The Comic Supplement as an Evil Educator—Poisoning Young Minds in American Homes—The Polluting Cause Must Produce Its Degenerating Effects
By Mary Alice Hare Loper, M. S.
It is truly shocking to hear on every hand the cheap, slang-laden vocabulary of the average child of to-day, and to see the widespread filial disobedience, which are but outward revelations of the inner self. These manifestations are unmistakable evidence that the mental, moral, and spiritual trend of the human family at the present time is downward; and heroic efforts are required to stem the tide of evil, and thus make a real success of life. Yet this very state of things is an indisputable proof of the inspiration of the Bible, and of the fact that we are very near the end of all earthly affairs.
These Conditions Were Foretold
The great apostle to the gentiles was permitted to view through the prophetic telescope the general condition of humanity just preceding the close of earth’s history; and in his letters, especially those to Timothy, he gives a graphic description of the lamentable condition of the human family at this time. In the third chapter of 2 Timothy are these startling words: “In the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.” And Paul assures us that erring humanity will “wax worse and worse” until the curtain falls on the very last act in the great drama of sin.
The Degrading Sunday Supplement
In these days of business rush, there are very many harmful amusements and pastimes, one of which is the red-green-yellow-black ink-bespattered comic supplement to the Sunday newspaper, which has become a regular weekly visitor in American homes, and which is leaving its deadly impress upon the plastic minds of the children of all classes of society. “By beholding we become changed.” By constant companionship with evil, we gradually learn to look upon sin with less disfavor. Pope truthfully says:
“Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,
As to be hated needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.”
In a paper on “The Comic Sunday Supplement,” by Mary Garvin Pedrick, read before the Pennsylvania Federation of Women’s Clubs, in session in Philadelphia, and published in Good Housekeeping Magazine, I find these words:
“While adults read the news of the world, the political situation in England or India, the art news of Paris or Berlin, the children are engrossed with the mishaps of Happy Hooligan, Smarty, Gaston, or the ‘demoniacal ingenuity of the Katzenjammer kids.’
“We pride ourselves upon our national sense of humor, and we are throttling it as effectually as may be. As one magazine editor points out: ‘Americans have suffered many stupid things to go on, but nothing must seem to a foreigner so at variance with American sagacity and good sense as the cutting down of our forests to make wood pulp for the vulgarization of the children of our country. We are exchanging our noble woodlands for cheap and tawdry sheets with no redeeming feature of wit, humor, good sense, or wholesome entertainment.’”
Thousands of Children Eagerly Watching
Thousands of children have learned to watch for the weekly visit of the comic supplement, with as much enthusiasm as their parents await the coming of dinner guests. And as soon as this travesty on art and decent literature looms up before them, they are lost to everything else.
“Children should learn to turn to the good
as flowers to the sunlight.”
The above article says further:
“Do you wonder, then, where boys acquire the spirit of lawlessness and irreverence, or how it is possible for the average girl to possess so precocious a mind and so extensive a slang vocabulary? We give it to them every Sunday. Here is a sample of one page chosen at random: ‘Soak him one for me—Cut it out—Rats! Get the hook—Right O—O, tell it to Sweeney.—Smoke up—You ain’t loco furioso, are you? I love my tamale, but O, you smelt!’”
Training for Coarseness and Brutality
The child who becomes addicted to the use of printed poisons is as truly a slave as is the cocaine or morphine fiend; and the evil results cannot be overestimated. The weekly lessons in disobedience to parents, disrespect to the aged, prevarication, uncouthness, trickery, vulgarity, ill manners, coarse romance, brutality, revenge, etc., gradually transform the life, stealing away the beauty and sweetness of character which the great Creator intended should be cultivated. Thus children come to look upon the little courtesies of life as nonessential, and to regard themselves as of great importance.
The child whose ideal is found in the comic supplement, is not making progress in the right direction. By absorbing the contents of one such demoralizing paper each week, he is taking into his moral system more poison than all the efforts of the Sabbath school can counteract. As surely as alcohol destroys the taste for wholesome drinks, so surely the reading of trashy literature destroys the taste for printed feasts of real worth.
The reading of bad literature is one of the worst evils of which the rising generation are guilty. This habit followed to its limit will crush out every high aspiration. It will rob the soul of every virtue. It will weaken the mind and debilitate the body. It will make of earth a hell, and will blot out the last hope of heaven. The comic supplement in the morning paves the way for the immoral picture show at night; and the child reared in such a crime-breeding atmosphere would require a wonderful miracle to transform his after life into one of noble manhood and real service to humanity.
A Disgrace to Our Mother Tongue
Children should learn to turn to the good as flowers to the sunlight. All good comes from the Sun of Righteousness, and the sweetest flowers of earth should cultivate the habit of living in His light. But printed trash is a veil that hides the heavenly rays, and leaves the child to grope about in darkness. The vulgar slang that is constantly taught by the “funny paper,” and as constantly appropriated by the boys and girls of America, is a disgrace to our cherished mother tongue. And it is a shame to permit mere babies to become familiar with a distorted vernacular, and with the modern “picture writing” from which they learn to act out the sickly scenes depicted.
To gain a good knowledge of English, at best requires careful thought and study for a series of years; and just this is necessary to the highest success of the American citizen in any vocation in life. Why render the task all but hopeless by learning in childhood that which must be abandoned before one can acquire pure diction?
Ridiculing the Bible
The comic supplement does much harm in counteracting the good influence of the Bible. Noah’s ark and the awful scenes of the Flood have been pictured most absurdly in the juvenile sheet. How can a child dwell upon a hideous travesty of the worst calamity that ever overtook this sinful world, and not receive impressions that rob the Bible account of its sacred meaning? When a child has learned to make fun of Bible stories,—stories which mean salvation to human souls,—he has taken a long step in the wrong direction.
We Need All Our Reverence
No one can afford to look at pictures or to read stories that hold the Bible in derision. One needs all the reverence he has,150and all he can acquire. Nothing should be allowed to mar the human clay, and thus prevent its being fashioned into a vessel of honor such as the great Creator intended. The child who loves to revel in the demoralizing scenes of injurious literature, does not love to read his Bible. He does not love to learn his Sabbath school lesson. In fact, going to the house of prayer has become an irksome task. He seems to have forgotten his responsibility to God and his obligations to humanity.
Is it not about time for parents to remove from the literary firmament of their homes the darkening veil in the form of the comic Sunday supplement, and permit only the glorious sunlight of wholesome literature to shine upon the childhood of America?
A Geological Allegory
By George McCready Price
A Shipwreck in the South Pacific—Explaining the Origin of Bodies Cast upon the Shore—Not More Absurd than Many Evolution Theories
By George McCready Price
Prefatory Note.—The object of the following allegory is not merely to write an amusing travesty on the common methods and theories of geology. But the very fact that the methods of reasoning represented in the following narrative, and the explanatory theories adopted, appear so supremely absurd to us when considered in this detached form, ought to prove to us that similar reasoning and similar explanatory theories adopted by geologists regarding the world as a whole cannot be scientifically sound; for the parallel is extremely close. The writer has created no ludicrous situation in the following story without having in mind an almost exactly similar situation in the methods and theories of the current geology. It goes without saying that there must be sounder and more truly scientific methods in the reformed science that has outgrown such things.
The natives of Telluria, one of the islands of the South Pacific, tell an amusing story of the first experience their island ever had with the white race, a good many years ago, and of the wonderful theories invented by their great witch doctor in explanation of some things which were at that time very new and strange to them.
Some Bodies Drift Ashore
It seems that an English ship had been wrecked one night on a reef several miles away; and some bodies had drifted toward the island, and in the morning were found by the natives on the beach. Their white skins, their clothing, and above all the thick cork jackets, or life preservers, that some of them wore, presented problems and mysteries beyond the solution of the ordinary native mind; and their old witch doctor, or medicine man, was invoked to explain them.
The natives of this island, it appears, had been especially secluded, and had little knowledge of any other world than their own. They wore almost no clothing themselves, and did not know of any people who wore more, their knowledge of other lands being in fact limited to occasional visits to or from other small islands some distance off, inhabited by people much like themselves.
Opinion of the Aboriginal Sage
The old doctor's name was, I think, Mega-sophistico; but we shall call him Meg for convenience. His people looked upon him as possessing almost superhuman wisdom; and they all awaited his opinion in hushed wonder. On his part, he was determined to maintain his reputation.
The first body he hit upon happened to be that of an old officer who was completely dressed, even to his military greatcoat, and over this an oil coat, or tarpaulin. To this abundance of clothing was added the usual life preserver, fastened tight about his body; and the whole was certainly calculated to test the doctor's powers of ingenuity or wisdom.
He first called for a knife, and with some slow, careful work, succeeded in cutting through the successive layers of cork jacket, tarpaulin, coat, vest, linen shirt, and silk undershirt, and examined everything with the greatest care. His first thought was that the coverings were whiter or more like the man's skin the nearer he got to the body. But the silk undershirt, which happened to be black, was contrary to this theory; and yet he had the conviction that these strange people were not in any way like himself, but belonged to an altogether different kind of beings. In short, his theory was not that these coverings were clothing, the thought of which never occurred to him, but that they were something of the nature of a shell which grew naturally upon their bodies. Of all the bodies found, this was evidently the oldest, for the old officer's hair was snow-white; and the fact that he had on also much more clothing than the others, lent support to this theory.
Not to Be Outdone
Still, there was the black undershirt. How was that to be explained? He had noticed some of the bits of cork fall out of the life preserver as he cut it open, and he had observed that these pieces floated very readily on water. He tried a larger piece, and smiled in a wise way at the result. But the black shirt; what about it?
Suddenly a new idea occurred to him. He had some of the people bring him some fire; and then slowly and deliberately, as became so much wisdom, he took a small piece of the silk and held it in the heat. It fizzled up, but would not readily burn. He smelled of it, and, sure enough, it was animal matter, not vegetable. This to his mind was proof positive that this black covering was a part of this strange animal itself,—had grown on the spot, in situ, as we moderns say. The linen gave a contrary result when tested in the same way, though he did not let any one know that he was disappointed; but vest and coat were plainly animal matter, and the oil coat looked so evidently of the same structure that he took it for granted. Then he was ready with his explanation.
“My good people,” he said, “these are not men such as we are, but a different kind of beings altogether, mere animals, which live almost entirely in the cold water of the far, far south.”
Ingenious Theory of Origins
I shall not attempt a literal version of his story, but may be allowed to adapt the language to our more modern and scientific style.
“They are old, old, very old. This one's white hair and wrinkled face show this; but every one of them, you will notice, has a white skin. This whiteness of the skin has also, no doubt, come about from extreme age; for just as the hair turns white, so will the skin also after many centuries have passed. Moreover, these coats or shells that it has on are also evidence of this. They are not at all like our loin-cloths, made of plant fibers, but are composed of animal matter, as you can see for yourselves;” at the same time offering them some burned pieces to smell of. “Hence it is reasonable to suppose that they grew upon the creature one after another in succession.”
“Doubtless, also, they grew from the outside. Hence it is plain that the outer ones are immeasurably more recent than the inner ones. No doubt scores of years, perhaps centuries, passed between the growths of these different layers. Thus for a very long, long time the things had only these soft, thin shells on their backs. These inner ones, too, are probably all ornamental, and suited to successively different habits of life; but this outer oily one plainly shows that the animal was at last becoming accustomed to drenching rains or sprays, while the very last one shows that it was adapted to floating on the water.”
With somewhat more care in removing the garments, he discovered that at their tops the stockings were over or on the outside of the silk underwear, the trousers outside of them, and the long boots, for a short151distance, over all three. He then explained that the stockings were quite obviously older than the trousers, and the boots younger; but as nothing could be affirmed about the absolute age of the latter, it was about the same as that of the vest; for though of different material, they were, like it, over only a small part of the body.
During all this time, most of the people had been standing around in open-mouthed wonder as these marvelous pictures were thus opened up to their minds, and they were more than ever convinced of the almost supernatural wisdom of their great doctor Meg.
A Disconcerting Question
There were three other bodies on the beach, one a small boy in knickerbockers, another an old sailor, and the third a young colored waiter, who had not been awakened as soon as the others at the time of the wreck, and had on only a pair of stockings, and a long, flowing night robe, though like all the others, he had the inevitable life preserver around his waist.
An old chief who thought Meg's story all nonsense, had discovered this latter specimen, and with great glee he got three of his men to bring the body over to where Meg was lecturing.
“There,” said he, pointing to this objective proof of what he said, “what do you make of that? How is it this one is black, just like ourselves, and still he has on this outer covering [the life preserver], which you say was only acquired after long, long centuries of change?”
But Meg was equal to the occasion.
“Why, don't you see that what you call this last one's black skin is only just the same as the other one's first shell? They are both the same color; only this one's is loose, and the other's isn't. Sometimes these shells get loose, sometimes they don't.”
The chief was silenced, though not convinced, and continued to think old Meg's theory all fancy. But as for the common people, they all accepted Meg's story without question, and continued to believe it for years; and in fact it was passed from father to son for over half a century, or until some other Europeans visited the island only a few years ago.
The Fellowship of Suffering
By Edith Starbuck
By EDITH STARBUCK
If you have gladly given, day by day, your best
Of thought and time and toil, nor ever asked for rest—
Have given love and laughter, sympathy and tears,
To smooth the path for others through the tedious years—
If now, with feet grown weary and your strength all spent,
By base ingratitude your loving heart is rent,
When those whose good by every sacrifice you sought,
Unheeding pass you by and count your labors naught,
O, deem not that your time was lost, your effort vain!
A lesson sweet your Father teaches you through pain.
For hearken to Him as a lover pleading now,
And hear Him as a husband pledge to you His vow.
Lo, as the tender father pities his own child,
With care He seeks the lost throughout the mountains wild.
Though oft denied, repulsed, He calls and searches yet.
More faithful than a mother, He cannot forget.
To you, by all in life that sweetest is, and best,
He illustrates the love that prompts His tireless quest;
And in His love and wisdom He but lets you know,
With Him, the fellowship of suff’ring here below.
The Mohammedans of India and the War
By George F. Enoch
They Are Not United—A Powerful Sect and a Great Leader Opposed to the Sultan—Not in Harmony with Him in This War
By George F. Enoch
THERE is a general misunderstanding as to the position of Mohammedans in India, and their attitude toward Britain, since the advent of Turkey as an ally of Germany in the present war. In the first place, many people do not understand that the Mohammedan religion, like the Christian religion, is divided into two great camps, besides numerous smaller sects. The Sunnis are what we usually know as orthodox Mohammedans, and acknowledge the sultan of Turkey as head of the church. The Shiahs, however, are a very numerous and influential body, who do not acknowledge the sultan as the true head of the Mohammedan religion. They claim that the caliphs were usurpers, and that the real succession ended with Husain and Hoosein, who were slain several centuries ago.
In Persia the majority of the Mohammedans are Shiahs. In India the majority of the Mohammedans are Sunnis; but many of these are the poorer and more ignorant, while many of the best educated and wealthy and influential are Shiahs. Therefore the entrance of the sultan of Turkey into the war as an ally of Germany would not have the effect that some might think.
DESCENDED FROM MOHAMMED AND INFLUENTIAL
In this article, I wish to give the substance of an appeal of his highness the Aga Khan, the head of a very influential Mohammedan sect, with followers in many parts of India, Afghanistan, Khorassan, Persia, Arabia, Central Asia, and Morocco. He is a young man who has not only been educated as is the custom of the head of a great Oriental sect, but also in the most approved modern manner, having attended the universities of Europe. He is a descendant of Ali, who married Fatima, the daughter of Mohammed, and is revered very highly by millions. In Bombay I have seen multitudes regard his coming and going in the most reverential manner. But withal he is a very modern young man.
His grandfather found a home under the protection of the British government, and settled in Bombay. In the first Afghan war, they rendered notable service, as in many other crises in British rule in India when serious questions arose vitally affecting the Mohammedan communities. The present Aga Khan is thirty-seven years of age. His mother is the daughter of the ruling house of Persia, and he has received high decorations from the king of England and the sultan of Turkey, and even the German kaiser. He is perhaps the most influential Indian living, and more people in India look to him for counsel than to any other one public man among the leaders of Indian thought.
INDIA UNITED WITH ENGLAND
In a notable speech recently made in London, he emphasized the remarkable way in which all classes and creeds had buried all differences at the outbreak of the present war, and how general has been the response of India with both men and means in this hour of the empire's peril. He believed that the Indian blood now being shed on the soil of Europe in defense of the empire along with that of the white man would do more to cement India to the empire than anything that has ever happened. He clearly affirmed that Germany, in posing as the protector of Islam, had personal interests, and was seeking to serve her own ends rather than to help Mohammedans. This remarkable speech from one in so high authority comes as strong proof of the unanimity and loyalty of India to the British Empire, even when one of the foes is the greatest Mohammedan power in the world.
These words of explanation will help us to appreciate the value of the following excerpt from a message addressed by his highness the Aga Khan to Moslems in India and other British dominions:
HIS HIGHNESS THE AGA KHAN'S APPEAL
"With deep sorrow I find that the Turkish government has joined hands with Germany, acting under German orders, and is madly attempting to wage a most unprovoked war against the king-emperor. This is not the true and free will of the sultan, but of German officers and other non-Moslems who have forced him to do their bidding. Germany and Austria have been no disinterested friends of Islam; and while one took Bosnia, the other has long been plotting to become the suzerain of Asia Minor and Mesopotamia, including Kerbela, Nejef, and Bagdad.
"If Germany succeeds, which Heaven forbid, Turkey will become only a vassal of Germany, and the kaiser's resident will be the real ruler of Turkey, and will control the holy cities. No Islamic interest was threatened in this war, and our religion was not in peril. Nor was Turkey in peril, for Britain, Russia, and France had offered to solemnly guarantee Turkey all her territories and independence had she remained at peace. Turkey was the trustee of Islam, and the whole world was content to let her hold our holy cities in her keeping.
"Now that Turkey has so disastrously shown herself a tool in German hands, she has not only ruined herself, but has lost her position as the trustee of Islam, and evil will overtake her. Turkey has been persuaded to draw the sword in an unholy cause, for which she could not but be ruined, whatever else happened, and will lose her position as a great nation.
"Thousands of Moslems are fighting for their sovereign [King George] already; and all men must see that Turkey has not gone to war for the cause of Islam, or for the defense of her independence. Thus our only duty as Moslems now is to remain loyal, faithful, and obedient to our temporal and secular allegiance."
Evening Thoughts
By Howard W. Wilcox
By Howard W. Wilcox
WHILE ling’ring hues of evening’s waning light
Are touching earth in soft and mellow lines,
While stillness moves through Nature’s tired confines,
To soothe her weary forms ere fall of night.
The darkness humbly waits the fuller flight
Of parting day, ere forth his orbs he shines,
Like diamond’s sudden gleam in darkened mines,
Lest choicer rays be lost in those more bright.
This blend of day from bright to gentler skies
In mystic ways begets a boon of peace.
It satisfies, and nothing more is sought.
But satisfaction reaps a sure surprise.
The mind, in fond response to kind release
From care, unveils its choicest gems of thought.
Who Pays for the Brewer’s Palace?
By C. L. Scanlon
Does it pay to build a palace for the brewer, hire servants and buy silks for his wife, and dress your own wife in rags, make her take in washing to support the family, and finally send her to the poorhouse, and bury her in the “potter’s field”?—C. L. Scanlon.
INIQUITY ALLOWED TO RIPEN
By Roderick S. Owen
The Smoking Furnace and the Amorites — That Powerful Nation a Type of All the Wicked — Wickedness Must Meet Its Harvest — Failure to Heed God's Message Brings Its Doom
By Roderick S. Owen
This is the seventh and last of Elder Owen's studies in the fifteenth chapter of Genesis. Each article has been quite complete in itself, hence it is not essential that you should have read the previous articles in order to understand and enjoy this one. To reject God's messages and warnings means to court disaster and ruin. The special message for this time, and the need of heeding it, are made prominent in this article. Editor.
“BUT in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.” Gen. 15:16.
The smoking furnace, and the burning lamp that passed between the severed pieces of Abraham's sacrifice, were symbols of the divine presence, and represented the agencies God would employ in carrying into effect the covenant of liberty with Abraham and his seed. The burning lamp, as we have seen in previous articles, represents the Holy Spirit in the work of searching out sin and of lighting up before us the path of righteousness.
A TYPE OF ALL THE WICKED
We have also shown, in a former article, that the possession of the land of Canaan by the descendants of Abraham was a type of the possession of the whole earth by Abraham and his seed. Those tribes which formerly possessed the land of Canaan were a type of the wicked who inhabit the earth to-day. Among those tribes, the Amorites were the most powerful, and they are taken as a representation of all the rest. God stated that His chosen people could not take possession of the land until the Amorites had filled up their cup of iniquity. So the inhabitants of earth must fill up their cup of transgression before God will disown them and give the earth to His people.
About fifteen years after the vision of the smoking furnace and the burning lamp, God came to Abraham, and told him that because the sins of Sodom and of the other cities of the plain had become very great, He had determined to destroy those cities. Abraham interceded in their behalf because of Lot, and possibly because of others in them who Abraham believed were righteous. This resulted in a promise on God's part that He would spare the place if but ten righteous persons could be found in it. Abraham returned to his camp for the night, feeling quite satisfied that the cities would be spared. But we read: “And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the Lord: and he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace.” Gen. 19:27, 28.
AN EXAMPLE AND A WARNING TO THE WICKED
As he looked upon that scene of fiery destruction, how quickly his mind must have reverted to the smoking furnace that he had seen pass between the parts of his sacrifice! And he could clearly see, prefigured in this destruction, the fate of all the wicked when they shall have passed the limits of God's strong grace. So God turned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemning them with an overthrow, and making them an example to all who should afterward live ungodly. 2 Peter 2:6. Hence the smoking furnace represents the earth as viewed by the prophet Malachi in that day “that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, . . . that it shall leave them neither root nor branch”; and they shall be ashes, and all the traces of sin shall be destroyed, that the earth may become a glorious possession in the hands of God's people.
FATEFUL RESULTS OF REJECTING GOD'S MESSAGES
But how shall the wicked of earth fill up their cup of iniquity, and thus open upon themselves the floodgates of destruction? From the illustrations given in the Bible we may discover this. How was it done in each example cited in God's word? Let us notice: In the antediluvian world, it was done by the rejection of the message of God given by Noah; in Sodom, by the rejection of the message given by Lot and the angels; by the Jews in Jeremiah's day, by rejecting his message sent from God; by the same nation in the days of Jesus, by refusing to heed the message given by Jesus, and rejecting Him as King, saying, “We have no king but Cæsar.” So now God is sending to earth's inhabitants His last threefold message of mercy as recorded in Rev. 14:6, 16.
The first of these announces, “The hour of God's Judgment is come.” The time when every case must be decided for eternity is here. In view of this fact, the message calls upon all to “fear God, and give glory to Him,” and to “worship Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters”; that is, to recognize His creative power, and give to Him His rightful place as Creator. But instead of doing this, the masses are fearing those things which are coming on the earth, and are preparing all manner of defenses against the mad, unchained elements of nature. They are fearing the power of man, and are forming unions and federations to protect themselves, instead of trusting the almighty arm of the Creator for protection. They are lauding and magnifying man instead of the Creator; and they are setting aside the seventh-day Sabbath, which God has ordained to be the sign of His creative power, and substituting the first day of the week, a man-made sabbath, in its stead.
The second part of this message tells of the fallen condition of the religious world; but instead of humbly acknowledging their fallen estate, they are going forward with great pomp and display, erecting magnificent places of worship, in which the forms of godliness are kept up, and dedicating them in the name of the Lord, while the worshipers, like the people in the days of Noah, are giving themselves over to feasting and revelry, to planting and building, to making for themselves idols of gold and idols of silver, and heaping together treasures for the last days.
The third part of the threefold message forbids the worship of the beast or his image, and the reception of his mark, and warns against the soon-coming wrath of God. But instead of heeding this, religious people are bowing down to the civil power, and seeking its aid in religious matters. In this way, like the Jews in Christ's time, they are choosing Cæsar to rule over them, and rejecting Jesus as their king. At the same time, they are asking the aid of the civil power to compel men to abandon the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath, which is the sign of the true God, by enforcing upon them the observance of the first day of the week. This false sabbath is the mark of the beast, because Rome is entirely responsible for its introduction into the church as a sabbath, and because the Roman Church now sets it forth as the sign of her power and authority.
WHEN THE CURSE WILL COME
When all this shall be accomplished, then Isa. 24:5, 6 will be fulfilled; for the people shall have transgressed the laws of God, changed the ordinance,—the Sabbath,—and broken the everlasting covenant, beyond the possibility of a remedy, for they shall have rejected Christ, the very one in whom the covenant centers. Then shall the earth be devoured by the curse; for the wrath of God will sweep it with a besom of destruction in the seven last plagues.
But as was the ark in Noah's day, and as were the angels in Lot's time, so Christ will be the salvation of His people. Every one for whom the burning lamp shall have completed its work, shall be caught up to meet Christ in the air, while the rest of the inhabitants of earth shall be reserved till that day of destruction in which “the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.” 2 Peter 3:10. Here will be seen the smoking furnace that will purify the earth; and out of it, under the hand of the Creator, of whom the seventh day is the sign, will come forth a new heaven and a new earth, in which the righteous will dwell. And “from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another,” shall all the children of Abraham come up in joy and true liberty, to worship before the Lord. See Isa. 66:22, 23.
