Earlier text: AS IT WAS IN THE DAYS OF NOETHE NECESSITY OF A RESURRECTION.
By J. O. Corliss
THERE is nothing so precious as life. To say nothing of what one may be called to endure,—how much pain, sorrow, or inconvenience,—the privilege of continued, conscious existence is a boon more desired than anything else. Hold out to men wealth, honor, and distinction, but with the understanding that these are shortly to pass away, leaving their former possessor without conscious being, and how few would accept them in place of life to be indefinitely continued! All these are of no value in the face of approaching dissolution. None of them are thought too valuable to give for even a temporary relief. The reason for this is obvious. Life is the foundation of consciousness, by which thought exists, and the value of surrounding objects are weighed. Take away life, and all the things contingent on it cease to be. So, then, life being at the head of all things, it is the thing to be sought; and to obtain it no sacrifice is too dear. When life ceases to operate on the brain to produce thought, then consciousness has ceased, because thought is simply the expression of consciousness. So inveterate an enemy to man's welfare is death that it never gives up its advantage until the very last, and then only because it is destroyed by the power of God through the resurrection. 1 Cor. 15: 21-26. The resurrection being the medium through which the power of God operates to destroy the power of death, it follows that, until the resurrection does its designated work, death still reigns over its subjects, and so holds them in unconsciousness, because death is the absence of life, and life is the foundation of thought, which is the expression of consciousness. This is plainly set forth by the apostle when reasoning with some of the Corinthian brethren about their unbelief in a future resurrection, while maintaining their faith in Christ as the Saviour of the world. He asks the pertinent question, "If Christ be preached that He rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection from the dead?" 1 Cor. 15: 12. Sure enough, if it was necessary to raise Christ bodily from the dead in order to demonstrate the power of God's life over death, and to prove that Christ was really the Son of God (Rom. 1: 4), why should it not follow that those for whom Christ died, who have fallen under death, should also gain the victory over death in the same way as did their Master? No wonder, then, that the great apostle should affirm that "if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is not Christ risen." He carries the matter still further; he says positively that if Christ is not risen, then our faith in Him is of no avail, and our preaching of life to the condemned sinner through faith in Christ is all false. More than that, he contends that in case there is no resurrection of the dead, then all who have "fallen asleep in Christ are perished." 1 Cor. 15: 13-18. To sum up the apostle's statements: Just as surely as Christ had failed to rise from the dead, so surely would He have failed to break the power of death that held Him in the grave and all others who fall under its power; consequently every subject of death would now be perished—held forever in its eternal embrace. Faith in a Saviour who had not risen from the dead would indeed be vain, since salvation from the power of death is the scope of God's promises to the sinner. Therefore, faith in Christ, to be available, must embrace the power of God to raise Christ from the dead, because that manner of returning to Him the life He had yielded on the cross, is the only evidence God has given men that they, too, may be restored to life, after having fallen under the power of death. It was for this reason that Christ came to earth to live and die in the flesh. By this He was to spread before the universe a knowledge of the power of God to redeem those whom death should overtake. Had Christ not been raised from death's embrace, the evidence to the world would have been that God's power of life was inadequate to cope with the blighting power of death introduced by Satan. Because He was raised, we are to believe that we also shall be raised, and so be freed from the embrace of death, the symbol of Satan's power. Until then death reigns, and so holds under its control the groaning creation of God, which is ordained to life through the resurrection of Christ from the dead. Rom. 8: 23, 24; Heb. 2: 14, 15. Christ, therefore, in passing through a fleshly sojourn, and yielding up His life for man, whose every step is in the direction of death, did so to show that the power of God is able to rescue from that condition which sin has enjoined on the race, namely, the sleep of death. Since death came by man's yielding to sin, the recovery must be accomplished by man being raised from the dead. It was therefore necessary for Christ, as a man, to give Himself up to death, in faith that the power of God's life would cause Him to triumph over death, which was possible only by a resurrection, or standing up from the dead. In this He became the first-fruits, or the beginning of the resurrection from the dead. 1 Cor. 15: 19, 20. It is true that some in Old Testament history were raised from death, as Moses (Rom. 5: 14; Jude 9), and the widow's son (1 Kings 17: 17-22); but these manifestations were in anticipation of, and dependent on, the word of Jehovah, that had from the beginning decreed that Christ should die for the sins of the world, and which also implied His resurrection from the dead (Rev. 13: 8; John 2: 19-22). The special resurrection of Lazarus and others recorded in the New Testament was after the same order. But the fact that Christ considered it necessary to raise these bodily from the dead in order to win a triumph over death, is evidence that in this way alone God intends to restore to man the power of life, which has been forfeited through allegiance to Satan and sin. Then to go down to death without faith in Christ's victory over Satan's power is but to look into profound darkness, with nothing whatever to brighten any part of the future. But when one can look into the tomb, and see that He who went in there in man's behalf, has triumphed over its power, he sees his own triumph in the power of Christ's life given for him, and which he received as a gift from God, through faith in the first-fruits of triumph manifested through the Son of God. In reviewing the brevity of man's life, the afflicted patriarch raised the question, "If a man die, shall he live again?" Job 14: 14. That was the one point for him to settle, before resting satisfied. He knew well enough that when death came, it would take the place occupied before by life. Its advent would mean to him a time of darkness and silence. Job 3: 11-18; 17: 13-16. The question of a possible recovery from that condition was therefore the burden of his mind. Then, suddenly, as tho there were no other alternative but to await God's resurrection power, he exclaimed: "All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. Thou shalt call, and I will answer Thee: Thou shalt have a desire to the work of Thine hands." Thus the resurrection is appointed to be the avenue through which God will wrest from the power of death the work of His own hands. He will, through this, bring man back to the condition in which he was first formed, and thus restore in him the image of his Maker. This is very forcefully presented by the apostle in his letter to the church at Thessalonica: "The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so [in this manner] shall we ever be with the Lord." 1 Thess. 4: 16, 17. This accomplished, the power of death over man is forever broken. Till then, man is held under its power, "waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body." Rom. 8: 23. But the coming of the Lord in the clouds of heaven brings that glad day of eternal redemption from the grasp of death. Then let the day of that coming be hailed with joy; let its divinely-glorious and infinitely-splendid ceremonies be hastened, that the inroads of death in family circles may be closed up, and happiness and peace quickly take the place of sorrow and sighing. "Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus." J. O. CORLISS. PEACE LIKE A RIVER.
By George A. Snyder
FLOWING swiftly onward ever,
Pausing for a moment never,
Rolling on so peacefully toward the sea,
Through the wilderness so dreary,
Sweeping onward, never weary,
Such the peace the Saviour gave to you and me. Through the parched desert flowing,
On its course the verdure growing
Marks an emerald belt across the burning sand;
Through the fertile valley gliding,
All along its wealth dividing,
Causing joy and happiness throughout the land. Tho its surface may be frozen,
And tho people by the dozen
Trample on its crystal bosom with their feet,
Underneath, still flowing sweetly,
Never frozen up completely,
Sings the river on in music low and sweet. Moving on each day and hour
With the same resistless power,
While the trees and flowers blossom on its verge;
Passing not to eye their beauty,
But in sweet discharge of duty,
Rolls the river on with ceaseless swelling surge. Peace that floweth like a river,
Peace of God, that can deliver
All who launch upon thy bosom deep and wide,
Peace that passeth understanding,
Heart and mind and soul expanding,
May we in thy current evermore abide.
GEO. A. SNYDER. THE sheep of the Orient are led pre-eminently by the shepherd's voice. While, generally speaking, they know his form, his face, his manner, there are times of storm or fog or darkness when either or all of these stand for naught. To be guided by him through the darkness, or storm, or fog, the sheep must know the shepherd's voice. Importance of Knowing the True Voice.
There are many voices in this world calling for sin-blinded sheep, wandering on cold, barren mountains of doubt, on parched and verdureless plains of human sowing,—voices calling everywhere out of the fog of tradition and ism, out of the world's storm and darkness. And many, many sheep are astray. There is but one voice of Jehovah, the True Shepherd, the Good Shepherd—Christ-manifested. It is all-important that His voice be known and recognized. Only so may we be led through the mazes of this world's darkness to the path of light and the fold. What we do not need to know is the voice of the false shepherds; for knowledge of the false never helps us to the true. Knowledge of the true shields us from the false. How We May Know God's Voice.
The great Good Shepherd has given us an infallible standard, one that has come down through the ages, one that does not alter with lapse of time. Pre-eminently God's voice is His holy law. Before it was spoken from the glory-crowned height of Sinai, amid such awful grandeur as sinful earth never saw, God called it His voice. It was to be the test of His people—"If ye will obey My voice." Ex. 19:5. Three days afterward His voice was uttered in the great Decalogue. Moses, after repeating that law, said: "These words the Lord spake unto all your assembly in the mount out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice; and He added no more. And He wrote them in two tables of stone, and delivered them unto me." Deut. 5:22. That law is God's Voice, the standard by which all other voices must be judged. Thus when Isaiah speaks of the false prophets and evil spirits, which would lead astray, he points to the standard in these words: "To the law and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." Isa. 8:20. Jeremiah calls back the wandering sheep to "the old paths, where is the good way." Jer. 6:16. That this is the law is shown by verse 19, where those who do not walk in the old paths and the good way are said to reject God's law. The same great truth was taught by Jesus: "Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will [the law, Ps. 40:8] of My Father which is in heaven." Matt. 7:21. Those who do not do this, "work iniquity," or lawlessness. Verse 23. "And hereby we do know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments." 1 John 2:3. This is God's voice, the voice of the Good Shepherd; do you know it? It is not to know the mere words, tho this is good; for they are the form of truth. Yet we may know them and miss the Shepherd, because in them we may not know His voice. What we know in the Gospel sense we are in harmony with; our souls are attuned to its rhythm, its tone, its voice. To know God's voice, it must be written in our hearts by the divine Spirit. Eze. 36:26, 27; 2 Cor. 3:3. Only so can we know God, but it is the privilege of every lost sheep. "If any man willeth to do His [God's] will, he shall know of the teaching." John 7:17, R.V. "O taste and see that the Lord is good." And thus knowing God's law, we shall hear Him speak in the ten thousand other ways in which He speaks to us in His Word, in nature, in His providences. We will know the preciousness of Christ's words: "I am the Good Shepherd; and I know Mine own, and Mine own know Me, even as the Father knoweth Me, and I know the Father." John 10:14, 15, R.V. Precious assurance in this world of darkness and doubt! Reader, do you know the Shepherd? If not, why not? THE DAY OF THE SABBATH.
By Editor
An Examination of Mr. Crafts' 'Reply.'
THE Twentieth Century Quarterly of February 15, 1900, has an article by Rev. Wilbur F. Crafts, Ph. D., who has, perhaps, done more to establish Sunday in America than any other man now living. His article is entitled 'A Reply to Seventh-day Adventists.' There are some points in it worthy of notice, not because of any strength of argument, but because of the prominence of the author and the currency of his article. His first paragraph is as follows:— Those who deny the patriarchal Sabbath, but affirm the Lord's-day sabbath—Hessey, of England; Professor Smythe, of Andover, and others—and those Saturday-keeping Christians who affirm the patriarchal Sabbath, but deny the Lord's-day sabbath, [Sunday] accept in one case the same kind and degree of evidence that they reject in the other, namely, one explicit text and half a dozen confirming references—the same sort of evidence that proves gravitation and hangs murderers—a theory that holds and harmonizes all the facts involved. They only are consistent who, on like testimony, accept both the patriarchal and the Lord's-day sabbath, so making the Sabbath as perpetual and universal as 'man,' for whom science as well as Scripture affirms that it was made. We have no defense to make for those who deny the Sabbath in the days of the patriarchs; but the implication in the last sentence quoted above, that the seventh-day observers who deny the Sunday sabbath repudiate the perpetuity and universality of the Sabbath, is wholly without foundation; for Mr. Crafts ought to know that they hold to the perpetuity of the one universal, unchangeable Sabbath for man in all ages. The unchangeable God gave no kaleidoscopic Sabbath. Mr. Crafts' second paragraph pertains to those who deny a Sabbath in patriarchal times. He truly points out that they deny a fact established by Revelation, reason, and history. His third paragraph is as follows:— The Saturday-keepers should be required to establish their Genesis claims before they are allowed to battle with us in the Gospels. Before they debate 'the change of day,' let them show what day of our modern week corresponds to the original Sabbath of God and man, not to keep which, they say, is as bad as theft or murder. The Lord's-day sabbath has the contested seat. The burden of proof is on them. Let this never be forgotten. To dislodge the Lord's day they must prove: (1) That God's 'seventh day' was twenty-four hours, not the period of redemption, which has continued from the creation of man till now. Geology teaches that each of the 'six days' preceding were indefinite periods, in which case our imitation of God's week would be as all our imitation of Him must be, in miniature. (2) They must prove that the original Sabbath of God and man was identical with Saturday in our age, having come down in unbroken succession, which seems at least unlikely, as the land of Abraham began each month, as I have said, with a new week, and treated the days beyond the twenty-eighth as an interregnum between the four weeks of the previous and the four weeks of the following month. (3) They must prove that the Saturday of Adam on the Euphrates is literally reproduced in the Saturday of Adventists on the Mississippi. Saturday, taking the whole globe into account, is forty-eight hours long. 'Required'! By whom? Is not this a land of free speech? When observers of Sunday, united upon only one thing—the desirability of a Sunday law—contend and 'debate' for a dozen self-devouring theories, why may not 'Saturday-keepers' present the teachings of the Gospels concerning the Sabbath? Now we have no desire to 'debate' or 'battle' over the question at all. We wish to know the truth and hold forth the truth of the Word of God as it is in Christ Jesus. Neither is the burden of proof logically upon those who observe the seventh day. The day that holds the place of authority in God's Word and the life of Christ is the day. It ought, to a Christian, to be sufficient to know the day of the Word. The 'contested seat,' in the church is another thing. That rests primarily in every man's heart, and the only true Sabbath-keeping is heart Sabbath-keeping; the outspringing of the living law of God planted in the heart by the eternal Spirit. The 'contested seat' there is as the soul will. Christ longs to come in and give His rest, true Sabbath-keeping of the true day, but He will not force His way. A mere outward observance in the church of any day is 'the letter that killeth;' and the enforced observance is slavishness or hypocrisy. We have no desire for any such observance of any divinely-enjoined duty. In all general apostasy Sunday has held the 'contested seat' in outward form. It is 'the wild solar holiday of all pagan times,' entering through apostasy the professed church of Christ. But to answer Mr. Crafts' positions,— 1. The first Biblical cycle of days numbered seven. Genesis 1 and 2. That is the origin of our week. The seventh day of that cycle, or week, was by the Creator constituted the Sabbath. He rested that day; that made it God's rest day. He blessed that day; that made it God's blessed rest day. He sanctified, or set apart, that day of the cycle, or week; that made it7 God's blessed, sanctified Sabbath, or rest day. The resting was in the past, when He sanctified and blessed the day; therefore the blessing and setting apart pertain to all seventh days to come. And this very fact, as well as all subsequent teaching, must prove to a demonstration to all believers in the words of God that the Sabbath day, blessed and set apart for man in the beginning, was just such a day as man is in duty bound to observe. For, mark, reader, God made not the Sabbath for Himself, but "the Sabbath was made for man." It was in duration one of the days of this earth, marked by the sun. The question is not what geology teaches; what does God's Word teach? Pointed Out Miraculously.
2. However geologists or pagans or infidels or higher critics regarded the day of the Sabbath at the Exodus, whether one or all of these classes knew it or not, the great Jehovah, the Shepherd of Israel, knew the seventh day of the hebdomadal or weekly cycle; and He, that it might never be questioned, pointed it out by a threefold miraculous manifestation, every week for forty years. See Exodus 16. It was the same day of Genesis; for it was "the rest of the holy [hallowed, sanctified, Gen. 2:2, 3] Sabbath unto the Lord." Verses 23, 25. It was "the seventh day," "the Sabbath." Verse 26. It was one of God's commandments and laws upon which the people were tested. Verses 4, 27, 28. A few days later, panoplied in such glory as sinful earth had never seen, God spoke His unchangeable law, in the very midst of which was placed the Sabbath precept, enjoining His holy rest day, the seventh of the cycle. He knew the day then. Fifteen centuries later the inspired writings record, concerning the holy women who returned from Christ's sepulcher: "And the women also, which came with Him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the sepulcher, and how His body was laid. And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment. Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulcher." Luke 23:55 to 24:1. Matthew (28:1) connects the two days a little more closely: "In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulcher." The Sabbath day of Christ's time was "the Sabbath day according to the commandment." The commandment enjoins the seventh day, and identifies it with the seventh day of Gen. 2:1-3. The Sabbath day of Christ's time immediately preceded the first day of the week, and was, therefore, the seventh day of the week. Since that time no one will for a moment contend that the identity of the days of the week has been lost. The seventh day of the week then is identical with the seventh day of the week now, with this exception, the Bible day began at sunset and closed at sunset, while the present civil day begins and closes at midnight. God's work is ever the same; and God's representative in his time was Abraham; but Abraham's ancestors were idolaters. Their observance of the day was not Abraham's. Self-Devouring Fallacies.
3. Mr. Crafts' third point that he demands should be proved, is that the Saturday of Adam on the Euphrates is literally reproduced in the Saturday of Adventists on the Mississippi. And then he tells us that "Saturday, taking the whole globe into account, is forty-eight hours long." In other words, Mr. Crafts' argument boiled down is the old cavil that we can not keep a definite day on the round world. And yet, mark it, reader, right in the face of this demand, Mr. Crafts' holds that Christ's "resurrection and reappearance and His Pentecostal reincarnation" "make the Lord's day [by which Mr. Crafts means Sunday] more glorious in the eyes of His disciples than the Jewish Sabbath." He also argues in the same connection that the Sabbath law of the fourth commandment is "kept where a whole people are accustomed to work 'six days' and rest 'on the seventh day,' after these six days of work." And he demands that seventh-day keepers shall prove that all of these positions are not true. Really, Mr. Crafts has saved us the trouble. Consider, reader, his contentions:— 1. The same literal day can not be kept on the round earth. Those in America do not have the same week as Adam. 2. The fourth commandment requires not a definite day, but only one day after six of work. 3. That the Lord requires us to keep the first day of the week. Now, if the same literal day can not be kept on a round world, how can Mr. Crafts keep the day upon which Jesus rose from the dead? He says, "If American Adventists would keep the present Saturday of Eden, let them keep the American Friday." And we say, according to the same argument, if Mr. Crafts would keep the present day of the resurrection, let him keep the American Saturday. If Sunday can be observed world-wide—and a world-wide Sunday law our first-day friends are working for—then the Sabbath can be observed world-wide. Neither have men had any trouble in so observing it. From the cradle of the race the travelers westward have carried with them the Sabbath, and the Sunday, and the week, to the Pacific Ocean, and found themselves in harmony with the week in every land. Mr. Crafts knows this to be so. He knows that Sunday can be observed "the wide world around," and he is anxious for a law to compel it. But if Mr. Crafts' contentions are true, is not Sunday open to the same objection as the Sabbath? Is not the seventh day the seventh after six of work? God demands no literal hours; He commands the keeping of the day, not before it comes to us, not after it leaves us, but when it is present, when it is with us; or, more literally, perhaps, when we, in our earth-whirling, come to the day. It is a beneficent law of nature that man can occupy only one place at a time, or that he can not be in two places on the earth's surface at the same time, mahatmas and astral bodies notwithstanding. He is a local being; and all he is required to do to observe the day where he is, the day commanded of God, the seventh of the septenary cycle. If our friends can not find it, God's Word definitely locates it as the day just previous to the first day of the week. To summarize: (1) God rested on the seventh day, blessed that rest day, set it apart for man. Could He do this on an indefinite day? (2) God honored that day 2,500 years afterward by a threefold weekly miracle for forty years as the only day He could honor. (3) He fixed that day of His rest, blessing, and sanctification in His eternal law. (4) The Gospels identify it 1,500 years afterward, as the day just before "the first day of the week." (5) Jesus Himself honored the Sabbath of the Lord in precept and example, but left neither word nor example as regards the holiness of the first day of the week. And all this Mr. Crafts confirms by his beautifully-constructed but self-devouring fallacies. It is the best he has for Sunday-keeping. Why will he not take the better way, the way of righteousness and truth? 1035. F. M. V. Isaiah 11.—We have not space in this column for any such extended explanation. In general, it is a prophecy of Christ, His work, and His kingdom. 1036. B. L. T. Luke 22:36.—We can not believe that Jesus advised His disciples to arm themselves with carnal weapons, in the light of what He told Peter concerning it: 'Put up again thy sword into his place, for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.' Matt. 26:52. That He did not wish them all to bear swords is shown by Luke 22:38: 'They said, Lord, behold, here are two swords. And He said unto them, It is enough.' By His disciples having these swords, (1) Jesus was reckoned 'among the transgressors;' and (2) His disciples for all time were taught that the sword should not be used in defense of the Gospel. Rotherham translates: 'But now he that hath a purse let him take it, in like manner also a satchel; and he that hath nothing, let him sell his mantle and buy a sword! For I say unto you—This that is written must needs be completed in Me,—and with lawless ones was He reckoned; for even that which concerneth Me hath completion. And they said, Lord, lo! two swords here! And He said unto them, It is enough.' 1037. M. V. H. (1) 'What are the 'first principles' of the doctrine of Christ? (2) Do you believe that a man must be called of God by prophecy and by laying on of hands by those in authority to preach the Gospel and administer the ordinances? (3) Do you believe in apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists, as in the primitive church? (4) In the gifts of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, healing, interpretation of tongues, etc.? (5) The literal gathering of Israel, the restoration of the ten tribes, that Zion will be built on this American Continent, that Christ will reign personally on earth, and that this earth will be renewed? (6) In rebaptism? (7) In modern revelation? (8) Do you think the Mormons are right?' This is a long list of questions. We may reply to them better, perhaps, by saying that we believe the Bible to be the Word of God, and its teaching the teaching of God. In brief, then:— 1. The first principles of the doctrine or teaching of Christ are those Christ taught. See Mark 1:15: 'Repent ye, and believe the Gospel.' See also Acts 2:38; 3:19; 20:21. Of course belief in God must precede repentance; but saving faith follows repentance. Other principles or teaching are further mentioned. See Heb. 6:1, 2. 2. We believe that a man should be called of God to preach, and that he should know he is called. If he is truly called, his brethren in the ministry will recognize it; and when his gift is proved by fruits, he should be set apart by the laying on of hands 'of the presbytery,' or elders, and ordained to the work. See Acts 6; 1 Tim. 3:1-7; 5:22, and others. 3. Certainly; the Lord declares that He has given these gifts to the church till the body of Christ is complete. Eph. 4:11-13. 4. Certainly, again. The Word declares that 'God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles,' etc. 1 Cor. 12:28, 8-10. We believe it all. These gifts are given till the perfect shall come. 1 Cor. 13:9-13. That is not yet here. The gifts are still needed to perfect the church, which shall 'come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.' 1 Cor. 1:7. 5. We believe in the gathering of all the Israel of God (Rom. 9:6-8), even the twelve tribes, to the New Jerusalem on high, already built (Rev. 22:14; 21:10-14). That city will come down upon this earth at the close of the thousand years of Revelation 20 (21:10); after the purifying fires shall have completely cleansed and renovated it (2 Peter 3:5-13; Rev. 21:1-7). The true Israel are those who are so by faith, even as Jacob became Israel. Over the regenerated people of God, in a regenerated earth, Christ will personally rule. Dan. 7:26; Isa. 62:1-7; Rev. 22:1-4. The idea of the gathering of ten fleshly tribes, and the rebuilding of an earthly city where Christ will reign, is a delusion and a snare. 6. Baptism is immersion. When new light came to a company of early Christians, they were rebaptized. It is entirely proper in certain cases. See Acts 19:1-5. It must rest with the individual conscience. 7. This is answered in No. 4. If all the gifts of the Spirit continue, there will be new revelations of God's fulness and glory. See Acts 2:17, 18. The last days include the last day. Compare also Rev. 12:17 with 19:10. But all true revelation will be in harmony with all that God has given before; it will not in anywise conflict with God's holy law of Ten Commandments. Compare Isa. 8:20; Matt. 7:21; 1 John 2:1-6; Rev. 14:12. 8. No; we do not believe the Mormons to be right. 1038. These Kings. P. H. S.—'What nations are now these kings?'—The very last phase of the Roman Government. Some of them will be, doubtless, the governments which now exist in Europe. The number is ten. See Rev. 17:12, 13.