THE word "church" is a very common one to-day, and yet many fail to realize the significance of the institution. As we try to form a conception of the church, we are prone to see only the visible, the exterior, or that which we consider as material.
As we pause to consider the body, the church, let us recall the words of the Saviour as He visits Jerusalem in company with the disciples. They invite His attention to the temple. He beholds, yet points the disciples to that time when "not one stone shall be left upon another." Inspiration declares a time when "heaven and earth shall pass away." John, on the lone rock of Patmos, beholds "a new heaven and a new earth;" he beholds that holy city, adorned as a bride for her husband; and altho his eyes are dimmed with age, from barren Patmos he views the green fields of a new earth. He thirsts,—but from that lonely isle he sees a river, the waters whereof shall make glad the redeemed. He longs to hear once more the sweet songs of Zion, but a far grander and more glorious strain salutes his ear; it is the song of Moses and the Lamb. He sees the redeemed there from every nation, kindred, tongue, and people; but behold, there is no temple there. When this old earth shall stand trembling in chaos; when darkness shall again rest over the great deep, and the heavens be rolled back as a scroll, the church—the company of triumphant believers—shall still exist; it shall stand before the throne of God.
Many years ago it started from Eden's gateway for a land where the thistle and thorn will not grow. Babylon, that fair city, attracted its attention, inviting it to stay. It could not remain, for it had started for a city "whose builder and maker was God." It has passed the Red Sea of affliction. Its head has been wounded and bruised. The fair lilies of Olive's brow have been watered with tears; the cruel cross has been carried to Calvary's summit; blood, precious blood, has trickled down upon that mountainside; the grave-clothes are in the tomb, but the wearer is at the right hand of God. While now we pass through the tomb, we shall soon follow our glorious Head to the right hand of God the Father. Still the world may invite us, but we see "a land, a better land than this," a land where sin can never come, for—
"All who reach that heavenly land
Will be as angels are."
Satisfied?—Yes, then we will be satisfied.
Eagle River, Wis.
THE MAYOR AND THE RAGPICKER.
By G. Campbell Morgan
You get a man to the Master, and I do not care if he is up there, or down there, or where he is; the man that is cultured and refined and scholarly, or the man who is ignorant and debased and vile—get him to Christ and He will fill him.
Shall I tell you where and how the Lord taught me that lesson in my own work? I am bound to confess there was a time in my evangelistic work that I had an idea that Christ could satisfy the man that was down there in the slums, but I was always a wee bit afraid if into the inquiry room came a man of position and culture, and I tell you the Lord gave me one of the most wonderful illustrations of the absurdity of my fear that I ever had. I was conducting special meetings in a town of the Midlands that shall be nameless, and there came into the inquiry room a ragpicker, a great, gaunt old man, that had grown hoary in the service of sin and Satan, an awful character, but God had shown him his heart-hunger and had revealed the Christ to him; and there in our inquiry room that man knelt, and I knelt by him, and I felt at home as I spoke to that man of the blood that cleanseth from all sin. I felt it was just what he wanted.
And presently somebody touched me on the shoulder, and said: “Here, won’t you speak to this man?” And I looked around, and there, kneeling next to me, was the mayor of the city, a man about as old as the ragpicker, but a man who had all the marks of culture and refinement, a man of position. I happened to know that six weeks before the mayor had sentenced this man to a month’s hard labor, and this man had got out a fortnight ago, and there they were, side by side, and I had to turn from the ragpicker and talk to this man. Presently the light that had broken there broke here, and I found that the blood that was needed there was sufficient here. He filled them both. And the most blessed part of it is, when that man got up he went over to that man and said: “Well, we didn’t meet here last time.” It was the mayor that had said it, and the old fellow looked up. He had no idea who was there, and he said: “No, we will never meet again like we did the last time, praise God!” What a scene it was! It is in my memory to this day.—G. Campbell Morgan.
How They Became Convinced
By Daisy Battenburgh-Davis
[Believing it would be of interest to our readers, the editor of the SIGNS OF THE TIMES has asked Sabbath-keeping ministers and evangelical workers to tell in a few words the scripture or scriptures, the truths and principles which constrained them to accept the unpopular truth of the seventh-day Sabbath. These testimonies must not exceed 500 words. Let us hear from all.]
CLXXXI.
I was brought up in a Christian home, and early taught to read the Bible, and to say my prayers. My mother was a true Christian; one who walked in the light that was vouchsafed to her. At this time we never had heard of any people who kept the Lord's Sabbath. It was about three years after my dear mother's death that we first heard of it.
We used to take an American paper called the Ram's Horn, in the children's page of which I was much interested. One day I wrote a letter to the editor of that department, and he very kindly inserted it.
A gentleman in America, Mr. John N. Quinn, of Philadelphia, seeing my letter in the Ram's Horn, wrote to me, and also sent me some copies of the SIGNS OF THE TIMES, asking me to give them to my father, as he might like to read them.
I gave the papers to my father, and the first thing that struck him when he began to read was the two columns headed "The Sunday-School" and "The Sabbath-School," the date of the one being that of Sunday (the day we had hitherto regarded and kept as the Sabbath), and the date of the other, that of Saturday. As he read further he found other articles about the seventh-day Sabbath, and, after searching the Scriptures carefully, he was convinced that the seventh day was the Sabbath of the Lord. The first Sabbath that father kept was January 9, 1897.
As yet I did not trouble myself about it. I heard father speak of it, but I only thought it rather peculiar. Besides, I thought it would look so odd to "keep Saturday," when everybody else we knew "kept Sunday." I thought people would laugh at the "new fad," as our clergyman of the Church of England called it, when he heard that father had begun to observe the Sabbath, and not Sunday, as the God-appointed day of rest.
But, little by little, hearing father talk so much about it, I got more interested, and began searching the Scriptures for myself. Sometimes I almost wished I could discover some text in the Bible that would justify Sunday-keeping; but, needless to say, I never did. Thank God, I am now trying to keep all His commandments.
My dear father is a doctor, pensioned in Chunar. He has had many a talk with clergymen who have tried, by various arguments, to convince him that he is wrong in keeping the Sabbath instead of Sunday; but not one of them has been able to prove it from the Scriptures. Our family are now all keeping the Sabbath of the Lord our God, the day which He has blessed and sanctified, and appointed for man from the creation of the world, and on which He Himself did rest "from all His work which God created and made."
DAISY BATTENBURGH-DAVIS.
Blessed Is the Man Who Keeps the Faith
BLESSSED is the man who keeps the faith. There is not in all the world a finer sight than the home where a man keeps his courage and his honor through youth and manhood and age, bearing all burdens in hope because of the trust that centers in him. The wife will not let him reproach himself for any of the failures he is conscious of, for she knows that he has won the real victories of life. His children defend his name against all attacks, for they know that he has kept his honor where other men have surrendered; and for such success as he has achieved they are all proud, glad, jubilant, for the prize that has been honestly earned. If the world applauds, they are delighted, for the best of them like recognition. If the world withholds its praise, and the neighbors think of the man as a failure, the people who believe in him are sometimes amusingly aggressive in their resentment. The worker himself takes it all quietly, and has his hours of misgiving, but the unwavering faith of those who love him is his strength. What a different world if we all believed in one another as long as we could! How many weak ones would be kept on the main traveled road if they had such support, instead of the doubts and suspicions that tend to draw them aside! If a man seems to falter in a difficult task, and is almost ready to give it up for something easier, why not give him a bit of praise? "Go ahead; you are doing finely, we are banking on you." With all our fine phrases about the brotherhood of man, how often do most of us go out of our way to show a struggling brother what the family expects of him.—Christendom.
WATCHMAN, WHAT OF THE NIGHT?
SUCH is the question which the sojourner in Seir asks of the prophet of God. In the Scriptures the long millenniums of this world of sin are likened to the night, in which the drunken, the reveler, and the gay, find thoughtless, sensuous pleasure, but where the reflecting, and the thoughtful, seeing the misery, the wo, the transgression, the death, long for the breaking of morning. “Watchman, what of the night?” Must its deeds of darkness forever go on? or are we nearing the morning? Is the day about to dawn? Thousands are asking such questions as these, and it is the purpose of this issue to answer them in part.
We should not ask the question lightly.
We may not answer it carelessly.
In this teeming earth and its outcome are involved the eternal fate of nations and empires and the eternal destiny of countless thousands.
What of the Night?
It is dark to the great majority. The political, misanthropic pessimist sees only trouble and destruction and darkness of despair.
The hopeful optimist, sitting by his abundant table, looking in the light of his own fire at the visions to which his wishes have given being, sees only a roseate future, and declares, “To-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant.” Isa. 56: 12.
The careless, heedless pleasure-lover says, mockingly, “Let us eat and drink; for to-morrow we shall die.” Isa. 22: 13.
We may not judge the time from immediate events or present environments. Circumstances may have placed us for a time in a low valley, where our vision is indeed limited by not distant mountains. It may be the valley of our household, where all is sunshine and prosperity; the dear ones are kind and well; there is plenty to eat, drink, and wear; the black shadow of evil or death has never entered our door, and our hearts do not wish a change, and we will not look beyond our limited horizon. Such a vision is intrinsically selfish.
Sometimes our valley is that formed by a business river. It winds its way through the mountainous country, dashes impetuously down the narrow gorges, bursts out into broader valleys, rich in natural products, gathers strength and volume from tributaries and confluenents, turns the wheel of many a mill, and we are content to bound our vision by its immediate limit, and see only prosperity. In some river valleys the reverse of all this is seen.
Sometimes our point of outlook is that of the politician's knoll, looking only for what will give “our party” success and what will hinder our opponents, and viewing nothing with certainty “beyond the election.”
Sometimes we climb the hill a little higher. We look at earth's turmoil as a statesman, a patriot, a historian; we confess, as do earth’s greatest to-day, that we know not what next, but we hope for the best.
The Best View.
There is a better view of this earth’s condition than any or all of these combined. The only true outlook of worldly things is from the watch-tower of God. The vision of the mortal is absorbed by the strong lights and shadows of the things which immediately concern him. He loses the outline of the important. His perspective is at fault. The nearer, smaller, insignificant objects of vision obscure or hide the great and essential. The little sluggish canal of his own digging seems greater than the mighty stream of time on which empires are floating to eternal wreck. A mere partisan measure of to-day shuts from our view the eternal moral principle. A name and deed of some high-lifted, human hero hides the great God and our duty to Him. The worldly view is always a present view. It is the view of the sensuous, the covetous. It is the view of the mere brute.
God calls all mankind—possible immortals—up into the mount with Him. He would have us see as He sees—“visions [seeings] of God.” He would place us “upon a very high mountain,” and in “visions of God,” as recorded in His Word, He would reveal to us His own workings among the kingdoms of men despite the kings, even to the glorious consummation. He would say: “Son of man, behold with thine eyes, and hear with thine ears, and set thine heart upon all that I shall show thee; for to the intent that I might show them unto thee art thou brought hither.” Eze. 40: 2–4. “O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion, get thee up into the high mountain.” Isa. 40: 9, R. V. So only may we know “what of the night.”
In the prophetic Word, God has revealed to us the birth, the course, the end, of earthly empire. All the great events of earthly rule, opposed tho they be to righteousness and truth, are under His guiding or restraining hand. “The wrath of man,” says the psalmist, “shall praise Thee; the remainder of wrath shalt Thou restrain.”
“Watchman, what of the night?” And the watchman replies: According to His unerring Word we are nearing the end of earthly rule. “The fulness of time” is nearly reached, when Christ shall take to Himself His great power, and reign. Over the darkness of moral night the bright beams of the glorious Sun of Righteousness are about to shine. “The morning cometh.”
THE REWARD OF THE RIGHTEOUS.
ONE of the sentimental ideas that attaches to the immortal-soul theory is that when the righteous die they pass to their reward “beyond the bounds of time and space.” But the Scriptures point to a more tangible and rational existence. Job says: “I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and tho after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.” Paul shows very clearly and positively in 1 Corinthians 15 that without a resurrection our “faith is vain.” “This mortal must put on immortality.” And in 1 Thessalonians 4, he tells us that this is done at the coming of the Lord.
David tells us in the thirty-seventh psalm that “the meek shall inherit the earth,” and in Matthew 5 these words are quoted by our Lord. The promise to Abraham was that he should be heir of the world (Rom. 4:13), but he died without realizing the promise (Hebrews 11). When he died he could not have gone off “beyond the bounds of time and space” to enjoy as a reward something that is entirely within space. There is no limit to space, only as it is filled by material objects. Moreover Peter, in the third chapter of his second epistle, tells us that this earth will be destroyed, and that according to His promise, the promise to Abraham and his Seed, we “look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.” Therefore Abraham can not, “beyond the bounds of time and space” or anywhere else, be enjoying as a reward something that does not yet exist.
The Seed referred to in connection with the promise to Abraham is Christ (Gal. 3:16; 2 Cor. 1:19, 20); and “if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” Gal. 3:29. Then the promise is to Abraham’s spiritual seed, and not to the natural seed. Verses 7-9. And neither Abraham nor any one who has died can inherit the promised reward until all the faithful—living and dead—shall come into the inheritance together. Matt. 25:31-34; 1 Thess. 4:15-18; 2 Tim. 4:6-8; Heb. 11:39, 40.
There is just one way to pass “beyond the bounds of time and space,” and that is through utter annihilation. While there is one class who will eventually reach that bourne, it will not be the righteous. David says: “Evil-doers shall be cut off; but those that wait on the Lord, they shall inherit the earth. For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be; yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be. Ps. 37:9, 10. “The wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the Lord shall be as the fat of lambs, they shall consume; into smoke shall they consume away.” Verse 20. Obadiah says “they shall be as tho they had not been.” Verse 16. Malachi says: “Behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble; and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.” Chapter 4:1.
The reward of the righteous is a real, tangible reward—eternal life, with a home on a tangible planet wherein dwelleth righteousness, and the King of Righteousness to reign over them; and they shall “delight themselves in the abundance of peace.” And the King is saying to His people, “Behold, I come quickly; and My reward is with Me, to give every man according as his work shall be.”
THE RICHEST OFFER EVER MADE.
THE time is drawing near when the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdom of our Lord; when the kingdom of men ruled by men and fomenting strife will be broken as a potter's vessel, and the kingdom of Christ fill the whole earth. Those kingdoms, ground to powder by the "stone cut out of the mountain without hands," will be scattered as the winds of autumn scatter the chaff of the summer threshing-floor. But concerning that time the prophet declares that our Lord "shall stand, and shall feed His flock in the strength of Jehovah, in the majesty of the name of Jehovah His God; and they shall abide." Micah 5:4.
Strife is running riot in the world to-day; but he who is fed of God will have peace in the very midst of this world's commotion. He will abide, and abide in peace, and not only that; but he "shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty;" and that means to abide forever. He will not be moved; he will not be anxious amid this world's tumults; he will not be fearful of the outcome, because "this Man shall be our peace."
The inn of Bethlehem had no place for Him in whose hands lay all the blessings of heaven for a lost world. The house was filled with the every-day traveler and trafficker. So with the hearts of the great mass of humanity to-day. Men are struggling, striving, surging, self-seeking, competing, crowding the heart walls for room, while the Saviour of the world stands without, knocking unheard, pleading unanswered, and still loving through it all, the souls that weave themselves as woof into the warp of this world. And when one does hear, and turns from the turmoil and the strife and the grasping and the soul-starving to the water of life and the house of bread, then Heaven rejoices, and the long waiting and the scorn and the rebuffs and the mockings of the rabble that hounded Him to the cross then, and follows His disciples now—all are forgotten in the joy that fills the heart of Christ. He is then seeing the fruit of soul-travail, and the seeing brings the satisfying which recompenses all.
O soul outside of Christ, why dwell longer in sin? Why wander longer in the wilderness of sin and doubting? Why walk longer in the way that has no other end, no other goal, than death? Why journey on toward the desert of death, when you might return to the garden of God, with its flowing river of life, its fruit-filled tree of life, its bread of life? Why serve longer the prince of this world on the battle-fields of selfishness, greed, strife, and all manner of evil, when the Prince of Peace has unfurled His banner, in whose service all is love and joy and peace and all manner of good? The time for choosing is now, to-day. The hosts of evil are swelling to untold proportions, and soon the harvest they have sown they will reap. But out of this sin-sown soil God is bringing forth a remnant for His glory who shall walk over the ashes of the hosts of Satan, when the dross of sin has been burned out of this world. To that remnant are all the promises of God. They shall live and reign with Him forever, even forever and ever. Souls are deciding every hour either for life or death. "Choose you this day whom ye will serve." The unbidden Guest of Bethlehem holds out to you the bread of life, and bids you drink of the water of life, and offers to you the joys and blessings of eternal life, where the canker of sin can never come. It is the richest offer that has ever been made to man. Accept it, and accept it now.
THE LAW, THE SABBATH, AND REDEMPTION.
THE Lord repeated His law to the children of Israel at Sinai, because He had delivered them from Egyptian servitude in order that they might serve Him. Ex. 4:22, 23. It was therefore necessary that they know His law, if they were to serve Him intelligently. Their long bondage under the heathen had well-nigh obliterated the knowledge of the law of God. But, from the time Moses returned from Midian on his mission of deliverance, he had been instructing them as fast as possible.
One of the signs that the Lord had given Moses at the burning bush was, "When thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain" (Horeb, or Sinai). Ex. 3:12. It was meet, then, that the people should be fully informed as to the law they should obey. So the Lord, as He always does in due time, gave them needful information.
The law, as enunciated from Sinai, contained the Sabbath commandment expressed in very explicit terms. It plainly states the day of the Sabbath—the seventh day—and the reason why it was blessed and hallowed. The day, and the reason for its hallowing, or sanctification, are the same as mentioned in Gen. 2:2, 3, and are therefore the same. Connecting this with the fact that Abraham kept the commandments of God (Gen. 26:5), we have the proof that neither the law nor the Sabbath originated at Sinai. This is also shown by the fact that some weeks previous the people had been reminded of the Sabbath in the giving of the manna, and it was made a test as to whether they would walk in the law or not. Ex. 16:4, 5.
Out of Egypt to Serve.
The preamble, or introductory statement, to the law has an important significance that is too generally overlooked: "I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." Ex. 20:2. Now note the statement in Deut. 5:15: "Remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched-out arm; therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day." This is another emphasis on the fact that God delivered Israel from slavery in Egypt that they might have liberty to serve Him, and their remembrance and observance of the Sabbath day was to be the test of their willingness to be obedient.
This point, the prominence of the Sabbath in the law, is shown by comparison of a few other texts of Scripture. In Ex. 19:5 the Lord says to Israel, "Now therefore [because He had brought them out of Egypt], if ye will obey My voice indeed, and keep My covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine." Obeying God's voice as heard by the people on Sinai, was obeying His law of Ten Commandments, for that was all that He spoke audibly to the people. Deut. 5:22, 23.
Now practically the same promise is made for faithful Sabbath observance as for the observance of the whole law: "If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on My holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable; and shalt honor Him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words; then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." Isa. 58:13, 14.
Unchangeable.
Of this law, to whose observance so much importance and blessing is attached, Jesus said to the people, in His great Sermon on the Mount: "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in nowise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." Matt. 5:17, 18. It is not enough that Christ Himself fulfil the law; for He died that "the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." See Rom. 8:3, 4.
All men are under obligation to keep the Sabbath, for "the Sabbath was made for man" in the beginning. But, as we have shown, Israel was placed under added obligation, because of their deliverance from Egypt, just as the pardoned criminal is deemed under renewed obligation to become a law-abiding citizen. Now Israel was typical of God's people all through the Gospel dispensation, or probationary time. God called Israel His son (Ex. 4:22, 23; Hosea 11:1); so He said of the Child Jesus, when He was taken to Egypt for a time to escape the treachery of Herod, "Out of Egypt have I called My Son." Matt. 2:15. The children of Israel were the children of Abraham, and the disciples of Christ are the seed of Abraham (Gal. 3:29). "We are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh." Phil. 3:3.
What Egypt Means.
Egypt stands for the lowest depths, the blackest darkness, of sin. Christ's going into Egypt was typical of His stooping to redeem the sinner of the lowest degree. Therefore all who are redeemed from sin by faith in His redeeming blood are brought out of Egyptian darkness, "out of the house of bondage." So, just as Christ brought literal Israel out of literal Egypt by the hand of Moses, He has brought the spiritual seed out of spiritual darkness by His Holy Spirit. And, just as the literal seed (who were also spiritual when truly converted) were under added obligation to keep the law of God, including His Sabbath which He blessed and sanctified in the beginning, so the spiritual seed, which He has redeemed from spiritual Egypt, are under a like special obligation. In either case the law and the Sabbath are spiritual institutions. Paul says, "The law is spiritual" (Rom. 7:14); and the Sabbath is a memorial of God's rest, which was a spiritual rest, for "God is a Spirit." John 4:24.
The Lord is saying to His people to-day, as verily as He did of old, "I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage;" "thou shalt keep therefore His statutes, and His commandments, which I command thee this day, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days upon the earth, which the Lord thy God giveth thee, forever." Deut. 4:40. Now "the earth" which the Lord gives to the spiritual seed "forever" is the "new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness" (2 Peter 3:13); and in that new earth, to the kingdom of which "there shall be no end" (Luke 1:31-33), all flesh shall worship God on the Sabbath day (Isa. 66:22, 23), just as was designed in the beginning, when "the Sabbath was made for man."
DO THE GREAT MEN SEE THESE THINGS?
THIS is a question which many are asking. The question ought to be, "What does the great Teacher say?"
The Jews of old listened to Christ, and then asked, "Hath any of the rulers believed on Him?" And, depending on men, and rejecting Christ, they believed not, but died in their sins.
God would not have men repose their faith in men. For that very reason, He must often pass by those whom the world considers wise and great, and choose humble instruments. And therefore He declares that "the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid," while He will reveal His mysteries unto babes.
"Wise men," full of their own esteem, busy with "great" affairs, will not take time to learn of God, and hence are in darkness as to the future. Note some of their sad heart utterances:—
Said Lord Salisbury, in speaking of threatened wars:
These wars come upon us absolutely unannounced and with terrible rapidity. The war cloud rises in the horizon with a rapidity that obviates all calculation, and, it may be, a month or two months after the first warning you receive, you find you are engaged in or in prospect of a war on which your very existence is staked.
Two years ago, after a European tour of inspection, Gen. Nelson A. Miles said:
I have seen all the great armies of Europe except the Spanish army. What I have seen does not indicate that the millennium is at hand, when swords shall be beaten into plowshares.
The late Bishop Newman gave his view of the situation in these words:
This is the most unsettled condition of the world since the crucifixion of Christ. The stability of government is no longer a fact. Change is in the atmosphere. It is just as true now as a thousand years ago, "Thou knowest not what a day may bring forth." . . . Statesmen are at their wits' end. Philosophers speculate in vain.
Archbishop Ireland, Roman Catholic, declares:
The bonds of society are relaxed; traditional principles are losing their sacredness, and perils hitherto unknown are menacing the life of the social organism.
Prof. E. Benjamin Andrews, ex-president of Brown University, was led to say a few years ago:
No well-informed person in Europe seems to believe that peace is destined to endure there very long. On all hands people are preparing for war. Armies and navies are strengthened; fortifications multiplied; immense war treasures of gold piled up; all possible hypothetical plans of campaign, offensive and defensive, studied and discussed; firearms, great and small, ceaselessly experimented upon, and improved; civil measures subordinate to military, and statesmen to great army men and navy men.
Signor Crispi, for many years prime minister of Italy, comparing Europe with Spain, at the time of the Spanish-American War, said:
Europe resembles Spain, from a certain point of view. Anarchy is dominant everywhere. To speak frankly, there is no Europe. The European concert is only a sinister joke. Nothing can be expected from the concert of the powers. We are marching toward the unknown. Who knows what to-morrow has in store for us?
And, finally, the Springfield (Mass.) Republican, one of the ablest-edited papers in the United States, comparing the time of four years ago with ten years previous, remarks:
The view ten years ago showed a placid, smiling river; now we see the boiling rapids of a torrent plunging toward what abyss no one knows. War has followed war with swift succession. . . . What the next stroke will be who shall say?
And there is much more of the same import. "God is light." Apart from Him all is darkness. Men may reject the light and walk in darkness. And yet the way out of the darkness and perplexity is clearly revealed in the Word of God. "Thy Word," says the royal Psalmist, "is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path." "We have also a more sure word of prophecy," says the apostle Peter, "whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn." We may heed God's light, and know the outcome, or we may walk on in blindness and darkness, to death and destruction. Which is the wiser way?
Trust in Zion
The prophet asks:
"What shall one answer the messengers of the nation?
" It is the business of the Lord's people to give to every man that asks of him a reason for the hope he has; and when the messengers of the nation come questioning, it is not the province of the child of God to enter with them into a discussion of the affairs of the nations, or to laud any man or men; but this is to be the burden of his answer: "That the Lord hath founded Zion, and the poor of His people shall trust in it." Always is the stability of the kingdom of God to be kept before the people of this world—always the fact that the blessings of God are as free to the poor as to the well-to-do or the rich. They are to know that in the midst of all the strife, turmoil, uncertainty, and dangers existing in the nations there is still something in which men can trust with absolute surety. Even the poor can trust in Zion, and that trust will never be betrayed. It is good to know that there is something in which we can trust. It is good to know that we have an answer we can give in such a time as this when perplexities are seizing upon the people of the nations. God's promises are facts; and He has promised safety and salvation to those who trust His Word. "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress; my God; in Him will I trust."
OUR LONDON LETTER.
By M. Ellsworth Olsen
BY M. ELLSWORTH OLSEN.
Cruel Injustice.
AN event attracting wide public interest this month has been the case of Adolph Beck, an English resident of Scandinavian birth, who was arrested in 1895, and sentenced, and served his time; then was re-arrested recently on another charge, but set free, it having transpired that the real culprit, one John Smith, had been at large all this time, Mr. Beck being innocent of both charges. This gross miscarriage of justice has been taken up vigorously by the press of the country. Mr. Beck was offered £2,000 by the government, if he would let the matter drop; but, backed by the press and general public sentiment, he has asked for an investigation, which has been granted, and is now taking place, behind closed doors, of course.
September has been a quiet month politically, the legislators taking their holidays. Next month several important speeches will be given by leading statesmen. The most significant movement in politics is the growing independence of the labor members of Parliament. It looks as if the time is not far distant when England will have a Socialist party wielding much the same influence as that in Germany and Italy. Many of the regular Liberals in this country sympathize strongly with the labor movement, and the Daily News, the principal Liberal organ, is devoting two of its columns daily to the discussion of labor problems.
Insanity Steadily Increasing.
The report which the commissioners in lunacy have just issued certainly contains food for careful thought, and not by any means for self-congratulation. They tell us that, on the first of January last, there were no fewer than 117,199 insane persons in England and Wales, an increase of 3,235 during the year. To get a clearer idea of what this means, it may be well to say that the number of insane in England and Wales was but 36,762 in the year 1859, and that the ratio then was 1.8 lunatics per thousand of the population. To-day the ratio is 3.6 lunatics per thousand. In other words, with all the science and education and general advantages of modern life, England has to-day twice as many lunatics in proportion to her population as she had forty-five years ago. This does not look like evolution.
Child Drunkards.
Naturally drink cuts a large figure in the insanity records. The Bluebook issued by the select committee appointed to look into the subject of physical degeneration, gives some sad details in reference to the ravages of gin. Even little children contract the habit. In a hospital at Blackheath, in the southeast of London, "there was a little puny, three-year-old child, who had a penny given to him to play with, and the poor little wretch held out his hand to every visitor with the penny in it, asking them to get him 'just a ha'porth [half-penny worth] of gin.' It was his one idea of the way to use the penny. Gin was his ideal of happiness."
Sometimes the women drink worse than the men, when, of course, there can be no real home life. Drinking begins in the morning, breakfast probably consisting of a bottle of stout and bread and cheese.
Rome's Tactics.
Romanism makes stealthy advancement, with the same tactics that it used hundreds of years ago. Cardinal Vannutelli, the pope's special representative, was in Ireland recently, and, in one of his speeches, said he had good hopes of a Roman Catholic University for Ireland, because King Edward, on the occasion of his visit to Maynooth College (in Ireland), had expressed his marked sympathy with the aspirations of Roman Catholics in that direction. But this question of the university is a political matter, concerning which royalty in this country is supposed to be entirely non-committal. Accordingly the English Churchman, a strong Protestant paper, took up the matter, and the secretary of the Imperial Protestant Federation wrote His Majesty's secretary, Lord Knollys, asking if such a royal utterance had been made at Maynooth, whereupon an official denial was given. The cardinal then stated that the press had reported him incorrectly, which seems unlikely, in view of the fact that some weeks before, in leaving Ireland, he publicly commended the press for their "accuracy" in reporting his addresses.
Missionizing the Protestants.
Missions for non-Catholics are now a regular feature of Roman Catholic activity in Great Britain. A few months ago crowded congregations of Protestants were gathering nightly at Rugby to hear a Catholic cleric explain the Roman faith. We may judge of his methods from this significant paragraph in a press notice:
The great feature of these missions is that they are absolutely non-controversial; the aim is to explain the doctrines of the Catholic faith, and from beginning to end not one word was said that the most critical Protestant could take objection to.
It seems hardly necessary to point out that it is just such missions that do the most harm. While professing to explain, they really place the whole matter of Romanism, its history and doctrines, in a false light. But we are seeing on every hand the old boundaries disappearing. It is something for Rome to condescend graciously to explain herself. Protestants will crowd each other to reach the feet of the sovereign pontiff; and the union of a false, back-slidden Protestantism with the Rome that never changes is only a matter of time.
Prophecy gives the key to the situation, but prophecy is a portion of the Scriptures especially neglected in these days, when only the few study the Bible at all.
At the present writing the palmists mentioned in my previous letter are still under remand, awaiting trial, a true bill having been found against them.