Review and Herald, Vol. 81, No. 13.
Testimonies for the Church, Volume VIIIPage 2
Testimonies for the Church, Volume VIII
In these times of perplexity when so many minds are becoming confused concerning God and his work in the earth, how cheering it is to have a voice lifted in no uncertain tones giving anew the rallying call “to the law and testimony.” “Testimonies for the Church,” Vol. VIII (No. 36) is now printed, and will soon be ready for delivery, and every loyal Seventh-day Adventist will rejoice to have the instruction and the warnings which it contains. It presents the need of the hour; the lessons to be drawn from recent experiences; the dangers of making “Jerusalem centers,” and of selfishly hoarding the blessings of heaven; it tells of the importance of true medical missionary work, and deals with the difference between true knowledge and vain speculation. You should have this volume, and so should your brethren and sisters in the church. Note carefully the following outline of the contents of this volume. This will give you some idea of its importance. A call to service—Certain victory—Words of encouragement. God’s purpose for his people—The work of the disciples—An ever-widening work—An unchanging promise. The promise of the Spirit—The Spirit brings power—Our privilege in service. The condition of the church—An illustration of neglect—A call for greater earnestness. THE WORK AT HOME AND ABROAD
Lessons from Christ’s talk with Samaritan woman—Work needed in the cities—Foreign fields to be entered—Indifference of ministers and lay members. Help needed in countries of Europe—Reasons for hope and courage—An unfailing Helper. Victory for Christ’s soldiers—Scenes of future glory—The redeemed—Christians the light of the world. WARNINGS AND COUNSELS GIVEN TO THE BATTLE CREEK CHURCH
A failure to honor God—Our duty to the world—Missionary work at home and abroad—The Holy Spirit in our schools—A departure from right—Look to God for help—An appeal to the brethren in Battle Creek. The result of believers’ colonizing—A warning against judging—A call to leave Battle Creek. THE RESULT OF REFORMATION
The work of our publishing houses—Printing objectionable matter. The condition of the Review and Herald Office—Objectionable matter to be excluded—Responsibility of managers—A warning of calamity. THE REVIEW AND HERALD FIRE
The news of fire not a surprise.—Messages of warning—Christians to watch—The meaning of the calamity. A scene in the Battle Creek Tabernacle—Confessions and repentance. A hymn of the promised land—A hymn of the captivity—Song of the redeemed—“Call to remembrance the former days”—“Written for our admonition”—The message for this time—The opposition of the enemy—The loud cry—“And hast forgotten”—Choose ye this day whom ye will serve—The shield of Omnipotence. Paul’s experience—Resting in God’s love—The danger of self-sufficiency—Our Burden-bearer—Looking away from men—An eternal weight of glory. CENTERING TOO MUCH IN BATTLE CREEK
Our field is the world—Unselfishness in service—Helping those who need help—What one institution can do for another—A reformation needed—The living principle of brotherhood—The only safe course—The danger from enlargement—The question of wages. GO FORTH INTO MANY PLACES
Result of centralization—The need of broader plans—Build up new centers—A failure to appreciate God-given responsibilities. GOD’S PURPOSE FOR HIS INSTITUTIONS
God’s purpose for the Sanitarium—The value of a study of God’s Word. GOD’S PURPOSE IN MEDICAL MISSIONARY WORK
Educate medical missionaries—Our work for to-day—No change in God’s cause—Words of caution. A danger to be guarded against—A high standard—Teaching and healing. The need of caution—Importance of medical missionary work—The cause of dearth in the church—To every man his work. God’s building—A temple of living stones—Different instrumentalities—Truth a unit—Words of cheer. CHRIST THE MEDIUM OF PRAYER AND BLESSING
Christ’s intercession for us—Our co-operation with him. God’s purpose in establishing the Sanitarium—A world-wide work—Laboring for outcasts—Helping or hindering the Lord—God’s purpose for his workers—The need of wise counselors—A divine Helper—Burdens that God has not given. THE VALUE OF THE WORD OF GOD
How to deal with error—The reward of a faithful study of the Word. Our message—The sign of our relationship to God—Object of establishing sanitariums. Christ’s teaching—Christ’s victory over unbelief—A warning against centralization—A neglected field near us. Christ’s life teaches obedience—Self-sacrifice—A firm stand for the right. Centralization—True missionary workers will not colonize—An educational center—The work to be done—God’s mercy and forbearance. HOW SHALL OUR YOUTH BE TRAINED?
Early training of John the Baptist—Early training of Christ—Words of warning—Dangers to untrained youth in large sanitariums—No time for delay. A DIVISION OF RESPONSIBILITY
Institutions not to be bound under one control—Jerusalem centers not to be made—To look to God for guidance—A call for holier service. No controversy over question of leadership—Early experiences—God our Leader. Christ’s prayer for unity—Division among Christians—Experience of early church—God’s people to be united. Our duty as church-members—Work that all may do—The result of faithful effort. SHALL WE BE FOUND WANTING?
“Repent, and do the first works”—The condition of the world—Dishonoring God—Need of a thorough reformation. The nearness of Christ’s coming—All to do earnest work—Our promised home. Results of sin—A divine Teacher—Nature testifies of God—Man’s failure to interpret nature—True science in harmony with revelation—The work of creation—Laws of nature—Mysteries of divine power. Nature is not God—A personal God created man—God revealed in Christ—Christ’s revelation to the disciples—Testimony of Scripture—“The everlasting God”—His loving-kindness—His providential care—His long-suffering mercy. A FALSE AND A TRUE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD
Speculative theories—The greatness of our God—Warnings against presumption—Christ’s revelation of God—The glory of the cross—The knowledge that works transformation. DANGER IN SPECULATIVE KNOWLEDGE
Last-day deceptions—Pantheistic theories—Fanaticism after 1844—Past experiences to be repeated—Beware of a sensational religion—A warning against false teaching—Diverting minds from present duty—A renewal of the straight testimony—Seek the first love—God’s Word our safeguard—Study the Revelation. THE FALSE AND THE TRUE IN EDUCATION
Philosophical speculation—Infidel authors—Historical and theological lore—Myths and fairy tales—A purer fountain—Heart-education. IMPORTANCE OF SEEKING TRUE KNOWLEDGE
The work that requires our thought—The science to be mastered—No time to lose—Self-renunciation—The highest interests demand attention—A personal knowledge of Christ. THE KNOWLEDGE RECEIVED THROUGH GOD’S WORD
To be given to our children—An experimental knowledge—Wonderful possibilities—Results of receiving God’s Word—An aid in the study of nature—A lesson of obedience—Education in the life to come. The experience of Enoch—Experience of John the Baptist—God’s promises. Volume VIII contains 350 pages. Price, cloth, 75 cents; limp, red leather, round corners, $1.25. Order of State Tract Societies: Review and Herald, Battle Creek, Mich.; Review and Herald, Washington, D. C.; Pacific Press, Oakland, Cal.; Kansas City, Mo.; Southern Publishing Assn., Nashville, Tenn. Encouraging Assurances
By L. A. S.
The Lord’s witnesses need special experiences in order that they may be prepared to meet the demands of the present hour, and the basis of such experiences is found in personal consecration. The results of a right personal relation to God are presented in the following instruction given through the spirit of prophecy: “When you give yourself wholly to the Lord, great changes will be wrought in you. You will have such a love for the truth that wherever you go, you will bear witness to the Lord’s power. He will give you a genuine testimony to bear. He will pour out upon you his grace and power, and you will enter a new and living way. Christ’s righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rearward. Your words and works will be ratified in heaven. As you work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, God will work in you, to will and to do of his good pleasure. Power to overcome will be given you. When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him.” In order that the eternal Son, who is God, the exact representation of his very being, might be a merciful and faithful high priest to make reconciliation for the sins of the people, he must be made in all things “like unto his brethren.” Does he in any degree cease to be that perfect revelation of the glory of the character of his Father?—No. The revelation which is given of the Son in the first chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews is the basis of our hope, and is the very foundation of the whole experience of Jesus the Saviour from sin. That he might become that revelation of God to humanity, to humanity in sin, therefore because “the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same.” It is a simple matter to see it in this way because of his relationship to his Father as the Son. As is expressed in the eighth of Proverbs: “Jehovah possessed me as the beginning of his way.” Just as we have it in Rev. 3:14, “the beginning of the creation of God,” “the faithful and true witness.” Now because of that relationship to God his Father, he was the minister to all things that were created previous to the entrance of sin. All things were upheld by the word of his power before sin came into the world. He was the same revelation of the very character of God before sin came into the world, but now he must be the revelation of that same power, he must be that same forth-shining to us in sin, to us who have fallen, and in order that he might be to us who are fallen that same perfect revelation of the glory of God, as our Saviour, as our priest, to minister for us in sin, “it behooved him in all things to be made like unto his brethren.” The fundamental perversion of truth, which lies at the foundation of many other perversions, is a wrong conception of God and of our relation to God. How shall we be able to come into communion with God? Can we know whether we stand on a solid platform, or whether we are on a shifting platform that may be taken out from under us? Have we a right understanding of the gospel of God as given to us in Christ, or have we some philosophical, speculative interpretation of that gospel, which is simply a human perversion, and which therefore will not have in itself the power to save us in our personal experience from the power of sin? It does not make any difference whether a false god be put forth in the material form as of old, so that one falls down to a god of wood or of stone, merely an object which represents his own ideas of God, or whether that idea be presented in words, whether it be a mere speculative idea; it is none the less a false god, and it will none the less fail us unless we deal with the living God, the true God, and stand on solid ground. Now the revelation which God has made to us through his Son in the setting that he has given to it in the sanctuary and its services, both the typical and the present heavenly service, hedges us in from these perversions, and presents the truth in such a way that we shall be saved from these errors, perhaps even without knowing what they are. The revelation of the truth as it came through the light upon the sanctuary and its services more than half a century ago was in a large degree the means of bringing out this people, and establishing them with a distinct and clear message for this last generation. In this same setting of the truth there will be found the clear light which will guide this same people aright amid the confusion of false teaching which characterizes the closing years of this message. Those who desire the light for this time should look to the open door of the heavenly sanctuary through which the glory of God is shining. When God says, “Go forward,” the way may appear to be full of obstacles, apparently making any advance movement impossible. It is pretty sure, indeed, that obstacles will appear to be in the way, for it is by such appearances that the devil seeks to hinder the work of God. In reality, however, the obstacles are not there; for when God says “Go,” that word removes every obstacle that would prevent it. The forbidding appearances may remain, for it is not essential to God’s purposes that appearances should be taken out of the way. In his service we are not dealing with appearances, but with realities, and the realities are determined by his word. When God gave to Moses at the Red Sea the word to advance, appearances indicated that if the Israelites did this, they would be drowned. But when the host stepped down to the water’s edge, they found that in reality there was dry ground for their feet all the way across. The natural eye shows us the appearances, but the eye of faith shows us the realities. Let us be sure that we are looking with the eye of faith. L. A. S. The Cities Shaken
By L. A. S.
RESIDENTS of Boston and other New England cities and towns experienced an unpleasantly novel sensation in the early morning of March 21. The ground beneath them was shaken by several earthquake tremors, which vibrated across New England from northeast to southwest, in some places rocking buildings, shaking pictures from walls, ringing bells, and frightening those who realized to what cause the disturbance was due. An event so unusual in that section of the continent, so little anticipated or provided for, has naturally caused considerable discussion of a speculative character, the possibility of other and more serious visitations of the kind not being a pleasant one to contemplate. Especially in the large cities with modern “skyscraper” structures might it be supposed that the results of a severe earthquake would be appalling. It is interesting to note that men consider these modern architectural “triumphs” to be earthquake proof. The head of the department of geology in Columbia University is quoted as speaking very reassuringly as regards the possibilities of danger from this source. To the question, “What would happen if an earthquake should hit New York?” he is quoted by the Sun as saying in reply:— Owners and tenants of the big steel structures need have little fear. If the shock that Boston felt should be transmitted here, the damage would be very slight. The large steel-framed structures, such as the Flatiron Building, the Park Row Building, and the like, would undergo an experience similar to the snapping of a whip. The top only would be affected, and that perhaps only so far as to lose a bit of ornamental coping. A great deal, of course, depends upon the structure of the foundation. There would be trouble if a structure, based partly on either silt or mud, should be affected by an earthquake. The effect on such constructions as the subway, the two East River bridges, the North River tunnel, and the Statue of Liberty would be small. They are too stoutly constructed to be in any danger. The elevated and surface railroads would not be weakened nor twisted as they were in Charleston in the earthquake there. This is published by the Sun under the heading, “We Needn’t Fear Earthquakes.” Thus do men reassure themselves on the basis of confidence in their own works, without taking into account the only sure basis of confidence, which is the Word of God. In the information given by that Word a very different prospect is presented. The message given us to-day is, “Out of the cities”! And the reason follows: “The time is near when the large cities will be visited by the judgments of God. In a little while these cities will be terribly shaken.” (Italics ours.) This language points very strongly to the conclusion that in addition to the usual agencies of destruction with which we have become familiar—storm, flood, and fire—the judgments of God are soon to employ another and the most terrible one of all,—the earthquake. The proud builders of the modern towers whose tops “reach unto heaven” are preparing themselves for a grievous surprise. No works of man can withstand the touch of the finger of God. Spiritualism in Garments of Light
By W. A. S.
Present-Day Revivals of Ancient Errors—No. 2
Spiritualism in Garments of Light
SPIRITUALISM was interwoven with all the false religions of antiquity. Its philosophy of religion, refined and adapted, is, in the main, the fundamental idea of the new-thought movement. The Bible abounds in warnings against its ancient manifestations. Isaiah associates it with the Eastern corruptions in a chapter bearing special lessons for the latter days: “Thou hast forsaken thy people the house of Jacob, because they be replenished from the East, and are soothsayers [mesmerizers] like the Philistines.” Isa. 2:6. Spiritualism stands for more than the physical phenomena usually associated with it. The chiefest thing about it is its philosophy of God and of religion. When Eastern mysticism and Western naturalism were commingled with Christian ideas in the great Alexandrian “mixing bowl,” spiritualism was one of the ingredient. Speaking of Alexandria and her schools of that period, Canon Kingsley says:— Now one enters into a whole fairyland of those very phenomena which are puzzling us so nowadays—ecstasy, clairvoyance, insensibility to pain, cures produced by the effects of what we now call mesmerism. They are all there, these modern puzzles, in those old books of the long-bygone seekers for wisdom. Now again old controversies are being revived, and new and old are commingling together, to prepare the way for Satan’s crowning deception. The cruder and irreligious form of spiritualism has almost lost its place as an organized movement. It is superseded by the rapid development of a refined and religious spiritualism in the new-thought revival, which is leavening all denominations. The central idea is found in its doctrine of the individual as a medium for the manifestation of the divine. Confounding the merely physical existence with the spiritual life, it proposes to exalt all things to the level of the spiritual. Ralph Waldo Trine, author of “In Tune with the Infinite,” much quoted in new-thought circles, thus tells it:— The most powerful agent in character-building is this awakening to the true self . . . that I, this very eternal I, am a spiritual being, right here and now, at this very moment, with the God-powers which can be quickly called forth. . . . With this awakening one is brought at once en rapport with the universe. He feels the power and the thrill of the life universal. This conception, so flattering to the “self,” is a familiar one in Eastern thought. Annie Besant, the talented theosophist and defender of the Brahman philosophy, says:— That man in his inner Self is one with the Self of the universe—“I am That”—is an idea that so thoroughly pervades all Hindu thought that man is often referred to as the “divine town of Brahman,” the “town of nine gates,” God dwelling in the cavity of his heart. This view of the natural life of all flesh is very different from the Christian teaching that Christ dwells in the heart by faith; not bodily, for in glorified flesh he is our advocate in the sanctuary above. By his Spirit, the Comforter, he dwells in the heart of faith. The theosophy of the East diffuses God through all flesh and all space. An ancient sage stated it: “He is immanent in every atom, all pervading, all sustaining.” And now the same conception of “divine immanence” is hailed as a wonderful development of new thought. The well-known preacher, Dr. Washington Gladden, predicts in the North American Review a great revival from the general acceptance of this idea. After reference to the new theory of inspiration by which inconvenient portions of the Scriptures are set aside as “human crudities and errors,” he says of the new teaching:— It substitutes for our mechanical theories of creation the thought of the immanent God, who, in the words of Paul, is above all and through all and in us all; nay, it gives us also that doctrine of the immanent Christ—the Logos, the infinite Reason and Love. . . . The God in whom we live and move and have our being will not need to be certified by documents or symbolized by sacraments or demonstrated by logic; our knowledge of him will be immediate and certain. . . . This truth sanctifies and glorifies the whole of life. It is the truth which lies at the heart of what is known as the “new theology;” and, if the Christian pulpit can but grasp it and realize it, we shall have such a revival of religion as the world has never seen. But the same teaching has only cursed India for thousands of years. The doctrine of the “immanent God” was stated just as poetically in the Vedas as by any of the poets of modern transcendentalism:— He who is intelligence itself and subtler than the thread of the lotus-fiber, he who pervades the universe, and who, unchangeable and larger than the earth, contains this universe. Scripture phrases are now perverted to cover heathen ideas. In garments of light the new spiritualism is unmistakably preparing the way for Satan’s final5manifestation. The movement discriminates well in its attack on the old-fashioned view of inspiration; for the Bible description of God and his throne, of the substantiality of things in heaven and of the ministry in the heavenly sanctuary, deals a death-blow to the spiritualistic philosophy. But the newest development does not avowedly oppose the Bible. It indorses it, while wresting its words to the support of falsehood. Thus as of old, the truth of God is turned into a lie. In the bewildering mingling of light and darkness by which Satan’s philosophy of evil is to try to deceive the very elect, we may be thankful indeed for the light given us by the spirit of prophecy for this perilous time. As opposed to the spiritualistic idea, we have this view in “Early Writings,” fully in accord with the Scripture teaching:— I saw a throne, and on it sat the Father and the Son. I gazed on Jesus’ countenance, and admired his lovely person. The Father’s person I could not behold, for a cloud of glorious light covered him. I asked Jesus if his Father had a form like himself. He said he had, but I could not behold it, for, said he, if you should once behold the glory of his person, you would cease to exist. Strike this view of God from us, and substitute the theory of the all-pervading personality called God by the new philosophy, and we are at once involved in the mazes of the spiritualistic deception. Then heaven is wherever God is, and he is everywhere, and there is no logical place in the system for angels as messengers between God’s throne in heaven and man’s home on earth. These ideas are wrapped up in this philosophy that is ensnaring the world, and that has sought to entrench itself among us as a development of the third angel’s message. But the two systems are utterly at variance. One is God’s truth, the other is Satan’s crowning deception of spiritualism. Says “Early Writings” again:— I have often seen the lovely Jesus, that he is a person. I asked him if his Father was a person and had a form like himself. Said Jesus, “I am in the express image of my Father’s person.” I have often seen that the spiritual view took away all the glory of heaven, and that in many minds the throne of David and the lovely person of Jesus have been burned up in the fire of spiritualism. I have seen that some who have been deceived and led into this error, will be brought out into the light of truth, but it will be almost impossible for them to get entirely rid of the deceptive power of spiritualism. Such should make thorough work in confessing their errors, and leaving them forever. It is no common experience that we are to face from now until the Lord comes. Spiritualism is permeating both Protestantism and Catholicism, and its philosophy has ever been the religion of heathenism. Every wind of doctrine is blowing. Error designed to ensnare us will naturally be urged in the language of the message, and with calls to get larger, broader, more spiritual views of it. But for our soul’s sake, and for the sake of Jesus and the souls for whom he died, we must never be off guard with spiritualistic theories masquerading as light for Seventh-day Adventists. And that is what any philosophic conception amounts to that would take away the thought of God which any little child must get by reading Bible statements or the extracts quoted from “Early Writings.” This is the throne of grace to which I, for one, want to come. I beg that no false science may ever substitute a mere philosophic conception for this view of reality given by inspiration. I want to be left a little child with God. The heart of a child understands more than the cleverest mind that seeks to find out God by reason and science, vainly “intruding into those things which he hath not seen.” Col. 2:18. The world by wisdom never did find God. Its attempts to do so are seen in all the corrupt systems of heathenism, whose ancient philosophers talked as prettily about high and exalted views of Deity as any moderns. But by the way of faith in all ages men have found him, and found a Saviour from sin. In this way a little child can walk. In truth, only childlike faith can walk the way. “Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” Matt. 18:3. The door of heaven is open to the faith of a little child. And it is a very real place. There angelic beings await the commands of God, to speed to and fro between earth and heaven. Enoch and Elijah and Moses, and the saints who were raised with Christ (Matt. 27:52), are there, going to and fro amid surroundings real and tangible to men in redeemed flesh. Eden, which once was on earth, is in heaven. Rev. 2:7. Trees are rooted there in actual soil, untouched by the curse. Jesus, “this same Jesus,” the real Christ who died and rose again, “the man Christ Jesus,” is by the Father’s throne, in the same flesh, glorified, that he bore as our Brother on earth. And there is the father, whose face the angels and the redeemed can see, and whose loving face we, too, shall see when grace transforms our mortal sight. Strike out this view of Christian truth, and substitute for it the Hindu conception that makes God personally present everywhere the same as he is anywhere, and there is no light in the universe for a sinner seeking to find God. In its own terms, strange to our ears, and in its native home amid the hopeless, vicious surroundings of heathenism, one readily recognizes its character. But clad in the phrases of Christian thought, and fortified by an intermingling of truth and error,—and the refinement of error lies ever close to the refinement of truth,—it indeed becomes a snare to deceive the very elect, save as God intervenes by special anointing for the time of peril. It is a very “science of evil.” There is something in the ideas of the esoteric or spiritualized teaching about God and nature that brings the evil one especially near. This occult philosophy of the East has a fascinating, hypnotic influence on human minds that trifle with it. One can no more safely approach it with a neutral, inquisitive mind than one can safely mingle in the spiritualistic seance. All its associations breathe a pestilence and contagion to the soul. It is an old, old foe in a new face. There is safety for us only in the truth and work that God has given us. The one thing that concerns any believer in this truth is to know how to keep sins forgiven, and how most rapidly this warning message of the coming of Christ may be carried to every nation and people. This is the message, and this the one work. With the clear light of the past experience of the advent people streaming on before us, we can see the end of the pathway to the city of God. The springing up of new controversies and the revival of old are but evidences that the crisis is at hand, and that nothing now will be allowed to delay the rapid development of the forces of good and evil. The end of the conflict will be the glorious appearing of our Lord. A Flag of “Christian Conquest”
By L. A. S.
A new flag, purporting to be the emblem of Christianity, has recently come into existence. It is the adopted standard of the “Christian Conquest Movement,” which is enlisting Sunday-schools and other religious organizations for a world-conquest of all that is opposed to Christianity. The flag shows a cross on a white background, and on a dark background the accompanying words, “By this sign conquer.” It is thus seen to be borrowed from the idea of the Emperor Constantine, who claimed to have seen in the heavens a vision of a cross with the words, “In hoc signo vinces.” In the Union Signal of February 18 the Rev. S. M. Johnson, the “originator and director of the Christian Conquest Movement,” says of this flag:— It came into being in the hour of our national grief as the body of President McKinley was borne down the aisle of the Canton church. There was silence on earth for the space of five minutes. During that holy calm all Christians drew closer to God, and gave themselves anew to God’s work. Anarchy had struck down the flag, but instantly there arose its defenders in the Christian people who declared for a flag of their own,6that when any foe should again strike at the life of our country, they could place their flag beside our national emblem, and give battle in the name of Christ and our country. This is very suggestive of a union of the church with a worldly power, though perhaps no such idea is contemplated in this movement. The flag of a civil government is not an emblem of Christianity, but a sign of political power and authority. The flag of the United States stands—or should stand—for justice, for enforced conformity to laws made to preserve the rights of the people. As such it is not opposed to Christianity, so long as it keeps out of the sphere of religion. But in the sphere of religion civil force is opposed to Christianity. The gospel is carried forward by no such agency. The weapons of Christian warfare are of a totally different character. Christianity is a system which combines justice with mercy, providing always for the pardon of the transgressor. Civil government knows no such provision, and could not exist were it to try to carry such a provision into effect. The distinction between the sphere of civil government and of religion needs to be much better and more generally understood than it is at the present. There is a mingling of the divine and the worldly, the sacred and the secular, which can only lead to acts done in the name of Christianity which are anything but Christian in character. History is full of admonitions on this point. The intention may be of the best, but it is the result that must be considered in the end. The talk of joining this “Christian” flag with the flag that floats over armies and navies, of joining the forces of the church with the civil power, to fight anarchy, appears to us to be wholly foreign to the commission of the Christian church as given by her divine Head at the hour of his ascension to the throne of heavenly power. “The Conquest Flag,” says the Rev. Mr. Johnson, “has been adopted by fourteen State Sunday-school associations, and also by Christian organizations numbering many millions of members. This flag is in use on all the continents and among all denominations, and will be seen upon all occasions when the interests and demands of the Christian religion are being advanced.” This “Christian Conquest Movement” has adopted this banner, we are further told, “as an emblem of the Christian religion.” It is to be “used as a means of cultivating and expressing Christian unity, and as a summons to Christian conquest. Associated with the national flag, it becomes an appropriate emblem of all work that appeals to the blended sentiments of patriotism and religion. Although the various churches have not yet united in one vast organization, they have united in declaring their essential unity by adopting and using a common flag.” We wish this movement all success in its work for the promotion of temperance. We believe a Christian movement can attain the highest success, however,—the only real success,—by the use of Christian agencies alone. These are fully provided in the Word of God, the Spirit of God, and the heavenly intelligences who unite with the followers of Christ for the upbuilding of his kingdom in the earth. The only truly Christian flag is a blood-stained banner that has been through every battle between the hosts of sin and of righteousness since the fall of man. Under that banner are marshaled the forces of Christ to-day. The Christian conquers not through any outward sign, but by faith and the sword of the Spirit. “This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.” In this long-established Christian conquest movement we fully believe. It is the only one, we think, of which the world has need. Increasing Crime
By L. A. S.
PRESIDENT HENRY HOPKINS, of WILLIAMS COLLEGE, is of the opinion that the very foundations of the national life in this country are threatened by the increasing prevalence of crime. In a recent address before the Patria Club in New York City, he is reported as saying:— There are some very ugly features in the present situation. There is abounding evidence of an alarming increase in crime, of crime of every sort, but especially of the kind that undermines honesty, chastity, and respect for law. . . . There is a constant tendency in evil to embed and embody itself in corporate life until society is as a whole involved. Wrongs and shames are accepted and embodied in the organization, as, for example, the saloon, the brothel, the gambling house, a police department that exists primarily not for the protection of the citizens, but as a part of a political machine, or a municipal government that is manipulated for private and corporate gains and party control, instead of being administered by business men in business ways for the general good. This process going on must bring any community to the pass to which the Rome of Livy had come, and of which he said that the evils were so great that they could neither be cured nor endured. Leaving out of consideration the ghastly growth in the number of murders and suicides, we are compelled to admit that there is a growing infidelity to financial trust in the business world, so that there is a visible loss of confidence of man in his fellow man. Defalcations continue and multiply in disheartening succession. The proportion of divorces to marriages is astonishing and sickening not only in the newest States, but in the oldest commonwealths. Disintegration, decadence, and often destruction of the family and lowering of the ideal of the home go on unceasingly; and back of it all is a vast and swelling volume of dishonesty, unchastity, and crime. But most startling and disheartening of all is the progress of the spirit of lawlessness in our towns and cities, where there have grown up crowds of idle hoodlums, where there is an increasing population who break out into reckless violence at times of strikes and lock-outs. Of the same nature as these manifestations are the worse than brutal exhibitions in defiance of all authority and decency, in the lynchings and burnings that continue to disgrace our common country, and to dishonor human nature itself. . . . Lynch law, as we have lately seen it, is a defiance of all moral order, a denial of free civil government, a crime against the life of the State itself. Considering society as an organism, the extensive prevalence of the luxury, artificiality, and materialism of our life, the get-rich-quick craze, alcoholism, the drug habit, cigarette slavery, social vice, and disease, all tending to weaken the brain tissue, to destroy moral fiber, and to bring on not only neurosis, but insane or semi-insane neurosis. As among the “most potent and most continually operative causes of crime,” President Hopkins mentions “the vast volume of criminal suggestion flowing in upon the public mind through various means, but especially through the public press. In the detailed accounts of criminal actions in the average newspaper there is minute instruction in crime as a fine art. The reader is taught both how to perform the criminal part and how to evade his merited punishment. Our criminal court rooms are schools for expert criminals.” To these he adds the theater and the novel—“not only the yellow-covered variety, which has not lost its sway, but also the more pretentious literary productions,” many of these being “hostile to what is purest and best in family life.” Also “the unmentionable publications that are kept out of sight and sold secretly,” to advertise and circulate which is like spreading “the germs of smallpox in a crowded community.” Such statements from prominent educators should help us to appreciate the instruction from God given us at this time concerning Christian education for our youth, and the danger of remaining with our children in the great cities. This instruction we can not too closely heed.