Earlier text: NazarethNational Reform and Christian Endeavor
By W. A. Colcord
While the National Reform Association has never been numerically great, it has disseminated its erroneous views into nearly every religious denomination and institution of learning in the land. Industriously it has carried on its work, until its principles have permeated all the great religious and many of the social and political organizations of the United States. In one form or another, the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, the United Society of Christian Endeavor, the Epworth League, the Prohibition Party, and many of the labor unions have committed themselves to its views,—views which, when fully carried out, mean the overthrow of the principles upon which the government of the United States was founded, and the setting up and compulsory worship of the image of the papal beast, especially in the matter of Sunday observance. We were forcibly impressed with this fact two years ago, when, according to the published program of the seventh annual session of the Nebraska Epworth Assembly, held at the Epworth Lake Park, Lincoln, Neb., Aug. 5-13, 1903, Mr. W. F. Crafts was put down for no less than fourteen National Reform talks and addresses. On the bottom of the first page of the program was also printed in bold letters: “No Sunday excursions, and no tickets sold on Sunday.” We were again reminded of the same thing while attending the twenty-second International Christian Endeavor Convention, held at Baltimore, Md., July 5-10, 1905. On Sunday evening, July 9, two National Reform addresses were given before the convention, one by Rev. R. C. Wylie, of Pittsburg, Pa., the other by Rev. Samuel McNaugher, of Cambridge, Mass. As an introduction to these addresses, Mr. Von Ogden Vogt, general secretary of the Christian Endeavor, stated that “there is a sense in which men can be legislated into righteousness,” and that the men who were to make the following addresses would lead out in a line of thought worthy of careful consideration. Dr. Wylie spoke on “The Constitutional Basis of the American Sabbath,” and among other things, said:— Forty-three of the forty-five States have sabbath laws. The persons who set themselves against our sabbath laws set themselves against one of the most characteristic institutions of our country. The sabbath laws invade no one’s rights. Every man can use the day as he sees fit, provided he does not infringe upon the rights of others. Our courts have decided that all people have a right to rest one day in seven. The sabbath is a civil institution, and has been sustained as such by the courts of the land. The Lord’s supper can never become a civil institution; but the Christian sabbath must be a civil institution. We need sabbath laws because of the sharp competition in trade. In a Tennessee case, the federal court sustained the Sunday law on the ground that Christianity is a part of the law of the land. It is just as much a part of our way of doing things as is the English language, or the wearing of the apparel appropriate to our sexes. Sabbath laws do protect public morals; they do protect public safety; they do protect the health of the people. Sabbath laws are founded on divine law. These sabbath laws are in harmony with the law of God. Those who are antagonistic to our sabbath laws are antagonistic to our civilization, because sabbath laws have helped to make our civilization. If we wish to maintain our Christian civilization, we must maintain our sabbath laws. Mr. McNaugher spoke on “Individual Consecration of the Sabbath.” He said:— I think we ought to have in our national constitution a recognition of the sabbath. We ought to have a national law recognizing the custom of the sabbath. I appeal to you, young people of the Christian Endeavor, to be true to the sabbath yourselves. When we banish the sabbath, we banish Christianity with it. If we make a holiday out of it instead of a holy day, it will be given up to pleasure, sin, and licentiousness. We need the sabbath day, and we need it as a holy day. Mr. Shaw, the treasurer of the Christian Endeavor, has stood for a Sunday law in Massachusetts. It reveals a deplorable ignorance of the principles both of the gospel and of good government when such things are permitted to be taught, and are accepted without challenge in an international convention of a professedly Protestant organization whose membership numbers four million. Because forty-three of the States have Sunday laws, this does not justify the existence of such laws. Most of the States also have liquor-licensing laws. On the same ground, therefore, the liquor dealer might justify liquor laws. Those who oppose Sunday laws do not necessarily oppose the Sabbath institution, any more than those who would oppose a law requiring baptism would need to be opposed to baptism. It is shallow reasoning that fails to discriminate between a religious institution and a civil law requiring its observance. Moreover, those who oppose both the Sunday and Sunday laws are not opposing the Sabbath, for Sunday is not the Sabbath. The seventh day, not the first, is the Sabbath. Sabbath laws invade the rights of all upon whom they are enforced. They do not allow every man to use the day as he sees fit, even when he infringes no one’s rights. They will stop a man working quietly in his own field on Sunday. If the law required the observance of the seventh day instead of the first, Sunday observers would doubtless consider that it invaded some one’s rights. Most assuredly all men have a right to rest one day in seven, but neither courts nor kings have a right to compel men to rest thus, much less to say that this “one day” shall be Sunday. Why the “Christian sabbath” must be a civil institution, and Christ’s supper can not be, is not clear. The courts decided once that human slavery was right; but justice and truth, after a bloody struggle, reversed the decision. We need honesty, integrity, and square dealing, rather than sabbath laws, to regulate competition in trade. If laws requiring the observance of Sunday are justifiable on the ground that Christianity is a part of the law of the land, what need is there for calling Sunday the “civil” sabbath? Is not Christianity religious? And if the Christian sabbath can properly be enforced upon this ground, why may not also Christian baptism and the Lord’s supper? Are they not a part of “Christianity”? The Sabbath properly kept is a promoter of morals, safety, and health, both public and private; but laws enforcing idleness merely, on any day, are destructive of all these things. Sunday laws are not founded on divine law, and are in direct contravention of this law. The divine law commands no one to keep Sunday, and sanctions no one’s compelling another to act religiously, or prosecuting, fining, and imprisoning him if he fails to do so. A conscientious observance of a day as the Sabbath is conducive to civilization, but the compulsory observance of a day is a mark and relic of heathenism, and tends to destroy civilization, as do all unjust and oppressive laws. Christianity started out and flourished for three centuries without any Sunday laws. It is useless, therefore, to argue that such laws are essential to the maintaining of “Christian civilization.” They are essential to maintaining the Sunday institution, as it has only human tradition and human laws to stand upon; but Christian civilization would fare far better without them. It is a weak religious institution that has7 to hide behind civil law in order to maintain an existence. This fact of itself demonstrates that it is not Christian. Christian institutions live without civil laws, and in spite of them. In the afternoon and evening of the day some of our Baltimore brethren and sisters distributed twelve or fifteen thousand pages of literature among those attending the convention, mostly the leaflets “An Appeal to the Clergy,” “Sunday Laws,” and “The Civil Sabbath.” These, we trust, helped to dispel some of this false teaching to which the Endeavorers had listened. Sabbath Association’s Detective Acquitted of Murder
By K. C. RUSSELL
WEDNESDAY, the 12th inst., Nelson C. Starkey was acquitted of the charge of murder in the Pittsburg, Pa., criminal court. It will be remembered that Starkey was employed as a detective by force the Allegheny County Sabbath Observance Association, and was charged even with the murder of Harry D. Knox, an iceman, who was shot and killed during a riot in Allegheny, Pa., following a hearing there in a case developing from the blue law crusade last fall. The Pittsburg Chronicle Telegraph of July 12, in commenting editorially on the case, says:— The verdict of the jury in the case of Nelson C. Starkey, charged with the murder of Harry D. Knox, of Allegheny, is that the accused is not guilty. While it is clear from the evidence that Knox was an innocent victim of Starkey’s bullet, the justice of the verdict will be generally conceded. Starkey and the other representatives of the law and order organization had been set upon by a mob, and had reason to believe that their lives were in peril. Starkey fired into the mob, and did not single out any particular person for a target. Knox was in the crowd, though he does not appear to have been of it, merely happening to be proceeding along the street when the mob was in full cry after Starkey and the others. It is unfortunate that an innocent man should have been killed, but the circumstances of the killing are such as to properly acquit Starkey of blame, and to justify his act as one of self-defense for the preservation of his life. A different verdict would have been a justification of mob law. The one rendered will be a discouragement to such procedure. We certainly concur with the foregoing editorial in not favoring any verdict that would justify mob law, but, on the other hand, we greatly deplore the unchristian methods which were employed by the Allegheny County Sabbath Observance Association, which really lie at the bottom of this most unfortunate affair. All can readily see that the things which evidently provoked a mob which resulted in the death of an innocent man, were the unchristian efforts on the part of the detective in spying about for the purpose of securing evidence against those who were exercising a God-given privilege which the state can not by right invade. This experience is but the fruitage of what may be expected when the church transcends the limit of her proper function in seeking the aid of the civil power to enforce upon the citizens any day as the Sabbath, or any other religious institution. The inquisition and its baneful fruit is an awful commentary on the methods employed by every religious organization which seeks the power of the state to enforce its religious dogmas. If we could hope that this terrible lesson, at such a priceless cost, would be taken to heart by those who have been engaged in the unchristian and uncivil work of seeking to have the state enforce the observance of Sunday, or any other religious institution, we would even now feel to take courage, and hope for a better state of things, but alas! instead of heeding the lesson, there is a growing demand for Sunday legislation. Let all who have the light on these vital questions permit it to shine. The Lord’s Day and Christian Decline
A CORRESPONDENT wrote a letter to the Church Standard, which was printed in that paper, protesting against the ground taken in the editorial on “The Lord’s Day,” to which reference is made in another column. The writer of the letter seems to have a clearer view of the real cause of the present spiritual declension than the average observer. He says:— No wonder that good men deplore the tendency to irreligion, decay of morals, and loss of high inspirations in art and literature; but are not these the natural outcome of teachings which lower the authority of the Holy Scriptures, allow of possible error in our Lord’s own words, countenance laxity in the observance of his day, and regard the past generation of his followers as in effect lacking the promised guidance by the Holy Spirit into all truth? Are we not told that “a good tree can not bring forth evil fruit,” and “by their fruits ye shall know them”? It is plain that there can be no genuine reform until there is a return to first principles concerning the Bible and the fundamentals of Christianity, but when this is done, it will inevitably result in the acceptance of the third angel’s message and in the observance of the true Sabbath of the Lord. ACCORDING to the Christian Statesman, religious exercises in the public schools, including the reading of Scripture, are a feature of the public educational system in the great majority of the States of the Union. “The Bible,” it says, “is daily read in the schools of Philadelphia and New York and of all our Eastern cities. According to the latest report of the superintendent of public instruction for Pennsylvania, the Bible is regularly read in more than 18,000 of the 23,000 schools of the State. Moreover, in thirty-five States of the Union the same is true, in less or greater degree, and in nearly all of these the legality of the use of the Bible has been upheld by important judicial decisions. In only some six States have decisions adverse to the Bible been given either by supreme courts or by superintendents of education, and earnest efforts are in progress to secure the reversal of these.” RECENTLY in The Defender, organ of the New England Sabbath Protective League, there was printed an “Address to the Public,” signed by the secretaries of eleven “Sabbath societies,” urging the public to do certain things for the furtherance of Sabbath observance in this country. Among the things specified in this exhortation were the observance of the “World’s week of prayer for the Lord’s day;” opposition by voice and letter to Sunday opening of the Lewis and Clark Exposition at Portland; petitions to Congress for a District of Columbia Sunday law; opposition to Sunday sports and amusements, invoking the law against Sunday-breakers wherever practicable; and (on the part of religious gatherings) the discountenancing of all Sunday excursions. There is just one thing which the eleven Sabbath society secretaries left out of this appeal,—one significant omission. They forgot to exhort the public to read what the Almighty says about the duty of Sunday observance, citing them to the texts where this duty is set forth in God’s Word. Would not this have been very appropriate in an exhortation to the public to conform to the standard of Christian living? The Word of God in the matter is the supreme thing, yet not a reference is made in the whole appeal to any instructions given by Him in whose behalf this Sabbath observance zeal is to be manifested. For the benefit of one class of people, if not for the general public, they should have cited the omitted scriptures,—the class who have been unable hitherto to find in the Word of God any authority for calling Sunday the Sabbath or for paying regard to it as a sacred day. The New Earth
By J. EDGAR ROSS
The glory of Lebanon shall be there,
The fir-tree, the box, and the pine;
With rushes and reeds in the dragon’s
lair,
Planted by hand divine. Springs shall leap from the thirsty
ground;
To water the rose, while a gladsome
song
Makes the desert place resound. The people shall not sigh nor weep,
But in safety all shall dwell;
In the great wide woods if they choose
to sleep,
They shall fear no evil spell;
For God himself shall be with them
there,
To answer ’before they call,
To hear ere they breathe a prayer. They’ll fear no terror of the night,
No arrow that flies by day;
For in that mount of pure delight
They shall neither hurt nor slay.
But there will all the ransomed sing,
“O grave, where is thy victory?
O death, where is thy sting?” Holy and Without Blame
By Ellen G. White
“As the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.” “Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. But know this, that if the good man of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up. Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of man cometh.” “Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing. Verily, I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods. But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; and shall begin to smite his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken; the lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, and shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Many professing Christians are cherishing the thought, “My lord delayeth his coming.” They are becoming careless, and are following worldly policy. Eagerness to buy and sell and get gain is beclouding the spiritual vision. Those whose business makes it necessary for them to come into contact with worldly men should stand constantly on guard, keeping strict watch over themselves, and praying always, lest the enemy take them unawares. To those of his followers who are of necessity compelled to deal with worldlings, God gives grace according to their need. If they stand ever on guard, special wisdom will be given them when they are obliged to be in the company of those who do not respect the Lord Jesus Christ. Their every transaction is to reveal the fact that they are Christians. They are to be kind and courteous, in all that they say and do, showing that they are under the control and discipline of God, that they are serving the Lord Jesus Christ. The followers of Christ are to be separate from the world in principles and interests; but they are not to isolate themselves from the world. “As thou hast sent me into the world,” Christ said, “even so have I also sent them into the world.” And he said again, “Ye are the light of the world.” We are not to withdraw ourselves from the world in order to escape persecution. We are to abide among men, that the savor of divine love may be as salt to preserve the world from corruption. Hearts that respond to the influence of the Holy Spirit are the channels through which God’s blessings flow. Were those who serve God removed from the earth, and his Spirit withdrawn from among men, this earth would be left to desolation and destruction. Though the wicked know it not, they owe even the blessings of this life to the presence in this world of God’s people, whom they despise and oppress. But if Christians are such in name only, they are as salt that has lost its savor. They are no influence for good in the world. Through their misrepresentation of God they are worse than unbelievers. Without a living faith in Christ as a personal Saviour, it is impossible to make our influence felt in a skeptical world. We can not give to others that which we do not ourselves possess. It is in proportion to our own devotion and consecration to Christ that we exert an influence for the blessing and uplifting of mankind. If there is no actual service, no genuine love, no reality of experience, there is no power to help, no connection with heaven, no savor of Christ in the life. Unless the Holy Spirit can use us as agents through whom to communicate to the world the truth as it is in Jesus, we are as salt that has lost its savor. By our lack of the grace of Christ we testify to the world that the truth which we claim to believe has no sanctifying power, and thus, so far as our influence goes, we make of no effect the word of God. Following the instruction of Christ brings the sanctification of the Holy Spirit, and this enables men and women to reveal in spirit and word and deed the fragrance and the saving grace of the truth. If this transformation is not seen in the life, the actions will certainly make of no effect the principles of truth, which, if practised, would exert a saving influence upon unbelievers. Those who study the Word of God, and day by day receive instruction from Christ, bear the stamp of heaven’s principles. A high, holy influence goes forth from them. A helpful atmosphere surrounds their souls. The pure, holy, elevated principles that they follow enable them to bear a living testimony to the power of divine grace. In all ages the “Spirit of Christ which was in them” has made God’s true children the light of the people of their generation. Joseph was a light-bearer in Egypt. In his purity and benevolence and filial love, he represented Christ in the midst of a nation of idolaters. While the Israelites were on their way from Egypt to the promised land, the true-hearted among them were a light to the surrounding nations. Through them God was revealed to the world. From Daniel and his companions in Babylon, and from Mordecai in Persia, bright beams of light shone out amid the darkness of the kingly courts. In like manner the disciples of Christ are set as light-bearers on the way to heaven; through them the Father’s mercy and goodness are made manifest to a world enshrouded in the darkness of misapprehension of God. By seeing their good works, others are led to glorify the Father who is above; for it is made manifest that there is a God on the throne of the universe whose character is worthy of praise and imitation. The divine love glowing in the heart, the Christlike harmony manifested in the life, are as a glimpse of heaven granted to men of the world, that they may appreciate its excellence. The world watches to see what fruit is borne by professed Christians. It has a right to look for self-denial and self-sacrifice from those who claim to believe advanced truth. The world is watching, ready to criticize with keenness and severity your words, your deportment, and your business transactions. Every one who acts a part in the work of God is watched, and is weighed in the scales of human discernment. Impressions favorable or unfavorable to Bible religion are constantly made on the minds of all with whom you have to do. God has ordained that his work shall be presented to the world in distinct, holy lines. He desires his people to show by their lives the advantage of Christianity over worldliness. By his grace every provision has been made for us in all our transaction of business to demonstrate the superiority of heaven’s principles over the principles of the world. We are to show that we are working upon a higher plane than that of worldliness. In all things we are to manifest purity of character, to show9 that the truth received and obeyed makes the receivers sons and daughters of God, children of the heavenly King, and that as such they are honest in their dealings, faithful, true, and upright in the small as well as the great things of life. H. R. JOHNSON
By H. R. JOHNSON
1. WHERE are the 144,000 first spoken of? Rev. 7:1-4. 2. How are they designated?—As “the servants of our God.” Verse 3. 3. What is said of them?—They were sealed. Verses 3, 4. 4. With what were they sealed?—With “the seal of the living God.” Verse 2. 5. What is the seal, or sign (see Rom. 4:11), of God?—“The Sabbath of the fourth commandment is the seal of the living God.”—“Great Controversy,” page 640. Ex. 31:13, 17. 6. What is inseparably connected with God’s seal?—The Father’s name. See Rev. 14:1. 7. When did this sealing work begin?—When the angel came with the seal of God. Chapter 7:2. 8. When did the angel come with the Sabbath seal?—At the time “the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament” (chapter 11:19), and the Sabbath reform began. After Oct. 22, 1844. 9. What other angels did John see at this same sealing time? Chapter 7:1. 10. What did the angel with the seal command the four angels to do? Verses 2, 3. 11. When did this special command go forth?—As the nations became more angry, which is true since 1844. Chapter 11:18, 19. See “Early Writings,” pages 29-31. 12. Is the sealing work going on at the present time?—Yes. Chapter 7:2, 3. “Satan is now using every device in this sealing time to keep the minds of God’s people from present truth, and to cause them to waver.” “The sealing time is very short, and soon will be over.”—“Early Writings,” pages 35, 49. 13. What does the prophet Isaiah say about this work? Isa. 8:16. 14. Where is the sealed law to be put? Heb. 8:10. 15. As long as impurity is cherished in the heart can the spiritual law of God be written there?—No! “If the mind . . . is filled with other things, present truth is shut out, and there is no place in our foreheads for the seal of the living God.” “Now is the time for the law of God to be in our minds, foreheads, and written in our hearts.”—“Early Writings,” pages 48, 49. Isa. 51:7. 16. What is a reliable testimony of true sanctification?—Holy Sabbath keeping. Ex. 31:13. 17. Are not they who are walking by the power of the Holy Spirit in all of God’s commands, being sealed with the seal of the living God?—Yes. “They had upon their foreheads the seal of the living God, and he said: ‘Here is the patience of the saints; here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.’”—“Testimonies,” Vol. VI, page 15. “Now is the time for the law of God to be in our minds, foreheads, and written in our hearts.” “Satan is now using every device in this sealing time to keep the minds of God’s people from the present truth.”—“Early Writings,” pages 48, 35. 18. How many will be sealed? Rev. 7:4. “The 144,000 were all sealed and perfectly united.”—Ibid., page 11. 19. To what are we called?—To be sealed with the seal of the living God, and be numbered with the 144,000. 20. In view of this fact what ought we to do? 2 Peter 1:10. “Let us strive with all the power that God has given us to be among the hundred and forty-four thousand.”—Mrs. E. G. White, in Review and Herald, March 9, 1905. “We may learn the song of victory that is to be sung on Mount Zion.” “John saw a Lamb on Mount Zion, and with him 144,000, having his Father’s name written in their foreheads. They bore the signet of heaven. They reflected the image of God. They were full of the light and the glory of the Holy One. If we would have the image and superscription of God upon us, we must separate ourselves from all iniquity. We must forsake every evil way, and then we must trust our cases in the hands of Christ.”—Ibid., March 9, 1889. “In a little while every one who is a child of God will have his seal placed upon him. O that it may be placed upon our foreheads! Who can endure the thought of being passed by when the angel goes forth to seal the servants of God in their foreheads?”—Ibid., May 28, 1889. 21. Will all who have the sealed law, containing the Father’s name, “in our minds, foreheads, and written in our hearts,” live till Jesus comes? Rev. 14:12, 13. 22. When and by whom will they be raised? Dan. 12:1, 2. “But there was one clear place of settled glory, whence came the voice of God like many waters, shaking the heavens and the earth. There was a mighty earthquake. The graves were opened, and those who had died in faith under the third angel’s message, keeping the Sabbath, came forth from their dusty beds, glorified, to hear the covenant of peace that God was to make with those who had kept his law. . . . And as God spoke the day and the hour of Jesus’ coming, and delivered the everlasting covenant to his people, he spoke one sentence, and then paused, while the words were rolling through the earth.”—“Early Writings,” pages 145, 146. 23. Who understood the words of the voice of God? “The wicked could not understand the words of the voice of God.”—Ibid., page 146. “Soon we heard the voice of God like many waters, which gave us the day and hour of Jesus’ coming. The living saints, 144,000 in number, knew and understood the voice, while the wicked thought it was thunder and an earthquake.”—Ibid., page 11. (Bear in mind that the time of these words of the voice of God is after the special resurrection. All this special company of Sabbath-keepers are now “living.”) 24. When the never-ending blessing was pronounced on “the Israel of God,” (Ibid., page 146), what did they shout?—“And when the never-ending blessing was pronounced on those who had honored God, in keeping his Sabbath holy, there was a mighty shout of victory over the beast and over his image.”—Ibid., page 146. 26. What does the testimony of Jesus say on this point?—“The 144,000 were all sealed and perfectly united.” “Here on the sea of glass the 144,000 stood in a perfect square.”—“Early Writings,” pages 11, 12. (Among those who shouted victory over the beast and over his image were those who had come forth from their graves in the special resurrection, and were seen on the sea of glass. They were “the living saints, 144,000 in number.”—Ibid., page 11.) 27. “When God spoke the time,” what did he pour upon them? and how did it affect them?—“When God spoke the time, he poured upon us the Holy Ghost, and our faces began to light up and shine with the glory of God, as Moses’ did when he came down from Mount Sinai.”—Ibid. 28. What did the synagogue of Satan now know?—“Then it was that the synagogue of Satan knew that God had loved us who could wash one another’s feet, and salute the brethren with a holy kiss, and they worshiped at our feet.”—Ibid. 29. What takes place soon after this?—“Soon our eyes were drawn to the east, for a small black cloud had appeared, about half as large as a man’s hand, which we all knew was the sign of the Son of man. We all in solemn silence gazed on the cloud as it drew nearer, and became lighter, glorious, and still more glorious, till it was a great white cloud. The bottom appeared like fire; a rainbow was over the cloud, while around it were ten thousand angels, singing a most lovely song; and upon it sat the Son of man.”—Ibid. An Open Door for Missions
“THE men of the Williams Haystack, a century ago, scanned the whole world to find an open door. To-day no country by law or by custom forbids the entrance of the Christian missionary.” Insensible to Daily Mercies
As the Dead Sea drinks in the River Jordan and is never the sweeter, and the ocean all other rivers and is never the fresher, so we are apt to receive daily mercies from God, and still remain insensible to them, and unthankful for them.—Bishop Reynolds.