Signs of the Times, Vol. 39, No. 30.
IF YE WILL INQUIRE, INQUIRE YEPage 2
Earlier text: IF YE WILL INQUIRE, INQUIRE YEMr. Tufts and His Criticisms
By Editor
JULY 9 we received the following letter, accompanied by an article, from Dr. G. L. Tufts, secretary of the California branch of the Lord's Day Alliance: "Will you kindly publish the enclosed article in an early issue of the Signs of the Times, and send me a marked copy? Please accept my thanks for the courtesy. Yours sincerely, G. L. Tufts." We wrote Mr. Tufts that we would print his article, and asked for a copy of his bill, which he later sent us. Mr. Tufts's article, "A Weekly Rest Day Law," appears on page 10. As he refers in this article to Mr. Corliss, his article was shown to Mr. Corliss, and the latter's reply also appears in this issue. In printing Mr. Tufts's article, we are departing from a usual custom, and have extended to him an unusual courtesy. Our expressed desire to hear from our readers either for or against, did not imply that we would be under any obligations to print whatever letters we might receive, nor does the principle which we hold regarding "free speech" and a "free press" demand that we should furnish agency and advertising to give Mr. Tufts's views publicity. He has the same right to publish as we; he should ask no more. What we publish, therefore, is a matter of courtesy wholly. Will Mr. Tufts find one journal advocating Sunday laws, like the California Christian Advocate, for instance, which will publish both sides of the question? We do not believe it possible. But he who has the truth can afford to be more than fair, and therefore we print Mr. Tufts's article. Mr. Corliss has written freely, touching upon such things in Mr. Tufts's article as he deems best, without reference to anything that we may write, and we also treat the criticisms by Mr. Tufts independently of what Mr. Corliss has said. We note the following points in Mr. Tufts's article: Mr. Tufts denies that Sunday laws are religious legislation, and then he refers to church taxation and laws protecting public worship, and asks why we do not oppose these. Briefly, we can say that as to church taxation, when the law was passed we did protest against it. If our files were intact, and the memoranda which our recent fire took from us were in hand, we could cite what was said and done at that time. We did not believe it the right principle, and we so stated. As to laws protecting public worship, these are based not on any religious right, but on a purely human right. All churches have a right to worship, all men have a right to meet together against worship if they so desire; and the law will protect them in their right of assembly. The Catholic or the Protestant, the Jew or the Mohammedan, the Christian or the infidel, the Mormon or the Christian Scientist, has a right to meet with his kind for worship, and the law protects each and all of these in this worship, not because they are Catholics or Protestants, Jew or Christian, but simply and solely because they are men. It is not the institution which the law is protecting, but it is the human being in his right. No belief is established, no tenet is enforced. The civil law simply demands that men who believe other than these who meet together shall act civilly toward them. Right here comes the wrong conception of those who are demanding religious legislation. The true object of law is not to protect institutions, is not to foster religious tenets or views, but to protect men. The whole question turns as between institutions or men. If it were the rights of men which were guarded, there never would be a law for the promotion or protection of a religious institution. This is shown in the fact that our Sunday-law men are not working to secure the right of a working man to rest one day in seven, irrespective of the day, but the object is to protect the one day, the religious day. That Sunday laws are in the category of religious legislation is shown, first in the fact that the Sabbath is a religious institution, in its origin and in its history. This is true likewise of Sunday; even in its ancient pagan surroundings it was a religious institution, dedicated to the sun, and the very first law on record for its observance is by a heathen emperor in honor of the sun. Secondly, those who are pushing the Sunday law at the present time, and always throughout Christendom, are religious men and women, those who believe in the sacredness of the first day of the week. Thirdly, the exemptions have a religious basis, and the prohibitions are against secular work or business. We know that Mr. Tufts is not calling it a religious law. He tells us that the first law in California, which had a decidedly religious title, had a very "unfortunate" title. Mr. Tufts and his fellows are seeking the same thing under another name. This is also shown by the fact that Mr. Tufts, in his "Twenty Reasons for a Sunday Law," declares that "California holds the unenviable distinction of being the only commonwealth among all Christian nations without such a law. In this particular, California is pagan and a byword." Mr. Tufts brings no reproach upon the other states which have Sunday laws, some of which are of the most decidedly religious character, and many of them without exemptions. For instance, Arkansas, section 2,030, has the side-head title of "Sabbath-breaking," and declares that certain things "shall not be liable to the penalties enacted against Sabbath-breaking, provided no store or saloon shall be kept open, or business carried on there on the Christian sabbath." In its act of January 12, 1853, "Every person who shall on the Christian sabbath, or Sunday, be engaged in any game of brag," etc. January 19, 1855, section 2,038, we find the term "shooting for amusement on the sabbath day," and so elsewhere in the same law. The law of Colorado names "the sabbath, or Lord's day." The Connecticut Sunday law forbids any "secular" business. The Sunday law of Delaware names only "the sabbath day," and forbids business on "the sabbath day," traveling upon "the sabbath day," selling on "the sabbath," fishing or hunting game on "the sabbath," playing or dancing on "the sabbath," etc. The Georgia Sunday law is after the same order—"prohibition against violating the sabbath day." And so we might continue with state after state, showing that the real sentiment and purpose behind all these various Sunday laws are for the protection of a sacred religious day, and to prohibit secular work upon that day, denominating that day "the sabbath," or "the Lord's day." We may call it what we will, and our friends may call it what they will, but they know, and all know who have ever given the subject any study or thought, that behind all Sunday laws is the religious sentiment that if the day were not a religious day there would be no demand for the Sunday law. The function of civil law is not to make men moral; it is to suppress incivility. The great moral code is the Decalogue. The scope of that Decalogue includes man's motives. In the interpretation given of it by the Scriptures, he who hates his brother is guilty of murder, and he who "looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." Clearly, it must be manifest to all that these things can not be suppressed, or taken away, by civil law, or by anything else short of the hearty coöperation of man with the creative power of the Spirit of God. But the outward act can be suppressed, and incivility can be punished, and that is the purpose of civil law. Neither is civil law designed to protect the majority or its religious belief. Its object is to protect the minority, the weak, those who are unable to protect themselves. It is an utterly wrong conception of the use of civil law to foster the opinions of a majority regardless of the minority. III—The Value of Court Decisions
Regarding the reference to the decision of Judge Terry, of the California Supreme Court, Mr. Corliss has dealt with it sufficiently. We wish to state right here, however, that decisions and opinions can be found on both sides of the question from equally able men. He who reads history knows also that judges are likely to be prejudiced by religious opinions and predilections as well as other men, and through their bias or predilection are likely to make wrong decisions. The history of the past witnesses to judges who have interpreted law according to religious bias, and consigned men to stake or dungeon for opinion's sake. They have frequently been on the wrong side of the question, as history has demonstrated; and judicial opinions have been so unsatisfactory to the mass of the people in these6 present days that there is a loud cry throughout the United States, supported by eminent men, for the recall of judges. We are not arguing either for or against it, we are simply noting the fact that a judge's decision is not infallible. It does not require the position of a judge, or his official status, in order to determine whether a thing is in harmony with the equal rights of men and with the Constitution of the United States. Any man of ordinary common sense apart from religious bias can easily determine this of himself. Mr. Tufts finds fault because the Sunday has been declared to be "un-American" by the SIGNS OF THE TIMES, and he concludes that the SIGNS OF THE TIMES must be un-American, because so many Americans have regarded Sunday. It is not American regard of Sunday that has been criticized in the SIGNS at all. The whole question lies right here: The American principle is equality of men. It is absolute separation of church and state. Our state governments carried over from old colonial times, and the colonies from the medieval ages, certain religious laws and ordinances which never ought to have been placed upon the statute-books or in the fundamental law of the states, nor would they have been if the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the Federal Government had obtained in the states. There are but two states in the Union at the present time which have had the courage and American spirit to do this. Preeminent of the two stands California, the other is Arizona. If we should go back to the origin of the thing, Sunday is not American, either as a pagan worship day or a Christian worship day. In its religious aspect in America it came from the Puritans in England. We do not have to go back many centuries to find that there was no particular sacredness attached to the day at all. It was simply regarded as a church day. In its origin it is not in any wise an American institution. It might, as well be contended that the sprinkling of converts was an American institution, or it could be paralleled with a half-dozen other religious observances received, as the Sunday has been received, from the past. That it has been the weekly rest day of most Americans is granted. That does not necessarily constitute it an American institution, however. The closing of public institutions, banks, and government offices on that day is out of regard to the custom of the men in the institutions. The day is legally a non dies, or no day. Therefore when we say that a Sunday law is un-American we refer to the principles upon which the Federal Government of America has been based, absolute separation of church and state and the equality of all men before the law. Viewed from this point it is decidedly un-American. V—The Wholesomeness of the Law
We are told that it is for the health of the laboring man that he should rest one day in seven, and therefore we compel him to rest by forbidding him to work. But if a government is so to concern itself with the health of its subjects, or those who live within its jurisdiction, where would such laws stop? It is decidedly an unhealthy practise to use tobacco. It is the cause of various and incurable diseases. Some of the best physicians in the world have condemned it. Shall the law therefore step in and forbid men smoking, chewing, or snuffing tobacco? The eating of candy is an unhealthful practise, especially where eaten in excessive quantities, as it is generally throughout America. Shall the law forbid it? There are certain food combinations which, according to our enlightened health reformers, are very bad, and which make Americans a nation of dyspeptics. Shall these combinations be forbidden by law? The wearing of high-heeled shoes and corsets is condemned by some of our most enlightened physicians and women. Why should not the law step in and prohibit these? And yet the Sunday law which our friend is promoting permits men to loaf and smoke and drink, if they can get the whisky, and eat candy and indulge in various things which are injurious to health, but it prohibits labor, labor which to some would be promotive of health and profit in every way. "In the editorial columns of June 25, the astounding statement is made that our proposed weekly rest day law will make 'loyalty to God a crime,' by making Sunday labor on the part of Seventh-day Adventists and conscientious Jews a penal offense. Again it is stated that 'you, through that Sunday law, demand that your seventh-day neighbor shall give up one whole day in the week of precious time—one sixth of all his income, sixteen and two thirds per cent of his earnings.' Has not the editor been reading the articles he has published in recent issues of his own paper from the pen of Mr. Corliss in which the fact is mentioned that the proposed law would allow the Seventh-day Adventists to work on Sunday? Or does he publicly criticize a proposed measure and its author without informing himself upon the contents of said measure? We can not think that he intentionally misrepresented the facts to prejudice the minds of his readers. But for the information of all concerned permit me to say that the proposed law declares that its prohibitions against Sunday labor and business do not apply: 'To any person who is a member of a religious society which observes some other day than Sunday as its day of worship and who actually keeps his place of business, or of his ordinary calling closed, and does not work for gain at his ordinary calling or at common labor on said day of worship.' So the law will not prohibit an Adventist from working or attending to his regular business on Sundays. This surely protects you in your civil rights of working six days of the week. Any member of the Adventist Church who refrains from doing business on Saturday may conduct his business on Sunday as freely as on Monday. What more could you ask?" Now we are aware that there is an exemption clause in the proposed Sunday law, but in the first place the exemption clause is worth little, a mere temporary thing perhaps, and in the second place, it is not as liberal as Mr. Tufts seems to think. We freely grant that he meant that it should be, but it is not. Were we justified in our remarks? Let us see: 1. The power which has the right and authority to grant an exemption has the same right and authority to remove it. This goes without saying. The exemption is not provided in the law in the nature of a concession, as a right, but the granting of a privilege, a dispensation to disobey, an indulgence for a price. And it is not a difficult thing to believe that if opposition to the principle of the law will continue in those exempted, the proponents of the law would, to punish them for stubbornness and contumacy, withdraw the "privilege" and "favor." Arkansas repealed her exemption, and seventh-day people were prosecuted and persecuted under the law. It is not for exemptions or indulgence for ourselves that we plead, but for equal rights for all, an impossible thing under a Sunday law. The only true way to consider a Sunday law is apart from its exemptions. 2. That our Sunday-law friends are not averse to laws having no exemption is clearly evident. We have yet to see or hear one protest or sentence of condemnation from a single Sunday-law advocate regarding the prosecutions in Arkansas, Tennessee, Maryland, or Georgia. Lawyers and legislators, judges and juries, and many secular papers have condemned the law and justified its victims; but where was the pulpit or religious periodical which blazed indignant protest? Surely if these men believed in equal rights for all, it was then a time to speak. 3. But this law exempts only those who are members "of a religious society, which observes some other day than Sunday as its day of worship." This would exempt Jews and members of the Seventh-day Baptist and Seventh-day Adventist churches, but there are devoted seventh-day Christians who do not belong to these bodies, or to any other that keep the seventh day. The editor has a very dear friend, learned and scientific, who observes the seventh day. He is a member of the Methodist Church. The law would not exempt him for loyalty to God, for doing just what Jesus Christ did, working six days and resting the seventh, that seventh the very day of the weekly cycle on which Christ rested. And for that condemned by the law as a criminal! Loyalty to God a crime! And he is only one of many such who have not identified themselves with any body of seventh-day observers. These, too, under the law, would be taxed sixteen and two thirds per cent of their income in deference to the religious conviction of the Sunday-law man. That is to say, after a man had observed one day as conscience dictated, as his Lord did, the law demands that he must then observe the next day, solely because his stronger neighbor so believes and has so decided. In this the Sunday law exacts one sixth of his time that it does not require of the first-day man. Is such a law just, and are Christians in conscience before God willing to support it? Further than this, the various voting districts of the state may sweep away all exemptions and multiply restrictions. Every man has his right to rest, it is true. Every man has the equal right to labor. The law has no right to enforce either labor or rest. The oft quoted saying of Sunday-law people, "The right of one to rest demands a law of rest for all," is utter nonsense. There is no involuntary slavery in America. If a man is a slave, he is willingly so. Let him assert his liberty and walk forth a free man. If he wishes to rest on Sunday he has that privilege. "He may lose his place," you say. What of it? Thousands have lost their places for principle. God has some better thing for them. Men who would thus act from principle would find7 place somewhere, and develop character of worth. How much better it would be if men were taught such principles, rather than to make them believe that they were slaves, and could only be freed by a Sunday law! Dr. Grannis, the secretary of the Lord's Day Alliance, has done much in laboring to secure rest for men, or "slaves," as he terms them. In New York he pleaded for a six-day work and one-day rest law, without regard to the day. In Pennsylvania he secured relief for the iron-workers without any law. Now here are some questions for our Sunday-law agitators which we ask again: 1. If a Sunday law will secure to men the right to rest, as Dr. Grannis and Dr. Tufts claim, why did not Pennsylvania's stringent Sunday law secure relief for the thousands of "slaves" in the iron industries around Pittsburg? 2. In helping these workers, why did not Dr. Grannis appeal to the state Sunday law, instead of resorting to moral suasion and personal influence in securing relief for the toilers? Pennsylvania is the headquarters of the National Reform Association, and Pittsburg is the headquarters in that state of that association, and the National Reform Association is the very mother of the Sunday-law agitation. 3. If a Sunday law did not secure to men the right to rest in Pennsylvania, what hope is there that it would do just the opposite in California? 4. If the six-day work and one-day rest law which Dr. Grannis contended for in New York is, or would be, sufficient to protect men in their right to rest, why is not a similar law now on the statute-books of California sufficient? 5. But why did Dr. Grannis contend for another law in New York, when there is already a strict Sunday law on the statute-books of that state? 6. How many subsequent enactments does it take to make the first effective? 7. If the first-day sabbath is of Christ, why can our friends not trust His all-power to impress it upon the hearts of the people? The Coming of Our Lord
By George W. Rine
Great Events at His Coming
THROUGHOUT the broad sweep of inspired teaching, no doctrine stands out in bolder relief than does that of the second coming of Jesus. It holds a fundamental place in the gospel, in God's eternal purpose in Christ. It is the crowning act in the drama of human redemption. The one distinctively blessed hope of the church is declared to be the "glorious appearing of . . . our Saviour Jesus Christ." Titus 2:11-13. There are reasons, as we shall see, why that event is so insistently accentuated in Holy Writ. Not a few of the essential events comprehended in the everlasting gospel are contingent upon the coming of our Lord. The Resurrection and Immortality
Verse thirteen of the fourth chapter of 1 Thessalonians records our heavenly Father's assurance to His trusting children that He would not have them ignorant respecting the destiny of their beloved dead who fall asleep in Christ. In clear, pointed language the divine Spirit declares that just as surely as Jesus had died, and risen from among the dead, so surely would the dead in Christ be raised to life. With equal directness He tells us that that momentous event will be synchronous with the coming of the Lord "from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel, and with the trump of God." See verses 16, 17. In verses twelve to twenty-three of the fifteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians is found Paul's inspired argument establishing incontestably the doctrine of the resurrection. Observe now his testimony as to when "they that are Christ's" shall rise: "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the first-fruits; afterward they that are Christ's at His coming." We have seen that Jesus will come with the sound of the trumpet. In verses fifty-one and fifty-two of the same chapter we are told in language that throbs with the fervor of assured hope, "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." Those who are raised incorruptible are, of course, the righteous dead. Again we see that the restoration of the dead in Christ to life and immortality will be incident to the sounding of the last trumpet; but this sounding is one of the many incidents that mark the glorious appearing of Jesus. It is self-evident that to be raised "incorruptible" is to be raised immortal. This is precisely what Paul goes on to declare. He says, "For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality." It is then that the "saying" will be brought to pass, "Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" Yes, it is when the Lord shall descend from heaven with the voice of the Archangel that His own predictive assurance will be fulfilled that "the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life." John 5: 28, 29. How our spirits yearn and pray for the restoration to endless life of our beloved dead! Is not this divinely inspired hope infidably precious? But, as we have seen, the realization of this hope is bound up with the coming of the Saviour. Naturally, then, we look forward to that coming with glad, wistful anticipation. Now mark the eloquent positiveness and dignity with which Paul, as he approaches the "valley of the shadow of death," declares his hope: "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day." You ask, "At what day?" Paul at once identifies the day: "And not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing." 2 Tim. 4:7, 8. Ah, it is at the day of his Master's appearing that the venerable apostle hoped to be crowned with life eternal. The Spirit-filled Peter speaks of the same crown as "a crown of glory that fadeth not away," which the loyal servants of God would receive "when the Chief Shepherd shall appear." 1 Peter 5:2-4. As the righteous dead undergo a resurrection to immortality at the appearing of Jesus, even so shall His children that "are alive and remain" when He comes, be changed from the corruption of mortality to the glory of immortality. Here is the divine assurance, given through Paul: "We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, . . . at the last trump. . . . For . . . this mortal must put on immortality." Of the same import is the following inspired assertion: "For our citizenship is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, . . . who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body." Phil. 3:20, 21. The same blessed hope is again enunciated by the divine Spirit, as follows: "We know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body." Rom. 8:22, 23. The Reception of the Kingdom
The realization of immortal life, however, implies an endless home, an imperishable kingdom. A life of glory and immortality carries with it, as a corollary, an ageless kingdom of glory. And we have the divine promise that precisely such a kingdom will displace all the kingdoms of this world, at the appearing of the Lord of that kingdom, Christ the Saviour. Observe, now, our Lord's own assurance: "When the Son of Man shall come in His glory, with all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory. . . . Then shall the King say unto them on His right hand, Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." Matt. 25:31, 34. By implication, Paul, the apostle and prophet of Jesus, enunciates the same truth, as follows: "I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom; Preach the Word." 2 Tim. 4:1, 2. As clearly and cogently as language can express it, the Spirit of inspiration sets forth the fact that the church militant will not receive her eternal inheritance, the timeless kingdom which the Father has prepared for her, until her Lord shall come again in the plenitude of supernal glory. More than twenty-five centuries ago Jesus, through His servant Daniel, assured all His ransomed children that "the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom." But "when shall these things be?" Ah, as we have seen, at the coming of Jesus. Then will that prayer, coming first from the lips of our Lord, and since repeated by the millions of His saints, "Thy kingdom come," be completely and forever answered. Then will come, of course, the happy reunion of all the children of God, when the dead are raised and the living are changed. But the climax of redemption will be the actual and manifested union of the church with her Lord in the marriage of the Lamb. Then she shall be presented to Him a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing. Then the astonished universe shall cry, "Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her Beloved?" The church has shared the Master's humiliation in the midst of a scoffing and unbelieving world. But when He comes, she shall be exalted to His side, as the consort of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The Desolation of the Earth
Not a few passages of Holy Writ prophetically portray the second coming of Jesus, in terms of awful grandeur and terrible majesty. "Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence," declares the psalmist; "a fire shall devour before Him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about Him. He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that He may judge His people. Gather My saints together unto Me; those that have made a covenant with Me by sacrifice." Ps. 50:3-5. In the latter part of the sixth chapter of Revelation are recorded the events that should take place under the opening of the sixth seal. First are set forth some of the signs in the heavens and the earth which would betoken the imminence of Christ's appearing. And, secondly, as one of the effects of His actual coming, the heavens are said to depart as a scroll when it is rolled together, and every mountain and every island is moved out of its place. In verses 26 and 27 of Hebrews 12, the apostle alludes to the fact that the voice of God shook the earth when, in the days of Moses, He descended upon Mount Sinai, and with a voice of awful majesty declared to His people His holy law. The inspired writer then adds: "But now He hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven." That this cosmic convulsion coincides with the actual appearing of Jesus is attested by the fact that the apostle announces that immediately after the removing of all things shakeable and7 ephemeral, the people of God — those who have looked for, and now welcome, their returning Lord — receive a kingdom which can not be moved. (Verse 28, first part.) But that kingdom, as we have already learned, will be actually realized at the second advent of the Lord of that kingdom. In rapt vision the prophet Joel looked down through the vista of the centuries and preannounced that when the “day of the Lord” was about to break there would be “multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision,” and then adds, “For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision.” Chapter 3, verse 14. After foretelling that the sun and moon should be darkened and the stars should withdraw their shining, the prophet goes on to declare, as found in verse 16, “The Lord also shall roar out of Zion, and utter His voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake.” But, for the consolation of the saints, he at once assures them, “But the Lord will be the hope of His people, and the strength of the children of Israel.” A parallel prophecy, found in Jer. 25:30, shows unmistakably that it is the heavenly Jerusalem, the celestial Zion, from which the Lord, in that grand and awful day, will utter His voice which will shake heaven and earth. Jeremiah declares: “The Lord shall roar from on high, and utter His voice from His holy habitation; . . . He shall give a shout, as they that tread the grapes, against all the inhabitants of the earth.” The terrible desolation that is wrought in the earth and in all things appertaining to it, is graphically depicted as follows: “I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light. I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly. I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled. I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the Lord, and by His fierce anger. . . . The whole land shall be desolate.” Jer. 4:23-27. Isaiah prognosticates the same awful fact thus: “The windows from on high are open, and the foundations of the earth do shake. The earth is utterly broken down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly. The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage; and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it.” Isa. 24:18-20. We now see that while the coming of Christ brings immortality and the eternal inheritance to His believing children, with the transcendent glory implied in these, that same coming will bring chaos and desolation to the earth, and destruction to all irreclaimable sinners. As noted above, Jeremiah declared that he “beheld, and, lo, there was no man.” In the second chapter of Second Thessalonians it is expressly stated that the wicked will be destroyed by “the Spirit of His [the Lord’s] mouth,” and “with the brightness of His coming.” Again, in the context of the passage above cited from Revelation 6, the unrighteous are represented as crying out, at the coming of the Lord: “Mountains and rocks, fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: for the great day of His wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?” Ah, how often the Scriptures assure us that all God’s trusting people shall be able to stand in that awful day? Recall the reassuring promise cited above from Joel, “The Lord will be the hope of His people,” at the very time that He arises to shake terribly the earth. Yes, the coming of our Lord means eternal and irrevocable salvation to His people, but desolation and death to all who scout His mercy and despise His proffered salvation. Is it not, therefore, tremendously important that we should all eagerly obey our heavenly Father’s gracious injunction — “Prepare to meet thy God”?