Earlier text: STREAMS IN THE DESERTTHE MATERIAL OF THE TABERNACLE STRUCTURE.
By John O. Corliss
GOD’S course, or accustomed way, is learned by going into His sanctuary, because that is His dwelling, where He appears just as He is. There His “way” is revealed, and His work for the children of men is seen. Ps. 77:13. This being true, we may expect everything about the earthly sanctuary, which was a figure of the heavenly structure, even in the arrangement of its building material, to contribute toward this wonderful revelation. To this end let us examine somewhat in detail the building as a whole. First, we find that its walls, or sides, were made of boards placed in an upright position, their feet resting in sockets of silver. Ex. 26:15-23. These were held in place by five rows of bars passing thru rings in each board, and round the entire structure. Verses 26-28. Both bars and boards were overlaid with sheet gold, so that the whole surface, within and without, shone resplendently in the light. Verse 29. These boards were forty-six in number, each ten cubits, or fifteen feet, long, and a cubit and a half, or twenty-seven inches, wide. Twenty boards composed each side, and six boards were given to the west end. At two corners of this end the two boards forming each angle were fastened together at the top and bottom by a peculiar ring contrivance. Verses 16-24. No very weighty material, however, entered into the construction of the roof. A raised ridge-pole extended from end to end, and over this were placed various curtains, with the ends extending over and down the outside of the building. The first layer of these consisted of ten breadths of material curiously woven of the finest linen thread, in blue, purple, and scarlet colors. On the side of these seen from the inside, beautiful figures of angels were embroidered, represented as flying in the ethereal blue of mid-heaven. With this elegant decoration overhead and the brilliant shining gold on the walls, the inside of the tabernacle was indeed gorgeous beyond description, and fittingly typified God’s dwelling in the New Jerusalem, with the gold and garniture of its royal colorings. Rev. 21:18-20. This delicate covering was protected by another of coarser material, which was better adapted to withstand inclement weather and the dampness of night. This was made of goats’ hair, and was three feet wider and six feet longer than the one made of linen, so that it might cover every part of it. Like the first, it was made in sections six feet wide, which were looped together along the selvages. These sections were united to form two larger sections, one thirty feet in width and the other thirty-six. This covering was drawn over the front of the tabernacle so that about six feet of its width would hang down over the eastern gable. Verses 7-13. But even this was not sufficient protection against bad weather. It was, however, from the nature of the material, which was soft, pliable, and free from corroding elements, quite suitable to have a place next to the fine linen of the inner part. But over this was placed another covering, quite impervious to water. This was of rams’ skins dipped in some red coloring matter, which perhaps helped to close the pores of the material, and so render it as serviceable as possible. It may be also that the dyeing was not only decorative, but was a means of preserving the leather against possible decay from long exposure to alternate sun and shade. Verse 14. But still another safeguard was provided. Where material of a flexible nature rests on a structure, it is more liable to yield to the exposure of dampness at that point than where nothing from beneath presses it. So in completing the roof of the sanctuary, a covering of badgers’ skins (or perhaps seal pelts) was placed above, or, as some accounts of the building of the tabernacle affirm, was extended along the ridge, and for a short distance below it on either side, leaving the greater part of the rams’ skin covering fully exposed. This was the structure in which God was to dwell among the tribes of Israel, and whence He was to speak in commandment to His people. In the midst of this curiously-constructed building, the “way,” or dealing, of Him who was ever a mystery to His people was to be learned. By the service to be rendered there, the mercy, grace, and long-suffering of the Ruler of the universe were to be made known. But before learning the particulars about this, it will be necessary to study other features of this peculiar structure. These will be given in next week’s paper. J. O. CORLISS. FOR a period of ten days previous to the opening of the thirty-fourth session of the General Conference, representatives from various fields and publishing houses have had under consideration and study various features of the publishing work. The following topics, among others, have been discussed: The Publishing Work as a Gospel Agency; Printing Houses as Training Schools; Principles Which Govern All Business Transactions and Dealings with Men; An Effective Literature, and How to Improve It; Various Classes of Literature, and Place of Each; The Foreign Fields; Foreign Literature; Translations; Illustrations; Agencies for Its Publication, etc. These discussions brought more vividly before the minds of all the importance of living, Christian literature and its extended circulation. It developed more fully before the minds of all what had been apprehended by some, namely, that all institutions connected with the work of God, including printing establishments, should be missionary institutions, “holding forth the word of life.” THE conference proper convened April 2, at 9 A.M., with the president, George A. Irwin, in the chair. After the organization, the president presented a brief address, from which we take the following items, which will be of interest to our readers: In the last biennial period eleven useful laborers have fallen at their post, namely, Pastors G. T. Willson, William Cottrell, D. A. Robinson, F. W. Brown, Jerome Fargo, W. C. Grainger, J. H. Cook, Harrison Grant, R. J. Lawrence, Dr. George W. Burleigh, and Mrs. S. M. I. Henry. Four of these will be recognized as old burden-bearers—those who had fought life’s battles, and laid off their armor as weary warriors. The others fell in the fulness and prime of manhood. We may not understand it all. “God buries His workmen but carries on His work.” He is dependent on no one individual, great as we prize his services, or howsoever grandly God may have used him. Yet we mourn, and wish they were still with us. They sleep in Him, and will wake in the morning. THE membership of the denomination, as shown by reports from churches and conferences, is 75,763. The increase during the last two years is 12,504, or about twenty per cent. Ordained ministers have increased by 63, and licentiates by 67. There were 253 new churches organized, and 4 new conferences,—Ontario, Canada, organized June 18, 1899, with fourteen churches and 412 members; Queensland, Australia, Oct. 20, 1899, with 6 churches and 226 members; South Australia, Nov. 25, 1899, with 3 churches and 205 members; Cumberland, East Kentucky, and Tennessee, Aug. 17, 1900, 6 churches and 440 members. These are all growing conferences. THE money received is also a source of encouragement. The tithe, a voluntary payment, for the support of the ministry, amounted in the last biennial period to $1,000,915.13, an increase over the previous similar period of $205,341.89. There has been paid in voluntary offerings to foreign missions, $151,008.45, an increase of $23,240.31 over the previous biennial period. This amounts to about fifteen and one-third dollars to a member, aged and7 children included. Of course this number includes many non-producers. Still it ought to have been more. Christ gave all; we should not do less. We can not with safety do less. We can not enjoy Christ as we ought and do less. During the last two years 68 missionaries have been sent to other lands by the Foreign Mission Board. Had there been more means, more missionaries could have been sent. IN the interests of the glorious gospel of health nine sanitariums, or health homes, have been established during the last biennial period,—one in Germany, 2 in Australia, 1 in New Zealand, 5 in the United States, a total in the world of 24, besides many bath-rooms and minor establishments in various parts of the world. IN educational lines there has also been advancement. This people now have among them 6 colleges, 4 academies, 10 industrial and training-schools, 15 intermediate schools, and 228 church-schools, a total of 263 schools, employing 381 teachers, with an aggregate attendance of 6,600 pupils. OTHER fields of labor and institutions were referred to, but these will be more fully considered at later times. The above reports are of interest. Yet to no past record does a living Christian look with satisfaction. He may raise “Ebenezers” all along the way, saying by them, “Hitherto hath God helped us;” but every advance only brings into stronger relief the glorious heights which are yet to be climbed before Mount Zion is reached. The real benefit in advancement in Christ’s cause is not in any goal reached, in any result attained, but in increased faith, capacity, growth, effectiveness in doing larger, better, truer, holier service for God. THIS conference will mark not only a crisis but a new era in this last work of reform. Old rules and methods and plans have already been laid aside, and a new organization is forming or growing. The plan by which Christ’s living cause shall work must be expansive, living, permitting the wine of God’s grace to expand, permitting each child of His care to grow. His Word can not be bound. Men may be, but the living Word will expand and bear fruit in other lives, and leave those who are tied to the traditions and words and rules and plans of men to a dead past. But if men will by faith receive the engrafted Word it will enlarge the heart and life and mind, and lead to ever-glorious victory. Such we believe will be the results of this conference. As stated in the Signs of the Times of April 9, our company of over two-score bound for the General Conference at Battle Creek, Mich., and other points left the Oakland Mole in a special tourist car the evening of March 21. The car was clean, new, double-windowed, and well heated. We had an excellent porter, kind and agreeable, and most of our company were Christian people. Surely there is no reason why the company should not have enjoyed the trip. A goodly company of friends, mostly connected with the Pacific Press, came down to see us off, bringing beautiful flowers and speaking cheerful good-byes and hearty Godspeeds. Against a strong wind we were nearly an hour late at Sacramento; notwithstanding, a company of from fifteen to twenty, led by Pastor C. N. Martin, met us at the station, and serenaded us by the sweet singing of several of the songs of Zion. Not all of our party had retired for the night, and three of us went out into the station and joined our voices with theirs. Brethren Martin and Israel and their efficient helpers had just held an open-air meeting near the station, with good interest, and not a few remained to hear the singing. IT was not a wholly unpleasant change from the flowering, fragrant orchards and gardens and green fields of the Sacramento Valley to the Sierra snows, softening and illuminating the ruggedness of the mountains. God speaks to us by the tongues of the mountains. “The strength of the hills is His,” and among the great barren mountains God has often trained His messengers and sent them forth to labor for the needy. The pure mountain air, the larger views, the freedom from contact with the superficial, the better opportunities offered for seeing God in His works, all make the mountains favorable places for seeking God and meeting with Him. “Come up into the mountain, and be there,” is His call to Moses. “O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion, get thee up into the high mountain,” is God’s call to His Gospel messenger. It was in the mountains that Elijah was trained and met with God. It was the mountain stillness and grandeur that our Saviour sought in which to commune with His Father. So God wants each of His children to get up into the heights of spirituality, commune with Him, and gather of the oxygen and ozone of life to meet the malaria and miasma of the lowlands of sordid greed and sensuality. BEYOND the mountains were the alkali deserts of Nevada and Utah. But never was there a more favorable journey across the sand plains than ours. The recent rains had well laid the dust, the wind was favorable, and we passed over the dreaded region with no discomfort. All were interested in our journey thru Weber Canyon, with its beautiful and sublime scenery, with the quaint and curious forms which the upheavals of earthquakes and the erosion of the elements have wrought in the mountains and hills. All thru this section there are oases in the desert, produced thru irrigation by a frugal and industrious population, many of them cursed by the blighting influence of Mormonism. SABBATH, March 23, was a good day on our train. A regular Sabbath-school was held with five classes. Immediately after Sabbath-school a brief discourse based on Gal. 6:7, by Brother J. O. Corliss, was listened to with interest by all in the car, and some from other coaches who were invited in. How true it is, as forcibly set forth in the sermon, that “whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” At Julesburg, Colo., came the surprise and incident of our journey. Down from the summit of the Rockies at Sherman, Wyoming, an elevation of 8,247 feet, and thru Cheyenne, the evening of March 23, our train sped rapidly eastward, the latter part of the night in the face of a blinding storm from the northeast, filling the deep cuts of the railway with a heavy, hard snow. Sunday at daybreak found us at Julesburg in the very teeth of a howling blizzard. Inquiry developed many theories and no satisfactory replies. The storm increased in violence till after midday, moderating somewhat toward night. But a deep cut some miles farther east was closed, our train was stalled in the drift, and a snow plow which attempted its rescue wedged itself in and there remained till the storm was over. In the meantime an auger plow with three engines came from the east, and a great rotary driven by three locomotives came down from Cheyenne, and we were liberated after an imprisonment of thirty-five hours. While our train was the first east-bound which was stalled, before we went out there were fourteen passenger trains and several freights tied up near Julesburg by the blizzard. THE storm was, while it lasted, exceeding fierce. Cattle were smothered by the fiercely driven snow, which stung, wherever it struck the skin, like needles. People in the town of Julesburg did not know until Sunday evening that so many trains had been stopped by the snow. They were blockaded in their houses. Nearly all the provisions in the dining cars of the train were eaten, and the railway men were told that they must seek their meals elsewhere. The people in the town dealt honestly. One hotel was “eaten out of house and home,” as the old expression goes, but it only charged twenty-five cents a meal as long as it lasted. Eggs could be found in but one or two places, but the price was only ten cents a dozen. Large loaves of bread were but ten cents each; however, the last one to be found in the town was sold for fifteen cents. Good navel oranges could be obtained for twenty-five cents a dozen, and good apples for five cents a pound. Almost no butter could be obtained, but one grocer, who had an inferior quality, and who could have sold it to those who in all probability would never have seen him again in this order of things, refused to sell it saying that it was not fit to eat. Canned goods could be obtained at reasonable prices. The people of Julesburg were humane, kind, obliging, and just, and we pray that they may find a better country and climate. THE value of Christianity is always demonstrated under trying circumstances. It is worthless unless it can “endure grief.” With a warm car, an attentive porter, and trainmen who did all they could, even though we were anxious to get on, why should we complain? The porter said that he wished there would more Christians travel. An infidel, a trainer of race horses on his way to Austria, who was one of our company, said that he had never before thought there was anything in Christianity, but his experience with us made him doubt; there might be something in it after all. The storm was one of the “all things” which God works, with those that love Him, for good. The thing itself may be evil. We could say that, itself alone considered, it is evil; but God uses that with the other events of life so as to work out good to us and glory to His name. It is not that the things themselves by “fortuitous combination” work out good, but “we know that to them that love God, God worketh all things with them for good, even to them that are called according to His purpose.” Rom. 8:28, R. V. margin. We may not see now, but when life’s web is woven, when the woof of life’s character is finished, we will see how wisely the Weaver wrought for us. ONE of our number was sick on the way, and a part of our car became a hospital. Having three skilled nurses, he soon grew convalescent, altho his fever had risen to 103.6°. Another, a young lady, we left at the Branch Sanitarium at Chicago, with an equal temperature, and at this writing she is rapidly recovering. One feels continually to praise God for a whole Gospel which has light and blessing and instruction for not only soul but body. TWELVE of our company came directly on to Battle Creek, reaching here the morning of the 26th. Three of our number left us at Cheyenne for Kansas City, two at Ames, Iowa, six stopped in Chicago, three went on farther east. We found the publishers’ council well begun; brethren were here from all parts of the world, and the good Spirit of God is manifest in our meetings. For all this we praise Him. Thus ends our good journey of nearly 3,000 miles. The railway officials of the S. P. and N. P., C. and N. W. and Mich. Central railways did all they could, and the officers of the Pullman company all within their limits to make our journey pleasant, and God’s good angels were with us all the way. More anon. Battle Creek, Mich., March 28. “PEACE BE UNTO YOU.”
By G.
As far as custom goes, the nearest approach that we of to-day have to the time of Christ is found among the Arabs. The Rechabites, mentioned in Jeremiah 35 as total abstainers from strong drink, are represented in that country to-day. So the salutation of Christ to His disciples, “Peace be unto you,” is common in Arabia at the present time. But the mission of Christ to the earth was not one of custom, of mere formality; it was a mission of peace in reality, peace with God. Thru the entrance of sin into the world, man had become estranged from God. “The carnal mind is enmity with God.” Rom. 8:7. Carnal means fleshly, actuated by the lusts of the flesh. The mission and sacrifice of Christ was to take away the enmity and make peace. Eph. 2:8–15. At the birth of Christ the song of the angels was, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will toward men.” And altho His chosen people had rejected Him, one of His select companions had betrayed Him, and the most forward one of them all had denied Him; altho His professed disciples had forsaken Him, and those whom He came to save had crucified Him, His purpose had not changed,—it was still a mission of peace. The price of peace with God had been incalculable. To us, the beneficiaries, it was free,—without money and without price,—but to Him who made the purchase it was a sacrifice beyond our comprehension. It was a “chastisement” that justly belonged to us. “The chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed.” Isa. 53:5. “Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, . . . but with the precious blood of Christ.” 1 Peter 1:18, 19. After making the sacrifice, after paying the price that He alone could pay, He greets His disciples, who are still “faithless and unbelieving,” with the merciful salutation, “Peace be unto you.” At the last meeting with these same disciples, before His betrayal, Jesus told them of His contemplated departure from earth, and said to them, “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you.” John 14:27. Thus it was designed that the whole Gospel dispensation should be a time for the proclamation of peace. Even tho the disciples were to be scattered (ch. 16:32, 33), they were assured that in Him they should have peace. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is “the Gospel of peace.” Eph. 6:15. “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God thru our Lord Jesus Christ.” Rom. 5:1. This peace with God gives us “access by faith into His grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” Verse 2. Amid all the alluring and deceptive obstacles that beset the pathway of human beings, there is nothing so fraught with real encouragement as the possibility of peace with God; and when that condition is assured by Him thru whom alone it can be gained, it is indeed a hope that should cause rejoicing. To fully appreciate the significance of this salutation of Christ to His disciples, this reassurance of peace after His resurrection, we must consider the efforts of the adversary to destroy Him who is our peace. Immediately after the enunciation, “On earth peace,” at His birth, the effort was made thru King Herod to put Christ to death. Then, after His baptism, Satan endeavored to lure Him from His mission by subtle temptations. Failing in this, the enemy of souls stirred up the church to hinder the work of the anointed One, to reject His claims to the Messiahship, and finally to put Him to death. So the victory of the resurrection, and the continuation of His original purpose, could find no more forcible expression than in this first salutation8 to the assembled brethren, “Peace be unto you.” It was a repetition of the former watchword, “On earth peace.” The peace of God “passeth all understanding” (Phil. 4:7), because it is a spiritual peace. It is based on principles unknown to human experience and incomprehensible to the human mind. It is a peace made possible between the Ruler of the universe and a race condemned to death by an unchangeable law which makes no provision for pardon. It is a peace which could be made lawful only by the death of the Ruler’s own innocent Son, in order that the unchangeable law might be satisfied. The desired purpose could not be effected by law. Rom. 8:3; Gal. 3:21. And the suggestion of this peace came not by petition from the condemned parties, but had its initiative in the council of the Ruler and His Son. It was based in love, infinite love; a love that would give an only Son to die as a substitute for the lives of condemned criminals; a love that would voluntarily lay down an innocent life in behalf of a culpable enemy, in order to save that enemy’s life. “God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son.” John 3:16. And Christ “hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God.” Eph. 5:2; also Gal. 1:3, 4, and Titus 2:13, 14. And all this was done, not because the fallen race surrendered themselves to God and desired conditions of peace; but it was done for us while we were yet enemies. Rom. 5:8. God and His Son did not say to us, If you will return to your allegiance, and be obedient, we will make the necessary sacrifice for your redemption. No, that would have been the human way of making peace; but they made the sacrifice first, unconditionally, making it possible for the sinner to repent and to accept the terms of peace. The human way would have been for the offended party to hold aloof till the offender should sue for reconciliation; but in such case the sinner would surely have been lost; for there must first be a way provided by which he could repent, and by which he could be pardoned without doing violence to the perfect, immutable law. The heavenly council first provided the way, and then sent ambassadors with the invitation, “We pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.” Such condescending love and such a treaty of peace pass all understanding. “Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, thru the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do His will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in His sight, thru Jesus Christ; to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.” Heb. 13:20, 21. The treaty of peace with God which He Himself has devised was offered to us in a love that “spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all;” and, to be effective, it must be accepted in a “faith that works by love.” G. THE USEFULNESS OF THE SABBATH.
Of all the blessings our heavenly Father has bestowed, there is nothing more useful to us than the Sabbath. As was shown from the Sabbath commandment in our last article, the reason God gave for instituting the Sabbath is that He may point us to His mighty works in creation. Our God is an all-powerful and all-sufficient God, and nowhere is this more apparent than in His created works. Hence He would have us study these things, so that we may truly know Him, and rest in the enjoyment of having a Father to care for us who is boundless in His ability to do it. To any one who studies the reason God gives for Sabbath-keeping, it must be apparent that if the Sabbath had always been intelligently kept by everybody there never could have been an idolater in all the world. It is because men have departed from the ways, and plans, and laws of their Creator that they are to-day bound about and burdened with all the superstitions and torturing exactions of idolatry. The very effort of the mind to grasp a conception of the power manifested in creation lifts us away from idolatry and brings us to God. We look at the hills, the valleys, the majestic mountains, the trees, the plants, and the whole animal creation as well, and we involuntarily exclaim, What infinite intelligence is manifested in all this creation! See what careful design is shown in the formation of that tree or plant. Look at its beauty. See the intelligence manifested in the formation of every leaf and flower. Look at that horse, or sheep, or ox; how symmetrical is its formation! And then see man, the great masterpiece of the handiwork of God. Observe his masterful intelligence. Think of the gifts bestowed upon him by the skill of the great Creator. Having viewed the things of this orb on which we live, then join the psalmist’s astronomical party, and “consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained.” Ps. 8:3. And as we view these things, how clearly will it be manifest that “the heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth His handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, without these their voice is heard. Their line is gone out thru all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath He set a tabernacle for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it; and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof. The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.” Ps. 19:1-7, margin. “The law of the Lord” is very broad. It not only embraces every precept of morality, but in the very heart of the Ten Commandments we find the Sabbath precept, which embraces all created things. Thus do we see that the law of the Lord embraces everything in the natural as well as in the spiritual world. The commandments truly define our duties and relations to our fellow-men; and they just as truly point us to the Creator and all His created works, and thereby invite us into the great field of nature, that we may study and know God. Then if we view the Sabbath from the practical side and from no other standpoint, how great is its usefulness! We look at the civilization that has been built up under Christian influences, and we at once note its superiority over heathen civilization. As compared with life in China or Arabia, how vastly greater and more to be desired is the average life in England and America! Who can estimate the indescribable suffering that the superstitions of heathenism have brought upon the world? The one who lays his homage at the shrine of an idolater’s god, is continually racked by fears and forebodings of disaster. There is never a truly happy moment for such an individual. The Lord foreknew all this, and so He provided the Sabbath as a mighty bulwark against it. There is another class of evils that true Sabbath-keeping guards us against. Idol-worship leads men into one kind of superstitions and dangers, and leaves them under the spell of one class of fears and mental and physical distresses; but in such a condition men are no more to be pitied than those who have virtually thrown away their Creator by refusing to recognize His place in creation. Those who throw away the fact that God made the world in six days, claiming instead a system of evolution covering unnumbered millions of years, are filling the minds of men with vain philosophies, that are as unsound and befogging in their tendencies as the doctrines of Confucius or Sakya Muni. The Bible tells the simple truth in regard to creation, and it is so plain and clear that one is brought into nearness with his Creator, and feels the inspiring and uplifting strength of His sacred presence. Evolution sets one adrift in the fog to guess his way out. And some of the things that are guessed out, and that we are asked in all seriousness to believe, require a greater faith in the evolutionist than God asks us to confide in Him when we accept the Bible story of creation. Evolution sooner or later leads to infidelity; and infidelity gives a religion that is colder and more gloomy than out-and-out heathenism. The fact that some influential ministers believe in evolution does not invalidate the fact just stated. Evolution leads to infidelity, no matter what its professions or the pretensions of those who hold to it. It is against all these evils that the Sabbath stands. The Lord knew in the beginning all about the influences against which mankind would have to contend in holding their Creator in mind; and He foresaw the need of a constant reminder of His creative work, so as to hold man from the pitfalls that would beset his feet. Hence He gave the Sabbath to be a great memorial of the real power that was exerted in creation. Every one who reveres the Lord and His Word will have a very tender place in his affections for the Lord’s Sabbath. He will desire to keep the day holy because of the fact that it gives him richer and clearer views of his Creator. He will desire to study the Bible so as to know just how the Lord wants the day kept. In the next paper the Sabbath in conversion will be considered. Notwithstanding the fact that politics is becoming more corrupt every day; that the laws of the land are being systematically nullified by those sworn to enforce them; and that municipal governments have become a synonym for protected crime of every kind, the majority of the religious people are holding on to the vain hope that somehow, in some way, these things are going to work out satisfactorily, peace be restored, the good laws of the land be enforced, and tranquillity and good government hold sway in the earth. That is what ought to be; but it is what will not be until the Creator has renovated this long abiding-place of sin. That this is a fact is shown by the following scripture, which has been quoted in these columns many times, but which is always applicable when this subject is under consideration: “Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.” 2 Tim. 3:13. That work, the increase of wickedness, will be in full swing up to the very time that God declares, “It is finished.” The time referred to in the above quotation is plainly indicated in the first verses of this chapter: “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.” With these declarations of Holy Writ in mind, we have only to turn to the Saviour’s own words in regard to the last days, to see that there is to be no lessening of the evil until Christ puts a sharp and sudden end to the tragedy of sin: “As it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.” Luke 17:26, 27. There was no period then of a return to the ways of righteousness; neither was there before the destruction of Sodom. See verses 28 and 29. But Christ declares to His twelve disciples, and thru them to us, “Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.” There is, therefore, no grounds for the hope or expectation that a human remedy will be found which will rectify the terrible evils existing on every hand; no ground for believing that there is to be a reaction of the race against the downward drift of the tide of sin. Individuals will be saved as brands from the burning, or be plucked one by one out of the flood; but the wickedness which is increasing to-day will continue to increase to-morrow, evil waxing worse and evil-doers multiplying “until the day that” the righteous enter “into the ark;” for, “As it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.” It is Christ Himself who is telling us that. Then what right have we to look for a time of peace, tranquillity, righteousness, before He comes to reward the righteous and punish the wicked? That we are now in perilous, deplorable times many are willing to admit. The Homiletic Review for April gives a resume of these times under the caption “The Reign of Anarchy,” from which we take the following:— “A crisis has been reached in the misrule of our American cities. Often the worst elements are in control, and officials are in league with the scoundrels. The potent lords are thieves, gamblers, and9 the creators of drunkards, of delirium tremens, of idiocy, of poverty, of disease, of vice, of crime, and of a heredity which means degeneracy and contains the seeds of corruption. Men are elected to office with the distinct pledge that they will perjure themselves by protecting law-breakers and sharing the profits of their infamous gains.” “This is glaring anarchy. The law is purposely set aside, and its functions are usurped by anarchists. The evils are aggravated by the fact that men appointed for the very purpose of enforcing the laws are the most conspicuous violators of the laws, and therefore the worst of the criminals. Their example is a premium on crime, and so long as their dominion continues, crimes will flourish. . . . So dire is the disgrace stamped on official life that decent men shun office. Children of Christian parents are placed in an environment of filth; they are ensnared by the tempter and ruined. The whole tone of the community is degraded, and the atmosphere itself has the contagion of vice. The standard of religion is lowered, the church robbed of its power, and the preacher’s best efforts are frustrated. Whether this reign of anarchism will lead, no one can tell.” But the Lord has told. He has plainly declared that these things would be; that they would be in the last days; that as wickedness of every kind was rampant on every hand right up to the day that Noah entered into the ark, we could expect the same things right up to the day that He should come. The writer of that article, however, pretends to find in an awakened Christian conscience and in Christian politics a positive remedy for the corruption which exists. This for instance: “Let the people but determine to support only good men for office, and the thing is done.” Now, if the writer of that understood what these things portend, or believed what God has said concerning them, he could not have made this statement. The thing will not be “done” in the way he expects. It will be done when God declares: “He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still; and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still; and he that is holy, let him be holy still. And, behold, I come quickly; and My reward is with Me, to give every man according as his work shall be.” Rev. 22:11, 12. We see that injustice, unrighteousness, filthiness continue until the end, and that sentence is the death sentence of the sinner and his sin. “The thing is done,” then, and done for all eternity. It is followed “quickly” by the personal appearance of the Lord in glory. So let us not pin our faith to vain and groundless hopes, and be among those who are overwhelmed in the deception of the perilous days upon which we have already entered.