Signs of the Times, Vol. 9, No. 22. (6/7/1883)

Signs of the Times

Jun 7, 1883

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 7, 1883

General Articles.

By Ellen G. White

Luther at Wittenberg.

BY MRS. E. G. WHITE.

AFTER two years in the cloister, Luther was consecrated to the priest's office, and a year later he was called to a professorship in the University of Wittenberg. Here he applied himself diligently to the study of the ancient languages, especially Greek and Hebrew, that he might study the word of God in the original tongues. He began to lecture upon the Bible; and the book of Psalms, the Gospels, and the Epistles, were opened to the understanding of crowds of eager listeners. From all parts of Germany and even from foreign countries, students flocked to the university.

Staupitz, the friend and superior of Luther, urged him to ascend the pulpit, and preach the word of God. But Luther hesitated, feeling himself unworthy to speak to the people in Christ's stead. It was only after a long struggle, that he yielded to the solicitations of his friends.

The pulpit in which he first preached was an old rostrum made of rough planks, in a dilapidated chapel propped on all sides to keep it from falling. Here the Reformation preaching was entered upon. When Jesus came to earth, he was cradled in a manger. And the gospel was not first proclaimed in imposing churches, but from the swaying seat of a fisherman's boat, and upon the mountain side, in the plain, and by the highway.

Already Luther was mighty in the Scriptures; and the grace of God rested upon him. His surpassing eloquence delighted and captivated his auditors; the clearness and power with which he presented the truth convinced their understanding, and his deep fervor touched their hearts. The little chapel could not contain the crowds that sought admission, and he was called to preach in the parish church. So wide-spread had his reputation now become that Frederic the Wise, the Elector of Saxony, came to Wittenberg to hear him.

Luther was still a true son of the papal church, and had no thought that he would ever be anything else. In the providence of God he decides to visit Rome. He pursues his journey on foot, lodging at the monasteries on the way. He passes the Alps, and descends into the plain of Italy, and is filled with wonder as he goes. Visiting a convent in Lombardy, he sees the splendor of the apartments, the richness of the dresses, the luxury of the table, the extravagance everywhere. With painful misgivings he contrasts this scene with the self-denial and hardship of his own life. His mind is becoming perplexed.

At last he beholds in the distance the seven-hilled city. With deep emotion he prostrates himself upon the earth, exclaiming, "Holy Rome, I salute thee!" He enters the city, visits the churches, listens to the marvelous tales repeated by priests and monks, and goes through all the forms and ceremonies required. Everywhere he looks upon scenes that fill him with astonishment and horror. He sees that the same iniquity exists among the higher clergy as among the lower. He hears the indecent jokes from prelates, and is filled with horror at their awful profanity, even during mass. As he mingles with the monks and citizens, he meets dissipation, debauchery. Turn where he will, in the place of sanctity he finds profanation. "It is incredible," he says, "what sins and atrocities are committed in Rome. If there be a hell, Rome is built above it. It is an abyss whence all sins proceed."

The heart-sickening depravity and blind superstition which he saw on every side led him to press more closely to Christ. On his knees one day Luther was ascending the stairway to St. Peter's, when a voice like thunder seemed to say to him, "The just shall live by faith!" He sprang upon his feet in shame and horror, and fled from the scene of his folly. That text never lost its power upon his soul. From that time he saw more clearly than ever before the fallacy of trusting to human works for salvation, and the necessity of constant faith in the merits of Christ. The truth of God had enlightened his understanding. His eyes had been opened, and were never again to be closed to the satanic delusions of the papacy. When he turned his face from Rome, he had turned away also in heart, and from that time the separation grew wider, until he severed all connection with the Romish church.

At the age of twenty-nine Luther received at the University of Wittenberg, the degree of doctor of divinity. Now he was at liberty to devote himself, as never before, to the Scriptures that he loved. He had taken a solemn vow to study carefully and to preach with fidelity the word of God, not the sayings and doctrines of the popes, all the days of his life. He was no longer the mere monk or professor, but the authorized herald of the Bible. He had been called as a shepherd to feed the flock of God, that were hungering and thirsting for the truth.

Luther's feet were now planted upon the true foundation,—"the prophets and apostles, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone." He firmly declared that Christians should receive no other doctrines than those which rest on the authority of the sacred Scriptures. At the sound of these words Rome trembled. They struck at the very foundation of papal supremacy. They contained the vital principle of the Reformation.

In the providence of God, Luther was now to stand as the reformer of the church. He sought to turn the minds of his students away from the sophistries of philosophers and theologians, to the eternal truths set forth by prophets and apostles. He fearlessly attacked the speculative infidelity of the school-men, and opposed the philosophy and theology which had so long held a controlling influence upon the minds of the people. He saw, as we see to-day, the danger of exalting human theories and speculations above the revealed truths of God's word. He denounced such studies as not only worthless but pernicious, declaring that, "the writings of the prophets and the apostles are more certain and sublime than all the sophisms and theology of the schools." "Within my heart," he adds, "reigns alone, and must alone reign, faith in my Lord Jesus Christ, who is alone the beginning, the middle, and the end of the thoughts that occupy me day and night."

With deep earnestness he declared his faith in Christ as the basis of his hope,—the beginning and the end, the foundation and crowning glory of the plan of salvation. He was listened to with wonder as he spoke of that faith to the students in the university and to the crowded congregations in the church. He was steadily and surely drawing the minds of pupils and hearers away from trust in men, however high their claims, away from self-righteousness, to Christ.

The burden of his preaching was, "Learn to know Christ and him crucified. Learn to despair of your own work and cry unto him, Lord Jesus thou art my righteousness and I am thy sin. Thou hast taken on thee what was mine, and given to me what was thine. What thou wast not, thou becamest, that I might become what I was not.".

Thus fearlessly and firmly Luther presented those great truths which the apostles of Christ had proclaimed with such power. The voice of Paul, sounding down through the centuries, spoke through Luther, exposing superstitions, refuting error, and uprooting heresy.

Priests and prelates, the professed expositors of divine truth, were perverting the Scriptures by their misstatements and prevarications; wresting the word of God to make it sustain their errors and traditions. They sedulously withheld the Bible from the people, well knowing that should they search it for themselves, their faith would be fixed upon Christ, and not upon pope and priests. The light shining forth from God's word would lead the mind directly away from the Romish faith.

Such had been the experience of Luther. As he saw the terrible apostasy and corruption of the church, he determined to be a faithful steward of God's word, to dispense to others its holy teachings in their purity and simplicity. He knew that unless the people could be led to receive the word of God as their rule of life, there could be no hope of reform. He therefore presented the Scriptures to his hearers as the oracles of God, a divine communication as

verily addressed to them as though they heard the voice of God speaking to them from Heaven. With great earnestness he urged upon them the importance of gaining for themselves a knowledge of the sacred word. The Bible was written by holy men under the inspiration of the Divine Spirit, and the aid of that same Spirit was indispensable to an understanding of its teachings. It should be studied in humility and in faith, with unwavering confidence in its supreme authority, and with earnest prayer for divine aid. Only in pursuing such a course could the searcher hope to discern spiritual things. Were the word of God thus studied, it would exert a molding influence upon both the mental and the moral powers, quickening and ennobling the intellect, purifying the soul, thus erecting a mighty barrier against the iniquity that was flooding the world.

Luther came not with human ceremonies, traditions, and fables, to impose on the credulity of the people, but with the truth and the power of God to enlighten their understanding, and free their souls from the bondage of superstition and the tyranny of sin. He declared to his hearers that they must individually believe in Christ, if they would receive salvation through him; no priest or pope could take the place of the divine Mediator. Those who came to Jesus as repentant, believing sinners, would find pardon and peace, and would have his righteousness imputed to them. Sanctification is the fruit of faith, whose renewing power transforms the soul into the image of Christ. It was by faith in a crucified Redeemer that souls were saved in the days of the apostles; it was only by the same faith that souls could be saved in the days of Luther. He taught the people that they must exercise repentance toward God, whose holy law they had transgressed, and faith in Christ, whose blood could atone for their sins. He showed them that all who were truly penitent would pray earnestly for divine aid to battle against their evil propensities, and he also urged upon them the fact that the sincerity of their prayers would be evinced by the energy of their endeavors to render obedience to the law of God.

Precious indeed was the message which Luther bore to the eager crowds that hung upon his words. Never before had such teachings fallen upon their ears. The glad tidings of a Saviour's love, the assurance of pardon and peace through his atoning blood, melted their hearts, and inspired within them an immortal hope. A light was kindled at Wittenberg whose rays should extend to the uttermost parts of the earth, and which was to increase in brightness to the close of time.

HE LEADETH ME.

By Prof. I. W. M'Keever

He leadeth me, he leadeth me: What though the darkness gathers round, What though the clouds and fogs abound, What though no sun or star I see, From doubt and fear I may be free; He leadeth me.

He leadeth me, he leadeth me. In the glad faith I'll ever stand, I feel the pressure of his hand, Loving and kind, and firm and strong, I must not, cannot then go wrong; He leadeth me.

He leadeth me, he leadeth me. Through all the rough and rugged way, I hear his whisper sweetly say, "Friend of my soul, be not dismayed, Lo! I am here to give thee aid;" He leadeth me.

He leadeth me, he leadeth me. Then let the mighty thunders roll, He holds the storm in his control; I'll grasp his hand with firmer hold, And bid my sinking heart be bold; He leadeth me.

He leadeth me, he leadeth me. Though every earthly good be taken, By every earthly love forsaken, I have my everlasting Friend, Who still will love me to the end; He leadeth me.

--Prof. I. W. M'Keever, in Methodist Recorder.

Punishment.

IN considering the word punishment, we naturally inquire: (1) what punishment is, and (2) what is its purpose; but these two questions may be considered together under the following remarks:—

1. Punishment implies law, and law implies authority. No law can have any binding force unless it be sanctioned by a penalty. Punishment is the infliction of this penalty upon the transgressor by the same authority from which the law proceeds. The penalty threatened must be something that tends to protect the law from violation. It may be the infliction of pain of whatever sort the offender is capable of suffering, or the deprivation of any pleasure privilege, or possession he might otherwise enjoy.

When there is no law or authority, there can be no penalty threatened, nor punishment inflicted. One person may threaten retaliation or injury upon another; he may inflict pain or loss upon one who has offended him, but if he has no authority over him, he cannot punish him. Such an infliction cannot properly be called punishment. Pugilists are said sometimes to punish each other severely; but this is a low and false use of the term. A man who shoots, or beats, or otherwise injures a person who trespasses upon his rights, if he does it without the authority of law, does not punish him. Neither can a ruler, or officer, or magistrate punish one who is not under his jurisdiction. Nor could a parent inflict punishment upon a child who had passed entirely from under his authority. If a parent were to give away, or disinherit and disown a child, so as to relinquish all claim to him, and the child were to pass completely from under his care and authority, he would not only have no right to punish him, but he could not punish him according to the true meaning of the word, whatever injury he might inflict on him. For punishment implies law and authority, and reciprocal obligations. To be subject to punishment one must owe allegiance to the authority or power that punishes him. Power alone cannot punish, but only power under the authority of law violated can inflict punishment, and that only upon one who owes allegiance to that law, and has the right to claim its protection. Power may inflict vengeance, suffering, loss, torment, upon an irresponsible victim, but that would not be punishment.

The reason why we are liable to divine punishment is not because God possesses supreme power, but because we are the subjects of his government; we are under the protection of his law, and owe him allegiance. He is not only the source of all the blessings we enjoy, but the author and sustainer of our lives. It is possible for us to forfeit, not merely these inferior blessings, but the boon which includes them all, even life itself, and to become liable to what is called, under human government, capital punishment. The criminal that is condemned to imprisonment for life, is still under the protection of the government that is inflicting punishment upon him; and he has the right to claim its protection against any one who should treat him unjustly. But if, instead of capital punishment or imprisonment for life, the government were to expell him from her domain, confiscate his property, and withdraw from him all protection of law, he would be no longer amenable to that government, nor any more liable to her punishment than any other alien.

The same is true of the divine government, after which all human governments should be modeled; and yet the popular theology teaches that God proposes to continue to inflict perpetual and unending torment upon sinners after he has judicially, finally, irriversibly and forever withdrawn from them all protection and favor, and cut them off absolutely and entirely from his government! That our lives are in his hands, and that we are momentarily dependent on him to sustain us in sustaining power and let us drop out of being, or to inflict upon us capital punishment if we shall forfeit our lives, no one can reasonably doubt; that he has the right, because he has the power, to cut off the offender from all relation to his government; to take from him everything implied by life, and then to perpetuate that life solely for the sake of torment, and to pursue the helpless victim with perpetual and unending vengeance, cannot be shown. Such an imputation strikes every reflecting mind with horror. Such a procedure could not be called punishment. It would deserve the severest epithet of which our language is capable; for it would outrage every principle of right and justice in the human soul.

During past ages of darkness and barbarism, inhuman monsters of tyranny have essayed to practice on these principles, and have pleaded the example of the Supreme Ruler, as set forth in the doctrines of the church, for their devilish abominations. But even in those days their names were held in universal execration, and they have come down to us loaded with infamy.

2. Punishment is retrospective, and not prospective in its action. In this it differs from penalty, or the penal sanction annexed to every law. This is prospective. It is threatened for the purpose of protecting the law from violation. It is to show the estimation in which the law is held by the lawgiver, and the importance he attaches to obedience. The penalty is minatory in its character. It must be made known with the law, that those to whom the law is given may understand the importance of the law, and the consequences of disobedience.

The penalty of every human law is always announced with the law and defined within certain specified limits, and must be, or there could be no just punishment; for punishment is the infliction of the penalty. It is to be inflicted after the law has been violated, and never before the deed, in anticipation of its infraction. Nor can a heavier penalty be inflicted than was threatened. These are well-known principles of equity, applicable to all human jurisprudence, and no reason can be shown why they are not equally applicable to the administration of the divine law.

The penalty for violating the divine law was definitely announced when the law was given. It was DEATH—not imprisonment, nor torture, much less perpetual and endless imprisonment, with eternal torture; but DEATH. This must have been what Adam understood by it. It is just what the word imports, no more, no less. It would be the way in which every one who had no conflicting theory respecting the deathless nature of man to support, would understand it. But we are told by our popular theology that God conceived in His own mind of a penalty entirely different from the death he threatened; infinitely more severe—a penalty directly the opposite of that which he threatened, namely, a life of misery eternally perpetuated. Then, we ask in the name of reason and justice: WHY DID HE NOT SAY SO? Even the creature has the right to demand of his Creator truth and honest dealing. It cannot be shown that it would be any more right for the Almighty to say one thing and to mean another, to change the nature of the penalty threatened, and infinitely to increase its severity, than it would be for a human ruler to do it.

In order somewhat to relieve the character of God of the imputation of cruelty and deceit which this doctrine casts upon it, we are told that sinners are sentenced to endure endless misery because they will sin forever. But punishment is, and must be, altogether retrospective. It cannot in its very nature be anticipatory. It would no more comport with divine than with human justice to anticipate the crimes one may commit, and to include the future as well as the past in one sentence of punishment. But more than this, it is no more possible for a sinner to violate God's law after he has been entirely severed from God, and cut off absolutely and forever from his government, and made a complete alien, than it is for one to violate the laws of any human government that has cast him out and withdrawn all protection from him.

3. Punishment has primary and special regard, not to the offender, but to the law. It is inflicted not for the purpose of doing him harm or good. What the transgressor may actually deserve, or what may be the effect of the punishment upon him, are considerations not to be entirely disregarded, especially in cases of minor offenses under human government, and for this reason some latitude of discretion, within specified limits, is allowed to the administration, but the penalty, such as it is, must be inflicted, for it is for the sake of the law, and not for the sake of the criminal, that there is any penalty to be inflicted. If we go back of the law, and find that it is for the good of those to whom it is given—as we shall, if the law is just—then we may say that the punishment, which is the infliction of the penalty that sustains the law, is in its ultimate design for the good of those who are under its protection. But in no case can it have special reference to the transgressor himself.

"Evil inflicted for the sake of discipline, is generally supposed to be punishment, and parents say to children that they punish them for their own good. But if that be the sole end, the infliction of evil has no reference to law, and cannot properly be called punishment.—Punishment is the infliction of a previously declared penalty, by the will of the lawgiver, for the sake of sustaining the character of the law." (Dr. Mark Hopkins, Christian Ethics.)

It was not because Major Andre deserved to die that the penalty of death was inflicted upon him. Washington wept when he signed his death-warrant, and would gladly have saved him, if it had been possible to sustain the law without this terrible penalty. The British honor Andre's memory, and, indeed, so do all men. On the other hand, there are others who are known to be traitors at heart, and as ill-deserving as possible, whom the law cannot punish, because they have committed no overt act of transgression. Nor could God himself punish them, did not his authority extend to the hearts as well as the acts of men, and all transgression of his law is from the heart.

But even under the government of God the sinner is not punished on his own account. While in life he is under the discipline of God's providence and grace, and the evils imposed upon him as a transgressor are for the sake of reforming and saving him. They are sometimes called "disciplinary punishments," but they are chastisements, corrections, and not punishments in reality. But the final punishment which will be visited upon irreclaimable sinners at the last day will have no such purpose.

Here we see the fallacy of the reasoning of those who hold that eternal punishment must consist in the eternal conscious suffering of the victim that is punished. Their ideas of punishment are such as prevailed in the dark ages of the world among barbarians, when government meant tyranny, and those who were invested with power taxed their ingenuity to invent tortures to be inflicted upon the subjects of their wrath. Those truer notions of the administration of justice that are now recognized by all human governments throughout Christendom, are still rejected by our conservative theologians. They still seem to suppose that the special object of punishment is to inflict misery upon offenders; or, at least, that it is so under the divine government, if not under human governments, and that the true measure of punishment is to be found in the amount of agony inflicted, and the length of time during which it is protracted. This is the sum of Dr. Bartlett's reasoning in his "Life and Death Eternal." On this ground he holds that extinction of being would be no adequate punishment for sin under God's law, and possibly no punishment at all to some brutal natures. He says:—

"Even extinction, in so far as it would be punishment at all, would be so only so far as the expectation of it and the process would be productive of suffering." (p. 289.)

According to this theory, capital punishment should be made as agonizing and protracted as possible under human governments, or rather the death penalty should entirely give place to lifelong and ceaseless torture. But in his anxiety to make good his theological arguments for the endless torment of the unsaved, he overlooks and misconstrues the real object and nature of punishment. It is not for the sinner's sake—neither to do him good nor to make him wretched—but for the maintenance of God's righteous government. We may be assured that whatever is just and good, and necessary to this end, God will do.

"It is important to remember that the final punishment of the irreclaimably wicked will not be for their own sake. The superficial remarks, therefore, that are frequently made about the destruction of the wicked having no terror for those who are without spiritual desires, simply fall to the ground. As long as punishment is correction, that is, inflicted for the good of persons punished, it is essential that they should feel its bitterness. But when it is purely retributive, that is, inflicted with no hope of benefiting the guilty, but solely to vindicate the majesty of law, it is not of the smallest consequence whether they care about it or not, so long as it is something which the innocent would dread. Now, whatever may be thought of any preliminary punishment that the wicked may have to undergo, it is quite certain that the last stroke, which blots them out of existence, must be for the sake of others. Their destruction will be necessary, first, that the universe may be reconciled to God; and secondly, to make them an 'example' of the destructive nature of sin; to show to all intelligent creatures throughout eternity that evil cannot continue; that in Christ all things consist, and that, therefore, they cannot live apart from Him." (Minton's Glory of Christ, p. 155.)—From "Life Everlasting," by Prof. J. H. Pettingell.

Faith.

The following extracts from a recently published sermon by Dr. Parkhurst, of New York, show clearly that faith is one of the essential elements in carrying on the ordinary affairs of life, as well as in the Christian life, and that skeptics, who sneer at the Christian's faith, are themselves possessed of a kind of faith that might almost be called simple credulity:—

To any thinking man here, then, whose sharp thinking does not bring him nearer God and the Bible, but away from it, I want to illustrate that while faith is an important factor in religion, it is just the same important factor in everything else. We live in all respects by our conviction of the things we cannot see. Every step we take anywhere we take in faith. We step down upon unknown ground with no knowledge of what lies an inch under the surface. Not a footfall but takes much for granted. That is a near and just picture of what holds everywhere. We see one per cent. and assume ninety-nine. We go but a little ways before we bring up against the unknown. We treat the unknown as though it were known. That is faith, treating the unknown as though it were known. We are continually cracking the shell to get at the hidden meat. When you step aboard a train, how much do you know of the man whose hand is on the valve? A thousand lives go speeding along the track, forty miles an hour, and that one man holds those lives in his hand. Do we as Christians live by faith in the Son of God? Yes; and so on the railway train, you live by faith in the engineer; and so on the steamer, you live by faith in the man on the bridge. It is one thing. We walk by faith. We ride by faith. And all along the line are men whom you do not know, flagmen, road-repairers, yet in whose hand you put your life. You ride by faith. On the fidelity of the man at the switch depend a hundred lives and a million interests. "But somebody knows him." O, yes! But you don't. That is the point. You travel by faith. You walk by your conviction of the things you cannot see. We take men at their word. Are men false? Not nearly so much as they are true. Otherwise society would be impossible. No faith, no society; no faith, no trade. Faith is among men what gravity is among planets and suns. Count Cavour said that the man who trusted men would make fewer mistakes than the man who distrusted them.

We should never get a single day's work done if we stopped to prove every step. The element of faith and of daring enters into every successful life. Business can go on on the street because men believe in each other. That is why you will not deal with a man on 'change, whose word is not as good as his bond. If the business men of this city should commence to-morrow morning to walk only by sight, there is not a business interest in the country that would not be flat before night-fall. Shaken confidence in men has always been the prolific mother of mercantile disaster. And so when Paul says, "We walk by faith," we will remember that faith plays in religion only the same part as that with which we are made daily familiar in the concerns of society, the home, and the street.

If it happens that your mind rebels against faith as something that is at variance with wholesome intellectual action, and under the ban of all that is scientific and mentally discreet, I wish you would, with that in mind, read largely of our standard works of science, late or early. Take such a work, as Darwin's "Origin of Species." To me one of the most impressive features of the book is the ease and good humor with which in it science and faith get along together. I do not mean his faith in God—perhaps he had none—I mean his faith, his constant walk by the assurance of things hoped for, by the conviction of things unseen. That is faith, and Darwin had that in proportions that were simply colossal. He had a magnificent faith in his theory, the theory of evolution. He could not prove the theory, and he knew he couldn't, and what is more he continually confessed that he couldn't. Over and over again, with all the simplicity of a child, he admits that his convictions run away ahead of his proofs. And it is so in all of these books so far as I am familiar with them. Their conclusions are a great deal larger than their premises. That is not spoken in a critical spirit. I am not finding fault with the evolution, nor with Mr. Darwin's book. I am only saying that he was a man of immense faith; he could not have written as he did if he hadn't been; he reached results without stopping to be logical; that is faith. He had faith, just the same kind of faith that Isaiah had, only exercised towards his doctrine instead of exercised toward God. If he had been as disposed to walk by the conviction of an invisible God as he was to walk by the conviction of an undemonstrated hypothesis, he might have turned out as sublime a prophet as Isaiah, or as superb an apostle as St. Paul. I have no controversy with the evolution. Men object to religion because it is such a tax on faith; and I only want you should look directly at the fact, that in the priests of science, faith—just such faith as Peter and John had—is a distinguishing feature; in fact, it is to faith as much as to anything that their supremacy in the priesthood of science is due.

And now, to this same hesitant class of hearers, there is one other thing I want to say in behalf of faith. It is not intellectual debility that we have seen. On the contrary (and this is the point I want to make), on the contrary, the very heroism and enterprise of the intellect. Faith is not a passivity, but a faculty. Faith is power, the material of effect. Faith is a kind of winged intellect. The great workmen of history have been men who believed like giants. Take the eleventh of Hebrews, that famous roll-call of God's men of faith, and the men that made events for two thousand years are all in it,—Noah, Abraham, Moses, Gideon, David. And ever since then the men that have helped the world forward and wrought great effects in the world, have been those who have lived by the power and fascination exerted upon them by the things outside their horizon, by the power of unseen things flung up upon their sky in mirage. Standing upon the shores of Spain, Columbus reasoned upon the drift-wood borne in on the western tide, but there was a million times more in his conclusion than there was in the drift-wood. His winged thought had reached the great West before the Santa Maria weighed anchor in Palos. Faith discovered America, and made Columbus more royal than the crowned heads of Europe. Faith is the heroism of intellect. Nothing would ever have been done in the world if before the deed the doer had waited to calculate all the elements in the case, and compute all the contingencies. Every great and grand discovery begins as an inspired guess. The best things have not been reasoned out, but conjectured. As one has said, "Newton's passage from a falling apple to a falling moon was a leap of the imagination." Such an imagination as that of Columbus or Newton is but another name for faith ablaze. My friend, if you have not faith-power enough to outrun your thought, you will not have deed-power enough to overtake your thought. Faith is not debility nor phlegm. Faith is mind at its best, its bravest, and its fieriest. Faith is thought become poetry, and absorbing into itself the soul's great passions. Faith is intellect carried up to its transfigurement. Don't dare think one disrespectful thought of faith. The power of grand living and superb doing is all in it. Think on these things; brood over them, and may the power of the Great Unseen put its spell upon you, the invisible continent cast itself up upon your sky in mirage, holding your ship's prow onward, forever onward to the great West, till you stand down on the new shore, hope ripened into fruition, faith flashed into vision.

An Incident of the Early Church.

"AND in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration: Then the twelve called the multitude of the disciples unto them, and said, It is not reason that we should leave the word of God, and serve tables. Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men, of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business." "And the saying pleased the whole multitude: and they chose Stephen a man full of faith, and of the Holy Ghost, and Philip and Prochorus and Nicanor, and Timon and Parmenas, and Nicolas, a proselyte of Antioch." Acts 6:1, 2, 5.

In this passage, I perceive a remarkable instance of consistency without design. There is a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews, on account of what they considered an unfair distribution of the alms of the church. Seven men are appointed to redress the grievance. No mention is made of their country or connections. The multitude of the disciples is called together, and by them the choice is made. No other limitation is spoken of in the commission they had to fulfill, than that the men should be of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost. Yet it is probable (and here lies the coincidence) that these deacons were all of the party aggrieved, for their names are all Grecian.

It is difficult to suppose this accidental. There must have been Hebrews enough fitted for the office. Yet Grecians alone seem to have been appointed. Why this should be so, St. Luke does not say, does not even hint. We gather from him that the Grecians thought themselves the injured party; and we then draw our own conclusions, that the church, having a sincere wish to maintain harmony and remove all reasonable ground of complaint, chose as advocates for the Greeks those who would naturally feel for them the greatest interest, and protect their rights with a zeal that should be above suspicion.—Blunt's Coincidences.

The Cost of the Drink Traffic

Cardinal Manning estimates that the drink traffic costs Great Britain annually a billion dollars.

JESUS KNOWS BEST.

LET Jesus lead thee; surely he knows best Which way is safest for the earnest soul; Walk where he leads, and trust him for the rest, And he will bring thee to the highest goal.

Let Jesus help thee; surely he knows best What is thy strength, and what thy toil and need; Do what thou canst, and leave to him the rest, And he will make thy trust thy noblest deed.

Let Jesus teach thee; surely he knows best What lessons thou dost need to make thee wise; Receive what he makes plain, and leave the rest Till thou shalt see him with immortal eyes.

Let Jesus keep thee; surely he knows best What hidden dangers lie along thy way; Go, watch and fight and pray, and leave the rest To Him who is our everlasting stay. —Christian Advocate.

Faith Comes by Hearing

"FAITH cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." No word, no faith.

Continue reading: Standing Alone