Signs of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 23. (4/10/1893)

Signs of the Times

Apr 10, 1893

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 10, 1893

Editorial.

By Editor

"All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable."—2 Tim. 3:16.

HE who desires to be led of God will be sure to find God ready to lead him. But he who would be led of God must be ready to go where and however God may direct. He must not choose his own way and then expect God to adopt it as his own.

OFTEN the experiences of this life are the means employed of God to fit and mould us after the divine Pattern. If we can regard them as such, and seek God for help to learn the lesson designed, life's experiences will be sweetened thereby, and every trial and occupation will be looked upon as fraught with solemn import. God is at the helm in light and darkness, in joy and in sorrow. Remembering this, may we commit all to his faithful care.

LET us never consider for one moment that we know all of God or his truth. The more we know the larger will become our power to see what we do not know. This will make our ignorance appear so great in comparison with our knowledge that it will seem to us that we really know nothing, or but little at best. The true basis upon which to build is to realize that we of ourselves know nothing as we ought to know it. To such knowledge and humility God can add heavenly wisdom, and the praise and glory will be to God and not to man.

WHEN Christ ascended to the Father, "he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men." These gifts cover a wide range in their uses. "He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers." This he did "for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ." God will have a symmetrical work developed, and so he uses in its upbuilding those means and agencies which will develop every part. The prophet does not fill the place of the apostle, nor the teacher the place of the prophet, nor yet the apostle and prophet the place of the teacher. God gives to each his own peculiar gift and office with its peculiar functions. One cannot boast over the other, for all derive their powers from God, and each is necessary to the "perfecting of the saints, . . . and the upbuilding of the body of Christ," in its own special sphere.

THE servants of God in this work go out to the world with a faith and courage never before known. They realize as never before how all things work not only together for good to them who love God, but all things are contributing to the spread of the gospel of Christ. In the words of Samuel Longfellow:—

"The truths ye urge are borne abroad By every wind and tide; The voice of nature and of God Speaks out upon your side. "The weapons which your hands have found Are those which heaven hath wrought, Light, truth, and love—your battleground The free, broad field of thought."

Our field is the world. Our mission, to preach the Word, to preach Christ Jesus. And while our weapons are not carnal but spiritual, yet are they mighty through God to the pulling down of the strongholds of Satan both without and within.

THE OVERCOMER.

By W. N. G.

"To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne." Rev. 3:21. Overcoming implies doing something. The reward here promised is to those who overcome even as Christ overcame, and his life was made up of doing. He went about doing good, not merely being good. He "gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." Titus 2:14. True, we are justified by faith, and not by our own works, but works is the only recognized proof of the faith. See James 2:20.

Christ says, "Without me ye can do nothing;" but he does not thereby say that there is nothing to be done, or that there is nothing for us to do. He simply says that we can do nothing without him. There are many things in our ordinary vocations which we have to do, but which we cannot do without help. Yet because we cannot perform the work alone, it is none the less our duty to do it. So it is in the work of overcoming; we cannot say that it is not our duty to overcome the world, to overcome our own evil inclina-

tions, and to become "zealous of good works," merely because we cannot do it ourselves. The obligation is made all the more binding upon us because we have the promise of efficient help. "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth," says Christ, "and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world."

All good work is the Lord's work, whether done by us or through some other agency. But if we let him work through us, by yielding ourselves servants to obey (Rom. 6:16), and give him the glory of the work, he will accredit it all to us in the books of heaven. We will have no righteousness of our own, but, by believing his word, and yielding ourselves to him, he will give us the benefit of his righteousness. In all the good works possible to us as overcomers, while working out our own salvation "with fear and trembling," the apostle Paul says "it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." Phil. 2:13.

But while it is true that we cannot do anything good without Christ, it is equally true that he cannot work out our salvation independent of us. He said to Jerusalem, "How often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not." To the church to-day he says, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." Then our part is to let him come in, and to become passive instruments in his hands. We must let him feed us with the bread of life, which is his word (John 6:63), and resist not the Holy Spirit, whose temple we are if we let him come in. By so doing it becomes our privilege as well as duty to "walk even as he walked."

The process of overcoming is not a smooth operation. If we suffer, we shall also reign with him (2 Tim. 2:12); that is, sit with him in his throne, which is the overcomer's reward. The overcomer must endure chastisement. "Who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap." Mal. 3:2. This refining and purifying process involves some severe operations, holding over the fire until the dross has been burned out, and the Saviour's likeness appears in our characters. The same idea is expressed in John 15:2: "Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away; and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit." This purging (or cleansing, as the Revised Version has it) may also be severe in some of its operations. With the vine

it means pruning, or cutting off superfluous branches or attachments. It is equivalent to the chastisement referred to in Hebrews 12, whereof all legitimate children of God are partakers.

The overcomer must resist temptation in various forms. He must resist the improper demands of appetite, and put away "all filthiness of the flesh and spirit." "Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." 1 Cor. 10:31. Deception is another prominent evil that comes across the path of the Christian pilgrim. "There shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect." Matt. 24:24.

And the violence of civil government comes in as a formidable obstacle in the way of the overcomer. A governmental power is revealed in Revelation 13, "saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by the sword, and did live. And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image to the beast should be killed. And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads; and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name."

The overcomer must pass through perilous times. "This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come; for men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof; from such turn away." 2 Tim. 3:1-5. If we "turn away" from these formally "godly" people, we incur their enmity, and consequently the opposition of all the vicious characteristics here portrayed.

As a result, especially of this want of affection, this disposition to falsely accuse, and this despising of those that are good,—the loyal people of God in the last days, as in days gone by, will have to overcome betrayal by even family connections. "And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child; and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake; but he that endureth to the end shall be saved." Matt. 10:21, 22.

If you, reader, have entered, or desire to enter, the race for the overcomer's reward, do not become discouraged at the straitness of the way. The apostle Paul was a great sufferer, but in the faith of Christ he could say that "the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." Take courage; look away from feeble self to Him who is able to keep you even "from all appearance of evil." Drop in line with Paul, who could say, "I delight in the law of God after the inward man." Rom. 7:22. You can have the same inward man that Paul had. Who was that inward man? Let us see. "I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." Gal. 2:20.

Take courage; Christ will also dwell in you by his Spirit—if you will let him. "And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it"—if you let him. By letting him come in to dwell with you, and do the work for you, he will reward you according to the work which you let him do for you.

Do you ask how you can know if the work is being done for you? "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance; against such there is no law." Gal. 5:22, 23. These things are all in harmony with the law of God, which must witness to the righteousness of the overcomer's works wrought in the faith of Jesus Christ. Rom. 3:21, 22.

"A HARD SAYING."

By W. N. G.

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life." John 6:53, 54. We read also that when Jesus spoke these words to the multitude in Capernaum, not only did the unbelievers murmur at him, but many of his disciples said, "This is a hard saying, who can hear it?" And they did not stop with speaking disparagingly of his words, but they "went back, and walked no more with him."

There are yet many, not only of unbelievers, but of professed disciples, to whom these words of the Saviour are "a hard saying." And this fact is made a pretext for imputing to the words some meaning foreign to their true import. And such readers wrest not merely these scriptures, but many others, from their practical sense. The reason why many people are indisposed to take the Scriptures as they read, is because they express more than is comprehended by the carnal or natural mind.

A few references to other scriptures may make this "hard saying" somewhat easier to the really inquiring mind. What is it to "eat the flesh, and drink the blood, of the Son of Man"? In the first chapter of John we have this record: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made." Verses 1-3. In the fourteenth verse it is said that "the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth." In all this we unmistakably recognize Christ; and it being the Word that became flesh, by the term 'flesh,' which we are to eat, the word is clearly meant. When we eat the word, we eat his flesh.

But how do we drink his blood? Turning to Leviticus 17 we find such expressions as these: "The life of the flesh is in the blood." Verse 11. "The life of all flesh is the blood thereof." Verse 14. Then in drinking the blood of the Son we drink his life. And, coming back to John 6, we find his assurance that "the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." Hence, to imbibe the words of Christ is to drink his blood.

As "all scripture is given by inspiration of God" (2 Tim. 3:16), which Peter calls "the Spirit of Christ" (1 Peter 1:11), the Scriptures constitute the flesh and blood, or word, which we are to eat and drink in order to gain eternal life. From this we get some idea of the incalculable importance of the Scriptures. A few comparisons of Scripture texts will add force to our conclusion.

1 John 1:7 tells us that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin. And Christ said to his disciples, "Ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you." John 15:3. Col. 1:14 says we have redemption through his blood. John 17:17 says that the same thing will be done for us, that is, we are to be sanctified through the truth, and that the word is the truth. All that Christ does for us he does through the word. The shepherds are commanded to feed the flock. "Feed my sheep," "feed my lambs," are injunctions of the Master. Upon what shall they feed the flock? When the Good Shepherd was on earth he declared to his Father, "I have given them thy word." John 17:14. Paul told the Ephesian elders (Acts 20:28) that the Holy Ghost had made them "overseers to feed the church of God." And he emphatically charged Timothy to "preach the word." Even as babes in Christ, the "sincere milk of the word" is to be the food upon which the disciples are to grow.

The word supplies every spiritual need. Let us draw one more comparison: "He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him." John 6:56. "If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you." Chapter 15:7. "And he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him." 1 John 3:24.

Then the disciple that eats and drinks the word will not have leanness of soul; will not become discouraged; will never become skeptical or backslidden; nor can he be deceived by false teachers. He will grow up to perfect manhood in Christ, and will always "be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might." There is power in the word, which those who continually feed thereon may ever have with them. "The word of the Lord endureth forever."

If any have been suffering poverty of spirit, or been lacking in Christian experience, or been weak and wavering in the face of temptation, or inclined to follow the vagaries of this foolish world, it is plain to be seen that they have not been eating the proper food. They have not been feeding upon the flesh and blood of Christ. They have not been making his life a part of their own. "Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labor for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness."

Isa. 55:2. W. N. G.

The Infallible Test.

By Francis M. Wilcox

We cannot accept the claim of all in the world to-day who say that they are led by the Spirit of God. There are many who interpret the feelings of their own degenerate hearts as the impressions of the Spirit, and the promptings of their own fanciful minds as the Spirit’s leading. As says the apostle, “they profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable and disobedient and unto every good work reprobate.” We should settle forever this one fact in our minds,—the Spirit of God in us will lead us in the same direction and agree in every particular with the Spirit of God in his word. The Spirit and the word agree. 1 John 5: 7. The word was written through the power of the Spirit of God. God changes not, therefore his Spirit always testifies to the same truths. It never contradicts itself, therefore there can be nothing but perfect harmony between its teachings in the word and every impulse and impression given by it to the heart of man. The one who possesses a heart that leads him contrary to the word of God may be certain that God is not leading him, but that he is guided by that spirit which is opposed to God,—“the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.” John says, “Many false prophets have gone out into the world,” and for this reason he admonishes us to “try the spirits whether they are of God.” God’s word is the great divine tester. “To the law and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” By the test of the Bible let every theory and doctrine stand or fall, as it is proved true or false. Our only safeguard against being led into the various phases of fanaticism that are developing in the world in these last days is by taking careful heed to this divine and infallible guide book. F. M. W.

THE POWER OF FORGIVENESS.

By Ellet Joseph Waggoner

BY ELDER E. J. WAGGONER.

“AND, behold, they brought to Him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed; and Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsy: Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee. And, behold, certain of the scribes said within themselves, This man blasphemeth. And Jesus knowing their thoughts said, Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts? For whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and walk? But that ye may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins (then saith he to the sick of the palsy), Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house. And he arose, and departed to his house. But when the multitudes saw it, they marveled, and glorified God, which had given such power unto men.” Matt. 9: 2-8.

One of the most common expressions to be heard among professed Christians when speaking of religious things, is this: “I can understand and believe that God will forgive sin, but it is hard for me to believe that he can keep me from sin.” Such a person has yet to learn very much of what is meant by God’s forgiving sins. It is true that persons who talk that way do often have a measure of peace in believing that God has forgiven or does forgive their sins; but through failure to grasp the power of forgiveness, they deprive themselves of much blessing that they might enjoy.

Bearing in mind the statement concerning the miracles, that “these are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that, believing, ye might have life through his name,” let us study the miracle before us. The scribes did not believe that Jesus could forgive sin. In order to show that he had power to forgive sins, he healed the palsied man. This miracle was wrought for the express purpose of illustrating the work of forgiving sin, and demonstrating its power. Jesus said to the palsied man, “Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house,” that they and we might know his power to forgive sin. Therefore the power exhibited in the healing of that man is the power bestowed in the forgiveness of sin.

Note particularly that the effect of the words of Jesus continued after they were spoken. They made a change in the man, and that change was permanent. Even so it must be in the forgiveness of sin. The common idea is that when God forgives sin the change is in himself, and not in the man. It is thought that God simply ceases to hold anything against the one who has sinned. But this is to imply that God had a hardness against the man, which is not the case. God is not a man; he does not cherish enmity, nor harbor a feeling of revenge. It is not because he has a hard feeling in his own heart against a sinner that he forgives him, but because the sinner has something in his heart. God is all right,—the man is all wrong; therefore God forgives the man, that he also may be all right.

When Jesus, illustrating the forgiveness of sin, said to the man, “Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house,” the man arose and went to his house. The power that was in the words of Jesus, raised him up, and made him walk. That power remained in him, and it was in the strength that was given him on removing the palsy that he walked in all time to come, provided, of course, that he kept the faith. This is illustrated by the Psalmist, when he says: “I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.” Ps. 40: 1, 2.

There is life in the words of God. Jesus said, “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” John 6: 63. The word received in faith brings the Spirit and the life of God into the soul. So when the penitent soul hears the words, “Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee,” and receives those words as the living words of the living God, he is a different man, because a new life has begun in him. It is the power of God’s forgiveness, and that alone, that keeps him from sin. If he continues in sin after receiving pardon, it is because he has not grasped the fullness of the blessing that was given him in the forgiveness of his sins.

In the case before us, the man received new life. His palsied condition was simply the wasting away of his natural life. He was partially dead. The words of Christ gave him fresh life. But this new life that was given to his body, and which enabled him to walk, was but an illustration, both to him and to the scribes, of the unseen life of God which he had received in the words, “Thy sins be forgiven thee,” and which had made him a new creature in Christ.

With this simple and clear illustration before us, we may understand some of the words of the apostle Paul, which otherwise are “hard to be understood.” First read Col. 1:12-14: “Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light; who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son; in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins.” See the same statement concerning redemption through Christ’s blood, in 1 Peter 1: 18, 19; Rev. 5: 9.

Mark two points: We have redemption through Christ’s blood, and this redemption is the forgiveness of sins. But the blood is the life. See Gen. 9: 4; Rev. 17: 13, 14. Therefore Col. 1: 14 really tells us that we have redemption through Christ’s life. But does not the Scripture say that we are reconciled to God by the death of his Son? It does, and that is just what is here taught. Christ “gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity.” Titus 2: 14. He “gave himself for our sins.” Gal. 1: 4. In giving himself, he gives his life. In shedding his blood, he pours out his life. But in giving up his life, he gives it to us. That life is righteousness, even the perfect righteousness of God, so that when we receive it we are “made the righteousness of God in him.” It is the receiving of Christ’s life, as we are baptized into his death, that reconciles us to God. It is thus that we “put on the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness,” “after the image of him that created him.” Eph. 4: 24; Col. 3: 10.

Now we may read Rom. 3: 23-25, and find that it is not so very difficult: “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified [that is, made righteous, or doers of the law] freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus; whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission [sending away] of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God.”

All have sinned. The whole life has been sin. Even the thoughts have been evil. Mark 7: 21. And to be carnally minded is death. Therefore the life of sin is a living death. If the soul is not freed from this, it will end in eternal death. There is no power in man to get righteousness out of the holy law of God; therefore God in his mercy puts his own righteousness upon all that believe. He makes us righteous as a free gift out of the riches of his grace. He does this by his words, for he declares—speaks—his righteousness into and upon all who have faith in the blood of Christ, in whom is God’s righteousness; “for in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” And this declaring or speaking the righteousness of God upon us, is the remission or taking away of sin. Thus God takes away the sinful life by putting his own righteous life in its place. And this is the power of the forgiveness of sin. It is “the power of an endless life.”

This is the beginning of the Christian life. It is receiving the life of God by faith. How is it continued?—Just as it is begun. “As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him.” Col. 2: 6. For “the just shall live by faith.” The secret of living the Christian life is simply that of holding fast the life which, received at the beginning, forgives the sin. God forgives sin by taking it away. He justifies the ungodly by making him godly. He reconciles the rebel sinner to himself by taking away his rebellion, and making him a loyal and law-abiding subject.

“But it is difficult to understand how we can have the life of God as an actual fact; it can’t be real, for it is by faith that we have it.” So it was by faith that the poor palsied man received new life and strength; but was his strength any the less real? Was it not an actual fact that he received strength? Can’t understand it? Of course not, for it is a manifestation of “the love of God that passeth knowledge.” But we may believe it, and realize the fact, and then we shall have an eternal life in which to study the wonder of it. Read again and again the story of the healing of the palsied man, and meditate upon it until it is a living reality to you, and then remember that “these are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life through his name.”

BIBLE COMFORT.

By Lucy B. Gregg

THERE'S comfort in God's holy book For such as there for comfort look, Sweet comfort in his word of grace For all who truly seek his face; Comfort by day, advice by night, For souls that in his law delight; Comfort in sickness, pain, and woe, For those who there for comfort go; Comfort for age as well as youth In this exhaustless fount of truth: Comfort when we may tempted be; Jesus was tempted like as we; When in some weak, unguarded hour We're baffled by the tempter's power, Then comfort mitigates the shame— God understands our feeble frame. If bowed 'neath sorrow and disgrace, Like David in Uriah's case, Soon as we hate and loathe our sin, Christ sends the Comforter within. 'Mid all the anarchy and strife Attendant on this present life, There's comfort in each circumstance; God's purposes are not by chance. Comfort, though all of God we see Comes darkly through a glass to me; When, in that holy, happy place, We shall behold him face to face, Comfort, all those who enter in Will be forever clear of sin, Will never have another doubt, And there will be no going out. —Lucy B. Gregg.

AFRAID OF THE TRUTH.

In Spokane, Wash., a few weeks ago, the Arena Debating Club, an organization of workingmen, challenged the Ministerial Association of that city to debate the Sunday closing of the World’s Fair. The association accepted on the condition that they were not to debate with Seventh-day Adventists, nor to oppose the question presented from a Seventh-day Adventist standpoint. This is what the Outburst of that city, in its issue of January 28, says on the matter; and the Outburst is right, but what a confession on the part of the Ministerial Association! Do they feel satisfied with a position they cannot defend?

The Ministerial Association in accepting a challenge from the Arena Debating Club, a workingmen’s association, to discuss the Sunday closing of the World’s Fair, did so with some apparent qualms. Perhaps the “horny-handed” toilers of to-day are not good enough for these followers of the meek and lowly Carpenter of Bethlehem. In accepting the challenge it was done with the reservation that they would have no controversy with any sect to argue the ethics of Sunday worship from a Seventh-day Adventist standpoint. This was wise, for the Adventists and Jews are the only logical Sabbatarians in existence. Nowhere in the Bible is there warrant for the observance of Sunday as the Sabbath. Sunday was a pagan holiday in the Roman Empire in honor of the sun, as its name indicates. It was adopted by Emperor Constantine as a church holiday when he embraced Christianity. It has no more religious significance than Wednesday, named from the Norse god, Woden. Even were this not the case, we still have Christ’s injunction that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. The Puritan Sunday, that nightmare of intolerance, is as obsolete and no more to be observed to-day than is the Old Testament command, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” But the clergy have not the candor nor the fearlessness to acknowledge these truths. They want to monopolize one day of the week for themselves, and in doing so, deny to others the right to do anything except to listen to their sermons. And this is one right that most people nowadays prefer to exercise by proxy.

THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.

By Francis McClellan Wilcox

BY ELDER F. M. WILCOX.

THUS far have we seen signs in the sun, moon, and stars, and indications in the social and political worlds that prove that the Lord is at hand. We will next consider the conditions to be found in the physical world just before the end, and determine if these conditions have already been fulfilled.

The Lord tells us, as recorded in Heb. 1:10, 11, that the earth shall "wax old as doth a garment," and already do we see that which indicates that it is in its declining years. Earthquakes, failure of crops, and many other physical phenomena and disabilities, show that the earth has lost its freshness of youth and its strength of maturity, and that now it is fast hastening towards its final dissolution. The constantly increasing sterility of the soil is a matter of no little concern to agriculturists, and when we come to compare its power of production to-day with its power a few hundred years ago, the difference is indeed startling. Herodotus, in describing the great fertility of the soil of the ancient province of Babylon, says:—

Of all the countries that we know of there is none so fruitful in grain. It makes no pretensions indeed of growing the fig, the olive, the vine, or any other tree of the kind; but in grain it is so fruitful as to yield two hundred fold. The blade of the wheat plant and barley plant is often three or four fingers in breadth. As for the millet and sesame, I shall not say to what height they grow, though within my own knowledge; for I am not ignorant that what I have already written concerning the fruitfulness of Babylonia must seem incredible to those who have never visited the country.

Christ incidentally teaches the enormous yield of the soil in his day. In the parable of the sower, he says that the ground "brought forth fruit, some an hundred-fold, some sixty-fold, and some thirty-fold." This was no doubt a fair statement of the yield of grain at that time. The range was between thirty and one hundred fold.

If grain in the days of Herodotus yielded two hundred fold and in the days of Christ one hundred fold, what shall we think of the yield of to-day, when twenty, fifteen, ten, or even fivefold in some parts of the world is considered a bounteous harvest? Surely there has been a great change, indicating a marked decrease in the producing power of mother earth. The earth is indeed "waxing old as doth a garment." We are in the days of its decline, and not again this side of the rejuvenating and restoring fires of the last day will it regain its old-time fertility and freshness.

The frequency and increase of earthquakes have been especially noticeable during the last few centuries, and more especially during the last few decades. Says the Christian Statesman of July 17, 1875: "The continued occurrence and great severity of earthquakes has distinguished the period in which we are now living above all others since the records of such phenomena began to be generally observed."

Previous to the beginning of the Christian era the number of recorded earthquakes averaged one in 112 years. From the beginning of the sixteenth to the close of the eighteenth century there occurred an average of nine earthquakes every year. From the close of the eighteenth century to the year 1850, a period of fifty years, an average of sixty-four earthquakes are recorded for every year; and for the eighteen years from 1850 to 1868 the average amounted to 277 earthquakes per year. Since 1868 we have not statistics at hand to show the average, but there certainly has been no falling off in their frequency, but rather an increase. The last date given was a memorable one in earthquake phenomena, especially in the casualties occurring in consequence. Over one hundred thousand persons perished in that year by earthquake disaster, in addition to the immense loss occasioned to property. The remarkable increase of these phenomena surely indicates that important changes are taking place in the physical world, changes which must soon result in final catastrophe.

Many of these earthquakes have caused mighty ocean upheavals. Islands have entirely disappeared; and where before was a watery waste, islands have arisen as if by magic. Our Saviour, in his great prophetic discourse before referred to, speaks of these ocean disturbances: "And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity;

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