Review and Herald, Vol. 86, No. 36. (9/9/1909)

Review and Herald

Sep 9, 1909

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 9, 1909

Do Thou Thy Will

Do Thou Thy will with me! I am convinced that Thy mysterious ways Lead ever up to goals of peace. I see, In looking back o’er discontented days When I rebelled at paths Thou led’st me in — I see how for my good it all has been: Do Thou Thy will.

Do Thou Thy will. I find That when I wept because some barrier stood Between me and my longings, I was blind; For Thou hadst placed it there for my own good; And when in chosen paths I could not go, It was to guard me from some needless woe: Do Thou Thy will.

Do Thou Thy will. I feel The calm of realms toward which my feet are led, Across my fevered, restless spirit steal; The blind rebellion of my heart is dead. Or in the valley, or on the heights above, The hand that leads me is the hand of Love: Do Thou Thy will.

— Lutheran Witness.

THE WORK — AND — THE WORKERS

Sixty thousand copies of Liberty for the third quarter had been sold up to August 29, and a new edition had to be printed to supply the demand.

Think about this statement: “We find it much easier to sell the second time we work a place.” This good word comes from a man and his wife who are two successful Liberty workers. This speaks well for Liberty and its mission; also for recanvassing territory.

At the close of the month of August, 26,888 copies of the September number of Life and Health had been ordered by agents. This makes a fair showing for the September issue in view of the fact that orders for it were not filled until near the close of August.

The Temperance number of the Youth's Instructor is still being successfully sold. The public appreciates, also, the regular weekly issues of this excellent paper. The following words are merely samples of many constantly coming to the Instructor: “Enclosed you will find my renewal. I like the Instructor very much, and would not be without it. I read it every week, and enjoy every word of it.”

The missionary secretary of Indiana, R. C. Spohr, with a company of Indiana periodical workers, is, by mutual agreement, helping some of his sister conferences to keep their territory in good working condition by selling large numbers of Life and Health, Liberty, and Protestant Magazine in some of the large cities of these adjoining States. Every few days this company sends in an order for 1,000 papers.

The magazine Life and Health not only administers to the needs of the general public, but it serves our own people well. It furnishes lucrative employment for all classes. Children successfully handle it; the aged do well with it. One blind Brother sells regularly 1,000 copies a month, making a clear profit of $70. There are many people with good eyes who do not receive as much a month. This is worthy of the consideration of all REVIEW readers.

When any of our readers want to secure a good Bible at a reasonable price, they should order an “Open-Flat Bible,” from the Review and Herald, Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. It opens perfectly. It has the best India paper; large bold-face minion type. Chapters numbered by books, also consecutively; center references. It is self-pronouncing and silk-sewed. It weighs only eighteen ounces. Size, 5½ x 8 x ⅞ inches, outside of cover. It is cheaper than any Bible of a similar style. It is in every way desirable. In three styles only: A, $4; B, $5; C, $6. Write for circulars and full description.

Mrs. Nettie Moran, of the State of Washington, who recently sent in an order for 3,100 copies of Liberty, writes as follows: “I sell Liberty to the business men only, especially to lawyers, doctors, and office men generally. In good territory, I average 100 copies a day. My daughter has been with me for a time. We find that we have better success when using only one magazine at a time. We have enjoyed our work very much this summer, although at times it has been extremely warm. The Lord's strength has been my sufficiency.”

Christian Education is the name of our forth-coming home and school magazine. It will be issued in the interest of the proper development of the entire being; the home; the school; the church; and for the proclamation of our special message. It will be a great help to parents, teachers, and pupils. It will inspire confidence; it will keep our people abreast with the principal movements in the educational world. It will acquaint all with the progress of our denominational school system. It will expose fallacies, and encourage the true science of education. Yearly subscription, 50 cents, domestic; foreign, 60 cents. Single copies, 10 cents. We have just received our first order for 25 copies of Christian Education to be sold by an agent.

The following letter reached us August 30: “Received the 100 Life and Health; and my little girl, 13 years of age, sold 53 this afternoon. She desires 100 copies more to sell before school begins. She has earned her scholarship in the South Lancaster Academy selling our periodicals during the summer. She says that Life and Health especially interests mothers, physicians, dentists, and business men in general. Please send 100 copies more at once.” This mere child earned $2.12 in one forenoon. This is not an exceptional record made on a special day, for she has been selling papers all summer, and thus early has her scholarship earned.

“DAYBREAK IN THE DARK CONTINENT” is a book “dedicated to the Africans, who, after nineteen centuries, are still without hope and without God in the world, and to the men and women who, having the great commission, will in this twentieth century bear to them the gospel message.” Africa, the Dark Continent, whose population is composed almost entirely of dark people, is the one continent whose native religion is without sacred writings and definite system—a religion whose followers are but wanderers in the blackness of darkness. “Daybreak” has especially to do with the dawning of a better day for this long-neglected people of Africa. It contains a chapter on the geography of the continent, illustrating the general surface of the country by a relief-map, also other maps of the continent at different periods of its history. It treats of the people and their customs, their religions of darkness contrasted with the religion of light. It gives geographical and statistical tables, with the various religious divisions of Africa, and samples of Bible translations into African dialects. To all who desire to promote the work of the gospel in this land, it is a book that will be a great help in every way, through giving a thorough knowledge of Africa's needs, and the methods best adapted to its advancement. It is thrilling and instructive from first to last. With its reading comes a strong missionary inspiration and an earnest desire to do something for the millions of this dark land. It is especially instructive for the young people. Only 40 cents in paper, and 50 cents in good cloth binding.

Testimonies for the Church, Volume 9, Now Ready

By the time this notice reaches our readers, the last number of “Testimonies for the Church,” Volume 9, will be ready to mail. The following outline of the contents of this new number of the Testimonies will at once reveal its importance:—

SECTION 1.— For the Coming of the King: The Last Crisis; Called to Be Witnesses; Home Missionary Work; The Need of Earnest Effort; “Freely Ye Have Received, Freely Give.”

SECTION 2.— Literature in Service: Our Publications; Circulate the Publications; A Broader View; Camp-Meetings and Our Publications.

SECTION 3.— The Work in the Cities: Conditions in the Cities; A Present-Day Work; Methods of Labor; An Appeal to Laymen; Words of Counsel to Ministers.

SECTION 4.— The Health Work: Faithfulness in Health Reform; A Plea for Medical Missionary Evangelists; Loma Linda College of Evangelists.

SECTION 5.— The Spirit of Unity: Unity Among Different Nationalities; Unity in Christ Jesus; The Publishing Work at College View; German and Scandinavian Conferences.

SECTION 6.— Among the Colored People: A Call for Colored Laborers; Proclaiming the Truth Where There Is Race Antagonism; The Color-Line; Consideration for Colored Laborers; The Needs of a Mission Field.

SECTION 7.— The Religious Liberty Work: A Time of Trial Before Us; Sunday Labor; Words of Caution.

SECTION 8.— Timely Counsels: Faithful Stewardship; Beneficence; The Spirit of Independence; A Distribution of Responsibility; In Humility and Faith; To the Workers in Southern California; “I Am but a Little Child;” The Reward of Earnest Effort.

The entire contents of this number will be of great encouragement and help to every individual who is in any way interested in, or associated with, the special message for this time; and the one section, dealing with the “Spirit of Unity,” will be found to be of most vital importance to the church at this particular time. This one section alone is of sufficient present interest to demand its thorough study by every Sabbath-keeper. No family of believers ought to delay securing and studying this book. Orders may now be placed with tract societies.

Price, post-paid, cloth, 75 cents; limp leather, $1.25. Thin edition, Bible paper, in limp leather binding, $1.25.

Growing in Grace

By Editor

Editorial

“But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” “As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby.”

THE life of the Christian is a life of progress and advancement. He grows in grace as he grows in a knowledge of God. By study of the Word, by communion with the Spirit, by his own experience and the experiences of his fellows, he learns continually more and more of God’s ways and workings. This increasing knowledge, if applied practically in the life, will transform its possessor into the image and likeness of the divine character.

A GROWING Christian is a working Christian. Indeed, the manifestation of activity, energy, and growth is the proof of life. In the spiritual as well as in the physical life stagnation is death, and cessation of effort the precursor of dissolution. But this need not mean forced exercise of the spiritual energies. Labor born of love needs no compulsion. Exercise is the necessary complement of life, as works is of faith. The love of Christ constrained the apostle Paul. In consequence, the sense of duty was overshadowed by the higher motive of privilege in Christian labor. Better to work from a sense of duty than not to work at all; better to do right solely because it is right, and because we feel that God requires it, than to do evil; but best of all is to come so near to God and so drink in of his life, and so sense his love and goodness, that right-doing and all Christian labor shall be but the expression of our love and gratitude in small return for the unnumbered benefits received. Then shall we joy in Christian service, and our labor shall ascend to the Father, as an odor of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable and well-pleasing. “To do good and communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.” Heb. 13:16.

A Covering Cloud

By W. A. S.

The Vaudois, or Waldenses, of the Piedmont valleys, had been all but exterminated. While the Reformation was spreading in Northern Europe, the papal forces visited the Vaudois villages with fire and sword. The remnant, driven out, had found refuge in Switzerland and southern Germany. After several years of exile, they were endeavoring to return to their homes. Spies sent into the valleys had reported the fields untilled and the villages deserted; and now a pioneer band of eight hundred men was making “the glorious re-entry,” as it was ever afterward called.

Against the assaults of their enemies, they had pressed on from Lake Geneva, through Savoy, near to their own country. But on the slopes of a mountain called the Balsiglia, they were surrounded by the French and Piedmont troops sent to make an end of them. Their last stand apparently had been made, and now the enemy, with artillery in position, rested as evening drew on, confident that the next morning would deliver the little band to the slaughter. Wylie says:—

Never before had destruction appeared to impend so inevitably over the Vaudois. To remain where they were was certain death, yet whither could they flee? Behind them rose the unscalable precipices of the Col du Pis, and beneath them lay the valley swarming with foes. If they should wait till the morning broke, it would be impossible to pass the enemy without being seen; and even now, although it was night, the numerous camp-fires that blazed beneath them made it almost as bright as day. But the hour of their extremity was the time of God's opportunity. Often before it had been seen to be so, but perhaps never so strikingly as now. While they looked this way and that way, but could discover no escape from the net that enclosed them, the mist began to gather on the summits of the mountains around them. They knew the old mantle that was wont to be cast around their fathers in the hour of peril. It crept lower and yet lower on the great mountains. Now it touched the supreme peak of the Balsiglia.

Will it mock their hopes? Will it only touch, but not cover their mountain camp? Again it is in motion; downward roll its white fleecy billows, and now it hangs in sheltering folds around the war-battered fortress and its handful of heroic defenders. They dared not as yet attempt to escape, for still the watch-fires burned brightly in the valley. But it was only for a few minutes longer. The mist kept its downward course, and now all was dark. A Tartarean gloom filled the gorge of San Martino.

At this moment, as the garrison stood mute, pondering whereunto these things would grow, Captain Poulat, a native of these parts, broke the silence. He bade them be of good courage, for he knew the paths, and would conduct them past the French and Piedmontese lines, by a track known only to himself. Crawling on their hands and knees, and passing close to the French sentinels, yet hidden from them by the mist, they descended frightful precipices, and made their escape. “He who has not seen such paths,” says Arnaud in his “Rentrée Glorieuse,” “can not conceive the danger of them, and will be inclined to consider my account of the march a mere fiction. But it is strictly true; and I must add, the place is so frightful that even some of the Vaudois themselves were terror-struck when they saw by daylight the nature of the spot they had passed in the dark.” When the day broke, every eye in the plain below was turned to the Balsiglia. That day the four hundred ropes which Catinat had brought with him were to be put in requisition, and feux-de-joie so long prepared were to be lighted at Pinerolo. What was their amazement to find the Balsiglia abandoned! The Vaudois had escaped and were gone, and might be seen upon the distant mountains, climbing the snows, far out of the reach of their would-be captors. Well might they sing,—

“Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowler. The snare is broken, and we are escaped.”

—“History of Protestantism,” Vol. IV, pages 507, 508.

They reached their own valley of the Pra del Tor, and to their joy found, all unexpectedly, agents of the Duke of Savoy, their prince, with a message of good will, giving authority to bring back their families and fellow believers from all places where they had fled. Thus again the Waldensian people found homes among the mountains that had hidden their fathers away from Rome’s wrath in the days of old.

It was among these same Alpine valleys that our own work gained its first foothold in Italy.

W. A. S.

National Reformism at Winona Lake, Ind.

By C. M. S.

Liberty's Citadel Under Fire

To the National Reformer the United States of America is a nation in open rebellion against the government of heaven. For that reason the National Reformer does not vote in general elections. To do so would be to lend his support to a government that has bid defiance to the King of the universe.

This attitude is assumed toward the national government because the national Constitution confines its provisions to the civil or temporal affairs of men. Were the Constitution a document which abounded with declarations of allegiance to God and to the Lord Jesus Christ, and exercised a strict supervision over the religious concernments of men, as did the early charters and constitutions of the American colonies, it would be in harmony with their belief and purpose, and they would be able to exercise the franchise without doing violence to their consciences. But as that immortal foundation of American jurisprudence leaves every man free to follow the dictates of his conscience—to worship or not to worship as he may choose—it is out of harmony with those early colonial charters, out of harmony with the cruel practises built upon them, and, therefore, out of harmony with the purposes of the National Reform Association, which are based upon those colonial charters and experiences. That we are not doing them any injustice in stating that their purposes and plans are of the colonial type is apparent from their own declarations. Said Dr. J. M. Wylie at this institute:—

The influence of the civil government in shaping morals makes it necessary that the New Testament prophet, the man who speaks for God, shall proclaim God's will concerning this department of the kingdom. The fact that civil government controls the education of our children, the vital question of marriage and divorce, and even the lives of the citizens, demands that it be placed under divine law, and that God's spokesmen shall utter his will. The prophets understood better than the kings the fundamental law of the land, and kings were compelled to consult them. The reformers and the preachers in the early days of our republic were men who had an important part in molding the destinies of the nation.

What is this but a return to colonial days and methods? The preachers of those days told the state what was “the will of God,” and the subservient state enforced the preachers' interpretation of that divine will. It mattered not what cruelty it entailed, it was “God's will,” and they were his agents; and they made him responsible for all they did. They held that the state must “be placed under divine law,” and they attempted to place it there, and through their attempt to do that there was created, not a paradise, but a purgatory.

The ministers of those days considered themselves God's spokesmen. They were the ruling force in politics; and with their mental vision dazzled by the glamour of that power, they were blind to the great matters of justice and equality between man and man, to the rights of men in the matter of choosing unmolested what religion they would profess, or whether they would profess any; and that abuse of power by those ordained to the service of God, that practise of injustice by those ordained to the cause of righteousness, has sprinkled the nation thickly with scoffers, skeptics, and infidels.

“God's spokesmen shall utter his will,” said those colonial legislators. They were his spokesmen; they uttered his will (or professed to); and then they placed themselves on the throne of vengeance to execute God's wrath upon all whom they judged to be disobedient to him or under the frown of his displeasure. “God's spokesmen shall utter his will,” says the National Reform Association. Will they utter it without putting it into execution? Their colonial prototypes did it, and we have no reason to suppose that they will not do the same, once they are clothed with the requisite power.

“The prophets understood better than the kings the fundamental law of the land, and the kings were compelled to consult them,” says the National Reformer. What is this but the plainest kind of declaration that when their plans mature, when this nation has been “Christianized,” as they express it, the church will control the state, molding all its legislation, and sweeping away every guaranty of freedom of worship. The prophets (that is, the preachers) are to tell the state what it shall and what it shall not do; they are to interpret “the fundamental law of the land” because they understand it better than do the laity. “The kings were compelled to consult” the prophets. So the representatives of the American government are to consult the modern prophets concerning what the government should be and do. That gives us a hierarchy in place of a republic, and the people are to be ruled by the ministers, instead of ruling themselves as our present Constitution provides.

That it is the design of the National Reform organization to take the government of this nation out of the hands of the people, where it has rested so long, was shown by the address of Rev. J. S. Martin at this convention, on August 14. Mr. Martin is the general superintendent of the National Reform Association. He said:—

This association proposes that there shall be a recognition made in our nation's fundamental law that the law of God as revealed through Jesus Christ, and not the will of the majority of the people, is the supreme law of the land.

That association proposes that the national Constitution shall make that declaration; shall declare that the will of the majority of the people is not the supreme law of the land; shall declare that the law of God, as revealed by Jesus Christ, is the supreme law of the nation. That would at once put the nation under ecclesiastical control; for “the preachers are the successors of the prophets,” the expounders of the divine will, the authorized “spokesmen” of God. No law could be formulated without their authorization, or enacted without their approval. From a government by the people we would be transformed into a government by the ecclesiastical overlords of the people, who would utter their decrees as the decrees of the Almighty, and enforce them, as of old, without pity or compassion.

This organization is not dangerous because of its numbers, for in its constituency it is not large; but because the tares it is sowing in the world are finding in a Spirit-lacking and power-loving church a most fertile field for their growth and propagation. As it was in the days of Constantine, so it is now. As the church loses the power of the Holy Ghost, she reaches out for the power and pomp and political influence of the world. The National Reform propaganda panders to a political priesthood's love of power and influence, and the slogan of its hosts catches the ear of many who have deserted the prayer-meeting for the caucus, and put the Bible critic where the evangelist used to be. It is this that makes their propaganda against the government and its Constitution a dangerous attack. Men who are looking for the loaves and the fishes of political influence will flock to its standard; and politicians, whose ears are always pressed to the ground to hear from what direction the forces they fear are approaching, will not be slow to wheel into line when the movement has attained sufficient influence.

The association holds that this is a Christian nation; and being such, it is extremely inconsistent that it should have “a secular constitution.” Such a constitution, they hold, does not sufficiently safeguard the “Christian institutions, usages, and customs of the nation.” Said Dr. Wylie:—

If the present Constitution will not sustain our national [religious] institutions and usages, then it is high time we had a new Constitution, or an amendment to the old one, that will furnish a sure foundation for the pillars of this republic.

That they considered the national Constitution out of date, inadequate, and inconsistent with the nation's Christian

features, was repeatedly declared and emphasized during this institute. Said Rev. J. S. McGaw:—

For one hundred thirty years we have tried the experiment of a secular constitution, and the moral, social, civil, and political conditions throughout the land declare beyond the peradventure of a doubt a secular constitution for a Christian nation is a failure. . . . The legalized evils of the hour are not the sins of the administration. The disease is constitutional, and we will never be able to eradicate it fully from our political system, until we treat the Constitution to a Christian amendment. . . . To continue to build on the insufficient foundation is neither good sense nor good statesmanship. The only wise thing to do is to put our government on a thoroughly Christian basis by an open acknowledgment of Jesus Christ as King and Lawgiver of this nation.

That, in their estimation, would be the enthronement of Christ and the end of iniquity; for, said this speaker, “With the Christian principles of civil government thoroughly embedded in our fundamental law, there is not a legalized sin which could be legally reared upon it, and we could go forward building a national structure which would endure.” The coming of Christ, as believed and taught at this institute, is not the coming of Christ as taught by Christ and his apostles; but his coming is to consist of the acknowledgment of Christ as ruler by the various nations, led by the United States. That is his coming, and that is his crowning as the universal Ruler. That will usher in the reign of righteousness. It might be said in conclusion that this program will prepare the world, as nothing else could, for the acknowledgment of the universal sovereignty of the papal prince, sitting in the place of God and setting himself forth as the legitimate acting Prince of Peace.

The present campaign of the National Reform Association is an attack upon the very citadel of our liberties, both civil and religious. It proposes a complete metamorphosis of the fundamental principles of the government, which will result in establishing a hierarchy on the ruins of the republic, and giving us ecclesiastical tyranny in the place of civil and religious freedom. C. M. S.

The Situation and the Remedy

By W. W. P.

No one can shut his eyes to the fact that radical changes have been made in the teachings of religious leaders during the present generation. The departures from the old standards of faith are too evident to admit of a denial. The radicals assert this with much satisfaction, while the conservatives deplore the results which have been developed from a principle of interpretation adopted decades ago by some of their own school. Among those who have commented upon this trend in theology is Dr. James Orr, of Scotland, who has contributed to the Homiletic Review for August an article with the title “American Theology as Seen by a Scottish Theologian,” from which we take these paragraphs:—

It is plain, indeed, that it is a long way that American thought has traveled in theology, as in other matters, in the last few decades. Time was when the world looked to America for its massive theological systems — witness the works of Hodge, Shedd, and of like-minded writers. These were the text-books in theological education a quarter of a century ago. That age passed. Systematic theology, undermined by critical and historical studies, seemed left behind. It fell out of favor and gave place to other tendencies; never, however, completely. . . .

That there is a radical — or more properly a revolutionary — spirit abroad which assails the very foundations of Christian thinking and belief, few conversant with the signs of the times will deny. It is not Christianity alone that is thus assailed; the attack is on all social and ethical institutions and ideas which come down with the sanction and veneration of the past. The recent startling articles in the Cosmopolitan on the teachings on marriage and ethical relations in American schools and universities, if marked by the journalistic note of exaggeration, still have enough of substance to show what a grave peril attaches to the spread of these revolutionary ideas. In theology the radical spirit finds fit expression in the recent outspoken works of Prof. G. B. Foster, of Chicago. With Professor Foster’s relations to his denominational friends we have nothing to do, but it is foolish to deny that the positions, boldly stated and defended in his “Finality of the Christian Religion,” and now in his book on “The Function of Religion in Man’s Struggle for Existence,” mean the surrender and denial of everything vital and fundamental in Christianity as the New Testament presents it, and as the world and church have hitherto understood it. Supernatural revelation is absolutely parted with; Jesus is reduced to the limits of humanity; every doctrine in the creeds of any of the churches is altered or rejected. “Scientific theology has succeeded in undermining the ecclesiastical dogma of the Trinity and of the Deity of Christ.” It is an open question for Christianity whether Jesus even historically existed. “To hold that belief in the existence of Jesus is an inalienable constituent of our religion is to adopt a position which, from the standpoints of Jesus and of Paul themselves, is in principle subversive of religious faith.” “Is it inconceivable that the very name of Christianity shall have passed away?” The prophets of this new cult are Hegel, Bousset, Otto Pfleiderer — more truly Nietzsche. With such negations the Christian church, which values its existence and its faith, can have no dealings. . . .

There is need, it appears to the present writer, for a more positive and less ambiguous attitude to the great doctrines on the part of Christian teachers. The process of thought in the circles referred to is one easily traced. First there is an ostentatious throwing overboard, generally with some expressions of contempt, of what is called the “verbal inspiration” of Scripture, or of the authority of Scripture generally. Jesus is recognized by most as the incarnate Son of God, though with shadings off into more or less indefinite assertions even on that fundamental article which make it doubtful where the writers exactly stand. Christ’s pre-existence is generally placed in doubt; it is, e. g., left unmentioned by Dr. Clarke. Jesus is still spoken of as the highest Revealer, or ultimate Revelation, of God, and it is allowed that his words, if only we can get at them, furnish the highest rule of guidance for time and for eternity. But then criticism, we are also told, must have its rights. The Gospels go into the crucible, and in the name of synoptical and Johannine criticism, are subjected to wonderful processes, in the course of which much of the history peels off as excrescence. Jesus, we are reminded, was still a man of his generation, liable to error in his human knowledge, and the limitations in his conceptions and judgments have to be allowed for. Paul, held to be still largely dominated by his inheritance of rabbinical and Pharisatic ideas, is not a teacher we can follow further than our own judgment of Christian truth leads us. If these things are done in the green tree of the New Testament, it is easy to see what will be done in the dry tree of the Old. But of this it is unnecessary to speak. The fluidity of the whole way of thinking must impress every student. Scotland, it is believed, demands something more positive.

A very serious element in the newer thinking is the tendency in the radical schools to doubt or surrender even the moral perfection of Jesus. Paul Wernle, one of the most brilliant of Germany’s liberal theologians, says boldly that Jesus never claimed to be sinless. In America, as in Britain, there is an increasing movement in the same direction. This is quite logical from the humanitarian point of view. It is very well to deny the physical miracles, to argue against the virgin birth and the bodily resurrection. But if a sinless personality is conceded, the greatest miracle of all remains. So from numerous sides we have the affirmation that, in the words of Professor Foster, Jesus is only “the best we know.” In his latest book he declares: “Even now we may not see in Jesus an absolutely perfect model without jeopardizing the freedom and the progress of humanity.” In another place he tells us that “the democratic goodness about us is not so much a donation from Jesus as a creation of modern men who are as certainly children of God as Jesus himself was.” In such a declaration the whole of the new tendency stands revealed, and it is not for a living Christianity to make terms with it, but to fight it to the death — only, not with carnal, but with spiritual weapons.

The situation is abundantly clear. In the effort to counteract the force of this advent message, and from the desire to appear in harmony with the assertions of a non-Biblical science, the inspiration of the Scriptures, in any true sense of that word, was either denied or left as an open question. This virtually placed human reasoning and human

speculation above divine revelation, and only one result could follow — theological anarchy. The only remedy is a return to first principles, the acceptance of the Word of God as the Word of God, and the obedience of faith. But this means to receive and obey the message for this time, and to prepare for the coming of the Son of man.

There will soon be no middle ground between a refined infidelity and the great second advent message. W. W. P.

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