Earlier text: ABSENT FROM THE BODY AND PRESENT WITH THE LORD.An ancient medal has upon it the device of a bullock standing midway between a plow and an altar, and under it this inscription, “Ready for either.” By a happy thought some missionary association has selected this medal as their emblematic seal, expressive of the true position of those who are called to labor and to suffer in the work of gospel preaching. And indeed, this motto does but express the precise position of the true and faithful servant of God, in whatever field of effort he may be placed. It is not for the Christian to say where he may labor, or how; it is not for him to determine that he will do this, and will not do that. He is not his own; he is bought with a price; and under the obligations of love, and gratitude, and obedience, he is called to hold himself in constant readiness for whatever work may be assigned him by the Lord. If he be called to bear the burden and the yoke; if his life be one of weariness, and drudgery, and toil; if he be restrained from the field of active and perilous service which seems to him grand, and glorious, and exalted; if instead of this, he be called to bear the load of poverty and care, and wearing trial, to endure infirmity, disease, and confinement; all these he must accept with joy. And if, on the other hand, he covet a quiet life, he may yet be called to stand in the battle’s front, to endure hardships, to face enemies, to fight the good fight of faith, amid a host of furious foes; to lay down his life for his brethren, or to be offered up upon the service and sacrifice of their faith; and even here, with the cross upon his shoulder, and the altar of sacrifice in view, he must never falter, hesitate, or delay. Whatever his position may be, his will must be crossed and surrendered. With the poet, he may have cause to say:—
“I would have gone, He bade me stay;
I would have toiled, He bade me rest;
He broke my will, from day to day,
And read my yearnings unexpressed,
And then said, ‘Nay.’” But again, when the chastened spirit has accepted its constant burden, and its lowly lot; when the fires of high ambition have been extinguished, and the lofty aspirations of the heart have been repressed, when at last he comes to think that his quiet state is endurable, and even desirable, then the call may come for him to go forth, forsaking all of his present surroundings, and entering upon new toils, new fields, new crosses, new trials.
“Now I would stay, He bids me go;
Now I would rest, He bids me toil.” Our safety, under such circumstances, is to accept the whole at once; to give ourselves entirely to the Lord, to count not our lives dear unto ourselves; to look upon both yoke and altar as our heritage, and in the confidence of living faith, accept them as the tokens of our Father’s love. Ready, thus, for labor or repose, for bearing burdens, or for enduring sorrows, our services shall be accepted of God in this world, and shall not lose their reward. And coming at last to the bound of life, we can say with the apostle, “I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth, there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.” 2 Tim. 4: 6–8.—Sel. I take it few people are aware of the fact, that if the tadpole of the country mudpuddle—polliwog, the boys call him—be kept in a dark place, he can never turn into a frog. Dr. Hammond confined one of these frog babies in a dark box for one hundred and twenty-five days, and he underwent no change, but on letting in the light he became a frog in fifteen days. Now, herein is a problem; for if the baby frog can’t make the red blood in the dark which is to grow him to frog-hood, how can children, vastly above him in organization, without light, make the red blood they need to grow them to a vigorous manhood or womanhood? I entered the house of my city cousin, John, in the middle of the day; his living rooms were all on the north side of his house, and so dark that on entering, I could not clearly see anything. But after a little, as I talked with the wife and sported with the children, I saw how pale they were, and I said: Cousin John, you are my astute friend; you are an astronomer, and help the other astronomers, I suppose, to keep the solar system in order; but the human system, John, of this wife and these children, here’s a lesson for you to read. What sort of blood do these pale ones have? It’s blood and water mixed—Orange County milk after it has been to the pump. Such a blood has little vital heat in it, so the pale ones must dress the more; they take cold easily, and they will have that nameless sort of spiritlessness, especially in the morning, which compels them to wind up on tea or coffee or other stimulant, before they can start for the day. Cousin John, if your wife cries easily, is hysteric-like, and complains of palpitation, you may be sure she has not got Scripture blood in her arteries; I mean the kind which Moses said was the “life of the flesh.” You see, John, the brain can’t give out in kind only as it receives; give it pale, watery blood, and weak and fitful is its work. So common is the pale-blood disease that doctors are forever giving tonics, nervines and blood restoratives—indeed these are pretty much the backbone of the materia medica just now, and their names run in the doctors’ heads so much that they can write quinine and iron as well in their sleep as when awake. John, disease is just as natural—not normal—as health. Natural causes, I mean, determine the one as they do the other. What we call Nature is just as law-working and law-abiding in giving us our diseases as our health. What is going on in your little family that you are all so pale? You are breaking organic laws of health. No, not breaking, no man ever did or ever can break a natural law; wherein they are transgressed they break him, and thus is it that men become “utterly broken down.” Nature will give us health or disease, cure or kill us, as we compel her. Open your Shakespeare to “the Merchant of Venice,” and see how the Prince of Morocco presses his suit on the quality of his blood: “Mislike me not for my complexion,
The shadowed livery of the burnished sun;
Bring me the fairest creature northward born,
And let us make incision for your love
To prove whose blood is reddest, his or mine.”
Want of light pales and weakens every living thing; and since the wonderful revelations of the spectroscope, it is a question, sub judice, whether the blood does not absorb the “vapors of iron” from the sun’s atmosphere. Neuralgia, a disease of growing frequency, of which the single element is pain, is in nearly all of its forms but an outcry of the nerves for better arterial blood; and of all the chronic diseases which make so much work for the doctors, nine-tenths are from poor blood and poor nutrition. John, I fancy I hear you say to your wife, “Do spunk up, Lizzie!” You might as well tell her to spunk up and conquer typhus fever as the pale-blood disease. Talk as we please about intrinsic powers of the will, there is no such thing. We are at the mercy of physical conditions, and the true qualification to be made in this statement is that we have largely the power to create or to choose our physical conditions, and therefore become responsible for their influences upon ourselves. There is a mysterious power of nutrition for our finer nature in the light of the sun. Children at their play are like birds in the trees, or lambs in the meadows—half their joy is in the sunny air. How does the sunlight in the summer waken myriads of insect life? The more they have of it, the more they are stimulated to life and activity. They will not go where it is dark, so we darken our parlors to keep out the flies and the millers. Florence Nightingale says it is the unqualified result of all her experience with the sick, that second only to their need of fresh air, is their need of light; that after a close room, what hurts them most is a dark room, and that it is not only light, but direct sunlight, that should come into every chamber. People, she adds, think the effect is upon the spirits only. By no means. We must admit that light has quite as real and tangible effects upon the body. But this is not all. Who has not observed the purifying effect of sunlight upon the air of a room. It is a curious thing to observe how almost all patients will lie with their faces, as if by instinct, turned toward the light. A densely shaded house is almost certain to be an unhealthy house. Darkness and dampness breed thousands of microscopic plants, creating mold, mildew, and blasting, corrupting the air and filling it with the virus of fevers and many obscure diseases. Sunlight is a perfect caustic to all this poisonous vegetation, which can only flourish in secret places, darkness, and dampness. All healthy and higher forms of plant life seek and enjoy the light. Every lady who keeps house plants knows how they love the light and stretch their branches and turn their leaves toward the sunlight, and so she must turn them around often, or they will grow one-sided. There is not a man, woman, or child, that can have a high degree of health, who does not see and feel and enjoy sun and sky and out-door air daily. “Truly, the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is to behold the light of the sun.” We do not much wonder that in all ages so many nations have worshiped the sun. They must have well observed what science now so abundantly proves, that it is the foundation of all earthly life and energy. And how sublimely beautiful and thrilling is that fiat of Jehovah’s when he said, “Let there be light, and there was light;” or yet more sublime for brevity, the literal Hebrew: “Be light! and light was.”—P. H. HAYES, M. D., in Bistoury. "UNDER THE CLOUD,"
By Independent
Under the cloud! but so was He
Who suffered and died on Calvary;
Oh! the weight of the cross he bore,
And the scourge his sacred flesh that tore,
And the cruel crown of thorns he wore! Under the cloud; but so were they,
Heroes and martyrs passed away;
Oh, the tortures of rack and flame,
Hunger, weariness, scorn, and shame!
Oh, the terrors without a name! Under the cloud; but so are all,
Daring to stand where others fall!
Choosing rather to brave disgrace
Than clasp the wrong in a foul embrace—
Keeping honor, though losing place! Under the cloud! O Christ of God!
Martyrs who close in his steps have trod;
Still on the good the evil preys;
Still for us, in these latter days,
The cruel thorns and the lighted blaze! Under the cloud; but let us trust!
Wrong is mighty, but God is just.
O most Merciful! hear our prayer—
Strengthen us what we must to bear,
And the residue kindly spare! Almost Saved.
By Lera E. Orton
It is one thing to profess religion, and quite another to possess it. And how true, though sad, it is that many will, like Demas, be warm-hearted and zealous in God's service for a while, and finally, fail at some test, and casting their religious experience behind their backs, will turn again to the world they love so well. Our having a name with this people, and bearing their reproach, is no evidence of salvation. A knowledge of the truth can never bear us to Heaven; but an every-day Christian walk and conversation is required; the world loves its own, and if we are favorites with worldlings, we may know that we are not right before God. How many are conscious that they do not live up to their privileges and obligations, but at some indefinite future day they intend to throw off the shackles of Satan and surrender themselves entirely to Christ. But if it needs our whole energies to-day with the help of good angels to overcome this powerful foe, how can we hope to conquer when time and habit have made the “cords of sin,” as bands of iron? “In this world we are always on the enemy’s ground; we breathe an unfriendly atmosphere; there are a thousand influences ever bearing upon us that tend to make us worldly and ungodly,” and we must go from victory to victory if we ever gain eternal life. We cannot afford to let the present pass unimproved. God’s grace is sufficient for us if our hearts are in his work, and we know when this warfare of a few short years, at most, is over, we shall dwell in a land where we are perfectly safe from Satan’s power—no more watching, lest we fall into temptation. Sin and evil can never cross the boundary of that beautiful country. Oh! if it were possible for us to conceive of the glory laid up in store for the faithful soul, I am sure there would be more persevering, whole-hearted efforts put forth to gain it than there are now! But we must give our whole attention to salvation, must be willing to bury worldly ambition, and take up cheerfully the crosses that lie in our pathway, and bear them to the end, or we shall find in the day of Judgment, that notwithstanding our high profession, and a name among commandment-keepers, we are only almost saved, and entirely lost! The times change. And although God is the same, yesterday, to-day, and forever, and moral principle and piety are ever the same, yet the times changing into the rapid speed of our day, demand that Christians should arouse to action and occupy positions that will give them the best possible advantages. We do really like the spirit of the following from the Methodist for Sept. 2. What T. De Witt Talmage says of the Big Methodist Tent may stir some of our tent and camp-meeting men, who need more of the dash of Kilpatrick in order to keep up with the spirit of these railroad, telegraph, phonographic times:— “We found the track of the Methodist tent all the way across the Continent. Mormonism never received such a shot as when, with Brigham Young and his elders present in the tent, the party of wide-awake Methodist ministers preached righteousness, temperance, and Judgment to come, in great Salt Lake City. The effect of those few days of faithful talking will never be forgotten. Hardly a service is held in the Mormon Tabernacle that an effort is not made to combat the sermons of the itinerants. In the two occasions when we were present in the Tabernacle, all the speakers felt called upon to answer the Big Tent. It was evident that the monster of sin had been speared, and the wound rankled. We have never seen the brethren of that religious storming party, but we hail them through these columns for the glorious work they have accomplished in Salt Lake City! It was the first gleam of light that some of the bondmen of the great religious despotism have seen for many a year. If the Methodists had stayed a few days longer, and gone around the walls of that Jericho blowing the ‘ram’s horns,’ I do not know but that the brazen superstition might have fallen in thunder and wreck, leaving many of the elders desolate, with only ten or fifteen wives apiece.” “Might not the Christian church of all denominations learn a lesson from this religious crusade? Our great ammunition wagons are so clumsy, and our big guns so unwieldy, that the enemy often has us at disadvantage. I think a squad of flying artillery, perhaps, might go forth and surround the foe. We want more men in the religious world with the bold dash that Kilpatrick and Stonewall Jackson had in the military. We glorify the policy of ‘fighting it out on one line if it takes all summer,’ but forget what a little Christian stratagem did when Gideon’s three hundred men flung the pitchers and hoisted the lamps!” “If the great West waits till churches can be organized, built, and paid for, the majority of the present generation will perish. Oh, for more big tents! Four long stakes and a big piece of canvas, and four or five Christians on fire with zeal, have proved themselves able to shake Brigham’s Tabernacle that cost one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.” “There is such a thing as too much deliberation in religion. The game gets away from us while we are loading the gun. The Methodist church, like the Presbyterian and Baptist and Episcopalian, has, of late, felt the tendency to settle on its lees, and build granite churches, and whittle its old-time hallelujahs down to a quartette, and hand the people up to Heaven with delicate kid gloves, which, at the least strain, split in the back. I would not give one of the backwoods Methodist meetings, where I used in boyhood occasionally to go and stand at the door, afraid to go in—for they had fifty persons converted there in one night—for a hundred precise churches where they preserve their religion from spoiling by keeping it on ice.” “Thank God for the Big Tent! It reminds one of the days when Grimshaw and Wesley made a gospel raid into Roughlee, and the wild mob slung dead cats at the head of George Whitefield preaching on the commons. We want a flashing up of the old-time Christian heroes. So afraid is the church of sensation that it goes into stagnation. It costs from one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to build a church in which to get a few hundred people to Heaven, when those two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, rightly applied, would build gospel advantages for ten times the number.” RULES TO BE OBSERVED IN REFERENCE TO CAMP-MEETINGS.
By MICH. CONF. COM.
- Come to the meeting. 2. Come in season.
- Take hold of the work. 4. Stay till the close.
1. Camp-meetings are important and useful meetings, or they are not. If they are not, they should be given up. If they are, they should be supported. One of the principal ways to support the meeting is to manifest an interest to attend it. A camp-meeting slimly attended, there being only a few present, while others who might attend as well as not, or at most, with a little sacrifice, are at home, still buried up with the cares of this life, shows that the meeting is considered of secondary importance, and the hands of those who come are greatly weakened. If, on the other hand, churches and scattered brethren from far and near are promptly on the ground, it shows that the cause is loved, and the privilege prized. Love begets love; and from such a meeting all will go away loving the cause better than when they came. But to come yourselves alone is not enough. Bring some one with you; not those, particularly, who are utter strangers to what we regard as truth, for such cannot hear the evidences at a camp-meeting; but those who have acquired some acquaintance of our position, and are interested. Perhaps you will say you have no such in your vicinity. Then what have you been doing the past year? How have you let your light shine? Were there no persons before whom you could live such a life as to recommend to them the truth which you profess, to whom you could speak an earnest and judicious word, or at least, into whose hands you could place a tract, and induce them to read it, which would give them some of the evidences of our faith, and perhaps enlist their interest therein? These are the ones to be benefited by camp-meetings. Bring them in. 2. Come in season. One of the greatest drawbacks to a meeting, is a failure on the part of the brethren to do their duty in this respect. And it happens on this wise: The first efforts put forth in the meeting are for the benefit of those already in the truth, are comparatively small; and on Sunday, the object is to work wholly with reference to those who come in from without. If all would come to the meeting with hearts all engaged in the work, ready themselves to take right hold for others, these remarks would not be needed; but it is to be regretted, that, to a very large extent, this is not usually the case, and those who are most poorly prepared to take hold of the work, generally come latest to the meeting. This evil can be remedied by individual reform. Shall we not see it? 3. Take hold of the work. Take hold of it at once. Take hold in earnest. No one ever was found to regret entering into the work too soon; but many have had to regret that they put it off too long. Remember the business of the occasion. It is not to visit, nor trade, nor talk nonsense, nor be idle, nor recreate, but to seek God. And he who does not do this, so far as his own benefit is concerned, might as well not have taken the trouble to come. So when a person has taken the pains to come to the meeting, and to come in season, the next thing is to take hold of the work. 4. Stay till the close. This is as important as it is to come at the commencement. The meeting should not be raveled out at either end. The presence and help of every brother and sister are needed to the close. If it is important for you to come at all, it is important that you stay through. Matters of vital interest come up for consideration toward the close of the meeting. And the parting season is frequently the very best of the whole occasion. Those who leave before the meeting closes, seem to show, that, at best, they have a divided interest. They say to their worldly affairs, Stand aside, while I go up to worship God; and, ere the season of worship is closed, they say to it, Now, you stand aside; for I return again to my worldly pursuits. When we set apart a season for God's worship, can we not give it all to him, and show, that, for a time at least, the whole heart is given to his cause? Therefore stay till the meeting is fully closed. MICH. CONF. COM. We Should Seek God after the Due Order.
By John Nevins Andrews
Such was the conclusion of David, after receiving a lesson he could never afterward have forgotten. 1 Chron. 15:11–15. Soon after David was established upon his throne at Jerusalem, as king over all Israel, he determined to bring up thither the ark of God. It is likely that this decision was right. But in the execution of it a grave error was committed. The law enjoined that the ark should be carried whenever it was removed by the Levites of the family of Kohath. Num. 3 and 4. And even they were not to come near it and the other sacred vessels till after they were covered, lest they should die. Num. 4:20. And they were not to touch one of these even after they were covered, under the same penalty. Verse 15. By means of staves they were to bear these upon their shoulders, but they must not lay their hand upon them or touch them, for the sons of Aaron alone could do this. Verses 5–15. And because that the Levites of Kohath’s family were specially designated to bear upon their shoulders the ark and the sacred vessels of the sanctuary, when the oxen were distributed to the other Levitical families who had the sanctuary itself to transport, none were given to this family, and this very reason is assigned. Num. 7:9. But when David undertook to remove the ark all this was forgotten. And thus we read: “And they set the ark of God upon a new cart, and brought it out of the house of Abinadab that was in Gibeah; and Uzzah and Ahio, the son of Abinadab, drave the new cart.” 2 Sam. 6:3. The placing of this ark upon the cart was a direct violation of the law, and was a serious error. But we read further as follows: “And when they came to Nachon’s threshingfloor, Uzzah put forth his hand to the ark of God, and took hold of it; for the oxen shook it. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah, and God smote him there for his error [margin, rashness]; and there he died by the ark of God.” Verses 6, 7. The law which expressly enjoined that the ark should be borne only upon the shoulders of the Kohathites, forbade also that one of them should touch it. When, therefore, this second act of disobedience came into the service of this occasion, the threatening of death upon the offender was instantly executed. But were not the intentions of Uzzah good? In some sense we may say that they were. They were at least as good as ours when we, from supposed pious motives, depart from the instructions God has given us. Uzzah intended to save the jostling of the ark. But if he had not already broken the law, the ark would not have been in danger of this shaking, and would have needed no such help as he bestowed. It should have been borne by the Kohathites upon their shoulders. He violated the law by touching the ark. He would have had no occasion to touch it, had the law not been already violated in the act of placing the ark upon the cart. David was displeased at this terrible rebuke which came in the presence of all Israel, and turned their triumph into lamentation and distress. 1 Chron. 13. So he relinquished his purpose to remove the ark to Jerusalem and deposited it in the house of Obed-edom. But the ark brought God’s blessing upon that house. Meanwhile David having time to consider, saw that there was just cause for the judgment which God had inflicted. And so he makes humble acknowledgement of the wrong which had been committed, and then directs the priests and Levites to bring up the ark in such manner as God had ordained. See 1 Chron. 15. In verse 13 he uses these impressive words in his charge to the Levites to sanctify themselves for this work: “For because ye did it not at the first, the Lord our God made a breach upon us, for that we sought him not after the due order.” Two reasons may be assigned for the errors here committed: 1. Some time before the Philistines had returned the ark to Israel upon a cart, and God had accepted their act. But they did it with the utmost reverence and with humiliating acts, and they could do no other way, for they had none worthy to bear it. See the wonderful story in 1 Sam. 6. 2. The ark had been in the house of Abinadab the father of Uzzah for twenty years. 1 Sam. 7:1, 2; 2 Sam. 6:2, 3, 4. Uzzah should have cultivated the deepest reverence for it. But in his mind it had become a common and familiar thing. We may draw many profitable reflections from this record which will suggest themselves to every mind. One wrong always leads to another. It many times even seems to create a necessity for another, and to furnish an excuse for that second wrong. Thus the Sabbath is changed from the seventh to the first day of the week to commemorate the resurrection of Christ. But if the ordinance of baptism which does commemorate Christ’s resurrection (Rom. 6:1–5,) had not been changed from burial in the water to sprinkling, would there be any chance for men to plead their present excuse for Sunday observance? J. N. A.