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Review and Herald, Vol. 46, No. 24.

ROME'S ATTEMPTS TO DESTROY THE BIBLE
Earlier text: ROME'S ATTEMPTS TO DESTROY THE BIBLE

A Comparison.

By Eliza H. Morton

As we look back over the long history of this world, we see many things in the past which are types of coming events. Israel of old is a type of the church of God in the gospel dispensation. In the former dispensation, for centuries, God talked with man, as it were, face to face. He dwelt in the flaming Shechinah, and made known the oracles of his will. Prophets appeared at intervals and God manifested himself in a special manner to the children of men.
But a change came. For a period of three hundred years no prophet appeared in Israel, and God ceased to hold intercourse with his chosen people. The glory of Israel departed, and Jehovah made no sign that he heard the prayers or heeded the sacrifices of the worshipers in his temple. What was the cause of these tokens of divine displeasure?
The priests had become corrupt, and the great body of Levites, save in outward form, had little more true religion than the priests of Roman idolatry. The outer court of the temple was thronged with merchants, who, under plea of selling victims for sacrifices, carried on every sort of traffic. But little reverence was manifested for sacred things, and the magnificent ceremonies of the temple, with all their gorgeousness, were simply a gilded show, whitewashed without, but unclean and rotten within.
The hope of ancient Israel centered in the Shiloh to come, who was to restore all things. At length the long silence was broken by the “voice of one crying in the wilderness,” and then “He came for whom the ages waited;” but the people were not prepared to receive him, and rejected and crucified their only hope.
Let us now make a comparison. The former part of this dispensation was marked by the outpouring of God's Spirit, and many miracles were wrought by Christ's disciples. The church at first was a separate and peculiar people and walked with God in humility of heart; but a change came. The world crept in, and the fine gold became dim. The ministers preached smooth things and pleasing fables, and succeeded in making the religion of Jesus appear popular in the eyes of the world. Costly churches have been built and the pomp of religious services has so increased that the mighty men of earth, the wealthy, the fashionable, and the proud, together bow before the altar.
The hope of modern Israel centers in the second appearing of the Messiah and the setting up of his everlasting kingdom. The mass of the people of the present age are as much deceived in regard to the manner of his second appearing as ancient Israel were in regard to his first advent.
I will not carry out the comparison. Every candid mind can see the similarity between the two ages of the world.
I do not say that the church of God has entirely lost its power. I believe there are Christians in all denominations; and I believe that when the Master returns he will find a people waiting for him and ready for translation. ELIZA H. MORTON.
Allen's Corner, Me.

The Two Covenants.

By L. H. Ells

“Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the Spirit: for the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life.” 2 Cor. 3: 6.
Paul was a minister of the new covenant; of that which in reality could give life. Under the old covenant no one could receive life; for of the law, concerning which the old covenant was made, Paul says that the carnal mind is not subject to it, neither indeed can be. Rom. 8: 7.
The old covenant required strict obedience to this law, without which, condemnation followed; and the very law “which was ordained to life” condemns the world; for all have transgressed it. Thus it slays us, by giving us a knowledge of our sin; “for the wages of sin is death.”
The only way that those who lived in the past dispensation could obtain eternal life, was by a typical atonement service, or ministration, which pointed forward to the new covenant for its accomplishment; so that no one, whether living in the past or present dispensation, can scripturally hope for salvation, except through the new covenant sacrifice.
God is just in demanding strict obedience to his law, and in offering eternal life to the obedient; and he is merciful in extending pardon, on condition of faith and repentance, through the ministration of Christ, the mediator of the new covenant, “who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God,” “that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.” Heb. 9: 14, 15.
By “the letter” I understand Paul to mean this law by which the natural man is “slain,” Rom. 7: 10, 11, which law was ordained to give life, if obeyed; but, being transgressed, brings death; hence, “the letter killeth.”
“But the Spirit giveth life.” What is it that giveth life to him who is slain by the law? Let Paul answer: “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death; for what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” Rom. 8: 2–4. Again, “But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies, by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.” Verse 11. “Now the Lord is that Spirit.” 2 Cor. 3: 17. “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Rom. 6: 23.
“The letter,” then, which “killeth,” is the law of God, which slays the sinner; “the Spirit,” which “giveth life,” is the Lord Jesus Christ; and blessed be his holy name forever. L. H. ELLS.

THE RIVER OF TIME.

By Marion Bernstein

Roll on, thou mighty river, Roll onward to the sea, The ocean of forever— Immense eternity.
Thou bearest on thy bosom All things that live and die: The hopes that bud and blossom, And all too soon must fly;
The cares of kings and nations, The woes that war imparts; The hidden desolations Of broken homes and hearts;
The joy, the fear, the trouble, The envy, love, and strife, That color this vain bubble That mortal men call life.
Roll on, thou mighty river, Resistless in thy course; For none can stem thy current, Nor aught oppose thy force.
Roll on, thou mighty river; At last thy fate will be To lose thyself forever In vast eternity.
MARION BERNSTEIN.
5, Dunrobin Place, Paisley Road, Glasgow.
NOTE.—The above will form part of a new volume of songs and poems, entitled “Mirren’s Musings,” which will be published as soon as a sufficient number of subscribers have sent in their names to the authoress. Price 2s. 6d. Cloth, gilt edges, with portrait.

Signs of Sin and Hope for God's Return

By Talmage

Signs.

I do not see how God can afford to stay away any longer. It seems to me this world has been mauled of sin about long enough. The church has made such slow headway against the paganism, and the Mohammedanism, and the fraud, and the libertinism, and the drunkenness, and the rapine, and the murder of the world, that there are ten thousand hands now stretched up, beckoning for God to come, and to come now. Enough corn in the United States and Great Britain is annually wasted in brewing and distilling to feed five million men. Every grogshop, every house of infamy, every gambling saloon, every dishonest store and bank insurance company, declare there is no God, or if there is, let him strike if he dare!
Corruption is in most of the city governments—corruption reaching from the weather vane on the top of the city halls down to the lowest stone in the foundation. Thousands of men anxiously waiting for Tweed, the apostle of scoundrelism, to get out of jail; churches with men in their membership not clean enough to swab the door-step of the pit; the theaters, huge houses of shame; three-fourths of the newspapers, with their editors, reporters and printing-presses suborned of the devil; American and European society rotten until the filth drips hissing through into the world beneath, and smells up sickening to the world above; France and Prussia feeling for each other's throats, and, although the dead in battle outnumber five times all the present population of the earth, yet nations longing for war, and this hour six million men arming for conflict, while applauding nations look on, and the cry is, “Blood! give us more blood!” the earth staggering under successive shocks like a foundering ship at the moment when the passengers cry, “She's going down!” the imminent necessity for the world's reformation and purification—all these I take as a proof of the fact that “the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.”
THAT God is coming with his judgments among the nations, I cannot doubt. Look at the floods on both sides the sea. France going down under the wave; the wealth of nations swept off in a day; harvests, vineyards, villages unmoored. Look at the insectiverous assault which was at first considered hardly worthy of a small item in a newspaper; but the grasshopper, and the Colorado bug, and the army worm, have gone on until public fasts have been declared, and the Lord Almighty invoked to arrest the national calamity. Look at the marine disasters, and hear the voice of the shipwrecks. Listen to the roar of the unparalleled conflagrations in Chicago, and Boston, and London. See the toppling over of great commercial establishments everywhere. I tell you that God's controversy with the nations has begun. “The coming of the Lord draweth nigh.”—Talmage.

The Fruits of Error.

By Wm. Cochrane

WHEN we contemplate the sad fact that there are at the present time, in the United States alone, over five millions of persons who are believers in the doctrine of modern spiritualism; that these persons are led by seducing spirits and doctrines of devils; and that they “seek unto those that have familiar spirits, and to wizards that peep and that mutter,” we feel that it is high time for all lovers of the truth to awake, to feel the responsibility resting upon them, and go to work to counteract this great evil. Especially should this responsibility be felt by those who are helping Satan to build and strengthen the false foundation of this great system of error, to which so many souls are being sacrificed.
I doubt not but every honest Christian will say, Amen. This is our duty. Now it is a well-established fact that the best way to cure a disease is to remove the cause; and the foundation of this abominable structure of deception and crime is the doctrine of natural immortality. Remove the foundation and the whole fabric will sink into oblivion, and on the ruins of this heathen superstition one of the great truths of God’s word will be built up.
Then, reader, if you are a believer in the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, renounce that popular error, and adopt in its stead the Bible truths that man is mortal; that God alone is the possessor of inherent immortality; 1 Tim. 6: 16, that it is the gift of God and given to those only who by “patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life;” Rom. 2: 7; and that all who do this will obtain the reward at the resurrection of the just. Luke 14: 14.
May the Lord help his people to see the necessity of exchanging error for Bible truth.
Wm. Cochrane.
Lovington, Ill.

We Should Give Joyously and by System.

WE have now scattered over the seats of enterprise in the United States a class of churchmen, any individual of which could, without the slightest sacrifice of comfort, and perhaps without exceeding the limit of the Scripture tenth of mere income, carry all the expenses of either our Domestic or Foreign Missionary Committee. It is this fearful grasp of material selfishness, this fierce heathen passion for mere possession, that reveals in most startling certainty the secularizing influence.
The gospel nowhere disparages the gathering of property; but it insists inexorably on the rich man's remembering that God's increase shall keep even pace with his own; it commands that, in token of the eternal truth that “the earth is the Lord's and all that is therein,” its first-fruits belong in nowise to the mortal, but to the original Owner, who survives; and the law of definite rates is absolute and unrepealable. Preach this; preach it in love; preach it for their sakes who hear; preach it as the Lord preached the unworldliness of his kingdom to Pilate, whether men will hear or forbear. Circuitous devices will not fulfill the law. Our churches are full of almsgivers who do not really give, or who, when they do, want to cheat themselves into the lower comfort of supposing they get back the worth of their money; of the sort of Louis XIV., whom Madame Maintenon begged to be a little kind out of his royal opulence to the starving peasantry whom his wars of bigotry and ambition had brought to famine. “Madame,” he replied, “I give alms best by spending largely.” By his rule what a benevolent people we are! Saying nothing of his political economy, the best “spending” is not “alms,” and God says “alms.”
I speak of “unwillingness” in giving, because that is the infallible mark of the world-spirit; surer even than the littleness of the gift. Joyous giving; giving as they give whose love makes the gift a relief to longing; giving with the thought lifting the soul up that by it the best Friend is honored and gladdened; giving in order, too, or by system, because in the sphere of grace, as in that of nature, order is beauty and strength together; this giving from the king's money, and from the poor man and the child, is the triumph over this world of the kingdom of Christ. They that practice it, priests or not now, will reign and shine as kings and priests, and be reverenced even by those who hate and fight them now, and when the King of kings and his kingdom shall come.—Sel.

Sunday Laws to Enforce Sabbath Observance!

By Roswell F. Cottrell

“Just in proportion as the minds of our rulers are impressed with the truth that the Sabbath has been divinely ordained from the beginning, and meant as a rule of order for all ages, will we be likely to have Sunday laws to guard it. In proportion, too, as this truth is clearly and energetically apprehended by the people, will such laws have the moral support that will be effective.”—Rev. Prof. Valentine, in Christian Statesman.
What have “Sunday laws” to do in guarding and enforcing the claims of the Sabbath which was “divinely ordained from the beginning, and meant as a rule of order for all ages”? Are our rulers so void of intelligence as not to know that the Sunday and the Sabbath are two days—the first, and the seventh, days of the week? How, then, can laws for the observance of Sunday secure the observance of the seventh day—the day on which God rested in the beginning, and which he blessed and set apart from other days for the observance of mankind? The fourth commandment, the only law in the Bible for the observance of a weekly Sabbath, says expressly, “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” And we learn from the New Testament that the “Sabbath day according to the commandment,” and the first day of the week, are two days, the former being past when the latter dawns. Luke 23: 56; 24: 1. This testimony proves that the week of the New Testament and that of the Old correspond exactly; so that the Sunday is truly what it is constantly called in the New Testament, namely, “the first day of the week,” while the only divine commandment which requires us to keep a Sabbath once in seven days expressly says that the seventh day is that day.
Now the fraud of the Roman church is in their pretended power to set aside the word and the law of God, and to substitute a requirement of their own, obedience to which will be acceptable to God, while it releases them from their obligation to do what God has expressly and plainly commanded; while that of the Protestant church consists in asserting that that substituted duty is not an innovation or substitution, but the very thing required of God in his commandment.
A comparison of the testimony of Romanists and Protestants will illustrate this. First, we quote the words of Romanists as follows: “The church, by virtue of the power she has received from Christ, abolished the Jewish Sabbath and substituted Sunday in its stead.”—F. X. Weninger, D. D. Again, it is argued in the “Doctrinal Catechism,” another Catholic authority, that had not the church power to make new institutions which would be binding upon men, “she could not have substituted the observance of Sunday, the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday, the seventh day, a change for which there is no scriptural authority.”
But while Romanists claim that “the governors of the church” have “changed” the Sabbath into Sunday, have “abolished” the one and “substituted” the other, Protestants claim, as in the quotation at the head of this article, that “Sunday laws” are to guard the Sabbath “divinely ordained from the beginning.” To illustrate this view, we quote the following from a Catechism published by the Presbyterian board:—
“Q. Gen. 2. God did not make anything on the seventh day, what did he do? A. He rested. “Q. Was he tired? A. He was not. “Q. What is meant by saying that he rested? A. That he created nothing more. “Q. Had this day any other name than the seventh? A. It had. “Q. What was it? A. The Sabbath. “Q. Who gave it this name? A. God. “Q. What has God told us about this day in the first part of the fourth commandment? A. ‘Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.’ “Q. To whom does this day belong? “A. This day belongs to God alone, He chooses Sunday for his own; And we must neither work nor play, Because it is the Sabbath day.”
“How fraudulent!” do I hear you exclaim, “to teach innocent and credulous children that Sunday is the day on which God rested, and which he claims as his own—the day he sanctified to himself!” It looks bad, truly, but they hold it to be perfectly explainable in a manner to vindicate themselves.
But we will close this writing by showing how Romanists view it. The Boston Pilot, a Roman Catholic paper, gives the following: “The world, said the preacher, knows how, three centuries ago, the ‘reformers’ went into churches, mutilating the statues, destroying the paintings, pulling down the altars, stripping the priests of their sacred vestments, changing the name of Sunday and calling it ‘the Sabbath,’ the name that properly belongs to Saturday,” &c.
James Blake, M. D., a Roman Catholic, in a debate with a Protestant, said, “Christ never wrote, but God the Father did. He wrote the ten commandments on the tables of stone, and the only commandment he emphasized was that to keep the Sabbath day. ‘Remember to keep holy the seventh day,’ and there is no command so often repeated throughout the Old Testament. If the Bible alone be the gentleman’s rule of faith, he is bound by this commandment; but does he observe it? No, he does not. Has he any Scripture authority for rejecting it? No, he has not. Why, then, does he not observe it? Because the church thought fit to change it. Here the gentleman admits the authority of the church to be superior to the hand-writing of God the Father. And yet he will look you in the face and declare that the Bible, without church authority, is his rule of faith.”
One falsehood or fraudulent transaction makes way for another; but neither of them can be vindicated. A false foundation cannot support the truth. Neither can “Sunday laws” induce the observance of the Sabbath “divinely ordained from the beginning.”
R. F. COTTRELL.

To the Tract Societies.

By S. N. Haskell

We are satisfied that the time has come when we should take the field upon the health question. We should steal a march on the enemies of health, on drug poisons, and such foes. Men and women must be enlightened upon this important subject. It lies in our power to do very much in this direction. Never was there a time when circumstances were more favorable for us as a people to engage in this work than the present.
1. We have a first class Hygienic Family Almanac which should find its way to 150,000 firesides before January, 1876. It has the advantage over a tract, from the fact that it is an almanac, and for that purpose it is as good as any. Every family needs an almanac; and shall not we who have committed to us the light of truth upon the subject of health reform, take advantage of this want of the people, and, while we supply this want, furnish them also the truth, which will prove a blessing to them in this life and also in the one hereafter.
Our tract workers are everywhere; and it is in their power to furnish the public with almanacs. And shall they not do it? We believe they will. Children, as well as those of more mature years, can take a part in this work. One little girl of six summers who has the spirit of the work goes out after school hours and sells them to the neighbors. She has already sold quite large numbers of them. To do something to advance the cause of truth seems to be her greatest delight. This is a sample of what is being done by many children within the bounds of this Conference, and this is as it should be. There should be a general interest by every lover of present truth to enlighten others.
2. We have a series of six health tracts already published. For clearness of thought and importance of matter, they cannot be surpassed. The world is full of people who are dying from dyspepsia, suffering from sick headache, and a thousand other ills, and are daily unwittingly bringing this suffering upon themselves by their unhygienic habits. The evil effects of many of these habits are clearly pointed out by these tracts. And there are thousands of people everywhere who would read upon these subjects if their attention was called to it. We believe the importance of these tracts for this purpose cannot be overestimated. Every director in the tract and missionary work should have a sufficient quantity of them to furnish each working member with them, and thus let afflicted humanity have the light.
3. The circulation of the Health Reformer should be increased by at least twenty thousand paying subscribers annually. Its present mechanical execution is not surpassed by any health journal in the country. The positions taken in it are free from those extremes which disgust sensible people. Although not denominational, it possesses a high moral tone in all its teachings, which will elevate society above the light, trashy reading of the present day. It is in the power of our people through the Tract and Missionary Societies, and individual effort, to do a great and noble work in getting it before the public. It is therefore proposed that the Tract and Missionary Societies offer an

INDUCEMENT,

not to the one who gets the subscriber, but to the one who subscribes for the journal. It is well known that the strength of the tract and missionary system is sacrificing labor for the good of others. The inducement is to give to the individual who subscribes for the Health Reformer the Household Manual which is now being issued. The retail price for this book is seventy-five cents. Therefore, the one who subscribes and pays one dollar, considering the price of the book, gets the Reformer for twenty-five cents. Then the Tract Society pays fifty cents for the Reformer. The remaining fifty cents goes to the Tract Society, after paying for the book, unless special arrangements are made with the canvasser by the Tract Society. This is not to interfere with those who are canvassing for the Reformer and doing their business directly with the Office of publication.
Let it be distinctly understood that this offer is not made to old subscribers who renew their subscription, but to new subscribers who have never before taken the Reformer. Also, all those to whom the Reformer was sent last year as a donation by the Tract Societies should be visited, and an especial effort be made to renew their subscription. An almanac for 1876, Health tracts, or “Healthful Cookery,” might be offered as an inducement, where it is necessary; or even the Household Manual, but discretion, and judgment should be exercised.
We appeal to the Tract and Missionary Societies in this matter. From the voice of the Spirit of God and the very nature of this work, we learn the fact that the health reform sustains that relation to the third angel’s message that the right arm does to the human body. And every one knows that the mind of a nervous dyspeptic cannot be reached by the rays of present truth, and also that he casts doubt and gloom upon all who chance to come under his influence. The time has come for us all to move forward.
We expect that each of our Conference Tract Societies will take hold of this matter. Sisters as well as brethren can take part in this. The health tracts and almanacs will prepare the way for the people to subscribe for the Reformer. We are in earnest in this matter. The Lord is soon coming. The world is to be aroused to these momentous truths, and what are we doing? Will we let worldly interests and covetousness detain us from taking an active part in this cause? Shall we quietly sit by our firesides these long evenings, and let our neighbors and friends go unwarned? Shall we be satisfied to be drones in the service of God? Has not God committed to us this glorious truth for some nobler purpose than simply to enjoy the blessing ourselves? The fact that the providence of God has brought to our knowledge this glorious light is evidence that a responsibility rests upon us to impart it to others, and we will have to meet it individually at the bar of God.
This business can all be done through the State secretaries of the various Tract Societies who will do the business with the Office. When the presidents of the Tract Societies order almanacs and health tracts, let them not forget this other enterprise; viz., obtaining paying subscribers for the Health Reformer, and for this purpose let them order a sufficient quantity of the Household Manual to place in the hands of each director a few copies at once to commence with. There is not a moment to lose. The long evenings are at least one month in advance of us. A sufficient quantity of these books should be in every Society so that the person canvassing can leave one with the individual who pays his dollar for the Reformer. The Household Manual has been prepared expressly to meet the wants of every family. It contains much practical information for every household. It not only gives hygienic instruction, as how to make bread for dyspeptics, cause and cure of common diseases, &c., but contains household hints, such as how to remove grease from fabrics, recipes for making durable whitewash for buildings both outside and inside, cement for glass, wood, metals, stone ware, &c., clearing houses from rats and mice, etc., etc. We confidently believe that any good canvasser can obtain scores if not hundreds of subscribers with this book.
What we have here said in reference to the Reformer, health tracts, and almanacs, should in nowise diminish our interest in the SIGNS. All these enterprises together constitute the work of God. God has ordained that men should be instrumental in carrying them forward. Taken together, they should ever be a specialty to the people of God. Then there are often other calls upon our liberality such as the one coming from Kansas and Missouri to aid in this time of their great strait. Presidents, directors, and all the officers of the Tract Societies, should be alive to all of these different objects and enterprises, and keep them before the minds of the brethren and sisters, so that an interest may be taken in everything connected with the work of God.
We are not living for ourselves but for the cause of Christ. Says the apostle, “For none of us liveth to himself.” Our interests should be linked with everything that pertains to the cause of Christ. The man or woman who has ever felt the spirit of the advent doctrine, and who forgets these different enterprises, and sets before himself any object of personal ease or pleasure, laying his plans for years in the future, makes a great mistake. If such persons have not made themselves captains to go back to Egypt, they have really started.
The prize is before us. Our journey is onward. The work in which we are engaged is an aggressive one. Its nature is that which tends to bring about equality in interest and labor, and thus to forward this work. Every step we take should lead us to a greater spirit of sacrifice, greater devotion, greater renouncing of self. The second coming of Christ and all the truths of God’s word should possess greater attractions as we advance toward the period of final triumph. Our motives will all be tested by the varied circumstances under which we may be placed. It is the voice of God by his Spirit and his providence that calls us to act now. Efforts of the right kind, put forth now, means raised to help forward the special work for these last days, when it is most needed, will yield to the faithful soul everlasting fruit in the kingdom of glory.
S. N. HASKELL.

The New Year.

By James White; John Nevins Andrews; John Norton Loughborough

A DAY OF HUMILIATION, FASTING, AND PRAYER.

We, the Committee of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, do appoint the first day of January, 1876, as a day of humiliation, fasting, and prayer, to be observed as such by all our churches and the scattered brethren and sisters throughout the length and breadth of our land.
The first day of the new year falls on the Sabbath of the Lord, and will be a most appropriate season to commence the new year with humiliation before God, searching of heart and life, fasting, prayer, and new consecration to the service of God. Especial effort should be made to secure a full attendance of the members of all our churches on that day, at their respective places of worship. Our scattered brethren and sisters, who may not be able to attend public worship, are urgently invited to enter heartily and promptly into the devotions of that day at their homes.
Lord willing, we will prepare and publish, in pamphlet form, an address for the occasion which will set forth the wants of the cause and the dangers and duties of our time. This address may be read in all our congregations in connection with the other solemn services of the day.
The address will be published on our Oakland, Cal., press, and be sent out to our preachers, local elders, and other persons, according to our best knowledge of these persons.
James White, J. N. Andrews, J. N. Loughborough. Gen. Conf. Com.

Attention, Sunday!

By C. S.

The Sunday question is becoming a prominent subject of discussion in many parts of the land. Some of our exchanges are devoting to it no little space and attention. The present December number of The Christian Press, has a long article entitled, “The Duty of the Civil Government with Respect to the Sabbath,” in which it strongly urges the government to enforce by law the strict observance of Sunday upon all classes of society. It rests the obligation of Sunday observance upon the fourth commandment in these opening words:—
“Evangelical Christians, with few exceptions, are agreed respecting the wisdom and duty of obedience to the fourth commandment.”
The Christian at Work, of Dec. 2, 1875 also has an article upon this subject, in which it manifests a commendable hesitancy in regard to “believing the observance of the first day of the week to rest upon the command to keep the seventh.” Sound so far. Yet it repeatedly applies the fourth commandment title, Sabbath, to the first-day institution, Sunday.
A great awakening is before this land on this subject, in which people will be astonished to see that there is no Scripture foundation whatever for an institution which has so long held sway in the Christian world. When people appeal to the fourth commandment for authority for Sunday-keeping, they show that their minds have not yet passed the period of early cock-crowing in the examination of this matter. But they would do well to open their eyes fast; for the broad light of day is now shining upon the Sabbath question, which will put the Sunday rest-day to its wits end to find a plea for existence. C. S.

J. H. WAGGONER

By Joseph Harvey Waggoner

January 1, 1876.

I HAVE read the appointment for New Year's day, and think it is very fitting for the time. All who, to any extent, realize the condition and wants of the cause must heartily acquiesce in this appointment, and I trust it will not be observed as a mere formality, but according to the spirit of the words of Joel 2:17: “Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare thy people, O Lord, and give not thy heritage to reproach.” We greatly need a revival throughout the land. With confidence in the faithfulness of God let us humble ourselves before him, and we shall not fail of his blessing.

J. H. WAGGONER

Condition of the Papacy.

By Uriah Smith

Prophecy has spoken perhaps more pointedly, explicitly, and fully in relation to the papacy than in reference to any other antichristian or wicked power. Hence that power must become one of the most marked indexes of the time in which we live. After its long period of triumph and strength and wealth and exaltation, it was to come down from its lofty pinnacle of glory into the dust with shame and humiliation. Just before the end, and reaching to the end, the prophet said that they should take away his dominion to consume and destroy it. Let Catholics themselves tell how impressively this is now fulfilled. Cardinal Cullen, Aug. 21, 1866, says:—
“There is no friendly power now capable of of supporting the head of the church. . . Nearly everything has been taken from him.”
The pope was then master of Rome, but that city and the surrounding territory, the last vestige of the pope’s temporal power, has now passed into the hands of his enemies. The cardinal further says:—
The Italians “avow the deadliest hatred to the pope, and to religion.”
Garabaldi says: “I believe there is not in all the world a country less Catholic than Italy.”
The Boston Pilot, a Roman Catholic paper, prints the following from its correspondent in Rome:—
“Good Romans see no other future than a future which will, in all probability, outstrip in horror and bloodshed the work of destruction . . . in Paris.”
At a great meeting of Catholics in Dublin, a resolution was presented in which occur the following words:—
“We view with grief the apathy with which the governments of Europe have permitted His Holiness to be assailed in his rights, and stripped of his territories.”
In addition to this, take the fact that in Italy, and even in Rome itself, the convents are being emptied of their monks, and converted into public institutions, that some thirty of them have recently been appropriated by the State, some of them bearing very historic names, and that Protestantism has more than forty chapels in Rome open every Sunday, and we can realize something of the change which has taken place in the condition of the papacy, and its nearness to the end of its career, an end to be consummated by the glorious appearing of our Lord and Saviour. U. S.
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