EVERY true doctrine is assailed by the devil from all quarters. He gets the friends of it to make mistakes. Then he gets them to set the time, and figure it out. When I see a man figuring it out as to when He will come, I think he doesn't know much about it. I have had experience with those people.
When a man tells me the day and the hour of Christ's coming, I know he knows nothing about it. He is coming suddenly, and all things will be wound up in the world. But you don't want to be frightened. He always brings joy and gladness. He drives away darkness and disperses our fears. You need not be afraid of Christ. We want to thank God that He is coming in His own way, and we are to watch and be ready for His coming.
Some one will say that means death. I don't believe it. We are told to watch, not for death, but for Himself. There is a good deal of difference between watching for death and watching for the coming of the Lord. Now it is always safe to do what God tells us to do. If He tells us to run, we should run. If He tells us to stand still, we should stand still. That is the true attitude of the child of God.
Some tell us it is too wonderful to be true. My friends, we have a wonderful God, who likes to do wonderful things. Christ will return to this world in all the pomp and glory of the divine. But that is not so wonderful as for Christ to be born in a manger as a little baby, wrapped in swaddling-clothes.
Now the true attitude of every child of God is to wait and watch for His Son from heaven. I don't know anything that is going to have such power in taking the church out of the world as this watching and looking for the Lord. It is better than reading the papers on the Sabbath—something better than buying and selling bonds and stocks and piling up wealth for our children. It is to take the church out of the world quicker than anything else I know.
You are to watch and wait. Who are they that see the morning star?—They who are watching and waiting, not for the building of Jerusalem, not for the return of the Jews, but for the return of Christ.
I believe our Lord is really coming back. That which is prophesied is literally to take place. How men can study that Book, and not see that it is all going to be fulfilled, I can not understand—it is a mystery to me. Every man and every woman ought to do all that is possible to get their loved ones out of this world and into the kingdom of God, for we know not the day or the hour when He may come back. But if we watch and wait, and look forward, and try to rescue every one, and get all that we can out of this world, we are fulfilling His commands.—D. L. Moody.
OUR CONQUERING KING.
By Marie L. Le Forge
"For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind." Isa. 65:17.
For many years we've waited
To hail our conquering King,
When saints shall rise in glory
With us to praise and sing;
And now that day approaches,
Our hearts are beating fast,
As Jesus soon will surely come
In victory at last.
CHORUS—
Victory at last, friends,
Victory at last!
In earth made new
All hearts so true,
Will soon forget the past;
Yes, soon forget the past, friends,
Soon forget the past,
For there's victory, victory, victory, at last!
The earth is waxing weary,
And fadeth fast away;
Her "haughty people" languish;
They fear the coming day;
Now, as it draweth nearer,
Your hopes on Jesus cast;
Our Saviour soon will surely come
In victory at last.
Men's hearts are failing them for fear;
The nations are distressed;
Perplexed the wise and wealthy,
The Saviour's poor oppressed;
So, as the time draws nearer,
Give all to Him thou hast;
The Lord will soon most surely come
In victory at last.
The judgment in the heavenly courts
Draws quickly to an end;
Dear soul, have you an Advocate
There wisely to defend,
That when the day is fully here,
Into His kingdom vast
The coming Lord may take you home
In victory at last?
Elk Rapids, Mich. MARIE L. LE FORGE.
"JUDGE NOT."
By Augusta W. Heald
A DEAR friend once said to me, "The longer I live, the more I believe we can not possibly judge any person rightly; for we can never know the peculiar trials and limitations of another." From our Lord's parable of the Pharisee and publican we may learn that he who has a realizing sense of his own sins, is far more acceptable in the sight of God than the one who condemns another.
It ill becomes us to indulge a harsh, criticizing, fault-finding spirit. To do this is to join hands with the enemy of our souls, who is called "the accuser of the brethren." It is also to condemn ourselves. Paul says, "Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest; for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things." Rom. 2:1.
There is no man who has kept the perfect law of God. But God is merciful, and He would have us manifest the same Christlike spirit toward others. "Judge not, and ye shall not be judged; condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned; forgive, and ye shall be forgiven." AUGUSTA W. HEALD.
Faith Amid God’s Chastening
By Samuel Rutherford
IT is faith's work to claim and challenge loving-kindness out of all the roughest strokes of God.—S. Rutherford.
SOME THOUGHTS ON HYPNOTISM.
By Editor
Is It Right? Is It Good?
What It Is.
HYPNOTISM is defined by the Standard Dictionary to be:—
(1) An artificially induced somnambulistic state in which the mind becomes passive, acting readily upon suggestion or direction, and upon regaining normal consciousness retaining little or no recollection of the actions or ideas dominant during the condition. (2) In therapeutics, a method of treatment that acts through and directly on the mind and nervous system, resulting in the condition defined above; now much used by some physicians.
It is identical with mesmerism. One of the great hypnotic schools, classes personal magnetism as "a manifestation of hypnotism," as "really the only dangerous phase of hypnotism." This school declares that personal magnetism
is an effect produced by hypnotic influence in which the person operated upon is entirely unconscious of the fact that you are influencing him. He is perfectly wide awake, and accepts your suggestions because he thinks he has reasoned over the matter and believes that his reason tells him to do so. But in truth he has not reasoned, he can not reason while this subtle influence is upon him. He is practically an automaton, obeying a will more royal than his own.
We are told further that all sorts of folly is committed under this form of hypnotism, and that
simply because you have a strong will you are not exempt from this influence. No man is so easy to influence as the one who believes in his great strength of will power and imagines that it will render him immune. In his fancied security he fails to provide against attack.
Professor Sheppard, cited as the best authority in the world, is quoted as saying, in his lectures before the Universities of St. Andrews and Aberdeen:—
All this mesmeric [hypnotic] power of which we read so much, works out from the physical side of our nature.
The school above referred to presents scores of letters from judges, lawyers, physicians, dentists, members of State university faculties and boards, professors, preachers, business men, and others in all the walks of life, indorsing the use of hypnotism. We are told that
the day is not far distant when the person without this knowledge will stand practically no chance in the race of life.
Thus much for its claims, indorsements, etc. There is no doubt that as never before this occult power is being used to influence thousands. Many are in doubt regarding it. Is it not good, they inquire, when it will heal the sick and influence for good? As a sample of these inquiries an earnest soul asks us the following questions:—
Please tell me what is hypnotism as taught by the Institute of —, and others. Is it a power for good? Can it be used to heal disease? Is it a great good in surgical operation, as they claim? Is it right for Christians to spend time and money to investigate it with a view to using it in curing disease? Is it in line with "Christian Science" and "Spiritualism"? Can a person be hypnotized without the consent of his own mind? I am very desirous of knowing the truth in regard to this subject.
In reply to the above, we would say:—
1. The definition of hypnotism has been given above. If we were to suggest a definition, it would be, "An abnormal control of one creature's mind, will, and actions by the will of another creature." Some of those who have used it longest (or been used by it) speak of it as a force or influence which exists, but of which they know little.
2. Unquestionably there is a class of nervous functional and imaginary diseases which have been temporarily helped by it, perhaps permanently. It has been used as an anaesthetic, seemingly successfully. It has also been used to destroy the habits of strong drink and morphia.
"Why, then, is it not good?" you ask. And we answer, Because it is contrary to the law of God and the liberty of the Gospel.
## God's Purpose for Man.
It is God's design that man shall be free, as free as the bird, the streamlet, the air. He created the mind free. Man enslaved it to sin, and the natural man is sin's servant; for "every one that committeth sin is the bond-servant of sin." John 8:34, R.V. Jesus Christ came to awaken men from sin's hypnosis, to set men free from sin's bondage. "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor; . . . to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised." Luke 4:18. "If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." John 8:36. And in knowing Him, "ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Verse 32. His word of power speaks to every willing soul in sin's death-sleep: "Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine upon thee." Eph. 5:14, R.V.
Submission to God is submission to the mind and will and love of Him who fills the universe. It is liberty in all His glorious infinity so far as we are capable.
## The Bondage of Creature-Worship.
Nay, more: the liberty given of God is freedom even to enslave ourselves in the utter bondage of sin and death. He who is God's freeman is free to do good, and has all the infinite power of God by which to do it, and all the infinite possibilities of eternity in which to do it. He is also free to turn at once from this blessed liberty to the bondage of the creature; and the bondage of the creature is the bondage of sin. For to submit to the finite the control of mind and will is missing the mark of God's glorious purpose concerning man, and coming short of God's glory. Rom. 3:23. God sets man free, that he may have liberty for infinite good.
But bondage of the creature to the creature, the subjection of one creature's will to that of another, is bondage and not freedom. While he is so submitted, in the words quoted above, he even "can not reason while this influence is upon him. He is practically an automaton, obeying a will more royal than his own." But obeying another will from that of God is sin, and is falling from the glorious liberty of the Son of God.
Says the Spirit, "Ye were bought with a price; become not bond-servants of men." 1 Cor. 7:23. Even the Christian slave is not to serve his earthly master because he is a slave, but he is to serve in singleness of heart, fearing God. "And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men; knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance; for ye serve the Lord Christ." Col. 3:22-24.
## Spiritual versus Physical.
Moreover, God rules, and we gladly accept His rule, by the spiritual nature controlling the fleshly. The base, the low, the selfish is dominated, controlled, "put to death by the Spirit." But in control of the human by the human, as above stated by a high authority, hypnotism "works out from the physical side of our nature." It is the ministration of the flesh. It is controlling man's mind through the physical, carnal side. It is contrary to the Spirit.
## Its Origin.
Is it therefore good?—Nay, it is evil. Satan, the highest of all God's creatures, who sealed up the sum of creature-wisdom and perfectness of beauty, chose the path of selfishness and sin; by his personal magnetism deceived and led astray a third of the angelic host; conspired against the government of God, and is using all his seductive craft and vast array of hellish forces to destroy the inhabitants of this little world, where is being wrought out the great problems of eternity, and where will be eternally settled the triumph of righteousness over sin, of love over force. Satan is working through men to enslave and destroy souls. And every sin which teaches the subjection of the mind and will to that of any other creature, dead or alive, angel or human, let it be called "Science" or "Christian," is of Satan, of evil, and not of God.
It will come in the garb of righteousness; it will clothe itself with seeming light and healing; it will deceive if it were possible the very elect. 2 Cor. 11:14; 15:2 Thess. 2:10; Rev. 12:9; 13:13, 14. But all its cloaking in borrowed garments, all its pretended beneficence, all its miracles, are wrought for the flesh, as deadly opiates to the spirit. Liberty to the flesh is given that the soul may be enchained in the eternal bondage of death.
Hypnotism is of the same origin as "Christian Science," and "Spiritualism," and every other scheme of self-salvation, or salvation by the human. However many good, well-disposed souls have been led away by them, they are all of the same origin, having the Edenic falsehood as their base. "Ye shall not surely die; . . . ye shall be as God."
## The Christian Can Not Use It.
3. The Christian can not use such a power as hypnotism, because he will not counterwork God's purpose in any soul. He will not seek to break the power of choice and freedom in a single soul, and bind that soul to his own limitations. To do that would be to exalt himself to the place of God, and then he would be no longer Christian, but antichrist. He will be gladly content to point every soul to the One who is "mighty to save" "even to the uttermost" every soul who will come to Him. The true Christian, then, by whatever name he may be called, will not seek to use, nor will he care7to investigate, the counterfeit of Satan when he knows the genuine of God.
#### How May We Escape?
Hypnotists tell us that by far the greatest amount of the exercise of the influence, and that which is the most potent for good or ill, is when the subject is wholly unconscious of the influence. Man can be hypnotized, evidently, without the conscious, active consent of his own mind. But it is only when the mind is under the control of evil, actively or passively, that Satan can control it in hypnotism.
But every soul can resist its influence by active, willing service in the liberty of Christ. He who abides in Christ will "walk at liberty." Satan can not control him in whose heart Christ dwells by faith. No man is able to pluck the sheep from the Shepherd's hand. Trust in Him. Yield will and heart and life only to the Infinite One, who "is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory," and, despite all the power of Satan, "the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."
Condition of Man in Death—Positive Testimony
LIFE AND IMMORTALITY. No. 9.
Condition of Man in Death—Positive Testimony.
NOT alone do the judgment, the resurrection, and the second coming of Christ show, as told in our last, that the real man dies, but the positive testimony of the Word of God declares the same. When man dies, he is unconscious unless bidden to consciousness again by a power mightier than man. There are two classes of evidences which clearly show this:
1. Death is likened to a sleep. Now sleep, normal sleep of the perfectly healthy, is dreamless. Unconsciousness wraps the sleeper in its folds, and he has no knowledge of the lapse of time. He lies down at night, falls asleep, and with the exception of a sense of refreshment on awakening, the time of the night has been but a moment. So it is and will be with those who sleep in death. The lapse of time between death and the resurrection is but a moment to the silent, unconscious sleeper. Below are some of the scriptures which show the use of this beautiful and striking simile to death:—
"But man dieth, and wasteth away; yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he? As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up; so man lieth down, and riseth not; till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep." Job 14: 10-12.
"O Lord my God: lighten my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death." Ps. 13: 3.
"Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep." Ps. 90: 5.
"Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake." Dan. 12: 2.
"Our friend Lazarus sleepeth. . . . Howbeit Jesus spake of His death. . . . Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead." John 11: 11-13.
"David . . . fell on sleep, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption." Acts 13: 36.
As death is called a sleep, the resurrection is properly designated the waking time, the moving of the everlasting day.
"Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust; for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead." Isa. 26: 19.
"Our friend Lazarus sleepeth ["is dead," verse 14]; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep." John 11: 11.
"Many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after His resurrection." Matt. 27: 52, 53.
"I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him [that is, with Christ, from the dead, Heb. 13: 20]. . . . For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words." 1 Thess. 4: 13-18.
God's words of comfort to the mourning ones are not that the dead are conscious with God, or looking down upon the sorrowing ones, or basking in the light of paradise, but that there will be a resurrection. The dead will live again. "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning." Ps. 30: 5.
2. The Positive Testimony of the Word is that the dead are unconscious, that intelligence in thought and act is suspended, and that so far as man is concerned death ends all, and the grave covers all. Read what Inspiration says:—
"For in death there is no remembrance of Thee; in the grave who shall give Thee thanks?" Ps. 6: 5.
"Let the wicked be ashamed, and let them be silent in the grave." Ps. 31: 17.
"Shall the dead arise and praise Thee? Shall Thy loving-kindness be declared in the grave? or Thy faithfulness in destruction? Shall Thy wonders be known in the dark? and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?" Ps. 88: 10-12.
"The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence." Ps. 115: 17.
"Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish." Ps. 146: 3, 4.
"For the living know that they shall die; but the dead know not anything. . . . Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion forever in anything that is done under the sun." Eccl. 9: 5, 6.
"Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulcher is with us unto this day." "For David is not ascended into the heavens." Acts 2: 29, 34.
Now all these refer to the real person. It would be a mere begging of the question to affirm that the remembrance, the thanks, the praise, the forgetfulness, the silence, the thoughts, the love, the hatred, the envy, pertained to the body; for when according to the immortal-soul theory did the body ever remember, give thanks, praise God, or think, hate, love, or envy? All these things are spoken of the thinking, hating, loving, envying, remembering, praising man. They refer to the whole man, of whom the Bible ever treats, and of whom soul and body are essentials. Separate the soul from man, and you have naught but dust, which soon molders back to earth. Separate the body from man, and you have simply life, but not an individual entity. It takes all man's constituent parts to make the whole responsible man, and it is with the whole responsible man that God deals.
The real responsible whole man sinned and died. He sleeps till the resurrection day; for "there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust." Acts 24: 15. The unjust will be raised at the close of the thousand years; but those who bore at death Christ's righteousness, who went into the grave forgiven of God, will be raised at Christ's second coming. They can no more be holden of death and the grave than was Christ. Acts 2: 24. "For righteousness is life." For a little while the tired pilgrim may sleep. Satan and unbelief may count him eternally dead. Man may call in vain to awaken him. But Christ is coming—"the Resurrection and the Life." He will speak again as He spoke to Jairus' daughter, as He spoke to the son of the widow of Nain, as He spoke to Lazarus, and all the sleepers shall rise. "Christ the first-fruits; afterward they that are Christ's at His coming." 1 Cor. 15: 23. "Then He shall reward every man according to his works."
AN ASSURED FOUNDATION.
By Editor
IN an editorial on the "Presbyterian Revision Issue," the Springfield Republican notes the majority in favor of revision, and says:—
Dissatisfaction is shown in every variety of the action of the presbyteries, enough to make it certain that the ancient dogmas do not represent the true belief of the church, and, in fact, a clear consciousness that this denomination of Christians is going on under false colors. In this it does not differ from almost every other division of Christianity. Rome is not troubled, because it reposes on historical authority. But all bodies that hold the right of man to think for himself are ever in this state of flux; they can not rest, for the spirit of man is restless, and its glimpses of the truth make obsolescent, age by age, all systems built up by logic from premises assumed and not assured, and against which the heart and conscience of man revolt.
But Protestants could have saved all this if they had builded on the Word of God, if they could have believed that God was able to save His church and bind it together without the hoops of human creed. Catholic tradition will sometime crumble before the presence of God, and human tradition merely, by whomever held, is no different. Dead creeds of men can not expand. Why will not men trust in the living Word alone? It is assured.
Time of Passover
By Editor
QUESTION CORNER
1094. T. J. L. Time of Passover.—In question 1083, Signs of October 3, the statement is made that the paschal lamb was slain "at the closing of the 14th and the beginning of the 15th days of the second month." It should have been "the first month." It is one of those unaccountable mistakes which show to our readers that editors and proof-readers are not infallible.
Why Do Women Talk or Testify in Church?
By C. E. W.
1095. "Why Do Women Talk or Testify in Church?"1 Cor. 14:34, 35.—Women talk in church, we suppose, because they have something to say. They and all others should talk because the Lord has something for them to say. When there is opportunity, "praise is comely." "Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord." Ps. 150:6. This includes woman. Paul gives instruction concerning proper attire of the woman who prays or prophesies in the public congregation. 1 Cor. 11:5. He tells of various women who had helped him in work of ministry. See Rom. 16:3-15, and other scriptures. Certainly 1 Cor. 14:34, 35 does not contradict what the apostle teaches elsewhere. But he did not believe in unwomanliness on their part. The whole connection shows that the instruction was given to correct abuses. Let the women apply it to themselves.
Soul and Spirit
1096. H. R. C. Soul and Spirit.—These words have different meaning. Sometimes "soul" means the whole person (1 Peter 3:20; Gen. 2:7; Josh. 10:28); sometimes it means the powers of the man (Ps. 103:1); sometimes it means just the life (Matt. 16:25, 26). "Spirit" is used for spiritual beings, as angels or demons (Heb. 1:14; Matt. 8:16); sometimes of the spiritual life which comes through faith, and, in the language of infinite love, we are said to commit to God, and which He keeps in His care till the resurrection (Luke 23:46; Col. 3:3, 4). The word is also used of the Holy Spirit, in which case it is rendered both "ghost" and "spirit." When soul and spirit are used together, the former seems to refer to the lower animal life and its affections, the latter to the higher spiritual life, received only by faith.
THE INCREASE OF CRIME.
By L. A. Phippeny
THIS is a well-worn heading, but every indication is that it will stand true in the present until the history of crime and criminals is brought to a close by the personal coming of Christ in the clouds of heaven. As the law views it, crime is only a part of evil, and it would be absurd to say that crime is increasing, while wickedness of other descriptions is decreasing. It is true that a great deal of the public's information on this question is derived from the newspapers, the greater portion of which are inclined toward the sensational. And yet no one will thoughtfully say that the newspapers publish all of crime. On the contrary, it is safe to say that only a small per cent. of existing crime and evil appears in print.
It is by no means a desirable thing to proclaim the increase of crime. No doubt it shocks the moral sense of many who are fondly hoping and saying that the world is growing better. But the question is not going to down. Lynchings, mobs, riots, strikes with violence accompanying, and miscarriage of justice, are the causes of a swelling note of protest the country over, to say nothing of the world outside; and men who are slow to recognize in the condition the fulfilment of scriptural predictions indicating that we have searched the threshold of the world's crisis, are quick to see that a condition exists demanding firm treatment, at least, in a social and political way. The subject can not be touched at one point without receiving a shock all through its system. Therefore it is that the following extracts from an editorial in the Independent touch with no tender finger some of the sore but responsible members of this body of evil:—
"Juries are becoming more and more loath to hang murderers; lawyers invent new delays and appeals; judges impose shorter sentences on bank-crackers, house-breakers, and forgers; presidents and governors tumble over themselves in their eagerness to pardon the worst scoundrels on half-expired sentences; trade unions put a stop to remunerative labor in State prisons, as one important step in their program of reducing useful service to a minimum throughout society; politicians and legislators who go to bed every night of their lives wondering what strange fortune has hitherto kept their own precious persons outside of prison walls, aid and abet all these efforts to ameliorate the condition of the unlucky ones who, in spite of everything, get caught. And all the while the strenuous work of robbery, assault, and murder goes industriously on. . . .
"In the last three or four years murder after murder in New York, in Philadelphia, in Chicago, and in other large cities, has gone unpunished. The murderer has gone undiscovered, or he has eluded his pursuers, or he has escaped sentence through the ingenious exploitation of a criminal law that in its solicitude to protect the accused has ceased to protect the public. Train-wrecking and hold-ups of passenger and express trains are little if any less frequent than they were in the unsettled days when railroads first crossed the plains and penetrated the far Southwest. Worse yet is the insecurity of families living in suburban villages and in secluded rural hamlets which ought to be the abode of restfulness and peace. For months past the southern and western suburbs of Chicago have been the scene of weekly hold-ups and highway robberies. One of the most atrocious murders in many years was committed a week ago in the quiet town of Pittsfield, in the Berkshire Hills, of Massachusetts. . . .
"The perpetrators of this crime have not been apprehended, and if by any chance they shall be arrested, it is probable that months will lengthen into years before they are brought to execution. Indeed, the chances are two or three to one that if the crime shall be definitely proven against them, they will by some legal hocus-pocus escape punishment.
"It is these miscarriages of justice, through failures to apprehend malefactors, failures to convict them, and failures to keep them in prison when once they have been put there, that vitiate all the conclusions of writers who try to prove that crime is increasing. . . .
"We are aware that we have spoken disrespectfully of American courts in their criminal procedure, of American executives in their abuse of the pardoning power, and of prison reformers in their zeal to end ancient abuses and to give offenders a chance to reform. We have spoken thus intentionally, for we believe that consideration for criminals at the expense of protection to the law-abiding, has become a scandal and a danger. Not least of the perils of it is the encouragement it gives to the terrible and growing practise of lynching. We are by no means prepared to set forth all the causes that have conspired to produce this lamentable lapse into barbarism; but that one chief cause is found in a settled popular disbelief in the intention and the ability of courts and executives to mete out legal justice, we have not the slightest doubt."
The denunciation of men in authority is deserved, as all know, and the other terrible evils mentioned are of such common knowledge as to require no further comment at this time. There are some who do not deny that there is more crime now than there was ten, twenty, or one hundred years ago, but who insist that the proportion of criminals to the general population is less, and is decreasing; in other words, that morality is prevailing. But this is a conclusion based on the world's self-constructed premise that material progress makes for good, and is a deception. Increase of wealth and inventions and growth of science do not by any means imply the presence of the leaven of righteousness. There is only one true promise, and that is God's Word, which we are aware the world is coming to regard as foolishness. But that Word will judge the world not far hence, and its testimony of the last days is: "This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come." "Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving; and being deceived."
And concerning men in high places, the picture was drawn long ago that we behold to-day: "And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off; for truth is fallen in the street, and equity can not enter. Yea, truth faileth; and he that departeth from evil is accounted mad." "That they may do evil with both hands earnestly, the prince asketh, and the judge asketh for a reward; and the great man, he uttereth his mischievous desire; so they wrap it up. The best of them is as a brier; the most upright is sharper than a thorn hedge." Be not deceived; the world is terribly wicked, and the great day of final judgment is breaking. But be not discouraged; turn from earthly hopes to the enduring and heavenly. There is a solution of the matter in Christ, our source of wisdom, and our redemption.
L. A. PHIPPENY.
REFORM DOES NOT COME BY THE BALLOT.
THAT you can not vote reform even by woman-suffrage is evident to all thinking reformers. True reform must come from within, the result of regenerating forces born of God. All other reform is but forming in different shape the same elements of evil. It has been thought by many good souls that the ballot to woman would remedy many of the wrongs and corruptions and evils of our national and municipal life. But it seems not to do this in cases where it has been tried. Below is what a Catholic priest, W. O. Ryan, pastor of St Leo's Church, Denver, has to say about its workings in Colorado, in the Kansas City Star of November 25:—
"To say that female suffrage in Colorado has proved a failure, is to express a half truth, and a failure, after all, is but a negative term. Failures are oftentimes respectable; we can tolerate failures in things and persons.
"But the exercise of suffrage by women in Colorado is no longer tolerable; it is an unmixed evil, a horrible travesty on the hopes and expectations of many of us; a Frankenstein monster we have raised, which we must slay, or it slays us. It is injuring our homes; it is ruinous to all that is becoming and admirable in many of our women.
"I was one of the theorizers who voted for woman-suffrage. I imagined her entrance into the political arena would soften the combat and civilize the combatants; that her participation in politics would cleanse political ways; that the beetle-browed ward heeler, the saloon-keeper with a pull, the purchaser of fraudulent votes, would pass away as darkness when the dayspring arises. I believed that of course we should have a higher class of candidates for office, or that surely only a higher class could succeed, once woman-suffrage was obtained.
"All these hopes are with the things that were. Politics is the same old dirty game; the candidates are of the same mixed caliber; the ward heeler flourishes; the barkeeper with a pull is not extinguished; the repeater has still his innings.
"What good has woman-suffrage done?—Absolutely none. And from experience we find that it is incapable of good. It never can change the result of any election; for the daughter, mother, or sister votes as her father, husband, or brother votes. This is the rule—to which the exception is rare.
"In a large acquaintance, and I believe I know and speak to as many people as any man in Denver, I have met only few exceptions to that rule. In one case the woman voted from her family tradition; in the other, the women voted against their husbands' ideas, I believe, from natural perversity. And it is well the rule works; did it not, God help the divided homes.
"I see no good result from our eight years of woman-suffrage. We have a Sunday-closing and midnight-closing law for saloons. Surely here the woman vote should tell. Yet the fact is that most of our saloons are open on Sunday; many are open all night. And that abomination, 'the ladies' entrance,' greets one everywhere in Denver. Women suffer more than men from the gambling evil. Yet gambling is open and seemingly supported, or at least protected, by law in Denver.
"There is in Denver, as in all large cities, a 'red light' district. If the painted woman were confined there, so much the better for morality. She roams wide, however, and everywhere is herded to the polls; the semi-drunken harlot votes beside the respectable mother and sister.
"And the evil of woman-suffrage! For a month past hundreds of women have neglected their homes because of their interest in politics. Women's political clubs, under the name 'Bryan' or 'McKinley'—and doubtless both these gentlemen would be far from desiring their names to appear as an ægis for the woman in politics—female political orders, female political canvassing—God pity us, we have known the burden and woe of them all. It is our experience that where women have joined fortunes with a political party, because of their finer, more emotional nature, they have become the blindest partisans, and by their emotions are made absolutely destitute of principle in things political.
"Think of it, a woman buying other women to personate voters who had moved! Two such authentic cases came under my observation; and these women were otherwise reputed decent."
