The fourteenth chapter of Job is a wonderful testimony to the sleep of man in death; “So man lieth down, and riseth not; till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep.” Verse 12. This plainly declares that the sleep of man shall continue till the heavens pass away, which Peter says, shall be with a great noise. 2 Pet. 3:10. David said he should be satisfied when he should awake with the likeness of the Lord. Ps. 17:15. So David is yet asleep, and the time for him to be satisfied has not come. Acts 13:36; 12:34.
But does not the close of Job 14, forbid the sleep of the real man in death? His soul within him shall mourn. Does not this plainly indicate consciousness in death? Let us read the last two verses of the chapter:—
“His sons come to honor, and he knoweth it not; and they are brought low, but he perceiveth it not of them.” Verse 21. This is the sleep of death, certainly. Now does the next verse contradict this?
“But his FLESH upon him shall have pain, and his soul within him shall mourn.” Verse 22. The first clause of this verse shows that the condition of man in death is not the subject matter of the verse, while his soul within him mourns, his flesh upon him has pain. This text, if it relates to man in death, proves that his flesh is in a state of conscious suffering, an idea that is absurd, and that no one believes.
What then do the words of verse 22 signify? One of two views must be taken. It either relates to man before his dissolution, and is descriptive of the pains of death, or it has reference to man when raised from the dead to suffer for his sins. In the first case, it might pertain to mankind in general, i. e., to both the righteous, and the wicked. In the latter case, it can relate to the wicked only. But in either view, it cannot relate to the man while sleeping in death. It is the whole man that is conscious; his flesh suffers, as well as his mental nature.
J. N. A.
"MY BOY."
By John Bartholomew Gough
When addressing an audience in Connecticut, I related the following incident:—
Mrs. Falkener, who lives a little way out from here, gave me some interesting incidents with regard to her son.
"My boy," she said, "was a drunkard; but he signed the pledge, and said, 'Mother, I will go away from home, away from the midst of temptation, but I will keep this pledge.'"
By-and-by, after he had been gone a little over two years, a letter came saying: "Mother, I am coming home to spend Thanksgiving with you."
And he came by the stage into the town, which stopped at the door of Solomon Parsons' tavern. It was just after dusk. Some young men were in the bar. "Holloa, Fred; and how are you? What will you have to drink?"
"Nothing."
"Haven't seen you this long time. But you're looking well and hearty. What will you have?"
"Nothing."
"Not on Thanksgiving? Come, take a little."
"No, I'd rather not. I've come home to see my mother. She hardly expects me to-night. I thought I'd wait till dark and go in and surprise the old lady."
By-and-by, Solomon Parsons, who was leaning his elbow on the counter, looked at him, and said: "Fred Falkener, if I were six foot tall, and broad in proportion, as you are, and yet was afraid of a paltry glass of ale, by George! I'd go to the woods and hang myself."
"But I am not afraid."
"Oh, yes you are—ha! ha! ha! I say, boys, here's a great big fellow afraid of a glass of liquor. I suppose he's afraid of his mother."
"Well," he said, "I'm going to mother; and I may as well show you that I'm not afraid to drink it."
He drank it; then came another glass; and they plied him with more. Twelve o'clock that night he went into a barn, and was found in the morning—dead!
They brought him to his mother stretched on a plank with a buffalo robe thrown over the body. She said to me. "Parsons came, and I said, 'You tempted my boy.'" "Well, I didn't know it was your son."
"You did! you called him by name; you knew it was Frederic Falkener, the only son of his poor crippled mother; and you have killed him."
"Mrs. Falkener, I am not used to have such language applied to me."
"God forgive me if I have sinned," said the poor woman, "but I put my hand on the face of my dead boy, and I lifted up my finger, and I cursed him. He went out with a face white as chalk."
Then I said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, Solomon Parsons, the man who tempted Frederic Falkener to his ruin, is in this hall, and he sits right there; and this same Solomon Parsons keeps a grog-shop on the bridge of your city, licensed by the State. Connecticut! rout him out!" And, before twenty-four hours had elapsed, bag and baggage, bottles and demijohns of liquors, furniture, licenses and all, were carted out of the city.
They violated no law. They laid no hand upon him; but they made him go out himself. They helped him not to pack up a single article of his furniture; but they went to him in a body, and declared that such a man should not be tolerated in the city, and he was obliged to leave.—J. B. Gough.
LEARNING HER VALUE.
"JUST what I have been expecting for about seven years," said Miss Pauline Worthington, looking from an open letter in her hand with a frowning brow.
"Is not your letter from Herbert, Lina?" questioned Mrs. Worthington, a tiny, silver-haired old lady with gentle expression.
"Yes, mother. Essie is very ill with low, nervous fever, and they want me to come and stay until she is better. The carriage will be sent at three o'clock, mother," and Miss Pauline's eyes snapped. "I think it is about time Bert's tyranny over that little martyr was ended. He's killing her."
"Lina! He is your brother."
"I can see his faults if he is."
"I never heard Essie complain."
"She never would. But look at her. Nine years ago when she was married, she was a lively sunbeam, so bright and pretty. Now, pale, quiet and reserved, her voice is seldom heard, her smile seldom seen. A wintry shadow of her former summer brightness! Now she has broken down. You have not seen her at home, but surely when she is here you see the change."
"Yes, dear, she has changed; but family cares—"
"Has Louie changed so? She has been twelve years married."
Mrs. Worthington was silent. Louie was her oldest child, and presided over the home in which her mother had been a crippled prisoner for fifteen years. She took all the household care, and had five children, and yet Louie had gained in beauty, and certainly in cheerful happiness, since her marriage, even if the sport of girlhood was gone.
"Henry appreciates Louie," said Lina; "there lies the difference between her happiness and Essie's dejection. If there is any domestic trouble Henry and Louie share it, while Herbert shifts it all upon Essie. He is an habitual fault-finder."
"Perhaps, dear, Essie is not as good a house-keeper as Louie. Herbert may have cause to find fault."
"Once in ten times he may. I never saw a faultless house or house-keeper; but Essie and her house are the nearest approach to perfection I ever did see."
"You never spoke so before Lina."
"Because Louie and I thought it best not to worry you with trouble beyond your help. But firmly believing as I do now, that Herbert is actually worrying his wife into the grave, I intend to give him a lesson; that is, if you can spare me to go?"
"You must go, dear. I can get along nicely."
So when Herbert Worthington sent his carriage, Lina was quite ready for the fourteen miles drive to her brother's house. It was a house wherein no evil spirit of repining and fault-finding should have found an abode. Spacious, handsomely furnished, with well trained servants and all the comforts wealth could furnish, it seemed a perfect paradise to visitors. But a very demon lurked there to poison all, and this demon Lina had come to exorcise.
For the first fortnight Essie took all her time and care. Herbert snarled and fretted over domestic short-comings, but Lina peremptorily forbade all mention of these in the sick-room, having the doctor's authority for saying that the patient's very life depended upon quiet.
But when convalescence commenced, Lina sent Essie to visit old Mrs. Worthington, and took control of Herbert, the children, and the household, fully determined to show her brother how far he carried his absurd habit of fault-finding.
The first dinner saw the beginning of the lesson Lina meant to teach, by practically illustrating some of Herbert's absurdities. Herbert entered the dining-room, his handsome face disfigured by a frown.
"Soup," said Herbert, lifting the tureen cover; "perfect dish-water!"
"Susan," said Lina, sharply before Herbert could lift the ladle, "take that tureen to the kitchen and tell Jane the soup is not fit to eat."
Susan promptly obeyed. Herbert looked rather ruefully at the vanishing dish. He was especially fond of soup, and the savory fumes of the delicious dish were tantalizing. Essie would have had some gentle excuse for it—she never whipped off his dinner in that way. All dinner time Lina kept up a ding-dong at Susan about that abominable soup, till Herbert heartily wished he had said nothing about it. But his imagination had detected a burnt flavor in the pudding, and before he could remonstrate, that dish had followed the soup.
"I'll get this house in some sort of order before I leave it," said Lina emphatically.
"Before you leave it," said Herbert, sharply. "Do you suppose you are a better house-keeper than Essie? Why, I have not a friend who does not envy me the exquisite order of my house and my dainty table."
"Herbert, you do surprise me. Only yesterday I heard you say you did wish there was ever anything fit to eat on the table."
"One don't expect every word to be taken literally," said Herbert, rather sulkily. But an hour later, finding a streak of dust in the sitting-room, he declared emphatically "it was not fit for a pig to live in."
Coming into it the next morning, he found the curtains torn down, the carpets taken up, the floor littered with pails, soap, and brushes, and Lina in a dismal dress, her hair tied up in a towel directing two women, scrubbing vigorously.
"Goodness, what are you doing?"
"Cleansing this room."
"Why, Essie had the whole house cleaned until it shone, in the fall, and didn't make half the muss," he added contemptuously.
"Well," said Lina, slowly, "I thought this room a marvel of neatness myself, but when you said it was not fit for the pigs, I supposed you wanted it cleaned."
"The room was well enough," was the curt reply. "For mercy's sake, don't turn any more of the house upside down."
At breakfast a tiny tear in Louie's apron caught her father's eye, and by his own angry statements she never had a decent stitch of clothes, and he did wish "somebody would see to her."
Two days later a formidable dry-goods bill was presented at the store, and Lina explained it to him in this wise:
"You said, Herbert, that Louie hadn't a decent stitch, and you wished somebody would see to her, so I bought her a complete outfit. I could not see any fault myself, but of course I got more expensive articles, as you did not like those already provided. I am glad you called my attention to the poor neglected child."
"Poor, neglected child!" echoed astonished Herbert. "Why, Lina, Essie fairly slaves herself out over those children. I am sure I never see any better dressed or neater."
Lina merely shrugged her shoulders. A month passed. Essie gained strength in the genial atmosphere surrounding Louie and her mother, while Lina ruled Herbert's home with a rod of iron. Herbert began to experience a sick longing for Essie's gentle presence. Lina took him so very literally in all he said, and yet he could not rebuke her for doing exactly what he openly wished.
A chair with a tiny spot of dirt being declared absolutely filthy, was upholstered and varnished at a cost of eight dollars. A dozen new shirts, Essie's last labor of love, being said to "set like meal bags," were bestowed upon the gardener, and a new set sent from the furnishing store. Harry's blocks were burned at the kitchen fire when Herbert stepping on one, said he "would not have such rubbish in the house." Every window was opened after a pettish declaration that the "room was as hot as an oven," and an hour later the stove was fired up to smothering heat because he declared it "cold enough to freeze a polar bear."
95In short, with apparently an energetic attempt to correct all short-comings and put the house-keeping upon a perfect basis, Lina in one month nearly doubled her brother's expenses, and drove him to the very verge of distraction, keeping account of every complaint.
But Essie, well and strong again, was coming home. On the day of her expected arrival, Lina, with a solemn face, invited her brother into the sitting-room for a few moments of private conversation.
"Herbert," she said gravely, "I have a proposition to make to you. You are my only brother, and I need not tell you that I love you very dearly. It has really grieved me to the heart to see how much there is to find fault with in your beautiful home."
Herbert twisted himself uneasily in his chair, but Lina continued:—
"You know that mother is very dependent on me, Louie having the house and children to care for, but I think she would sacrifice her own comfort for yours. So, if you wish, Herbert, I will come here permanently, to keep things in order for you."
"You are very kind," he faltered, the instincts of a gentleman battling with the strong desire to tell Lina she would certainly drive him to a lunatic asylum by six months' more of her model house-keeping.
"Not at all. A man who has made an unfortunate marriage certainly needs all the aid and sympathy his family can give him."
The last straw was laid upon the camel's back. Herbert spoke hotly:—
"You are entirely mistaken, Lina! I have not made an unfortunate marriage. If ever a man was blessed in a wife, I am that man."
"You amaze me, Herbert," Lina cried out in well-feigned astonishment.
"I do not see why you should be surprised. Essie is gentle, loving, orderly, a model house-keeper, and a perfect home angel—God bless her."
"Herbert, is that true?"
"Certainly it is true."
"I cannot believe it," was the slow, hesitating response.
"Cannot believe it! Why?"
"Because"—and Lina dwelt impressively upon every word—"during the nine years of your married life, though visiting here frequently, I never heard you speak one word of encouragement or praise to Essie. I never saw one look of approbation or appreciation of any effort she made for your comfort upon your face. Continually fault-finding, constant blame, have changed her from a happy, winsome girl to a pale, care-worn woman. Even her last illness was but the unbroken despair of a heart crushed under a load of daily censure and constant striving for the approbation never given. And you tell me now she has never failed, in her duty to you. There is a grave error somewhere."
The sadly earnest tone, the face of thoughtful gravity, sent every word home to Herbert Worthington's heart. He spoke no word of self-defense as Lina slowly left the room. In the profound silence that followed, conscience reviewed the past, and he knew that his sister had only spoken the truth. The habit of fault-finding, meeting no resistance in Essie's gentleness, had gained in force till all its monstrosity stood revealed in the experience of the past month.
In the days when Essie lay dangerously ill there had been no self-reproach like this in her husband's sorrow. He had given his wife a fair home, an ample income, frequent social pleasures, many costly gifts, and loved her faithfully, while poisoning her whole life.
"God help me," he whispered, "to conquer this fault. Essie shall hear no more fault-finding, and if I see her drooping I will send her to mother and have Lina back again."
Never had wife and mother warmer welcome then greeted Essie. The children were unchecked in their loudest demonstration of delight. But Lina had to rush into the hall to hide her merry eyes when Herbert, kissing Essie, said:—
"We must let mother have Lina now, dear; she has been very kind and worked hard for my comfort; but there is no home-fairy like my Essie."
The quick, glad look in his wife's soft eyes told Herbert that one step had been taken in the right direction. As the days glided by, and Essie found appreciation meeting every effort to home comfort, a word of praise for every little triumph of cookery or needle-work, her pale face grew bright with untold happiness. Gradually the care-worn expression was obliterated by one of sweet content, and Herbert found his own heart lighted by the cheerful voice, the sunny smile, the bright eyes of the Essie he had wooed years before.
And Lina, making a visit six months later, told her mother, on her return:—
"Herbert has learned his lesson by heart, mother. He appreciates Essie now at her value, and he lets her know it."
Formation of Character
FORMATION OF CHARACTER.—If somebody should give me a diamond to carry to Europe, I can know exactly how much would be lost to the world were I to drop it into the sea; but if a seed should be given me, I can only regard it with awe, as concealed within it is the food of untold generations. That is the difference between looking at the truth as a diamond or a seed, as final or germinal. In all training of character, continuity and economy must be supreme. The notion that character is spontaneous is held by most people in the earlier portions of their lives, and is wrong. When they discover this, nine-tenths change to the other extreme. This is wrong, too. Hosts of young men think that their character will form itself and they will necessarily become better as they grow older. Hosts of old men believe that their character is fixed, and that it is impossible for them to become better. Such beliefs are foolish. People are also wrong in thinking they can put off their bad traits and put on good traits. The old failures cannot thus be transformed, but out of the old habits new can be formed. This is what many a poor creature needs to know. We must make what we are to be out of what we are already.
DISCIPLINE IN THE HOUSEHOLD.
"The mistress of a household," says Caroline E. Stephen, "has, before all things, to rule. I can believe that a mistress who was not loved might yet, by a firm, wise and just rule, maintain a wholesome moral atmosphere in her house; but a mistress who was not obeyed, however personally winning and popular, would, as mistress, be a mere disastrous failure and cause of failure in others. In practice we all know that fear and love can scarcely be altogether separated; a reason, the more, for giving fear its proper place."
BATTLE CREEK SANITARIUM.
By John Harvey Kellogg
INSTITUTION FOUNDED, . . . . . 1866.
4000 Patients Successfully Treated.
THIS INSTITUTION, for completeness of appointment, and extent of facilities, is unrivalled in this country. Its splendid arrangements for HEATING AND VENTILATION, together with special appliances for regulating the humidity of the atmosphere, makes this Institution UNEQUALED AS A WINTER RESORT FOR CHRONIC INVALIDS.
Even persons suffering with pulmonary difficulties do much better here than in Florida.
All known useful remedies for disease are employed, including Turkish, Russian, Vapor, Electro-Thermal, Electro-Vapor, all kinds of Water Baths, Sun Baths, Swedish Movements, Electricity, etc., etc.
Terms very reasonable. J. H. KELLOGG, M. D., Medical Superintendent.
Address for Circulars:—SANITARIUM, Battle Creek, Mich.
GOOD HEALTH.
By Editor
For 1880.
THIS POPULAR JOURNAL enters upon its fifteenth volume with the most flattering prospects not only of a continuance of the prosperity which has attended it in the past, but also of a great increase of patronage, although it already enjoys
THE LARGEST CIRCULATION OF ANY HEALTH JOURNAL IN AMERICA.
The interest of the journal for 1880 will be greatly increased by a series of practical articles from the well-known pens of
ELDER AND MRS. WHITE.
Whose contributions in the past have done so much to increase the popularity and the usefulness of the journal.
A SPLENDID PREMIUM BOOK
Is offered to new subscribers. Address, for specimen copy :—
GOOD HEALTH PUBLISHING CO.,
Battle Creek, Mich.
Or:—SIGNS OF THE TIMES,
Oakland, Cal.
Publications Available in England
By Editor
ANY of the books, pamphlets, and tracts issued at this Office, may be obtained of Eld. J. N. Loughborough, Ravenswood, Shirley Road, Southampton, England, who will furnish catalogues and prices in English money, and receive subscriptions for all our periodicals.
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