The admonition in Ps. 37:3, “Trust in the Lord, and do good,” is well worthy of our consideration in this age of selfishness and pleasure-seeking. Many would have it read, “Trust in the Lord and feel good.” The worldly church is seeking this good feeling. In large assemblies and numerous conventions, where there is much enthusiasm manifested, a good feeling comes in which is pleasant and alluring, and the people come to think that because they are feeling good, they must be really good, heeding not the two small words, “Do good.”
Many times when one is doing good, he will be far from feeling good. Our Saviour “went about doing good,” but He suffered everything at the hands of cruel men. He even endured the shame of the cross for the sake of saving a lost world. In order to do good we must sacrifice self completely, and trust in the Lord. In other words, give up the pleasant feeling, if need be, of ease and comfort; even forego a pleasant service in the house of God in order to minister to another’s needs.
Perhaps on a gloomy day we may have to lay aside a soul-inspiring book which we are enjoying, cosily seated by an open grate, which, of course, is very pleasant, to help some one in distress, thus heeding the voice, “Do good.” It will not be agreeable at the time to leave our comfortable place; but James sums it up in these words, “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.” Not one word does the apostle say about good feeling. That is, we are to do good whether it is pleasant or not. Leave the feelings with the Lord. So “let us not be weary in well doing; for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”
If one has a pleasant life all the time, watch out; for the Word says, “All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” In other words, all who do good shall suffer persecution. We may have peace of mind; that certainly is our privilege; but we must not expect to feel good always. Not that we will have no pleasant times when we are doing well; but let us not be disappointed if we do not experience them all or any of the time. We should ask ourselves, Can I do good by doing such an act? Will it be for the glory of God, or for my own selfish pleasure? Let us even ask ourselves what our motive is in going to divine worship on the Sabbath day. If we go from a selfish motive, the Lord can not bless us while in that condition. We should go to do good, and with the Lord’s blessing, get good.
The time is coming, and we trust is not far off, when all those who do good in this present world will both do good and be happy all the time; for we read, “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” 2 Cor. 4:17. So those who are not seeking for comfort and pleasure and happiness in this present experience have this for their consolation, that they will be numbered among those spoken of in Rev. 3:21: “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in My throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with My Father in His throne. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.”
Lacon, Ill. ALLEN C. BROWN.
This Man is not a Brigand, but a Turkish Guide. Many of the Brigands are, however, as braw and bonny as this Man.
MISS STONE'S COMPANION IN CAPTIVITY.
By Rev. C. L. Goodrich
[Rev. C. L. Goodrich, in The Congregationalist and Christian World.]
MISS STONE'S name has been on every one's lips of late. The interest in her and desire for her release have been intense. But comparatively little thought has been given to her companion, Mme. Tsilka, because she is not an American, and few in America know who she is. Those who do know her, however, feel that she is one in whom Christians of America may well take a deep interest.
But a little more than a year ago she went from this country, to which she had come to fit herself for unselfish labors among her own people. Some who have not recognized her in the reports, under the name of Mme. Tsilka, will know her under her maiden name, Katerine Demetrius Stephanood.
She is the daughter of a Greek priest of Bansko, Macedonia. Her father had such pride in his child that he wished to make her distinguished by doing something for her which other fathers did not do for their daughters. So he sent her to school. But the school was for boys; no girls were expected. The boys made sport of her, the teacher was rude to her—the result was that one day she fled from the school in tears, feeling that she could never go back. But she wished to learn. She knew that in another quarter of the town there was a school whose teacher had been taught in an American mission. Converts of the missions were despised by the members of the Greek Church. Children were forbidden to go near them. But this child found her way thither, and stood hesitating without.
The teacher came out to her with a smile and led her in. There she met only kindness. “It seemed like heaven” to the child. The end of the session came all too soon. That night she dared not confess what she had done. The next day saw her again in the place she had enjoyed so much. Her confession had to be made at last, and then her parents, greatly incensed, forbade her to visit the school again. “If I can not go to that school, I will die,” was the surprising answer. The next morning she would not rise, she would not eat; not a mouthful did she taste that day or the next. With singular determination in a child of eight—shall we not call it a providentially directed obstinacy, to open the way to a larger life?—she would not take one morsel of food till her parents were constrained to let her have her way.
Soon the teacher wished to know the girl's parents. He called to see them, to the girl's consternation and her father's great displeasure. But with Christian tact he won their good will, and she was allowed to continue her studies unmolested.
When she was thirteen years of age, her father arranged for her marriage. The groom had been selected, the ceremony was to take place, but the bride disappeared. With enlightenment beyond her parents and the customs of her land, and with remarkable courage and firmness, she refused to enter into the marriage arrangement. Instead, re-enforced by her teacher's influence, she gained permission to leave home to attend a school of higher grade. Later she graduated from the American Board school at Samokov. And by that time she had won more than intellectual culture; she had won her mother, her brothers, and her father to Christ.
But she was still unsatisfied. She felt that she was not yet fitted for the work she wished to do. She set out for America, arrived in New York with little money and with only vague plans. She knew she needed better acquaintance with the Bible, so she went to Northfield for two years. Then she studied the kindergarten methods in New York. But she kept thinking how absolutely destitute the people at her home were of the physician's skill. In all that region, within a radius of thirty villages, there was not a single physician, nor any one who knew how to care for the sick. The conviction that she could best help her people by learning to care for the suffering sent her through the training school for nurses at the Presbyterian Hospital.
All this time she had in the main been supporting herself. She now began to practise her profession to secure money to pay her home passage and give her a start in her work, for there was no board back of her. When almost ready to sail, with characteristic unselfishness, she gave up her paying patients, and put off her departure to go to the Adirondacks, to nurse a cousin who had come over, never to return. The delay had its compensations; for it gave opportunity for her marriage with an old acquaintance, who had journeyed to America with a purpose similar to her own.13
On their return in the summer of 1900, they located at Kortcha, Albania. There they have been for the past year, laboring, teaching, preaching, healing, in an entirely new field, without help from our Board, supported by friends in America and Turkey. Mme. Tsilka herself writes: “My nursing is giving me admittance into the worst of families. I have been working a good deal among the Beys [Turkish lords] . . . I am called to go out to visit all sorts of afflicted people. It is an easy thing to make them friends of mine, but so hard to make them friends of Christ.”
From her work in Kortcha she had gone to join Miss Stone on her tour. With Miss Stone she has been taken into captivity. She is a rare spirit, beautiful and strong, in the enthusiasm of young womanhood, with splendid preparation for signal usefulness, with the Christ-love glowing like a holy flame within her. In the brigand's cave she has endured the martyrdom of motherhood. God grant she may not also suffer the martyrdom of death.
I HAVE PRAYED FOR THEE.
By Almetta M. Richards
Tho tears mark thy pathway, as day after day
Thy foes may besiege thee in battle array,
Tho fierce the temptations which constant assail,
I've prayed for thee, child, that thy faith may not fail.
Tho clouds draped in darkness obscure the bright light,
And hide wily dangers and snares from thy sight,
Tho thou canst not see, through the dark, gloomy vale,
I've prayed for thee, child, that thy faith may not fail.
Tho the anvil be brought, and thou laid thereupon,
For fitting, the temple of God to adorn,
Tho fire and hammer should cause thee to quail,
I've prayed for thee, child, that thy faith may not fail.
The Divine Teacher often conveyed His lessons of truth by calling attention to some familiar object, thus associating it forever in our minds with that truth. There is no special value in a single corn of wheat; for unless it dies, the Saviour says, “It abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.”
Our natural, selfish life, which seems so desirable to us, is to the heavenly vision “without form or comeliness.” “He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.” This does not mean that we should squander our lives; for life itself is a sacred trust committed to us, and for which we, as individuals, are one day to render account. The meaning is rather that we are not to live in a selfish way, seeking our own pleasure, gratifying our own desires, but to follow the divine example. Christ said of Himself, “The Son of man hath not where to lay His head.” He was poor, “despised, and rejected of men;” yet He was ever ready to give a word of comfort to the weary, bread to the hungry, healing to the sick, and the water of life to all who would receive. We, then, should employ the short span of life allotted to us in doing good at the expense of our own selfish desires. In this we are serving Christ, who says, “If any man serve Me, him will My Father honor.”
What greater distinction can be conferred upon the child of earth than to be approved of the heavenly Father, the great Creator of worlds on high, the Father of our Lord Jesus? With this hope in view we may well forego selfish pleasures, more than satisfied to lose this present life and gain the life eternal. AUGUSTA W. HEALD.
A CLARION CALL.
ONE of the greatest addresses ever delivered by Maltbie Babcock,—that before the Ecumenical Missionary Conference in New York,—is printed in the volume containing the report of that meeting. It was then pronounced one of the most impressive addresses of that great gathering, which it fitly brought to a close. A few of its most striking passages follow:—
“Where would Paul be to-day if he were here with us? He would be in the thin red line in the foreign field, at the forefront of the battle, where it meets the great black, broad line. He was ever a fighter. Paul did not say it that way, but in effect he said: ‘It is my ambition to fight where no one else has ever drawn a sword; let me be the first runner to go ahead with the news of life. Let me build where no one else has built.’”
“Because Christian opportunity is a claim, it is inescapable. If Jesus is much to me, I am logically bound to feel the compulsion of that love, sweeping into line every man who needs what Jesus can do. Intensity and extensity are wrapped up together. Intense devotion to Jesus Christ means extensive sympathies. If a light is bright, it will shine a long way. Only a precious ointment can fill a whole house with its fragrance, but an exceedingly precious ointment will do so. If Jesus Christ is everything to me, I know He can be everything to any man, and as much as in me lies I will take Christ to the last man. And because I know it, I have the woe resting upon me if I will not do all that is in me to let the last man who does not know Jesus Christ divide with me. There is no escape from this logic. If I love Jesus Christ—which means if I am loyal to Him—never let clouds disturb the stars; never let feelings run away with conviction. If I love Jesus Christ—which means if I keep His commandments—I am in touch with everybody to the end of the earth who needs Him, and I can not take a washbowl and wash my hands and say that you must excuse me in this matter. Jesus Christ said, ‘Ye are My witnesses,’ beginning at Jerusalem. That is New York city. I believe in city missions, of course. So does every foreign missionary. Christ said, ‘Ye are to be My witnesses in all Judea,’ and that is home missions; ‘and in Samaria.’ What is that? That is the particular tribe or nation that you do not like. ‘In Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth.’ And that takes in the last man. See Jesus, before He goes to His Father’s side, with His hand outstretched and pointing to the uttermost part of the earth. Let the church never forget that gesture. To the uttermost part of the earth! I tell you, fellow-Christians, your love has a broken wing if it can not fly across the ocean.”
“God took the Jewish candle out of the candlestick because it would not be the light of the world, and the nation went into darkness. It was for the same reason that the church went into the Dark Ages. It turned its candle into a dark lantern, and said, ‘As long as I may see the light, I do not care who is in the dark.’ Fellow-Christians, can we doubt our Master’s will? Ye are the light of your families! I hope so. ‘Ye are the light of the world!’ You are to shine so that the last man shall have some sight of your candle. Ye are the salt of the church?—No; ‘ye are the salt of the earth.’ Go put your light in the darkness; go rub your salt into decay. That is what we are for. Go where darkness and decay are worst. When Jesus said, ‘Love your neighbor,’ He meant the man who needs you. O, the wonderful story of the good Samaritan! The man in need is your neighbor. And who is your nearest neighbor?—Your neediest neighbor. It may be some child-widow in India is your nearest neighbor. It may be some famine-stricken laborer in India, some groping soul in Africa, is your nearest neighbor, because just now in the interest of God’s kingdom he needs you more than your Sabbath-school class needs you. It may be, I do not know.”
“Every one of us Christians will go some day . . . before Jesus Christ our Master, as a servant to give an account of our fidelity, of how we use our tools, our talents. And what is our chief trust, what our most invaluable talent?—It is our personal knowledge of Jesus Christ. I am to give an account before my Master for what I did in this world, with what I knew about Him. Do not doubt it. ‘What shall I do with Jesus, that is called Christ?’ Ask, rather, ‘What am I doing now with Jesus that is called Christ?’”—The Congregationalist.
Our Work and Workers.
Three candidates have recently been baptized at Black Creek, Wis., by Brother C. J. Herrmann.
At the last quarterly-meeting of the church at Janesville, Wis., four members were added. Brother C. W. Olds officiated.
November 9 and 10 a church was organized and a house of worship dedicated at Birnamwood, Wis., by Brethren Wm. Covert and H. W. Reed.
The recent General Conference Council appointed Brother E. R. Palmer, who recently returned from Australia, as a world's general canvassing agent.
On the 10th ult. two candidates were baptized at Beldenville, Wis., by Brother Wm. Sanders. Services in connection with the ordinance were held in the Baptist church.
Two candidates were recently baptized and received into the church at Walkerton, Ind., the rite being administered by Brother J. Davidson. Two other members were received by letter.
The Gleaner notes the organization of a church at Hawley, Wayne County, Pa., and the dedication of a church building at South Canaan. Brethren R. W. Underwood and C. F. McVagh officiated.
A course of studies on the rise and progress of the work of Seventh-day Adventists will be conducted at Walla Walla College (Wash.) by Brother J. N. Loughborough, during the month of December.
A church of twenty-three members has been organized at Halfway, Oregon, by Brother J. A. Holbrook. A new meeting-house is being erected. The Sabbath-school numbers over forty members.14
The brethren at Bozeman, Mont., have purchased ground and are erecting a house of worship, with additional provision for a church-school. The Bivouac says that the citizens are donating liberally. There is already a conference intermediate school at Bozeman.
Meetings held at Clear Lake, Texas, by Brother O. Glass, have resulted in three converts to the truth—one of whom speaks and writes Spanish, and one is an Indian lady. There were others deeply interested at the date of this report. No one in the vicinity had ever heard an Adventist sermon before.
Brother O. S. Ferren writes to the Nebraska Reporter that money and material have been collected for the erection of a church building at Sheridan, Wyo. Almost every business man in the town has contributed to the work. Brother Ferren says, “I am very busy now with this church, and we are building another on Columbus Creek, forty miles away.”
The three daily papers of Shamokin, Pa.—the Herald, News, and Dispatch—all give extended notices of the work of Evangelist Schmidt in that vicinity. A discourse on the “Coming of the Lord” was reported at length, and notice was given of two discourses one Sunday in the Baptist church, on the subjects of “The End of the Wicked” and “The Only Way to be Baptized.” He is credited with “having a plain way of preaching the Word of God.”
A really valuable educational help is found in the Advocate of Christian Education, published monthly at Berrien Springs, Mich., in connection with Emmanuel Missionary College. In these days of denominational schools, this journal should receive special reading. After Jan. 1, 1902, it will merge into itself the Sabbath-school Worker, combining both branches of Christian education. The address will be Berrien Springs. Subscription price, 50 cents a year.
In a recent letter to the Minnesota Worker, Brother W. A. Sweany reports the baptism of six candidates at the last quarterly-meeting of the church at Bridgetown, Barbados Island, B. W. I. Eight others desired baptism, but the administration was deferred. Brother Sweany adds: “Our work is well established here. We have a beautiful substantial white stone church with iron roof, that will seat 300, with a membership of over 100. Besides this there are three unorganized companies out in the country, and a number of scattered ones. Our services are all well attended.”
At the recent session of the South African Conference at Cape Town, the following named persons were appointed as a South African Union Council: W. S. Hyatt, J. M. Freeman, H. J. Edmed, F. L. Mead, and G. W. Reaser. News of the death of Brother Mead was received the next day after the close of the conference. He died at Kimberley, on his way to attend the meeting. Brother Hyatt was re-elected president of the conference, and O. O. Fortner secretary. At the close of the conference six persons were baptized. The reports showed a good financial standing, and remarkable book sales by canvassers considering the warlike condition of the country.
In the Indicator of the 7th ult. is a report of labor among the Seneca Indians of Cattaraugus County, N. Y., by Brother and Sister Carnahan. They have distributed many of our periodicals, and assisted in the Presbyterian Sunday-school, sometimes having charge of it. One feature of their work is thus described: “We have in the home at present a young man who came to us, sick, and in need of friends. He was suffering with malaria. Had chills every other day. A bath in the steam cabinet, and a healthful diet soon wiped out the malaria, and he is fast gaining his strength and health. We have many opportunities to help in this way, much more than we can do. This being the only ‘white home’ on the reservation, people who are in trouble all come to us.”
A writer in the Jamaica Times, of Kingston, Island of Jamaica, charges that Seventh-day Adventists are anarchists, and presents three counts: (1) They teach that all of the religious teaching of the past in Jamaica, and presumably elsewhere, is wrong; (2) That Adventists were working to control elections and so abolish Sunday; (3) That the laws concerning marriage are of no account, etc. Now every one who knows aught of Seventh-day Adventists and their teaching knows that there is no truth in any of these charges; and the candid who do not know will investigate before accepting such statements as truth. All this is to be expected. God will turn all falsehoods against His cause to His glory. “We can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth.”
The Workers' Bulletin gives substantial testimonials to the value of the book, “Christ's Object Lessons,” from four leading ministers in Oskaloosa, Iowa—the pastors of the First Baptist, the Central M. E., the Christian, and the Congregational churches. The book is well worthy of their commendation. Price in cloth, $1.25. As an exposition of the parables of Jesus, it has no equal.
The attention of American Christians is called to the example noted in a letter to the Atlantic News, from Brother W. Jay Tanner, missionary in Jamaica. He says: “It does one's heart good to see how anxious the natives who accept the truth here are to have it prosper. Their love for the cause is so strong that they do not want the workers to spend their time with them, but to go to others who have never heard. Our people on this island are mostly poor and can not afford to have as many books as even our poorest people in America. Nevertheless the most of them make good use of what they have.” He mentions one young man in particular who is longing for something to help him in Bible study. He had committed “Helps to Bible Study” to memory, read and reread “Steps to Christ” and “From Eden to Eden,” besides memorizing all the texts in the Sabbath-school lessons the past quarter. Brother Tanner says, “I have known him to walk fifteen miles and more to teach some one that he thought might be interested in the truth.”
RESULTS OF THE FAMINE IN INDIA.
The census of India, taken last March, shows, in its increased death-rate, the awful work of the famine. And yet, notwithstanding this check, the population has increased in ten years from 287,000,000 to 294,000,000. Mr. Hume, a missionary of the American Board, thinks that, as “India has a surprising way of recovering from a famine,” the “economic effects of an evil sort will soon be overcome.” As to the after-effects as affecting mission work, he is most hopeful:—
Religiously the results are already great, and will be greater as the months go by. The social system, which is based upon the Hindu religion, has been broken into, Hindu rites have been neglected, there have been no pilgrimages, the people have lost faith in their gods, and their religious leaders showed so little sympathy, in contrast with the willing serving on the part of the Christian missionaries, that they are not esteemed even as before, while the missionaries are more highly regarded, even by out-and-out heathen. Almost all of the $1,100,000 from America has been administered by the missionaries. The people have an added testimony of the power of Christianity to prompt to unselfish giving and doing.
This testimony to the unselfish love of the Christian religion is still being borne, in the care of widows and orphaned children, who are the famine’s legacy to the missionaries. Efforts are being made to give these children an industrial training that will fit them for lives of self-supporting usefulness. As noticed in these columns a few weeks ago, two gentlemen, one a graduate from an agricultural college, and the other from a school of technology, recently went from this country to aid in this good work.
GIVING IS LIVING.
FOREVER the sun is pouring its gold
On a hundred worlds that beg and borrow;
His warmth he squanders on summits old,
His health on the homes of want and sorrow;
To withhold his largess of precious light
Is to bury himself in eternal night—
To give is to live.
The flower shines not for itself at all,
Its joy is the joy it freely diffuses;
Of beauty and balm it is prodigal,
And it lives in the life it freely loses;
No choice for the rose but glory or doom,
To exhale or smother, to wither or bloom—
To deny is to die.
He is dead whose hand is not opened wide
To help the need of a human brother;
He doubles the length of his life-long ride,
Who gives his fortunate place to another;
And a thousand million lives are his
Who carries the world in his sympathies—
To deny is to die.
—Anon.
A SPLENDID OPPORTUNITY FOR 1902!
THE Correspondence School for Nurses connected with the Sanitarium Medical Missionary Training School will begin a new class at the commencement of the New Year. Lessons are sent weekly to students who are unable to leave home duties in order to take a regular course at one of our sanitariums. This is the third year this course has been carried on, and scores are availing themselves of it. Studies on eleven subjects are given, among which missionary work and care and treatment of the sick are prominent.
The tuition fee is $3.00, which barely covers the cost of sending out the lessons, correcting the replies, and returning the reports to the pupil. The books required for this work are furnished at actual cost-price. We shall organize a new class in January which will continue one year (some finish in six months), and shall be glad to hear from all who are interested. A descriptive circular giving full particulars, also testimonials from those who have taken the course, will be sent free on application. Address Correspondence Department, Sanitarium Training School, Battle Creek, Michigan.
LESSON XI.—DECEMBER 14.—SHALL NOT GOD AVENGE HIS OWN?
NOTE.—In the preparation of these lessons all Scripture references, and the pages of “Christ’s Object Lessons,” should be thoroughly studied first, then the questions. The questions are not the lessons. They are only for the purpose of finding out what we have observed while studying. More of the preciousness of these lessons will be obtained if the lesson is studied each day throughout the week. In the parables of Jesus there is salvation from sin for every type of sinner—from the Pharisee to the prodigal. The notes are wholly selected from such portions of “Christ’s Object Lessons” as apply to each lesson.
1 “And He spake a parable unto them to the end that they 2 ought always to pray, and not to faint; saying, There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, and regarded not man: 3 and there was a widow in that city; and she came oft unto 4 him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary. And he would not for a while; but afterward he said within himself, Though I 5 fear not God, nor regard man; yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest she wear me out by her continual coming. 6 And the Lord said, Hear what the unrighteous judge saith. 7 And shall not God avenge His elect, which cry to Him day and night, and He is long-suffering over them? 8 I say unto you, that He will avenge them speedily. Howbeit when the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?”
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS.
1. To what intent was this parable spoken?
2. What sort of judge is here mentioned? Who came to him? For what reason? For a while how did he act? Why only did he comply with her request?
3. What are we admonished “to hear”? Is God less mindful of the needs of His elect?
4. Which requires stronger faith—an immediate answer to prayer, or a delayed answer? Why?
5. In persevering prayer, what encouragement may we gather from Zech. 3:1–3?
6. Who is our common adversary? 1 Peter 5:8. Who only can avenge us of him? To whom, then, should we appeal?
12. Whence will Jesus gather His people? Mark 13:27; see note.
NOTES.
THE Lord permits trials in order that we may be cleansed from earthliness, from selfishness, from harsh, unchristlike traits of character. He suffers the deep waters of affliction to go over our souls, in order that we may know Him, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent, in order that we may have deep heart-longings to be cleansed from defilement, and may come from the trial purer, holier, happier.
THERE is no danger that the Lord will neglect the prayers of His people. The danger is that in temptation and trial they will become discouraged, and fail to persevere in prayer.
FROM age to age the Lord has made known the manner of His working. When a crisis has come, He has revealed Himself and has interposed to hinder the working out of Satan’s plans. With nations, with families, and with individuals, He has often permitted matters to come to a crisis, that His interference might become marked.
IN this time of prevailing iniquity we may know that the last great crisis is at hand.
FROM garrets, from hovels, from dungeons, from scaffolds, from mountains and deserts, from the caves of the earth and the caverns of the sea, Christ will gather His children to Himself.
HOLMAN BIBLES
Family editions in six languages. Pronouncing Teacher’s Bibles in great variety. Catalogue free. A. J. HOLMAN & CO., 1222-1226 Arch St., Philadelphia, Pa.
