Earlier text: PATRIARCHS AND PROPHETSIndividualism and the Gospel Against Industrial Machinery
THE tendency of modern industrial conditions to eliminate the individual from business, and substitute in his place a mere part of a machine, is set forth in an able article in the August Scribner’s Magazine. The author cites the case of a friend who finds himself a victim of this tendency, and describes his situation by the statement that probably it will be fairly well with him if he dies soon enough. Then, speaking of individuals in general, he says: “The trail of organization is over all. Men are becoming not mere machines but minute parts of great machines. The inspiration of initiation is vanishing. Each human wheel must turn its given number of times on its fixed axle each day until it is thrown aside, and another is fitted in its place.” As a result of this condition he prophesies “the final decay of that free and varied intellectual energy the exercise of which is a delight in itself, and the love of which in the past made the professions what they were and are no longer.” But there is one thing in the earth that will preserve individualism in spite of everything, and that is the gospel. No matter how the business of the country may be monopolized by combines, no matter what confederacies may be formed, or how others may seek to influence him by threats or persuasions, the Christian will direct his course of action by the Word of God alone, and will think and act for himself, having ever a sense of his own individual accountability to God in all that he does, and with only the fear of God before his eyes. The blessed gospel, and that only, is the safeguard against the crushing out of individual conscience beneath the industrial juggernauts of these latter days. Volcanic Outbreaks and Earthquakes Signal the Last Days
By L. A. S.
FROM the reports of volcanic outbreaks and earthquake shocks which have recently occurred in various lands, the opinion seems warranted that never before were the earth’s internal fires so active as at present. L. A. S. The Work of Soul Saving
By Ellen G. White
We are living in solemn times. The end is near; and I have a message for our people. They must awake, spread their tents, and enlarge their borders. The present state of things must be changed. The world is to be warned. The truth is to be taken to men of the world, that they may see the duty that the Lord has placed on them. Those belonging to the higher classes are to hear the message of present truth. God says to his people, “Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.” The one work more precious than any other is the work of soul saving. God’s servants are to move forward in this work, weighted with the importance of the message they are bearing. To secure your present and future good, Christ gave himself as a sacrifice. Will you draw back from making a covenant with God by sacrifice? Christ died on the cross to save the world from perishing in sin. He asks your co-operation in the work of soul saving. You are to be his helping hand, to do in the world the work that needs to be done to place the truth before as many as possible. “Ye are not your own; for ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.” Refuse to admit the worldly interests that strive for the supremacy in your life. Regard yourself as pledged to Christ’s service for time and for eternity. Enter into no business that will make you indifferent to his claims. Say, to those who seek to draw you from his work, I am not my own; Jesus has bought me. I belong to him. Every particle of my influence is to be used to magnify the principles of his law. God is mine, and I am his, united to him by a perpetual covenant of service. I must devote myself wholly to the service of the Lord God of hosts. He has put it out of my power to give him anything that is not already his. Every part of my being, every talent, every faculty, belongs to him. If I had more than one life, I would give it to him; for it would be his. Have you so deep an appreciation of the sacrifice made on Calvary that you are willing to make every other interest subordinate to the work of saving souls? The same intensity of desire to save sinners that marked the life of the Saviour marks the life of his true follower. The Christian has no desire to live for self. He delights to consecrate all that he has and is to the Master’s service. He is moved with an inexpressible desire to win souls to Christ. Those who have nothing of this desire might better be concerned for their own salvation. Let them pray for the spirit of service. The Christian’s Work Begins in His Own Family
The transforming power of Christ’s grace molds the one who yields himself to the Saviour. Imbued with the spirit of the Redeemer, he is ready to deny self, ready to take up the cross, ready to make any sacrifice in the service of the Master. No longer can he be indifferent to the souls perishing around him. He is lifted above self-serving. He has been created anew in Christ Jesus, and self-serving has no place in his life. He realizes that every part of his being belongs to Christ, who has redeemed him from the slavery of sin; that every moment of his future has been bought with the precious life blood of God’s only begotten Son. God opens ways whereby such ones may work for him. Let them look ever to him, that they may know what he wants them to do. Let them do what they can; even though it be but little, it may result in great good. How can I best glorify him whose I am by creation and by redemption?—this is to be the question we are to ask ourselves. With anxious solicitude the one who is truly converted seeks to rescue those who are still in Satan’s power. He refuses to do anything that would hinder him in his work. If he has children, he realizes that his work must begin in his own family. His children are exceedingly precious to him. Remembering that they are the younger members of the Lord’s family, he strives with all his power to place them where they will stand on the Lord’s side. He has pledged himself to serve, honor, and obey Christ; and he puts forth patient, untiring effort so to train his children that they will never be hostile to the Saviour. On fathers and mothers God has placed the responsibility of saving their children from the power of the enemy. This is their work,—a work that they should on no account neglect. Those parents who have a living connection with Christ will not rest until they see their children safe in the fold. They will make this the burden of their life. Parents, do not neglect the work waiting for you in the little church in your own home. This is your first field of missionary effort. The most important work you can do is to place your children on the Lord’s side. When they err, deal with them tenderly yet firmly. Let them unite with you in opposing the evil by which Satan seeks to destroy the souls and bodies of human beings. As you take them with you into the service of the Lord, what a victory you gain! Share with them the secret of the cross, the secret that to you means sanctification, redemption, and eternal victory. If the families around you are opposed to the truth, strive to lead them to yield to the claims of Christ. Work patiently, wisely, considerately, winning your way by the tender ministry of love. Present the truth in such a way that it will be seen in all its beauty, exerting an influence that cannot be resisted. Thus the walls of prejudice will be broken down. If this work were faithfully done, if fathers and mothers would work for the members of their own families, and then for those around them, uplifting Christ by a godly life, thousands of souls would be saved. When God’s people are truly converted, when they realize the obligations resting on them to labor for those within their reach, when they leave no means untried to rescue sinners from the power of the enemy, the reproach will be removed from our churches. The Formation of Small Bands for Soul-Saving Efforts
The Lord has presented before me the work that must be done in our cities. The believers in these cities can work for God in the neighborhood of their homes. They are to work quietly and in humility, carrying with them wherever they go the atmosphere of heaven. If they keep self out of sight, pointing always to Christ, the power of their influence will be felt on the side of truth. As the human agent gives himself unreservedly to the work of the Lord, he gains an experience that enables him to work more and more successfully for the Master. The influence that drew him to Christ helps him to draw others to Christ. He may never have laid upon him the work of a public speaker, but he is none the less a minister for God; and his work testifies that he is born of God. Why do not believers feel a deeper, more earnest concern for those who are out of Christ? Why do not two or three meet together and plead with God for the salvation of some special one, and then for still another? In our churches let companies be formed for service. In the Lord’s work there are to be no idlers. Let different ones unite in labor as fishers of men. Let them seek to gather souls from the corruption of the world into the saving purity of Christ’s love. The formation of small companies as9 a basis of Christian effort has been presented to me by One who cannot err. If there are a large number in the church, let the members be formed into small companies, to work not only for the church members, but for unbelievers. If in one place there are only two or three who know the truth, let them form themselves into a band of workers. Let them keep their bond of union unbroken, pressing together in love and unity, encouraging one another to advance, each gaining courage and strength from the assistance of the others. Let them reveal Christlike forbearance and patience, speaking no hasty words, using the talent of speech to build up one another in the most holy faith. Let them labor in Christlike love for those outside the fold, forgetting self in their endeavor to help others. As they work and pray in Christ’s name, their numbers will increase; for the Saviour says, “If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.” A Prayer
By Christina G. Rossetti
LORD, grant us eyes to see, and ears to hear,
And souls to love, and minds to understand,
And steadfast faces toward the holy land,
And confidence of hope, and filial fear,
And citizenship where thy saints appear
Before thee heart in heart and hand in hand,
And alleluias where their chanting band
As waters and as thunders fill the sphere.
Lord, grant us what thou wilt, and what thou wilt
Deny, and fold us in thy peaceful fold;
Not as the world gives, give to us thine own:
Inbuild us where Jerusalem is built
With walls of jasper and with streets of gold,
And thou, thyself, Lord Christ, for corner stone. The Law Unchangeable
By Ellet Joseph Waggoner
THE breaking of the tables of the law by Moses had not the slightest effect on the law itself, and would not have, even if the Lord had not written the law again on other tables. “For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.” Rom. 5:13. The law of God existed in full force before it was spoken from Mount Sinai, just as much as it did afterward. God did not at that time tell the people anything new, but only “that which we had from the beginning.” God is not making, and has never made, new laws for his people. Nay, more, he has never made a law at all. The law that he has commanded—for there is really but one—is only the declaration of his own eternal, unchangeable life, “God is love;” that is his life; and his law is love; consequently his law is his life. Now God is; his name is I AM; and therefore his law is from everlasting to everlasting. He does not arbitrarily impose laws on men. It is not with God’s government as with earthly governments. Earthly lawmakers get together and devise and plan, and with much discussion make and issue laws, which never do and never can work equal and exact justice to all, and which afterward must needs be revised and amended, or even abolished. But God is not a law-maker; he is the law-giver. He does not devise laws, but simply enunciates that which is, and gives it to men, putting it into their hearts. He does not require his subjects to conform their lives to a law which he has arbitrarily fixed; but he makes known to them the conditions on which life depends; in short, he tells them what life is, setting before them life itself, that they may take it. Thus there can be no talk about changing or abolishing God’s law. “It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail,” said Christ. Luke 16:17. Men have thought to stamp God’s Word out of existence, by burning all the Bibles; but their efforts have been as ineffective as if they had tried to blot the sun out of existence by putting blinds before their windows, or to abolish the weather by breaking all the thermometers and barometers. The weather does not depend on these instruments, which simply make its state known; and God’s word does not depend on any written statement of it. It existed before there was any Bible, and it will remain forever settled in heaven, when all the books on earth, including the Bibles, shall have been burned up in the fires of the last day. Christ is the living Stone, and in his heart is the law of God. Only a shadow of the law appears in books or on tables; the real law is alive. The true tables of the law—the heart of Christ—were also broken; but even that did not put an end to the law; for he died only to live again. His heart, on which the law is written, was broken, in order that the law might issue forth to us in a stream of life. This is the real law-giving. Thus by his stripes we are healed from all sin,—transgression of the law,—because the Sun of righteousness never sets, but arises with healing in his wings. His life, as we accept it, and yield to it, works in us the righteousness of the law; and because the law of life is eternal, we also have life eternal. The Ground of Our Peace
By John A. Brunson
WORK acceptable to God presupposes a worker accepted by God. The zeal and success of the accepted worker are usually commensurate with the degree of intelligent assurance he has that he has been accepted. Doubt in reference to the point of acceptance with God produces hesitancy, timidity, barrenness. He who is not assured that God has accepted him in the Beloved, is ill prepared to aid another struggling for relief from sin’s oppressive yoke. Christ’s freedmen alone are qualified to preach deliverance to Satan’s bondmen. The Philippian jailer, aroused to a keen sense of guilt, and anxious to be set free, cried out in agony of soul, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” Paul, the Lord’s freedman, to whom the appeal was addressed, had passed through a similar experience. In anguish of mind and depth of distress, he had been where the trembling jailer now was, and had been made to exclaim, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” But he had been freed through Jesus Christ, and knew positively that he was free. Therefore, without a moment’s hesitancy, he replied to the jailer’s inquiry, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” He enthusiastically recommended to the distressed sinner the remedy that had brought to him sweet and permanent relief. That is preaching the gospel, the good news of salvation. Had there been a lingering doubt in Paul’s mind that Christ could and would give relief, his timorous manner and faltering speech would have communicated a like doubt to the jailer’s mind, who, in turn, would have been thrown into a state of indecision, resulting in discouragement and ultimate defeat. It is, then, of the utmost importance that every Christian worker have a clear, intelligent assurance of his acceptance with God, and that this assurance is not the result of exuberant emotion, but rests upon an enduring Scriptural foundation. This blessed possession is the privilege of every Christian, and no one should allow the fear of fanaticism, or the charge of hypocrisy, to deprive him of his birthright, and thereby bring dishonor upon Christ. Mr. Spurgeon’s testimony on this point is helpful. He said of himself, “I feel myself to be a lump of unworthiness, a mass of corruption, and a heap of sin, apart from His almighty love. I know by a full assurance that I am justified by faith which is in Jesus Christ, and treated as if I had been perfectly just, and made an heir of God and a joint heir with Christ; and yet by nature I must take my place among the most sinful.” Paul bears a like testimony when he refers to himself as “less than the least of all saints,” “not meet to be called an apostle,” the chief of sinners, yet gratefully acknowledging that he had “obtained mercy” through Christ, and to him ascribes all the glory, saying, “By the grace of God I am what I am.” God has mercifully made provision for the acceptance of sinners in Christ, has revealed the same to us in his Word, and wants us to believe it, and rejoice in it. Consider well the statement, He accepts sinners in Christ—not the righteous. A righteous man would be accepted in his own name, and on account of his own merit. It is the sinner that is accepted in the Beloved. This is made plain in Scripture, and any doubt in reference thereto arises either from the want of understanding or from unbelief. An important part of the Holy Spirit’s work is to bear witness with our spirits that we are children of God. This he does by assuring us that the Scriptures are true, the very Word of God, and are directly applicable to us. But if we do not believe the Word, or if we misinterpret it, the application cannot be made. In the one case it is arrested by doubt, in the other by error; for the Spirit cannot apply the Word to him who refuses to accept it, nor can he bear witness to a false interpretation. Then, since God not only accepts us in Christ, and accords to us all the rights, privileges, and immunities of children, but also by his Holy Spirit, through the Word, assures us of that fact, let us look into the Word to ascertain the ground of our acceptance. Turning to the epistle of Titus, we read, “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us.” Titus 3:5. In 2 Tim. 1:9 similar language is employed: “Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and10 grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.” Rom. 4:5 bears this testimony: “To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.” In the light of these passages of Scripture, we inquire, What is the ground of our acceptance? And we reply that it is not our righteousness, nor our humility, nor contrition, nor tears, nor repentance, nor anything that the Holy Spirit has wrought in us, but what Christ has done for us. The blood of Jesus alone constitutes the ground of our hope, peace, and joy. Salvation is all of grace, not partly by works and partly by grace. This truth is so clearly stated in a sermon by Christian David, a Moravian preacher of Hernhuth, in the year 1738, and reported by John Wesley, that we quote at length:— “The word of reconciliation which the apostles preached as the foundation of all they taught, was that we are reconciled to God not by our own works, nor by our own righteousness, but wholly and solely by the blood of Christ.
“But you will say, Must I not grieve and mourn for my sins? Must I not humble myself before my God? Is not this just and right? And must I not first do this before I can expect God to be reconciled to me? I answer, It is just and right. You must be humbled before God. You must have a broken and contrite heart. But then observe, this is not your own work. Do you grieve that you are a sinner? This is the work of the Holy Ghost. Are you contrite? Are you humbled before God? Do you indeed mourn, and is your heart broken within you? All this worketh the self-same Spirit.
“Observe again, this is not the foundation. It is not this by which you are justified. This is not the righteousness, this is no part of the righteousness, by which you are reconciled unto God. You grieve for your sins. You are deeply humble. Your heart is broken. Well. But all this is nothing to your justification. The remission of your sins is not owing to this cause, either in whole or in part. Nay, observe further, that it may hinder your justification; that is, if you build anything upon it; if you think, I must be so or so contrite, I must grieve more, before I can be justified. Understand this well. To think you must be more contrite, more humble, more grieved, more sensible of the weight of sin, before you can be justified, is to lay your contrition, your grief, your humiliation, for the foundation of your being justified; at least for a part of the foundation. Therefore it hinders your justification, and a hindrance it is which must be removed before you can lay the right foundation. The right foundation is, not your contrition (though that is not your own), not your righteousness, nothing of your own, nothing that is wrought in you by the Holy Ghost; but it is something without you, namely, the righteousness and blood of Christ. For this is the word, ‘To him that . . . believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.’ See ye not that the foundation is nothing in us! There is no connection between God and the ungodly. There is no tie to unite them. They are altogether separate from each other. They have nothing in common. There is nothing less or more in the ungodly to join them to God. Works, righteousness, contrition?—No; ungodliness only. This then do, if you will lay a right foundation: go straight to Christ with all your ungodliness. Tell him, Thou whose eyes are as a flame of fire, searching my heart, seest that I am ungodly. I plead nothing else. I do not say I am humble or contrite; but I am ungodly. Therefore bring me to him that justifieth the ungodly. Let thy blood be the propitiation for me; for there is nothing in me but ungodliness.”
Truly a revival of such preaching is needed to-day. Many to-day are engaged in the Lord’s work, and have no adequate conception of salvation by grace, are experimentally ignorant of the great fact of regeneration. Consequently there are weakness and barrenness in the pulpit, and lethargy in the pew. The remedy must be sought and found in the message to the Laodiceans, in a revival of the old-time truth of righteousness by faith. Our young workers must be taught the Scriptural foundation of our peace with God, and urged to lay greater emphasis upon the necessity of the new birth, and the preachers and teachers must set the example. Every worker for Christ should know that he has been accepted, and why, and should not be afraid nor ashamed to say so. Positiveness of conviction, definitiveness of knowledge, fullness of assurance, accuracy of statement, are the equipment needed in this age of skepticism. To this end let us pray and labor. Those two things being settled, another thing that comes right along with them is that our institutions must be put firmly and uncompromisingly upon the principles for which they were planted in the world, and for which they stand. I have seen in Seventh-day Adventist institutions the very principles for which those institutions stand, despised, rejected, and cast out by those who were in the place of responsibility in those institutions and for those institutions. I have seen institutions planted to represent a certain phase of the third angel’s message, in which there was not a single principle recognized for which the institution stood, as a practical thing, in the institution. Now I want to know how we can in any true sense at all expect God’s prospering hand to be with an institution when the management of the institution is conducting the institution in defiance of the principles for which the institution stands. How can that be? And is it any wonder that such institutions as that cannot make their way, and that they run behind every year? Is there anything strange about that? When an institution is planted for a certain purpose, and stands in the world for certain principles; and yet by those in responsibility there those principles are ignored, if not despised and rejected,—then is it any wonder that those institutions run behind? Is it any wonder that the brethren, the people, the Seventh-day Adventists, are not very ready to make donations to those institutions, and to the work of those institutions? I have seen it in my experience, when I have told the managers of more than one institution that I had neither the heart nor the face to ask any Seventh-day Adventist for money to be spent in behalf of that institution until a better showing was made of the money that had been spent in it. But let you and me straighten up, conduct this thing straight, wed ourselves to the principles for which it stands, and firmly place the whole institution upon those principles, so that it will recommend itself to the people for what they did give their money, and you will not have difficulty, you will not run behind; and money will come all right. I have never seen it fail. I do not know of any people in this world who are more liberal, or more ready to give, and who more lovingly give, than Seventh-day Adventists. And in justice to those people, to their liberal hearts and their consecrated energies, you and I, as men in responsible places on committee, or as ministers in the field, it is your place and mine to do everything in our power to see that every institution, and every part of the cause is conducted strictly upon the principles for which the cause and the institutions stand. Then when that is done,—I say again, I have never seen it fail,—the people are ready to put their means liberally into the work. And that is so in the connection on which I spoke last night,—the conference treasury and the ministry. It is surprising to me in the experience I have had for a good while, that the Seventh-day Adventist ministry are unable to see how dissatisfied the people are with the slipshod way in which the ministry is doing its work. There are Seventh-day Adventist people to-day sending their tithes, not to the conference treasury, but to the mission fields, rather than to the conference treasury, because of the loose, unwise, dilatory way in which the ministry of their conferences work, taking money from the treasury for little or no returns. The man who is to be a minister of the gospel can be that truly only by being swallowed up in that ministry, every fiber of his being, body, soul, and spirit. Every item of his being has to be devoted to the ministry of the gospel. Nothing else can have any possible place. Neither speculations, dealings, investments, nor side issues of any kind can have any place in the life of a minister of the gospel. “Thou therefore11 endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier. And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully.” There is God’s law for the ministry of the gospel: Entangleth not himself with the affairs of this life. The affairs of this life have no place in the affairs of the minister of the gospel. That is the law of the ministry, and a man is “not crowned, except he strive lawfully.” Those men who mix up in other things with the ministry of the gospel,—when the day comes for them to be crowned, they will be crowned as men of these other things, and not as ministers of the gospel, if indeed they be crowned at all. They cannot be crowned as ministers of the gospel, for they have compromised it with these little, unworthy things that have no place, and that are not to be mentioned in the same breath with the ministry of the gospel. And that is why the ministry of the gospel of Seventh-day Adventists all over this land has been going the other way all the time, instead of rising to the height where the ministry of the gospel belongs, and where God has called it to stand. Now the financial success that will come from this reversal and reorganization of things is nothing at all in importance as compared to the divine manliness and the divine integrity and strength that will come to the ministry by their adopting, and wedding themselves to, this principle; for the man who puts his whole dependence for all that ever comes to him upon the gospel which he preaches, is independent. He will always have a good support, and his work will always more than pay all that his wages and expenses amount to. And this brings in a double principle that I want you to get hold of. I am telling you the truth. The man who starts into the work of the gospel ministry on this principle, and adheres to it till he makes his work pay his way,—then his work will pay his way, that is true; and it will more than pay his way. And as his work goes on, his work will grow. And as his work grows, he will grow with it; so that the longer that man’s ministry continues, the more successful it will be, and the more his efforts will bring into the cause, in return. Now that is so, and not one of you should accept any other thing than that principle worked out that way. If you have been in the ministry ten years, then your work this year should bring into the cause far more returns in proportion than it did the first year or the second. So that a man’s work, as it continues, and continues to grow, and he grows with it, will easily bring three, five, six, ten, or twenty times as much to the cause as his wages and expenses take out. And it is perfectly easy, because as his work grows thus, he is certain to grow with it, in manliness, in strength, in stamina, in manly, Christian independence—independence of conferences, conference committees, institutions, treasuries, and everything of the kind; because in the gospel which he preaches, he has conferences, he has treasuries, he has institutions, everything. And if the gospel which you preach, my brother, and the gospel which I preach, does not have in it conferences, and treasuries, and institutions, and the whole thing, then we have not the right kind of gospel yet. Another thing that comes along with all this: ill-advised moves have been made,—and we as men in responsible places and on committees must look out for, and guard against, such things as that,—institutions have been built on a scale that made them far larger than were the men who were to conduct them. And when you have an institution that is a great deal larger than are the men who are in it to conduct it, you have an institution that is bound to run behind while those men are there. Then you see that it is an utter mistake, it is not economy at all, it is extravagance, wastefulness, to put up institutions larger than are the men who are to conduct the institutions. But as certainly as each man, whether minister, doctor, teacher, or printer, starts into the work upon the basis that makes his work pay his way, and himself grows with his work, he will always be as large as is his work. And when an institution grows up under his work, the institution will not be bigger than he is. He himself will be as large as is the institution that God brings under his hand; and that institution will be a success from the day the first stone is laid in the foundation until the day it is fully equipped and running, whether it be medical, educational, or publishing, or a conference. That is the truth. Other institutions will have to be built. We have not yet nearly all the institutions that there must be. Our educational institutions should cover this land in a perfect network,—the home school, the church school, the intermediate school, perhaps not any more colleges; but between the college and the home, there is to be a whole string in all these regions yet. There are to be health institutions, sanitariums,—many more than there are now. And you and I as managers and men in responsible places, must not allow ourselves to overreach, and build great institutions, larger than anybody who can ever be brought in to conduct them. No; build the institution according to the needs, however small it may be. Get the men who can run it at that size. Then let these men conduct it successfully at that size, and they will grow as the work grows. Then enlarge it, and they will still be as large as the enlarged institution is; and that institution and its business will always be a success. Isn’t it perfectly plain, then, that that is a principle, and not merely a policy, nor even only business? What principle is it? Isn’t it the divine principle that is before us in all nature, and in the Bible,—the divine principle of growth? Plant institutions small, and let them grow. Then the men who are there will grow with them. But plant them so large that they never can grow, and bring in to manage and conduct the work in such an institution men who have not had time to grow, however much they may be ready to grow—they are not the size of the institution, they cannot grow up to the height of that thing, and the thing goes at loose ends, and everything goes backward. Then you can see that it is the divine principle of growth. You can see that it all centers in the ministry; and you can see that the correct solution of our financial problem, and our financial success that is to come out of this problem, yea, everything that concerns the cause of the third angel’s message, turns upon the ministry of the gospel. There is where this whole reform and the whole work of reorganization center. And each one of us must put himself into the mill, and let it grind. Do not have the brethren of the committee do it. Each one of us must put himself there, and hold himself there until that thing is settled the right way. And when this is done, then what? Just review the ground, and let the things be carried out that are before us, and let the problem that is under our hands be solved, in the way that we have studied to-night; and then what? What do you think of it? What is the prospect? Well, it will be so restful that we can stand and take a long, refreshing breath, and rest. That is the way out of this thing, and there is no difficulty, there is no problem, about it at all. It is simply the divine principle of righteousness; it is simply the divine principle of self-government; it is simply the divine principle of self-support; it is simply the divine principle of growth, allowed to work by the divine power of the gospel. O, there is a higher place for us to stand! There is a higher place for the denomination. There is a higher place for our institutions. There is a higher place for conference committees. There is a higher place for the teachers in our schools. There is a higher place for the ministry, yes, a hundred per cent higher. For every soul, every phase of the work, there is an infinitely higher place for us to stand than where we have stood. Brethren, there is a great work going on. And, thank the Lord, it is going on. It is going on; and it is never going to stop. That is the other beautiful part about it. Three beautiful things: there is a great work; it is going on; and it is never going to stop. Let us go with it, in the way that it is going. Mother of Captured Missionary Ellen Stone
THE mother of Miss Ellen Stone, the captured missionary, is nearly ninety years old. Not long ago, in the midst of her agony of suspense concerning her daughter’s fate, this godly mother said: “Notwithstanding all the sorrow and uncertainty, I would rather my daughter should be a missionary than a queen upon the throne.” “My dearest of mothers!” I heard the words repeated in soft tones by my next-door neighbor at an inland farmhouse where we were sojourning. “My dearest of mothers!” My friend was a widow, and her son, an affectionate, talented fellow, was an engineer in Idaho. In one of his late letters he said at the close: “And now, my dearest of mothers, good-by.” Did he guess, I wonder, how the little petting phrase would please the heart that loved him so? Did he think that she would say it over softly to herself as she sat alone in her room? The home days were over. The babies with their sweet ways, their joy-giving and their trouble-making, had grown to noisy boys, then to self-asserting men; they were out in the world making their way; brains busy, thoughts absorbed, hearts full; yet here was one who remembered the mother, still in middle life, loving and needing love the same as when her boys were her very own in the dear child’s home. He wrote her long letters, describing his adventurous, changeable life, the strange companions with whom he was surrounded, the wondrous scenery of the wild Western world. It was all intensely enjoyed; but better than all were the love phrases which showed the son’s affectionate heart. I wonder whether the “boys” know how dear they are to their mothers; and how a little attention, little gifts, tender words, flying visits, cheer and warm the hearts which have borne the test of years and sorrows. In the old home the rooms seem very bare and silent after the children are gone. It is as though summer had flown, with its nests and bird songs, and autumn winds were blowing. Then the love of the sons and daughters is like sunshine or warm fires to the hearts which sadly miss them. Let us hope that there are many sons who write “my dearest of mothers.”