Is it not so? Is not the habit prevalent, even with good people, of treating certain features of his disease as a laughable performance, and “taking him off”? Have we not the high authority of Mr. Gough himself for this manner of putting the drunkard upon the stage?
It is all a grievous mistake, good friends of the temperance work. We carry weight enough already, without the addition of this crushing impediment.
Drunkenness, rightly viewed, is a vice wholly tragical and unmitigated. Many a fine young fellow in college—and out of it, too, I doubt not—has become a hopeless drunkard from the notion, carefully fostered, and popular up to this day in these enlightened institutions, that it is funny to get drunk. I know the cases, and could recite them, cruel cases of ruin.
We should always speak of the drunkard with soberest pity, of intemperance as an evil with no alleviating feature.
Where we use the expressions, “tipsy,” “tight,” “half seas over,” “on a bender,” “half cocked,” and a score of others of similar import, we are guilty of an unpardonable frivolity which weakens still further a public sentiment, deadened already to insensibility, and at the same time relaxes in us the intensity of convictions already inadequate. When a temperance speaker, or any other person, staggers, and hiccoughs, and tumbles about in imitation of a man crazed with alcohol, he does a mischief which many earnest words and generous deeds may not repair. There is no joke about intemperance, from the first cup to the grave. It is all dark and sad. The side which can be so cleverly set out as comical, by one who has the actor’s trick, is funny, perhaps, if we could but think of what we see as anything less terrible than the frenzied antics of a tenant locked into a burning house and struggling to get out.
But surely a serious man, one who comprehends their mournful significance, will find nothing to amuse in a drunkard’s speech or gesture, in all the widening range of his madness, from the first mild idiocy to the agonies of delirium. A dog-fight or a tournament with wild bulls would be to such a man a spectacle equally humane.
Let us not, therefore, for the influence on our boys, and a careless multitude ready to lose all fear of it as a danger and a sin, and also upon ourselves as men whose depth of wise conviction is their measure of effective power, ever speak of drunkenness otherwise than with the anxious and sad sobriety which it so terribly justifies. —Rev. George R. Leavitt.
Baptism: Its Introduction in the Gospel Dispensation
By O. Davis
Baptism.
1. WHAT constitutes the ordinance of baptism as determined by its relation to the faith of the gospel prior to the cross?
2. Of what is it the memorial after the death and resurrection of Christ? or of what is it continued in the church, as the sign?
We will consider its first introduction into the gospel dispensation, and endeavor to show what it was there intended to teach, or what portion of the gospel faith it was to assist in developing.
The beginning of the gospel is introduced by Mark in this way, Mark 1:2: “As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”
John’s work, then, in introducing the gospel, was to prepare the way for Christ. This work of preparing the way for Christ is carried on by John’s preaching the “baptism of repentance for the remission of sins;” and they were to believe on him who was to come after him. And the people went out unto him and were baptized of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. This work John carries on until he sees Jesus coming unto him, when he saith, John 1:29, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”
We now have before us John preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins, and yet pointing to Jesus as the Lamb of God which is to take away the sin of the world. If Jesus, then, the Lamb of God, was to take away the sins of the world, they were not taken away by John’s baptism, nor by the former system of worship through the blood of an animal. What then must have been the baptism of John but a figure or shadow of Christ, by whose sacrifice of himself the sins were to be remitted.
John was sent to prepare the way for Christ to be received. The baptism of repentance for the remission of sins must then be the best figure that could be given to teach and shadow forth the work which Christ was to do to atone for our sins.
Now what is the essential act of Christ in atoning for or taking away our sins? The wages of sin being death, that must be the price paid. Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins. The essential act, then, in the atonement, must be the death of the atoning sacrifice, the death of the provided offering or Lamb of God.
This baptism of John for the remission of sins must necessarily then contain in it the figure of death. Death then being the essential feature in the atoning work, that one feature must be shadowed, if all others are left out.
Does this baptism of John who was to prepare the way for Christ contain this figure of death?
We will examine the different forms of baptism, and see in which we can find this essential idea shadowed forth. Sprinkling, pouring, and immersion, are those forms.
Sprinkle a person with water, and can we get any figure of death from it? Is there anything in it that would indicate that it was designed to teach the idea of death? The answer is obvious. Next we pass to pouring for baptism, and are we any better off? The necessary figure of death is still wanting.
We now pass to the last form, immersion, and do we find it here? We will take our candidate for baptism out into the water; we immerse him beneath its surface. He is gone from our sight. We have but to hold him but a short time where he is to accomplish his death; we need add nothing more; we have only to persist in what is already done. But having completed the figure, we raise him from the watery grave, and he still lives. How perfect the shadow! How calculated to prepare the way for Christ’s work. Here we have then just what the case calls for.
But we will follow this institution still further, and we shall see why this particular figure was chosen to prepare the way for Christ. It not only figures death as many other things might do and as was done by the offering of an animal in the then existing system of worship, but was that peculiar figure that shadowed forth the resurrection from the dead, also; another portion of the gospel plan that was to be unfolded or brought to light by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
Why not continue the figure of the blood of an animal, if remission of sins by death only was to be shown? Had not the time fully come for the resurrection to be shadowed also? And did not that create a necessity for a new figure, just such a one as baptism by immersion?
How truly wonderful has been the unfolding of the plan of man’s redemption! Truly, who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counselor, hath taught him? O. DAVIS.
Battle Creek, Mich.
Self-Dependence.
NO ALLIANCE with others can ever diminish the necessity for personal endeavor. Friends may counsel, but the ultimate decision in every case is individual. As each tree, though growing in the same soil, watered by the same rains, and warmed by the same sun as many others, obeys its own law of growth, preserves its own physical structure, and produces its own peculiar fruit, so each person, though in the closest communion and intercourse with others, and surrounded by similar influences, must be himself, must do his own duties, contest his own struggles, resist his own temptations, and suffer his own penalties. There is too much dependence placed upon co-operation for security from evil, and too little reliance upon personal watchfulness and exertion. There are some who seem to feel in great measure released from obligation if they do not receive such aid, and some will plead the shortcomings of others as an excuse for their own.
We would by no means disparage the effect of influence, or discourage in the slightest the generous assistance which we all owe to one another, or undervalue the important effect of a worthy example. These are vital elements of growth, and their results can never be fully estimated. But they should not usurp the place of a proper self-reliance, or diminish the exercise of individual powers. Moral force must be a personal possession. It can never be transferred, and while we gladly welcome whatever is good from all sources, it can only be as food which must be digested before it can truly nourish us. Material benefits may be conferred by simple gift, but mental and moral activities can only be sustained by their own exercise. Thoughts may be exchanged, but not thought power; moral help and encouragement may be given, but virtue cannot be transferred; responsibility cannot be shifted.
The most permanent good we can do to others is to nourish this individual strength. To aid the physically destitute most effectively, food, fuel, and clothing, are not nearly so valuable as steady, remunerative employment. To educate a child, it is not half so important to instill large amounts of information as to set his mind to work, to bring out his mental powers, to stimulate his thoughts and quicken his faculties. And in moral life, especially in cities, where masses are crowded together, and men incline to lean upon each other, the best lesson to enforce is, that virtue, to exist at all, must be strictly individual. That which cannot stand alone, but depends on props and supports, which needs the constant spur of fear, and the bribe of reward to insure its activity, is but the semblance of virtue, and will crumble before temptation. A well-developed body ever excites admiration. But a well-developed and self-reliant spirit is a nobler thing. It is calm, modest, and unassuming, yet firm in conscious integrity of purpose and steadiness of aim. Inflated by no vanity, it is at once humble, yet courageous; helpful to the tempted, yet resolute in assailing evil. —Philadelphia Ledger.
Richest Is He That Wants Least
Richest is he that wants least.
Absent from the Body.
Another passage, supposed to teach the separate conscious existence of the soul, is found in 2 Cor. 5:8: “We are confident, I say, and willing rather, to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.” On the acknowledged principle that it is illogical to endeavor to build any great doctrine upon an isolated passage, without taking into consideration the general tenor of the context, if not also other writings from the same author, let us look at some of the statements which Paul has made in this connection.
In verse 1 of this chapter, Paul introduces an earthly house and a heavenly house, and says, “For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” He states our condition while in the earthly house. Verse 2: “In this we groan,” verse 4, “being burdened.” He tells what we desire in this state. Verse 2. “Earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from Heaven: [verse 3] if so be that being clothed, we shall not be found naked.” In verse 4 Paul repeats all these facts in order to state the result of the work which he desired: “For we that are in this tabernacle do groan being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed but clothed upon.” Now he states the result of being clothed upon with the house from Heaven which he so earnestly desired: “But clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.” Then he states that the condition he had in view is that for which God in the beginning designed the human race: “Now he that has wrought us for the self-same thing is God.” That is, God designed that we should ultimately reach that condition which he here designates as being clothed upon with our house from Heaven. Then he states what assurance we have in this life that we shall eventually attain to this condition: “Who also hath given unto us the earnest [assurance, pledge, token] of the Spirit.” That is, the Spirit dwelling in our hearts is the assurance or pledge we have that we shall finally receive the desire of our hearts, and be clothed upon with our house from Heaven. In verse 6 he states this to be the ground of his confidence, although while “we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord.” And then after incidentally stating the secret of the Christian’s course in this life, “we walk by faith not by sight,” he penned the text quoted at the commencement of this article, stating that he was willing rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.
We now have before us quite fully, the subject upon which Paul is here treating. A thought now as to the meaning of the terms he employs. What does he mean by the earthly house and the heavenly house? by being clothed and unclothed? by mortality being swallowed up of life? and by being absent from the body and present with the Lord?
What he calls in verse 1, “our earthly house,” he designates in verse 6, as being “at home in the body.” The chief characteristic of this house is that it may be dissolved, or is mortal. This earthly house is therefore our mortal body, or what is essentially the same thing, this present mortal condition. The house from Heaven is eternal or immortal. This therefore, by parity of reasoning, is the immortal body or the state of immortality which awaits the redeemed beyond the resurrection.
Paul in Rom. 8:22, 23, speaks very plainly of these two conditions: “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” None can fail to see the parallel between this passage in Romans, and that portion of 2 Cor. 5 now under consideration. To the Corinthians Paul says, that in our earthly house we groan being burdened; to the Romans, that we groan within ourselves, or in this mortal body: to the Corinthians, that while in this state we have the earnest of the Spirit; to the Romans, that we have the firstfruits of the Spirit, which is the same thing, the pledge, assurance, or earnest: to the Corinthians, that we desire to be clothed upon with our house from Heaven; to the Romans, that we wait for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. The ultimate object in view in both cases, as a matter of hope and desire, is the redeemed or eternal state; but in the one case it is being “clothed upon with our house from Heaven,” and in the other, it is “the redemption of our body.” These two expressions therefore denote one and the same thing.
Returning to a consideration of the meaning of the terms which Paul uses, we inquire what is meant by being unclothed. And the evident answer is, The dissolution of our earthly house, or the falling of our mortal body in death. The state of death, then, is that condition in which we are unclothed. And the being clothed upon, is being released from this state, when mortality is swallowed up of life, and we are taken into the presence of the Lord. Then Paul states a conclusion very apparent from his premises, that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord, and adds that he is willing rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord.
The only verse in which consciousness in death can even be supposed to be intimated, is the 8th verse which speaks of our being absent from the body and present with the Lord. But even here it will be seen that the whole question turns on the time when we enter the presence of the Lord. Is it immediately on the dissolution of our earthly house? This the text does not inform us; but on this the preceding verses are very explicit as we shall presently see.
Let us now look at a few considerations which show that it is impossible to harmonize the popular view of consciousness in death, with the statements which the apostle here makes. It is claimed that the house which we have eternal in the Heavens is the immortal soul with which we immediately enter into Heaven when the earthly house is dissolved. Granting that this is so, let us go forward a little and mark the difficulty in which this view is involved. The time comes when the mortal body is raised from the dead and made immortal. In these redeemed bodies we are to live in the kingdom of God to all eternity. This is finally our eternal house. But when we take possession of this, what becomes of our house that we occupied between death and the resurrection? If we pass from our mortal bodies at death immediately into a spiritual body prepared for us, which is the house we have in Heaven, and in which we live till the resurrection, when our natural bodies are redeemed and we take possession of them, it necessarily follows that we vacate that second house which we had occupied in Heaven. Then what becomes of that house? Moreover this view introduces something before us of which Paul has made no mention; for here we have three houses, but Paul’s language allows of only two; and one of these three houses, on the view before us, has to be abandoned to go to ruin, when we take possession of our redeemed bodies. All this is unscriptural and absurd. Such a view is an impossibility.
Again, Paul affirms in verse 5 that God hath wrought us for this self-same thing, that is, created man for such a state of being as we shall enjoy, when clothed upon with our house from Heaven. Is this condition the separate existence of an immortal soul? No; for if man had never sinned, he would have reached that state without seeing death, and the idea of an immortal soul would never have had an existence. The whole doctrine is the offspring of sin, for it is the result of the fall. It is the second falsehood which the devil found necessary to sustain his first one, “Ye shall not surely die.” For when all that is outward, tangible, and visible of man does fall in death, his untruth would be very apparent unless he could make them believe that there was an invisible medium through which they still continued to live. Paul therefore in the scripture under notice does not have any reference to an intermediate state.
He further says that we have through the Spirit an earnest, or pledge, that this condition, which is set forth as the chief object of desire, will finally be reached, and we shall be clothed with our house from Heaven. But what is the Holy Spirit in our hearts an earnest or pledge of? What does it signify that we have a measure of the Holy Spirit here? Is it a proof or assurance that we have immortal souls that will live when the body is dead? No, but that we shall be redeemed and made immortal. See Eph. 1:13, 14: “In whom also, after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.” And in Rom. 8:11, Paul again says: “But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.”
These are the glorious promises of which the Holy Spirit in our hearts is a pledge and assurance: that these mortal bodies shall be quickened from the dead, even as Christ was raised up, and that we shall share in the inheritance, when the purchased possession shall be redeemed. It looks not to any intermediate state but to the ultimate reward.
And finally, Paul forever bars his teaching against the entrance of the conscious state dogma, by saying that when we are clothed upon with our house from Heaven, mortality is swallowed up of life. How can mortality be swallowed up of life? It can be only by having a principle of life come upon it which shall overpower and absorb it. Mortality can be swallowed up only by immortality or eternal life. Is this the passing of the soul from the mortal body at the hour of death? Let us look at it. What is there about man, according to the common view, which is mortal? The body. And what is immortal? The soul. At death, the body, that part which is mortal, does not become immortal, but loses all its life, and goes into the grave to crumble back to dust. And the soul which was immortal before, is no more than immortal afterward. Is there any swallowing up of mortality by life here? Just the reverse. Mortality, or the mortal part, is swallowed up by death. There is not so much life afterward as before; for after death, the soul only lives, while the body which was alive before is now dead.
But Paul, before penning this language in 2 Cor. 5, had already told the Corinthians when mortality would be swallowed up of life, and how it would be accomplished; so he knew when he penned this portion of his second epistle that they would understand it perfectly. See the 15th chapter of his first epistle, verses 51–55: “Behold I show you a mystery: we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”
In verse 50 he says: “Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.” Corruption does not inherit, nor possess, incorruption. Mortality does not possess immortality. The mortal body does not inclose an immortal principle, which it has power to hold within its grasp, till that grasp is rendered nerveless by the stroke of death, and the soul flies away in glad release. But this mortal, all that there is about man that is mortal, must put on, must be itself invested with, immortality, and this corruptible, all about us that is perishable, must itself become incorruptible; then it will not be this corruptible flesh and blood, and then it can inherit the kingdom of God, and start off bold and vigorous on its race of endless life; and outside of this change, and independent of this grand investiture of our mortal nature with immortality, there is no eternal life for any of the race. And when this is accomplished, then death is swallowed up in victory; then we are clothed upon with our house from Heaven; then mortality is swallowed up in life. But this is not at death, but at the last trump, when the Lord appears in glory, and the dead are raised, and the righteous living are changed in the twinkling of an eye. How can the religious world stumble in a path so plain!
But if the heavenly house is our future immortal body, it may be asked how Paul can say, as he does in 2 Cor. 5:1, “We have [present tense] a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” We have this in the same sense that we have, at the present time, eternal life. And John tells us how this is: it is by faith, or by promise, not by actual possession. 1 John 5:11: “And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life.” God hath given it to us; and on the strength of this promise we have it. But where is it now? “And this life is”—in us? No, but—“in his Son.” And when he, the Son, who is our life, shall appear, we shall be clothed upon with our heavenly house, and appear with him in glory. Col. 3:4.
Again it may be asked how Paul can speak of two houses, as though we moved from one into the other, if it is only a change of condition from mortal to immortality. He illustrates this in the figure he takes to represent conversion. Eph. 4:22–24: “That ye put off concerning the former conversation, the old man which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that ye put on the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.” Here the simple change of heart, the change of the disposition, from sin to holiness, is spoken of as putting off one man and putting on another. With even greater propriety, may the change from mortal to immortality be spoken of as removing from an earthly, perishable house, to an immortal, heavenly one.
The terms Paul uses to describe the two states, are clearly defined. On the one side it is, an earthly house, groaning with burdens, mortality, absent from the Lord. On the other, it is, clothed upon with our house from Heaven, mortality swallowed up of life, present with the Lord. He did not desire to be unclothed, which as already noticed signifies the condition of death; but he did desire to be present with the Lord; therefore in death he would have us understand that the Christian is not present with the Lord.
From all this we can only understand that when he says he is willing to be absent from the body and present with the Lord, he means to be understood that he is willing that this burdened, groaning, mortal state should end, and the promised glorious and eternal day begin. And being confident, through the presence of the Spirit of God in his heart, that when this change should be wrought, he would have a glorious part therein, he was more than willing it should come. It was but the breathing again of that prayer which has arisen like a continual sigh from the heart of the church through all her weary pilgrimage, Thy kingdom come. Yea, come, Lord Jesus, come quickly; not, “Let our immortal souls,” which they did not suppose they possessed, “enter a conscious state in death” in which they did not believe.
Psuche—A Query.
By T. P. Frost
EDITOR ADVENT REVIEW AND HERALD: For a few months I have been a reader of your paper. In one of the late issues, my attention was attracted to the statement that in no place where soul is spoken of in the Scriptures does the signification of the original text imply that it is an immortal principle, separate from the body.
I beg leave to ask a question, which I would like to have answered through the columns of the REVIEW. In Romans 2:8, 9, we read: “But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul [ψυχή] of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile.” Ψυχή sometimes means breath, as the sign of life. But Homer uses it in the signification of a departed soul—spirit. He represents it as being bodiless, and not to be seized by mortal hands. So with other profane writers of antiquity.
Every classical student knows that the Romans, whom Paul is addressing in the passage above quoted, believed in an immortal ψυχή. Would the Romans, believing as they did the ψυχή to be immortal, understand Paul to say that God, in his awful day of wrath, would render tribulation and anguish upon every breath of man that doeth evil? or upon every immortal soul of man that doeth evil? Would they accept the possible meaning of ψυχή, when every word of the context perfectly harmonizes with the common meaning of the word, and their idea represented by it—an immortal soul? Do you make Paul here exhibit such unpardonable carelessness in the use of terms as would leave the Romans to continue believing in a lie? If this belief is a heathen superstition, why does Paul give countenance to their glaring error by saying that their immortal souls shall have tribulation133and anguish? and not rather cry out, Ye men of Rome, I perceive that ye are in this matter too superstitious; Moses and the prophets teach that ye have no immortal souls.
Yours truly, T. P. FROST.
Men and Things.
By Dudley Marvin Canright
LOSING INFLUENCE.
SOME persons are exceedingly fearful of losing their influence. When the Sabbath, or any other cross, is presented to them, they hesitate to obey, fearing it will injure their influence. Says Beecher:—“‘Risks losing its influence’—that is a phrase we almost always distrust. What is influence good for but to use it? How can it be used at all on the very men whom you want to reach, those who differ from you, without running counter to their convictions?”
That is the point exactly. What is influence good for but to be used? Men who violate the law of God and their own consciences to save their influence with the world are not those whom God can use in his work. Reformers are never made out of such stuff as that. It calls for men who will dare to do right though they are alone in doing it. These are the men who have influence. Others are mere time servers who will be forgotten as soon as they are dead.
TO MINISTERS.
The following from The Christian is sound in principle, and must be practiced by every minister who truly preaches the gospel.
“When you open your commission,” says old John Berridge, “begin with laying open the innumerable corruptions of the hearts of your audience. Moses will lend you a knife which may be often whetted at his grindstone. Lay open the universal sinfulness of men's natures, the darkness of the mind, the frowardness of the will, the fretfulness of the temper, and the earthliness and sensuality of the affections. Speak of the evil of sin in its nature, its rebellion against God as our sovereign, ingratitude to God as our lawgiver, and contempt both of his authority and love. Declare the evil of sin in its effects, bringing all our sicknesses, pains, and snares—all the evils we feel, and all the evils we fear. Lay open the spirituality of the law and its extent, reaching to every thought, word, and action, and declaring every transgression, whether by omission or commission, deserving of death. Declare man's utter helplessness to change his nature or make his peace. When your hearers are deeply affected with these things, which is often seen by the hanging down of their heads, then preach Christ. Lay open the Saviour's almighty power to soften the hard heart, and give it repentance, to bring pardon to the broken heart, a spirit of prayer to the prayerless heart, holiness to the filthy heart, and faith to the unbelieving heart. Let them know that all the treasures of grace are lodged in Jesus Christ for the use of the poor, needy sinners, and that he is full of love as well as power; turns no beggar from his gate, but receives all comers kindly; loves to bless them, and bestows all his blessings free. Here you must wave the gospel flag, and magnify the Saviour supremely. Speak it with a full mouth, that his blood can wash away the foulest stains, and his grace subdue the stoutest corruptions. Entreat the people to seek his grace, to seek it directly, to seek it diligently, to seek it constantly; and acquaint them that all who thus seek shall assuredly find the salvation of God.”
D. M. CANRIGHT.
The Mind Defined.
By D. T. BOURDEAU
In the Scriptures the term spirit sometimes refers to the mind, but even in those cases it does not denote an immortal, conscious entity in man that thinks and lives after the body is dead. Physiologically, as well as scripturally, there is no room for such an entity or being in man. The Bible and true science always agree. All the functions of the mind can be accounted for on natural principles. Many scientific men and physicians, being aware of this fact, and having been taught that the Bible sustains the doctrine of a separate, conscious, thinking entity, have been led to reject the Bible, for clashing with science. On the other hand, many learned men and physiologists have been converted from infidelity, and have been restored to confidence in the Bible, by discovering that the Bible teaches that man is a unit, and does not possess two minds—one mortal and the other immortal.
The mind is not the brain, but is the result of brain action, as instrumental music is not the instrument, but the result of action on or through the instrument; the impressions made on the brain through the five senses, answering to the fingering on the instrument. A thinking man without the senses of sight, hearing, smelling, feeling, and tasting, would be a contradiction of terms, an impossibility.
Accordingly, the Bible teaches that “the dead know not anything;” Eccl. 9:6; that in the day they die, their “thoughts perish.” Ps. 146:4.
Corroborative of these principles, science has recorded scores of cases in which persons, having had their skulls fractured, and lost their mind as the result of portions of the skull pressing on the brain, paralyzing one or more of its organs, have resumed the current of their thoughts on being trepanned. Those organs of the brain which were crippled for want of room, being set at liberty, the result was brain action, thought, mind.
D. T. BOURDEAU.
Our Reading.
By Jos. Clarke
It is surprising to witness the effect of a course of reading upon a cultivated mind. How it molds the character and shapes the destiny. How it ennobles and elevates, or sinks and degrades.
The young man who wishes to become acquainted with a profession, pursues a course of reading suited to his purpose, and soon becomes an adept in the art he has chosen, and forms a love for the same, often bordering upon enthusiasm. The man of the world reads the current news of the day. If he is a politician, he selects those periodicals most to his fancy, and soon he is posted upon his favorite topic. The merchant pores over the market reports; the farmer watches with interest the reports of the weather, and the prospects of the coming harvests, &c.; the mere lover of amusement reads with intense interest the last and latest romance. And so on, in endless variety, all classes are fed mentally, and character is formed.
The mind is turned in any direction you please, by a course of reading, conversation, and study. Why? Because it is thus furnished with material for thought and meditation, and thus thought is worked up into character.
You may talk of practicing medicine for your whole natural life-time, yet if you neglect reading upon that subject you will never become a physician in any sense worthy of the name. You may pursue the profession of law without the requisite reading, and all your talk will end in failure. So of all professions. To love and understand them, you must read and keep up with the times, or you will end in disgrace.
Applying this principle to those who are pursuing a Christian life, we may see why so few arrive at perfection; why we are so barren (some of us) in the work of the Lord. This is why the right word, in the right place, and in the right spirit, is so often wanting. We neglect our Bibles and other good books. The last newspaper must be looked over, at least; and we become greatly interested in the current news, and our time flies rapidly away, and business next calls, before the Bible is consulted.
Alas! the Bible, if not neglected wholly, is consigned to a secondary place, or placed after the late paper, and soon spiritual decay comes on, and perhaps we get far, far away from God before we are aware, and then God hides his countenance and his comforts from us, and we become stupid and dull in his service. Apathy and indifference follow; and unless our course is arrested, we should soon fall into hopeless apostasy.
But we feel our loss. A void, a painful sorrow, eats out our daily portion of comfort, and the world fails to satisfy the longings of the soul for that nourishment the word of God has afforded us in our past experience; and we turn away from the literature of the day, and again in earnest seek from the sacred page the happiness the world is powerless to give. A light springs up in the soul, and hope once more buoys up the sinking spirits; and we say in our hearts, There is no joy so satisfying as the joy of the Christian, no hope so full of confidence, no prospects so sure of realization, as those of the Bible reader who is wholly committed to the study of this precious volume.
It is probable that no one dares to hope in Christ for a moment, who wholly neglects the Bible; but there is such a thing as reading it daily, yet never reading it aright; and this is equivalent to neglect, just in that degree it is allowed to pass unheeded by. The Bible may be read so neglectfully, so carelessly, so indifferently, as to rather harden the heart against the important and purifying influences it suggests and enforces. How the Bible should be read, is alluded to in Ps. 119:18: “Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.” This is the work of God’s Spirit, to so prepare the heart of man, that the sense of the Holy Scripture may be taken, and the character of the reader so enlightened as to be formed anew upon the principles thus inculcated. This divine illumination is what the apostle John calls the “anointing” (1 John 2:27) which “teacheth you of all things;” and it is spoken of in Luke 24:32, when the disciples spoke to each other of the conversation on the way to Emmaus. “Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the Scriptures?” Again in verse 45: “Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures.”
The cold critic who only reads for information, or for means of caviling at the doctrines of the Bible, wholly fails to reap the harvest the word of God affords to him who reads aright. So of the reader who only for form reads the sacred volume, or he who for diversion reads God’s word. But let all continue to read; for many a caviler, many a cold critic, many a formalist, has been brought to the foot of the cross by reading the Bible. As he read, perhaps with careless or profane purpose, the light from Heaven, although unsought, came gently or suddenly down into the heart and took possession.
Ah! dear reader, that is the kind of possession we will seek; that as we read, God’s Spirit may fill us with light and understanding, and joy and peace. Then we can meditate joyfully and profitably; for we have sublime and noble subjects of thought.
Let us read the Bible as the devoted Ezra did, who was skilled in the law; as Daniel did, make it our business, our profession, our joy, to understand the times, and events, so as to make them practical, so as to daily, hourly, reap the rich fruit, the clusters of Engedi. Says Christ, “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” Delicious, sweet beyond expression, are the words of Holy Writ, when properly understood and appreciated as herein described. Jos. Clarke.
A Mistake.
By Daniel T. Bourdeau
WHILE brethren and sisters can and should greatly help the preacher in new fields by their testimonies and consistent lives, some commit a great error in confessing their backslidings in new fields where they are not known. The tendency of this course is to discourage young converts, and thus hinder the work. If we have any confessions to make, let us make them in our families, in our neighborhoods, or in our churches, and then go into new fields with hearts full of the love of God and yearning after souls for whom Christ died. Then will our testimonies be encouraging, and have a gathering influence.