Earlier text: THE WORK AND THE WORKERS“Rome Never Changes”—No. 15.
MARRIAGE and the Sabbath are the two oldest institutions known to man. God is the author of both. Both were instituted before the fall; and against both the hand of God’s enemy has been raised in bitter and relentless warfare. The history of Satan’s substitutes for marriage, as practiced in different parts of the world, is hardly fit reading for any one who would keep his mind pure. When men forgot God and glorified him not as God, they were given over to their own evil ways. What, among many peoples, was substituted for God’s institution of marriage is enough to make one blush for the race. A few pages of such history is enough to convince the most incredulous. What was substituted for the Sabbath was equally dishonoring to God, because of what was implied in the substitute sabbath—the displacing of God’s great memorial and the patronage of a system of worship founded on idolatry and carnal wickedness. No system of worship was ever more nearly universal than sun worship, or had connected with it rites more grossly demoralizing. He who sought to displace God’s holy memorial Sabbath with a sabbath dedicated to an idolatrous system of worship, and he who cast opprobrium upon the marriage institution by immoral substitutions in the heyday of heathenism, is one and the same person—the archenemy of God and man. We call attention again to the testimony of the Spirit through Paul, quoted in the previous article, in which it was8 declared that “some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; . . . forbidding to marry.” 1 Tim. 4:1-3. It was said concerning this matter that “the Spirit speaketh expressly.” The Spirit spoke expressly because there was a very definite danger threatening the apostolic church. The influences of heathenism were already at work upon the members of the Christian organization, and God, foreseeing the campaign planned by the adversary, published this faithful warning. “Forbidding to marry” was but one of the plans of Satan against the body of Christ. The practice of celibacy was already in vogue among the religious leaders of heathenism. Paganism had its vestal virgins; Rome has its nuns. In the pagan systems of worship, the priests were forbidden to marry; and into the Christian organization that practice was brought by half-converted pagans. Babylon of old was the mother of many strange things, and one of them was celibacy. Concerning this we read:— Now, while Semiramis, the real original of the Chaldean Queen of Heaven, to whom the “unbloody sacrifice” of the mass was first offered, was in her own person, as we have already seen, the very paragon of impurity, she at the same time affected the greatest favor for that kind of sanctity which looks down with contempt on God’s holy ordinance of marriage. The Mysteries over which she presided were scenes of the rankest pollution; and yet the higher orders of the priesthood were bound to a life of celibacy, as a life of peculiar and pre-eminent holiness. Strange though it may seem, yet the voice of antiquity assigns to that abandoned queen the invention of clerical celibacy, and that in the most stringent form. . . . Every scholar knows that when the worship of Cybele, the Babylonian goddess, was introduced into pagan Rome, it was introduced in its primitive form, with a celibate clergy. When the Pope appropriated to himself so much that was peculiar to the worship of that goddess, from the very same source, also, he introduced into the priesthood under his authority the binding obligation of celibacy. . . . The records of all nations where priestly celibacy has been introduced, have proved that, instead of ministering to the purity of those condemned to it, it has only plunged them in the deepest pollution. The history of Tibet, and China, and Japan, where the Babylonian institute of priestly celibacy has prevailed from time immemorial, bears testimony to the abominations that have flowed from it. The excesses committed by the celibate priests of Bacchus in pagan Rome in their secret Mysteries, were such that the senate felt called upon to expel them from the bounds of the Roman Republic. (Livy, lib. 39, 8 and 18, Vol. V, pages 196-207.) . . . When Pope Paul V meditated the suppression of the licensed brothels in the “Holy City,” the Roman Senate petitioned against his carrying his design into effect, on the ground that the existence of such places was the only means of hindering the priests from seducing their wives and daughters. (Thuanus, Historia, lib. 39, cap. 3, Vol. II, page 483.)—Hislop’s “Two Babylons,” pages 219, 220, Popular Edition, 1907. We find that in Athens there were virgins “maintained at the public expense, who were strictly bound to single life.” The Scandinavian priestesses of Freya were bound to perpetual virginity—an order of nuns. The vestal virgins of pagan Rome occupied a similar position, and were bound to a single life. Strange as it may seem, we find the same celibate institution in Peru, under the reign of the Incas. These celibate priestesses were known as the virgins of the sun. “One is astonished,” says the historian Prescott, “to find so close a resemblance between the institutions of the American Indian, the ancient Roman, and the modern Catholic.”—“History of Peru,” Vol. I, page 103. Prescott is at a loss to account for this resemblance, but the prophet Jeremiah furnishes the master key to the mystery: “Babylon hath been a golden cup in the Lord’s hand, that made all the earth drunken.” Jer. 51:7. Concerning the Babylonian origin of all the religions of heathendom, Hislop says:— The statement of this text [Jer. 51:7] can be proved to be a literal fact. It can be proved that the idolatry of the whole earth is one, that the sacred language of all nations is radically Chaldean, that the great gods of every country and clime are called by Babylonian names, and that all the paganisms of the human race are only a wicked and deliberate, but yet most instructive corruption of the primeval gospel first preached in Eden, and, through Noah, afterwards conveyed to all mankind. The system, first concocted in Babylon, and thence conveyed to the ends of the earth, has been modified and diluted in different ages and countries. In Papal Rome only is it now found nearly pure and entire. [Italics his.]—“Two Babylons,” page 224. We learn from Josephus that the pagan practice of celibacy was adopted first by the Essenes. (“Wars of the Jews,” book 2, chap. 8, sec. 2.) It was then taken up by the early heretics, and became, in the Middle Ages, the rule in the corrupted church. Throughout the first three centuries there was no such thing in the Christian church as compulsory celibacy. It was not until A. D. 305 at the Spanish Council of Elvira, that a decree was promulgated forbidding priests to marry; but this decree did not command those already married to put away their wives. The first canon of the Council of Neocæsarea declared, “If a priest marries after he has been ordained, he ought to be degraded.”—Du Pin, Vol. I, pages 593, 594. The eighth canon reads: “If a clergyman’s wife commit adultery, he ought to divorce her upon pain of being deprived of his ministry.”—Id., page 597. The proposition of enforcing celibacy was brought up in the Council of Nice; but an Egyptian bishop, Paphnutius, opposed the proposition so eloquently that it was left “to the judgment of those so disposed, by mutual consent to leave their wives.”—Gelasius, “History of the Nicene Council,” lib. 2, cap. 39, Conc. II, 246, 248, Paris, 1671-2. Sozomen, who compiled his history of the council about 443, bears similar testimony (Sozomen, lib. 1, cap. 23), as do also Socrates and Du Pin. Paphnutius warned the council that the passing of such a decree was very likely to hurt the church and result in unchastity. Socrates, in his “Ecclesiastical History” (lib. 2, cap. 43) bears this plain testimony:— There have been among them [the clergy] many bishops who have had children by their lawful wives during their episcopate. Sozomen, writing of Spyridion, Bishop of Trimiton, in Cyprus, says: “He was married and had children.”—Lib. I, cap. II. Synesius, Bishop of Cyrene, refused to separate from his wife, and declared, “I hope and pray that we may have many and virtuous children.”—Milman’s “History of Christianity,” page 453, N. Y., 1841. From Bede we learn that Gregory the Great, Pope of Rome, who died in 605, was the great-grandson of another Pope, namely, Felix, who was Bishop of Rome early in the sixth century. (Eccl. Hist., lib. 2, cap. 1.) There was much diversity, both in opinion and in practice, during the centuries that followed, until the matter was finally settled by the Council of Trent (session 24, canon 9). Leo IX, who was elected in 1048, began the work of actually enforcing celibacy among the various orders of the priesthood. During the synod held at Rome in the year 1074 by Gregory VII, it was decreed that no priest should marry, and that such as were married should either abandon their wives or relinquish the priesthood. This decree was not acquiesced in with any degree of grace or alacrity, but was opposed on the part of many with most violent and sturdy denunciation, and it took the canons of the Council of Trent to put an end to the active opposition and put that pagan seal indelibly and universally on the Roman Catholic Church. The Council of Trullo, held in the tower of the emperor’s palace, A. D. 692, in its thirteenth canon, prohibits “the separation of presbyters, deacons, or subdeacons from their wives, or binding them to chastity before they are ordained.”—Du Pin, Vol. II, page 24, Dublin, 1724. In the ninth century the wives of priests were openly acknowledged, and were known as priestesses. It is recorded that the priest’s wife took her place near her husband and not far from the altar; and the wife of the bishop claimed precedency over a countess. See Michelet’s “History of France,” Vol. I, pages 193, 194. N. Y., 1869.9 Many of the clergy of Gregory’s time (1074) looked with contempt upon his decree regarding celibacy. The attempts, up to that time, to bring celibacy universally into the church, had already resulted in much confusion and immorality. The priests of his time were living either with faithful wives or with women who were not their wives. The laws enacted by Gregory’s synod were accompanied with the most ferocious threatenings. Some of the clergy “yielded, pretending that it was right, for the sake of gain and vain boasting, but many added adultery to incontinence. Moreover, few regarded continency.”—Matthew Paris, at A. D. 1074. Others declared that Gregory contradicted the Saviour and Paul; that he would compel them to bid defiance to the dictates of nature, and live like angels while they were still men. See Du Pin, Vol. II, page 212. Some declared plainly, “We prefer abandoning our bishoprics, our abbeys, and our cures; let him keep his benefices.”—Michelet’s “History of France,” Vol. I, page 195. Du Pin gives a vivid insight into the bitterness of the contention. He shows that at Cambray this bitterness burned so fiercely that a man who said that married priests should not celebrate mass or perform any divine office, and that no man ought to aid them in such duties, was cast into the flames and consumed. (Vol. II, page 213.) “The Archbishop of Mentz held a synod at Erfurt to persuade his priests to give up their wives; his efforts filled them with anger, and they threatened to depose or kill him. Such was their wrathful and rebellious obstinacy that he found it convenient to defer the obnoxious measure for a time.”—“The Papal System,” Cathcart, page 255. These citations, coupled with the decree of the Council of Trent, demonstrate that Rome has changed, notably and radically, in this matter of the celibacy of the clergy; and the history of that institution in the church demonstrates beyond the shadow of a doubt that that institution has hurt the church, just as Paphnutius declared it would. The reason assigned for enforcing this practice upon the priesthood was that celibacy was a holier state than marriage. Tertullian extolled virginity to the sky, and exhausted language in vilifying marriage and praising celibacy. Jerome, it is said, “growled at the very name of matrimony, and discharged against the institution, in all its bearings, torrents of vituperation and sarcasm. The duty of a husband, he declared, was “incompatible with the duty of a Christian.” Siricius, the Roman Pontiff, called marriage filthy, and characterized married persons as “carnal and incapable of pleasing God.” Bellarmine declares that marriage “carnalizes the whole man, soul and body.” A faction of the Council of Trent defined marriage as “a state of carnality.” See Edgar’s “Variations of Popery,” pages 487-507. The Roman Church has thus fastened the stigma of impurity upon an institution which God himself established, and calls an unchaste thing what the Holy Spirit has declared “honorable in all.” A human invention that had been dragged through the pollutions of paganism for many centuries was thus placed above the first ordinance instituted by Jehovah himself and practiced by his prophets and apostles. In view of such testimony and such facts, what becomes of the boast that Rome never changes? Salvation Through Christ Alone
SALVATION does not come through Christ and something else, but through Christ alone. Salvation does not even come through good works, but through simple faith in the atoning sacrifice. Good works will follow in the life of the believer as the natural fruits of a new experience, and afford evidence of the genuineness of the believer’s faith. But good works should never be depended upon to secure righteousness in this life or immortality in the life to come. Our very best endeavors can never earn salvation. Having done all that we can do, we are still unworthy servants, and must fall back upon the unmerited grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. WHILE we cannot of ourselves earn salvation, it is necessary that we co-operate with God in order to secure it. Heaven has made us free moral agents. We stand between opposing elements,—the influences of good and the influences of evil,—each seeking our cooperation. The decision remains with us. We must decide whether we shall enlist under the banner of Prince Immanuel or under the banner of the Prince of Darkness. Deciding to enlist on the side of God, we may open our hearts and yield our lives fully to divine influences. Our energy and our will power, every faculty of mind and body, should be dedicated to the service of God. The same as in our rebellion we yielded our members as instruments of unrighteousness, so in our new relationship we must yield our members as instruments of righteousness unto God to do his bidding and to work out his purposes. “Choose you this day whom ye will serve.” No human power or devising can change the human heart. Good resolutions will not do it; education will not do it; environment will not do it; eugenics will not do it. There is but one name under heaven given among men whereby we may be saved, and that is the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. The power of that name and faith in that name will make us whole, even as it made whole the lame man whom Peter and John found at the gate of the temple. Man must take hold of a power outside of himself. God has reached down his mighty arm to save sinners, and whosoever will may avail himself of the help provided. The king and his subject, the master and the slave, the scholar and the illiterate, the civilized man and the untutored savage, all have access to this source of power, and all who would be saved must accept salvation in God’s appointed way. Sin is a universal disease, and God has provided a universal remedy—the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us turn from our strivings and agonizings, from our failures and defeats, from our discouragement and despair, to the source of help in Christ Jesus. He declares, “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” Poor sinner, whoever you are or wherever you live, this word is for you. WE desire to make this a personal question to each reader of the REVIEW. There are prayers and prayers; indifferent, thoughtless prayers, and earnest, appealing, serious prayers. To which class do your prayers belong? Do you have a time each day for secret devotions, when, alone with God, you open your heart to the influences of his Holy Spirit, allowing its searching gaze to reveal to you your true and hidden motives and purposes, and to plead with you to cast aside every sin and obtain cleansing through the Lord Jesus Christ? This personal communion is the very soul of the prayer life, yea, of the Christian life, because no disciple can be a true child of God without this personal touch with his Saviour. If you are a parent, do you maintain in your home the family altar? Each day, as the priest of your household, do you assemble the members of your family and offer to God the sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving? If you are not doing this, you are losing a precious privilege. At the family altar you can present the members of your flock to the care of the infinite Father, and you can pray freely for each by name. You can present individual needs, and you can seek for special blessing in times of trial and pressure. Dear brother, maintain in your home the family altar. If it has fallen down and been neglected, resolve by God's help that you will immediately erect it and maintain it henceforward. Do you pray with your sick neighbors? with those seeking for light? Is your voice heard in the house of God in prayer and praise? These are precious privileges which God affords to his children. Do not neglect them. As you enter into these exercises, you will experience deepening joy. Your example, your prayers, even though offered falteringly, will be blessed of God to the strengthening and upbuilding of your brethren and sisters. There is great power in prayer. Let us maintain a continual connection with Heaven through this agency. The Guiding Hand
By W. A. S.
We are to recognize the hand of God in all the work and service of life. He promises to give wisdom and judgment to those who seek him to know the way of duty and of service. That is one way in which the guiding hand is revealed, and the way, we may say, in which the Lord displays his power most of all. He is “wonderful in counsel,” and his Spirit is ever ready to be the daily teacher and guide. Many times, however, the gospel worker or believer is conscious of a special manifestation of God’s guiding hand intervening in a way out of the ordinary. These extraordinary experiences help us to recognize the presence of the Lord in the ordinary way of service. The experiences of special intervention of the guiding hand seem to the believer so intimately personal and sacred that he sometimes hesitates to speak of them; yet it is to the glory of God to tell of his wondrous workings. On a visit to western Oregon, Elder B. C. Tabor told us of an experience of the beginning of our work in a city where now we have a church of earnest believers:— While engaged in Bible work, the brethren of the conference committee asked me to go to C—— to labor. As I thought of responding to the call, the matter did not seem clear. There seemed to come to me instead more and more definitely the conviction that I should go to A——. It was not a matter of my own choice; but somehow aside from any reason that I could give, the conviction became most clear that A—— was the place to which I should go. I went to Portland and told the brethren this experience, and they said, “Go to A——.” On my way the impression came vividly to my mind—how imparted I could not tell—of a certain street, on which after following it several blocks, I should find the house in which to begin the work. Reaching A——, I found the street, and following it, there was the house answering to the distinct impression given me. I called, and explained my mission as a Bible evangelist to the man of the house. “The Lord must have sent you,” he said, “for that is just what I have wanted.” He opened his house for Bible study and cottage meetings, and as a result a church was raised up. In working from house to house in the town, I had noticed a house that stood apart in a field, at some distance from the street along which I often passed at a late afternoon hour on the way to my stopping place. I felt I should go to that house; but my hands were more than full of work, and in the weariness and pressure I put it off. But the conviction still came as I passed that way returning from the day’s work. When I had delayed for three weeks, I felt I must go, and I went across the field and knocked at the door. A woman opened the door, and I saw that she had been weeping. I showed her the tracts that I had been circulating, and spoke of the study of the Bible. “Friend,” she said, looking intently at me, “the Lord sent you here. For three weeks I have been praying at this hour for light. God sent you to me.” She accepted the light of truth with a glad heart. For three weeks the woman prayed at that hour, and nearly every day at about the same hour something seemed to whisper to the worker to turn aside and go to that door. Long ago a poor sinner was praying in Damascus for light. And the word came to a servant of God there: “Arise, and go into the street which is called Straight, and inquire in the house of Judas for one called Saul, of Tarsus: for, behold, he prayeth.” Heaven knows the homes and hearts that are praying for light. And the Lord would guide the feet of his servants to these waiting souls. Reiterating the Charge
By F. M. W.
CATHOLIC writers never weary of charging Protestants with inconsistency in their religious faith and practice, and indeed they have just grounds for this charge. While the Protestantism of the sixteenth century did much to free itself from the traditions and practices of the Roman Church, there still remained much to be accomplished after Luther and his colaborers passed away. It evidently was God's design that the church of the Reformation should walk in increasing light, and go on from strength to strength and from glory to glory in its experience. But it became satisfied with little truth; it took that truth with more or less admixture of error, and coined it into a creed, and said, “Thus far will we go, but no farther.” In consequence God had to raise up others to carry forward the work so well begun by Luther and his colaborers. The Christian church today, while rejecting some of the errors of Romanism, holds to so many of the errors of the mother church as to enable Romanists to justly charge Protestants with inconsistency. Romanists seem to take particular delight in doing this regarding10 the question of the day of the week which Protestants in common with Catholics observe as the Sabbath. A writer in Truth for December, 1914, a representative Catholic magazine, reiterates this charge in the form of a dialogue between a Protestant and a Catholic. The Catholic charges that while the Protestant holds to what he considers the infallible Word as a guide, yet after all, he does not follow the Word in his religious practice, but rather follows the precepts of the Catholic Church. The Catholic is represented as saying:— You said that you had your precept for worshiping God on Sunday from the Bible, and quoted the fourth commandment to substantiate your statement. This fourth commandment tells you to keep holy the Sabbath day; but the Sabbath day, as we all know, is simply the Hebrew term for Saturday, on which day only Jews worship God. . . . Now, listen! I intend to demonstrate how you implicitly acknowledge the Catholic Church, whose teachings you affect to despise; deny the Bible, which you ignorantly—no, no, don't protest, ignorantly is the word—profess to uphold; and if these two things be proved, I honestly think that “fool” is a very easy name for you—and proved they can be, very briefly. Now, in the first place, the Bible does not breathe a single word anywhere between its two covers, about worshiping God on Sunday. If you can find it there, you will lighten the heart of many a Lutheran Biblicist. Secondly, the obligation to worship God on Sunday comes from the Catholic Church. She, and she alone, by her unquestioned authority, changed the day of worship from Saturday, the Sabbath of the Jews, the last day in the week, to Sunday, the first, in honor of the resurrection of Christ. Search history from now until doomsday, and you will never find any other tangible reason or authority.
We find this same charge made in a little sixteen-page brochure entitled “Bible Christians,” recently issued by “Rt. Rev. William T. Russell, D. D.,” pastor of St. Patrick's Church, Washington, D. C. He says:— I shall give one other example of how the Protestant does not follow the Bible. The Bible says, Keep holy the Sabbath day. Now the Sabbath of the Jews, of which the Bible speaks, was Saturday, not Sunday. I defy any one to show me any command in the Bible that warrants a change from Saturday to Sunday. Yet all Protestants observe Sunday; and while breaking the literal law of the Bible, with sublime inconsistency they claim that they take the Bible for their guide.
Church history attests the truthfulness of these statements, and no intelligent Protestant will attempt to deny them. To parry the force of the argument that the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord many ingenious and absurd arguments have been made. How much better it would be if all who claim to take the Word of God as the man of their counsel, would cease their quibbling over the plain, positive statements of the divine Word, and fully accept what God says, freed from the rubbish of human tradition and the dross of philosophical reasoning. After all, it is not the taunts of Romanism which should drive Protestants to change their course. By the Word of God men will stand or fall in the last great day. By the law of liberty they are to be judged, and no juggling with truth, no specious reasoning, will change the words of the Most High when men are brought face to face with that Word in the judgment hour. Let us live with the Word of God as our standard, and through the merits and mercy of the Lord Jesus we shall not fail when judged by that Word at last. Days of Trial for Our Missions
By L. R. Conradi
We all enjoy many privileges which we never fully prize until we are deprived of them. We never prize personal liberty sufficiently until we are suddenly shut away behind bars. We do not appreciate what a privilege it is to go about freely where we please, until we are confined within four narrow walls, the doors locked, and guards everywhere. How grateful should we be if we could once more freely move about! and how gladly should we give every moment of our time to spread the glorious news of the gospel and to set the captives free! We as a mission board did not prize the great advantage of constantly being in touch with our missionaries in all parts of the world, furnishing them with means, merchandise, and provisions, encouraging them with our letters, and receiving from them their cheering reports and their inspiring news of victory. On the other hand, our missionaries did not realize what great privileges they enjoyed in keeping in constant touch with the home board. But today we have twenty-five European missionaries with their families, eighty native helpers, over three hundred Christians, as many more candidates for baptism, and thousands of pupils, in dark Africa, who have been entirely cut off from us for months. How much more trying is the situation of these missionaries than ours! Their parents, brothers, sisters, relatives, are living in the very countries in which the war is raging. In their fatherland are their old homesteads, the mission school, their fellow students, the treasure house, and they have no knowledge whatever as to what may have become of all these. Rumors of all sorts may reach them, and the most terrible of all is the uncertainty. They stand alone in the dark world of heathenism. A small flock of native Christians and willing helpers look to them as their counselors and their refuge. The missionaries can no longer pay the salaries to their helpers, they can no longer look after the needs of the pupils living with them, they can no longer provide the thousands of pupils with all they may need for successful schooling. The missionaries themselves are cut off from all earthly support, and their country is threatened by hostile invaders. Sickness may overtake them and their families; their provisions may run short; their souls may be aching; but though bowed down with trials, they must hold up their heads and dispense courage and comfort. This is indeed for them the hour of fiery trial, when they must lean heavily upon their God, for there is no help from man. And it is also the hour of trial for their little flock of Christian natives. Hitherto these natives have looked upon the white Christians as men of peace, free from feudal strife such as they were accustomed to when they were under native rule. But, behold, these very white men are themselves now engaged in the most bloody strife, and they more or less encourage the natives to take sides. How many queries will this awaken in the native mind! How eagerly will they question their missionaries about the meaning of all these things! They now must learn to share their bread with the white missionaries; instead of receiving wages, they must learn to give, and to give all. The true love shed abroad by the Holy Spirit must now be tested. Will they be willing to work without wage, and even to share their own food with the white missionaries, as their teachers have done in the past? Will the missionaries as well as the native helpers, in spite of the tribulation, of fevers, of the mockery of the heathen and the arrogance of Islam, yet work more zealously than ever for the salvation of souls? Will they stand more closely together? May God grant it! We are assured that our God will be their strong refuge. Their Chief Shepherd will stand for his flock all the more remarkably because man cannot render help. He is their great High Priest, and he will remember them before the throne of mercy, endue them with power from on high, and fill them with his blessing. The missionaries in German East Africa today may be cut off from us, but they never can be cut off from the strong arm of God, and there is no way to deprive them of his blessings. One way of communication, however, is still open to us and to them. We cannot see it with our own eyes, but by faith we can grasp it. All we at home, or wherever we may be, have free access to the throne of mercy. No one can debar us from that channel. The ladder still reaches from heaven to earth, and nothing can hinder us from sending up petitions to our Heavenly Father for our11 dear missionaries. But the way is not only open between us in the homeland and the Lord, but also between the Lord and our missionaries. As our petitions ascend to him in their behalf, he is ever ready to answer, and to bestow upon them the blessings we desire and they need. May we all improve this open channel by living faith, and may we as a people thus forever keep in touch with all those who may be cut off from us, be it by war, or be it by persecution. The religion of Christ comforts in every time of need, and it insures an unbroken communion, although all earthly endeavors may fail. Our missionaries, their helpers, and the little flock of native Christians are being tried today as gold in the fire, but we can remember them in our prayers; and O, how glad shall we and they be if the first news that comes to us by wire or by mail shall tell us that they “have fought a good fight,” “have kept the faith,” and that new souls have been added, new doors have been opened, new victories have been won, and that the little flock has stood the test, by God’s grace. We at home also have our trials. We may not be able today to send the means; to forward new workers, but there are some things we can do. We can, through faith, plan, devise, provide workers, so that we shall be fully ready the moment the ways of communication are again open. We can become more faithful than ever in giving our means to the missionary cause in this very trying hour. We can train suitable workers, who will be ready to respond to the first call to relieve those whose furloughs are more than due, and to strengthen and encourage those who have so nobly stood by the work. We can also then send as first message by wire and by mail: “Moreover, brethren, we do you to wit of the grace of God bestowed on the churches . . . how that in a great trial of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality.” 2 Cor. 8: 1, 2. We as a people have long expected times of trouble and of trial. Suddenly they have come, and to a greater portion of the world than we dreamed of a short time ago, and this is only the beginning of troubles. All the world without exception will yet experience them. All the nations will become angry before the end. Yet, amid all this turmoil and war, this gospel of the kingdom is to be preached as a witness in all the world. How real will then such passages as Matt. 24: 6-14 sound to us! Amid the turmoil of war and distress of nations, we shall be persecuted and scorned, and yet the work must be onward. This would be impossible were it not that the bright hope cheers our hearts, that the strong Arm supports us in our weakness, that the sweet Spirit of God fills our hearts with love for the perishing souls about us. May this bright advent hope be cherished more and more by us all, and urge us on to greater consecration, to nobler deeds, to more humble service. Soon the end will come, and the Lord will not tarry; but with the end comes also that glorious reward for all those who have manfully fought the good fight of faith, and have let the grace of God abound in their hearts unto good works. The Need of Prayer
By G. B. THOMPSON
The apostle Paul exhorts, “Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving.” Col. 4: 2. Again he says, “Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints.” Eph. 6: 18. This text applies especially at the time when the devil is plotting how to make his most desperate and final attack on the people of God. Our way of escape is through prayer; not an occasional, meaningless petition, but earnestly “praying always,” with “supplication,” and “watching,” and “all perseverance,” with every intensity of the soul on the stretch. Many get right on the verge of a great blessing, and then let go, quit, when they should wrestle like Jacob, who said, “I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.” O, that these words might burn from our hearts the slothfulness in prayer! It has been truly said, “Much prayer, much power; little prayer, little power; no prayer, no power.” Prayer is the pivot of piety; there can be no piety without prayer. James states this same great truth: “Ye have not, because ye ask not.” James 4: 2. Preachers are powerless to win souls because they do not pray. Churches are withering up because business has taken the place of prayer in the lives of the members. Prayer meetings are dying out because prayer is neglected; pleasure rather than godliness is loved. Unbelief is darkening many hearts because of the neglect of prayer. Many are losing their hold on God, and drifting into the world because the secret place of prayer is forgotten. Our need of prayer is truly great; our neglect is appalling. In Pentecostal days prayer was placed ahead of business. When pressed with secular affairs, the apostles 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. But we will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the word.” Acts 6: 2-4. Here is the secret of power,—it is giving ourselves “continually to prayer.” It is not to supplicate the throne of God occasionally, nor to pray from a sense of duty rather than from an earnest desire to commune with God, but to pray “always,” in all places and under all circumstances. G. B. THOMPSON. The Education of Colored Workers
OUR school in Oakwood was established to educate workers to labor among the colored people of this country. It has already made an excellent beginning in this work. From this institution a number of successful evangelists and Bible workers have gone forth to carry this message to their fellows. The Oakwood school is now in need of assistance. A building for dormitory purposes is required. Sabbath, March 6, in all our churches a collection will be taken to aid in this work. Dear reader, will you not remember this worthy object at that time? Here, right among us, is a class of people who for long years were oppressed and downtrodden. Surely God would have us labor for their enlightenment as well as for the enlightenment of people in foreign lands. May the needs represented by this call prove the measure of our gifts when this offering shall be taken. Scattering Periodicals Worldwide
WE hear from all parts of the earth of special activity in scattering the periodicals dealing with the issues of these times. Special numbers have been issued of papers in Argentina, Brazil, the West Indies, Australia, South Africa, and other countries, the believers giving to these a large circulation. “I CANNOT, I dare not, go up to the judgment till I have done the utmost God enables me, to diffuse his glory through the world.” Territorial Percentage of Church Attendance
IN the United States Census Bulletin, No. 103, the percentage of church membership according to the various parts of the country is given. According to this statement the smallest percentage is found in Oklahoma, including Indian Territory. The rating in this field is 18.2 per cent. In Kansas the percentage rises to 28.4 per cent, in Maine to 29.8 per cent, in Nebraska to 32.4 per cent, in Illinois to 38.3 per cent, in Pennsylvania to 43 per cent, and in New York to 43.7 per cent.