At the present time a subtle skepticism is invading the teaching of the Christian church. There is a marked disposition to deny much of that which at one time passed for cardinal Christian faith. There is a juggling with words, with ideas, which, while representing the form of Christian faith, denies in fact the essential foundation of Christianity. A growing number of professed Christians exists at the present time, and some counted leaders of advanced Christian thought, who, while they admit the divinity of Christ, deny his Deity. They give to words definitions of their own making, quite contrary to ordinary usage, and draw subtle distinctions and differences where none in fact exist. Christ was divine, they contend, in the same sense that other men are divine. He possessed godlike attributes, which likewise may be acquired by others, but in nature and essence he was not God.
This contention, if admitted, would destroy the very foundation of the Christian religion. It is an effort to debase God and bring him down to the level of sinful man. If there is one doctrine of the Scriptures which is fundamental, and which is plainly advocated, it is that Christ is God. He was one with the Father before the foundation of the world. He lost none of his godlike attributes by taking upon himself human nature. He was “declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.” Linked to man through his sacrifice of humiliation, he is none the less God, possessing the nature and attributes which man never can attain. He became a man, the son of man, but in a specific sense belonging to him alone he is the Son of God as well, the God-man. Man through God’s grace may become a partaker of the divine nature, and in life and character possess many godlike qualities. But Christ himself possesses the divine nature in his own inherent right. This thought is most beautifully expressed in an article from the pen of Mrs. E. G. White, published in the REVIEW of July 5, 1887:—
He voluntarily assumed human nature. It was his own act, and by his own consent. He clothed his divinity with humanity. He was all the while as God, but he did not appear as God. He veiled the demonstrations of Deity which had commanded the homage and called for the admiration of the universe of God. He was God while upon earth, but he divested himself of the form of God, and in its stead took the form and fashion of a man. He walked the earth as a man. For our sakes he became poor, that we through his poverty might be made rich. He laid aside his glory and his majesty. He was God, but the glories of the form of God he for a while relinquished. . . . As a member of the human family he was mortal, but as God he was the fountain of life to the world. He could, in his divine person, ever have withstood the advances of death, and refused to come under its dominion; but he voluntarily laid down his life, that in so doing he might give life and bring immortality to light. . . . He might have helped his human nature to withstand the inroads of disease by pouring from his divine nature vitality and undecaying vigor to the human. But he humbled himself to man’s nature. He did this that the Scripture might be fulfilled; and the plan was entered into by the Son of God, knowing all the steps in his humiliation that he must descend to make an expiation for the sins of a condemned, groaning world. Christ is the only source of salvation. Of him the Word declares, “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” This salvation can be accomplished not through merely taking his life as a standard, or ideal, and endeavoring to copy his virtues. By his own efforts man can never attain righteousness. Here is the weakness of every human system of salvation. It presupposes man to be his own savior. It sets before him a standard, and calls upon him to reach it. In making himself better, poor fallen humanity is entirely helpless. Christ offers the only avenue of escape. He calls man to purity of heart and life, to attainment of the high standard of righteousness, to sonship with God, and he not only calls him to this exalted state, but he supplies the power whereby man may enter into this relationship.
Of the divine Master the Word says: “He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.” There must come into the life a power outside of itself to work this transformation. This is the power of the divine Spirit, the exercise of the same power which in the beginning called into existence the heaven and the earth—the act of the great Creator.
We must not be deceived by the subtle use made of the words deity and divinity. It is Satan’s snare to lead men to deceive themselves by the name Christian, while they deny to Christ the very power by which their salvation may be accomplished. It is necessary that we should recognize not only the divine attributes of Christ, but that he is God himself. A denial of this fundamental principle is a denial of God and of the Scriptures of truth, and a rejection of the Christian religion and the whole scheme of salvation.
F. M. W.
God’s Admonition to Our Generation
By C. M. S.
THE condition of this world being such as it is, God recognizes the necessity for the existence of human law. The true Christian will recognize the necessity for the existence of divine law—the law of God. In this recognition, God has set man an example that we should not be slow to follow. He says, through his Word: “Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well.” 1 Peter 2: 13, 14. “Honor the king,” is another injunction from the Lord. Again: “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there8is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.” Rom. 13: 1, 2. “Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor.” Verse 7.
God never instituted nor recognized the necessity for anarchy. That condition, however, began in heaven, and is now reaching its culmination in this world. But right at the time when that work of discord is being finished, when riot and wrath are reveling in the earth, and justice standeth afar off, God sends the warning to his children to resist the temptation to anarchism. The remainder of the thirteenth chapter of Romans shows to what particular period of this world the warning above quoted has application. It is in that time when it is “high time to awake out of sleep”; it is in that period when our salvation is “nearer than when we believed”; it is at that time when it can be said that “the night is far spent,” and “the day is at hand.”
Why was such a warning given for this particular time? The answer is given in unmistakable language in every daily paper that comes to our table; for all kinds of wantonness, rioting, lawlessness, are now abroad in the land, and are multiplying in rapid ratio. Then there are crimes against crimes,—crimes for the punishment of other crimes,—begetting a popular disrespect for law, which is equally deplorable because of its influence upon those who witness such things. Crime is never cured by crime; arsenic is no antidote for arsenic; and the punishment of crime by crime is breeding criminals. Children who look upon illegal summary executions, soon learn to imitate their elders in breaking law themselves, or in executing individual vengeance upon others. Hatred for the lawbreaker thus becomes hatred for the law itself.
The fearful prevalence of crime, as God knew it would be in these last days, was ample reason for God’s admonition to the people of this age. This admonition and the prevalence of crime now are indications both of the infallibility of God’s Word and of his loving forethought for his children. When God admonishes us, it is because admonition is necessary to our safety; and at this time, when anarchy is abroad in the land, he would have his children to “walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying”; because “the night is far spent,” and “the day is at hand.”
Let us beware of this one thing, that, while we are counseling respect for law, we do not teach that worst of all anarchy, disrespect for the law of the Infinite, by claiming the abolition of the law of God. Satan tried it in heaven, and brought discord into the whole universe of God. He is still trying it on earth, and he has many valiant supporters in the pulpits of the land to-day. It is a sad thing that it is so, but it is so nevertheless. He who teaches the abrogation of God’s law, is teaching the very root of all anarchy, the anarchy that brought sin into the world, with all its accruing consequences. Christ, speaking through the psalmist, declares, “All thy commandments are righteousness”; and “The righteousness of thy testimonies is everlasting.” Ps. 119: 172, 144. “Let God be true,” and let all his followers honor his law, setting an example to all the world in loving obedience to him. C. M. S.
Christ Is God
“God, having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners, hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds; who being the effulgence of his glory, and the very image of his substance, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had made purification of sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; having become by so much better than the angels, as he hath inherited a more excellent name than they.
“For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee? And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son? And when he again bringeth in the first-born into the world he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him. And of the angels he saith, Who maketh his angels winds, and his ministers a flame of fire: but of the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever; and the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.” Heb. 1: 1-9, A. R. V.
Notes on Important Eras of Fulfilling Prophecy
By William Ambrose Spicer
The Hand of God in History—No. 8
Notes on Important Eras of Fulfilling Prophecy
The Greek Olympiads and 457 B. C.
The Greek love of athletics led to the establishment of an era of chronology that bears witness in confirmation of the year 457 B. C. as the seventh of Artaxerxes, when the decree to Ezra went forth.
Beginning with July, 776 B. C., the Olympic games were celebrated every four years. The period from one contest to the next was counted an Olympiad. Bliss says:—
An Olympiad is a cycle of four years, and the years are reckoned as the first, second, third, or fourth year of any given Olympiad. The Olympic games consisted of various athletic sports, a record of which was kept at Elis, and the names of the victors inserted in it by the presidents of the games. These registers are pronounced accurate by ancient historians, and are complete, with the exception of the 211th Olympiad, “The only one,” says Pausanias, “omitted in the register of the Eleans.”—“Sacred Chronology,” page 23.
This register, running through the centuries, afforded Greek writers a chronological system for recording dates of events. An event was said to have occurred in such a year of a certain Olympiad. And the year might be further designated by the name of the archon (chief magistrate) of Athens, who occupied office during that year.
At various points the Greek history touches the Persian in a way to give us dates in Persian history. Xerxes the Great of Persia, father of Artaxerxes, had failed in his mighty effort to subdue Greece. His great campaign had been predicted in prophecy. The angel said to Daniel, in the days of Darius, ruler in Babylon, when Cyrus was king of Persia:— “Behold, there shall stand up yet three kings in Persia; and the fourth shall be far richer than they all: and by his strength through his riches he shall stir up all against the realm of Grecia.” Dan. 11:2.
Xerxes was this fourth king. The order was, (1) Cambyses, (2) Smerdis, (3) Darius Hystaspes, (4) Xerxes. And Xerxes did “stir up all against the realm of Grecia.” His was the mightiest army that has ever yet marched on earth. But he met defeat. The decisive blow was struck by the Greeks in the famous naval battle of Salamis, where Xerxes, from a lofty throne on shore, saw three hundred eighty Greek ships break in pieces his own fleet of over seven hundred. The king fled across the Hellespont into Asia, and never again did a Persian army set foot in Europe. The time of Grecia was near at hand.
This campaign of Xerxes made his life and death a subject of Greek history. So he is not only in the canon of Ptolemy, but in the record by the Olympiads. Diodorus, a Greek historian who lived in the first century B. C., has a reputation for frequent inaccuracy as to dates (see Holm’s “History of Greece,” Vol. II, page 102), but he gives very definite testimony to the death of Xerxes. He found it recorded in the Greek history under the archonship of Lysitheus. Lysitheus was the archon, or magistrate, of Athens in the fourth year of the 78th Olympiad, which began July, 465 B. C. See Clinton’s “Fasti Hellenica,” page 42. William Watkiss Lloyd, an English writer on Greek history, says:—
The date of the death of Xerxes is one of the most happily certified points in the chronology of these times, and supplies a limit for the dates of several events in Greek history proper. Diodorus assigns it to the archonship of Lysitheus (July, 465 B. C., to July, 464 B. C.).—“The Age of Pericles,” Vol. I, page 356.
Somewhere between those two dates, according to the Olympiads, Artabanus, captain of the guard, had Xerxes assassinated. Artabanus ruled seven months (this time being counted with the years of Xerxes in the chronology), and then came Artaxerxes to the throne, in 464 B. C. This agrees entirely with the record of the canon, and makes the seventh year of Artaxerxes 457 B. C.
Sir Isaac Newton, the great mathematician and scientist, made an analysis of Greek and other records bearing witness to 457 B. C. as the seventh year of Artaxerxes. For the famous discoverer of the law of gravitation was an earnest student of prophecy and of the greatest of all sciences—the science of salvation. In his work on the “Prophecies of Daniel,” he gives various independent lines of proof for the date 457 B. C. Reference to three of these must suffice:—
1. He shows that soon after an anniversary9of his accession, Xerxes began to march his army over the Hellespont into Europe, “in the end of the fourth year of the 74th Olympiad,” which ended in June, 480 B. C. Newton continues:—
In the autumn, three months after, on the full moon, the sixteenth day of the month of Munychion, was the battle of Salamis, and a little after that an eclipse of the sun, which, by the calculation, fell on October 2. His [Xerxes’s] sixth year, therefore, began a little before June, suppose in spring, An. J. P. [Julian period] 4234 (B. C. 480), and his first year consequently in spring, An. J. P. 4229 (B. C. 485), as above. Now he reigned almost twenty-one years, by the consent of all writers. Add the seven months of Artabanus, and the sum will be twenty-one years and about four or five months, which end between midsummer and autumn, An. J. P. 4250 (B. C. 464). And at this time, therefore, began the reign of his successor, Artaxerxes, as was to be proved.—Part I, chap. 10.
2. Again he takes the writings of Africanus, a Christian of the third century:—
The same thing is also confirmed by Julius Africanus, who informs us out of former writers that the twentieth year of Artaxerxes was the one hundred fifteenth year from the beginning of the reign of Cyrus in Persia, and fell in with An. 4, Olympiad 83 [the fourth year of the 83d Olympiad]. It began, therefore, with the Olympic year soon after the summer solstice, An. J. P. 4269 (B. C. 445). Subduct nineteen years, and his first year will begin at the same time of the year An. J. P. 4250 (B. C. 464), as above.
3. The last line of proof that we have space to refer to is based on testimony as to the death of Artaxerxes. It will be more easily followed if we quote more fully than Sir Isaac Newton does from the authority cited; and indeed the story is an interesting one apart from its contribution to chronology. It is from the “History of the Peloponnesian War,”—really a contest between Sparta and Athens,—written by Thucydides. Writing of the winter season of 425-424 B. C., he says:—
During the ensuing winter, Aristides, son of Archippus, one of the commanders of the Athenian vessels which collected tribute from the allies, captured at Eion, upon the [river] Strymon, Artaphernes, a Persian, who was on his way from the king [Artaxerxes] to Sparta. He was brought to Athens, and the Athenians had the despatches which he was carrying, and which were written in the Assyrian character, translated. . . . The chief point was a remonstrance addressed to the Lacedæmonians by the king, who said that he could not understand what they wanted. . . . If they meant to make themselves intelligible, he desired them to send to him another embassy with the Persian envoy. Shortly afterward the Athenians sent Artaphernes in a trireme [galley] to Ephesus, and with him an embassy of their own; but they found that Artaxerxes, the son of Xerxes, had recently died; for the embassy arrived just at that time.—Book 2, par. 50; on Jowett’s Translation, page 278.
As all this happened “during the winter,” it is evident that the envoys from Greece on the way to the king, and the embassy from Persia announcing the king’s death, met in Ephesus in the early months of 424 B. C.; and that the death of Artaxerxes must have occurred toward the end of 425 B. C. Sir Isaac Newton shows that his precise reign was thirty-nine years and three months. Counting this time back from the end of 425 B. C., the beginning of his reign comes in the latter half of 464 B. C., just as we have seen by other witnesses.
This is but a rough calculation, based on an estimate of the reasonable time elapsing, related to the exact chronology of Ptolemy’s Canon as the “log” reckoning of a ship is relating to the sure observation by the sun or stars. But it is interesting as showing how fragmentary details fit into the record of chronological history.
The testimony of the Olympiads agrees with that of Ptolemy’s Canon in fixing the year period within which Artaxerxes began to reign. And just where the testimony of history is uncertain—as to the season of the year—the voice of Inspiration speaks.
The year in which the great commission was granted to Ezra to restore and build Jerusalem was 457 B. C.
W. A. S.
Editorial Correspondence
By Francis M. Wilcox
PITTSBURGH, PA., April 18, 1912.
APRIL 2 we left the Pacific Coast on our return East. We stopped two days in Colorado, speaking Sabbath evening to the workers at the Boulder Sanitarium, and holding two services with the brethren and sisters of the Denver churches. The work in Denver is making splendid progress. Elder G. M. Alway is in charge of the West Denver church, and Elder H. M. J. Richards of the Capitol Hill church. It was our privilege to spend several hours with these brethren and with Brother Ralph Emery, the secretary and treasurer of the Colorado Tract Society.
At this writing we are at the Columbia Union Conference, which convened in Pittsburgh, April 9. This union embraces the conferences of Ohio, Eastern Pennsylvania, West Pennsylvania, New Jersey, District of Columbia, Chesapeake, Virginia, and West Virginia. A good delegation is present. The meetings are held in the Carnegie Library Auditorium, in the Homewood suburb. The reports from the conference presidents show an encouraging gain in the membership of each conference. From every quarter comes the cry of the greatness of the work to be accomplished, and the need of additional laborers, especially to carry on work in some of the great cities in this union.
The city mission work is one of the most important problems with which this union has to wrestle at the present time. The question is not one of openings for the presentation of the message, but one of demand for messengers to answer the increasing calls. Pittsburgh itself, with nearly seven hundred thousand people; Philadelphia, with more than one million; Baltimore; Washington, D. C.; Richmond, Va.; and scores of other populous cities are demanding that strong, aggressive city work shall be carried forward. In some of these centers an excellent beginning has been made, but with the changing population and with the thousands yet unreached, a great work remains to be done.
This is true not only of the English-speaking people, but also of those of other tongues. The very world has been brought to the doors of Seventh-day Adventists in this country. If one desires to be a foreign missionary, he does not need to delay his labors until he reaches another shore, but in nearly any one of our large cities can begin labor for almost any tongue spoken by earth's inhabitants. What an opportunity is offered us! The demand of the whitened fields should appeal to our sympathies and to our liberalities. Many coming into this country will receive a knowledge of the truth, and returning to their own land, will be the means under God of hastening the spread of the gospel message to earth's remotest bounds.
It has been decided to inaugurate another active campaign in behalf of “Christ's Object Lessons,” for the benefit of the schools in this union. We believe that the inauguration of this new campaign expresses the deep interest which our people feel in these enterprises.
Especially has a hearty interest been shown in the Mount Vernon College. This school, through the blessing of the Lord, has been the means of sending forth many workers into the gospel vineyard. There are many to-day laboring in the home land and in foreign fields, in various positions in the work, who look back to this school as the source of their inspiration, and the place where they obtained a preparation that has enabled them to work successfully for the saving of lost humanity. Our people throughout the Columbia Union should acquaint themselves more fully with the excellent work being carried on by this school, and should heartily rally to its support. Brother S. M. Butler, the president, and his faithful associates are laboring earnestly, and in the fear of God, to make the college a rich blessing to the cause of truth. As expressed by one of the delegates, the question is not only the10school's need of the support which is its due from our brethren and sisters, but the need of the cause of truth for the help which the school can afford. The relation is mutual.
Excellent progress is reported in the several departments of conference work. The last two years have witnessed a gain of forty thousand dollars in the tithe of the union. The gross business of the union office, representing all funds, has increased from sixty-one thousand dollars two years ago to over one hundred forty-six thousand dollars. There has been an increase in literature sales in the union of twenty-six thousand dollars during the last biennial period. Many will be interested to learn that the large indebtedness of eighty-five thousand dollars on the Philadelphia sanitarium has been reduced, through the earnest efforts put forth, to a little more than ten thousand dollars at the present time.
Pastor B. G. Wilkinson has been re-elected president of the Columbia Union, with E. R. Brown secretary, treasurer, and auditor.
Several other institutions located in this union have held meetings in the interest of their work. The constituency meetings of the Washington Sanitarium, the Foreign Mission Seminary, and the Review and Herald Publishing Association have been held. Reports of these meetings will be furnished the REVIEW later by their respective secretaries.
Pastor A. G. Daniells has conducted a very practical line of study on the improvement of the ministry, dealing with some of the more practical details of a minister's preparation in the way of deportment, dress, etc., details small of themselves but important factors in determining the success of his work. Valuable lessons were given in studies and sermons by Pastors W. T. Knox, F. C. Gilbert, and G. B. Thompson, and other workers.
At meetings of this kind the bookmen are always in evidence. Under the direction of Brother I. A. Ford, aided by Pastor N. Z. Town and other workers, those interested in the sale of our publications meet for an hour every day for the study of better methods in the promotion of this work. Twenty-five or more earnest, energetic workers representing the different State conferences are in attendance. The conference of these workers is one of inspiration, and will prove of practical benefit we are sure in the prosecution of this line of work in the future.
An excellent spirit prevailed at the conference, and a spirit of harmonious action in all the business transacted. The closing meeting of the conference was a consecration service. In answer to the call for renewed dedication of life to God six persons not of our faith arose for prayers, and some of these have since taken their stand with us and have begun to observe the Sabbath. The interest of a goodly number in the city has been deepened in our work, and it is believed that excellent results, in a local way, will follow the holding of this conference in this great city.
This meeting at Pittsburgh completes our round of attendance at union conferences, and our visits to institutions for the last three months. We have appreciated this personal touch with the field and the workers. We have rejoiced in the general progress we have seen attending the work. God's work to-day is running in no narrow mold. Many agencies have been created. There is a place for the employment of all talents, however diversified.
This movement is swelling into the loud cry of the third angel's message. Its triumph in the near future is assured. May we so permit the principles of truth to permeate and sanctify our lives that the triumph of this work will be our triumph in the coming kingdom of our God. We shall see then that we have not followed a delusive hope or labored in vain in the Lord.
F. M. W.
In Two South American Cities
By William A. Spicer
OUR brethren in South America have heard the call to work the cities, and slender as their resources are, they are going at the work. And the Lord is blessing. Six years ago I met, in the tract society office in Buenos Aires, with a little company of ten or a dozen believers. This year I found in the great city a company of seventy-five or one hundred; and the work in the city, the brethren feel, is but beginning.
The cities of South America present even greater difficulties to the evangelist than do those of North America; but the third angel’s message is winning hearts here. Buenos Aires is indeed a vast city. It is about the size of Philadelphia, and growing rapidly. It is the fourth city of all the New World—New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Buenos Aires. Yet the staff of laborers is now only Pastor C. E. Knight, who as Argentine president must divide his time with the general work; Brother E. Tulin, a new recruit, whose labors the Lord is blessing; and Sisters C. E. Knight and Cassie Wilson, Bible workers. Truly it is a little band to go against such a great multitude.
Out in Florida, a suburb toward which the city is rapidly growing, there is a little settlement of workers associated with the union conference office and the publishing house. The circulation and influence of the publications are growing, and the workers are of good courage. Brother G. E. Hartman, who came from Pennsylvania, is union treasurer and manager of the publishing house; and Pastor E. W. Thomann, and Sister Lydia Oppegard, who found the truth in South America, are the office editorial staff for the publications. Brother Arthur Warren, who came from our British printing-house, is superintendent of the factory. Thus laborers gathered from various nations join in working for the multitudes of many nationalities to be reached here by the Spanish tongue.
Across the mighty stream of the River Plate, eight or ten hours’ journey by steamer, is Montevideo. It is a city of half a million, a clean and bright city, but one more than ordinarily given to irreligion and gaiety. It aspires to be the Monte Carlo of South America. Our brethren have longed to see work done in this city. Four years ago Pastor J. V. Maas, then superintendent of Uruguay, made a call for nurses to enter Montevideo as pioneers of the message. This led to the sending of our first city missionary nurses to South America. They have had good experiences, and we believe that their work will surely prove a preparation for the public effort which Pastor F. L. Perry now plans to open in Montevideo. Sisters Meda Kerr and Frances Brockman, who worked alone in the city for two years, saw many a threatening barrier removed as they went forward. Now the way for the nursing work is wide open. Miss Kerr has been called to the school in Argentina, and Sisters Elnora Davis and Maud Carner are joining in the work. Brother and Sister A. G. Hammerly, of Switzerland, are also engaged in nursing in this field.
Uruguay has for years been a strong field for us in local finance. The truth was planted years ago in the Protestant German-Swiss colonies; and these four or five churches and companies and the few separated believers have held steadfastly to the faith, and have been loyal in giving the tithe. They have longed to see the work carried into new parts. But the lack of permanent laborers has kept Uruguay at a standstill. Now all hearts are full of hope as Pastor Perry settles among them to lead out in the work.
We held a general meeting at a point twenty-seven miles from the railway. The brethren came in with their families, some driving from even yet greater distances. About seventy adults and children were in attendance, the largest meeting ever held in the field, the brethren said. And it was a good meeting. We thank God for the providence that sent Protestants with an open Bible to settle in Uruguay, to be the soil in which the truth of this advent message might take root; and now these brethren hope to see the vine of truth spreading among the Spanish peoples.
W. A. S.Buenos Aires.
Power of the Gospel
By G. G. Lowry
G. G. LOWRY
When we present the gospel to the unbelieving, telling them of the wonderful love of Jesus, and of the many miracles which he performed while here upon earth, we are sometimes confronted with this statement: “Yes, what you say seems very good; but it is hard for us to believe. If we could only have seen that Jesus of whom you speak, and heard from his own lips the precious words of truth; if we could only have seen with our own eyes the mighty miracles which were performed by him, then we might believe.”
Although we do not, in our day, see Jesus in person going from town to town, healing the sick, raising the dead, and doing all these mighty works, as he did two thousand years ago, yet the transformations being made in heathen hearts by the power of his word which we behold are truly wonderful miracles of his divine grace.
Not long ago when cholera, the dread disease of this country, was raging in our villages, claiming its victims by the scores, I was called to the side of a dying man who had recently left heathenism, accepted the gospel of Jesus Christ; and had become a faithful worker in the Lord's vineyard. When we reached his house, although he was taken with cholera only about two hours before, the end was very near. So after giving him some medicine, and helping him all we could, I asked him if there was anything he wished to say. He turned to me and said, “It seems that my time is come. I can feel even now death taking hold on me, and yet, since I am ready for it, I am not afraid to go. I have tried my best to give the gospel as it was given to me. I have lived up to its teachings, so I have nothing to fear. I can not see why I must go just now and leave my work, my wife, and children; but God is doing the best thing for me. He still lives and rules, so I am not afraid to trust him.” Then again just before he died, he called his little boy to his side, and said, “My son, don't be afraid. God will care for you. Keep the gospel as it was given to us. Although I leave you, yet the mission and our missionaries are still here, and God is still alive, so be not afraid.”
This, it seems to me, is a good testimony to the power of the gospel of Christ. It is a testimony which no heathen man in the world can give. There is nothing in heathenism to which a man may anchor his soul in a time like that. Only one who has accepted the gospel of the living God, and has made Jesus Christ his personal Friend and Saviour, can talk in that way.
So as I heard the courageous words of this man, and reflected back over the three years of his Christian experience, and thought of the marvelous changes which the gospel had wrought in his life in this short time, and of the Christian12fortitude and courage with which he met the awful hour of death, I said to myself, “Indeed God is still alive and still works miracles as he did of old.”
My brethren and friends in the home land, are you not willing to help all you can to carry the life-giving gospel to those who sit in darkness in this heathen land? There are thousands and thousands of poor souls in this great land of heathenism who have not even yet heard the name Christ Jesus. Would they not rejoice to know the gospel, if it was given to them? Will you not help them?
Nazareth, South India.
THE SNOW-CAPPED PEAK OF MOUNT TEYDE, CANARY ISLANDS
Our West African Rest Home
By T. M. French
T. M. FRENCH
The establishment of a rest home in the Canary Islands indeed brings relief to our West African missionaries. It furnishes a retreat from the malarial West Coast, and will enable our workers to return to their work with new health and courage to battle with heathenism.
Last November Brother and Sister B. B. Aldrich sailed for the Canary Islands, with instructions to locate this rest home and begin work among the islanders. After looking over Grand Canary and Teneriffe, the latter was chosen as the better island for the new station.
The island of Teneriffe affords any desired altitude for recuperation, from the warm coast country to the snow-capped peak of Mount Teyde, which is 12,000 feet high. After spending months in the tropics, it is refreshing to get a view of this snow-capped peak. With a small camping outfit, our missionaries could find a cold, bracing climate near upon the summit of the peak for a few weeks.
Teneriffe is also very fertile, and a great variety of fruits and vegetables is grown in abundance. The green valleys and mountainsides make a very beautiful scene. In fact, the ideal climate and attractiveness of the island are drawing large numbers of European tourists here for the winter.
With seven principal islands and a population of nearly half a million inhabitants, the Canaries form a good mission field. And the Roman yoke, which is heavily felt throughout the islands, should stir us to earnest efforts to give this people the gospel in its purity.
Our mission home is at present located at La Laguna, the old capital of the islands, and the home of the Catholic bishop. It has a population of about sixteen thousand, and is two thousand feet above sea-level. Santa Cruz, the present capital and port, is easily reached by an electric tram car. La Laguna has a very pleasant climate during the summer, and is visited by many tourists.
Let us unitedly pray that this rest home may prove not only a blessing to our West African work, but that it may be a beacon-light in leading many souls to the light of present truth.
The After-Life
LIVE in the light of the after-life.
Time’s ebbing stream
Speeds to the ocean of endless day,
Bearing life’s bark beyond bar and bay
Into the depths where the sun-lit spray
Glints like a dream.
LIVE in the light of the after-life.
Soon comes the dawn;
Then will be banished each night-born
fear,
Then will the land on the lea appear,
Then will the mists from the hillside
clear,
Then will be morn!
LIVE in the light of the after-life.
Dwell not in gloom;
Soon will come rest for the weary feet,
Soon will the saints in the home land
meet,
Soon will the Saviour his loved ones
greet!
Why dread the tomb?
