Earlier text: It Must Be Settled RightA Short Sermon
By H. A. St. John
"For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps." 1 Peter 2:21. Jesus was the greatest and most perfect example the world has ever known. He has left us an example that we should follow in his steps. When in mortal guise here on earth he was both human and divine. He was not only a good man, he was a God man, Immanuel, God with us. His incarnation was the great mystery of godliness. During his stay on earth he did always the things that pleased his Father. When he came, he said, "I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart." Again he said, "I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love." He did no sin. He was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. It is not safe to follow the example of any other person on earth, only in so far as he follows Christ. Jesus said that his words were the words of his Father; his works were the works of his Father. So completely was he one with his Father, and our Father, that he could say, "Without him I can do nothing." It is manifest, therefore, that he was a worker with his Father in everything. And we see, although but faintly, the outcome of such a life. He was exalted to eternal glory, in his Father's presence and favor, to abide forevermore. And he is our Exemplar. He has made it possible for us to become partakers of the divine nature. Such a change in us is a great mystery of godliness. By that change the law of God is written in our hearts. Then we, too, may keep our Heavenly Father's commandments and abide in his love. To his throne we may come boldly at all times, and find grace to help in every time of need. We can be workers together with him, and without him we can do nothing. We can please the Lord in all things, and the glorious outcome of such a life can be seen, or realized, but faintly now. It will be glorified with our glorified Lord, the glory ineffable and forevermore. Learn to Trust God
By Mrs. Iva F. Cady
It is interesting to note how much David has to say in the Psalms about trusting in the Lord, and of the blessings that come from trusting him. "O how great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee; which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before the sons of men! Thou shalt hide them in the secret of thy presence from the pride of man: thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues." Ps. 31:19, 20. "Many sorrows shall be to the wicked: but he that trusteth in the Lord, mercy shall compass him about." Ps. 32:10. "Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed." "Commit thy way unto the Lord." Ps. 37:3, 5. But why should we trust in the Lord? — Because "in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength." Isa. 26:4. All things are possible with him; and since he has all might and power, he is able to deliver us from all evil and to give us just the help we need. We may feel that we have been very sinful, and are so unworthy that it would be presumption to expect the Lord to protect and deliver us, and so we fail to trust him for help when surrounded with trials and difficulties. But the Lord knows that we cannot make ourselves any better without his help, any more than the Ethiopian can change his skin. He knows the weakness of the flesh, and pities us as a father pities his children. Over and over again he has told us that he is merciful, that he deals with us better than we deserve. "Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger forever, because he delighteth in mercy." Micah 7:18. If we repent of our sins and confess them, he is faithful and just to forgive us. The righteousness of Christ is imputed to cover our sins, and the Lord has mercy upon us. Under those circumstances, he delights in exercising mercy toward us. But in spite of all the evidence we have of the Lord's love and mercy, many find it easier to trust in man and to look only to him for help. If we trust in man and fear him instead of God, we shall surely be disappointed sooner or later. "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. Man is a very helpless creature. He may have a high position in the world today, and tomorrow be fleeing for his life — a fugitive. He may today be in the bloom of health, and tomorrow be cold and still in death. For this reason, the Lord says: "Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord;" but, "Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is." Then he makes this comparison: The man that trusts in man and makes flesh his arm "shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited;" while the man that trusts the Lord, "shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit." Jer. 17:5-8. Peace and happiness also come as a direct result of trusting in the Lord, for we are then able to believe his promises, "and we know that all things work together for good" to us. Rom. 8:28. "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee." Isa. 26:3. So, let us strive to keep our mind, or thoughts, stayed on the Lord and his precious promises, and that will help us to trust him more. We shall not then murmur at Providence, for we shall know that a kind Heavenly Father, who loves us, is directing our paths (Prov. 3:6), and that he will permit only such trials to come to us as are needed to help us to develop a true Christian character, that we may be fitted to enter heaven. The Danger of Little Things
“It is the little things that cause the Christian to stumble. It is the yielding to the momentary impatience which results in a hasty word that one would give years to recall. It is yielding to the first temptation to drink that makes the drunkard. It is cherishing the lustful, illegitimate thought that leads to adultery. It is coveting that leads to theft. It is envying our neighbor some good thing that leads to hatred and perhaps murder. Watch the moments. We pass this way but once. We can never recall today.” The Art of Meditation
By J. D. Montgomery
The Importance of Meditation
THAT this is a matter of great importance I think no one will deny, for in this present time of haste and hurry we find that too many do not take time to even think or study, and probably the great majority do not know how to meditate. There lived a young man in ancient times who learned the secret of quiet meditation, and the habit was so strong upon him that he "went out to meditate in the field at the eventide," though he was daily expecting that his bride-to-be would appear upon the scene and his marriage would immediately follow. See Gen. 24:63. Isaac knew when was the best time of day and the best place for this meditation. Upon What Are We to Meditate?
To Joshua this advice was given: "This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written." Joshua 1:8. Meditation should be on holy things, and for a definite, useful purpose; that is, to learn to do "all that is written" therein. We meditate that we may become more proficient in doing. There can be no lasting profit in mere day-dreaming and idle musing over sentimental or unimportant matters. There is to be a definite, wide-awake purpose in all our meditation, even "in the field at the eventide." "Why do the heathen rage, and the people meditate a vain thing?" Ps. 2:1, margin. Just to sit and meditate idly will not do; nor will vain thoughts and aspirations, in the sense of this text, prevail. In the text the idea of vain meditation is that it is useless to imagine such things for they cannot be realized. There must be full control of the thoughts in all times of meditation. Day-dreaming and building air-castles are not meditation in the Bible sense, and should not be indulged in. They are vain, do the mind no good, and are merely meditation running riot without control. This will eventually lead the mind to meditation on forbidden and evil thoughts. The meditation of the psalmist was on this wise: "I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches." Ps. 63:6. Then again he says: "I will meditate also of all thy work, and talk of thy doings." Ps. 77:12. "My meditation of him shall be sweet: I will be glad in the Lord." Ps. 104:34. "I will meditate in thy precepts, and have respect unto thy ways." Ps. 119:15. "I will meditate in thy precepts." Verse 78. "O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day." Verse 97. These statements are quoted to show clearly what should be the subject of our meditation. This is not idle musing, this is not day-dreaming nor air-castle building; this is character-building thought, this is constructive meditation. "I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation." Ps. 119:99. Meditation, then, gives understanding. There is interest of the keenest kind in true meditation: "Mine eyes prevent the night watches, that I might meditate in thy word." Verse 148. It takes a very absorbing matter to keep one alert in the night watches, but the habit of right meditating will do it even as in the case of the psalmist. Try it. There are manifold items about which to meditate: "I meditate on all thy works; I muse on the work of thy hands." Ps. 143:5. This is meditation for profit, and is the mental activity needed by every Christian; in fact, it is almost a command that we practise the art of meditation. "Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all." 1 Tim. 4:15. The Sleep of Death
By N. D. Anderson
AFTER you have retired for the night, and are asleep, the question of the time which will intervene during your unconsciousness causes you no anxiety. You are ignorant of the exact moment you fell asleep, and you do not know whether you will awake again or not. Neither is it possible for you to determine while in your somnolent state the length of its duration, or the hour at which you wish to arise. You have no physical sense of pain or bliss, no mental sense of worry or contentment, no moral sense of good or evil. You do not hover, a disembodied spirit, above the secret comings and goings of your loved ones, remarking the sorrow and grief and sin they seek to hide from all but their own souls and God; neither do you helplessly flutter about the light of your own memory, witnessing the desecration by soulless enemies of all that you held dear. This would be a refined torture, which happily the Almighty would not inflict. When you sleep, you rest; and when you wake in the dawn, the whole world wakes with you, and each goes to his appointed place and labor, without the aid of spirits who, perhaps, ceased their earthly activities years before the ingenious machine with which you do your work was thought of. How, then, when you fall asleep in death,—when you go to that long quiet wherein even those lingering shadows we know as dreams are no longer cast, for their substance is not? Would you delight, in the nightmare of your consciousness separated from your body at rest, in seeing the sufferings of the mother you left behind, or in witnessing the degradation of your promising brother, or in helplessly beholding the shame of your sister?—No, it is unbelievable. You would be left in peace, leaving these conditions which you can neither ameliorate nor destroy to the care of Him who can ameliorate and destroy them. Is not the thought more pleasant that all are only sleeping and will rest, with no knowledge of time or place or happening, until that dawn when all will be awakened? To those who have resided in oblivion for thousands of years it will seem but yesterday that they laid them down. God teaches in his Word, what man should be only too happy to believe, that he does not compel us after death to be witnesses to the living, but that he covers us with his mantle of unconsciousness until all will have lived their little round, and then wakes us all together, that none may have advantage over another in the glory of God's presence. Have you who go to your couch at night with faith that you will awake in the morning, so little belief in the Being who watches over you during those few hours as to distrust his power to hold your consciousness in abeyance and to guard your soul in sleep for twice that short period, or for days, or years, or ages? It seems easier to believe that death is sleep, that awakening is the resurrection, and that God is merciful, loving, and just, than to believe in the twisted hallucinations of cloistered theologians, who teach that death is an awakening, that resurrection is death, and that God is a Moloch, delighting in the suffering of the helpless. It is well for such as they, and for you, and for me, that immortality is not inherent in us, that it is not a terrible jinnee let loose by Jehovah, over whom he is unable to regain control; for what should we have to fall back on, then, were the ladder of our spiritual endeavor to give way under us? Immortality and eternal oblivion are both blessings bestowed by the Creator upon his creatures,—immortality to those to whom immortality is due; oblivion to those to whom oblivion is due. Blessed be the name of the Lord. A Tomorrow
By Helen E. Lawrence
WE may live only today, my dear,
Tomorrow is yet unborn,
But the earth as it whirls through endless space
Will bring another morn.
The sun may go down in gloom, my dear,
And the night may bring the rain;
But a glorious dawn in the eastern sky
Will bring the sun again. And so with you and me, my dear.
Our eyes may be filled with tears,
But love has spread a golden glow
O'er all the weary years.
And though we've been sad today, my dear,
And the clouds have caused us sorrow.
The rosy tints of the new-born day
Will bring the sun tomorrow.
—Selected. The World's Christian Citizenship Conference
By Charles M. Snow
THERE has just closed, in the city of Portland, Oregon, an important religious gathering and one of far-reaching influence; namely, the World's Christian Citizenship Conference, under the auspices of the National Reform Association. It was designed to be international in character, and was, to a limited extent. The conference began on Sunday, June 29, and closed on Sunday, July 6. The assembled delegates were given most hearty welcome by the officials of both the State and the municipality, and great effort was put forth by the city to make the delegation feel it had been truly welcomed. The general sessions of the conference were held in a large stadium, whose seating capacity was over 5,000 and whose standing capacity was easily twice as many more. The size of these general gatherings ranged from about 2,000 to between 8,000 and 9,000. In the forenoons, sectional conferences on different phases of social and religious work were held in various churches throughout the city, and during afternoons and evenings the more general subjects were discussed in the open stadium. There is no question that such gatherings as this are having great influence upon the public; and while there were some principles enunciated and some declarations made by some of the speakers that were entirely out of harmony with the principles of National Reformism, yet the fact that these men were upon the program of this conference throws their general influence upon the side of that un-American organization, and causes the multitude to rate them as strong sympathizers if not active participants with that organization in all the work it is doing. The general plan of endeavor laid before this conference was strikingly like that adopted by the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ, and has also a striking similarity to the plan of work laid out by the Christian Endeavorers at their last general convention. It is a very striking coincidence that these great religious bodies, and others that might be named, are working along similar lines which are strikingly opposed to the principles that have made America a refuge for the oppressed of every land. But there is more than a coincidence in this. There is a very definite plan being very methodically worked out in the very face of the church of Jesus Christ by the adversary of Jesus Christ, and the professed members of that church are made the tools for the accomplishment of that adversary's purpose. It is only through such plans, carried out by such classes of people, that this world could ever be brought to a place where a decree could be issued to all the world compelling certain acts of worship. The prophecy of the Revelation concerning the worship of the beast and his image is a part of the Word of God and must be fulfilled. But it cannot be fulfilled unless in some way professed Christendom can be brought into line with the purpose of the deceiver; for the power which issues that decree of compulsory worship is a religious power. Now we see the great bulk of Christendom focusing its forces upon the accomplishment of religious objects by the power of human law. Many of the objects which these associations hope to attain are worthy objects in and of themselves. There is very little that is commendable in this world that such organizations do not stand for. They condemn the divorce evil, the liquor traffic, white slavery, inadequate wage, child labor, polygamy, dishonest living, immoral and insanitary housing conditions, political dishonesty, etc., and their opposition to these things and their advocacy of the opposite are put forward as the ground of their claim to the confidence, the sympathy, and the support of the general public. The impression is given that if the public will sufficiently support them in their undertakings, all the evils they condemn will be eradicated from this world, and all the good things they stand for will soon be the normal living conditions of this world. Not only so, but this is to be accomplished through the instrumentality of human legislation. It is to be the age of law-made righteousness, and the law that is to accomplish such a transformation10 in men is human law enforced by penalties, whereas in the program of heaven the transformation of men comes through the operation of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of individuals. The first sentence in the "Program of Christian Citizenship" adopted by this conference reads: "The object and inspiration of all effort is the establishment of the kingdom of God;" and this digest of purpose, from its first paragraph to its last, indicates the design of this organization to bring in the kingdom of Christ in this world through the eradication of wrong and the establishment of right by the process of human legislation; and when all these objects have been made the subject of legislation, the kingdom of God will have been established in this earth, and Christ will come to receive his kingdom and begin his everlasting reign. It is not difficult for one who has studied the prophecies of God's Word to see that when that time arrives, there will be some one at hand to impersonate the King of kings and proclaim himself the rightful ruler of the universe. When such associations have carried their program to its consummation, the time will not be far distant when one will come "with all power and signs and lying wonders," to sweep into his great net of deception all those who have not received the love of the truth that they might be saved. For that fearful time such programs are swiftly shaping the world. As we sat and listened to the program of this convention and compared it with the programs of other similar bodies, we could not help uttering fervent thanks to God for the blessed light of truth which has outlined these programs before they came into being and showed the way of escape. The details of the program will be more definitely dealt with in another article. THE kingdom of heaven does not come by observation. The revealing of God is not in noise and bustle and demonstration. Quietly and silently, for the most part, the Spirit does its work in human hearts. The hours of quietness and meditation, above all others, are times that invite communion with Heaven. Says the Lord through his servant David, “Be still, and know that I am God.” And through the apostle Paul the same instruction is given to the church, “Study to be quiet.” Upon Elijah’s mind was forcibly impressed the lesson that God works in quiet ways. Almost discouraged and heart-broken, feeling that he alone of all Israel was still true to God, and yet in view of all this determined to stand faithful, he left far behind the habitations of men, and went down into the desert of Sinai, forty days’ journey from all his companions and associates, seeking audience with the Majesty of heaven. He was instructed to stand upon the mount before the Lord. There he witnessed the commotion of the elements. A great and strong wind rent the mountains and beat them in pieces, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind the earth quaked and trembled, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake a fire with desolating fury swept before him, but the record states that the Lord was not in the fire. Then there came to Elijah a still, small voice. For this he was listening. He was waiting for God to speak, and even though the great God of heaven chose to speak to his servant in this manner, Elijah recognized the voice of his Maker. How often did our Lord during his earthly ministry retire to the quiet of the mountain and the forest, and in the stillness of the night seek that communion with God which the strenuous labors of the days denied! It was from these quiet, restful, and uplifting occasions that he went forth to minister to a needy world. These seasons gave him strength to stand against all the power of the enemy, against the fierce assaults of scribe and Pharisee, the searching questions of the foes that dogged his footsteps. Truly could he say to his disciples, “I have meat to eat that ye know not of.” We can well afford to cultivate in our lives the spirit of quietness. Let us learn to be still and know that God is over all. Let us withdraw often at stated times from the busy throng and, sitting down alone with God, open our hearts to the influence of his divine Spirit and our ears to the words he may say to us. We shall not be disappointed. Messages will come to our souls, even as they came to Elijah. In this communion we may enter into the joy of our Lord, and may go forth with strength and spiritual vigor to do joyful service for our fellow men. The Midsummer Offering
By G. B. Thompson
An Appeal to Church Officers
SABBATH, July 26, is a most important day for all our churches and scattered believers. It is the time when the Midsummer Offering is to be taken for foreign missionaries. A great responsibility rests upon church officers to make the services on this day of special interest, and fruitful in gathering a liberal offering for missions. Others may forget these services, but church officers never. Others may rest easy and carry no special burden, but not so with the leaders. To do so is to be recreant to a sacred trust, and show ourselves unworthy of the position of responsibility to which we have been called. If church officers do not carry a burden, who will do so? Remember you are called to your position for such a time as this.11 It is not enough in some mere prefunctory way to mention the offering, and be satisfied with the small sum that may be given. We must make preparation for the services; we must plan, pray, and lift for a liberal offering. Church leaders should manifest such enthusiasm as will be a real inspiration to the whole church. Urge its importance and the duty of giving liberally. The duty of those whom God has blessed with this world's goods to give large gifts should be pointed out. By doing this the offering will be increased manyfold. Special readings have been prepared for this occasion. These are of the most interesting character, and should stir us to great liberality. Many thousands of dollars of God's bounties given to us should be returned to him on this day. Has your church raised a sum equal to twenty cents a member per week? If not, the church is behind, and will need to make a strong effort to catch up. If officers in the local churches take hold of this matter as they should, this sum can easily be raised in every church. I greatly fear this burden does not rest with the weight upon local officers as it should. As an officer in the church it is your business to see that the church does its full duty in this as well as in other matters. The Midsummer Offering affords a splendid opportunity to make up what we may be in arrears on the Twenty-cent-a-week Fund, and the officers in the local church should not feel satisfied until they have accomplished this much, at least. Absent members should be corresponded with, and all the members of the flock over which the Holy Ghost has made you an overseer encouraged to lift to the utmost of their ability. Let this be an occasion when the treasury of God's needy cause will be replenished with liberal gifts from a consecrated people. G. B. THOMPSON,
Secretary North American Division Conference. A Distinctive Movement and a Distinctive People
By Francis M. Wilcox
God designed that his church should always be a distinctive people. Of the place which they were to occupy in the world Balaam speaks by word of prophecy: "From the top of the rocks I see him, and from the hills I behold him: lo, the people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations." There was a reason for this separation. The world at large was in sin and rebellion against God. Enmity filled the minds of men. God designed that his church should be a bearer of light and blessing, his ambassador to reconcile rebellious man to the government of heaven. He has never designed that his church should isolate itself from mankind. This was shown when he planted Israel in the land of Canaan, upon the great highway of the nations, with the populous land of Egypt on the south and the hosts of Midian, Moab, and Syria on the east and north. When Israel failed of meeting the purpose of God in its national existence, then God scattered them among the nations, not alone for their punishment and chastening, but in order that as individuals they might diffuse abroad the knowledge of the true God, which they had failed to do in a national sense. This distinctive character which Israel of old maintained, God designs that his church in every age shall preserve. The Israel of God are now scattered abroad. God no longer has a peculiar people made up of one nationality, but here and there throughout the nations of men he has established centers from which radiate the light of the gospel message. It was to the general church—to the "strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia," and in every place where the gospel had taken root—that Peter addresses his epistle. Of the church he says: "Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, . . . a peculiar people." The reason they are called to this distinctive position in the world he declares to be "that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light." Recreant will the church of God be to its high calling and sacred trust if it lowers the standard and fails to maintain the distinctive character to which God calls it. In a peculiar sense at various times in the history of the church God has raised up a people to act the part of reformers. This was true in the days of Noah, of John the Baptist, of the Reformation period, of the times of the Wesleys, in connection with the giving of the first angel's message, and in the work that Seventh-day Adventists are carrying on in the world at the present time. These reformers have been called to carry forward a distinctive movement. Particularly is this true of this movement and of this people above any people who have come before them. This must be apparent to every one who will carefully read the commission as found in the fourteenth chapter of Revelation. Here is brought to view an emphatic and distinctive message which must be borne to the world, a message embracing a great reform in faith and practise, carrying with it a stern protest against evil principles and wicked combinations. In the very nature of the case, the people engaged in this movement must constitute a distinctive people. They have a special work to do. Their danger will consist in minimizing the importance of that work, in failing to recognize its holy and exalted character, in effecting a compromise with worldly principles. They will be tempted to lower the standard, to permit motives of policy and self-interest rather than their love of the truth to influence their course. Some have done this, and from their lives the power of the message has departed. Others are wavering, parleying with the inclination of the natural heart as against the call of conscientious conviction. Our only safety is in maintaining our integrity, in preserving in our own lives the simplicity of this message which we have espoused. To turn from it is to turn from God, to lose the brightness of our hope, to mingle with the careless, indifferent throng, and to permit our faith to be extinguished in darkness. We have espoused a distinctive message, a special cause, a great work of reform. This of necessity must make us a distinctive people. We are not called to oddness and eccentricity. There is no peculiar physical mark which will distinguish us from our fellows. But those who are looking for the coming of the Lord in power and glory should be distinguished in that they occupy a higher plane of Christianity than the average standard of the great Christian church. We are called to be true, to be noble; we are called to largeness of heart, to breadth of sympathy, to depth of love, to kindness, to gentleness, to Christian labor, to meekness, to faith. We are called to exemplify the practical Christianity of the blessed Lord, whose servants we profess to be. It is to this distinctive position in the world today that Seventh-day Adventists are called by the faith they hold, by the message they have espoused. Let us prove true to our high and holy calling. WE shall find, even though we may find it out too late, as did Cain, that we are indeed our brother's keeper. The influence which goes forth from us affects for good or ill the lives of our fellows. We must meet at last not only what we have done, but the fruit which our doing has borne. Speaking of the influence which his daring achievements had upon young men, and the regret which he felt for this, Lincoly Beachey, the aviator, as quoted by the Northwestern Christian Advocate of April 23, says:— I have defied death at every opportunity in the last two years. I have been a bad influence, and the death of a number of young aviators in this country can be traced, I believe, to a desire to emulate me in my foolishly daring exploits in the air. I have made a fortune in a little more than two years. I won the American altitude record here. This was the flight that earned for me a reputation for recklessness. I soared into the sky as far as my fuel would carry me; then, without gasoline, I volplaned to the earth a distance of more than 11,000 feet. There was nothing remarkable about this, but it gave me something I would give all I have made to lose—a reputation for supreme daring. This is the reputation others have tried to gain, and their ambition has cost them their lives. How many besides Mr. Beachey will meet sometime the record of their lives and would give all that they possess if that record could be changed? We pass this way but once. Let us live today as we shall wish we had lived when we look back from the heights of coming experience. CANDIDATES for the ministry in some presbyteries of the country continue to be troubled with doubts regarding the authenticity of the Scriptures of Truth and the real deity of Christ. This was indicated in a recent meeting of the New York presbytery, in which the question of ordaining several candidates was being considered. In their examination before the open meeting they admitted that "they desired more evidence before they could form a definite opinion on these four points; namely, the virgin birth of Christ, the authenticity of the Pentateuch, the canonical standing of the Gospel According to St. John, and the resurrection." Speaking of this the Tri-States Union, published at Port Jervis, N. Y., in its issue of April 24, says:— "While the attitude of these candidates receives the approval of the liberal element in the Presbyterian Church, among orthodox Presbyterians the bold stand taken by these four men has created, if not alarm, at least a certain feeling of uneasiness." In defense of the primitive views of the Presbyterian Church on these questions, the Union quotes this excellent statement from William S. Bennet, as published in the New York Sun:— "There ought not to be in the mind of any one seeking to enter the Christian ministry through Presbyterian ordination doubt on the question of the virgin birth of Christ, the authenticity of the Pentateuch, the Gospel According to St. John, or on the actual resurrection of Christ." "First, unless Christ was born of a virgin the whole Gospel of Matthew is founded on a lie. Chap. 1:18, 19." "Second, Christ himself adopted the Old Testament, including the Pentateuch, and announced himself as the fulfilment of the law. Matt. 5:17." "Third, unless Christ died, was buried, rose again from the dead, and ascended to heaven there is no Christian religion, and Christ was simply a good man who taught a beautiful code of ethics. A man who believes that and nothing more may be a very good man, but he has no place in a pulpit which preaches a risen Christ." "Fourth, the authenticity of the Gospel of St. John stands in this relation to a candidate for the ministry: It is the accepted canon of the church. If a candidate does not accept it as a part of the inspired word of God, then he does not comply with one of the conditions requisite to admission to the ministry." In conclusion Mr. Bennet well inquires: "Why should a young man who does not accept the doctrines of the Presbyterian Church endeavor to obtain Presbyterian ordination?" Note and Comment
By Editor
Compelling Others to Work on Sunday
The Congregationalist and Christian World of June 13, 1913, expresses sympathy for the men and women in this country who are compelled to work on Sunday. It says:— The thousands who use Sundays for excursions make other thousands work. The thousands who insist on Sunday newspapers make thousands of boys deliver them on Sunday. Some years ago an article in a Scottish magazine on the moral side of golf, called attention to the growing custom of taking boys to the golf links Sundays for the whole day, thus depriving them of religious training. Last week the General Assembly of the Northern Presbyterian Church took up this question with great earnestness. In its decidedly emphatic protest against Sabbath-breaking it asserted that "one hundred thousand caddies are kept from Sunday-school by golf." Not long ago the pastor of a suburban church complained that the golf links were depleting his Sunday-school. It seems to us that the whole question of Sunday work on the part of men and women engaged on public utilities turns upon their allegiance to the right as they view the right. By no system of slavery or by no process of law are they forced to engage in Sunday labor. They do this only as they value their position and the salaries received above the dictates of any conscientious regard which they may have for the day. Acting on this principle, the three worthies would never have braved the fiery furnace, nor Daniel the ferocity of the lions; Peter would never have stood in bold defiance of the authority of the Jewish Sanhedrin, nor Luther of the papal hierarchy; nor would the millions of martyrs who fell have welcomed the punishments meted out to them in preference to what the world offered for a denial of their faith.12 We know of thousands of men and women who have preferred surrendering their positions to violating their conscientious convictions in laboring on the seventh day of the week, the Sabbath of the Lord. But while this has meant pecuniary loss, they have not been brought to penury. God has answered to their faith in affording them honorable means of subsistence. What he has done for these he will do for every honest man who stands true to his religious convictions. We fear that the zealotry of some preachers of the gospel for restrictive Sunday legislation is indicated in the closing sentence quoted above. The golf links run opposition to the pulpit. This was the plea by which restrictive Sunday laws were sought in the fourth century. The clergy sought to suppress the theaters for the reason that they drew the worshipers away from the churches. As a matter of fact, when we recognize that the Sunday sabbath has no foundation in the Scriptures of Truth, but little appeal can be made to the conscientious convictions of men and women who are prone to use that day for labor or pleasure. How much better it would be to cast aside these man-made religious institutions, cease human efforts to bring man into conformity to some standard of right, adopt for our day of rest the day which God has made sacred, and then seek by moral suasion and religious conviction to lead men to a conscientious observance of the same.