Earlier text: THE ROMAN PANTHEONTHE COUNCIL AT JERUSALEM.
By J. O. Corliss
[See Sunday-school Lesson and Acts 15.] AFTER the exciting experience of the apostles at Lystra, and their visit to neighboring towns, they passed on to Perga, and thence to Attalia, where they took ship for Antioch in Syria. There seems to have been something which specially endeared the brethren of Antioch to Paul. It may have been the fact that it was the place of his greatest triumph of earlier days in proclaiming the Gospel. At any rate he seems to have spent more time there than at any other place. Upon arriving there on this occasion, he settled down for a reasonably long visit. From the events which immediately followed, it would appear that this visit was directed by the Spirit of the Lord; for the apostle had not been long there before some men from Judea appeared, and began teaching the church that its members could not be saved unless they submitted to the ordinance of circumcision. Paul and Barnabas both strongly opposed this sentiment, until so much controversy was aroused that the church hardly knew what to believe. It was therefore decided that the two apostles should go to Jerusalem, and consult the officers of that church, that this question might be settled once for all. Passing through Phenicia and Samaria, they related to the brethren in those parts the signal dealing of God through them in the conversion of the heathen. On arriving at Jerusalem, they had no difficulty in bringing the question before the brethren there for discussion; for as they related before all the wonderful conversion of the Gentiles, some of those present who, from the party of the Pharisees, had become believers in Christ, stepped forward and declared that they were bound to circumcise such converts, and direct them to observe the law of Moses. Acts 15:1–5. The question at issue being now fairly sprung, the apostles and officers of the church came together to consider it. After considerable disputation, Peter rose and said: “Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the Gospel, and believe. And God, which knoweth the hearts, bear them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as He did unto us; and put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.” Verses 7–11. These strong words from Peter turned the tide of the discussion against circumcision and the law of ceremonies. He had made it plain that by giving the Holy Spirit to the Gentiles without requiring them to be circumcised, God accepted them thus, and so revealed that such rites were no longer necessary for them; and if not necessary for them, neither were they binding on the Jews. So when Paul and Barnabas desired to be heard, every voice in the assembly was hushed, that each might hear how wonderfully God had dealt with the Gentiles through their ministration. Verses 12, 13. Then James addressed the assembly. “Men and brethren, hearken, unto me,” he said. Then referring to Peter’s speech, he said its sentiment perfectly agreed with the words of the prophet which said, “After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle [house, or family] of David, which is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up; that the residue of men [that is, the rest of mankind] might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom My name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things.” James then expressed it as his own opinion that they should not add to the difficulties of those heathen who were turning to God, but that they should write to them to abstain from things contaminated by association with idols, from unchastity, from eating the flesh of strangled animals, and from blood. His reason for confining the Gospel within these lines was that for generations past, the writings of Moses had been preached in every town, having been read in the synagogue every Sabbath. Verses 19–21. Thus the question was forever settled, so far as the church at Jerusalem was concerned. Thereafter if any should go from that place to other parts and teach the Jewish rite, it would be known he did so without the sanction of the mother church or of God. Gal. 1:7–9. That such might be the case, it was resolved by the apostles and elders, with the assent of the whole church, to choose some men from among themselves, to accompany Paul and Barnabas to Antioch as witnesses of what the leading brethren at Jerusalem, under the direction of the Holy Spirit, had done in the matter. The men thus chosen were Judas and Silas, who bore to the church at Antioch a letter embodying the decision of the council. On arriving there, these brethren read the letter publicly, which gave much satisfaction to the church. After adding their personal testimony by public addresses, Judas returned to Jerusalem. Thus was settled for all time this once disturbing question. Ever afterward Paul could confidently affirm that outward circumcision was nothing, and the want of it was nothing, but to keep God’s commandments was everything. 1 Cor. 7:19. He did, however, recognize an inward circumcision,—a real thing, which is of the heart, a spiritual and not a literal circumcision. Rom. 2:29. This he declared was received by union with Christ, and was the getting rid of the tyranny of the earthly body. Such a work is real circumcision,—that which is performed by Christ, and not that done by human hands. Col. 2:11. J. O. CORLISS. DO IT AT ONCE.
By Alexander McLaren
NO UNWELCOME tasks become any the less unwelcome by putting them off till to-morrow. It is only when they are behind us and done, that we begin to find that there is a sweetness to be tasted afterward, and that the remembrance of unwelcome duties unhesitatingly done is welcome and pleasant. Accomplished, they are full of blessing, and there is a smile on their faces as they leave us. Undone, they stand threatening and disturbing our tranquillity, and hindering our communion with God. If there be lying before you any bit of work from which you shrink, go straight up to it, and do it at once. The only way to get rid of it is to do it. —Alexander McLaren. Referring to the refusal of licenses to three candidates for the ministry by the presbyteries of New York and Elizabeth (N. J.), because they regarded the Bible account of Adam a myth, the Independent, one of the leading religio-secular journals of America, takes occasion to say that these young men “had received their theological instruction in Presbyterian and Congregational seminaries,” in which the early chapters of Genesis “were interpreted as representing an earlier stage in the developing religious philosophy of the human race,” and thus continues:— They could not possibly accept the story of Adam and Eve with the same literalness that Paul and the Westminster divines did. How could they? How could any young student of the present time? We venture to say that there is not a competent teacher of biology or geology in the obscurest Presbyterian college in the United States who believes that the Adam and Eve of Genesis were historical characters. One would have to rake all our colleges and universities with a fine-toothed comb to find such a teacher, and very few they would be. The belief, in scientific circles, of such an Adam and Eve, is dead, and is no longer considered or discussed. Of course the doctrine of a literal Adam lingers in popular belief just as once did the belief that the world was made in six literal days; but it is held by those who got their education a generation or two ago, or who never got any education at all. The older men in the presbyteries, especially those who have, for one reason or another, dropped out of the educative stress of pastoral life, have not learned what the colleges now teach; and it is they that oppose their large ignorance to modern knowledge. And thus the wisdom of God is set against the wisdom and guesses of men, and the wisdom of God is rejected. One of the very reasons of this is the creed fetish. If the Christian church had stood by the ever-expanding, life-giving Word of God, it would have needed no creed, and the indwelling presence of the Incarnate Word would have been the dominant power in the church. But creed separated men from the Word. Instead of allowing the Spirit of God to interpret that Word to every man, men must interpret it, not alone for themselves, but for generations to come. This interpretation was demanded, and the right to interpret assumed, because men did not believe in God’s power to guide and control other men as truly and as wisely as they believed He did themselves. In other words, the creed, contrary to its meaning, spelled out unbelief, and spelled it large. Heresy was determined and condemned almost entirely, not because of rejection of the Bible, but because of the rejection of the creed. A few generations later some parts of the creed is proved untrue, reverence for the dead hands that wrote it has waned, and it is ignored or amended. Then, having set the creed above the Bible, and the creed having been demonstrated to be faulty by later research in Biblical, scientific, and philosophical lines, both Bible and creed are rejected. And that is the reef of unbelief upon which the great popular Protestant churches are fast drifting to-day, if they be not already there. It is admitted that Paul believed in Genesis, but was mistaken. If mistaken in this, the conclusion is irresistible that he may have been just as easily mistaken in regard to man’s helpless condition and the doctrine of justification by faith. Genesis and the four books following were in the days of our Lord, even as now, known as the books of Moses. Jesus refers to them without a question. In every temptation by the devil, our Master met him with quotations from Moses. In His instruction regarding marriage, He carries us directly back to the creation of man and woman as recorded in Genesis. Matt. 19:4, 5. So also He does regarding the Sabbath. Mark 2:27, 28. Luke traces the genealogy of Christ, according to the flesh, directly back to Adam, “the son of God.” The secret of all this unbelief and rejection of the Bible is found in the words of Jesus to the Jews:— “How can ye believe which receive honor one of another, and seek not the honor that cometh from God only? Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed Me; for he wrote of Me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe My words?” John 5:44–47. These words will bear serious and careful study. There never was a time in all the past when men were seeking honor of one another more than now. Selfish ambitions, personal aggrandizement in Church and State and Society, greed of gold and the shining baubles which perish, human hypotheses called science and knowledge, have blinded spiritual vision, dulled spiritual hearing, and closed spiritual avenues to the beauty, sublimity, sweetness, and power of God’s Word. But while the very conclusions of science which lead to the rejection of the Word are themselves questioned, the Bible is rejected, as though the evidence of the questionable conclusions were sufficient. Out of this unbelief and rejection of portions of the Bible springs more serious evil. The great thoughts of Genesis are God’s creative power, and His fatherly, providential dealing with men, by which He would again restore them to Himself through the Seed of the woman. All through the Bible, and especially in the Gospel prophet, in the Psalms, in the Gospel by John, and in the Pauline epistles, is the one emphatic thought of Genesis 1 and 2 repeated, that God created the heavens and the earth and is therefore the Saviour, the Re-creator, the Regenerator. He only can create; He only can re-create the souls wrecked by sin. This is the hope of mankind. But from this hope, strong with all the blessings of a life of righteousness, big with all the glories of an eternal world, evolution and biology—“science falsely so called”—are shutting the poor, blind, desolate world, groping for the light of life, and the comfort of a personal, divine Father. Praise God, there are still those in the churches who stand by the old ever-living Book, who still believe that the revealed knowledge of God through Moses and Paul and Jesus is more than that given through the modern professors of a day, who are willing, if need be, to be counted as having “large ignorance” even as Paul was counted a fool, and Jesus a madman. “Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” 1 Cor. 1:25. THE HOPE OF GOD’S PEOPLE.
“They Willingly are Ignorant.”
If men would trust God instead of poor, fallible, erring men, how much better it would be. God has given us the history of this world in the past, and has forecast its future. He tells us in the Bible that the earth was created by the power of His word. “He spake, and it was.” It tells us that by the same word the cosmos that then existed was destroyed by a flood; and by that same word the present cosmos is reserved unto fire, when all sin shall be destroyed, and the new heavens and new earth will remain forever. Here are the apostles’ words:— “There shall come in the last days scoffers, . . . saying, Where is the promise of His coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water [‘compacted out of water and amidst water,’ R. V.]; whereby [by the word of God], the world [cosmos, order, arrangement] that then was, being overflowed with water, perished; but the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. . . . But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens, and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.” 2 Peter 3:3–13. This is but one witness to God’s cosmogony; there are many. Others tell us that the world will wax old like a garment before God changes it as a vesture. Heb. 1:10–12. There will be rents, and tears, and breaks, even as in the old garment, while some parts are seemingly as good as new; and these symptoms of age and disintegration will increase till the seven last plagues (Revelation 16) complete the work of desolation on account of sin (Isa. 24:1–6). In the ever-increasing outcroppings of disease and pestilence, despite improved sanitary regulations, of plague and famine, of tempest and cyclone, of earthquake, and tidal wave, and volcanic eruption, we see the fulfilment of the “more sure word of prophecy.” Men ignore it, are willingly ignorant of it; tell us that all the cataclysms and upheavals of the past are the results of evolution, and cover the world with the vaguest uncertainty as regards knowledge of the future, and lull the people to the sleep of death. This has been emphasized anew by the great convulsion on the island of Martinique. The volcano of Pelee had warned the citizens of St. Pierre of the coming calamity. The people would doubtless have escaped in great numbers, if it had not been for science and an unwarranted exercise of authority. This is the news that has come to us from that fearful charnel-house of St. Pierre. From news brought by the Danish warship Valkyrien, David Bornn of the Hearst newspapers reports from St. Thomas as follows:— They [the ship’s officers] bring a copy of a newspaper, dated May 7, in which notice is given that the commission of scientists appointed by the government have examined Mount Pelee, and determined that there is no danger of further serious eruption. The paper was found in a house wherein there were seven dead persons, who were apparently suffocated by gas, as they were not burned. The commission referred to was appointed by the government to reassure the people of St. Pierre. They came to the doomed city, and studied the phenomena of the volcano, and their report was that Pelee showed no indication of abnormal violence, but that the indications were identical with recognized phenomena of volcanoes generally. They further reported that the position of the craters and neighboring valleys projecting toward the sea allowed them to affirm that the security of St. Pierre was not threatened. Every member of the commission perished the morning after this report was promulgated. Thus by ignorant, blind science were the officials lulled to sleep. Many of the people, following their God-given instincts, would have fled in fear from the doomed city; but the governor—let him be nameless—placed a cordon of soldiers and police about the city, and refused to let the free people of France go forth. He, however, yielding perhaps to human fear rather than the conclusions of “science,” left the island in a vessel the day previous to the great convulsion. There are many things that science has discovered, for which we are glad. There are many things rediscovered, which God revealed long ago. There are many blessings which, in the providence of God, have come to us through science. But when science attempts to set aside God’s Book of the ages by its vaticinations founded on unproved hypotheses, we prefer the Word of God, the Holy Bible. But many will not be convinced. They “willingly are ignorant.” What matter tho a lame, and blind, and halting science has been demonstrated to be wrong nine hundred and ninety-nine times, still will they follow it in preference to the Bible. And so the science of men will remain willingly ignorant, and will oppose the only true knowledge, till the last plagues of finished sin fall upon the world and engulf every scoffer in the last great earthquake. “But will faith in what the Bible says prevent the earthquake, the volcanic outburst, the tidal wave?” asks one. No, it will not; but the Bible warns the souls in error, and he who believes the warning may escape. Some day “the earth shall stagger like a drunken man, and shall be moved to and fro like a hut, and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it, and it shall fall and not rise again. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall punish the host of the high ones on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth.” Isa. 24:18–21. Then the windows from on high shall be open, and the foundations of the earth shall shake; and those who have depended upon the husks of human vanity will say, “My leanness, my leanness, woe unto me! the treacherous dealers have dealt treacherously; yea, the treacherous dealers have dealt very treacherously.” Then fear, and the pit, and the snare will be upon the inhabitants of earth. But the children of God, they who knew what was coming, they who knew that above it all God ruled, will also be there. They have made God their trust, and this is the song that they will sing:— “God is our refuge and strength.
A very present help in trouble.”7 Therefore will not we fear, tho the earth be removed,
And tho the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;
Tho the waters thereof roar and be troubled,
Tho the mountains shake with the swelling thereof.” And then they look away by faith to God’s haven of rest, and again burst forth,— “There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God,
The holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High.
God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved;
God shall help her, and that when the morning appeareth.” And so we anchor in God. He is our hope in all these troubles and calamities. He who stilled stormy Galilee will keep the souls who trust in Him despite all the cataclysms and convulsions of time. “Trust ye in the Lord forever; for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength.” Origin and Institution of the Sabbath
By G.
Origin and Institution of the Sabbath.
“The Sabbath was made for man.” Man is a created being, therefore he had a beginning. He is an earthly being, and the earth had a beginning. We read that “in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” Also that God created man in His own image, and that He “formed man of the dust of the ground.” After God had created the earth, He shed light upon it, and there began the system of days that pertains to the earth. As the days followed in consecutive order, the Lord established the mode of reckoning them in cycles of seven. This was an arbitrary arrangement, as there is nothing in nature to indicate the week, as the day, month, and year are indicated by planetary movements. Reckoning the week is simply a matter of counting off seven days. The Sabbath, as a matter of time, is merely one of these days—the seventh day. The ordinance of the Sabbath, like that of the week, rests solely on the commandment of God. So the Sabbath and the week are co-indicative. The last of the cycle of seven days is the Sabbath, and the observance of the Sabbath day in a manner peculiar to itself emphatically marks the ending of the week. Remembering the Sabbath day to keep it holy would forever keep the weekly cycle intact. In contemplating the subject of the Sabbath, we shall deal with it only in its relation to time and to its purpose in the earth as declared by the Lord of the Sabbath. The Bible was written for man in his fallen condition, as a means of lifting him out of that condition, and of revealing to him God’s purpose concerning the earth and its people. The Origin and Institution of the Sabbath
Was on this wise: “God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended [or ceased] His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made.” Gen. 1:31; 2:1–3. This is the original record, and there is no such record of any other weekly Sabbath institution. All the references to a weekly Sabbath that are found in the Scriptures pertain to the Sabbath as instituted by the Lord. Therefore the Sabbath that was “made for man” by the Lord of the Sabbath day, was none other than the seventh day of the week, set apart at the beginning of man’s career. Christ is the “Son of Man” who is “Lord also of the Sabbath.” Mark 2:27, 28. Christ was the active agent in the creation of all things (Col. 1:16); so it was He who instituted the Sabbath day for man. Therefore the Sabbath day sanctified by Christ in the beginning, and observed by Him when on earth, is the Christian’s Sabbath. God never does anything amiss, nor did He ever perform any unnecessary or superfluous act. He made the Sabbath for man because mankind would need such an institution. So He set about the making of it in a way that would permanently establish it upon divine principle—eternal, unchangeable principle. The three steps noted in the record are significant. First, He rested on the seventh day, and rested all of the day; for at the close of the sixth day it is plainly said, “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them;” and there is no record of anything being made beyond the sixth day. That God rested all the day is further shown by the fact that the other two steps in the institution could not be taken until the day was past. God rested and was “refreshed.” But He did not rest because He was tired; for “the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary.” Isa. 40:28. It is clear, then, that it was a spiritual refreshing, or pleasure in the contemplation of His work, which He enjoyed so much that a whole day was consumed in the enjoyment. What a happy day that must have been! for God was not alone in the celebration of the great event of creation; “the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.” Job 38:7. This included all the heavenly host. Inasmuch as God’s rest on the seventh day was not for physical refreshment, but for spiritual enjoyment, it is evident that the Sabbath was not instituted because of man’s need of a day of physical rest. It was instituted before the fall, and if man had not sinned, he never would have known the pain of fatigue. Whatever physical benefit, in and of itself, any earthly creature could obtain from cessation of activity, was provided for by the recurrence of night and the disposition to sleep. After resting on the seventh day, God added His blessing to it—not to a seventh day, but to the seventh day, as it should afterward recur as a fixed portion of the weekly cycle. Then He sanctified it, or set it apart for the use which He Himself had made of it. It was dedicated for man’s use, for him to use as God had used it. Man was to rest on that day, because the Creator had set him the example. The seventh day was henceforth to be treated not as a different day each time, but as a sanctified day making weekly visits, to be greeted as a recurring blessing, and received with thanksgiving. It was now made holy, to be remembered in anticipation of its arrival at the stated time each week, and kept holy on its arrival. To sanctify signifies “to pronounce holy, to institute any holy thing, to appoint.” Then to sanctify the seventh day was to set it apart by appointment; and as it was appointed for man, the proclamation was made to the man and his wife. As the Lord designed that the day should be kept holy by man, He certainly so commanded; sanctification to a general use implies commandment to that effect. Thus by three prominent acts of the Creator there was instituted a memorial of the creation event for the observance of the inhabitants of the earth. The Lord’s blessing upon the seventh day indicates that there is blessing in it for those who observe it according to His commandment. Such a blessing is certainly essential to the perfect happiness of the race for whom it was designed by an all-wise Creator. It is not long ago when men declared that the civilization of Egypt extended back many thousands of years,—twenty to thirty millenniums. About the same thing was talked regarding Babylon and Assyria. But later researches are correcting these ideas. As to Babylon one inscription carries us back to B.C. 3800 as the date of Sargon I. Lehmann argues for a reduction of a thousand years in this. Rogers considers the date a tentative one, “pending further light on the subject.” And he further tells us concerning Babylonian chronology (History of Babylon and Assyria, vol. 1, p. 321): “Every chronological scheme that has been proposed has in some way made accommodations, either by altering the figures or by rejecting some of them altogether.” The figures are not consistent. And now Egypt’s antiquity is suffering. The distinguished Egyptologist, Prof. William Flinders Petrie, is reported as saying that recent finds have added more historical information than was before known. As stated by the Scientific American, the explorers “had completed the most important historical work that had yet come into their hands, settling, in a manner which had hitherto seemed beyond hope, the very foundations of Egyptian history. . . . No such complete materialization of history had been obtained by one stroke in any other country or age.” Inscriptions on tablets and vases give much information of dynasties ruling 6,600 years ago. These discoveries were made at Abydos. This carries us back to less than 5,000 years before Christ. Back of these, it is said, lie earlier dynasties. But the progress that is being made under truer investigation will at last reduce all these fabulous dates to much more modest estimates. For it is only estimates, or rather guesses; for as Rogers again tells us (vol. 1, p. 335): “From the Egyptian inscriptions scarcely anything of value may be obtained for chronological purposes.” In all these investigations we need not fear for the Bible. In every just conclusion, the Word of God will be vindicated. 1243.—When Shall All Nations Worship God?
A correspondent (J. B.) cites Ps. 76: 9 (probably 86: 9), Rev. 15: 4; Isa. 66: 23; Zech. 9: 10, in which texts are declared that “all flesh shall come and worship before” God, “all nations shall come and worship before Thee, O Lord,” etc., and asks: “Is this what the nations say? Unless you can assert that all the above are what the nations say, I can not understand how you can say it is the nations, and not the Lord, which speak as follows:— “And He shall . . . rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares; . . . neither shall they learn war any more. But they shall sit every man under his vine, and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid: . . . For the mouth of the Lord of hosts hath spoken it.” Micah 4: 3, 4. 1. In the texts above cited in the Psalms etc., it is clearly shown that the speaker is either the Lord through His prophet, or His prophet. We need be in no doubt at all concerning this. 2. In the passage in Micah 4: 2-5 as also in Isa. 2: 3-5 we are expressly told that “many people shall go and say,” and that “many nations shall come and say,” that all these peaceful times are coming among the nations; and that the “many people” and the “many nations” say, “The mouth of the Lord of hosts hath spoken it.” The prophet does not say that the Lord hath spoken it, but the prophet declares that the many nations say that the Lord hath spoken it. Surely the Lord does not predict a time of peace when “all people will walk every one in the name of his god.” The simple fact is that it is a false message. The nations are to-day saying, “The Lord saith; and the Lord hath not sent them; and they have made others to hope that they would confirm the word.” And He asks them: “Have ye not seen a vain vision, and have ye not spoken a lying divination, whereas ye say, The Lord saith it; albeit I have not spoken?” And what is it that these false prophets cry? It is “Peace; and there was no peace.” See Eze. 13: 4-14. And this is in perfect accord with the context of Isa. 2: 2-9. The prophet there declares concerning His professed people who prophesy “peace;” “For Thou hast forsaken Thy people the house of Jacob, because they be filled with customs from the east, and are soothsayers like the Philistines, and they strike hands with the children of strangers.” See Isa. 2: 6-9. And so also, according to Micah, at the very time the many nations are thus crying that the Lord hath spoken peace, the Lord’s true people are but a halting, afflicted remnant. Micah 4: 6. 3. At this very time, when this false cry of peace is going to the world, the Lord gives us a prophecy which shows that the very opposite of what the nations declare will be the actual condition; that it will be a time of unparalleled activity in preparing for war; that instruments of agriculture will yield to the dominance of implements of warfare and bloodshed. And these are the actual facts of to-day. See Joel 3: 9-14. 4. But what about the class of passages cited at the beginning? Simply this: (a) At the judgment-seat of Christ every knee shall bow and every tongue confess to God (Rom. 14: 11; Phil. 2: 10), many in glad praise, many, alas, too late. (b) But beyond all sin and strife, beyond the grave and the judgment, beyond all wickedness and the wicked, Christ Jesus will reign eternally upon the earth made new, unmarred by the curse of evil. Then “the nations of them which are saved” shall walk in the light of God (Rev. 21: 24, 26), from Sabbath to Sabbath and from month to month shall all flesh come to worship before the Lord (Isa. 66: 23), whose dominion shall be from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth (Ps. 72: 8). Can we not see the place of the false message of peace of the nations, as well as the application of God’s precious promises for the future? Praise God that there are voices that ring out now and then loud and clear, and in no uncertain tones of loyalty to the old Gospel of God in Christ Jesus, voices of warning against the evils which are creeping in and depriving the pulpit, consecrated to the Gospel, of its power. Such a voice is that of Joseph Parker, D.D., of London City Temple, in the Homiletic Review for May. The subject of his paper is “The Preacher’s Relations to the Socialistic Features of the Day.” We give some of the more striking excerpts below:— The temptations which beset the preacher to-day to intermeddle with things which he does not understand are at once innumerable and overpowering. There is a mean and sneaking desire in many quarters to be considered modern, up-to-date, and fully abreast with the times. In a large and important sense I am dead against such petty ambitions. I hold that no man is abreast with the times except the man who lives in close communion with God and in continual association with the Spirit of Jesus Christ. To my mind, the Bible is the newest of all books. We have done infinite mischief in closeting a good many things within the four corners of dictionaries and antiquities. For example, we suppose that the scribes and Pharisees lived some hundreds of years ago, whereas they are among us to-day, still the enemies of Christianity, and still tempting the heart to hostility toward all the deepest meanings of the cross. My constant conviction is that Jesus Christ is just as much among us at this moment as He was in the days of His flesh. To Christ I go for the deepest and truest interpretations of human spirituality, motive, and immediate relationship to God. We have put even God Himself far away from our daily thinking. We have set Him high in the heavens, and have given Him all the throne He can occupy, provided it is far enough away from this disciplinary state of schooling. We must alter all this if we would put ourselves as preachers in the right relations to the burning questions of our times. The Bible must not be regarded as an old book, but a new book. Bethlehem is not a term in Eastern geography; it ought to express the place which Christ occupies in our hearts as Child, and Boy, and Man, and Saviour. This being my conviction, I am afraid I shall be regarded as out of sympathy with all up-to-date and fussy movements,—movements which depend for their temporary success on bands, demonstrations, and all the various instruments and tabernacles of angry ignorance. If any preacher will give himself night and day to the study and exposition of the Gospel as it is found in the New Testament, he will do all that any preacher is required to do. Surely preachers were not intended for any other work than the direct and fervent declaration and exposition of the Gospel. The motto of the pulpit should be, Educate the conscience, rouse the conscience, encourage and support the conscience. Great questions must be settled spiritually before they can be settled politically. But some men are never easy unless they are in a public meeting, shouting, declaiming, cheering, and opposing, as the case may be. It is difficult for me to believe that such men know anything whatever about the Spirit of Christ and the purpose of His kingdom. Every generation brings its peculiar prophet, its special gospel, its unique and unparalleled nostrum for the cure of social evils. Those of us who have been long in the field of Christian service have seen programs rise and fall, social schemes flourish like a green bay tree, and yet in after-years they have been sought for but have not been found. There have been been hypotheses upon which the state was to be reconstructed and turned into a happy family. All these paltry and superficial and tricky inventions have risen, flourished, faded; but the Word of the Lord endureth forever, and this is the Word which is by the Gospel preached unto the nations. The Christian preacher does not awaken from his nightly slumber to find what new social invention he has to adopt. Truly his motto is Semper Eadem. His Gospel awaits his awakening. It is always the same; it is always adapted to every changing state of society; it is so simple yet so profound as to admit of being preached to every creature under heaven, and yet we may have too often yielded to the time-spirit and gone out after daily novelty as if it were daily bread. We must get back to commonplaces—to such places as God rules, Christ redeems, the Spirit illumines and sanctifies. Let us reject with intellectual scorn any plan that sets itself in competition with the cross. Would God that my voice could reach all preachers, teachers, and holy men, when I repeat it as my solemn conviction that this world is only to be brought back to God through the medium of a Gospel evangelical in doctrine and evangelical in tone.