, but will also take to himself his kingdom, and will, according to the Scriptures, reign on the throne of his father David, on Mount Zion, in Jerusalem, forever." Phillip Doddridge, born in London, in 1702, in his "Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul" says, "We shall go from the ruins of a dissolving world, to the new heavens and new earth, wherein righteousness forever dwells."
John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, in his sermon on "the new earth," clearly sets forth the restitution. His brother Charles, commenting on Isa. 65, says, "We long to see Thy throne appear; bid the new creation rise; bring us back our Paradise, and create the universe fair beyond its first estate." Bishop Newton, born at Bristol, England, in 1703, writing of Christ's reign, says, "That the kingdom of heaven shall be established upon earth, is the plain and express doctrine of Daniel, and all the prophets, as well as of John; and we daily pray for the accomplishment of it, in praying, 'Thy kingdom come.'" Isaac Watts, born at Southampton, in 1674, in speaking of the coming of the burning day, says:—
"Yet, when the sounds shall tear the skies,
And lightnings burn the globe below,
Saints, you may lift your joyful eyes,
There's a new heaven and earth for you."
Compare with this his description of that redeemed earth, in the hymn commencing:—
"Lo, what a glorious sight appears
To our believing eyes."
Alexander Pope, author of the "Essay on man," says in his "Messiah," speaking of his reign:—
"Rocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away.
But fix'd his word, his saving power remains,
Thy realm forever lasts, thy own Messiah reigns."
Bishop Heber also, in his poems and hymns, advances similar sentiments.
The Commentators are, many of them, plainly of the same opinion. Says Matthew Henry, "Christ's second coming will be a regeneration (Matt. 19:28), when there shall be new heavens and a new earth, and a restitution of all things." Dr. A. Clarke thus comments on 2 Peter 3: "All these things will be dissolved, separated, be decomposed; but none of them will be destroyed. And as they are the original matter out of which God formed the terraqueous globe; consequently they may enter again into the composition of a new system; and therefore the apostle says, 'We look for a new heaven and a new earth;' the others being decomposed, a new system is to be formed out of their materials." Cotton Mather, a voluminous writer on prophecy, said, "They who expect the rest promised for the church of God, to be found anywhere but in the new earth, and they who expect any happy times for the church in a world that hath death and sin in it,—these do err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the kingdom of God."
Thomas Chalmers said, "There will be a firm earth as we have at present, and a heaven stretched over it as we have. It is not by the absence of these, but by the absence of sin that the abodes of immortality shall be characterized. It will be a paradise of sense, but not of sensuality."
If we come to our own times, there are scores and hundreds of devout writers teaching the same sentiments. The eloquent Edward Irving, in his orations says, "And cannot God create another world many times more fair, and cast over it a267mantle of light many times more lovely, and wash it with purer dew than ever dropped from the eyelids of the morning?" "Oh! what a thought! that the deluge of sin shall be baled out, that the long-covered hills and valleys of holiness shall again present themselves, that the slimy path of the old serpent shall be cleansed out of all nations, and the alloy of hell with fervent heat be burned out of the elements of the solid globe, that the kingdom, peopled with the redeemed, shall become meet to be presented in the presence of God, and remain forever."
A Contrast.
By William Aikman
It was a cold night, and a snow-storm was abroad as we made our way to the church. The church was stately and beautiful; gothic arches and pillars, cushioned seats, brilliant lights, Christmas decorations, made everything attractive. As strangers we were welcomed, and made to feel at home, and we were prepared to enjoy the service which soon began. The music was sweet, and the hymns appropriate to the first Sunday of the year.
As we sat there, happening to look around, we saw a poorly-clad and weather-beaten man come in. His garb and his whole appearance declared too plainly for one to be mistaken that strong drink had been doing its deadly work upon him. Yet he did not seem intoxicated; he rather gave one the impression that he had been drinking hard, but that the influence of the drink was passing off. He came in and took his seat respectfully. As he sat there we could not but regard him with profound interest, and with the hope and prayer that the beautiful surroundings, the aspect of the church, the calm silence, the swell of the music, and by and by the voice of the preacher might have an influence over him, and might awaken some aspirations after a better life.
Who could say but that chance straying into the house of prayer on the first night of the New Year might be the beginning of higher things? Perhaps he had come in there in obedience to some half-formed purpose of beginning a different life at the opening of the year.
We sat there thinking it almost tearfully over when a hymn was announced, and after a sweet prelude on the organ the congregation rose to sing it. The battered way-farer rose with the rest, and as he turned the leaves of the book to find the place, a gentleman standing near courteously and kindly gave him another book with the selected hymn under his hand. He took it, and was standing quietly, when a stalwart policeman in uniform came in, and touching him on the shoulder motioned him to follow. Without a word or gesture of remonstrance the poor fellow laid down the hymn-book, took his hat and followed the officer out of the church, and into the night and the storm. We could have cried out in our disappointment and distress. It was a going out into the outer darkness—would there ever be a return? If he had come in with some dull hope, and reached after good seen all uncertainly in the distance, would he ever seek it again? Having been led out by the officer of the law, would he ever again venture within a church? Did not that ejection close up forever any door of hope from the church? We were strangers, and not near enough, and the whole thing was so sudden that there was no opportunity for remonstrance.
Perhaps it was right. Perhaps those who summoned the officer, if he was summoned, knew the case better than we; perhaps they thought it unwise to have the man remain there. There was indeed danger that the carpeted floor or the upholstery of the pew would be injured. We do not know. But it seemed to us that we would have risked the danger even of unseemly behaviour by and by, in the hope, faint though it may have been, of good that might come to one so seemingly lost.
We were sure that the preacher, could he have seen and known it, would have demanded that he should stay. The sermon was just what the poor fellow needed to hear. Its warnings against the slavery of strong drink, its exhortations to subjugate the lower nature and propensities to the spiritual, its presentations of Christ as the great helper to every struggling soul, might have been to him a word spoken in season. But he had been taken away, so that he could not hear them. His last opportunity was forcibly removed. It was all so sad that the charm and the comfort of the service were gone for us. We wondered whether—no, not that; we were sure that Jesus, the Lord, would not have done so. He would not have ordered the man out from the sacred influences of that church into the hopelessness and chill of the storm-beaten street.
We contrasted this occurrence, which will forever be connected with the first Sunday in January, 1882, with another related once in our hearing by Newman Hall of London. He was preaching, one night, a week-day night, we think, to a crowded house, on the subject of temperance. Somewhat aside from his usual manner, he was treating his theme in a calm and even philosophic or scientific way. Suddenly the thought flashed through his mind, this is not what some one here may need. In an instant, and with a sort of undefined inspiration, he broke abruptly from the train of thought which he had been following, and exclaimed in some such words as these; "Perhaps there may be some poor wanderer all hopeless under the sway of intoxicating liquor who has strayed in here to-night. Perhaps he has reached the point where he is just ready, and on the way to take his own life as a refuge from the horrible bondage. To such an one I call, O poor and lost one, Christ is waiting to help and save. He can and he will save and help if you will but now call upon him in your trouble and sinfulness." Having made this sudden appeal he resumed his discourse.
Some weeks afterward his assistant came to him and said: "I have just met a very interesting and even strange case in my visitings. I have found a poor woman evidently near her end. She has been dissipated, and her disease is probably the result of her excesses, but she seems to be having a good hope in Jesus Christ, clearly resting on his salvation. She tells me this story. On a week night some months since she was on her way, in her despair and agony, to one of the bridges with a fixed determination to cast herself into the river. As she went toward the bridge she passed the door of our chapel. Seeing it lighted and hearing your voice she stopped, and stood at the door. Just then you looked up and spoke to her as if you knew what was in her mind; told her of the Lord Jesus, and urged her to come to him. She knew that you spoke to her, and she took the message to her heart. She seems by it to have been led to embrace him as her Saviour, and to be peacefully waiting till he shall take her to himself." The inspiration was explained. What if some policeman had ordered her at that moment to move on?—Rev. William Aikman, D. D.
The Bible Pure and True.
SOME men suppose they have made a great argument against the Bible, when they say there are portions of it unfit to be read in the family or in the congregation. Men who are themselves vile, in life and in speech, pronounce the Bible a vile, obscene book. Let us classify the replies to this.
a. There is not an obscene expression in it repeated with approbation. Deeds of vileness are only recorded to be condemned.
b. It could not give a true picture of human nature if it narrated nothing vile. The men who now traduce it for obscenity, if all vileness were expunged, would censure it for giving a false view of human life.
c. It is the purest book of the age. It throws a veil over the indecencies of the times through which it has passed. It is a shame to even speak of the things done in secret by the rejecters of revelation. Horace died eight years before Christ. The school-boy who reads his poems and epistles, unexpurgated, will be the bell sheep for obscenity in his class.
d. At the time of the translation into English, no book of poems, or plays, or anything else for the masses, was as pure in language as was the King James translation (1611). The poems of Chaucer, who died about A. D. 1400, called "a well of English undefiled," are so obscene that no one dare read a page selected at random, before a respectable audience to-day. There are books of Laurence Sterne, a clergyman, who died about 1780, that will not bear reading in public. Shakespeare, who wrote his plays while the English translators were at work, has to be carefully expurgated.
e. The Bible proposes to give the exact truth just as it was, and, of course, it will be expected that it will describe and denounce secret sins and vices, as well as public crimes.
f. No one has ever said that the study of law is a vile pursuit, or that the study of medicine involves obscenity, and yet there are laws, and treatises on medical science that no one would read before a promiscuous audience, or in the family.
g. The word of the Lord is pure. No sacred writer makes or shows a liking for the impure. Filthiness is denounced as a crime. No writers abhor it as do they.
h. No one who reads and loves the Bible is ever impure. Obscenity is found only among its enemies.—Golden Censer.
Velocipede Philosophy.
In a home where the Sunday School Times is often read aloud, a little girl recently heard one of its editorial references to “a child philosophy.” Mistaking one word for another, as so many hearers do, this child turned to her little brother, and said, as if in comment on the article just read: “Charlie don’t you remember that velocipede that you had?” And the little girl is not the first person to confound “philosophy” and a “velocipede.” A good many persons straddle their philosophy as they would a velocipede, with the idea that it will enable them to get on in life without using their feet and legs in steady walking; and here is where they make a great mistake. A wise philosophy may answer as a compass to show our polar bearing, but it is a poor velocipede as a means of getting over the road of duty. In fact, there is a gain in a real velocipede over a sham philosophy, if one must straddle the one or the other; the same gain that was pointed out by the lunatic, in the contrast of a horse and a hobby. “Do you know the difference between a horse and a hobby?” he asked of a surprised stranger whom he stopped on the street. “Well, I can’t say I do,” was the answer. “Why, if a man is astride of a horse he can get off; but if he is astride of a hobby he can’t.”—S. S. Times.
THE POWER OF PRAYER.
By Dr. Croly
HAST thou climbed ambition's height,
Man of genius, man of might,
Seeing, from thy lofty seat,
All life's storms beneath thy feet,
Empire spread before thine eye,
Homage, fear, and flattery?
Amid the sounds that meet thee there,
Kneel, and seek the power of prayer!
Hast thou in life's loneliest vale,
Seen thy patient labors fail,
Felt ill-fortune's daily thrill
Waste thine energy of will?
Yet, without revenge or hate,
Wouldst thou stand the stroke of fate?
Wouldst thou bear as man should bear?
Kneel, and seek the power of prayer!
Hast thou, man of intellect,
Seen thy soaring spirit checked,
Struggling in the righteous cause,
Champion of God's slighted laws,—
Seen the slave or the supine
Win the prize that should be thine?
Wouldst thou scorn, and wouldst thou spare?
Kneel, and seek the power of prayer!
—Dr. Croly, in Literary Microcosm.
A Note to the Minister.
The Rev. James Scott said at one of Moody and Sankey’s meetings, recently, “There was not far from here a very eloquent minister who used to preach splendid sermons—what would be called philosophical and ethical sermons, but not much of Christ in them. One day when he was in the pulpit a little note was handed up to him. It contained these words: ‘Sir, we would see Jesus.’ The minister thought over the message, and could not get it out of his mind. By and by he looked into his sermons, and he found there was not much of Jesus in them, though there was a great deal about other things. He changed his preaching, and began telling his congregation all he knew about Christ. He held him up day after day; and some time after he got another little note in the same hand-writing as before, and it ran thus: ‘Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord.’”
Diligence in Christian Service
DILIGENCE in any cause is commendable, but especially so in the cause of our Master. "Giving all diligence" is the open door to all the Christian graces. Be "not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord."