Earlier text: BALAAM'S ENCOUNTER WITH THE ANGELA BEAUTIFUL PICTURE.
By Editor
REV. DANIEL MARCH, D. D., in "Our Father's House," draws the following beautiful picture:— "I have stood on the top of a high mountain when the sun was up in heaven filling the world with his glorious light. As I gazed around and beneath, I saw clouds ridged and rolling like the billows of the sea. I saw them far off and far beneath, advancing toward the rocky height on which I stood. In the distance they seemed like mighty masses of Parian marble, white as the drifted snow in the noonday sun. It was a delight to watch their ever-changing beauty as they sailed on the viewless air. The play of imagination easily transformed them into the white thrones of the cherubim; then again they seemed like the streaming banners of the armies of Heaven; and now, behold chariots of fire and horses of fire advancing with such restless might as to sweep away the summits of the eternal hills in their march. By and by they approached and smote the sides of the mountain beneath, and then rolled upward swiftly, silently, till they reached the summit and shut out the light of the sun with their shadow. And then the bright forms, which seemed so mighty and glorious in the distance, proved to be nothing but a driving, darkening mist—a mere mass of shapeless vapor—disfiguring everything with its touch, and leaving no trace of beauty for the eye to rest upon while it went sweeping by. But in a moment the mist was gone. Again the sun shone clear and bright upon the bald mountain. Again I could see the cloud as it rolled down the rugged steep till the air was of sufficient density to bear its weight. Then, again, it put on the shape and hues of glorious beauty, and sailed away in serene and gentle majesty upon the wings of the wind." "And I said aloud, in the solitude, This is a picture of life. So do all the forms of temptation appear, fascinating in the distance, and worthless in possession. When the tempter allures from afar, we see an angel form, and his voice sounds like the music of Heaven. But when he comes near, and we give him our hand, we feel the clutch of a demon, and we hear a voice that mocks at our misery. The rewards of worldly ambition, and the indulgences of worldly pleasure, seem so precious and beautiful, when seen afar, that we cannot wait to make them our own. But when they come near, and we grasp at the tempting prize, we fill our hand with the mist, and we draw it back to our bosom wet with the chill of death. When the gilded shadow which dazzled our vision and awakened our hope has come near and proved to be only such stuff as dreams are made of, then it passes away, and often, in the distance, it seems again as brilliant and alluring as before. If we would not spend our life in the chase of phantoms that lead to bewilderment, and dazzle to blind, we must turn our yearning hearts to Him who is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. We must climb so high up the mount of faith that the clouds of doubt and fear will never darken our minds nor deceive our hearts." SABBATH AND SUNDAY CONTRASTED.
By N. V. Hull
The object of the Sabbath appointment, according to the teaching of the fourth commandment, was to make it a memorial of the world's creation by Jehovah, the God of the Israelites. In the commandment, reference is made to the transactions, the recital of which is found in the opening chapters of the Bible. It is there said that God employed six days in making the world, and that on the following day he rested. Also, that the day on which he rested, he blessed and sanctified. It is clear, then, that the Sabbath dates from the beginning, and that its object was to keep in memory the fact that God was the world's creator. This places the institution on high ground. It is also manifest that the Sabbath, being a memorial of creation, must continue its testimony while the world stands. If, for a time, its testimony was needed, equally it was needed for all time. That the Sabbath, in its uses, confers many and rich blessings on the world, is admitted. It is one of the most potent forces for civilization, and the higher the attainments of civilization the greater is the demand for the Sabbath. Also in its uses, in connection with religious exercises, it is indispensable. But for its essential nature, we must go back to its memorial character. It is in the highest sense a witness for God. When it is asked, "Who made the world?" the Sabbath answers, "God." And when it is asked, "When he made it?" the Sabbath answers, "In the beginning." And when it is asked, "How long was God in making the world?" the answer is, "For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested on the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it." The Sabbath, then, is an index continually for an answer to these important questions, pointing upward to God. And let it be remembered that its appointment is an expression of the mind of God concerning this matter. This is his witness, called and placed upon the stand by him, and its testimony no man may gainsay; and we venture the statement that, had the world from the beginning kept the Sabbath, it would have saved it from its revolt from Jehovah, and its fatal plunge into blind heathenism and infidelity. Sunday is a word not found in the Bible. In that book it has neither place nor meaning. In the heathen world, at an early day, among the objects in nature deified, was the sun. For a certain reason, the first day of the week was named after this heathen deity, and hence the word Sunday. After the close of the canon of the New Testament there came to be introduced into the religious exercises of the Christian church the custom of holding meetings on the first day of the week, the heathen Sunday, because it was said that Christ the Son of God rose from the dead on this day. Just how early this custom was introduced, we have no means of knowing, unless we date it from the time the first record of it appears, which is A. D. 140. This custom was only mentioned of one church, and it is presumable that at this time only one congregation followed this custom. It should also be borne in mind, that at this time it was not pretended that this was done in obedience to Scripture requirement. Nor should it be forgotten that, at the same time, there were observed two other festivals, one of which, at least, was of equal celebrity with Sunday, namely, Friday and Wednesday. Neander, after speaking of the "festival of Sunday," says: "And further, two other days in the week, Friday and Wednesday, particularly the former, were consecrated to the remembrance of the sufferings of Christ, and of the circumstances preparatory of them. Congregations were held on them, and a fast till three o'clock in the afternoon; but nothing was positively appointed concerning them; in respect to joining in these solemnities, every one consulted his own convenience or inclination." Nothing, then, can be plainer than that these festivals, Sunday included, were only of human origin, nor had they any mandatory character. Those who pleased to give them attention did so, and those who did not, violated no law, not even of the church. It was long after this before the church went the length of legislating on these subjects. While the fact of Christ's arrest, trial, and crucifixion is on record, there is no appointment of religious celebrations to keep in memory in so far as the time in which they occurred is concerned, and the same is true of the time in which his resurrection occurred. That with respect to the fact of Christ's death and resurrection there are ordinances appointed to keep them in memory we know. These are baptism and the Lord's supper, and they were appointed for this purpose by Christ. Sunday, then, as we have said before, has no place in the Scriptures; it is unknown there. Why, then, should Protestants, who profess to be guided wholly by the Bible, hold to it and seek to promote its observance? Is it an honor to God to do in his name that which he has not commanded, and especially so when we do it in the place of something he has commanded? How wide, then, the contrast between the Sabbath and the Sunday. One is an appointment of Jehovah, while the other is an ordinance of men. For the observance of the Sabbath there is the word of the Lord and the promised blessing, but no such thing can be said concerning the observance of Sunday.—N. V. Hull, D. D., in Sabbath Recorder. FOR THE SAKE OF ONE.
By Young Pilgrim
WHEN Robert Bruce, once king of Scotland, was obliged to flee from his English enemies, he sought refuge in the humble cottage of a poor Scotch woman. Telling her he was fleeing from the English, the woman, who did not know who her visitor was, replied, "All are welcome here for the sake of one," meaning for the sake of Bruce, and great was her astonishment and joy when her guest told her who he was. This incident may illustrate to us how for the sake of One we ought to be ever ready to do good to all who need our aid; and if for his sake we respond to every demand made upon us, there shall one day be a revelation more pleasing than that of Bruce to the Scotch woman. "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my little ones, ye have done it unto me," shall be said unto all who have done deeds of mercy and of love for Christ's sake. The Scotch woman was willing to receive any for the sake of her521king, and found that she was welcoming the king himself. By and by it will be found that our own deeds of love, if we perform them, shall be honored as though they had been personally bestowed on the King of kings.—Young Pilgrim. THE PERFECT LAW.
By Rev. Geo. S. Mott
The decalogue, or "ten words" of Jehovah, contains not merely practical rules of life, it speaks of the nature of God, and of man's relation to him. Hence these words are a reflex of the Being who spake them. Gregory says of the Holy Scriptures, they are "the heart and soul of God; for in the Scriptures, as in a glass, we may see how the heart and soul of God stand toward his poor creatures." So these utterances from Sinai are God's thoughts of what things are right, and what are wrong; they are his fatherly counsels to guide man in "ways of pleasantness and paths of peace." Thus they become a rule of obedience, with which He, as sovereign of the human race, requires his subjects to comply. These precepts are a manual containing the principles of God's requirements. The decalogue does not stand by itself, it is to be connected with the entire system of divine truth which is illustrated, applied, and enforced on the pages of Holy Writ. We look at the starry heavens and admire those gems of light, but by the aid of the telescope we discover that they are worlds and systems of worlds. And these terse precepts of the moral law, these points of divine truth, when amplified by the teachings of the Bible, disclose much more in social life, in relative obligations, and in religious services, than the unaided understanding can apprehend. The mariner at each noon takes his observation of the sun, to know how correctly he is keeping his course; and we should constantly compare our deeds and thoughts with this testimony of the Lord, which is "sure, making wise the simple." If we neglect this, we shall be in great danger of drifting into folly and sin. The ten commandments were given originally to the Jews; but their requirements are for all time, and bind every man, woman, and child. The principles they embody, existed from the beginning, and among all nations; for the Gentiles "show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another." They are based upon man's moral nature, and find a response in every human soul. Hence they are of universal application, and will continue to be of perpetual obligation. Their character shows that they are to be binding so long as generations of men inhabit the earth. From the very nature of things they cannot be repealed. While the human family continues, while men have property, life, and character to be protected, while weal or woe results from man's conduct, just so long must these laws control us. Only when God consents that we shall not love him, reverence his name, keep his day holy, will the moral law become null and void. Obedience is required not alone to one precept, but to all. "He that offendeth in one point is guilty of all." These precepts are like ten links of a single chain; the violation of one breaks a link and severs the chain. The decalogue is not like the laws on a statute-book, with which we come in contact occasionally; we encounter its regulations each day, and in every deed and word; yea, in all our thoughts and passions. As the atmosphere goes into every crevice on the earth's surface, and presses on all men at all times and in all places, so the moral law in its practical issues touches not now and then, but always the wants and waywardness of sinful men. "The law of the Lord is perfect converting the soul." Ps. 19 : 7. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." Matt. 22 : 37-40.—Rev. Geo. S. Mott. GOD'S LOVE.
By B. L. Aldrich
REVELATION is scarcely needed to teach the evident truth that God is love. But many things are plainly shown by nature which men in the blindness of sin stupidly fail to perceive, as, for instance, when all creation plainly exposes the existence of an invisible creator, a highly cultivated people like the Greeks, absurdly conceived of him as a hewn block of stone. So men universally remained in ignorance of his love, thinking him to be malignant and revengeful, until the Bible came to eradicate from their minds this strongly rooted notion. The fact that there is any creation at all is proof that God is love, for this principle is creative; it is the original force which starts existence. Hate annihilates. If the universe can be compared to an immense tree with branches suspending the golden fruit of worlds, the seed from which that tree sprang was love. Neither revelation nor nature, however, teaches that God loves all things, nor absolutely all men. He does not cherish any fondness for Satan; he is not specially yearnful toward the Neros nor the Phillip Seconds of Spain, and he evidently did not think much of Annanias and Sapphira. It is not natural to destroy what one loves. No man treads on the worm that crawls in his own heart. Revelation tells us that God is angry with the sinner every day, that he will surely punish the wicked, burn them up like stubble, pull them up root and branch, and make them as though they had not been. The basis of all correct and beneficial Christian teaching is the conditional and not the unconditional love of God toward humanity. "God so loved the world." This expression has an adverbial modifier. Its correlative is "that he gave his only begotten Son," and the effect was that whosoever believed on him (Christ) might not be still unloved, and consequently perish, but have everlasting life. It is then through the Mediator, for the sake of the Mediator, and in view of the saints of the future, that God loves men. The same love which created Adam, beautiful and sinless, also embraces its second great triumph in the persons of the pure and perfect. A mind capable of lovely ideals does not depend on present forms to encourage its affections. The woman often invests the object of her love with excellences originating in her own conceptions, as the moon seems to smile on a world wrapped in her own incontinent splendor. So God loves his own conceptions, and only those in sympathy with them and with the means by which only they can be obtained can ever be the objects of his absolute love. To go where the light originates we must walk in its beams, and, to get to the condition of that being that God "so loved," it is necessary to go on in the hallowing presence of Christ and under the bright influence of the Holy Spirit. All outside of these are the objects of divine wrath and retribution. THE COMING OF THE LORD
By W. M. Jones
At an early age we listened to a sermon on the coming of Christ and the resurrection of the saints. The text was Psalms 17 : 15, and the occasion was our dear mother's funeral. Our tender years were made familiar with this glorious doctrine, for ministers were accustomed, fifty and sixty years ago, to dwell upon it for the warning of sinners and the comforting of believers. We have often lifted up the voice on this subject. Shall the pen be silent? Alas, we fear there is too much silence on this great theme. The pulpit and the press are too much given to speak of an improved state of things, and a continuation of the same without ever reaching on to the time when shall be heard the voice of the archangel, the shout of the Lord himself, and the blast of the “trump” of God (1 Thess. 4 : 16). We believe in improvement, especially in the behavior of Christians. Knowledge is spreading and great efforts are being made, not without success, to increase temperance, virtue, honesty, and peace; yet the increase of immorality is so apparent that we should feel disheartened were it not for faith in the power of the gospel. But faith and the gospel cannot avert the certain on-coming flood of perdition to the ungodly. Let, therefore, the pen as well as living voice sound the alarm: “Flee from the wrath to come,” “Prepare to meet thy God,” “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” The Lord will come. He came once, and gave himself for us. He will come again. He said to the disciples, “I will come again, and receive you unto myself.” The prophets clearly intimate the great event: “His feet shall stand in that day on the Mount of Olives.” On that mountain overlooking Bethany and Jerusalem the angels said, “This same Jesus who is taken up from you into Heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.” “He will come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe.” Contemporary with his coming, will be the punishing “with everlasting destruction, them who obey not the gospel.” It is written, “The Lord shall be king over all the earth; in that day there shall be one Lord,” and “His people shall be all righteous.” The prophets, Christ, and the apostles speak of his coming in positive terms. James says, “Behold the Judge standeth at the door;” and both Peter and Paul agree with James, that “the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.” Let us note well that his coming must be very much nearer now than it was then. While this fact is a warning to all to prepare to meet Him, it is also an incentive to all believers to fulfill the Master's injunction: Occupy till I come! How much there is to be done, and how little time to do it. The brevity of life admonishes us that there is no time to idle away. Countries hitherto quite inaccessible are now open to the gospel. Their bars of iron have been drawn, and their gates of brass lifted. China, Arabia, Armenia, Abyssinia, the heart of Africa, and other fields, are white unto harvest. Brethren in the Lord! with the increase of opportunities our responsibility increases. Let us preach faithfully what the Master requires as the fruit of faith in him, namely, the obedience of the heart and life to the Father's commandments.---W. M. Jones, in Sabbath Memorial. NATIVE qualities of mind and character are something, but they are by no means everything, in settling what a man is to be and to do in the world. There are differences of original stock among men which are not to be ignored, and which cannot be obliterated; but with all this a great deal depends on the surroundings and the training of a person of any stock. Where a child is, and what is done for him, has much to do with deciding what he finally is in himself, and what he does in the long run for others. A person's life and character cannot be made by others, nor yet by his surroundings, but they can be shaped by influences and means of training. This is an important truth for parents and teachers to have in mind in all their dealings with the young. Like every other truth, this finds its illustration in the analogies of inanimate nature. Each tree, for example, is after its own kind, whose seed is in itself. The elm can never become an oak, nor an oak a pine. But trees of the same kind are not all alike. The live oak of Florida would never show its massive richness of form and foliage in the scanty soil of northern New England. On the contrary, the pines of the far north would fail to find in the luxuriance of a tropical climate the supplies they gather for their life and growth from among the rocks and out of the bracing atmosphere of their native region. It would be as impossible to have the elm in its fullest gracefulness of form, and beauty of verdure, away from the meadows and village streets of the Connecticut river valley, as to secure the magnificence of the redwood forests elsewhere than on the slopes of the Pacific coast. If the substance of these trees severally were analyzed scientifically, it would be found that each tree had in its growth taken to itself that which was its peculiar need; and that the excess or the lack of certain elements of its composition, in the soil or the atmosphere of its surroundings, had determined and shaped its distinctive characteristics—within the limitation of its germinal nature. Moreover, in the growth of a tree, incidental circumstances and external pressure have no small degree of shaping and determining power. A sunken ledge of rock on one side, and a rich open soil on the other, may decide the unequal stretch of the roots below, and correspondingly of the branches above. The encircling sweep of other trees, or of buildings, in all directions but one, may send the branches struggling toward the light just there with eccentric outreach. A persistent nipping of the buds and clipping or twisting of the shoots may change the whole tree into a grotesque and unnatural shape. A sharp blow or a severe wrench given to a tree while yet a sapling, or its smiting in mature life by the lightning's scathing flash, may tell on its form and growth, and have a part in its distinctive development, from that time forward. It is obvious that the elements and agencies, the facts and forces, which go to complete the structure and shape the appearance of a single tree, are many and diverse. How much more is this a fact concerning the character of every human being! It is not of the man's heart that we are now speaking, not of his character in the sight of God, but of his characteristics and qualities of mind—those peculiarities of disposition and taste and preference which decide his efficiency, and in large measure his standing and happiness in life. Spiritually, a man may be re-made, born again, given a new heart by the power of the Holy Ghost; but this regeneration does not of itself change the man's distinctive qualities of mind and disposition. These are of his original nature, and their shaping, but not their making, is mainly dependent on the man's surroundings, his instructors, and his associates, in the formative period of his life. It is in view of this truth that we say that much, very much, depends on the home life, and the neighborhood life, and the business life, and the school life, and the church life, in which our children are reared and trained; that much also depends on our understanding of the characteristics and peculiar needs of our children. It is important for us to know, to begin with, what our children are; and this is not the easiest thing in the world to learn. Many a parent fails to know the most marked peculiarity, or the greatest danger, of his or her own child. If a parent should candidly ask the question of a fair and plain-speaking friend, familiar with that parent's children, and competent to judge them, What do you think is the chief fault—or the most objectionable characteristic—of my son or daughter? the frank answer to that question would in very many cases be an utter surprise to the parent, the fault or characteristic named not having been suspected by the parent. A child may be so much like the parent just here, that the parent's blindness to his or her own chief faults or lack may forbid the seeing of the child's similar deformity. Or, that child may be so totally unlike the parent that the parent will be unable to appreciate or even to apprehend that peculiarity of the child which is apparent to every outside intelligent observer. God has given the responsibility of the training of that child to the parent; but he has also laid on that parent the duty of learning, by the aid of all proper means, what are that child's requirements, and how to meet them. A child may be permanently dwarfed or distorted in mental and moral characteristics through his parent's neglect of this duty. A neighborhood ought to be prized or shunned according to its probable influence over the children of our charge. So ought a school, or a college, or a church. The whole bent of the child's character, and all his prospects of efficiency and usefulness, may be shaped—even though he cannot be made, or re-made—by his playmates, or his school-fellows, or his teachers, or his pastor. And our words and actions, our counsels and constraints, may practically settle the question of what that child is and of what he does in the world. How this increases and deepens the responsibility upon us for the training of the children committed to our charge! How it ought to weigh with us in our own lives and actions, and in our choices and provisions for those whom we are thus shaping for all time, while we are quite unable to make them anew!—Sunday School Times. THE OLD METHODIST'S TESTIMONY.
I PRAISE the Lord, my Christian friends,
That I am with you still,
Though standing like an old log house
Upon a west side-hill;
The music has gone out, you know;
The timbers have decayed;
But sunshine on em's just as warm
As when they first were laid. Almost a hundred years have passed
Since I was born, and then
'Twas only fifteen further on,
And I was born again.
I've seen the forest melt away;
Nice houses have been reared;
The world has quite outstripped the church,
I'm very much afeared. They used to tell a Methodist
As far as eye could scan;
No gewgaws on a woman then,
No dickey on a man;
But now our congregations are
So much by fashion led,
They look just like a rainbow
Wrecked upon a posy bed. The circuit riders of them days
Were not so fine and grand;
They took degrees in hauling logs
And clearing up the land;
But when one of 'em rose to preach,
I tell you we could smell
The fragrant flowers of Heaven
And the stifling smoke of hell. We had an "amen corner," too,
Beside the pulpit stairs,
And while he raised his sermon-bents,
We lifted with our prayers;
We threw in many a loud "Thank God!"
And were not obliged to go,
To give the Lord the glory,
To a class-room down below. The grand old quarterly meetings
Were to all the brethren dear,
Just like four green oases
In the desert of the year;
The people flocked from miles around;
My wife would take a score,
And after supper they would pray,
And sleep upon the floor. I know the world's a-moving on,
As Galileo said,
For now I rent a cushioned pew
To hear an essay read;
But when through stained-glass windows
The sun throws blue and gold,
I cannot help a-thinking how
The glory shone of old. They call me an "old fossil,"
And a "relic of the past,"
A "fogy" and a "croaker" too;
But this wont always last;
I tread a trembling isthmus
Where two seas of glory roll,
And soon the past and future bliss
Will swallow up the soul. And when I reach fair Canaan,
The Lord will doubtless see
That mansions in the city will
Not do for such as me;
So he will let me go among
The old-fashioned saints, I think,
And praise him neath the tree of life
Upon the river's brink.
—Nashville Christian Advocate. Divine Agency and Human Effort
By Wm. Jay
God's agency does not exclude nor supersede our instrumentality. He gives the increase, but Paul must plant and Apollos water. He furnishes the wind, but we are to spread the sails. He gives, but we gather. Prayers and diligence, dependence and activity, harmonize in the Scriptures, and are only inconsistent in the crudeness of ignorant and foolish men.—Wm. Jay. LIBERALISM IN THE CHURCH.
By James White
THE following interesting words are the opening of an article in the N. Y. Independent:— "Dr. Whedon presents a very important and serious thought in The Methodist Quarterly when he says that 'utter apostasy from Christianity may be attained through the route of progressive liberalism.' This is true and should be pondered by every one who ventures to question old accepted beliefs. If a man begins to doubt and ask reasons, and reject authority that is unsupported by reason, there is serious danger that he will become conceited in his self-sufficiency, and end by rejecting what has reason, as well as prescriptive authority, in its favor." And yet liberalism—perhaps under the name of liberality—is becoming undeservedly popular in this age. And that church is largely blamed which endeavors to preserve its distinctive faith in its membership. It has this right if it has any right to exist as a distinct body. We should claim this right for ourselves, and could not, therefore, deny it to others. Prof. Swing received the sympathies of the world, and the secular press, especially, were loud in their denunciations of Dr. Patton for prosecuting the case before the court of the church. Yet Dr. Patton was clearly in the right. Even allowing that Prof. S. had the right, as an individual, to hold to such views, and to proclaim them, he had no right to do so as a minister of the Presbyterian church. We do not deny the right, so far as human authority is concerned, of a Seventh-day Adventist to imbibe and teach Universalism; but we do deny his right to do this as a Seventh-day Adventist. Honesty demands that each one shall hoist his own proper colors, and not walk under a false pretense. Just now Dr. Thomas, of the M. E. church, is receiving a large share of attention. Of these two the Independent remarks:— "It is certainly very unfortunate that the great denominations should be unwilling to keep place for men who are naturally connected with them, who love them, and who are, like Dr. Thomas and Professor Swing, recognized abundantly as good Christian teachers as soon as they go outside the denominational lines." Persons of almost any shade of belief may be recognized as "good Christian teachers" by a certain class, and the more readily if the cry of "persecution" can be raised in their behalf. Prof. Swing is quite too liberal according to our ideas of the true evangelical standard; and Dr. Thomas' view of the atonement is, to our mind, subversive of the Scripture idea of vicariousness or substitution. H. W. Beecher holds that the death of Christ was solely to exert a moral force on the minds of men. He openly denies the efficacy of blood to cleanse from sin. Similar to this is the view of Dr. Thomas. Whereas the Scriptures teach that the blood of Christ was shed—he died for us, as our substitute—that God might justify the believer in Christ consistently with the claims of his own justice. Rom. 3:23-26; 1 John 1:7; Heb. 9:22. It is claimed that if the "essential" points of Christian faith be held, nothing else should be required in candidates for the Christian ministry. But if the truth of the atonement, as taught in the texts above cited, is not essential, we know not what is. The truth is that the human side of the doctrine of the atonement is the only side now considered of importance by a large proportion of professed Christians. They seem to forget that the first note of the angelic songsters at the birth of Christ was, "Glory to God in the highest." "Peace on earth, and good will to men," is all they know. To set aside the infinite justice of God is to rob him of his glory, as it is the denial of an essential attribute in the divine character. And, surely, to exalt divine mercy at the expense of divine justice is to distort the character of Deity, as each of these attributes of Deity is necessarily infinite, and does not allow of any diminution. The strangest part of the discussion of this subject is the light in which it is presented by influential Methodist papers. The Central Methodist speaks as follows:— "From Dr. Thomas' statement it is clear that he differs largely from the majority of his brethren. But the Bushnell theory of the atonement (it is only a theory or exposition of the Scriptures from the standing point of God's moral attributes) has been more largely accepted among theologians than we suspect. Within the present generation a great change has taken place among more intelligent Methodists, at least, especially in regard to the nature of future punishment, without reducing the effectiveness of our preaching or the progress of the work of God among us." We were aware that all the prominent lights in the Methodist church had ignored the time-honored, and to our view, the Scriptural, idea of literal fire in the punishment of the wicked. Thus far the M. E. church has made its bow to Universalism. Dr. Thomas has not yet decided, according to his statement in Conference, whether restoration or destruction is the final lot of the wicked. But we were not prepared for the announcement in one of the first official papers of the denomination that "the Bushnell theory of the atonement" has been so largely accepted by theologians of the present day, and to hear the paper speak so complacently of the change. It is proof of the fact that the old-time landmarks are fading away,—that the churches are, to a large extent, undergoing a transition. And who can forecast the end of these things? Seventh-day Adventists have been accused of holding to vagaries on the fulfillment of prophecy, mostly because people are slow to believe that so great changes will soon take place as the prophecies apparently predict. But their slowness to believe is mainly owing to the fact that they are not aware of the great changes which have already taken place, and are now taking place, in the faith of the great religious bodies of the day. That there is need of change, in some important respects, must be apparent to every observing mind; but we deeply regret that the change now going on is toward that liberalism which reasons away the most important declarations of the sacred word; which robs the blood of Christ of its efficacy to cleanse from sin, and makes his death a mere example, or illustration, of divine love, instead of a sacrifice to the claims of the divine law which rebellious man has trampled under foot. In all this we see the hand of the enemy of all righteousness, in his efforts to disparage the law of the Most High. Now, more than ever before, is it necessary to make our appeal "to the law, and to the testimony." Never before was there such a crusade made against the law of God. Antinomianism is lifting its head in bold defiance of authority almost everywhere. But God has not left himself without witnesses in this day of departing from the faith. 1 Tim. 4:1. The prophet said, "When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him." Isa. 59:19. The standard has been erected in the prophecy relating to the present time. It is found in the message of Rev. 14:9, 12. "The commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus," is its central truth. The commandments of God, by which he will bring every work into judgment; Eccl. 12:13, 14; and the faith of Jesus, our remedy for sin and our refuge in the day of wrath. May God assist us to cling closely to the message,—our only hope for these last days.