Earlier text: GOD IS LIGHTANY lady who wishes to have lace curtains before her parlor windows has my hearty leave to have them, provided she does not insist upon my following her example. I was once bitten with the same mania. I recollect the temptation came in the shape of an exquisite fern leaf pattern. So I bought them and hung them up, and everybody said, “What a pretty idea!” But every time I went near the window they were dragging across my hair or nose, and, worse still, interfering with my idolized plants. So I was not sorry when upon having them “done up,” to find they were done for, and had come to pieces. Since then, my ivies and geraniums and roses have had all the light and sunshine they wanted, and weave prettier curtains for me than any ambitious upholsterer could do. “Dirty plants!” I think I hear some housekeeper exclaim—“dirty plants! spoiling the carpet, and always making a litter with dead leaves, and necessitating the great, blazing sun to stare unwinkingly in, whether one is looking becomingly or not.” As to the latter, cheerfulness and brightness seem to me the most potent of cosmetics, and a gracious welcome of more importance than the latest style of skirt, or hair, or trimming. Sometimes I have gone into such hearse-like parlors that my very blood chilled at their uninviting upholstery stiffness. I would as lief sit down in a furniture shop, and a great deal rather, because that has its own honest designation. A “parlor” to me should speak of individuality. Because Mrs. Jones fancies great crockery vases as big as one of her children, must I buy a pair? Because she likes artificial roses on her mantle, may I not have instead a sweet tuberose stalk, with a bit of heliotrope and mignonette in my little vase? Because her children may never enter the stiff, sacred parlor, with its stereotyped chairs and lounges, repeated in every house in the block, may not my pet's one-eyed doll lie on the sofa in mine if she chooses to “put it to sleep there;” and so make me glad that there's a little child in my house who is not banished to the nursery because my parlor is too fine? Because Mrs. Jones keeps her rooms so dark that you enter them with a dread of a broken ankle from some fatal misstep, may I not rejoice in the faded roses in the carpet under my feet where there are no such pitfalls for my guests? I confess to liking a homely parlor—one that looks as if it were used; with a work basket here, and a book with a folder between the leaves there, and a shawl that somebody had on but a minute ago lying in a cosy corner of the sofa. I like chairs expressive of individuality, shaped to the backs of their users, from the good man of the house down to the little fairy's, which is sure to get a wicked little twist in its legs. Pictures of course, and an open fire, too, if it be winter. And oh, grant us pure ventilation! Oh, what a dead, used-up air sends you staggering back at some parlor thresholds! and how blissfully unconscious are its occupants of the reason why their cheeks are so flushed and their eyes so heavy! How you long to say, “Good friends, open a crack at the top of your window!” And how you don't, but sit there till you look as stupefied as themselves, and make your call as short as possible, that you may escape to the blessed, out-door air. Statues are not to be despised in a parlor; but the hard working mechanic has as beautiful a statue as all your money could buy, when his little, curly-headed child climbs up in the chair at the window, “to watch for papa.” I like to see this bit of poetry woven into his hard life, when with his box of tools in his hands he passes the rich man going to a luxurious home. It is one of the poems I am fondest of reading, as I stroll along at the day's close.—Fanny Fern. THE RIGHTEOUS AND THE WICKED.
Say ye to the righteous that it shall be well with him. Woe to the wicked! it shall be ill with him.—BIBLE. “Say ye to the righteous,” saith God, “It is well,”
Though the storm, cloud, and tempest appear,
Thou shalt hide thee for aye, in the “cleft of the rock,”
And be safe in the hour of thy fear. But say to the wicked, “with thee, it is ill,”
Oh! how dark and how sad is thy lot;
With the cloud, and the storm, and the tempest abroad,
And the wing of the Lord shelters not! Oh! say to my people, forever—“Fear not,”
But trust in my power and my love,
In mercy I'll comfort, and strengthen, and guide,
And triumphantly bear you above. The Christian Victory.
By Bettie Coombs
Rarely do we find recorded on the pages of ancient, modern, or sacred history, except in the case of God’s dear Son, so many truly godlike, Christian virtues as are shadowed forth in the life of the great apostle of the Gentiles. After his conversion, he stands forth the embodiment of all that is highly exalting and excellent in human form, “a chosen vessel” of God. We read his life; we behold its triumphant close; we hear its final note of victory, “I have fought a good fight,” “I have kept the faith,” “I am now ready to be offered;” and then we think of Paul in the synagogue, convincing both Jews and Greeks, out of the Scriptures, that Jesus is Christ. Again we behold him at Athens, awaiting the arrival of his brethren, Silas and Timotheus. The pious zeal of his soul was aroused, while looking round he beheld the idolatrous worship of the ancient city. He disputes with the philosophers and wise men. He is mocked at, and their sneers meet his sublime appeals. What will this babbler say? Did this daunt the great apostle, or cool his ardor in his Master’s service? No. He was strong in the Lord. Christ was mocked, spit upon, and scourged. Paul gloried that he was considered worthy to suffer shame and reproach. And lastly, he is shipwrecked, scourged, stoned, dying a witness to the truth. We can but exclaim, Glorious warfare! Valiant, victorious soldiers of the cross! But have we seen the greatest victory of the apostle’s life? No, no! That victory was gained when, by divine grace, he determined, I will forsake sin and be true to God; I will walk in all good conscience before God; I will crucify the flesh with the affections and lusts thereof, and live unto God and unto Christ. That victory was gained,—when? After the thorn in the flesh was not removed, though Paul had thrice besought that it might be, and the answer came, “My grace is sufficient for thee.” Paul felt so resigned to the will of God, and that all things would work together for his good, that he said, “Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake.” Other victories were easy after this had been gained. Dear young Christian, when trials and temptations arise to tempt us from duty’s path, would that we could take pleasure in them as did that beloved apostle. We have no difficulty in exercising faith and trust when our sky is serene and cloudless. How strong and secure we feel against the wiles of Satan. But let the scene change, let dark clouds arise, and the tempest with all its fury burst upon us, and how soon, like sinking Peter, we cry out in dismay, Where then is our strength and courage? Alas! all gone, and we feel indeed powerless. I fear many of us have much to overcome if we stand the test of bitter trial, and are ever permitted to enter the pearly gates of that heavenly city. How earnestly we should strive to put away every wrong act, thought, and word, so that we may at last come off more than victors. Hardin Co., Ky., Dec. 23, 1872. During those years of terrible war, in which God was scourging this people for their sins, while his hand smote the nation for its crimes, it sustained the poor and needy, in the sufferings which they were called to pass through. Often, while deprived of their natural protectors, the feeble and the helpless found mercy and grace in the sight of the Lord. A little boy, whose father was in the confederate army—leaving his family with nothing to depend upon but the scanty wages of a soldier, paid in a currency which depreciated till it was almost worthless,—marking how many times in the hour of their extremity, the providence of God interposed to supply their wants, said to his mother one day, “Mother, I believe God always hears when we scrape the bottom of the barrel.” And the experience of that little boy was the experience of many others, both north and south. The following incident in illustration of this statement we give as related by an esteemed Christian friend, who loves to record the mercies of the Lord in her behalf. “About the month of January, 1863, I was living in D., in Connecticut, alone, with two little boys, one of them four years of age and the other about a year and a half old. My husband was away, in the United States service. When the coldest of the weather came, I was nearly out of wood. I went down into the street to try and obtain some, but tried for a long time in vain. As help was scarce, there was but little wood coming into market, and those living on the main street would get all that came in, while those living outside the village could get none. I tried to buy a quarter of a cord of two or three merchants, but could not get any. One of them told me he could not get what he wanted for his own family. Another said he could not yoke up a team for so little; and as I had but a dollar and seventy-five cents, I was unable to purchase more, and so had to go without. I went home with my little ones, feeling very sad; and while sitting there and meditating, the thought suddenly came to me that the Lord withholds no good thing from those that love him. I went directly and asked the Lord for some wood; and I then went to the window, and waited, looking down the street expecting to see the wood coming. After waiting awhile, my faith began to fail, for I think I had put the last stick of wood into the stove; so I went and got the children’s clothes, and some water and a towel, to wash and prepare them to go to the house of Brother E. B., a man of God who lived in a neighboring village, for I knew that I could stay there until the Lord sent the wood. I still kept looking down the street; and before I got the little ones washed, I saw the top of a great load of wood coming toward my little house. I was then puzzled to know what to do about the pay, for I well knew that a dollar and seventy-five cents would not pay for all that wood. The two yoke of oxen came dragging the load up to the door, and I asked the man if there was not some mistake, and told him that I had not money enough to pay for all that wood. He told me that the wood was paid for, and took off his cattle from the load, and took a bag of hay from the wagon, fed his oxen, called for an axe and saw, and went to work cutting up the wood. This was more than I could bear, and I began to cry like a baby. I was so ashamed of my former life, and I promised to live more faithful henceforth. I thought I would never distrust the power of God again; for I knew he had an especial watch-care over his children. I had asked for a little wood, and he had sent me a large load, all paid; and then and there I learned to believe that precious promise, “Ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” About six months after the wood came, I found out who paid for it. It was a good man, who heard me ask for a quarter of a cord of wood, and he knew I would have asked for more, if I had had money to pay for it. So he purchased and sent it to me, and waited for his pay until the weather was warm and I had opportunity to repay him his outlay.”—E. J. P., in The Christian. HERE is a short article we find floating around on the sea of journalism that many men should paste in their hats, and ladies on their bonnets, if room can be found on “the little duck of a thing.” These people, liable to quick emotions, with sense, but not reason, showing their nature in their countenance, and often marring repose and friendship by unwarranted suspicion, are found in all our cities. Let them read and profit by this. “There are some people, yes, many people, always looking out for slight. They cannot carry on the daily intercourse of the family without some offense is designated. If they meet an acquaintance on the street who happens to be preoccupied with business, they attribute his abstraction in some mode personal to themselves, and take umbrage accordingly. They lay on others the fact of their irritability. A fit of indigestion makes them see impertinence in every one they come in contact with. Innocent persons, who never dreamed of giving offense, are astonished to find some unfortunate word or momentary taciturnity mistaken for an insult. To say the least, the habit is unfortunate. It is far wiser to take the more charitable view of our fellow-beings, and not suppose a slight is intended unless the neglect is open and direct. After all, too, life takes its hues in a great degree from the color of our mind. If we are frank and generous, the world treats us kindly. If, on the contrary, we are suspicious, men learn to be cold and cautious to us. Let a person get the reputation of being touchy, and everybody is under more or less constraint, and in this way the chance of an imaginary offense is vastly increased.” Youth, Memory, and the Heart's Springtime
AGE never forgets the association of youth. Memory is faithful to the early past. The heart, though shut up within itself in the midst of the desolation of its wintry season, has glimpses of the brightness and promise of its unshadowed springtime. The End of Them that Obey not the Gospel.
“What shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?” 1 Pet. 4:17. By this direct interrogation inspiration calls us face to face to the great question of the final destiny of the lost, not to leave us at last in perplexity and doubt, but to give us full information in reference thereto. In our previous examinations of themes which have a bearing upon this question, we have been brought to a place where the way is all clear to listen unbiased to the direct testimony of the Bible on the point now before us. No immortality is anywhere affirmed of the soul, no eternal misery is anywhere threatened against the lost. What then is to be their fate? It is abundantly affirmed that they shall die. The inquiry into the nature of the death threatened Adam, in REVIEW of Nov. 12, brought very clearly to view the fact that the penalty pronounced upon his sin, reduced back to the dust the entire being, leaving no part conscious and active in the intermediate state. And the same penalty stands against sin now as at the beginning. For our personal sins death is now threatened against us, as it was against him. This is the second death; and those who fall under this will be reduced to the same condition as that into which Adam was brought by death, with no promise nor possibility of ever being released therefrom. Eze. 18:26: “When a righteous man turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and dieth in them; for his iniquity that he hath done shall he die.” Two deaths are here brought to view: first, the death common to this state of being which all share alike, good and bad, which is called the first or temporal death; secondly, if a person dies this death in a state of sin, that is, with sins upon him of which he does not repent before he dies, for those sins that he has committed he shall die. Another death awaits him. The first death was not for his personal transgressions; for this is entailed upon all alike through Adam, both good and bad. But every one is to die for his own sins unless he repents. How is this to be brought about? He is to be raised from the first death and judged; and if sins are then found upon him, for those sins he suffers the same penalty, death; and being thus reduced to death again, he will forever remain dead; for from this death there is no release nor redemption provided. This is the second death, and is the everlasting punishment in store for all the workers of iniquity. Paul says, Rom. 6:23, “The wages of sin is death;” and James (1:16) corroborates this testimony by saying, “Sin when it is finished bringeth forth death.” In Rom. 2, Paul tells us of certain characters which are certainly deserving, if any can be, of eternal torture; but in passing sentence upon them, he does not draw out before us a picture of unending conscious misery, a course for which he has the most appropriate occasion, if it be true, but only tells us, in accordance with reason as well as revelation, that they are worthy of death. But death is a state which can be reached only on a complete extinction of life. As long as there is any life about a man, he is not dead. “The death that never dies,” is a contradiction of terms. Nor can a person properly be said to be dying, unless he is tending to a state of death which he will by and by reach. And yet the popular view of this subject is well expressed in the following language of Thomas Vincent:— “The torments of hell will not be in one part only, but in every part, not in a weaker degree, but in the greatest extremity; not for a day, or a month, or a year, but forever: the wicked will be always dying, never dead; the pangs of death will ever be upon them, and yet they shall never give up the ghost; if they could die they would think themselves happy; they will always be roaring, and never breathe out their last; always sinking and never come to the bottom; always burning in those flames, and never consumed; the eternity of hell will be the hell of hell.” Again, the Lord says, speaking of a certain class of his enemies, “For yet a little while and the indignation shall cease, and mine anger in their destruction.” Isa. 10:25. This is conclusive testimony that all those with whom the Lord has occasion to be angry, as he is with all the wicked, Ps. 7:11, will be finally destroyed, and in that destruction his anger toward them will cease. Yet the majority of divines tell us that God’s “fiery indignation and incensed fury” toward them will never cease; that he will never literally destroy them, but will forever torment them, and keep them alive expressly that he may torment them. Says Benson again:— “He will exert all his divine attributes to make them as wretched as the capacity of their nature will admit.” And he continues, “They must be perpetually swelling their enormous sums of guilt, and still running deeper, immensely deeper in debt to divine and infinite justice. Hence after the longest imaginable period, they will be so far from having discharged their debt, that they will find more due than when they first began to suffer.” Thus the sinner is represented as being able to distance in sin the power of Omnipotence to punish. They go on accumulating loads of guilt in their rebellion against the divine government, while God, exerting all his divine attributes, follows tardily after, in fruitless efforts to make the terrors of his punishment adequate to the infinitude of their guilt. Oh, horrid picture of perverted imagination! Did we not believe its authors labored under the sincere conviction that they were doing God service, and did we not know that many good and estimable persons still defend the doctrine under an earnest though mistaken zeal for God, it would deserve to be styled the most arrant blasphemy. This condition of the finally reprobate, so often and so distinctly defined as a state of death, is also set forth by very many other expressions, by every variety of phrase, in fact, which expresses in the most complete and absolute manner an utter loss of existence. Henry Constable, A. M., in his work on “The Duration and Nature of Future Punishment,” p. 12, says:— “But it is not only by this phrase, ‘death,’ that the Old Testament describes the punishment of the ungodly. By every expression in the Hebrew language, significant of loss of life, loss of existence, the resolution of organized substance into its original parts, its reduction to that condition in which it is as though it had never been called into being—by every such expression does the Old Testament describe the end of the ungodly. ‘The destruction of the transgressors and the sinners shall be together;’ ‘prepare them for the day of slaughter;’ ‘the slain of the Lord shall be many;’ ‘they shall go forth and look upon the carcasses of the men that have sinned;’ ‘God shall destroy them;’ ‘they shall be consumed;’ ‘they shall be cut off;’ ‘they shall be rooted out of the land of the living;’ ‘blotted out of the book of life;’ ‘they are not.’ The Hebrew scholar will see from the above passages that there is no phrase of the Hebrew language significant of all destruction short of that philosophical annihilation of elements which we do not assert, which is not used to denote the end of the ungodly.” The wicked shall be destroyed. “The Lord preserveth all them that love him; but all the wicked will he destroy.” Ps. 145:20. Here preservation is promised only to those who love God, and in opposition to this, destruction is threatened to the wicked. But human wisdom teaches us that God will preserve the wicked in hell—preserve them for the mere sake of torturing them. Mr. Benson, an English divine, says:— “God is therefore present in hell to see the punishment of these rebels. His fiery indignation kindles, and his incensed fury feeds the flame of their torment, while his powerful presence and operation maintains their being, and renders their powers most acutely sensible, thus setting the keenest edge upon their pain, and making it cut most intolerably deep.” The wicked shall perish. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16. A double enunciation of the truth is couched in this short text. It is that eternal life is to be obtained only through Christ, and that all who do not thus obtain it, will eventually perish. John testifies further on the same point in his 1st epistle, 5:11: “And this is the record: that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.” From which it follows, as a most natural consequence, that “he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” Verse 12. The wicked shall go to perdition. “We are not of them who draw back unto perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.” Heb. 10:39. We either gain the salvation of our souls by a perseverance in faith, and obtain eternal life by a patient continuance in well-doing, Rom. 2:7, or we sink back into perdition, which is defined to be utter ruin or destruction. “The wicked shall come to an end and be as though they had not been.” “For yet a little while and the wicked shall not be; yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place and it shall not be.” Ps. 37:10. If this testimony be true, there will be neither a sinner nor any place for a sinner, after God has executed upon them his just judgments. “They shall be as though they had not been.” Obad. 16. The reader is requested to mark the significance of these texts. They are not figures, but plain enunciations of the truth, demanding to be understood in the plainest and most literal manner. And though they are abundant, and can be so easily produced, they are not to be passed over any the more lightly on this account. The wicked are compared to the most inflammable and perishable substances. Had the wicked been compared to the most durable substances with which we are acquainted in nature; had they been likened to the “everlasting hills,” the enduring rock, or the precious metals, gold and gems, the most incorruptible of all substances; such comparisons would not have been without their weight in giving us an idea of an eternity of existence; nor can we think they would have been overlooked by the other side. We therefore claim an equal significance on our side of the question for the fact that they are everywhere compared to just the opposite of the above-named substances—substances the most perishable and corruptible of any that exist. For no idea can be drawn from such comparisons at all compatible with the idea of eternal preservation in the midst of glowing and devouring fire. Thus it is said of the wicked that they shall be dashed in pieces like a potter’s vessel, Ps. 2:9, they shall be like the beasts that perish, Ps. 49:20; like the untimely fruit of a woman, Ps. 58:8, like a whirlwind that passeth away, Ps. 68:2; Prov. 10:25, like a waterless garden scorched by an eastern sun, Isa. 1:30; like garments consumed by the moth, Isa. 51:8, like the thistle down scattered by the whirlwind, Isa. 17:13, margin. They shall consume like the fat of lambs in the fire, Ps. 37:20, consume into smoke, (ibid.) and ashes, Mal. 4:3, melt like wax, Ps. 68:2, burn like tow, Isa. 1:31, consume like thorns, Isa. 34:12, vanish away like exhausted waters, Ps. 58:7. The illustrations which the New Testament uses to represent the destiny of the wicked, are of exactly the same nature. They are likened to chaff, which is to be burned entirely up, Matt. 3:12, tares to be consumed, Matt. 13:40, withered branches to be burned, John 15:6, bad fish cast away to corruption, Matt. 13:47, 48, a house thrown down to its foundations, Luke 6:49, to the destruction of the old world by water, Luke 17:27, to the destruction of the Sodomites by fire, verse 29, 2 Pet. 2:5, 6; and to natural brute beasts that perish in their own corruption. Verse 12. Such are the illustrations of the Scriptures on this subject. If the wicked are to be tormented forever, all these illustrations are not only unnatural but false; for in that case they are not like the perishing beasts, the passing whirlwind, the moth-consumed garment, the burning fat, the vanishing smoke, or the melting wax; nor like chaff, tares, and withered branches, consumed and reduced to ashes. These all lose their form and substance, and become as though they had not been; but this the wicked never do, according to the popular view. There is an enormous contradiction somewhere. Is it between the writers of the Bible; or between uninspired men and the word of God? The trouble is not with the Bible: all is harmony there. The discrepancy arises from the creeds and theories of men. The language of Moses and of Paul, shows that an eternal existence of moral corruption, and fiery torture is not the doom of the wicked. When Moses besought the Lord to forgive the sin of Israel, he said, “Yet now if thou wilt forgive their sin—; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written.”—Ex. 32:32. This book must be the book of life, in which the names of the righteous are written. By being blotted out of this book, Moses evidently meant being devoted to the doom of sinners. If Israel could not be forgiven, he would himself perish with that unfaithful people. But no one can for a moment suppose that he wished throughout eternity for a life of sin pain and blasphemy in hell. He only wished for an utter cessation of that life which if his prayer could not be granted would be an intolerable burden. And if this is what he meant by being blotted out of God’s book, it follows that this will be the doom of the ungodly; for the Lord answered, “Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book.” In a similar manner Paul speaks concerning the same people: “For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh. Rom. 9:3. We cannot suppose that Paul would desire a life of sin and moral corruption, such as that of the sinner in hell is said to be, even for the sake of his people. But he was willing to give up his life for them, and cease to exist, if thereby they might be saved.” To notice more particularly some of the scriptures in which a portion of the foregoing figures are found, their testimony may be summed up in the following final proposition: The wicked shall be consumed and devoured by fire. Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness, &c. Therefore as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust! Isa. 5:20–24. Reader, have you ever seen fire devour stubble, or flame consume chaff? Then you have seen a figure of the destruction of the wicked. And let the advocate of eternal misery tell us, if such language does not denote the utter consumption of the wicked, what language would do it, if the doctrine were true. Let us know what language Inspiration should have used, had it wished to convey such an idea. Is it such as this? “But the wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the Lord shall be as the fat of lambs; they shall consume; into smoke shall they consume away.” Ps. 37:20. “And they went up on the breadth of the earth and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them.” The word here rendered devour, κατέφαγεν, says Stuart, is “intensive, to eat up, devour, so that it denotes utter excision.” In the light of this scripture we can readily understand how it is that the wicked are to be recompensed in the earth. Prov. 11:31. Coming up in the second resurrection at the end of the 1000 years of Rev. 20:5, they come up around the New Jerusalem, the beloved city, the abode of the saints, then descended from heaven to earth, chap. 21:5, and then their fearful retribution overtakes them. It is then that they have their portion in those purifying fires that sweep over the earth, in which, according to Peter’s testimony, the elements of this great globe itself shall melt with fervent heat. 2 Pet. 3:10, 12. For it is at the day of Judgment [by which of course we must understand the execution of the judgment] and perdition of ungodly men, that this takes place. See verse 7. So, too, the righteous as they go forth upon the new earth, verse 13, destined to be their eternal and glorious abode will receive their recompense in the earth. Then will be fulfilled the word of the Lord by the prophet Malachi, which says, “For behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven: and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. But unto you that fear my name, shall the Sun of righteousness arise and shine with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall. And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of hosts.” Mark the distinctness of this language. It does not say that the wicked shall be as ashes, nor does it introduce any comparisons whatever, but plainly states a plain fact, that they shall be ashes, under the soles of the saints’ feet. Not that the saints will literally walk on ashes, but the wicked having been reduced to ashes, like all other sin and curse polluted things, are incorporated into the substance of the new earth, which the saints are evermore to inhabit, as it emerges from the renovating fires of the last day. Then will the universe be clean and pure. Then the stain of sin will all be wiped away29 forever; sinners, and the great enemy that deceived them (for he, too, shall be destroyed, Heb. 2:14) being rooted out from the land of the living. Its every scar now impressed upon the handiwork of God shall be effaced; and this unfortunate earth shall be re-adorned, as only God, omnipotent in power and omniscient in wisdom, is able to adorn it. And then will arise that glad anthem of universal Jubilee, in which shall join every creature which is in Heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, ascribing blessing, and honor, and glory and power, unto him that sitteth on the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever. Rev. 5:13. There is no room here for a great receptacle of fiery torment, where an innumerable company of human beings shall burn and blaspheme and sin and suffer forever and ever. There is no room in this great song of joy for the discordant and hopeless wailing of the damned. There is no provision made for an eternal rebellion against the government of God, and eternal blasphemy against his holy name! No! only the loyal subjects of the great Captain of our salvation, only such as love immortal life, and seek for it, and prepare themselves for its inestimable blessings, shall ever enjoy the glorious boon; while those who put from themselves the word of God, and “judge themselves unworthy of everlasting life,” Acts 13:46, will be remanded back to the original elements from which they sprang; and strict Justice will write upon their unhonored and unlamented graves that they themselves were the arbiters of their own fate. Unity and Disagreement.
By R. F. Andrews
“For many bare false witness against him, but their witness agreed not together.” Mark 14:56. These words were brought forcibly to my mind while laboring with the tent at Monmouth last summer. The claims of God’s Sabbath had been presented, and it became apparent that something must be done to stay up the tottering Dagon of Sunday observance. The consistency with which this was done, we leave the reader to judge. Our United Presbyterian friends agreed with us that the law was immutable and still binding; but claimed that the Sabbath was changed to the first day of the week, by divine appointment, at the resurrection of Christ. Consequently, they were doing the will of God in observing Sunday. The Methodists said, You are right, brethren, in claiming that the ten commandments are immutable and still obligatory. We cannot see your consistency, however, in claiming the change of an “immutable law.” We believe we have a better way of explaining the seeming difficulty. When God delivered Israel from bondage, he gave them for a Sabbath the sixth, instead of the seventh, day of the week. This, he designed they should observe till the resurrection of Christ, then the day of this event was ever after to be observed; this, the way they then computed time, was the first day of the week; but was in reality the true seventh day. So we are now fulfilling the command of God to the letter by observing Sunday, for it is really the true seventh day. We are glad, however, brethren, that on the main point at issue—Sunday observance—we are agreed. Right here, our Disciple friends expressed their surprise that their brethren should take such positions, and warned them that if they did, “these men at the tent would demolish their arguments.” For, first, if the law of ten commandments is immutable, as you claim, “it cannot be changed;” and if it is still binding, every precept of it must be. And, second, to say that “Sunday is the true seventh day,” cannot be the truth; for not only the united testimony of the heathen, Jews, and Christians, forbid such an idea, but the Scriptures expressly forbid it. Luke 23:56, and 24:1. Our position is the only tenable one; that is, that “the ten commandments are abolished, taken out of the way, and nailed to the cross;” and the law being no longer binding, of course the Sabbath is not. But there is one thing, brethren, that gratifies us very much in this matter, and that is that we all agree in the vital point, viz., in the observance of the day. There are two points very noticeable in these advocates for Sunday observance. First, that they have no confidence in each other’s positions; each can see the unsoundness of the other, while they seem to be blind to their own. And, second, that notwithstanding the position of one destroys that of the other, yet they all arrive logically (?) at the same conclusion, viz., that it is right to trample under foot God’s “holy day,” and exalt in its stead a laboring day. Eze. 46:1. Here is disagreement and yet unity. But it resembles strongly the unity connected with the trial of our Saviour: though the witnesses did not agree in their testimony, yet in the “vital point” they were all agreed: that was, to condemn the Lord. What if their testimony did clash; in the final issue they were agreed—his blood should be spilt, he was not fit to live. In like manner, though these friends’ positions are contradictory, yet their conclusions are happily the same: they are released from the observance of God’s sanctified day, and have now one authorized by the “traditions of the fathers,” and after their own hearts. Now, supposing the position taken by the Methodists with reference to the day was correct, the United Presbyterians would be compelled to observe Monday to be consistent with their position that the Sabbath was changed to the first day of the week. But this they will not do, for it would be almost, if not altogether, as unpopular as to observe the Saturday. Again, if the position of the United Presbyterians (with reference to the day) is correct, our Methodist friends will have to observe the Saturday with us; for the United Presbyterians acknowledge that Saturday is the true seventh day, and the Methodists admit that the seventh day is the one enjoined in the law. But this they are determined they will not do; for that would prove these Seventh-day Adventists right. And again, if the position of the United Presbyterians with reference to the change, and the position of the Methodists as regards the day is correct, then the Methodists would also be compelled to observe Monday, as it must be the true “first day,” if Sunday is the true seventh. Query. Why do they not labor to set each other right on these points? Answer. The main point is to observe the Sunday, and on this they are all agreed. What if their positions do devour each other? whose business is it? Both of these bodies could see that it contradicted both reason and Scripture to teach that God’s immutable law of ten commandments was abolished, as taught by the Disciples. And the Disciples could not shut their eyes to the fact that if the law was still binding, the Sabbath, of necessity, must be. But how comforting the thought that, on the point that called for action, they were all happily agreed. How can any observer of the seventh day ever show his face around Monmouth, since here are three lines of argument, and either one proves our release from its obligation? O Consistency! thou art a jewel. How applicable the words of the Saviour, addressed to the Pharisees of his day, “Full well do ye reject the commandment of God that ye may keep your own tradition.” As Micah says in his seventh chapter, this is their “mischievous desire: so they wrap it up.” Oh! that God may open the eyes of the honest, and help them to see that “to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.” It is the willing and obedient that God delights in. But the rebellious will soon be destroyed; “for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” May the Lord save us from the union that there is in opposing his holy law, and despising his down-trodden Sabbath. But may we seek that union that there is in obedience to his holy will. R. F. Andrews. Pontiac, Ill., Dec. 27, 1872.