Earlier text: OUR COUNTRY'S PROGRESSIt is in order to say a word on the late Ohio election, though we do not mean to speak of its partisan aspects. But it was almost the first important election in this land in which it was announced beforehand that the vote of one entire church would be given to one party. It is impossible to say how many persons were influenced in their votes by the fact that this church avowed uncompromising opposition to the public school system of the State, but surely some were. But one thing is patent—the vote of the Roman Catholic church is dangerous, and not helpful to the party to which it is given. It may give temporary success, and sometimes in a district where parties are evenly balanced, it may help one side into continuous possession of power, but in the long run its embrace will be death. The Protestant feeling of this country is hard to rouse; indeed, we often feel that Protestants are singularly apathetic, indifferent to the progress of the enemy, and reckless concerning rights which they should earnestly maintain. And yet this seeming apathy may be readily accounted for. Americans have learned to sink their sectarian differences at the polls. They separate Church and State in their thoughts as they have separated them in their National Constitution. Men go from the same sanctuaries, and from the fellowship which they find in the same forms of worship, and vote on opposite sides of great national or local questions. They return to their places in the house of God next Sabbath, and worship as heartily together as before. They will not carry their party into their church. So also they feel that they cannot carry their church within party lines. They are citizens there, not Baptists, Episcopalians, or Presbyterians. They are not even Protestants, for Protestantism is a form of faith, and not a form of secular polity. They would feel somewhat ashamed of a ballot which had a sectarian taint upon it. They are reluctant to admit that others are less fair and open, or more willing to use their votes for the advantage of their particular sect. They are slow of heart to believe that the priest has been manipulating the men who ought to be free and independent in the exercise of the highest duty which is connected with citizenship. Occasionally, however, all this is changed. The manipulating hand becomes too clearly visible. The old Protestant feeling begins to stir. Suspicion is roused, and attention is directed to the maneuvering of the enemy. Then, if plotting against any liberty or right of the American citizen, or any principle of the American polity is discovered, woe be to the plotters whose intrigues are unveiled. The latent feeling leaps forth like a flame and burns everything in its way. The carefully constructed platforms of the politicians go up into smoke or down into ashes. Fair speeches wither up before the wrath of the people, and demagogues and priests escape together into their hiding-places until the danger is overpast. It does not last long usually—fortunately for the fugitives from its fierceness; but it does its work effectually, and then it sinks to rest. And it leaves a lesson which the generation then on the stage of action rarely forgets. By certain infallible signs, as well as by open avowals, it is now known that the Roman Catholic Church has lately made a united and significant movement. It means to destroy the public schools in the United States, unless it can control them, and make them subservient to its own purposes. It has acted upon this principle for centuries past. Whatever would not serve it must perish. Every government, every institution, every individual, that cannot be molded and guided by its hand, must vanish from before its face. It means nothing less than this, and hesitates not to avow it. In the celebrated Syllabus, issued by the present pope, the papacy arrayed itself against the civilization of the age and the progress of humanity. The outburst of astonishment and indignation with which this arraignment of all modern ideas and institutions was received, did not dishearten the adherents of Rome. They stand by their programme, and will endeavor to give effect to all its provisions. We do not doubt that the late movement, in regard to the public school system of the United States, is part of a general scheme, the outlines of which might be deduced from the Papal Syllabus of 1864. At least, the movement is one which chimes in most admirably with the statements and arguments of that famous document which expressly condemned all schools freed from ecclesiastical authority. For the present, however, we are glad to know that the papal party in the United States has failed—failed completely and disastrously. The leaders, we believe, have sprung their trap twenty years too soon. They have shown their hand indiscreetly, and the eyes of the people have been turned full upon them. The late election in New Jersey was proof that in that State men were awakening to the peril foreshadowed by the movements of the priests. What influence was exerted in Ohio by this awakened feeling we do not know, but we know that priests were seen at public meetings, and sometimes attempted defenses of their church and its policy. We are inclined to thank them for letting us know so soon what they want, and what they mean to do. It will be our fault now if they succeed. And the men who watch for currents of popular opinion, and construct cunning political platforms, would be wise to note the fact that the Protestant feeling is just beginning to be stirred. It will only require a deepening of its intensity to give it a force by which priests and politicians will be swept away together.—Sel. It is as easy to deceive one's self without perceiving it as it is difficult to deceive others without their finding it out.—Rochefoucauld. ONE BY ONE.
By J. E. Green
One by one our friends are dropping
In the cold and silent grave,
Falling like the leaves of autumn,
Is there no kind hand to save?
Must they cross the silent river?
Must they go whence none return?
Must our aching hearts forever
Sadly here their absence mourn? Must we ever list for footsteps
We have loved in days of yore?
Must we list in vain for voices
Of the loved we'll hear no more?
Must our hearts be ever yearning
For the forms hid from our view?
Must the tear-drops ever gather
For the friends we've bid adieu? All must slumber, save the holy
Who will see the Saviour come;
Blessed Jesus, strong, yet lowly,
He'll redeem and take them home.
Then the long-closed graves shall open
Then the slumbering dead shall rise,
And they'll mount on heavenly pinions
To the gates of paradise. Oh! these thoughts are glad and cheering
As our friends drop, one by one;
May the Saviour keep us near him
Till he comes to take us home
To those realms of light and gladness,
Free from grief, and pain, and care,
Where we'll never more know sadness,
Death will never enter there. LATTER-DAY REVIVALS.
By Jos. Clarke
Late modes of keeping up the numbers of professed Christians are so strikingly at variance with the spirit of the gospel and vital Christianity that the secular press are commenting upon the fact in the most decided terms. The tone of revival preaching is so depressed by little and little (semitones) that the ear is pained by the discord, and even worldly men whose age and memory extend back two or three decades are disgusted and astonished at the facts. The remarks below are clipped from the New York Sun of Dec. 15, 1875, and although there is a want of Christian dignity in the style, yet there is so much good sense and correct reasoning in the article, that it might well be reproduced in any Christian journal as another evidence of the literal fulfillment of Rev. 14:8. “Here’s your cheap religion!” cries Cheap John. It costs you nothing; it gives you no trouble; it amounts to nothing; nobody will ever find out you’ve got it; take it along with you. It’s so thin you can see through it; it is so soft you can’t feel of it; it’s so light you can fool with it. Going, going, gone—free, gratis, for nothing; and, when you think you’ve got it, see if you’ve got what you think. “So cries Cheap John, as he goes to and fro, with his gospel wares in his hand, and a glib tongue in his mouth. Before him are the gaping multitudes, and behind him are his shipwrecked victims.” “There is any quantity of this cheap, easy, and worthless religion in the world. It is the devil’s counterfeit. It is the bogus currency with which he defrauds countless dupes. He knows that men and women want some sort of religion, and that it is not possible to cheat them out of religion, unless he offers them something that looks like it. He therefore gets up all sorts of devices, and suits them to every taste, whether the taste be for gilded sham or solid humbug. He would doubtless be happy if he could upset all religion, and turn the whole human race into pirates, blasphemers, felons, and debauched monsters; but he has learned by experience that it is useless to attempt such a job; and so he takes on the airs of respectability, while he draws weak-minded people into his arms by the seductions of a cheap, easy, and false religion. He smiles to them, sings to them, and points them to Heaven, even while he is leading them in the way which goes to what Thomas Carlyle so emphatically calls the ‘other place.’ Thus he gets hold of tens of thousands who are not properly instructed as to the arts of counterfeiting, and the true nature of genuine religion.” A Lively Definition of the Terms.
RELIGION teaches our duty toward God, and our duty toward our neighbor. Our duty toward God is more especially religion. Our duty toward our neighbor comes more properly under the head of morality. Those who are very devout toward the Supreme Being are said to be pious, while those who are just and correct in their dealings with their fellows, are commonly spoken of as moral and good. Religion begins by making us acquainted with our Heavenly Father, as far as the human mind can grasp the subject, and by inspiring us with a desire to learn and do his will, and live continually in the pleasant sunshine of his approbation. This should be the first purpose of all religious instruction, to teach us to hold the approval of God as our greatest good; and his condemnation as the greatest calamity. There can be no higher motive to good conduct. There can be no stronger inducement to abandon the ways of vice and wrong. All our children should be taught that they live continually in the sight of God, and that he takes account of all their conduct; that when they do wrong, and men see it not and know it not, yet nothing escapes the All-seeing Eye; and when they do right, though men condemn, and scoff and rail, and even persecute and put to death, it is nothing; their reward is sure and a thousandfold. What can be more grand than the idea that we have a Heavenly Father who knows our hearts, and will reward us as we are, who will uphold us in the right, and abandon us in the wrong? All the great martyrs of the world have inculcated this idea, and gone willingly to the stake under its inspiration. And why not? The soldier dies for his country, under the eyes of his favorite officer, exulting in the thought that he died doing his duty, and sure of approval. And when we reflect that that great officer is our Maker, whose eye nothing escapes, how much more exultant must we become. Great acts must have great motives. You cannot hire a man to do a deed of blood for a sixpence. Neither can any earthly consideration induce a man to face death which takes the reward all away from him. All heroism which goes to the stake, to the fire, and the torture, must have a motive higher or greater than the loss to be sustained or the pain to be endured. To the man who knows no higher motive than the beggarly elements of this world, the largest prize in the balance must always draw the scale. His whole life is a comparison of earthly, finite motives. He cannot rise into the sublime, because the spring cannot bubble up higher than the fountain. Life, property, enjoyment, are his greatest good. There is nothing to buy him away from them, because there is no price equal to them. But to him who believes in God, that his approbation is the greatest good, and his reward the greatest blessing, all things are possible. He disdains pleasure, and despises property. He scorns life itself, when it must be purchased by offending his Maker and disobeying his laws. To such a being, God is the greatest good, the all in all, the beloved father, whose word is law, whose command is destiny, whose mere desire is unshunnable fate. He walks in the sunshine, when he walks in God's ways. He grovels in darkness and fear, and trembling, and death, when the divine approbation is withdrawn. To obey his Father is to live, and disobedience is death. And this zealous and devout servant of the Almighty should be sublimely good. And he is at times. In a thousand instances, like Christ, he has trodden the wine-press alone, he has worn the crown of thorns through life, and accepted the martyr's death with the smiles and alacrity of a bridegroom. This is when, like Christ, he regards his Father in Heaven as a good and just being, who approves only of the utmost charity and good-will among his children. Ah, then indeed, he says, Bless and curse not, do good to them that hate you, and even pray for those who revile you. And if any will not listen to you, nor follow your words nor your example, leave them alone; peradventure God may find a way to save them. If you cannot bless, do not curse. If they must be condemned, let God do it. Do not assume his prerogative, or seek to hasten or anticipate his judgment.—Sel. THE SANCTUARY.
By Uriah Smith
Tenth Paper.—Date of the 70 weeks.
We have now seen what constituted the decree for the restoration and building of Jerusalem from which the seventy weeks were to be reckoned. It was the authority granted to the Jews to restore their temple, their worship, their city and their civil state, by the three-fold decree of the Persian kings, Cyrus, Darius and Artaxerxes. It was completed, and went forth, when the last touch of authority granted to Ezra by Artaxerxes Longimanus, was put into operation by Ezra, in carrying out the work which it gave him liberty to perform. Ezra says that it was in the seventh year of that king. Ezr. 7: 7, 8. What year before Christ was the seventh year of Artaxerxes Longimanus? The following testimony is a concise and conclusive answer to this important question:— “The Bible gives the data for a complete system of chronology, extending from the creation to the birth of Cyrus, a clearly ascertained date. From this period downward we have the undisputed Canon of Ptolemy, and the undoubted era of Nabonassar, extending below our vulgar era. At the point where inspired chronology leaves us, this Canon of undoubted accuracy commences. And thus the whole arch is spanned. It is by the Canon of Ptolemy that the great prophetical period of seventy weeks is fixed. This Canon places the seventh year of Artaxerxes in the year B. C. 457; and the accuracy of the Canon is demonstrated by the concurrent agreement of more than twenty eclipses. The seventy weeks date from the going forth of a decree respecting the restoration of Jerusalem. There were no decrees between the seventh and twentieth years of Artaxerxes. Four hundred and ninety years, beginning with the seventh, must commence in B. C. 457, and end in A. D. 34. Commencing in the twentieth, they must commence in B. C. 444, and end in A. D. 47. As no event occurred in A. D. 47 to mark their termination, we cannot reckon from the twentieth; we must, therefore, look to the seventh of Artaxerxes. This date we cannot change from B. C. 457 without first demonstrating the inaccuracy of Ptolemy’s Canon. To do this, it would be necessary to show that the large number of eclipses by which its accuracy has been repeatedly demonstrated, have not been correctly computed; and such a result would unsettle every chronological date, and leave the settlement of epochs and the adjustment of eras entirely at the mercy of every dreamer, so that chronology would be of no more value than mere guess-work. As the seventy weeks must terminate in A. D. 34, unless the seventh of Artaxerxes is wrongly fixed, and as that cannot be changed without some evidence to that effect, we inquire, What evidence marked that termination? The time when the apostles turned to the Gentiles harmonizes with that date better than any other which has been named. And the crucifixion, in A. D. 31, in the midst of the last week, is sustained by a mass of testimony which cannot be easily invalidated.”—Advent Herald, March 2, 1850. “There are certain chronological points which have been settled as fixed; and before the seventy weeks can be made to terminate at a later period, those must be unsettled, by being shown to have been fixed on wrong principles; and a new date must be assigned for their commencement based on better principles. Now, that the commencement of the reign of Artaxerxes Longimanus was B. C. 464-3, is demonstrated by the agreement of above twenty eclipses, which have been repeatedly calculated, and have invariably been found to fall in the times specified. Before it can be shown that the commencement of his reign is wrongly fixed, it must first be shown that those eclipses have been wrongly calculated. This no one has done, or ever will venture to do. Consequently the commencement of his reign cannot be removed from that point.”—Advent Herald, Feb. 15, 1857. It will thus be seen that the date of the seventh year of Artaxerxes rests very largely upon the records of history respecting eclipses, and the testimony of astronomy as to the time when those eclipses occurred. Of the accuracy with which the dates of eclipses may be settled, Prof. Mitchell eloquently says:— “Go back three thousand years—stand upon that mighty watch-tower, the temple of Belus, in old Babylon—and look out. The sun is sinking in eclipse, and great is the dismay of the terror-stricken inhabitants. We have the fact and circumstances recorded. But how shall we prove that record correct? The astronomer unravels the devious movements of the Sun, the earth, and the moon, through the whole period of three thousand years; with the power of intellect, he goes backward through the cycles of thirty long centuries, and announces that at such an hour and such a day—as the Chaldean has written—that eclipse did take place. Respecting the authority of the canon of Ptolemy, Prideaux, Vol. i. p. 242 thus speaks:— “But Ptolemy’s canon being fixed by the eclipses, the truth of it may at any time be demonstrated by astronomical calculations, and no one hath ever calculated those eclipses but hath found them fall right in the times where placed; and therefore this being the surest guide which we have in the chronology, and it being also verified by its agreement everywhere with the Scriptures, is it not for the authority of any other human writing whatsoever, to be receded from.” Thus positively do we find the date for which we seek. The seventh of Artaxerxes was B. C. 457. There the seventy weeks commenced. From this point we drop the plummet down through following years to ascertain whether, measuring our lines according to the prophecy, we strike the events which the prediction brings to our view. The first line is forty-nine years in length; for, says the prophecy, there shall be seven weeks (49 symbolic days, or 49 literal years), during which the street and wall shall be built in troublous times. Dan. 9: 25. This brings us to the time when the work of building was completed; and this was finished in the last act of reformation under Nehemiah, in the fifteenth year of Darius Nothus. Forty-nine years from B. C. 457, bring us to B. C. 408. The fifteenth year of Darius Nothus was B. C. 408. Prideaux, Bliss, Hales. Thus at our first testing point, the event answers to the prophecy, as the shadow answers to the face in the mirror. U. S. There has been a long-continued controversy over this chapter between the Universalists and those of “evangelical” faith. Universalists well understand the importance of the contest on this field, for if it can be proved that this refers only to the destruction of Jerusalem, and not at all to the future advent of Christ in person, then the second and personal advent of the Saviour may be discarded altogether, and the doctrine of a future Judgment falls to the ground. Many reasons may be given for applying this chapter to the second advent. A few we will notice:— 1. Before “the end” here referred to, nation should rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes should be in divers places. No such state of things intervened between the time when our Saviour uttered these words, and the revolt which resulted in the overthrow of Jerusalem. 2. There was to be the greatest tribulation (upon the elect, see verses 21, 22) which ever was or ever should be. If we say the Jews were the elect, then we find tribulation equally as great under the Babylonians. See Lam. 2 and 4; especially chap. 4: 3–10; Dan. 9: 11–13. But Christ said, John 8: 44, that the unbelieving Jews were of their father the devil, therefore they were not the elect. But the greatest tribulation did not come upon the true people of God at the destruction of Jerusalem. They were mercifully delivered at that time. 3. Those who “spiritualize” this chapter say that “the coming of the Son of man,” means the coming judgments upon Jerusalem, through the Roman army. But it cannot appear reasonable to make the Roman army the Son of man and the “abomination of desolation” in the same scripture. 4. When they saw this abomination of desolation, then if any man should say, “Lo, here is Christ,” they were not to believe it. But if the coming of Christ was only a figure to represent the Roman army, then they were to believe and escape when they saw it. To apply this to the Roman army would be to cut off their warning and their escape. 5. The coming of the Son of man shall be as the lightning, shining from the east to the west. This well represents the advent of the Saviour in the glory of the Father, with all the holy angels. See Mark 8: 38; Matt. 25: 31; 2 Thess. 1: 7–9; 1 Thess. 4: 16, 17. But it does not at all represent the coming of the Romans to Jerusalem. 6. At the coming of the Son of man the elect are to be gathered unto him. Matt. 24: 29–31; 2 Thess. 2: 1. But at the coming of the Roman army the servants of God left the city and fled away. 7. Paul said, before the Lord comes and the saints are gathered unto him, there should come a falling away and the man of sin would be revealed. What fulfilled that prophecy if Christ came when Jerusalem was overthrown? 8. The signs of verse 29 are supposed to be figurative, and the darkening of the sun is made to mean the removal of the civil power of the Jews, as the moon is referred to the ecclesiastical. We will not say that they who argue thus are ignorant, but they must be very thoughtless to make the Saviour prophesy the loss of civil power to the Jews so many years after it was totally lost! Themselves confessed they had no king but Cæsar. They were in complete subjection to the Romans when this prophecy was uttered. 9. It is argued that wonderful signs were shown before Jerusalem was destroyed. Admitted, and what then? The text says that after the tribulation of those days the signs were to appear. If the tribulation were the destruction of Jerusalem, and the signs occurred after that, of what were they signs? There is no harmony in that view. But let the tribulation be upon the elect, the greatest that ever was would include the terrible persecution under the papacy; immediately after that, 1780, the sun was darkened, and the moon did not give her light; the stars fell in 1833. Thus the signs were not signs of the tribulation, but they were after the tribulation, and are signs of the Saviour’s coming. Here is the harmony of truth. 10. The instruction of this chapter was not given to prove that Christ will come again (though it does prove this), for this is abundantly proved by other scriptures, and on this point the questioner had no doubt. But it was given especially to teach the church when that event is “near, even at the doors.” They did not ask him if he was coming again, but, what should be the sign of his coming and of the end of the world. He gave them the information they desired. 11. He informed them that when he comes he will find some faithful servants giving the household “meat in due season,” while evil servants will be saying in their hearts, if not with their tongues, “My Lord delayeth his coming.” One class shall be made rulers in the kingdom of the Saviour, and the other shall be cut asunder and appointed their portion with the hypocrites. Matt. 24: 45–51. O fearful doom of self-deceived ones! Reader, on which side will you be in that day? Where do you stand now?—J. H. W., in Signs. WEIGH YOUR MOTIVES.
By R. F. Cottrell
A question of duty should not be decided without a careful examination of the motives which are liable to bias the mind and lead to a wrong decision. God knows our hearts, and will judge accordingly; and if we let false arguments and selfish motives blind our judgment, so that we refuse to do what God requires, our willing self-deception will not change the judgment of God; and we shall awake to a consciousness of our condition when it is too late to amend. When there is reason from the word of God to believe that he requires of us the performance of a duty which we are not doing, and which it would be a sacrifice of our convenience to do, we should try our motives with the strictest scrutiny, lest selfishness bias our minds, so that we follow false inclination instead of duty. And on such a question as the perpetuity or abolition of the moral law, the ten commandments, we should consider well on which side lies the presumptive proof, or the probability in the case. As God is unchangeable, it is to be presumed that a moral code coming from him is unchangeable; and as he is all-wise, the presumption is that his law needs no alteration or amendment. All Christians are agreed that the New Testament teaches plainly that the law of circumcision and bloody sacrifices has been abolished, taken out of the way, nailed to the cross. But before we take those texts to prove that the righteous principles contained in the precepts of the decalogue have been abolished, we should ask ourselves whether any reason exists that they should be done away, besides the fact that in the present state of society it would be very inconvenient and unfashionable to keep them all. The fourth precept, the Sabbath law, is all in reality that is in dispute in the Christian world. No Christian questions the binding force of the other nine. So nine-tenths of the argument is on the side of the perpetuity of the entire law. But some hold the Sabbath law to be utterly abolished, while others teach its abolition in part, or a change of the day. The “Jewish Sabbath,” they say, is done away; but the same law precisely still requires all to keep one day in seven. And those who observe the first day are not agreed in respect to it; but give a multitude of contradictory reasons for their position and their course. What is the cause of this? The probability is that it is a lack of evidence to sustain them in their practice, and to unite them on any one position concerning it. On the other hand, those who observe the seventh day are all united in their reason for it. It is presumptive proof that their theory and practice rest upon revealed truth—the word of the Lord. Otherwise their reasons would be as various and contradictory, like the others. Now, in the absence of direct proof, is it presumable that God placed a Jewish rite, which was to be abolished, in the midst of the immutable precepts of his moral law? Is it possible that he placed it there with his own finger, to remain there only till the Son of God should die, to take it out of the way? Is it not rather a strong probability that he made a mistake or oversight in placing it in immediate company. Is not the fact presumptive proof that this precept is as enduring as the others? “Yes,” says my first-day-Sabbath friend, “the precept is binding as long as any of the others, at least the morality, or moral part of it.” Let me ask you, my friend, where you get your rule for dividing a commandment of God into two parts? How would you keep the moral part of the precept, “Thou shalt not steal,” after setting aside the letter? Where do you get your authority for divorcing the Sabbath from the seventh day? If you have no authority, what is the presumptive proof in the case? Is it probable that when God said the seventh day, he meant only some one day in seven, especially as he refers it to the very day on which he rested from his work of creation? When he bids us rest on the seventh day, because he rested on it, is it to be presumed, without revelation to that effect, that any other day of the seven would be equally acceptable? Is it probable that he meant what he did not say, and said what he did not mean? Without evidence from him that this is the case, is it not most probable that he meant what he said, no more, no less; and that the act of contradicting it is truly daring presumption. It is true, you have a way of making any day you choose the seventh day, by beginning where you choose to count. Is not this taking an unwarrantable liberty? This is a modern invention; the idea cannot be found in the works of any writer before the dawn of the Reformation. If it were true, is it not probable that some would have known it before, since it appears that the first day had been kept instead of the seventh for several hundred years? The “authority of the church” had been the all-sufficient reason for the change before, and still is, in the Catholic Church. But when the authority of that church was discarded, necessity demanded another reason; and so a new and unhistorical reason was discovered. But my no-Sabbath friend claims that the Sabbath did not exist before Israel went out of Egypt. He has no positive proof of it. It is not the presumptive evidence against him. Why, then, does the commandment say, “Remember the Sabbath day,” or the rest-day, which is the same thing? and then go on to say “the seventh day is the day, and, for the reason that he rested the seventh day, he blessed and hallowed it? And why is the fact of his blessing the day and sanctifying it stated so plainly in the account of the creation, in Gen. 2? This, my friend, is not the presumptive proof against you, and is not something more than your assertion, or that of any other man, needed to make good your position? It is true that Paul teaches that “the law, commandments contained in ordinances,” the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, “which was contrary to us,” has been abolished and taken out of the way. Eph. 2:15; Col. 2:14. He also teaches that the law is not made void, but established through faith; that it is holy, just, good, and spiritual; that not all the Jews, but every individual of “all the world” were condemned by it; and that those who have transgressed it, having a knowledge of it, shall be judged by it, “in the day when he shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to the gospel.” Rom. 3:31; 7:12, 3:19; 2:12, 16. Now, which is the more probable? that the apostle makes these contradictory statements concerning one and the same law, or that he speaks of two distinct codes, one of which is abolished, the other not made void, but enduring to the judgment of the last day? He himself distinguished the ten commandments by writing them separately on tables of stone. We know that in Romans the apostle discoursed of this law; for he quotes from it the precept, “Thou shalt not covet.” We know also that in Ephesians and Colossians he qualifies the law he speaks of by descriptive phrases which77 do not apply to the ten commandments, such as “contained in ordinances,” ordinances that were “against us,” “contrary to us,” and “a shadow of things to come;” meats and drinks, festivals, new moons, and sabbaths which were a shadow, being specified, none of which are contained in the decalogue; the Sabbath of that law being a memorial of things done, instead of a shadow of things to come. On which side of this question is the presumptive proof? Which position harmonizes all the testimony of the Scriptures, leaving no ground of doubt? On a question of vital importance—a question involving revealed duty, and consequently on which an erroneous decision may prove fatal, resulting in the loss of eternal life—it is good to feel the assurance that no testimony of Scripture presents the least difficulty, or creates the least doubt of the truth of our position. And bear in mind that on a question of moral obligation, on which the testimony of God creates as much doubt in the minds of those who are in the negative, as the Sabbath question does in the minds of those who do not keep the precept as it is, it is quite evident that all the danger is on the side of disobedience. God will not condemn a man for doing that which he knows he commanded in the only code he ever gave in his own handwriting, and in company with none other than moral precepts. But should we let pride, love of gain, or any worldly motive, bias our mind and lead us to take a course of disobedience, against strong reasons in favor of obedience, we have reason to fear; for condemnation is on the side of doubt and disobedience, not on the side of faith and submission. I leave the subject, asking the reader to weigh the motives of his heart, considering on which side of the question is the presumptive proof, or probability, and to honestly inquire, in the light of revelation, whether there is positive proof to establish a thing so improbable as the abolition or alteration of the moral law, written by the finger of an all-wise and unchangeable God. And if this effort shall lead one soul out of darkness into light, who shall continue in the light and find eternal life in the end, my object will be attained, and the reward sought be secured. PROSPECTS BRIGHTENING.
By H. A. St. John
For the encouragement of my brethren, I would occasionally note omens of good. Bro. J. A. Haughey, formerly of Bowersville, Ohio, now pleasantly located in Battle Creek. We recently met him at the Bowersville meeting, and though we had before had some doubts about its being his duty to leave our State, they are now about all dispelled. Bro. H., although living in Michigan, still feels a deep interest in the cause in Ohio. This is evinced in the following commendable manner. While at Bowersville we found two young men, who, with the assistance of Bro. Haughey's kind words and liberal spirit, we were enabled to persuade to attend our excellent school in Battle Creek, they both returned with him a few days ago, and are now attending school. May God bless Bro. H. in his efforts to do good in this important direction. Besides these, Ohio has two other sons in that noble institution, the Battle Creek College, who are preparing for usefulness in the good cause of the Lord. To say that we have a deep interest in these young men hardly expresses our true feelings. To us, this is a token of better days for Ohio. From our school we look for some efficient workers in the cause. We expect that at least three of these young men will engage in active missionary work in connection with our tents the coming summer. May they have not simply a theory of the truth, but a fervent and undying love for souls perishing for want of knowledge. 'Tis true that four persons are but a small representation from Ohio, but thank the Lord for even four. We know of others that ought to be there, and we hope to see some of them started soon. We should have a score or more of excellent young men and women from Ohio in the College, preparing for usefulness in the cause of God under the third angel's message, either in Ohio or somewhere else. The cause is wide everywhere, and we think that Ohio should not only produce laborers to carry the light to their own people, but also have some representatives in the wide missionary fields, even though it be to our distant neighbors in China, who join hands with us on the bottom. Brethren in Ohio, remember the Battle Creek College. It is a plant of our Heavenly Father's planting. Remember it by words of recommendation. Remember it by encouraging those who should attend it to go, and profit by the excellent advantages there offered. Be not discouraged, brethren, the way is preparing for the loud cry of the third message in Ohio, as well as elsewhere. H. A. ST. JOHN.