Review and Herald, Vol. 28, No. 13. (8/28/1866)

Review and Herald

Aug 28, 1866

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 28, 1866

NATURE AND DESTINY OF MAN.

By N. V. Hull

DISCUSSION BETWEEN ELD. N. V. HULL, SEVENTH-DAY BAPTIST, AND ELD. R. F. COTTRELL, SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTIST.

(Continued from Review No. 2, Vol. xxviii.)

Elder Hull's Twelfth Article.

ELD. R. F. COTTRELL:

Dear Brother,—In your reply to my previous letter, you commence by saying, “Concerning the duration of future punishment, we shall have no controversy. We are agreed that the final damnation and punishment of the wicked will be eternal. From the sentence there is no reprieve, and from the punishment there is no restoration. Hence it is eternal. But in regard to the nature of the punishment, we may differ in part, not wholly, I trust. I shall hold that the punishment of the wicked will eventuate in death, with no resurrection beyond it. This is eternal punishment.”

Either I do not understand you, or in these sentences you not only differ widely from me, but you also contradict yourself. It is manifest, that punishment ends with consciousness. You cannot punish a tree or a stone, nor can you shame a horse. My position is, that the punishment of the wicked will be without end, the smoke of their torment ascending up forever and ever. Rev. xiv, 11. When torment ceases, punishment ends. This use of language is common and universal. Yours is special, and not justified by the language of past ages or the present. You say that loss or deprivation is punishment, as well as pain. But is not loss or privation punishment only in so far as they are designed to produce pain?

When you say that the punishment of the wicked will eventuate in death, do you mean to say that death is a part of the punishment? I understand you to use the term death in the sense of cessation of consciousness. But how, if continued consciousness is not the natural condition of the human spirit, can its loss be a punishment? If you say that the punishment consists of the painful circumstances under which the spirit ceases to be conscious, then these painful circumstances are the punishment, and not the loss of consciousness.

When you say that I will attempt to prove that the wicked will have eternal conscious suffering, you are right. Surely, I could not argue that punishment continued after consciousness ceased. That would involve the idea of being and not being at the same time, which is a contradiction.

But in order that this discussion proceed intelligibly, it is needful that I define the terms life and death. In the Scriptures, especially in the New Testament, besides the ordinary ones, those of every day life, they have special significations—significations peculiar to the religious ideas contained in the Book. Of this I have spoken in former articles. Physical death is the separation of the vital force from the particles of which the body is composed. In this state, all the powers of the body cease. There is remaining neither sense nor feeling. Dead men cannot think; in the grave there is no knowledge. This is the primary meaning of death. The word has several other meanings; but the one in which we are particularly interested is its figurative signification. When describing the moral or spiritual state of man, the word death describes the state of the sinner condemned. All have sinned, and are therefore in a state of death. See Eph. ii, 1, “You also being dead in trespasses and in sins.” 1 Tim. v, 6, “But she that lives in pleasure is dead while she lives.” Luke xv, 24, “Because this my son was dead and is alive again.” These texts show that one under the curse of the law, or in a state of sin, is in Scripture phrase dead. But I proceed to show that life and death, in this figurative sense, are contrasted in the Bible, so as to show unmistakably their meaning. John v, 24, “Verily, Verily, I say to you, He that hears my word, and believes him that sent me, has everlasting life, and comes not into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.” 1 John iii, 14, “We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He that loves not his brother abides in death.”

Moral or spiritual death, then, is the result of wresting ourselves from the favor of God by sin. The state of sin in which the race is found, is not natural. Sin is destructive. Whatever man inherited from God, in his sinless state, he lost by sin. His alienation is a state of death. When man is born again, he is raised to life. “Your life is hid with Christ in God.” Col. iii, 3. And because this life in the new birth comes through Jesus Christ, he is called “our life.” Col. iii. 4. This, then, is the eternal life which we receive when we pass from death, or out of death into life. It is eternal life, because we need no other moral cleansing to fit us for Heaven. The resurrection proper takes effect upon the body, constituting it like unto Christ’s glorious body, and occurs at the end of the world. At the resurrection, the spirit having already come into the moral image of God by the transforming power of grace, is united to the spiritual body, and so the whole man is redeemed and stands perfect before God.

On the word destroy, you say, “When applied to animals and men, it means to put an end to life, to kill, to slay, to extirpate.” In a general way, this is a fair definition; but that it is an exact definition, covering the term in all its uses, is far from being true. To define the term thus in its bearing upon this discussion is utterly delusive. Destroy, here, is the synonym of ruin. And is not a spirit or person ruined or destroyed, who is driven away into everlasting punishment? Will you please answer this question in your next, and say whether such an one is destroyed or not? The word apollumi, or its equivalent, translated in 2 Thess. i, 9, destruction, occurs in the New Testament between ninety and one hundred times, and is translated by the terms destroy, perish, loss, &c., and in every instance their meaning is determined by the context, or the nature of the things to which they are applied. But by no possibility can it have the meaning you have given it in various instances. To illustrate, take Matt. x, 6, 15, 24, where Jesus speaks of the lost sheep of the house of Israel. These persons were not dead, or killed, slain, etc. Indeed, I do not recollect a passage in which it has the meaning you give it, when it refers to man’s moral condition. Besides, in the case of 2 Thess. i, 9, the passage must be collated with other passages in the New Testament upon the same subject, and be interpreted in harmony with them. Especially must it be interpreted in harmony with the words of Jesus. Christ is chief, and any interpretation of Paul that makes him collide in the slightest degree with Jesus, must be avoided. Nor may the stronger words of Jesus be interpreted by those which even seem limited or weaker. I mean, the stronger must not be limited by the weaker. Take, then, the words of Jesus, Matt. xxv, 46, “And these shall go away into everlasting punishment,” and what other interpretation than the one I have given meets them in their fullness? Even Theodore Parker admitted that this was their meaning. We must not attempt to change them.

You admit the idea of degrees in punishment; but this suggests some inquiries as to how your theory of the nature of future punishment allows of this. If I understand you, you hold that at the resurrection the wicked will be raised with material bodies, and then cast into a lake of material fire, and burned up. If so, what is to hinder their all being consumed at once? If the fire is as intense as supposed, how is it possible for these persons to live more than a few minutes? How long could you, constituted as you are, live in a seething lake of fire and brimstone? Besides, would not a wicked man, under such circumstances, die as soon as a good man, suppose the good man to be there? Upon this principle, the punishment being material, why will not the one guilty of but little, suffer as long and as intensely as the one guilty of much? Or, will you say that God will miraculously sustain the life of the one guilty of much, that he may be punished the more, and miraculously hasten the death of the other, that he may only suffer what is due? As to death, however, you make them all suffer alike. Is

this just? If there is a difference in that part of the penalty relating to the burning, why not of the dying also, provided that is a part of the penalty?

Very truly yours,

N. V. HULL.

Beyond the Power of Sin.

By E. W. Darling

BEYOND the power of sin—oh joyful thought, Should ever we, poor pilgrims reach that place Prepared by Jesus, by his sufferings bought, Where we shall see unvailed his smiling face.

Beyond the power of sin,—no guilty fear, Nor deep remorse, nor writhings of despair, No blighted youth to press an early bier, Nor mortal bowed with weight of worldly care.

Beyond the power of sin—the gloom all gone That broods so darkly o’er our ruined race, A world restored, the ruin shall atone, And hallowed luster beam from every face.

Beyond the power of sin—so mighty now, And we so prone to taste the poison cup— Relenting, we the paths of vice pursue, Hating our faults, but slow to give them up.

Beyond the power of sin—we still have hope That Christ will purify his people here, And then in clouds of glory take them up To full salvation in a nobler sphere.

E. W. DARLING.

Faribault, Minn.

Eld. R. F. Cottrell’s Twelfth Reply,

By R. F. Cottrell

ELD. N. V. HULL:

Dear Brother,—The sense in which I admit of eternal punishment, is easily understood. It is not in the sense of the eternity of the pain, but the eternity of its consequences. Paul calls the last judgment the “eternal judgment,” Heb. vi, 2; not because God will be eternally judging men, and they never be judged. The time will come when mankind will have been judged; so the time will come when the wicked will have been punished. The judgment and the punishment will be final, irreversible and eternal in their consequences. I by no means admit, however, that aion, translated everlasting, eternal, ever, ages, &c., always signifies endless duration. Paul speaks of the end of the aion. Heb. ix, 26. Period of duration, time, age, lifetime, &c., are given as definitions of aion. When speaking of a mortal being, these definitions expressing limited duration may be applied; but when it refers to the age of an immortal being, it is proper to apply those definitions which express endless duration.

Death is a terrible punishment. It cuts off the person from all the enjoyments of life; and unless life and consciousness be restored, he is cut off from them forever. You may persuade the man doomed to be hung, or beheaded, or crushed to atoms in an instant beneath one ponderous blow, that, his neck being dislocated, or his head crushed in a moment, he would scarcely be sensible of the slightest pain. And you may try to comfort him with the thought that “punishment ends with consciousness,” and that “when torment ceases, punishment ends;” yet you cannot by any sophistry convince him that death is no punishment at all. He will choose life with much pain, rather than be cut off from life and joy forever. But let him be assured that he will be restored to life, and he will prefer unconsciousness for a time, to severe suffering.

I have nothing to object to your definition of death in its primary sense; neither do I deny that life and death, as well as other words, are used in a figurative sense. But it is for you to show that in those passages which speak of death as the punishment of sin, it is so used. It will not do to say, Death is sometimes used in a figurative sense; therefore it has no literal meaning, at least in those passages in which a literal interpretation would contradict the popular creed. Come to the passages, and give some other reason that they are figurative than that the words are sometimes used in a figurative sense.

God threatened death to Adam as the punishment of sin. In pursuance of this threatening, after he had sinned he pronounced this penalty against him: “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” Nothing further was threatened, or even intimated. Is this figurative death? And would not this have been the end of our race, but for Christ and the resurrection? I repeat it, nothing further was threatened. Did God keep secret the most terrible part of the penalty of sin?—even everlasting pains after death? Tell it not in Gath! Let not this news reach the skeptic’s ear.

The figurative use of words is founded upon the literal. The sinner is dead in trespasses and sins, because he is in a state that ends in death. “The end of these things is death.” Rom. vi, 21. We say of the convicted murderer, he is a dead man; because we are certain that death will be his portion. In pronouncing his sentence, the judge will not say, You are guilty of murder. For this offense you are doomed to be a murderer? No; death will be his doom. But in case the murderer is pardoned, he “has passed out of death into life.” Is future punishment a death that men can pass out of, after they are really in it?

Christ and his apostles do not disagree in their testimony. There is no necessity of preferring one inspired testimony above another. The “everlasting punishment” of which Jesus speaks, is the “everlasting destruction” of the apostle. It is true, destruction may be used figuratively; but you can produce no evidence that it is so used in the text, “Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord.” It is not banished from his presence, but destroyed. You have utterly failed to prove the immortality of the soul in the former part of our discussion. Not one text says it, directly or indirectly. So there is no necessity of understanding this destruction to be figurative. But, on the other hand, there is an absolute necessity of understanding it in the literal sense. Its harmony with other scriptures demands it. Mal. iv, 1. “All the proud, yea, all that do wickedly, shall be stubble.” All includes the whole. Stubble is readily consumed by fire. “And the day that cometh shall burn them up.” It is themselves, and not some appendage, that is to be burned up, “that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.” Should one say of a tree, “It is burned up, so as to leave neither root nor branch,” we would understand it was wholly consumed—nothing left. No language could be stronger to prove that the wicked will be wholly and literally consumed. Psa. xxxvii, 20. “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.” Those who had seen the fat of lambs consumed on the altar of burnt-offerings, could understand this text. There is only one way to understand it; the comparison as the fat of lambs, makes it literal. In explaining the parable of the tares of the field Jesus said, “The tares are the children of the wicked one. . . . The harvest is the end of the world, and the reapers are the angels. As, therefore, the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so shall it be in the end of this world. The Son of Man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them that do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.” Matt. xiii, 24–43. These testimonies show that the wicked will be personally and literally destroyed. As I said, there is no necessity of understanding the everlasting destruction with which the wicked are to be punished, in a figurative sense; but there is a necessity of understanding it literally. No text teaches that man has an immortal part, which the fire of God cannot consume. But the wicked are compared to stubble, fat, tares, chaff, &c., the most combustible things, and we are positively taught that as these things are totally burned up in the fire, so the wicked themselves shall be. This will be the decision of the eternal judgment, and this will be their everlasting punishment.

You say truly, that apollumi, or its equivalent, “is translated by the terms destroy, perish, lose, &c.,” and I heartily endorse your remark, that “in every instance their meaning is determined by the context, or by the nature of the things to which it is applied.” The lost sheep of the house of Israel were living men, who like lost sheep were in danger of perishing. Hence the language is figurative. They were not absolutely destroyed, but were in danger of being destroyed. It was possible they might be brought back to the fold, and their lives be saved. Hence the Saviour came to seek and save them. But this is not the case with those who are doomed to perish or be destroyed at the last judgment. Now apply your invariable rule of interpretation to 2 Thess. i, 9. There is nothing in the context to show that olethros, destruction, is used in a figurative sense. There is nothing in the nature of “mortal man” to forbid its literal interpretation. Please come to the point, and not talk around it. Proceed to the proof that in this instance the language is figurative. And when you have proved that the death and destruction threatened as the future punishment of the wicked is figurative, you will have proved that there is no real future punishment—nothing more than the wicked are suffering or enjoying in this life, while they are “dead in trespasses and sins;” and hence there is no use of a future judgment.

You further say of apollumi, “Indeed I do not recollect a passage in which it has the meaning you give it, when it refers to man’s moral condition.” (The italics are mine.) Very well; I do not. But the sinner’s moral condition and his punishment are distinctly two things. It is his moral condition that makes his punishment necessary. It is because his moral condition exposes him to literal death, that he, in a figure, is said to be dead. Do not confound sin and its punishment. If you do, you will not be able to prove any future retribution at all. Will the decision of the judgment be, You have sinned, therefore you shall be a sinner? The very act of sin makes man a sinner. It is the necessary effect of his own act, and not a punishment from God.

From what you say in your closing paragraph, I think you will be able to understand how there can be degrees in future punishment; especially if you bear in mind that the ultimate punishment of sin is not a natural effect, like the physical penalty for the violation of physical law, but something which God in just retribution inflicts for the violation of moral law. But if you are further troubled on this point, I will ask you to explain the different degrees in eternal torture, as you are on the affirmative. Your answer to this perhaps will give me the clue.

“God is angry with the wicked every day.” Psa. vii, 11. He cannot cease to be angry with them while they are sinning and he inflicting punishment. But when sinners are destroyed, he ceases to be angry with them. “For yet a little while, and the indignation shall cease, and mine anger in their destruction.” Isa. x, 25. When sin and sinners cease to be, God will be angry no more. Truly yours, R. F. COTTRELL.

The Coming of the Lord.

By C. MONROE

MARTIN LUTHER, who died in 1546, said that something strikingly awful would take place to warn the world of its approaching end; and that even then, the last day was at the door. That “something awful” has already occurred in many particulars, especially in the alarming, dark, dismal day of May 19, 1780, which was foretold by our Saviour, as a warning of the last great day. An eye-witness said of that day, “It was very thick and dark before 12 o’clock; and after that it looked frightful!”

“All the world,” says Luther, “will be saying to itself, Peace and safety.” 1 Thess. v, 3. This seems now the general cry, the world wide, even in the midst of alarms,—heralding “sudden destruction.”

“The day shall come as the lightning’s stroke! Help, O Lord! let the final stroke come, and make an end. When we shall see the sun and moon turning away their eyes, then has the time come for the death of nature, when God and angels come to lay her in the tomb!—the funeral of the world!”

About one year before his death, Luther said of passing events, “I do most earnestly hope that these are the blessed signs of the immediate end of all things.” And when drawing still nearer the close, he said, “I persuade myself, verily, that the day of judgment will not be absent full three hundred years more. God will not, can not, suffer this wicked world much longer. May he come at once. Let him cut the whole matter short with the day of judgment; for there is no amendment to be expected. I see no other prayer that is fitting but this, Thy kingdom come. Come when he may, he will find but a small flock of believers.”

“He will delay his coming so long,” says Matthew Henry, “that wicked people will begin to defy it, and to say, ‘Where is the promise of his coming?’ They will challenge him to come, and his delay will harden them in their wickedness. Even his own people will begin to despair of it; and conclude he will never come, because he has passed their reckoning, saying, The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me.” Isa. xlix, 14.

The Judgment day, embracing the coming of Christ, is said to be that day for which all other days were made, not of twelve, or twenty-four hours merely, but a thousand of our brief years. 2 Pet. iii, 8. This makes it a most awful, tremendous day! Thus God speaks and acts in reference to it. Hence his many seasonable, faithful warnings to the world to prepare for it. This is as it should be; for a failure here on our part is for eternal ages! How then can we spend our days in sin, or vanity, and throw ourselves away!

“God is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that

any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” 2 Pet. iii, 9. Hence his long delay of coming as we expected more than twenty years ago. He saw that we were wholly unprepared for such an event; and has given us ample time to regulate our hearts and lives, and get ready. And have we done it? It was in mercy to us, and to all, that he has so long delayed his coming. By this can we fail to perceive that it is no small thing to get ripe and ready for so great an event?—the greatest of all; the turning-point of the world’s destiny for eternity! Hence, he waited to the extreme of mercy and forbearance. But woe, woe, to the scoffer, and all the wicked when he comes!

Again, as to the evidences of Christ’s speedy coming we have abundance in the pervading wickedness of the world, its abounding iniquity, and its likeness to Sodom, and the old world in the days of Noah and Lot, when “all flesh had corrupted its way, and the earth was filled with violence.” Gen. vi, 12, 13, 18, 20; Luke xvii, 26–30. What Bro. Foote says of our country, may we think be said of the world itself: “It is hopelessly in the hands of Satan.” And it will so remain till Christ comes. Lord, hasten the day; for our souls are sick with every day’s report of wrong and outrage, with which the earth is filled! “At Brownville, Texas,” says The Press, “it is a common remark at the breakfast table, ‘Well, who was killed last night?’ Or, ‘Were there any bodies found floating in the river yesterday?’”

Another sign is the general declension of morals and religion in the nominal church. “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men (Christians, Wakefield), shall be lovers of their own selves, &c. 2 Tim. iii, 1.

Still another sign is found in the rise and progress of modern Spiritualism, so called, but really Diabolism. 1 Tim. iv, 1. Modern, because it is an old thing new-vamped,—about as old as Satan himself, its author. “Ye shall not surely die,” is its true rendering. It is a remarkable co-incidence that its rise was almost immediately after 1844, the same year Christ passed, as we believe, from the holy to the most holy place, in the heavenly sanctuary.

But he will come in the very midst of these diabolical works of Satan and his numerous adherents; for Paul says, “whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and destroy with the brightness of his coming.” 2 Thess. ii, 8. This coming takes off the mask, dooms Satan, and gives a true version of Spiritualism. Besides, this thing tells where we now are, and what is the next mighty event at the doors.

Finally, as there was in the first advent, a general “expectation, and all men mused in their hearts” upon the subject, Luke iii, 15, so it is now. All seem to be looking for some great and startling event, known only to the “children of light.” They are not in darkness concerning it. 1 Thess. v, 4, 5. Others will remain in darkness, till, as the lightning’s stroke, it flashes upon their astonished view. Matt. xxiv, 27; Luke xxi, 35.

Now, brethren, what shall we say of that delightful, yet dreadful day; the coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ? What said the good Richard Baxter? “The thoughts of the coming of the Lord are most joyful to me. . . . Oh, that I might see his kingdom come!” That good man, it is said, lived in continued longing, and looking for the appearing of the Lord Jesus. “I am sure,” said he, “it is the work of faith, and character of his saints to love his appearing; and to look for that blessed hope.” Yes, this is the test of character and basis of the promise of the crown of righteousness of which the apostle speaks, which is laid up for him, and for all that love Christ’s appearing. See 2 Tim. iv, 8.

For my part, far as I am from the high position of Baxter, I think I can safely say, I love my blessed Saviour so well that I should rejoice exceedingly to see him coming in the clouds of heaven, “the fairest of all the fair that fill the heavenly train!” Why not long to see my greatest, dearest, best friend, who has done so much for me? He bore for me the shameful cross, and carried all my grief.” The debt of love I owe is great; but I have nothing to pay. Here is my heart, my life, ’tis all that I can give.

C. MONROE.

Waldo, Me.

Rome—the Unsolved Question.

“The world is giving way,” remarked the Pope’s Minister, ANTONELLI, recently, when he heard that the Emperor of Austria had been compelled to give up Venetia. Standing in the center of the world and by the side of the Pope, the distinguished Cardinal has certainly an opportunity of forming an opinion on the subject more nearly correct than that of ordinary mortals. We may, however, though standing on the outskirts of the earth, be allowed to agree with the Cardinal at least as to the world in which he moves and plays his part. It is giving way, beyond a question.

The French troops are, by the treaty, to be withdrawn from Rome next month. After that—what? What but the end of things? Can Rome stand? Can the Temporal Power continue to exist? They are the pillars on which it has been supported; and though, in taking them away, provision be made for new props, is there not danger in the change, and doubt as to the strength and durability of the new arrangement?

But will the Emperor withdraw his troops from the support of the Pope? Will he not find some pretext for retaining them, or will he not seek for some substitute, or attempt to secure for his Holiness guarantees which will amount to the same thing as if the French troops were retained in Rome? The Emperor has kept to the terms and conditions of the treaty thus far, and there is no reason to believe that he will fail to consummate its provisions at the specified time. Had Italy been so foolish as to quarrel with him in regard to the cession of Venetia, a different face might have been put on things; but as matters now stand, in regard to all points in which the two Powers are jointly interested, and in regard to the general relations of France with Europe, we see no ground for a desire on the Emperor’s part of departing in the least from the terms of the treaty, or of delaying a day in carrying out effectually its stipulations. It is possible that in withdrawing, the Emperor will attempt to hold Italy to the agreement not to interfere by force of arms in the affairs of the States of the Church, nor to foment any revolutionary movements among the Roman people themselves; but it is not unlikely that in the present state of affairs Italy will be able to make liberal terms even on these points, and not be compelled to forego taking advantage of such contingencies as may arise in the future.

The prostration of Austria is undoubtedly the severest blow the Papacy has yet received—worse than that which enabled VICTOR EMANUEL to remove his throne from Turin to Florence. Austria was really the only first-class power in Europe which could be firmly relied on to support the Temporal Power in its critical hour. England, Prussia, and Russia are out of the question, as well as out of the pale of the Church. France has been a friend, after a fashion, hitherto; but can either man or Pope have a straight-forward reliance upon LOUIS NAPOLEON? As for the minor Catholic Powers, like Spain or Belgium, they simply could not count at all in this case. But Austria, in the forefront of the great Powers, and looked up to by all the minor Catholic States, was altogether and always to be trusted in for upholding the Papal authority, and moreover was always as willing to give proof of her faith as she was stiff in maintaining it. She had also a hereditary fondness for interfering in Italian affairs, and keeping them in such shape as suited her interests and principles. She was ready and eager to take the place of France in Rome upon the withdrawal of French troops; and there is no doubt that the Papal Government would vastly have preferred an Austrian to a French garrison. But now the most reliable and strongest of the Catholic Powers and the Pope’s friends is not only prone before her great Protestant enemy, Prussia, but has been rendered powerless to interfere in Italy, and by the cession of Venetia, has given up her hold on Italian soil. Her intrigues in that quarter are over, so far as they can be considered of any effect, and neither exiled Prince nor tottering Pope need longer look to her for assistance. It was doubtless in view of these things, and the prospects arising therefrom, that ANTONELLI felt the “world to be giving way.”

If a general European Conference or Congress should be convened—as probably will be the case—Italy will doubtless press her claims there for a definite and acceptable settlement of the Roman question. Venetia she has, and everything else she can rightly demand, except Rome. And Rome she cannot do without. Her claims would be supported by Prussia, by England and by Russia. Austria might oppose, and France be inclined to chaffer; but the expiration of the treaty to maintain a French force in Rome makes the way easy for the withdrawal of France from all further interference in Italian affairs.—N. Y. Times.

A New Plague

A NEW PLAGUE.—A sort of plague has broken out in a village near Suez. The victims drop in the street as if they were shot. Their appearance at first is that of brown paper, and immediately afterward they become as black as charcoal.

Items for the Times.

“LOVERS OF PLEASURES.” etc.,—2 Tim. iii, 4.

The Portland Advertiser says, “Put this and that together;” then quotes from the N. Y. Express,—“Pews in Rev. H. W. Beecher’s church.—The sale of choice pews this year amounted to $29,436, nearly $3,000 more than last; this, with the rental—$12,158, makes the pew income $41,594, $400 being paid for choice of the pews.” Simultaneously with the above announcement, there appeared in “The Boudoir,” the ladies’ illustrated paper of fashions, the following notice: “The readers of the Boudoir should not fail to peruse every one of the pages this week. Each is filled to its limit with the liveliest reading and gossip of life, the news of fashion, the affairs of the beau monde, and all matters of general interest to ladies. We gave last week the current fashions as displayed at Beecher’s church, and in this issue we notice them as displayed at St. Stephen’s.” Perhaps, by putting this and that together, some idea may be obtained of the reason why high prices are paid for pews, and what some people go to church for.

VALUE OF CHRISTIANITY.

The Independent of a late issue gave editorial prominence to what the editor seemed to think a good joke; which was, that a Sunday School child being asked “who died for her,” replied, “Abraham Lincoln.” The Journal of Commerce, commenting on it, regards that as a very strange Christian mind, which can see a joke in such a story. We quote: “The Sabbath, the Bible, the church, all the most sacred scenes and associations, have been very much mixed up with the wild passions of human strife; and the world is not any better for it. We have emerged from fierce war into political contests, scarcely less fierce; and now, if ever, is the time to rescue the churches, and the religion of the land, from absolute subjection to the world and its interests. The most fearful illustration possible is given in Missouri, where the law now requires a political oath as the privilege of teaching and preaching the gospel.”

WORLD AT WAR.

The Portland Advertiser of a late issue, quoting from another paper an article on “The world at war,” says:—“The actual condition of Christendom to-day, affords a striking commentary upon Stuart Mills’s observation, that the remark of the early enemies of the gospel, ‘See how these Christians love one another,’ is not likely to be made by anybody now. While the Mohammedan and Pagan nations of the world are getting on peacefully and quietly enough, the Christian powers in both continents are in a ferment of war and war’s worst passions. The Crescent just now sheds a milder and less baleful light on mankind than the cross. To keep the peace of the world in the midst of such chances of strife, is probably a task beyond the reach of diplomacy, and all signs conspire to indicate that Europe is entering upon another ‘battle summer,’ not less terrible than the memorable season which earned that dread name, on fields drenched with blood, from the Rhine to the Vistula, and from Naples to the Northern sea.”

Says the Post of June 18, 1866, speaking on War, “It is a grave crisis in every point of view; and its end no man can determine.”

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