8 “Owe no man anything, save to love one another; for he that 9 loveth his neighbor hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not covet, and if there be any other commandment, it is summed up in this word, namely, Thou shalt love 10 thy neighbor as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbor; love therefore is the fulfilment of the law.
11 “And this, knowing the season, that now it is high time for you to awake out of sleep; for now is salvation nearer to us than when we first believed. The night is far spent, and the day is at hand; let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, 12 and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in revelling or drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and jealousy. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.”
Golden Text.—“Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light.” Rom. 13:12.
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS.
(1) What admonition does Paul give us in regard to debt? What debt only is it permissible for a Christian to owe? What does the man do who loves his neighbor? V. 8. Note 1. (2) What separate commands of the Decalogue does the apostle enumerate? In what command does he sum up our whole duty to mankind? V. 9. Note 2. (3) In what work has love no part? What is the relation existing between love and the law? V. 10. (4) What is it now time for every professed Christian to do? What is it that makes this time especially important to us? V. 11. (5) What is said of this long night of sin? What good news should the Christian be telling to the world now? As the night is far spent, what should be laid aside? As the day is at hand, what should we put on? V. 12. Note 3. (6) How must we walk in this present time? What must be avoided by every child of God? V. 13. Note 4. (7) What great shield is it possible and necessary that we should put on? Against what work are we specially warned? What sort of mind do we have when we are making provisions for the flesh? What kind of mind must we have in order to please God? V. 14. Note 5.
NOTES.
1. Hath fulfilled the law.—God’s law is a law of love. It is an expression of His character. It was given to man because He loved man and would have him build a character in harmony with the life of his Maker, in harmony with the spirit that pervades heaven. So in truly loving God and man we are fulfilling the law, which is based on, and established in love. So, too, unless God changes His character of love, He can not change His law of love; for it is based on His character. “God is love;” and “this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments.” 1 John 5:3. It is also the test whether we know God or not. 1 John 2:3-6.
2. If there be any other commandment.—It is perfectly evident that Paul is not attempting here to enumerate all the commandments of the Decalogue. The whole burden of the lesson is on our attitude toward our neighbor. This is shown from both the preceding and the following verse. His summing up also has to do only with our love toward our neighbor, whereas when Christ summed up the whole law, it included love to God as well as love to man. The unchanging God did not change the foundation of His government when Christ died upon the cross.
3. The night is far spent.—Earth’s long night of sin is nearing its close; the day of redemption is about to burst upon us in all its glory. The signs which Christ gave His disciples (Matt. 24), the darkening of the sun and moon and the falling of the stars, have been fulfilled, and earth is waiting for her Lord.
4. Honestly, as in the day.—Dishonesty is one of the works of darkness, of the night. The Christian is a child of light. He can have no fellowship with anything that will not bear the scrutiny of God. The professed Christian who works wickedness is like the professional robber who attempts to rob in plain view of the officers of the law. His deeds are open and manifest to the One who will pass judgment upon him.
5. Make not provision for the flesh.—The idea is not that we should not provide for the necessities of life, but that we should not make provision for the gratification of the lusts of the flesh. The curse of the world at the present time is making provision for selfish pleasure. It is seen on every hand; it is filling the lives of the children of this world. God warns us against it.
Some Silk Tags
recommend particular soaps and caution against Cheap Washing Powders. Latter is good advice, but cannot refer to Pearline.
Test. We soaked in Pearline suds, as strong as we direct for heaviest, Coarsest Washing, for three hours. 20 skeins of the most sensitive and delicately colored Wash Embroidery Silks manufactured by D. M. C., J. & P. Armstrong Co., Corticelli Silk Co., M. Hemingway & Sons Co., and others. Nineteen skeins showed no loss of color. One skein showed almost imperceptible loss, and this skein when washed as directed on tag—using Pearline instead of the mild soap recommended—showed no loss of color.
The Results of this Abuse of Pearline prove that there is Certainly no risk to Color in the Use of Pearline
Notes on the Current Issue
By Editor
Since our last, the calamity rehearsal has had few rests in its sad minor chords. We shall have more to say of these fearful happenings in future numbers.
Please notice our advertisement of future articles on page 2 of this issue. Notice also two other periodicals there mentioned, Our Little Friend and Pacific Health Journal.
We call attention to the first of an important series of articles for mothers, begun in this issue, by Mrs. Mary Wood-Allen, M.D. Mothers and all who have the care of children will find them of special help.
Much, very much, will be said by periodicals in all fields concerning the great earthly coronation, which affects so few; yet how few are the publications which discuss the far more gloriously transcendent coronation of earth's universal King, which will affect every soul. Which is the more important?
Omissions in This Issue.—We regret to omit in this number the article in the series, “Restoration from Babylon.” The title of the article is “Backsliding to Confirmed Apostasy.” It is of both interest and importance in the essential principles it sets forth. It will be printed next week. We omit also three departments, the Outlook, Missions, and Question Corner.
With our Outlook department omitted, go our news items and notes on current events. These will be resumed next week. Among the most hopeful items, and germane to this paper, is the news of assured peace in South Africa. We hope it is permanent. The Boers would have been much better off if they had wiser sympathizers. They have been urged to wage destructive and profitless conflict, till they are well-nigh destroyed.
Electrical Disturbances.—In the first volume of a supplement to the Encyclopedia Britannica, which has just appeared, under the head of “Atmosphere,” it is shown that thunderstorms are increasing in a decided way over all civilized Europe. The years 1820 to 1830 they averaged twelve a year. The decade from 1880 to 1890 the average was twenty-two a year. The old earth is waxed old, and these disturbances are incidental to her sore sickness of sin. Sometime her struggle will be over, and from her ruins, God, by His creative power, will bring new heavens and new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. And then “there shall be no more curse,” for the former things will forever have passed away.
Surely every lover of Christian missions will wish England well in her new ruler, whose coronation takes place June 26. Every lover of Christian missions, we say, because there has been no government of earth which has advanced the cause of missions more than that of Great Britain. Wherever the union jack floats, there the missionary is free. And Britain has done this, not by interference, not by gift and promotion, but by non-interference, by letting alone, by giving the Christian minister equal footing with all other men and teachers. Christianity asks no more, a free government could grant no less. Britain has her imperfections, so have her people, so have all the governments and people of earth; but we praise God that British rule has been so wide, its influence so far-reaching, in the great field of liberty. And therefore we wish King Edward VII. a wise and prosperous reign,—a blessing to his people and a blessing to the world,—that the Gospel of Christ may run, have free course, and be glorified. We are glad that at his coronation peace is effected with the Boers. We hope that it may be lasting, and, the war being over, that the everlasting Gospel may be freely preached all through South Africa.
As With Man, So With the Earth
The old earth is still beautiful in spots, despite the threefold curse of sin upon it. God's life is still given in mercy, and though perverted, despite the perversion it is still manifest in beautiful forms. Satan, the usurping king, can pervert, but not create. He can pervert beauty to ugliness, perfume to malodor, sweet to bitter, harmony to discord, preciousness to vileness, good to evil, light to darkness, life to death; but he can not create one thing. His power is limited. But He who created man in righteousness, in true holiness, in beauty and honor, can and will re-create every soul who will let Him do the work. He will renew, regenerate, re-create mind, and heart, and soul, and body, and make His children like Himself, worthy of His name and kingdom.
As with man, so with the earth. God will re-create the earth, the dominion, when the King and His people are ready. When the perfect number of perfect characters is gathered out from this world of sin, when sin, and all identified with it, is destroyed by God's presence, the sin-burdened, desolated earth will be renewed, re-created; “for, behold,” says the Creator, “I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former shall not be remembered, nor come upon the heart.” Isa. 65: 17, margin. “Behold, I make all things new.” Rev. 21: 5. How fair then will be earth's flowers and forests, her hills and mountains, her lakes and rivers! How blue will be her skies! how full of indescribable glory her sunsets! How brightly will shine sun, and moon, and stars to the immortal eyes fitted not merely to endure, but to enjoy the intensest light! God, in His mercy, has diminished the light of the sun, and veiled the glory of the heavens, that man's sin-dimmed eyes may not be blinded. But in the new heavens and earth “the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the Lord bindeth up the hurt of His people, and healeth the stroke of their wound.” Isa. 30: 26.
But greater glory than this will illumine the earth. Of the New Jerusalem, that glorious city of gold, and pearls, and precious stones, 375 miles on each side, the fit capital for Christ's everlasting kingdom, it is said: “The throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it. . . . And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light; and they shall reign forever and ever.” Rev. 22: 3-5. “Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when Jehovah of hosts shall reign in Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before His ancients gloriously.” Isa. 24: 23. Now, man could not endure the glory of God's unveiled presence, “the light which no man can approach unto,” and the overwhelmingly radiant glory of Him whom no man hath seen nor can see (1 Tim. 6: 15, 16), but then, clothed in the likeness of Jesus Christ, purified and immortalized by His power, we shall see Him face to face, and bask in the glory of His effulgent love.
O Earth, great glory is coming to thee. Science may question; skepticism may sneer; self-interest may be indifferent; yet God's “words are true and faithful,” and not one thing will fail of all that the Lord our God hath spoken. Rev. 21: 5; Josh. 23: 14. This earth, cursed by sin, slimed by the trail of the serpent as no other, many of its children fallen lower than the brutes, shall bloom again in Edenic purity and loveliness. Where the Deity suffered in the person of the Son, there will be the Throne Eternal of the universe. Where sin left its deepest wounds and most hideous scars, God will manifest more glorious beauty. In every way that Satan has endeavored to malign and stain the name of our God, it will result in the revelation of more of His love, His wisdom, His power and glory. The story is all told in the one sentence, “There shall be no more curse;” or as elsewise rendered, “There shall be no more falling away.” Eternally will be seen the evil character of sin. Eternally will the universe have learned the lesson. And the mightiest teachers of God to the children of unborn worlds will be those whom Christ's power has rescued from the slavery of sin. They will tell not alone in words, but in character, the wonderful story of the victory over sin, of Infinite Wisdom and Redeeming Love.
Dead to Temperance Sentiment.
At the annual Connexional Temperance meeting in Wesley’s chapel last week, says the London Present Truth of May 8, Lady Henry Somerset, referring to a meeting in the same place seven years before, when she stood by the side of Miss Willard, said: “We thought then that there must surely be coming over this nation such a wave of feeling as would awaken England to her true position; but if I were frank, I would be obliged to admit—tho I am no pessimist—that England is further asleep, that the Christian conscience is deader now than then, and that the temperance cause has made scarcely any headway.” These are sad words. When will people see that despite earnest efforts of many reformers, the great trend of the world, even as God has foretold, is downward?
THE COMING KING OF GLORY.
“When the Son of Man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory.” Matt. 25:31.
“If we died with Him, we shall also live with Him; if we endure, we shall also reign with Him.” 2 Tim. 2:11, 12, R.V.
“There is a King of glory,
Ere long on earth to rise,
Song in prophetic story,
Descending from the skies;
The Babe of Bethlehem, ’tis He;
It is the Man of Calvary,—
Not crowned with thorns, and gory,
But crowned with glory now!
Not crowned with thorns to-day,
Not mocked and led away,
But crowned with everlasting glory now!”
“He cometh, cometh speedy,
To save His suffering saints,—
Saints groaning, waiting, ready,—
And endeth their complaints;
With joy they meet Him in the air,
And shout the swelling triumph there;
No longer poor and needy,
But crowned with glory now!
Not one’s reviled to-day!
None stumble in the way—
All crowned with everlasting glory now.”
SOME BOOKS AND TRACTS TO READ.
By Editor
READER, if you are interested in the truths presented in this paper, and wish to read further, let us recommend to you the following publications of the Bible Student's Library:—
No. 81 God's Message for To-Day, price ½ cent.
“ 111 “Tormented Forever and Ever,” “ 1 “
“ 125 Manner of Christ's Coming, “ 1 “
“ 119 Kingdom of Christ: Nature and Subjects, “ 1 “
“ 121 The Temporal Millennium, “ 1½ “
“ 67 Bible Election, “ 2½ “
“ 65 The Great “Day of the Lord,” “ 2½ “
“ 58 Matthew 24, Second Coming of Christ, “ 10 “
“ 55 Order of Events in the Judgment, “ 15 “
In Apples of Gold Library.
No. 31 Why the Earth was Made, “ ½ “
“ 47 The Great Threefold Message, “ 1 “
“ 51 Heralds of His Coming, “ 1¾ “
There are other and larger works. Send for a catalogue. This paper will, in two series of articles soon to appear, one on the coming of the Lord, the other on the book of Zechariah, set before its readers great facts concerning the kingdom of Christ, impossible to touch in this number.
These are important things to every one, and surely it is well to know them.
Christ Crowned with Thorns
Thorns came as the result of the curse; Christ, the Prince of Life, was crowned with them, not alone that man might crush them under His feet, but that they might be obliterated forever.
