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The Review and Herald, Vol. 55, No. 8

UNITY OF THE CHURCH

The Review and Herald

Thursday, February 19, 1880.

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Thursday, February 19, 1880.

UNITY OF THE CHURCH.

By Ellen G. White

BY MRS. E. G. WHITE.
As all the different members of the human system unite to form the body, and each performs its office in obedience to the intelligence that governs the whole, so the members of the church of Christ should be united in one symmetrical body, subject to the sanctified intelligence of the whole. The advancement of the church is often retarded by the wrong course of its members. Uniting with the church, although an important and necessary step, does not make one a Christian or insure salvation. We cannot secure a title to Heaven by having our names enrolled upon the church book, while our hearts are not in unison with Christ and his people. We should be his faithful representatives on earth, working in harmony with him. “Beloved, now are we the sons of God.” We should keep in mind this holy relationship, and do nothing to bring dishonor upon our Father's cause.
Our profession is an exalted one. As Christians, we profess to obey all of God's commandments, and to look for the coming of our Redeemer. A most solemn message of warning has been intrusted to God's faithful few. We should show by our words and works that we recognize the great responsibility laid upon us. Our light should shine so clearly that others can see that we glorify the Father in our daily lives; that we are connected with Heaven and are joint heirs with Jesus Christ; that when he shall appear in power and great glory, we may be like him.
We should feel our individual responsibility as members of the visible church and workers in the vineyard of the Lord. We should not wait for our brethren, who are frail as ourselves, to help us along; for our precious Saviour has invited us to join ourselves to him, and unite our weakness with his strength, our ignorance to his wisdom, our unworthiness to his merits. None of us can occupy a neutral position. We are active agents for Christ or for the enemy. We either gather with Jesus or scatter abroad. True conversion is a radical change. The very drift of the mind and bent of the heart should be turned, and the life should become new in Christ.
God is leading out a people to stand in perfect unity upon the platform of eternal truth. Christ gave himself to the world “that he might purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.” This refining process is designed to purge the church from the spirit of discord and contention and from all unrighteousness, that they may build up instead of tearing down, and may concentrate their energies on the great work before them. God designs that his people should all be joined together in unity of faith. The prayer of Christ just before his crucifixion was, that his disciples might be one, even as he was one with the Father, that the world might believe that the Father had sent him. This most touching and wonderful prayer reaches down the ages, even to our day; for his words were, “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word.” How earnestly should the professed followers of Christ seek to answer this prayer in their lives. Many do not realize the sacredness of the church relation, and are loth to submit to restraint and discipline. Their course of action shows that they exalt their own judgment above that of the united church; and they are not careful to guard themselves lest they encourage a spirit of opposition to its voice.
Those who hold responsible positions in the church may have their faults in common with other people, and may err in their decisions; but, notwithstanding this, the church of Christ on earth has given them an authority that cannot be lightly esteemed. Christ, after his resurrection, delegated power to his church, saying, “Whosoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whosoever sins ye retain, they are retained.” A relation to the church is not to be easily canceled; yet some professed followers of Christ will threaten to leave the church when their path is crossed, or their voice has not the controlling influence which they think it deserves. But in doing this they would themselves be the greatest sufferers; for in withdrawing beyond the pale of the church's influence, they subject themselves to the full temptations of the world.
Every believer should be whole-hearted in his attachment to the church. Its prosperity should be his first interest, and unless he feels under sacred obligations to make his connection with the church a benefit to it rather than to himself, it can do far better without him. It is in the power of all to do something for the cause of God. Some spend a large amount for needless luxuries and to gratify their appetites, but feel it a great tax to contribute means to sustain the church. They are willing to receive all the benefits of its privileges, but prefer to leave others to pay the bills. Those who really feel a deep interest in the advancement of the cause, will not hesitate to invest money in the work whenever and wherever it is needed. They should also feel it a solemn duty to illustrate in their characters the teachings of Christ, being at peace one with another and moving in perfect harmony as an undivided whole. They should waive their individual opinion to the judgment of the church. Many live for themselves alone. They look upon their lives with great complacency, flattering themselves that they are blameless, when in fact they are doing nothing for God, and are living in direct opposition to his expressed word. The observance of external forms will never meet the great want of the human soul. A mere profession of Christ is not enough to prepare one to stand the test of the Judgment. There should be a perfect trust in God, a childlike dependence upon his promises, and an utter consecration of self to his will.
God has ever tried his people in the furnace of affliction, in order to prove them firm and true, and purge them from all unrighteousness. After Abraham had borne the severest test that could be imposed upon him, God spoke to him by his angel as follows: “Now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.” This great act of faith causes the character of Abraham to shine forth with remarkable luster. It forcibly illustrates his perfect confidence in the Lord, from whom he withheld nothing, not even his son of promise.
There is nothing too precious for us to give to Jesus. If we return to him the talents of means he has intrusted to our keeping, he will give more into our hands. Every effort we make for Christ will be rewarded by him; and every duty we perform in his name will minister to our own happiness. God surrendered his dearly beloved Son to the agonies of the crucifixion, that all who believe on him should become one through the name of Jesus. When Christ made so great a sacrifice to save men and bring them into unity one with another, even as he was united with the Father, what sacrifice is too great for his followers to make, in order to preserve that unity?
If the world sees a perfect harmony existing in the church of God, it will be a powerful evidence to them in favor of the Christian religion. Dissensions, unhappy differences, and petty church-trials dishonor our Redeemer. All these may be avoided, if self is surrendered to God, and the followers of Jesus obey the voice of the church. Unbelief suggests that individual independence increases our importance, that it is weak to yield to the verdict of the church our own ideas of what is right and proper. But to cherish such feelings and views will only bring anarchy into the church and confusion to ourselves. Christ saw that unity and Christian fellowship were necessary to the cause of God, therefore he enjoins it upon his disciples. And the history of Christianity from that time until now proves conclusively that in union only there is strength. Let individual judgment submit to the authority of the church.
The apostles felt the necessity of strict unity, and they labored earnestly to this end. Paul exhorted his brethren in these words: “Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.”
He also writes to his Philippian brethren: “If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, fulfill ye my joy, that ye be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife or vain-glory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.”
To the Romans he writes, “Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be like-minded one toward another according to Christ Jesus, that ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ also received us, to the glory of God.” “Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits.”
Peter wrote to the churches scattered abroad: “Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another; love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous; not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing; but contrariwise, blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing.”
And Paul in his epistle to the Corinthians says: “Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you.”

NOT NOW.

By Alice Cary

The path of duty I clearly trace, I stand with conscience face to face, And all her pleas allow; Calling and crying the while for grace,— “Some other time, and some other place; Oh, not to-day; not now!”
I know ’tis a demon boding ill, I know I have power to do if I will, And I put my hand to the plow; I have fair sweet seeds in my barn, and lo! When all the furrows are ready to sow, The voice says, “Oh, not now!”
My peace I sell at the price of woe; In heart and in spirit I suffer so, The anguish wrings my brow; But still I linger and cry for grace,— “Some other time, and some other place; Oh, not to-day; not now!”
I talk to my stubborn heart and say, “The work I must do I will do to-day; I will make to the Lord a vow: And I will not rest and I will not sleep Till the vow I have vowed I rise and keep;” And the demon cries, “Not now!”
And so the days and the years go by, And so I register lie upon lie, And break with Heaven my vow; For when I would boldly take my stand, This terrible demon stays my hand,— “Oh, not to-day; not now!”
—Alice Cary.

WHAT DO WE KNOW OF MAN?

By W. H. Ebert

BY W. H. EBERT.
What do we know of man, viewed from a rational and philosophical standpoint? The man of an inquiring mind delights in a research into the nature of his own being, his origin, his ancestral history, his capacities, his duties, and his destiny. The pages of all common history give us instruction concerning man in many ages, countries, and conditions. In every age and in every condition there are seen manifestations of all the common characteristics possessed by the human family to-day.
Man has ever been the same in all his history, and will continue to repeat himself and his general nature, as long as he continues to be man, restrained or modified always by his education. In like manner, each one of the infinite variety of animals and insects has its own particular organism, with its own capacities. And all, including man, repeat their own existence. Each succeeding generation is a perfect duplicate of the preceding one and of all its past ancestry.
Then what do we absolutely know of man? We need go no farther back in contemplating either ourselves or any other individual being than to the commencement of such an existence. All before this, in any individual experience, is a perfect blank. No man has the faintest knowledge of a being or of a conscious state, until he has a personal existence in a body. Neither can we with reason, even aided by science and philosophy, contemplate man as an intellectual being after the dissolution of that body. All afterward, to it, is perfect oblivion. So says true philosophy. Reason, with all its facilities and appliances, can trace man in his existence and actions only from the cradle to the tomb. There reason stops.
Each individual existence, being marked with a beginning, may also, says reason, have an ending. And it most certainly will have an ending, unless sustained and perpetuated by some power which is capable of thus sustaining and perpetuating it, and which, in its own nature, is without beginning or ending. Existence is most certainly the result of organization, and anything that destroys that organization puts an end to the existence. Then reason says that unless that organization can be restored, the existence cannot be renewed; and we know of no means that is within the reach of man of restoring that body to its living condition. Man, with all his scientific researches, with all materia medica before him, cannot even save his fellow-man from dying, much less restore him to life again when dead. Under some circumstances he may prolong life for a time, but only for a time; but he cannot restore. The best we may do for man, in the view in which we now contemplate him, is to receive him kindly and tenderly when we first meet him; care for and educate his given faculties; enjoy his society while he lives; and, when he dies, consign him to an eternal and unconscious silence. This is the bound of reason.
No man, if he will yield to the dictates of the commonest faculties of reason, can conceive the idea that “to die” means “to live,” or that “to live” means “to die.” The rational conclusion of it all is, “to be,” or “not to be.” Man’s state is either among the living or among the dead. And so it must ever remain. There can be no half-way condition. Reason says there cannot.
Observation is sufficient to satisfy every one that all men are alike subject to death. And reason says that unless man is again made to live by the same Agency that first planned and caused his existence, death will be to him an eternal state. This is entirely logical. And, further, it is reasonable to suppose that unless a bodily organization of the same individual that died is restored, he can never live again; for without a body there can be no existence. And if it were not organized like the first body, it could not be a perpetuation of the first existence; but it would be both a new creation and a different existence. But nature and reason of themselves know nothing of such a wonderful plan as this would be. And as in this article the intention is to examine man from only the standpoint of reason, we shall not undertake to look beyond our position for any better hope than this life affords.
But, lest some should decide that our conclusion that the manifestations of intellect are the result of the organization of matter, is too hastily and unfairly drawn, it is only necessary to refer to the one fact, that from the brain emanate all our thoughts. Where there is no brain, there can be no thought. Where the brain is very small, thought is also small. Where the brain is large, thought is also large. Upon the size and perfection of the brain, depend the capacity and perfection of the mind. Destroy any one organ of the brain, and there is no longer any manifestation of the faculty of the mind of which that organ is the seat. In a very badly diseased state of the brain, all the powers of the mind or intellect are dethroned. Hence, where death ensues, there can be no doubt that intellectual consciousness, and life, are entirely at an end. So decides reason.
But, with all these facts before us, man, although under sentence of death, is a wonderful being. He has a high order of intelligence. His actions are the result of his will. He legislates; he plans; he decides; he executes; he spans the earth; he grasps the stars; he seeks out, not only the nature of matter, but the laws that govern it; he separates and combines matter; he is a moral agent. Naturally, he is perfection to a finite extent. He acts, so far as he can act, with perfect independence. He can be restrained only by reason or physical force, from doing anything that he has ability to do. He is not by nature a slave.
But somewhere there must be an authority to which he is accountable for the use he makes of so important an existence and its abilities. If his life and moral abilities were intrusted to him by some great Creator on the condition that he would use them in such a way as to honor his origin, and he has, by violation of that duty, forfeited that life, it can justly be taken away from him for his willful rebellion.
Whatever is conditional is liable to be forfeited; and, when forfeited, is as though it had never been promised. This is a fair ruling. Man has life. He dies. And in death, so far as reason and philosophy inform us, he is left. This is all we may be said to know of man. “What we believe of man,” we propose to make the subject of another article.
Frankton, Ind., Dec. 21.

“THE SABBATH; IS THE LAW DEAD, OR AM I?”

By Wm. Penniman

BY WM. PENNIMAN.
The above is the title of a pamphlet of fifty-one pages. As this work seems to be much circulated, it may not be amiss to notice it. It is one of the leading works of a sect called the Brethren, or Darbyites. The first part of the argument (if argument it may be called) is a sort of sentimentalism like the following:—
“A new creation, being born again, is not reclaiming the old thing, it is substituting a new.” The author seems to think that the birth of this new creation has something to do with man’s death to the law. Again, referring to the new creation, he says, “Is the law set aside or made void? No; both the principle of law and the authority of the law are established. Am I then under it? In no sense. Why? Because I have died, and the law has authority over a man as long as he lives.” This is certainly a singular position. Many of the opponents of the Sabbath abolish the law, and therefore they are not under it; but here we see not a particle abolished, and yet one is not under it because dead to it. This is an anomaly, a strange kind of death which releases a person from the duty of obeying God’s law.
Again, “I believe the law to be a perfect rule for man in the flesh.” The idea here is that the law is perfectly good for man in his carnal condition, or in the “old man of sin” state; yet when he puts on the new man, or puts on Christ, he is free from it. Where is the point here? In what sense is a man free from the law against profanity? When he was a sinner, or in the flesh, the law which says, “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain,” was a perfect rule; but now that he is a new creature in Christ, he is dead to it. Dead to it in the sense of not being obliged to keep it? By no means. If being dead to the law frees one from obligation to observe the Sabbath, it must also release him from obligation to keep any other part of the law. We read further, “I do not say the authority of the law is weakened or done away, but that I am dead to it.” There seem to be many kinds of death, but this must be a moral death, as it is a death to a moral law, and frees one from its binding force; yet its “authority is not weakened.”
On page 28 of the above-named pamphlet we find the following question: “What is the rule of the Christian? To walk as Christ walked.” How did Christ walk? He kept his Father’s commandments. John 15:10. He plainly recognized the law, and taught its perpetuity in his sermon on the mount. To say that the Christian should walk as Christ walked, and then undertake to prove that he did not keep the Sabbath, is wrestling and perverting the meaning of the Scriptures. There is abundance of Scripture evidence showing that Christ did keep the Sabbath. He was “Lord of the Sabbath day.” His disciples also kept it; for they would not engage in the work of embalming the Lord of the Sabbath on that holy day, but deferred this work, and “rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment.” Luke 23:56.
Let us see how some of the scriptures would need to be changed in order to harmonize with the theory that we are dead to the law. “Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to make one dead to it. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all become dead to it.” How does this sentiment compare with the following? “Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of Heaven; but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of Heaven.” Matt. 5:19. Certainly the Sabbath is not the “least” of the precepts of the decalogue, placed as it is in the center of the law, as the memorial of the great God. Ps. 135:13. According to this “dead” system, Rom. 3:31 should read, “Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid; yea, we establish the law by making one dead to it.”
Again, let us see what is substituted in this “new creation.” “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; but I say unto you that ye are dead to that law.” This age has rightly been called the “age of murder.” The people act as though they thought the law was dead, or that they were dead to it. “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery; but I say unto you that ye are free from that law, ye are dead to it.” This is truly a “sinful and adulterous generation,” and it is not strange it should be so when such sentiments are taught.
If Christ had only said in his sermon on the mount, “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy; but I say unto you that ye need not remember it, ye are dead to it; I am greater than the Sabbath, and after my resurrection ye shall keep the first day of the week,”—then our opponents would have the case. But our Saviour taught no such thing; he plainly taught that the “least” of the commandments should be observed. Obedience to the Sabbath commandment is a part of our duty to God; and can we suppose that this duty is of less importance than our obligations to our fellow-men? In Mark 10:19, six-tenths of the law, or six of the ten precepts are plainly set forth; and shall we think that the remaining four-tenths are not binding, since Christ did not refer to them? or even that the Sabbath, or one-tenth, should be left out?
Again the author says: “The least commandment had its place; God’s authority attached to it. But I am not under it for quite another reason; I am dead to the law by the body of Christ, that I might be alive to another—wholly, entirely dead to it; the bond is dissolved.” A queer way of getting out from under the law, when, according to Isa. 42:21, Christ came to “magnify the law, and make it honorable.”
What is it to be dead to anything? What does Paul mean when he says (Romans 6:2), “How shall they who are dead to sin live any longer therein?” Mr. Barnes, in commenting upon this verse, says: “When it is said, therefore, that a Christian is dead to sin, the sense is, that it has lost its influence over him; he is not subject to it: he is in regard to that as a man in the grave is to the busy scenes and cares of this life.” Is the Christian dead to the moral law in the sense that he is dead to sin? Has the moral law no influence over a person after becoming a Christian? or is he not subject to it? If these questions cannot be answered, fearing a death to the law, then the “bond is dissolved” not quite so easily.
In Rom. 7:4, Paul says, “Ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ.” Gal. 2:19, “For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God,” is also quoted to prove this moral death. Gal. 2:16 and other texts plainly show that Paul is speaking of the moral law as a plan of justification. “For I through the law [the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, Rom. 8:2.] am dead to the law [the moral law as a plan of justification].”
One more quotation in regard to death to the law: “I do not abate one jot or tittle. I do not raise the question of Gentiles not being under it, though historically true, because if not they are lawless; and I admit the law to be a perfect rule for man in the flesh, yet I do not say the authority of the law is weakened or done away, but that I am dead to it.” According to the author’s own admission the law is good for the Gentiles, and hence it must be good for all. Here is another anomaly in that the authority of the law is not weakened, yet a person is not bound to obey it.
(To be continued.)

LUTHER AND CALVIN ON THE LAW.

By Editor

In the exceptionally interesting number of the Bibliotheca Sacra for January, not the least interesting article is that on Calvin’s ethics. It is a translation from the German of one of those unique monographs in which the Germans especially delight. It is not the work of one who altogether admires the renowned Reformer. Points of dissent from his views on Christian ethics continually occur. But it seems to be an accurate and faithful collection of Calvin’s views, and a just account of his practice, whether accordant with his own views or not. In the light of recent discussions in the Advance and elsewhere, on law and gospel and kindred subjects, we have been specially interested in its representation of Calvin’s views thereupon compared with Luther’s.
“Of all the Reformers,” it is said, “Calvin most strongly presents the decalogue as the sum and substance of all ethics. The ten commandments are the rule of life which God prescribes for us. In them we have the perfect standard of all righteousness. Though the writings of the prophets and apostles, and even the words of our Lord himself, contain more ample directions than those given in the decalogue, they never make any real addition, but bring us back to it from every seeming departure.” Calvin gives this breadth to the Mosaic law by his system of interpretation. “To purely negative precepts he gives positive contents; to commandments which are specifically limited he ascribes a universal application.” Entirely external statutes are expanded into spiritual laws, and the moral law becomes substituted for the statutory judicial law. This interpretation he derives from the sermon on the mount.
One can see at a glance how very remote this is from the views of many at the present day. One can also easily see that this great Protestant thinker was in danger of making too much of external or even civil law, as a bridle, a healthful restraint on man’s acts. And this he did, so did all of the Reformers. Besides this, he held to two leading uses of moral law; “it reveals our weakness, sin, and condemnation;” in the hearts of those who are ruled by the Spirit of God it is a powerful motive to good, as well as a teacher day by day of the will of God.
Luther, on the other hand, regarded the condemning function of the law as its only one, “and when this was lacking there was no more law.” He exclusively conceived the law from Paul’s point of view “as a correlate of the fact of sin.” It was his peculiar experience as a monk that led to this, which, together with a “narrow adherence to the Pauline forms of expression, gave rise to the mistake of supposing that the law did not pass over into the realm of faith [we should say that the law was itself always, ipso facto, in “the realm of faith”], and consequently did not control believers. This inference was introduced into the system of Luther, as is well known by Agricola.” The following paragraph from the Bibliotheca completes the comparison:—
“Where Luther finds a voluntary acquiescence in the law, the law entirely vanishes, or takes on a form to which the universal conception of the law no longer applies. Calvin, on the contrary, explains the law under two distinct and opposite characters—with and without condemnatory effect. The believer is not released from the law as such, but only from the curse of the law. Calvin goes on emphatically to state that while the law is written by God’s finger upon believers’ hearts, they need the objective commandment of God none the less as a means of instruction and a motive to good. While, therefore, with Luther, the particular use of the law is for sinners, Calvin applies the law first of all to believers, for whom, however, the curse is removed. The hate of our sin and the knowledge of our blameworthiness Calvin derives from the effect of the gospel, and not the law.”
The distinction between the two doctrines is exhibited in the following remarks:—
“The law to Calvin is so far from being a mere correlate of the fact of sin, whose peculiar office is to reveal God’s wrath and curse, that it is grounded rather in the divine decree of salvation. He frequently remarks upon the fact that the decalogue was imposed at the time of Israel’s deliverance from Egypt. God will declare himself as our Lawgiver at the same time that he reveals himself as the God of our salvation. This thought constitutes one of the chief excellences of Calvin’s doctrine of repentance.”
That the French Reformer was more profound than the German one in all that relates to regeneration, we suppose hardly needs to be said. Certainly, when men repent toward God, this is a change toward his law. Condemnation by the law implies this; and if they are to live godly lives, more than the spirit of godliness in the heart is needed. Of what use is it to submit to the word and will of God, if there is nothing known which he requires? Of what avail is it to repent in view of and toward God’s law, if there is no law afterward to live by? Bondage to it, sole dependence on fulfilling it, as meritorious ground of acceptance, may all be abolished—that is one thing. Its eternal rectitude, its holiness, goodness, and truth, are quite another. Can the Spirit “lead us to holiness,” if it does not lead us to the very thing that the law requires? Whether we obey an epitome of it, in two general precepts, such as Christ generalized it into, or in the original ten commandments,—what is obeying God but obeying his law? And is there any gospel salvation without this obedience?—Advance.

A DEBTOR TO CHRIST.

By D. F. Ewen

BY D. F. EWEN.
“When I stand before the throne, Clothed in beauty not my own; When I see Thee as thou art, Love Thee with unstinting heart, Then, Lord, shall I fully know, Not till then, how much I owe.”
When I look back on my past life, my love of the world, and my distance from and rebellion against a tender Saviour, I am filled with wonder and gratitude at the way by which he has led me into his fold, and taught my cold heart to bow in adoring homage, uttering the joyful acknowledgment, “How much I owe!” He has indeed shown me, ere too late, that the pleasures of this world are at best a deluding phantom, leading their votaries with remorseless grasp down a rapid declivity into an abyss of darkness and destruction! How many loving messages have I slighted! How many solemn warnings have I put aside or misinterpreted, while my poor soul went on decked with the rose-wreaths and flimsy trappings of a hollow mirth; and I might, amid circumstances least expected, have been called to enter into the dark shadows of death, an exile forever from the presence of the Prince of peace! How easily might I have been among those who will call to the mountains and rocks to fall on them, and hide them from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb.
Dear thoughtless one, do not think I am writing romance; it is strict truth. When I read in God’s word of the “worm that dieth not,” and the “fire that never shall be quenched,” Mark 9:44, I long to be the means of bringing some troubled soul to know the blessed privilege and liberty (if I may use a paradox) of being “a debtor to Christ.”

MINGLE-MANGLE RELIGION.

By G. C. Tenney

BY ELD. G. C. TENNEY.
Germany made a “mingle-mangle” of her religion according to the inclosed extract, which I copy almost verbatim from the writings of Bishop Latimer, 1550. Its truthfulness is evident, and its application to more modern religion quite appropriate.
“Germany was visited twenty yeares wyth Goddes word, but they dyd not earnestlye embrace it, and in lyfe follow it, but made a myngle-mangle and a hotch-potch of it.
“I cannot tell what, partely popery, partely true religion mingled together. They say in my countrey, where they call theyr hogges to the swyne troughe, ‘Come to the myngle-mangle, come pyr, come pyr,’ even so they made myngle-mangle of it.
“They could clatter and prate about the Gospell, but when all cometh to all, they joined popery so with it, that they marred all together. God, seynge (seeing) they woulde not come into hys worde, now he visiteth them in the seconde time of hys visitation wyth hys wrathe. For the taking away of Goddes worde is a manyfest token of hys wrath. We have now a first visitation in Englande, let us beware of the seconde. We have the mynistration of hys worde, we are yet well, but the house is not cleane swepte yet.”

Convent Schools and Conversion to Rome

—A daughter of the Hon. Richard H. Dana, Jr., of Massachusetts, having become a convert to Rome from attending a Romish school, a Romish paper very coolly and candidly says: “The influences of convent education have wrought this change of views, and if her family object to the way she has taken, they have themselves to thank for it. Religious instruction from a Catholic standpoint is about the first thing to find lodgment in an imaginative mind, and Miss Dana is quite romantic and poetic in her temperament.” Mark this well, parents, and reflect upon it seriously, if you should ever be tempted to send a daughter or a son to a Romish school.—Western Methodist.
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