p. 155 | Review and Herald, Vol. 51, No. 20. (5/16/1878)

“BETTER THAN NOTHING.”

By G. W. A.

The Daily Graphic, is responsible for the following incident, which has a certain bearing on one side of the question of eternal torment, which is being so warmly discussed by the clergy at the present time:—

“A good old Methodist lady, very particular and very pious, once kept a boarding-house in Boston. Staunch to her principles, she would take no one to board who did not hold to the eternal misery of a large portion of the race. But the people were more intent on carnal comforts than spiritual health, so that in time her house became empty, much to her grief and alarm.

“After some time a bluff old sea captain knocked at the door, and the old lady answered the call.

“‘Servant, ma’am. Can you give me board for two or three days? Got my ship here and shall be off soon as I load.’

“‘Wa-al I don’t know,’ said the old lady.

“‘Oh, house full, eh?’

“‘No, but——’

“‘But what, ma’am?’

“‘I don’t take unclean or carnal people in my house. What do you believe?’

“‘About what?’

“‘Why, do you believe that any one will be condemned?’

“‘Oh, thunder! yes.’

“‘Do you?’ said the good woman, brightening up. ‘Well, how many souls do you think will be in fire eternally?’

“‘Don’t know, ma’am, really;—never calculated that.’

“‘Can’t you guess?’

“‘Can’t say,—perhaps fifty thousand.’

“‘Wa-al, hem!’ mused the good woman; ‘I guess I’ll take you; fifty thousand is better than nothing.’” G. W. A.

OLD AGE.

By Eliza H. Morton

The child desires to be a man, and the man longs to be a child. Why is this? The answer is found in the fact that future life looks pleasant and full of ungathered joy to the inexperienced eyes of youth, but as time marches on, care, trouble, sorrow, and death wring the heart with anguish and cause the head to throb with pain; then the man yearns for the free, joyous days of youth and would fain travel backwards over the road of life.

Old age is not earnestly desired; for it is heart-wearied and tempest-torn, and its shadow falls upon the grave. White locks, dim eyes, and trembling limbs are not welcome visitors; yet time rolls on, and the solemn march of years is the onward tread of old age.

This mortal frame is subject to decay, but the heart can be kept always young. The fountain of sympathy and happiness need not be chilled by the hand of time, and old age can be “clearer than the noonday.” The aged have reason to rejoice, for old age is not forever. There is a time coming when the righteous will return to the days of their youth, the faded cheek will glow with health, the wrinkled flesh become fair and fresh, the dimmed eye sparkle with new luster, and the whole frame glow and thrill with immortal beauty and vigor.

O man in the evening of life, take courage! “Thy youth shall be renewed like the eagle’s,” and the life to come will never grow old. ELIZA H. MORTON.

Allen’s Corner, Me.

Our Proverbs

Listen if you would learn. Be silent if you would be safe. Inquire about your neighbor before you travel. The first of wisdom is the fear of God. The world is carrion, and its followers dogs. Poverty without debt is independence. Long experience makes large wit. The sluggard becomes a stranger to God, and acquainted with Indigence. By six qualities may a fool be known: Anger without cause, speed without profit, change without motive, inquiry without an object, putting trust in a stranger, and wanting capacity to discriminate between a friend and a foe.

NOTHING TO SPARE.

By S. S. Mooney

“AND whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, He shall in no wise lose his reward.” Matt. 10:42.

Now the Lord loves the cheerful giver, and the promise in this text is, that he shall not lose his reward. Again the Master says, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Yes, but I have nothing to give. I have as much as I can do to meet my bills, says one. Our Heavenly Father does not require his people to do what they cannot do; but he does require every one to do something. The poor widow might have said, I have nothing to give; but she cast into the treasury all that she had, even all her living, and trusted the Lord for the future; and I do not suppose that the meal wasted or the oil grew less, any more than in the case of the widow who fed Elijah. I believe it is safe to trust the Lord always.

A short time ago a sister told me that when we were holding our meetings she wanted to give a dollar to the tract enterprise; but she had only money enough to pay a small bill she owed, so she hesitated a little. Finally she thought she would trust the Lord, and give the dollar. Presently an individual called and dropped a dollar into her hand. She asked what that was for. He answered (though not interested in particular in the truth or the meetings), “You have been having considerable company lately, so I thought I would help you out a little.” So we see it is safe to trust in the precious promises.

It is a fact that we are living in an age when covetousness is prevalent in the church of Christ. I once heard of a prosperous church which gave, for several consecutive months, fifty dollars or more a month, on the average, for missionary purposes. They were very greatly blessed by the constant conversion of sinners in their midst until some one was tempted to believe they had given too much. Consequently they stopped giving and doing. Many influences were brought to bear against the mission, and it ceased, and a long dearth in spiritual things followed. Some that once gave became worldly, and lost their spirit of labor for sinners; and prayer-meetings were very thinly attended.

A sister in a certain church was once asked to give to a charitable object. Said she, “I have nothing to spare; for my husband does not believe as I do, and will not give me money for such purposes.” At the same time she was clad in costly apparel, purchased with money he had given her to do as she pleased with. Once more, I heard of two Christian women whose husbands were opposed to the truth they held so dear, and who gave their wives a yearly sum for dress; but the wives denied themselves for the sake of giving, and one of them was known to give fifty dollars in one year for missionary purposes.

“I have nothing to spare,” said a man, “for my taxes have eaten me up nearly; and I do not believe ministers ought to be paid for their labor like other professional men, for if they are they will lose their reward when Jesus comes.” And so he adds land to land, and, with a property of twelve thousand dollars, has nothing to give, and professes to be looking for Christ.

“I have nothing to spare,” said a man, as he turned from his door a poor child who asked for bread for her poor sick mother; and that very morning he had asked God at family worship to supply the needs of the poor. “I have nothing to spare,” said a professor of religion. “People must work, as I have to do, or go to the poor-house.” At the same time he was influencing some maiden aunts to make their will in his favor, which they did, leaving him property to the value of some forty thousand dollars, at the loss of the friendship of other heirs equally related. At his death he left one hundred thousand dollars to his penurious wife and children; and when all were dead but one daughter, she married a man who bids fair to sink the whole.

Time would fail us to write of the many instances where covetousness has blinded the mind, and the love of money has crept into the church. Many love this present world more than they do the world to come.

Now, dear brethren and sisters in Christ, if we would have a home in the kingdom of God when Jesus comes, let us be sure that our treasure is not on the earth, but laid up in Heaven. S. S. MOONEY.

Danners, Mass.

THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL.

The Christian Secretary, by the following good words, shows that at the time they were written its creed was not polluted by the antinomianism of these lawless times. We say, at the time they were written; for many a person who has at first spoken as soundly on the subject, has suddenly taken his noble utterances all back, when reminded of the inevitable conclusion that if the law is still binding, the seventh day is still the Sabbath of the Lord. We trust the Secretary will maintain the integrity of its views on the law and the gospel, as set forth below:—

“But does the gospel abolish or supersede the law? Not a bit of it. Nay, it establishes the law, by conceding all that it claims; by making provision in the atoning sacrifice of Christ for meeting all its claims; by implanting in those who believe, the spirit of true obedience. There is no antagonism between the law and the gospel; they are in perfect harmony. But what a glory there is in the gospel for a world of sinners! It offers mercy to the guilty, hope to the despairing, salvation to the lost, life to the dead! It proclaims amnesty and pardon to every soul that will believe in Jesus. How gloriously, in God's plan of recovering grace, the gospel supplements and fulfills the law, and becomes strong where the latter was weak. Smitten by the lightnings of Sinai, we die; bathed in the crimson stream of Calvary, we live. Salvation is not by the law, but ‘according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God.’”

HOW MANY TIMES DID PAUL DIE?

A foolish question, you will say; and we agree with you; but yet it is one which is made necessary by the position taken by the advocates of the immortal-soul theory. One of our exchanges is quoting from the Millennial Harbinger, Extra, a series of articles from A. Campbell, on the question of “Life and Death.” We had occasion to notice a short time since the little pamphlet on this subject from this writer who for unfair reasoning, illogical conclusions, and transparent sophistries, deserves a conspicuous place.

On 2 Cor. 12:1-4, he says: “‘I knew a man in Christ, some fourteen years ago, caught away to paradise; whether in the body or out of the body, I cannot tell, God knoweth.’” After this remarkably accurate quotation he comments as follows: “Had it been impossible for a man to live out of the body, or for a spirit to exist in a separate state, I presume all but those intoxicated with a new theory of man, will agree with me, that Paul could not, as a man of truth, much less as an apostle of Christ, say that he could not tell whether he ‘was in the body or out of the body.’”

We suppose every one will admit that the “man” to whom Paul refers is no other than himself; and we suppose further that every one will admit, as he must from the statement of verse 1, that the experience to which the apostle refers, is his receiving “visions and revelations of the Lord.” Then the conclusion necessarily follows that he was taken away bodily to paradise to behold the things he saw there, or that they were presented to him in vision. If he went there bodily, he was not, of course, “out of the body;” if they were shown him in visions, he was in that condition which he represents as “out of the body;” but that, Mr. Campbell says, is the existence of the spirit in a separate state. But the separation of the spirit from the body, according to his and the common view, is death. Therefore in every vision Paul had, he was either taken away bodily, or he died, and when he came out of vision, had a resurrection!! Now our question comes in fairly and legitimately, How many times did Paul die and have a resurrection? for he says that he had “abundance of revelations.” Let Mr. Campbell and all his swallowers answer this, before trying further to prove an immortal, conscious, disembodied spirit from Paul’s experience.

But does any one suppose that every time Paul had a vision he possibly died and had a resurrection? No man of common sense—no one who has not labored so hard to prove this “out of the body” theory as to get “out of his head.” Why, then, will men write and publish such despicable attempts at argument?

We give one more specimen of Mr. Campbell’s reasoning: “‘Whosoever liveth and believeth on [in] me shall never die.’ [John 11:26]. . . My eleventh argument, then, is that if he that believes in Christ shall never die, and as Christians actually die so far as their bodies are contemplated, their souls must certainly survive their bodies, else the Lord has deceived us. I hold this to be as evident as any proposition can be—an argument I humbly think irrefragable. It bears equally against soul-sleeping as against soul-dying. For if death is compared to a sleep, as some contend, in all respects, then the sleep of death, is wholly repudiated in the words ‘he shall never die,’ that is, he shall never pass into a state of unconscious existence.”

It is unnecessary to remind the reader that the controversy over this question of “Life and Death” is not concerning the righteous at all, in themselves considered. But the questions to be settled are, What is the nature of man, as a race? and, What is the doom of the wicked, out of Christ? The text in John 11 speaks of those who believe in Christ, and of those only. Now if any special promises are made to those who believe in Christ, it follows that those who do not believe in him are not entitled to them. Hence whatever this text may affirm concerning the righteous, it makes no declaration concerning the wicked, on whose cases the whole weight of this controversy hangs, that they shall never die. And if we should concede that when a person believes in Christ, he receives a new principle of life, which will continuously live despite the death of the body, which is the broadest claim that can be based upon the text, still absolutely nothing is proved respecting the real questions at issue, the condition of man by nature, and the destiny of the wicked.

Thus Mr. C. quotes a text and frames an argument representing a class not involved in the controversy, under the pretense that it is the clearest evidence respecting that class which are the subjects of controversy, though the text says nothing of them whatever. The reader will not care for a more extended notice of such kind of reasoning.

FROM THE TOP, DOWN.

People ask us why we spend so much time exalting the commandments and speaking of the requirements of law, and what men are to do to be saved. Why not preach Christ, exalt Christ, and let these other matters pass?

Well, indeed, would this not be the best way? Why should we not act on the same principle that men do in building a house? That is, if we were to put up a building, why not build the upper part of the chimney, put on the roof, finish off some of the upper rooms, and see how the thing is going to look, before building the lower part or providing a foundation? What is the use of hammering away so long on the foundation, and getting that all right, before putting up the house? The superstructure is the part that makes the most show anyway. Let us have the upper stories, the chambers, the roof, the towers, but no matter about the sills and the foundation.

Just so with Christian doctrine. No matter about the commandments and the law, and rules of life and moral obligation, but let us have Jesus, his love, his mercy, his promises, seek Jesus, confess Jesus and be saved.

We have now lying before us a letter dictated by distorted views of this kind. The writer says:—

“Please ask yourself if you are not mistaken in spending so much time exalting the fourth commandment. It appears to me that Christ Jesus should be the theme of every Christian. Why, Paul said he was determined to know nothing else. His promises, his blessings, his loving words to his children—what more do we need? ‘The Spirit and the bride say, Come.’ Come and hear, come and see, come and reason, come and rest, come and eat and drink, come and dine, come and find grace, come unto the marriage, come and inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world—and then his promises of eternal life to those that will come,” &c.

All true, and all right enough in its place; but we must have something before this. Before we can reach these themes, we must find a foundation upon the eternal Rock, from which by successive steps we can bring ourselves up to them. To make these first, last, and only, the theme, is to begin at the top to build instead of at the foundation.

We are to come to Christ; but how are we to come? By repentance and faith, we should be told, if people would stop now-a-days to ask and answer such a question. But why are we to repent? Because we have committed sin? And what is sin? The apostle answers, 1 John 3:4: “Sin is the transgression of the law;” and another apostle adds, “By the law is the knowledge of sin,” “Where no law is there is no transgression,” “Sin is not imputed when there is no law.” Rom. 3:20; 4:15; 5:13.

So few and short are the steps which bring us directly to the law, when we bestow one serious thought upon this great question of coming to Christ, and when we ask for the whys and wherefores involved therein. Now we have a foundation upon which to build. The law shows us our sins. The law holds us under condemnation. The law dooms us to death. And the law is holy, just, and good. It was necessary that it should be given. The whole universe would be but a howling universe of anarchy without it. God could do no otherwise than lay its claims upon his morally responsible creatures. Christ comes in to save us. How? Not by releasing us from obligation to obey, thus hurling insult into the face of his Father, but to save us from the guilt of having transgressed, and then giving us a disposition to be the children of obedience for time to come. Then no terms are too strong, no notes too high, to show forth the praises of Christ.

But any preaching for the salvation of men which leaves out these great foundation principles, is sound without sense, wind without water, the froth of the sea foam. It cannot be likened to a house built upon the sand; for that illustration contains a house too much to be applicable.

True Christian character is not built from the top down. It starts from a solid foundation and is securely and symmetrically built upward. And that foundation is a recognition of the law of God, an acknowledgment of its claims, a painful consciousness of having transgressed it, and pungent conviction of the sin of such a course. Then can come the superstructure of faith in Christ as the sin-pardoner, with the grateful acknowledgment of all his work, and the joyful acceptance of all his promises, the freedom from condemnation, and the hope which his pardoning love inspires. But this can continue only so long as we endeavor to live a life of obedience, avoiding the sins of the past for which we have received a Saviour’s pardon. For if we claim acceptance through Christ, while we willfully or willingly continue to transgress, we make him the minister of sin.

BUSINESS TO BE DONE AT CAMP-MEETINGS.

By Dudley Marvin Canright; Stephen Nelson Haskell

Our camp-meetings are becoming seasons of very great interest, and they are growing in numbers and importance each year. Hence as they come only once a year, as they involve a great deal of expense, and as they are the only occasions that hundreds have of hearing the truth at all, every possible pains should be taken to make them a success. It is a bad thing to come up to a camp-meeting half prepared, with our hands folded and our ideas all confused. Let us lay our plans beforehand, and understand well what we have to do. Very much depends upon the promptness and ability of the camp-meeting committee, and upon the president of the Conference. We would suggest the following points for consideration:—

1. It is very important to secure a good location. A pleasant grove, good water handy, a

place for baptizing, easy access to the railroad, and nearness to a large city or village, are important points to be secured.

2. Reports. Advertisements of the coming camp-meeting should be sent two or three times to all the leading papers in that region. Then, on the very start, one or more good writers should be secured to furnish good, readable, daily reports, not only to these papers, but to all the leading papers in the State. We may just as well have the people print for us as not.

3. Large bills announcing the camp-meeting should be posted all over the country a full week beforehand. Don’t make a failure by putting this off till the week of the camp-meeting, and then have it done in a hurry, and too late to be of any use.

4. The camp-meeting furnishes a splendid chance for missionary work. A proper number of the best qualified brethren and sisters should be selected to distribute tracts and sample copies of our papers to those who may come upon the ground. This work should not be left indiscriminately to everybody, nor should a large number of our books and tracts be placed upon a stand with an invitation for everybody to take all they choose. I have sometimes seen one person carry off an armful of books with simply a “thank you.” We cannot afford to throw away our books in that manner. Some of our smallest tracts, eight, or sixteen-page at the most, should be used for this purpose. Two or three of these, of different kinds, should be put into the hands of every person who comes upon the ground. The best time to do this is after a discourse, selecting for distribution a tract bearing upon the same subject. This would involve but little cost, and would secure a wide circulation. Larger works can then be offered for sale, or they can be given away in special cases.

5. Provision stand. In a majority of cases, if the provision stand is rightly managed, it can be made, not only to cover expenses, but to leave considerable profit. We have observed that there is a wonderful difference in this matter in different camp-meetings. Under about the same circumstances one will lose a hundred dollars or more, while another will make as much clear gain. It must be in the management. Necessary provisions for our brethren should be sold low, of course, but extras, confectionaries, and the like, which would be largely used by others, can be sold higher.

It is a very easy matter to throw away fifty dollars or more lightly in a provision stand. We notice that the stand is frequently open to about everybody; that is, a half dozen are placed in the stand to tend it. Then their wives, and children, and second cousins, and special friends feel at liberty to go in and help themselves. Every minister and his family takes the same liberty. We think that this is a nuisance, and needs to be corrected. We know of one camp-meeting where a pretended brother was allowed in the stand to sell and make change, and he made off with a good pile in his own pocket. Brethren of the strongest integrity, who cannot be tempted of the devil, should be placed in the stand to handle the money.

6. Ministers’ reports. Every minister in the Conference is expected to bring in a report at this meeting. This should embrace a careful statement of all his labors during the past year; also a financial report, showing just how much he has received, where he got it, and the exact date of receiving it; also what his expenses have been, and for what they have been. It is an easy thing to make a mistake of ten or twenty dollars in figures; hence these accounts should be carefully audited, and compared with the State treasurer’s report, to see if they agree. These reports should be written in good style, carefully dated and signed, and handed to the committee the first day of the meeting. We have seen some brethren hand in their account written on the back of an envelope, without date or signature, and in such a shape that nobody but themselves could unravel it. Such reports should be promptly rejected. If a minister cannot make out his own report properly, how can he instruct the church in business matters?

7. S. B. reports. The S. B. book of every church treasurer in the Conference should be carefully audited at each Conference. We have found by experience that this is a matter of some importance. Will our presidents see that it is done?

8. Auditor. For the above purpose a properly qualified person should be chosen as auditor the very first day of the meeting, and all these books should pass under his examination during the meeting.

9. T. and M. officers should report at this meeting, when there is to be an annual meeting of the society.

10. Sabbath-schools. As we are now undertaking to effect State Sabbath-school organizations, there should be a report at this meeting of every Sabbath-school in the Conference, giving the standing of the school.

11. Periodicals. A special effort should be made by the president to have all our brethren renew their subscription on their periodicals at this meeting, and see who has them. It would be well to devote a whole meeting to this purpose to ascertain who has them, and who does not have them.

12. A sermon on S. B. A sermon should be preached before the Conference on Systematic Benevolence. New ones are constantly embracing the truth, and scattered brethren who have never been able to hear on the subject will be present. This is just the time to attend to it. Then if there are any present who are not paying S. B., they can make their pledges at this time.

We suggest these points for the consideration of those interested in the matter; and in order that they can be kept to refresh their memories, we will give the headings again:—

Location.
Advertising the meeting.
Reports for the secular papers.
Missionary work.
Provision stand.
Ministers’ reports.
S. B. reports.
Auditor.
T. and M. officers’ reports.
Sabbath-schools.
Periodicals,—renewing subscriptions, and seeing that all have them.
Sermon on S. B.

D. M. CANRIGHT, S. N. HASKELL.

A NEW ROAD TO THE MILLENNIUM.

The “old paths” through which, since the days of Daniel Whitby, in 1680, men have supposed that the world was to reach the millennium, have in these days become so choked up with the debris of sin and iniquity, and so strongly barricaded by the hosts of evil, that they are being quite generally abandoned as any feasible routes to that desired end. Hence a new way must be suggested; for the temporal millennium they are bound to reach, at all hazards.

A new avenue of hope is opening in this direction; and, strange to say, it is not coming to light through the ministers of peace, but by the agents of war; it does not consist in the discovery of any new instrumentality to be used in the gospel, but in the invention of a new and terrible implement of war, to aid in the sure and wholesale destruction of men. This is indeed a strange way to reach that state, one grand feature of which is to be that men “shall learn war no more;” but there is no telling by what contradictory processes men will reach a conclusion the establishment of which is with them a foregone determination.

In the Christian Union, of May 1, 1878, is an article on “Killing as a Science,” in which is described a new invention, by an American, Gen. Berdan, now being tested in Germany. It is called a range-finder, and consists of an instrument by which within twenty or thirty seconds the actual distance of an approaching army can be ascertained, and the guns brought to bear upon them so that every shot shall be sure and deadly. At present it is ascertained that two thousand balls are discharged to every person killed in battle. This involves an enormous expenditure of ammunition, time, and strength, in every engagement, which accomplishes nothing. With the use of this instrument, all this will be saved, and an army by simply coming within range of the guns is almost sure to be annihilated.

In the experiment recorded, the following results were shown: A target representing thirty men was prepared, and a single light field Krupp gun loaded with shrapnel used against it. The range-finder gave the distance in thirty seconds, and at 3500 meters 5 hits were made; at 3000, 10 hits; at 2500, 20 hits; at 2000, 30 hits, and at 1000, 40 hits.

The conclusion which the writer draws from this is, that war being deprived of its romance, and this wholesale human butchery being so certain, no nations will dare to go to war; hence, per force, there must be peace. We shall see how far the events of the few years to come, will justify this calculation.

BOGUS SANCTIFICATION.

By Dudley Marvin Canright; Stephen Nelson Haskell

Seventh-day Adventists believe in genuine sanctification, for the Bible plainly teaches it. It is a most excellent thing. No man can be a Christian without being sanctified. But of late there is a certain commodity going under the name of “holiness” and “entire sanctification” in which we do not believe. Our reasons are these: First, the Bible does not teach holiness in the way these men teach it; that is, a sort of second conversion, something added to an ordinary Christian, to make him extra holy; and, Secondly, We are very much disgusted with the conduct of those who profess this holiness. So far as we have known them, they are without exception the most self-confident, self-righteous, self-conceited, unteachable, self-willed, pompous persons we know of. They are, in their own eyes, more holy than any body else; no one can teach them anything; they never commit sin; they are specially led by the Spirit of God in everything they do. So they say.

But in the minds of all sober, candid people they are simply led of their own wills. The desires of their mind they call the leadings of the Spirit. A certain fanatical branch of the Methodists have gone into this theory extensively. We have met them frequently, but never found one of them who would listen a moment to the truth. No, they are sanctified; they have not sinned for twenty years. They are always led by the Spirit; so it cannot be that they are breaking the law of God—oh, no! All the glorious ideas pertaining to the second advent they utterly ignore. From these, certain ones among the first-day Adventists, having no better light, have learned this theory. They are constantly boasting of their holiness. Yet these same men who are so certain that they are sanctified, can trample upon the law of God, and slander in the most wicked manner God's servants who are trying to defend his law and preach the third angel's message.

We are glad to say that only a very few indeed of our people have ever fallen into this foolish notion. Yet we have known occasionally one here and there. And in every instance we have found them to possess the same spirit as those outside our ranks, as above described. But the strangest of all is that these persons professing to believe the seventh-day Adventist faith, the third angel's message, the sacredness of God's Sabbath,—these persons run right into harmony and fellowship with those who oppose us to the bitter death. They have more confidence in them, and feel a greater nearness to them, than they do to those who are laboring with all their souls in the third angel's message. We never knew an exception to this. Hence we call it “bogus holiness,” and thoroughly believe that it is.

Another thing that we have noticed in this class of people is that they are wonderfully lacking in reverence for God. They speak of the great God in the most common manner, as irreverently as they would speak of one of their neighbors or any common man. We have never seen any good come of this spirit. We advise our brethren to be careful how they drink into this spirit, or encourage those who have already fallen into this snare of the enemy.

D. M. CANRIGHT. S. N. HASKELL.

WHAT IF THE ARK HAD PROVED TOO SMALL?

By C. W. Stone

Prominent among the cavils of infidels as to the authenticity of the Bible, are their questions about Noah's ark; and among other things they argue that the God of the Deluge was unfair from the fact that he knew that only a little handful of men would believe in the flood, and that the vast mass would have to be destroyed in its waters; and as he knew it beforehand, he must have decreed it to be so, therefore it could have been no other way, and it was simply impossible for those men to repent and be saved.

That doctrine is a sort of cross between infidelity and the doctrine of election. Let's look into its anatomy. Had God decreed from all eternity that eight, and only eight, should be saved from the waters of the flood, where was the sense in commissioning Noah to preach, to warn the world for a hundred and twenty years? Was it to taunt the poor unfortunates? They were to be lost any way. Was it to save the eight? They could not have been lost possibly, not even if the ark had sunk, if this matter of decree be so. Why will men argue so senselessly? The very fact that God sent his faithful servant to warn the world shows that all might have believed in the flood, repented, and been saved, if they had chosen to do so. The trouble was then as it is now: They would not come to Christ, that they might have life. John 5:40.

“But,” says the infidel, “the ark was too small. If even it was large enough to hold what is said to have gone into it, it certainly could not have held a thousand more men, to say nothing of the whole world, had they repented under Noah's preaching; therefore God's provision for their salvation was too small, or else he had irrevocably decreed the destruction of the people.”

This conclusion is all wrong. God extended his mercy to the world. He knew from the very disposition of the human heart that very few had enough love for him to turn against the wicked tide of their scoffing companions; and yet all had the liberty, and were warned to do it. “Yes; but suppose they had repented, then the ark would have proved too small.” Let me assure you, my skeptical friend, that had the whole world repented, yea, had one man more than God had provided for, repented, the flood never would have come.

Says Jesus to his disciples, “Ye are the salt of the earth.” It is the nature of salt to preserve. That which preserves the wicked to-day from the thunderbolts of God's wrath is the presence on earth of his people, and the further work to be done for them. Mercy pleads and Justice waits. When the gospel number is made up, Mercy will veil her face, and Justice, stern and unrelenting, will not delay an hour to pour the wrath of God upon the world. But what about the flood? See how it was in the case of Sodom. God promised to spare that wicked city if ten righteous persons could be found in it. They could not; and God, after caring for every righteous one there was there, burned up the balance. So in the flood, God ordered the ark as a sort of gauge, its capacity being a sort of parallel to the number ten in the case of Sodom. If more than the ark-full of righteous should be found, he would spare the world. God would have saved every righteous one, if even he had withheld the flood.

Take the case of Nineveh. Jonah's message was like Noah's, without any proviso: “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” Nineveh repented, and God spared her. The design of every message God sends is fully accomplished if men heed it and repent, and in that case the penalty is always remitted.

“At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it; if that nation against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them.” Jer. 18:7, 8.

So we conclude from the manner in which God deals with men that the ark was big enough. Happy had it been for the world of that day if more had repented than the ark would accommodate. C. W. STONE.

Continue reading: OBSERVATIONS UPON THE CAUSE IN IOWA