Earlier text: THE PARABLE OF THE RICH MAN AND LAZARUSWHY DO THEY MISREPRESENT US?
By I. Sanborn
Some people continue to say we teach that Christ is coming in a month or two, or during this year or next. This is something we have never said, in print nor from the pulpit. No honest person who is acquainted with our history as a people will ever circulate such a report. We know that many of the first-day Adventists have set several definite times for the Lord to come since 1844, which Seventh-day Adventists have always rejected and never taught. We believe that it is safe to follow the counsel of Christ; and he said: “Of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in Heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. Take ye heed, watch and pray; for ye know not when the time is.” “Watch ye therefore; for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cock-crowing, or in the morning; lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping. And what I say unto you, I say unto all, Watch.” Mark 13:32–37. This is what we have always taught on this subject; and we think it is perfectly safe to obey Christ in this as well as in everything else. But why do professed Christians scoff at the truth for these last days, and try to misrepresent it? Because their ears are turned away from the truth and are turned unto fables, and they will not endure sound doctrine; 2 Tim. 4:3, 4. “But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know perfectly, that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them.” 1 Thess. 5:1–3. Is not this careless slumber, this deep sleep and dead serenity, a token of approaching wrath? Did not Christ, as he surveyed the future, perceive and foretell this feature as belonging to the close of this dispensation? Most certainly he did. And when he predicted his coming he declared: “As it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.” Luke 17:26, 27. Just as that antediluvian generation despised all warning, invitation, and entreaty, danced and rioted on the very verge of life, and fell headlong from pleasure’s hight to ruin’s dark abyss, shall this careless, ruined, rebellious, and presumptuous world exchange the depths of slumber for the depths of destruction, and the cry of “Peace and safety” for the terrors of an irretrievable ruin. Again our Saviour says: “Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot: they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.” Luke 17:28–30. Such are the predictions uttered by Christ. Are they not fulfilled before us? This is a solemn warning; and it may be well for preachers who sneer at the coming of the Lord, and smite with bitter words the men who expect it, while they follow the round of carnal pleasures, eating and drinking with the drunken, attending celebrations, excursions, parties, festivals, and church fairs, to bethink themselves lest these words be rehearsed in their ears with emphasis by Him who first uttered them long ago. Let Christians be solemnly warned by Him whom they acknowledge as their Lord and Judge, and run not to that excess of riot to which this age tends. Let them beware, lest saying in their hearts and by their conduct what so many say openly with their lips, “My Lord delayeth his coming,” they, too, be taken in the snare. Jesus says: “Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares.” Dear reader, take heed, lest you be found unprepared for the sudden advent of the Lord, and receive your portion with the godless and the vile. Ah, scoffer, the day of the Lord will come. You may deride its tokens; you may mock at the signals of its approach; you may put it far away, and declare that it will never come. But come it will, when Justice shall array herself in majesty, and Judgment shall attend in her way, when God shall go forth to condemn the guilty and redeem the penitent. Then dismay and sorrow shall overwhelm the guilty, and terrible alarms break the slumbers of the careless soul. Ah, sinner, in that day your scoffings and mockings shall end. But will you not cease them now? Will you not heed the voice of warning and of love? Will you not seek a refuge in Christ, the ark of God, ere that final storm of wrath shall come, and deluge the guilty and rebellious world with fire? Turn, then, thou lukewarm professor; turn, then, poor sinner. “Seek the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.” Isa. 55:6, 7. THE SPIRIT OF THE PAPACY.
The pope has honored the memory of St. Francis de Sales, Roman Catholic Bishop of Geneva in the latter part of the sixteenth and early part of the seventeenth century, with the title of Ecumenical Doctor, or Doctor of the Church Universal. This title is used to designate those who have been pre-eminent for their attainments in theological science, and whose authority is of universal weight. The Christian World, in a most interesting article from which we gather these statements, says: “Four such have been fixed upon in the Eastern or Greek Church; viz., St. Athanasius, St. Basil, St. Gregory Nazianzen, and St. Chrysostom. To these correspond four in the Western Church; viz., St. Augustine, St. Gregory the Great, St. Jerome, and St. Ambrose. This latter number, however, has been increased by the addition of three more names, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Bonaventure, and Bernard have been proclaimed doctors by Popes Pius V., Sixtus V., and Pius VIII., respectively. And now Pius IX. adds an eighth name to the list of Western or Latin Doctors, that of St. Francis de Sales.” This honor has not been conferred without premeditation. The Fathers of the Vatican Council, seven years ago, requested it. The same request has been urged, with a unanimity which suggests some special concert, by Catholic dignitaries and authorities throughout the world, and has been reported on favorably in the Congregation of Rites to which the Pope, according to usage, referred it. The chief claim which St. Francis has upon the memory of Catholics, is not his eloquence or his learning, though he had unusual powers of persuasion, but his success in converting Protestants. Appleton’s New American Cyclopedia tells the story of his success, according to the Catholic authorities—how in the district assigned him, on the southern shore of the lake of Geneva, “nearly four years passed by without any considerable impression on the [Protestant] heresy. At last, however, conversions multiplied; new missionaries came to his aid, and in 1598 the Catholic religion was publicly restored, and the reformed faith suppressed throughout the province.” The Catholic World turns the light of history on this part of his career, and shows that the district, at that time, was under the rule of that implacable enemy of Protestantism, Emanuel Philibert, the Duke of Savoy; that Francis, unable to convert the Protestants by his preaching, applied to the Duke for aid; that the Duke came in person, in the year 1598, declaring that he “had brought his sword to aid his holy enterprise;” that all Protestant schoolmasters were banished, Viret, and other Protestant pastors, were expelled, and certain nobles and citizens who opposed his measures received three days’ notice within which they might leave his dominions. They took refuge in the city of Geneva. The district was “converted” from heresy, and about sixty years afterward, all traces of Protestantism had disappeared. For this success, among other services to the Papacy, the name of St. Francis is placed beside those of Chrysostom and Augustine as teachers of the highest authority. It is noticeable that all the decrees, encyclical letters, canonizations, and celebrations which the Papacy has thrust on the attention of the world in recent years have been such as to give emphatic prominence to every claim of despotic and arbitrary power, which many have fondly thought had been abandoned. This spirit, inexplicable except on the theory that God himself is preparing the Anti-christian system for a conflict which shall be its overthrow, has been manifested in the Vatican Decrees, the Pope’s syllabus concerning books and education, the celebration of the outrage of Canossa, and now in the elevation of the name of a successful oppressor of the consciences of men to peculiar honors.—Christian Statesman. In the question of our Lord: “Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” Luke 18: 8, the word “faith” is in the Greek preceded by the article (teen pistin), and hence some regard it as referring to something special. Dr. Campbell’s rendering is, “Will he find this belief in the land?” Wakefield reads, “Will he find such faith in this land?” And Dean Alford explains it as meaning “the unweariedness of entreaty which the widow showed.” That there will be, as this age draws to a close, a lack of strong, living faith in God, especially in the doctrine that Christ will come “speedily to avenge his own elect,” is not only taught in this passage but in several others. “The unbelief of man on the subject of both advents,” as Ryle observes, “is strikingly shown in the beginning of Isaiah 53 and of 2 Peter 3.” We have been led to think of this text by the following item clipped from the Christian Union. It is a straw showing which way the wind of infidelity is blowing:— “It is pitiful to remark the tone of blank, hopeless atheism—not mere skepticism or infidelity—that pervades the writings of many of the foremost writers for English periodicals. Not to mention the insulting blasphemies of Prof. Clifford, there are the dreary arguments of Mr. Greg to disprove the future life of the soul; the brilliant essays in which Mr. John Morley delights to distinguish himself by writing God with a small g; and the articles in which Mr. Leslie Stephen exults that ‘the hopes of believers point to dreamland,’ and boasts that unbelievers are ‘on the winning side.’ All the new monthly reviews contain more or less of this sort of stuff, but the Fortnightly Review frankly devotes itself to the propagation of it; and on our own side of the ocean the Popular Science Monthly, going aside from its professed object, seems endeavoring to abet this form of sectarianism to the best of its ability and courage.” Bibles are, indeed, being numerously circulated and a profession of faith in Christ widely made, but as Ryle says again, “Where is the use, after all, of ignoring facts under our own eyes, facts in the world, facts in the churches, facts in the congregations we belong to, facts by our own doors and firesides? Where is faith to be seen? How many around us really believe what the Bible contains? How many live as if they believed that Christ died for them, and that there is a judgment, a heaven, and a hell? These are most painful and serious inquiries. But they demand and deserve an answer. Have we faith ourselves? If we have, let us bless God for it. It is a great thing to believe all the Bible. It is a matter for daily thankfulness if we feel our sins, and really trust in Jesus.” Should the Son of man come to-day, would he find faith in us?—Messiah’s Herald. Inward Life Shapes the Character of Our World
The character of our world depends more upon our inward life than upon any accident of outward circumstance. It is not in our material surroundings that we are to look for blessedness. We are to realize it only by means of right inward conditions. It is not our outward circumstances that make or mar the completeness of our lives so much as it is the spirit in which we meet and deal with them. THE BIBLICAL INSTITUTE AT SOUTH LANCASTER.
By Stephen N. Haskell
The Biblical Institute at South Lancaster, Mass., is prospering finely. The present number in the class is fifty-eight. Three meetings per day, and a prayer-meeting each morning at nine o’clock, keep the brethren somewhat busy. A good-sized wood pile at the door, and a fence to be built, gives them an excellent opportunity to exercise an hour each morning. Everything moves off harmoniously. God’s sweet Spirit seems to meet with the Institute. Bro. Smith has much freedom in speaking. We have not been able to attend nearly all the lectures; but from what we have attended, and from the nature of them, we are more than ever convinced of their utility. There should be among our ministers more of a critical study of the word of God. “Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth,” are the words of the apostle. 2 Tim. 2:15. The first thing of importance is to be approved unto God. No more striking evidence of its importance can be given than the fact that the disciples were not permitted to go out to preach until endued with the Holy Spirit. They were to tarry in the city of Jerusalem until they were endued with power from on high. This was after three and a half years’ experience with the greatest educator that ever trod this earth. Something more than merely a correct theory or even the example of the Saviour was needed,—an inwrought work in the soul. The Spirit of God was to do something for them which nothing else could take the place of; therefore, these Biblical Institutes should have in view a two-fold object: 1. A more accurate understanding of the truth, which cannot fail to more permanently unite those acting a part in the cause of truth; and 2. A preparation spiritually more successfully to meet the enemy of all righteousness. It is God that must give this. We are happy to report that the importance of these two objects, to some extent at least, is felt by those attending this Institute. There is a great work before us. Men and women to fill every department in this cause are needed. Those who are not afraid of sacrifice nor of wearing labor in the cause of God, those who can renounce all for Christ’s sake,—such persons are wanted. The conflict is becoming more and more severe daily, and we might say critical, as eternal consequences depend upon decisions now being made. Too much pains cannot be taken to be prepared successfully to meet the wily foe. S. N. HASKELL. WANTED IMMEDIATELY, TWENTY THOUSAND PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR THE HEALTH REFORMER.
By S. N. Haskell
The friends of the HEALTH REFORMER should place this journal in not less than twenty thousand families yearly, in addition to those who have previously received it; while the Health Annual should enter fifty thousand new families, besides supplying those who have had it before. Of the value of the HEALTH REFORMER, and its low price in comparison with other journals of the same character, we need not speak. It has established for itself an enviable reputation, and has a larger circulation than any similar journal in this country; and yet there are tens of thousands of families in which there is suffering from physical maladies, and in which the information it contains is needed. It is a journal which ranks high in the literary world in its mechanical execution, as well as for the matter it contains. The Health Annual prepares the way for the journal. Where they have read the Annual, they are prepared to subscribe for the REFORMER. This is the testimony of those who have given their time to canvassing. HOW CAN THIS NUMBER BE OBTAINED?
1. By our ministers, directors, and all that feel the importance of this work, taking hold of this matter, subscribing for it themselves and getting as many others to subscribe as possible, in no case less than one subscriber at full price. 2. Let each individual send as many as one copy to friends, the cost of which will be sixty cents. 3. By canvassing with the premiums offered. There are scores of men and women who can thus obtain a livelihood. In some localities the “Way of Life” is just the thing to use. In other places, the “Household Manual” is made a specialty with success, then comes the “Uses of Water.” A number of canvassers who have obtained hundreds of subscribers for the HEALTH REFORMER with the “Household Manual” have stood ready to be individually responsible for one thousand paying subscribers this fall and winter, providing they could have that number of Manuals, or a book of the same nature equal in size. This shows what can be done. The second edition of the “Household Manual,” which is now ready, is better adapted to this purpose than the old one. Not every one who is a good canvasser can make a success of doing missionary work from house to house, any more than all who are good fireside laborers can make successful preachers in new fields. Each gift has its proper place. When each respectively does his duty, the cause of God advances. No building will stand without braces, and yet a brace is not a sill, but it is just as necessary. It is thus with the work of God. “For the body is not one member, but many.” We want those who have never tried canvassing and those who have. We want from a score to fifty, in each Conference, who will take hold of this work at once. How many will enter the field this present fall and winter, men and women who will make a business of it? We want those who have faith, and hope, and courage in God; those who will seek God earnestly each day for his blessing to rest upon them, and will go about the work with zeal and a determination, in the fear of God, to make it a success. Such will succeed. It is as much a gift to be a successful canvasser as it is to be a successful preacher. There is no preacher who does great things at first; but by constantly trying, praying, giving to it much close thinking, meeting with a thousand rebuffs and many failures, yet still continually working to the point, he finally, with the blessing of God, makes a success. We want men and women of nerve to enter this department of the work. We want them to commence immediately, that hundreds of cities, towns, and villages may be canvassed this fall and winter; and that twenty thousand paying subscribers may be obtained. Who will respond in a practical manner? The prices given in the REVIEW for the new canvassers’ book opens the way for one thousand men and women to make canvassing successful pecuniarily. This, however, should not be the only motive which should actuate individuals to take hold of this work. If, in any manner, we can, by the blessing of God, relieve the distressed, lift up the fallen, impart light and knowledge to those who sit in darkness, we carry out the mission of our divine Lord. Every Tract Society director should have a supply of the “Household Manual,” so that those wishing to canvass can be supplied. All the business can be done through your Tract Society, as all other such business is done. We expect this fall and winter to see a more extensive move made in this direction than ever in the past; and now is the time to commence. CAN GOD ORGANIZE MATTER TO THINK?
By Dudley Marvin Canright
Is not God almighty? Is anything too hard for him? Our opponents virtually deny the power of God when they claim that matter cannot be organized by the Almighty so as to be able to think and reason. They take up a stone, and weigh it, measure it, and divide it, and then ask if that thing can think. Of course not. Examine that piece of wood. Can it think? Take a handful of the dust of the ground, from which all things grow. Is there anything here able to think? They analyze a dead body, and find that it is made up chiefly of water, nitrogen, a little phosphorus, a little sulphur, and some lime, with a few other earthy materials. Go farther, and analyze a man's brains. They are found to be composed of eight-tenths water, with a little albumen, a little fat, phosphorus, sulphur, &c. Then they ask us if these elements can think. Can sulphur reason? Can water think? Can oxygen love or hate? No. Hence they immediately jump to the conclusion that no matter, in whatever form or organization, can be made to think. And, therefore, all intelligences, whether men, angels, or Deity, must be immaterial. So Heaven is fancied to be a vast region entirely void of all matter. God who dwells there has no body, no form, no visible parts, but is a mere essence pervading all space. The angels are the same in essence, having no bodies, being nothing that can be felt, or handled, or seen. The souls of men are the same also in kind,—bodiless, intangible essences. All matter is unthinking, and all intelligence proceeds from immateriality. One more assumption, and the hard labored conclusion is triumphantly reached; viz., Whatever is immaterial is indestructible and therefore immortal. Hence the thinking part of man is immortal. But let us examine this baseless fabric. If God is without body, parts, or shape, a mere essence filling all space, and if angels and the souls of men are the same, only smaller, then how can either be a person, or have a separate existence from the other? But waiving this, where is the proof that an immaterial being cannot be destroyed? Has God said so? No. Do they know it by experience? No. Then it is a mere groundless assumption. This theory of the immateriality of the soul is a modern invention to sustain the tottering notion of the soul's immortality. But the most noted theologians now confess that immateriality does not prove immortality. That which had a beginning can have an end. What God has made he can destroy. But to the question: Can God organize matter so that it can think? We answer, Yes. But our opponents say, “A stone, a stick, dust, water, iron,—these are material. They have no intelligence. Hence matter cannot think.” True, matter in these particular forms cannot reason; but it does not follow that it cannot in a different form, or when differently organized. Here is a ball of snow, very white and very cold. It is material. Shall I therefore conclude that all matter must be white and cold? Here is a piece of coal just as material as the snowball; but it is very black, just opposite in color from the snow. Look again. That coal is all on fire, very hot, just the opposite of the cold snow. Lift that block of lead. How very heavy! Now handle those feathers. How light! They seem to be just the opposite of each other, yet both are matter. One form of matter is very sour, as a lemon; another is very sweet, as sugar. Indeed, the various combinations of matter may be said to be almost infinite. Yet it only takes a very few original or primary elements to make all these. “The number of the elements, or simple substances, with which we are at present acquainted, is sixty-four. These substances are not all equally distributed over the surface of the earth: most of them are exceedingly rare, and only known to chemists. Some ten or twelve only make up the great bulk, or mass, of all the objects we see around us.”—Wells's Natural Philosophy, pp. 11, 12. But God has so variously arranged and organized these few elements that many forms seem the very opposite of others, as we have mentioned: as heat and cold, white and black, light and heavy, sour and sweet. We utterly deny the distinction between matter and spirit which is claimed. We believe that everything is material, and that these diversities are only different forms of matter. No living man can successfully deny this. The wisest and most scientific men freely admit that they know but little about matter. The more149 they study, the deeper they search into it, the more they are convinced that its different attributes and capabilities have been but partially understood. Because a certain fact is true of matter in one condition, is it argued that it must be true of matter always and everywhere? But this is illogical and false, for matter is capable of the greatest diversity. Matter in one form may even seem to be directly opposite of the same matter in another form. For instance, I have before me a piece of ice. I put my hand upon it; it is exceedingly cold. It is a square chunk; I can cut it with a knife, or saw it with a saw into blocks. It is solid. But I put this ice in a vessel and warm it. It soon becomes water, a liquid. It now looks very different from that piece of ice which I held in my hands a few minutes before. I closely confine this water in a tight vessel, and heat it very hot. It now becomes steam, a vapor, and is invisible. Says Mr. Wells, “Steam, which is the vapor of boiling water, is invisible, but when it comes in contact with air, which is cooler, it becomes condensed into small drops, and is thus rendered visible.”—Wells's Natural Philosophy, p. 238. It is so hot it would scald your hand in a moment. It can neither be cut, nor poured from vessel to vessel. It now seems to be precisely opposite from that chunk of ice, and yet everybody knows that it is the very same material, only in another condition. If no man had seen ice thus converted into steam, we should all pronounce such a change impossible. Let him look at that chunk of ice, put his hands upon it, examine it; and then let him examine steam in its most heated condition; let him try it with his hand, then tell him that they are both the same material, and he would pronounce it the greatest absurdity imaginable. Yet we all know by actual observation that ice, and water, and steam are only different conditions of the same material. There is as great a difference between steam and ice as is claimed by our opponents between spirit and matter. We claim, therefore, that they cannot show that a spirit is not one form of matter. The Bible nowhere says it is not. On the other hand, it plainly shows that it is. So because matter in one form does not reason, it is no evidence that it cannot when organized in some other way. Look at that coarse, filthy mud in the road. That is matter. Shall we now conclude that all matter is like that? How foolish! for by its side lies a beautiful gold watch, measuring off the seconds, minutes, and hours in exact time! The watch is as material as the mud, but, oh, how different! Again, there is a piece of black charcoal, hardly worth picking up. Here is a diamond of priceless value, one as large as a thimble being worth millions. Two small diamond ear rings sold for $75,000. One owned by Napoleon was worth $1,000,000. The king of Portugal has one worth $28,000,000. Now, that charcoal and that diamond are not only both material, but, wonderful to tell, they are both of exactly the same material, only differently organized. The contrast between senseless matter and thinking matter would not be greater. How presumptuous for puny man, with his narrow range of vision and almost utter ignorance of the ways and means of the Almighty, and the endless capabilities of matter, to say what God can do with matter and what he cannot! Though for six thousand years men have been using matter, handling matter, eating it, drinking it, wearing it, surrounded on every side by matter, and they themselves are made of it; yet how little do they know about it! The most profound philosophers, the keenest students of nature, the sharpest chemists, acknowledge their profound ignorance of the simplest forms and operations of matter. Bishop Clark makes this confession: “If it is asked what is meant by matter, or what matter is, we must confess that we know not what constitutes its essence. In this respect its ontology is beyond our reach; and the only advance we find it possible to make is to point out some of the properties of matter as discerned by our senses, and to exhibit some of the laws by which it is governed.”—Man all Immortal, p. 21. Yes, all any of them can do is to tell a few of the laws and properties of matter. Here they are stranded on the shore. The great ocean lies beyond them, all unknown. So said Sir Isaac Newton, the prince of philosophers. Another learned author says, “All the great forces, or agents in nature, those which produce, or are the cause of all the changes which take place in matter, may be enumerated as follows: Internal, or molecular forces, the attraction of gravitation, heat, light, the attractive and repulsive forces of magnetism and electricity, and, finally, a force or power which only exists in living animals and plants, which is called vital force. Concerning the real nature of these forces, we are entirely ignorant. . . . In the present state of science, it is impossible to know whether they are merely properties of matter, or whether they are forms of matter itself.”—Wells's Natural Philosophy, p. 21. When scientific men make such confessions of their ignorance of matter, others had better be more modest in their statements. And all confess that they know as little about what spirit is as about what matter is. D. M. CANRIGHT. TOO KNOWING FOR FAITH.
By Editor
THE following is taken from the Providence Journal. We are happy to assist in disseminating thoughts so appropriate concerning the ungodly work which science so-called is doing, to show that while it is so highly esteemed by corrupt men, it is arrant folly in the sight of Heaven:— “We are in that deplorable condition of mind where we have just knowledge enough to doubt the first chapter of Genesis, and not faith sufficient to believe in the sermon on the mount. Before long we shall become so scientific and well-informed, that when a person dies there will be no funeral services. Some one will read comforting passages from the transactions of the American Scientific Association, and the mourners will go about with small hammers in their hands, chipping the rocks and assuaging their anguish by proving the antiquity of creation. Front seats at the scientific lectures will be reserved for the widow and the fatherless, and instead of looking up to Heaven for our consolation, we shall bore down a few feet deeper into the earth for our interesting facts. We have traded off all simple religious faiths for a few meager scientific facts, but there may come that day—when we think of bestowing our patronage on some undertaker—that we shall wish to trade back again, and in something of a hurry.” “We recently saw a man who believed that the whale swallowed Jonah, and we were glad to see him, and to cling to this rare specimen of all faith and no intelligence. He was a much happier looking man, than any of the advanced thinkers of the age that we have had the pleasure of seeing. Macaulay says that Geo. Fox, although he possessed an intellect too much disordered for liberty, and not sufficiently disordered for Bedlam, was still able to convert men of ability, like Barclay and Penn, simply because Fox believed what he did believe. In close quarters, the man who really believes anything is more than a match for a man who entertains an intelligent doubt on all subjects. Shut Moody and Sankey into a room with Francis Abbott and John Weiss for a week, and at the end of that time you will find Abbott and Weiss on their knees reading that excellent little tract called, ‘What shall I do to be saved?’ with tears streaming down their cheeks, and all because Moody and Sankey are just ignorant enough to believe something, while Abbott and Weiss are so very knowing that they are not sure that they know anything.” “In spiritual matters we want a man at the helm who has entire confidence in himself, if he really does not know as much as we do. What the world has gained in one direction in the last fifty years, it has lost in another. If we could retain the faith of our forefathers, with our present worldly comforts, how happy we should be. We live in better houses, we walk on better sidewalks, and we drink better water than did our ancestors; but we have not their reverence for sacred things, nor their belief in things eternal. They never saw the railroad, nor the telegraph, nor the last work of Professor Tyndal; but they all believed in the day of Judgment, and they all loved the sound of the church-going bell. They lived in contentment and died in peace, and they were more solicitous to know the final destiny of their own souls than the ‘origin of their species.’ We, their unhappy children, have relinquished the faith that cheers, without attaining to that knowledge that illumines, losing all our piety in our vain efforts to become profound.” WHY CIRCULATE THE HEALTH REFORMER?
By S. N. Haskell
The object in increasing the circulation of the HEALTH REFORMER is not to enrich any Association or individual. This is apparent from the liberal offer which is made to those who devote their time to canvassing in new fields. But the object is to enlighten men and women upon those truths which will better qualify them to glorify God in their bodies and spirits which are his. It is to instruct individuals how to avoid a thousand ills arising from wrong habits of living. The health reform forms a connecting link between those interested in the moral reforms of the present day and the special work of God. The temperance reform enlists the sympathies of the best portion of the community, and many of the best class of minds,—those men and women whose hearts are pained with the sad havoc intemperance is making all over the land, those who have a conscience, and who feel for fallen humanity. With this class of people the HEALTH REFORMER meets a hearty welcome, as an aid in the work of reform. It reveals the causes of intemperance, besides imparting great light on the way to live. This has been practically demonstrated where our canvassers have labored. In two of our Eastern cities the HEALTH REFORMER, to my certain knowledge, has been the direct means of bringing the truth before this class of people. Some of them have embraced the Sabbath of the Lord and have taken steps to erect a house of worship. Those who have thus become interested have never heard a sermon on present truth, save what they heard at the camp-meeting, but they were led to their present conclusion by reading the REFORMER, then the SIGNS OF THE TIMES and other publications. Those who canvassed for the HEALTH REFORMER canvassed with faith, courage, hope, and last, but not least, with the true spirit of sacrifice, believing that God had called them to that work. God accepted their efforts, and now they can rejoice in the fruit of their labors. The interest thus awakened is deep and permanent; and the principles of the health reform become a right hand to the special work of God. S. N. HASKELL.