THIS is a most marvelous age. Wonderful things have been accomplished. It never occurred to those living at the beginning of this century that the year nineteen hundred would find us in communication with all parts of the world by railroads and telegraphs. Our electric lights and our machines for doing almost every kind of work, may be mentioned as wonders of a wonderful age.
But of all the remarkable achievements of this time there is nothing that outranks the battle-ship. Hardly four decades ago it was considered impracticable to float an iron-clad with armor thick enough to be of any practical defense. But the civil war in this country afforded an opportunity for the iron-clad to be tested. And naval men were quick to catch the idea of what might be done in the way of covering their men-of-war with an iron coat of mail.
To-day the great battle-ship wears steel armor of from twelve to eighteen inches. No longer ago than 1860 it would have been considered an impossibility for any gun to be built that could pierce such a coat of steel plate. A man would have considered himself perfectly secure behind such powerful fortifications. But, along with the marvelous increase in the armor of modern fighting ships, has been the equally marvelous advancement in the building of high-power guns. At a distance of only a mile or so, the 16-inch cannon, shown in our engraving a few weeks since, would easily throw its ponderous projectile clear through the battle-ship, despite her heavy steel armor.
It is hard to realize what amazing things have been done during the last three decades in the direction of producing implements of5war. Our whole world is rushing so furiously along, and men have become so intent in looking only at what they are actually doing to-day, that they have but little sense of how far they have been driven away from the conditions of thirty and forty years ago. Stop awhile to consider; make some comparisons. Ask yourself seriously, What does this all mean? Why such awfully superhuman efforts and achievements in producing the machinery of war and death? And why is it all sprung upon us so suddenly, as if a beast of prey from a hidden lair?
Peace societies have been formed and are working to do away with wars—and may God speed them in every true endeavor to promote peace—but still the spirit of war never was stronger than it is to-day. Many have claimed that these terrible war machines for killing people are become so fearful in their destructive powers that nations will not go to war because of the dreadful carnage that will be wrought. But there is nothing to indicate it. Men show themselves to be even more ready to fight to-day than at any period of the past.
All this means something. Have you thought about it? The God of heaven can not be stirring it up; for He presents Himself to us as the Prince of Peace. He who bids us “put up thy sword,” and “love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you,” is not inspiring men to devise these instruments for wholesale slaughter. But there is one that the Word of God tells us “was a murderer from the beginning.” And we should know that this unprecedented spirit of war is coming from him, and not from the God of love and mercy.
Every line of prophecy, and all of the signs of our times, show that the second coming of Christ is very near. And in this time it should be remembered that the “spirits of devils” are “working miracles,” to deceive the whole world, so that all will plunge into the “battle of that great day.” It is indeed awe-inspiring to be living in such a time as this. And we should heed the warnings of God, and appropriate His promises, so as to stand with Him and for Him in these thrilling days, and thus be kept from the disposition to fight, that Satan has seemed to breathe into the very air.
It is only by the power of God that we may be kept. And we will praise His name forever that He keeps every one who commits his case to the divine care. T.
“THE PERFECT LAW OF LIBERTY.”
To the sinner the law of God is a yoke, a bondage, a condemning judge. To the believer, in whose heart the law is written, it is a law of liberty. This is admirably expressed in the following, from a sermon by the Rev. Richard Cordley, Congregationalist, of Lawrence, Kansas; and the principle is true of every part of the law:
The law of liberty is planting the principles of truth and righteousness in the soul itself. It is when the law of God is so wrought into the spirit that obedience is its first and free impulse. It is not liberty from law, but liberty in law. It is not freedom to disobey, but freedom in obeying. It is not liberty to do as one pleases, but pleasing to do as one ought. There is no constraint in it, any more than it is constraint for a mother to do for her child. It would require constraint to prevent her doing for her child; she will go through fire to save her child from burning; she will go through water to save her child from drowning. It is the law of her life and soul.
It is the law of water to flow downward. It is constrained only when hindered by obstructions. It is the law of the needle to point to the pole. It points elsewhere only when its own election is interfered with. These things act by a law within them. It is the law of liberty to them; for we call anything free when its native tendency is unobstructed.
So in the highest state of virtue the law of truth and right is wrought into the very soul, and becomes the impelling force of life and conduct. It is a force within, not a constraint without. Inclination and obligation flow in the same channel. Duty and desire go hand in hand. Impulse and conscience are tuned to the same key, and sound forth in accord and harmony. Love and law have joined hands and are going on together, love the moving principle, and law the line of guidance. “Mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.” But if the spirit of love be not in the heart, all conformity of conduct is dead and profitless. If a selfish man observe the law from selfish motives, he is in no wise transformed thereby. He may be a safer man to live with, but he is not a better man.
When Paul saw that other law in his members warring against the law of his mind, he cried in despair: “The good that I would I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do.” “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” The Spirit of Christ in a man’s heart will attain the end of the law in his life. For “God is love,” and “love is the fulfilling of the law.” And love is free, and therefore its law is the law of liberty.
“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.”
Promises Better Broken Than Kept
“THERE are promises it is more honorable to break than to keep.”
WAR ON CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLES.
By Anonymous
ONE of the conditions of the treaty of Mexico with the United States, it is said, is that any future war which may break out between the two countries shall be conducted on Christian principles. Now we know this is an age of progress, and that in all sorts of matters; but war on Christian principles is certainly the latest, and if carried out, we think it will prove the greatest of them all.
Just imagine it; we think we can see two armies drawn up in battle array. A fair field is before them; the positions are taken, the great guns are unlimbered. The United States general is just about to give the order to fire, when the aid-de-camp comes up and respectfully reminds him that war is to be conducted on Christian principles, and that it will not do to fire. “Very true, very true,” says the chief; “but what are they? I have read Vauban, and Scheiter, and Turrene, and Coehoorn. I have read the lives of the old conquerors, and I have studied the campaigns of the greatest soldiers, but I never happened to come across these principles in any work on military art. Do you know anything about it, colonel?”
“No,” says the colonel.
“Nor you, major?”
“Nor I, either.”
“I really don’t know how to begin; I suppose it would not do to shoot. Suppose we send for the chaplain.”
The chaplain arrives. “Do you know anything about this fighting on Christian principles?”
“O, yes, it is the easiest thing in the world!”
“Where are the books which teach the art of this warfare?”
“Here,” and the chaplain takes out the Bible.
“Really,” says the general, “we ought to have thought of this before. It is a bad time to commence the study of tactics when the enemy is right before us; but I suppose we are bound by the treaty. What is the first thing, Mr. Chaplain?”
“‘Thou shalt not kill.’ ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.’”
“But these are not my neighbors. They are Mexicans.”
“The same Book tells us, a little farther on, that the opportunity to do good to a man makes him our neighbor.”
“Will you go on, Mr. Chaplain?”
“‘Love your enemies.’ ‘Do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.’ If a man ‘smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.’”
“But while we are praying for the Mexicans, they will be firing into us.”
“No; they are bound by the treaty also. It works both ways.”
“Then I don’t see as there is anything for us to do here.”
“Nothing, unless you send over and ask the Mexican general if he needs anything in the way of medicines, provisions, or clothing; I rather think the treaty requires this of us. And I don’t know but we ought to send them a few schoolmasters; for I understand they are a shockingly ignorant people.”
“But how do you ever know which party conquers in this fighting on Christian principles?”
“That is the great beauty of it. Both sides conquer, and there are never any killed and wounded.”—Anonymous.
Transformed by Our Ideals
By Rev. Dr. Gilchrist
WE are transformed by our ideals. The man who holds a lofty ideal ascends to it, while the man with a base ideal descends. And what a noble ideal the Gospel of Jesus Christ presents to us!—Rev. Dr. Gilchrist.
Faith in Providence
By George H. Hepworth
YOUR faith in Providence is the best of all your possessions. It is worth more to you than your fame, your social position, or your wealth—more than all else combined.—Rev. George H. Hepworth.
THE LAW OF LIFE.
God is the source of all life for all His creatures. As He is “the eternal God,” therefore His life is eternal life, flowing out from the great central Fount to all parts of His universe. As God is infinite, so the aura, or sphere in which His life operates, is also infinite, and His life bears to every part of that sphere the power, the presence, the personality of the Infinite One.
But God is everywhere present by His Holy Spirit, that Spirit bearing with it the power, the presence, the personality of God. It has the power of creating for itself various forms according to the will of God, as the dove, the tongue of fire, etc. Filling the same sphere as the life, doing the same work, filled with the same power, the conclusion is inevitable that God’s Spirit and Life are identical.
But how is God’s life manifest? how does it operate?—According to God’s law. In God’s creatures it operates according to the law of each which God implanted with the life. Before sin marred God’s handiwork, eternal life flowed from Him into each of His creatures, and was received as such. Each one, living in perfect harmony with the divine law of its being, would have lived forever. Rock and plant, fish and fowl and beast, would have existed forever without decay or degeneration.
Man, God’s highest creature of earth, was given dominion over all the earth, and the creatures within the earth. Gen. 1:28; Ps. 8:6–8. Man was king. The welfare, yea, the very existence, of all below him depended upon him.
But man was subject to God, from whom he received his being and life. His existence and life were given him of God, that God might be glorified thereby. He declares, “I have created him for My glory.” But God’s glory is man’s highest good.
The law of man’s conduct, therefore, was the law of God’s life. Just as long as man walked in willing submission to God’s law, just so long the eternal life of God flowed uninterruptedly into his being. Submission to, unity with, the perfect law meant a perfect life, with neither flaw nor break. And as man received God’s life in God’s way, man’s life was God’s eternal life; and the life of all the creatures below was the same life. All were destined to live forever. Nothing that God made and called good did He design should perish.
That God’s law now summarily comprehended in the Decalogue, is the law of life, the Scriptures abundantly prove. It will be necessary to quote but a few passages.
“The commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life.” Prov. 6:23.
“He is in the way of life that keepeth instruction.” Prov. 10:17.
“In the way of righteousness is life; and in the pathway thereof there is no death.” Prov. 12:28.
“The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life.” Prov. 14:27.
“If the wicked restore the pledge, give again that he had robbed, walk in the statutes of life, without committing iniquity; he shall surely live, he shall not die.” Eze. 33:15.
“See I have set before thee this day life and good; . . . in that I command thee this day to love the Lord thy God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His judgments, that thou mayest live. . . . Therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live; that thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey His voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto Him; for He is thy life.” Deut. 30:15–20.
“Command your children to observe to do all the words of this law. For it is not a vain thing for you; because it is your life.” Deut. 32:46, 47.
“The commandment, which was ordained to life.” Rom. 7:10.
“The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus.” Rom. 8:2.
“This is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.” John 17:3.
These and many other texts reveal to us the blessed truth that God’s ways, God’s fear, His commandments, statutes, words, etc., are His holy law, and His holy law is the law of His life. It is the Spirit’s way of acting. It is the channel in which the life of God flows free, and pure, and strong, untainted, uncorrupted, bearing in itself the power and personality of God. It is a divine operative force, because of the life within it. Man’s laws are dry, dead forms; God’s laws are living ministers to accomplish His will. His representative, speaking for Him, declares, “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” John 6:63.
How that law became perverted, and how death came, will be reserved for our next.
A NECESSARY WORK, UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES.
By T.
Much is being said in these days about helping and training children. But many of the plans and methods proposed are out of the true and natural order of things. Peruse carefully the following, which we clip from the columns of an esteemed religious weekly:—
Two lady teachers in the public school of —— have for some months been doing a work among the children of their schools, and for the benefit of some parents, that is proving a wonderful transforming power, and is deserving of adoption in every school.
. . . The ladies began with no thought that the work would enlarge as it has done, their sole object being to help the boys and girls to develop a noble manhood and womanhood, and to brighten the lives of their parents, especially mothers.
Miss ——’s first step was taken for the purpose of keeping the boys from the streets at night. She secured permission to use the school building, and opened a boys’ club, and afterwards a girls’ club. The boys meet Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings. They are provided with books, magazines, and games, and subdivided into classes for basket-making, Venetian ironwork, physical exercise, military drill, and manual training. It is made a serious matter to become a member of the club, and a boy who misbehaves or loses interest is dropped.
. . . The manual training school is fitted up in a large apartment in the basement, and is in charge of a teacher in a —— school, who donates his services.
The girls receive practical instruction in various branches of housework. For this purpose a number of —— ladies offered the use of their homes for instruction. . . . There are four teachers, and four departments of housekeeping taught,—laundry work, mending, cooking, and general housework, the latter including bed-making, care of the table, dish-washing, sweeping, cleaning, and general thrift.
. . . To the mending class they take their own family stockings and clothes to darn, and to the laundry their own clothes to wash. They take tin pails to the cooking class, in which they take home the food they prepare. In the general housework class they have one lesson in bedroom, one in dining-room (clearing and setting a table), one in kitchen (including dish-washing), one in sweeping and dusting, and the other two classes in systematically applying the former lessons in putting a whole house to rights. A class in physical culture, also, meets once a week.
“Now isn’t that fine?” I hear you saying. Well, perhaps it is for these times in which we live. If boys and girls are permitted to run the streets, with no thought on the part of their parents of giving them any training in these common every-day necessary duties, then of course some one should take pity on the poor children and try to help them. And since our streets are lined with boys and girls who are simply drifting about as so much useless material, we say, All honor to the noble women who are trying to gather them in and teach them to be useful. But what a sad commentary on many of the fathers and mothers of this age, that it should seem necessary for such schools to be started!
Imagine, a person coming to a true father and asking that his boys might attend such an evening club-school. The reply would be both prompt and spirited: “The place for our boys at night is at home. They must go early to bed in order to arise in time in the morning to get the chores out of the way so that we can get an early start at our work. When we become incompetent at home, then it will be soon enough for us to call on the neighbors to assist in caring for our children of evenings.”
“But,” you say, “such a humdrum life of early going to bed, early rising, and work, will make home distasteful to the boy.” Don’t you believe such doctrine for a moment. Those of us who were raised under the old method remember too well those happy evenings that we spent at home for them ever to be anything else but the brightest spots in our lives. There were the books and papers we had to read, the instructive stories that father and mother would tell us, and all of the hundred things that made every evening altogether too short; then those holidays that we spent in the woods, or in journeying to places we had never visited before, or occasionally in play with some of the neighbors’ children, father and mother of course joining in it all and enjoying it even as did the children. Any “humdrum” in home life?—Not a bit of it. Any of those boys “go to the bad”?—Not one of them.
Then how about that club-school for girls, where they are taught to wash, and iron, and mend, and cook, and make beds, and wash dishes, and sweep? My imagination paints a very vivid picture at the thought of some one coming to the real mother to ask that her girls attend such a school. “Why,” she would say, “do you mean to insinuate that my Mary, and Lucinda, and Catharine, and Margaret can’t do such common household duties as making beds and washing and ironing and such like? Do you suppose I would ever allow my name to be tarnished by the disgrace of sending my girls out upon the world without such essential qualifications as the necessary duties of housework? Never! The very idea that you would want to teach my girls such things! You7just come over for dinner some day, and you may select whichever girl you choose, and we will have it demonstrated that she can prepare a meal, and do any of the work about the house, in the most approved manner.”
But we are sorry to say that all children are not blessed to-day with such parents. And so let the good work go on of gathering in the unfortunate and teaching them. But what a confession for our American parents to have to admit that there is a need for such schools! The best place, and the only perfectly natural place, for children to be taught these every-day duties is in the home. But children are not always welcome at home, hence their neglect. If the children of to-day could have more real, practical, happy, and natural home life, and less school outside, they would know more and be much better in every way. T.
PRESENT-DAY IDOLATRY.
Forms change, but principles are eternal. Idolatry will exist as long as mankind looks to the creature instead of the Creator. Not long ago there died a woman respected by the world and loved by thousands. She was the earthly head of a multitudinous Christian band. But howsoever great and good she might have been, she certainly did not merit the fulsome praise, adoration, and worship which have been lavished upon her, mostly in the form of verse, ever since. Here are two sample stanzas of a poem containing three other similar verses. It is entitled “Our Leader”:—
“What shall we do without her? When the cheer of triumph came,
Her voice rang out glad tidings, her soul set ours aflame,
And the glory of a conquest can not be one-half so sweet
Unless we lay the laurels of the victory at her feet.”
“What shall we do without her, our leader brave and true,
When her plan is not accomplished, and there is so much to do,
When our hearts are dumb with anguish, and our hope is dim and low?
But we dare not pause for grieving as we face the watchful foe.”
Jesus Christ is the Christian’s leader. “One is your Master, even Christ.” God needs no one, tho He uses all who can be used. “He buries His workmen, but He carries on His work.” We need no one to aid us or lead us in His service that He does not give us; and He gives no one to aid us whom He would have obscure the light which shines from Him. If John die or live, what matters it? Follow Me, is the lesson our Lord taught His disciples for all time. John 21:21, 22. “What shall we do without her?”—“I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” Phil. 4:13. “Lay the laurels of the victory at her feet”! “But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption; that, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.” 1 Cor. 1:30; 31. “Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.” “Therefore let no man glory in men [or women].” 1 Cor. 3:5–7, 21.
“When her plan is not accomplished”!—Neither is Christ’s plan accomplished. But He lives; and He says to all who would linger by His sepulcher or any other sepulcher: “He is not here; for He is risen. . . . He goeth before you; . . . there shall ye see Him.” “He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till He have set judgment in the earth.” Isa. 42:4.
The above stanzas are only one of a multitude of similar laudations, which the dead, did they but know it, would repudiate. It is the old hero-worship which made men demigods among the heathen, and tutelar and patron saints in the Catholic Church. Is it not time that God’s great threefold reform message sounded out to the world: “Fear God, and give glory to HIM; for the hour of His judgment is come; and worship Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.” And may all of God’s people respond, “Who shall not fear Thee, O Lord, and glorify Thy name? for Thou only art holy.” Rev. 14:7; 15:4.
“Therefore,” again, “let no man glory in men. For all things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; and ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.”
WHAT does it mean: “For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth”?
It means that the great day of God and Christ’s second coming shall take unawares the earth-dwellers, whose affections are on earth, those doing what verse 34 warns us against. “But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.” 1 Thess. 5:4.
792. Soil, and Fruit-bearing.
WHEN Christ speaks in the parable of the sower, does He infer that the soil which is unfit for fruit-bearing will remain so? or how is it to be made fit? O. F. B.
We should say not. He tells the wicked: “Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground; for it is time to seek the Lord, till He come and rain righteousness upon you.” Hosea 10:12. “God is no respecter of persons.” The soil of the heart is made fit by doing in faith just what God says.
DOES the expression “times,” in Leviticus 26, refer in any manner to the number of years in which the people of Israel were to be punished for disobedience?
No. The word “times” occurs in verses 18, 21, 24, and 28. In no instance is the word in the original. The word “seven” means fulness, “sevenfold.” Rabbi Leeser (Jewish translation) renders, “sevenfold.”
HOW CAN you harmonize Luke 23:43 with John 3:5? Was the thief ever baptized by water, or born again?
SEEKER OF TRUTH.
There is no inharmony. The thief was born again by the Word of Christ. 1 Peter 1:23; John 15:3. He was probably never baptized, but he was willing; and “if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not.” 2 Cor. 8:12. Why trouble about the thief, when the Lord so clearly addresses us? See Acts 2:38. If you are fixed on a cross, He will not demand baptism of you if you are willing; if you are not willing, it would do you no good. Baptism is God’s outward ceremony of heart union between the believer and Christ.
795. A Judge yet Not a Judge.
“THE Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son.” John 5:22. “Ye judge after the flesh; I judge no man.” Chap. 8:15. How can all judgment be committed to the Son, and yet He judge no man? G.
Christ did not come as a judge, but as a man; but because He lived a blameless life as a man, He will in that great day execute judgment, because He is the Son of man. John 5:27. But while here on earth, He was not a judge (Luke 12:13, 14); neither so are His people (Luke 6:37); nor is Christ now judge, but priest (Heb. 8:1); neither now are His people judges, but priests (1 Peter 2:9; 1 John 4:17, last clause). But when all men have passed their probation, Christ will “execute judgment,” and His saints will be with Him. 1 Cor. 6:2, 3; Rev. 20:4; Ps. 149:6–9.
PLEASE explain Matt. 13:39, 40. When is the end of this world? Does it end before the millennium? J. M. C.
The word “world” would better be “age.” It does not mean the end of the earth, but the end of this dispensation, which is now nearing. The millennium on this earth will be one of emptiness, darkness, and terror. Zeph. 1:14–18; Isa. 24:1, 3, 19–22. The wicked will then be dead, the righteous in the heavenly city with Jesus. Rev. 20:1–6. Wickedness will exist upon this earth with righteousness until Christ shall come. Then will be the end of the world, or age. Compare Rev. 14:14, 15; Joel 3:13–16.
Eze. 28:15 says of Satan, under the term “king of Tyre,” “Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.” That was the beginning of iniquity. And this is just what is stated in John 8:44: “He was a murderer from the beginning [of his work as the devil], and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him,” etc. He was, therefore, once in the truth, but he did not abide or remain therein. He was once perfect in his ways, till iniquity was found in him. The “beginning” must be the beginning of his apostasy.
“Keep It Holy.”
The commandment of the Lord says, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” He who does not keep the Sabbath day holy, does not keep the commandment at all. Further, only he can keep the Sabbath holy who is himself holy. It therefore follows that civil law can not, in the very nature of the case, enforce Sabbath-keeping; for only holy people, or Christians, can keep the Sabbath holy. The law can not make men holy, nor can it make unholy men keep the holy Sabbath. It therefore follows again that civil Sabbath laws are folly; for those who can and will obey God need no civil law, and those who will not obey God can not be helped to obey God by civil law.
Disagreement.
A man is no worse because he disagrees with me. His agreeing with me makes him no better. It is his relation to right and good and truth which affects his character, not his relation to me. Moreover, a man is not less my friend if he disagree with me. His disagreement with me may be the best proof of his friendship; his expressed agreement with me in all things may be a matter of policy.
A Friend Who Will Hurt You
“I have learned that a friend who is worth the having
Is a friend that will hurt you now and then;
That will turn to ice at your sickly craving
For sympathy uttered by word or pen;
Will tear you with brave, rough hands away
From the altars you build to your gods of clay,
And break them down ere you kneel again.”
A “Christian” Company.
The Pacific Christian of May 26 publishes, evidently with approval, the following:—
Volunteers Wanted.
“It has been proposed, by a member of our San Francisco churches, to organize a company of Christian young men, the company to volunteer for the service of the United States in case there are further calls for troops. Applicants should be physically and morally sound, unmarried, and between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five years. Those desiring to join such a company may address ‘U. S. A., care Pacific Christian, San Francisco.’ Applicants need not be residents of San Francisco, but should be ready to meet here when called upon.”
We merely note that this is found in a paper which lays down as its first plank in its published “platform” “loyalty to Jesus Christ as the supreme authority in all matters of faith and duty.” But Jesus said: “Put up again thy sword into his place; for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.” “My kingdom is not of this world; if My kingdom were of this world, then would My servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now is My kingdom not from hence.” Matt. 26:52; John 18:36. In its third plank the Pacific Christian declares for “unity, that for which Jesus prayed, . . . to the end that the world may be converted.” Conversion comes not with carnal weapons, but spiritual (2 Cor. 10:3-5), by the mercy of God, “by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost” (Titus 3:5). The planks of the platform are good, and pacific Christianity is the Christianity of Christ, our Peace; but how does this comport with a company of “Christian” volunteers, fighting with carnal weapons? And, further, by what inquisition or touchstone is it to be ascertained that the applicants for membership in this company are “morally sound”? “Christian” warfare with carnal weapons develops many queer inconsistencies, as well as do “Christian citizenship” and “Christian politics.” All these are in perfect accord with “Christian nations,” of which one never existed on this earth, and never can nor will exist till Jesus Christ shall come and reign over those who are loyal to Him and His Gospel of peace. Then there will not be one soul to desire a carnal weapon.
We merely note the above as an indication of the unsettled condition of things religiously, of departure from the Gospel, as one of the signs of the times.
But perhaps these “Christian” volunteers are going to war clad in “the whole armor of God”—the girdle of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the greaves of peace, the shield of faith, the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Eph. 6:10-18. But then they would not be in the United States service, but in the service of Jesus Christ. In this we have no criticism to offer on the government—that is not our province; we merely show from God’s Word that war with carnal weapons is not Christian.
“MAKING THEM AN ENSAMPLE.”
By T.
We are furnished with some striking examples of God’s forbearance with sinners, and also of His invariable purpose to destroy sin. He bears long with the erring, and every one can testify that an unseen power, following him all his life, has been ever striving in his mind to turn him into the path of truth and uprightness. Every one that can possibly be induced to yield to the good, by forsaking the evil, will be graciously taken into the arms of Divine Love.
But the individual who persistently refuses the entreaties of the heavenly Father, will, by his own course of action, so harden himself in evil that a time must come when he is no longer impressed by motives of goodness. And when such a condition is reached by the sinner, of course he has closed his own probation. He has become a confirmed and unredeemable rebel against the kindest solicitude that Heaven can offer.
When a whole city reaches such a condition of depravity that good impulses no longer come into the mind of any one in it, God destroys it, as was the case with Sodom and Gomorrah. When the whole race goes wrong, He destroys it, as He did the old world by a flood. And even when angels sin, God, who is no respecter of persons, visits them with their just punishment.
The Bible statement upon these points is very clear. It reads: “For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; and spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly; and delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked.” 2 Peter 2:4-7.
Then the casting down of the sinning angels, the destruction of the old world, and the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah, have been made “an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly.” Thus the Bible makes a very plain statement of the case. So when this world again reaches the condition that it is overflowing with corruption, God will surely overthrow it. This is a fact that the Word of God clearly states.
Now ask yourself the question, What is the condition of the world to-day as you actually see it? Think for yourself upon this most important question. A great many brilliant speakers and writers would have you believe that the world is getting better and better, and that it is hastening on to a time of universal peace. But what mean these daily accounts of fraud and robbery? What mean these murders and all sorts of awful crimes? What mean the drunkenness and licentiousness all over the land? Your eyes can not be closed to it.
With the facts before you as they exist, allow the Spirit of God to impress you with their great significance. Your mind is doubtless troubled over the condition of the world to-day. Then go to the Book of books, and therein you will learn that Jesus is coming again. And these things that are troubling you are among the evidences that the day is near.
Are you ready for it? If not, get ready soon; for the time can not be long deferred. T.
