Earlier text: IS THE BIBLE TRUE?OUR SABBATH-SCHOOLS.
By O. Olsen
The Sabbath-school, if conducted aright, will be a means of much good. But to have a successful school, it will be necessary that all, parents, teachers, and children, work together in perfect harmony; for without harmony little good can be accomplished. The reason why many of our Sabbath-schools prove a failure is, that parents do not feel interested. The children never receive a word of encouragement; they never see their father or mother study the lesson, and conclude that it cannot be very necessary for them to do so. The alarming increase of infidelity and skepticism, the growth of the satanic doctrine of spiritualism, besides the thousands of other snares which the devil has placed in our path, ought to arouse parents to a sense of their great responsibility,—ought to make them realize the necessity of teaching their children “sound doctrine.” Greater efforts must be made, if we expect the youth and children to pass victoriously through the time of trouble just before us. Parents, work with your whole heart for the dear ones God has given you, remembering that time is very short. First of all, let your children see that you believe the thrilling truths for our time. Let your conversation in their presence often be on heavenly themes; and when bowed before the throne of grace, do not forget them. The preparation for the Sabbath recitations ought to begin early in the week. In the evening, when you have your children with you around the fireside, let the conversation be on the subjects treated of in the lesson; in this way you will arouse a great interest in their minds. In the words of another, “There are evils and difficulties in all our schools which none but the parents can remove. Prominent among these is the lack of parental authority,—home government in religious duties, extending to the sanctuary and the Sabbath-school. Direction, restraint, and authority in respect to the observance of the Sabbath, the study of God’s word, the attendance on preaching and the exercises of the Sabbath-school, are hardly known at the present day. . . . The observance of the Sabbath, the study of God’s word, are duties. The child should so understand it. Every parent should feel the responsibility of making these duties pleasant. There should be higher concern in regard to the matter than as to how the child is to succeed in business.” The superintendent’s responsibility is great. He should have daily communion with God, the fountain of wisdom. “His sympathy for youth and faith in childhood must irresistibly attract to him young and old alike, yet his devotion and respect for the Master’s cause forbid undue familiarity. His consecration to the work, leading him to frequent surrender of time, convenience, personal ease, social festivities, business arrangements, and often to the expending of money and labor, will speak more than mere words can do of his estimate of the Sabbath-school as an evangelizing agency, and prevent, upon the part of both officers and scholars, any disposition to make the school a mere means of pastime or entertainment. . . .” “Ripe Christian experience must make him a suitable counselor of the young, and bring him into close, confidential, and tender sympathy with all who seek or will receive his encouragement. His reputation, as far as possible, should be without aspersion, and his character such that the association of his name with the school shall be to the community a favorable recommendation, and, with the Divine blessing, a token of its success and fidelity to the great purposes of its organization. . . . He must be a man living in constant communion with the blessed Saviour, to whose glory his life is consecrated; for without his blessing, human nature is inadequate to the sublime responsibilities of this position. He must be one who has learned to govern himself, and who, in the midst of circumstances most perplexing, can remain tranquil and composed.” The teacher’s responsibility is equally great. He should study to do his work in the best manner possible. It is not enough that the superintendent is filled with the love of God, and is interested in the work; but every teacher should emulate his example. The teacher should be cheerful. “A merry heart,” says Solomon, “maketh a cheerful countenance;” and a cheerful countenance, it might have been added, makes a merry heart. The iceberg does not more certainly chill the sea about it than does the teacher whose expression is cold and rigid, chill the young hearts about him. He should feel and manifest a warm personal interest in those committed to his care. It takes wisdom to be a successful Sabbath-school worker; but one who daily seeks for Divine guidance, will, by the blessing of God, reap a rich reward. May God bless our Sabbath-schools. SABBATH-SCHOOL WORK IN CALIFORNIA.
We learn from the Signs of the Times, that a Sabbath-school was organized in Arbuckle, Cal., one year ago, with 15 members. It now numbers 50. Twenty-two have signed the temperance pledge. A club of 40 Signs is taken, and many of them take the REVIEW and Good Health also. Brn. Rice and Morton recently visited them, adding several to the Sabbath-school, and creating quite an outside interest. TO THE NEW YORK SABBATH-SCHOOLS.
By M. H. Brown
We wish to call the special attention of all who are interested in the Sabbath-school work in our Conference, to the following important points:— 1. Members of the Executive Committee of our State S. S. Association, and all our preachers and T. and M. officers, should consider it their duty to see that every company of Sabbath-keepers accessible to them has an organized Sabbath-school, and assists in carrying out the plans proposed in the following points. 2. A club of Instructors should be taken by every school, and if the excellent hints and valuable suggestions contained in our Sabbath-school paper were carefully read, and acted upon, greater success would attend this branch of the work. 3. Every school should report immediately after the church quarterly meetings held in January, April, July, and October. The Secretary of each school should be prompt in sending such report, even if it is not as full as desired. Let every Sabbath-school officer take pride in doing his part of the work well; and then if mistakes are made in the reports as published, time and patience will secure their correction. 4. Maps and books of reference are needed in every school. Our schools are languishing for the want of these valuable helps. They should be ordered through your tract-society librarian. We ought to be as wide awake, earnest, and thorough in providing aids to secure a knowledge of the word of God and heavenly things, as in getting a knowledge of science and literature. Shall we spend money for books and papers that give us and our children information concerning things of a temporal nature, while our families and Sabbath-schools are left almost destitute of those things which are absolutely necessary for an interesting and successful school? 5. Liberal donations should be made for Sabbath-school purposes, and they should be judiciously used in securing the helps recommended by the General Sabbath-school Association. Fellow-laborers, let us take hold of this work anew, and avail ourselves of everything that will help forward this noble cause. We should think and plan for its advancement, as we would for any other important work. M. H. BROWN, Pres. N. Y. S. S. A. OUR PUBLICATIONS.
By James White
FROM the very commencement of the work, it has fallen to our lot to take the general supervision of all our periodicals and publications. In fact, the REVIEW AND HERALD, Signs of the Times, and Youth’s Instructor were commenced and introduced to the public by our individual effort, and on our own personal responsibility. If we have not been mistaken in this matter, the Lord has especially called us to this work. As the cause has rapidly increased, demanding more publications on the various subjects brought before the public, others have done most of the writing, while we have had an increasing desire to see these publications just what they should be in every respect. The camp-meetings, our institutions, and the general interests of the cause, have engrossed our mind, and the cares, perplexities, and labors that have been thrown in our pathway, have fully occupied the mind, giving us neither time nor strength to do these subjects justice, which we have been pressed to present to the public in print. The time has fully come for a change. At no period in our history have our ministers and people viewed the importance of the publications as at the present time. And at no time have we felt pressed in spirit to devote our feeble powers to writing as now. We look upon these publications with great pleasure. Our life has been bound up in them. We already have too many kinds of books, and yet the entire ground of what we call present truth is not fully covered; so that while some works are going out of print, others more fully covering the ground are demanded. Again, the attention that is now being given to the tract and missionary work will greatly increase the demand for our publications; hence the importance of revising some, dropping others entirely, introducing new ones, and improving the entire catalogue as far as possible. This work now presses itself upon our mind, and with present convictions we abandon the idea of going the round of camp-meetings for 1880. We have done more hard labor the past ten months than during any similar period in our past life. We are worn, and dare not give encouragement to those who are urging us to attend their camp-meetings. Changes of laborers and gifts are generally beneficial to both preachers and people. This has certainly proved true in the great Methodist denomination, and we know no reasons why changes would not be as beneficial to S. D. Adventists. Mrs. White is now upon the Pacific coast, and we question that policy which would call her from that field, in her present worn condition, to nerve herself up to the tremendous effort of laboring at the eastern camp-meetings of this season. We hope to complete Life Sketches in the month of April, then hold one meeting in Colorado, on our way to join Mrs. W. in her labors in California in both writing and speaking to the people. This will give our young men, who have had time to prepare themselves by study, meditation, and prayer, a chance to come to the front. As a people, we should give the several branches of our work that attention which is proportionate to their importance. With the blessing of God, the camp-meetings for 1880 may be the best ever enjoyed by our people. In the Northern Christian Advocate of Feb. 19, 1880, appears an article from Rev. William Armstrong on the question, Is Saturday or Sunday the Sabbath? This is No. 3 of the series, and the whole paper is devoted to the proposition that the six days of creation were each immense periods of time. This is assumed instead of proved, and then handed out with great confidence and complacency as a crushing overthrow of the idea that the seventh day is the Sabbath. How all this helps his idea of a first-day Sabbath, does not appear. We can assure him, however, that the seventh-day Sabbath will survive that argument as easily as a first-day Sabbath. Quoting a statement from “Sermons on the Sabbath,” by J. N. Andrews, that the days of creation were periods of twenty-four hours each, the natural day, he says:— “In reading the above, I am amazed! Am I in the latter part of the nineteenth century? Is Galileo still before the Inquisition? Does the sun move, and the earth stand still?” But does not Mr. Armstrong remember that a few years ago the very same pompous exclamations were made by so-called scientists, when propositions were questioned which they themselves have since utterly discarded as contrary to both facts and reason? The confidence and assurance with which men talk of the work of creation is amusing. One would think from their language that they were on the spot, and overseers of the work. True science is good, and worthy of all respect, but when the Bible speaks of “science falsely so called,” and solemnly warns believers against its “oppositions;” and while the most plausible scientific schemes are in such a state of rapid transition, to-day lauded to the heavens, and to-morrow discarded as utterly worthless, we have no hat to lift nor knee to bend in reverence before any theory because it claims to be “scientific.” There is too much sham and shoddy in this line to make it wise for any one to accept that which is not clearly demonstrated. Mr. Armstrong essays to confine his argument to Scriptural ground, giving, as the principal reason for his position, that the Hebrew for day (yom) is sometimes used indefinitely; as, “Abraham rejoiced to see my day.” But while we admit that the word day is sometimes used indefinitely, will he deny that it is ever used definitely? Will he claim that day (yom) never means a period of twenty-four hours? By no means. Then why may it not be used definitely in Genesis 1? If it is not, other reasons must demonstrate it. His second argument is that the sun was not given to measure off the day, and be for signs and seasons, until the fourth day. So he says that not until the fourth day “could there be days like ours,—the evening and morning as we now understand the terms.” Does Mr. A., then, admit that after that happened, the days were such as we now have, measured by the sun? If so, does it not follow that the previous days were of the same length, God so arranging the light that the revolution of the earth would cause alternate periods of light and darkness, as we now experience them? There is nothing to indicate a change in the narrative, and nothing unreasonable in such a supposition. Now we think it can be shown decisively, so far as the Scriptural argument is concerned, which is all that we are now discussing, that those days were literal days. The fourth commandment says that we are to rest upon the seventh day, after working six, for the reason that God did the same thing. No one questions that the days mentioned in the fourth commandment of the decalogue are literal days of twenty-four hours each, as we now reckon them. But this commandment points back to creation, and says that we are to work the same length of time that God worked, and then rest the same length of time that he rested. If God worked for six immense periods of time, then man must work the same, according to this commandment; but if what the commandment requires is six literal days of work, and then one literal day of rest, such were the days on which God worked and rested; for so the commandment declares. There is an irreconcilable contradiction between the fourth commandment and the hypothesis of the six-period theory of creation. We stick to the commandment. But the strangest of all Mr. Armstrong’s declarations is this, that as the seventh day is not said to have an evening and a morning, we are still within that period, and the seventh day is not yet ended! What, then, shall we do with the record in Genesis, and in the fourth commandment also, which says that God spent the entire seventh day in rest, and then blessed and sanctified it, because that in it he had rested; for according to Mr. A., the seventh day is not yet ended, God’s rest is not yet complete, and the201 acts which he is said to have performed because he had rested, have not yet taken place! Thus the plain declarations of the word of God are perverted and nullified by this monstrous theory. Well did Paul say to Timothy, and through him to all Christian believers, “O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: which some professing have erred concerning the faith.” 1 Tim. 6:20, 21. THE CAMP-MEETINGS.
By James White
THE season of camp-meetings is right upon us. Already one is appointed for Southern California, to be held the last of April. These are exceedingly important gatherings to our people and to our cause. 1. The Lord has ever regarded it for the good of his people to hold general convocations. In the former dispensation, the people presented themselves before the Lord at stated annual holy convocations. And his special blessing has rested upon the large assemblies of his people in the present dispensation. Looking to our time, the prophet of God proclaims: “Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain; let all the inhabitants of the land tremble; for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand.” Joel 2:1. “Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly; gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders.” “Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare thy people, O Lord, and give not thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them; wherefore should they say among the people, Where is their God?” Verses 15-17. 2. Our camp-meetings should be seasons of general gatherings. There should be a general attendance of the ministry and of the people. Parents and guardians should put forth especial efforts to gather the children, and no pains should be spared to make our general convocations in camp, seasons of refreshing and great encouragement to our people. 3. There should be one general camp-meeting held in each State annually. All should look forward to this meeting as one of great importance, and should lay their plans to be present without fail. If thought beneficial to the cause, local camp-meetings may be held besides the annual camp-meeting, for the benefit of the people in certain localities. But these should not be so numerous as to overburden our ministers, or be held without sufficient ministerial help. At present, there are so few efficient camp-meeting laborers, and the extending field is demanding camp-meetings in those States where none have been held in years past, that if our people hold one camp-meeting in each Conference, and each new mission of promise, and all these camp-meetings are general gatherings of our people, far greater good will be accomplished than can be by more meetings poorly attended, conducted by worn-out speakers and laborers. 4. Labor at our camp-meetings should be more systematic. Each preacher and each local elder upon the ground should be allotted a specific work at the very commencement. And each tent company should at once be brought into working order, and our camp-meetings should be seasons of labor for the revival of the church and the conversion of sinners, from the commencement of them to the close. 5. The locality of our camp-meetings, whether near cities or in rural districts, should be decided in reference to central position, water, shade, and the ability of the speakers. The ground should be well selected, and prepared for convenience and comfort, as well as to meet the criticising eye of taste. And if our camp-meetings are made seasons of labor, and of thrilling interest in the truth of God, there will be but little place for a spirit of careless recreation and indifference. J. W. In our examination of this subject, thus far, we have seen, first, that Christ performs no work of subjugation upon his enemies after his second coming, as claimed by believers in the “Age-to-Come” doctrine, but that the Father performs this work before Christ comes; secondly, that there is no probation after Christ comes; thirdly, that the earth is in a desolate and uninhabitable condition during the entire thousand years. On all these points, we consider “Age-to-Come” believers fundamentally in error. Another question upon which we think they commit as fundamental a mistake, is the question of specific promises to be performed to literal Israel beyond this dispensation. The first inquiry to be answered is, Who constitutes the Israel of this dispensation and of the future? On this point the testimony of the New Testament is full and explicit. The promise was to Abraham and his seed; and Paul explains that the seed is Christ. The ultimate accomplishment, therefore, of all the promises is to be secured through Christ. Hence Paul says, in Gal. 3:27–29: “For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” Here Paul declares emphatically that all national distinction is now lost as respects the promises of God. No one is a partaker of the promises, or will receive the blessings involved in the promises, because of any particular nationality,—because he is either a Jew or a Greek. This testimony shows plainly that the Jews have now no advantage on account of being literal descendants of Abraham—there is neither Jew nor Greek. In harmony with this testimony to the Galatians, Paul also writes to the Romans (Rom. 2:28, 29), “For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.” In Rom. 9:6–8, Paul further says, “For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel: neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children; but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of promise are counted for the seed.” In the 11th of Romans, Paul gives us his celebrated illustration of the olive tree, beginning with the promises to Abraham, branching out into the twelve tribes of Israel, and showing how the promises are to be extended through that channel to all the nations of the earth who were to be blessed in Abraham and his seed. The natural branches, or the literal seed, by rejecting Christ, were broken off. The Gentiles, or the wild olive branches, are grafted into the original stock. The stock is thus perpetuated. The tree represents all the Israel of God. We now ask who they are, if Paul’s illustration is correct. The twelve branches are those who have been grafted in; namely, those who have been gathered from the Gentiles. These are the children of promise, and are accounted for the seed; because, if we are Christ’s, then are we “Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” In Gal. 4:28 Paul speaks further upon this subject, and justifies the expression that is sometimes used, “the spiritual Israel,” or, “the spiritual seed.” He says, verses 28-31: “Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now. . . . So then, brethren, we are not children of the bond-woman, but of the free.” Here Paul speaks of his Christian brethren as those which are born after the Spirit, as Isaac was; hence they may be called the spiritual seed, for they are grafted into the original stock, and now constitute the true olive tree. Hence we find James addressing an epistle to his brethren scattered abroad (Christians), and calling them the twelve tribes; and this epistle is written with special reference to the last days. We also find on the gates of the city, the New Jerusalem, according to Rev. 21, through which enter all the redeemed from this dispensation, as well as from every other, the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel; showing us that a literal descent from Abraham is not necessary to constitute a person an Israelite in the Christian sense. Paul shows, in the quotation already made from Romans 11, that the natural branches which were broken off now stand upon the same plane as the unbelieving Gentiles. The Gentiles can be brought in through faith in Christ. These natural branches can be brought in only in the same way,—through faith in Christ. All now depends upon faith in Christ, and they only are Israel who exercise that faith. Paul sets this forth in Ephesians in the clearest possible manner. Eph. 2:11–20. Here he shows the true situation of the Gentiles. “Wherefore remember,” says he, “that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called Circumcision in the flesh made by hands; that at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: but now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us.” And in verse 19 he says, “Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God.” By unbelief the literal seed have put themselves in the same condition as the Gentiles in reference to the promises of God, and have made themselves aliens from the commonwealth of the true Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise. They can return to this commonwealth, and be made fellow-citizens again, only by faith in Christ. Does any one now point us to prophecies concerning Israel, or promises to them, which have not been fulfilled in the past dispensation, and which must apply to this or to the future? We answer, that they are to be fulfilled to believers in Christ, for now there is no other Israel, according to the testimony we have quoted. Are we pointed to prophecies which point out some great blessing to come upon Jerusalem, which has not been fulfilled in the past but applies to the future? We answer, Such promises do not belong to old Jerusalem; for that is cast out, and another has taken its place, which is the Jerusalem above, which Paul says, in Gal. 4:26, is the mother of us all. Whatever promises, therefore, we find concerning either Jerusalem or Israel, applying this side of the introduction of the new covenant which Christ ratified with his people, they apply to Jerusalem above, and to those who are now the true Israel, or believers in Christ, and to no others. We are absolutely held to this conclusion by the language of Paul; for he says that now he is not a Jew which is one outwardly, and people are not Israel merely because they belong to the literal seed; for now the work of God rests upon a different basis, namely, faith in Christ, and they only are accounted as partakers therein who are of the spiritual, without respect to the literal, seed. But it will be asked if Paul does not intimate in Rom. 11:25 that there is some other work to be done with the literal Israel after the fulness of the Gentiles is come in; for he says, “Blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved.” In answer, we inquire to what this fulness pertains. It cannot pertain to the Gentiles, for God has nothing to do with the Gentiles, as such. They are without God, without hope, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel. Their first work is to join themselves to his Israel by joining themselves to Christ. The fulness, therefore, is the fulness of Israel, made up from the Gentiles, because the literal seed apostatized from God through unbelief. Ages ago the number of the redeemed would have been made up had all believed to whom the gospel was presented; but though they gave themselves up to blindness of mind and hardness of heart, God is not to be turned from his purpose in the great plan of salvation. Hence he extends the time, and sends forth the invitations of the gospel to the Gentiles, and makes up from them the fulness lacking from the natural seed. They, these rescued Gentiles, are now reckoned as Israel, and so all Israel shall indeed be saved. The following item, published in a recent paper, has been brought to our notice by a friend. It leads us to inquire, Who has changed, Mr. Collier, the theater, or hell? “Rev. Laird Collier, who has become famous since he was a ‘shouting Methodist’ in Davenport, twenty odd years ago, said recently in a sermon on the drama, preached before the members of the Bradford (England), Mechanics’ Institute: ‘To see Mr. Jefferson as “Rip Van Winkle” is a means of grace; it is better than a prayer-meeting.’ When Collier lived in Davenport, he told a young man, now a prominent merchant of that city, that ‘you might as well go to hell at once as to go to the theater!’” And here is another paragraph published in connection with the foregoing, which shows how the pulpit is turning drummer for the theater:— “Mr. Haweis, a leading London Episcopalian parson of the Broad Church type, has lately preached a striking sermon on the drama, in which he said: ‘Though the teaching may not be direct, no picture of human life can fail to be instructive, and the dramatist and actors are both responsible for impressions made. How incalculable for good and evil are these indirect teachings of the stage. How often a man has sat quietly and seen his own mean life sifted before his eyes—seen the Nemesis fall which was awaiting the close of his own career—watched tendencies in himself played out to the bitter end,—and paused. There are sermons preached before the footlights which go home, where the pulpit is unheard or unheeded.’” We think the church which will advocate such sentiments as the foregoing may well be styled “broad” church; so broad that there is no visible distinction between it and that “broad way” pointed out by Christ “which leadeth to destruction.” If the minister, in speaking of the teachings of the stage as being “incalculable for good and evil,” had left out the good and let it rest wholly on the evil, he would have been nearer right. In view of such teaching as this, can any one doubt that a wonderful change has taken place in the professedly religious world, both in teachers and people, within the last thirty years? When the church preaches what the world practices, where is the difference between the two? But the deplorable fact revealed is that all the change has been on the part of the church. The world has not changed. It has not come up to higher ground; but the church has gone down to vastly lower. Was, then, the founding of the Christian church a mistake? and have all its efforts to live above the world sprung simply from fanaticism, superstition, and bigotry? Many a Mickle Makes a Muckle
—“Many a mickle makes a muckle;” and the proverb is true alike of savings, sin, and scandal, It is surprising to notice what pretended arguments people will resort to in support of the Sunday institution. A brother writes from Bennington, Kansas, stating that an individual there is making quite a stir over an argument to prove that Sunday is the true seventh day, which he presents as follows:— “Add 1880 to 4004, which would give the age of the world in years. Reduce the years to days by multiplying by 365¼, and the days to weeks by dividing by 7. This would give 307,068 full weeks and 5 days over. The present year ends on Friday, and of course if Friday is the fifth day, Sunday is the seventh.” It is surprising that any man should be either so brazen or so obtuse as to present in sober earnest such an argument. It is not less surprising that it should make any impression upon those who hear it. In the first place, who knows that just 4004 years elapsed before Christ? To be sure, Usher’s chronology gives that figure, but Paul, in Acts 13:20, convicts Usher of an error of 150 years in the time of the Judges. There are six main systems of chronology, all of which differ in regard to the time from creation to Christ; and the supposition that the age of the world can be given in days, weeks, or even years, is as preposterous an idea as it is possible for a man to advance. Again he says, “Multiply by 365¼;” but there are not 365¼ days in a year. The exact length of the year is 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 49 seconds, which is 11 minutes and 11 seconds short of 365¼ days. What this would amount to since the creation, we leave it for our friend to tell; and any one can imagine whether the product would be correct or not when there is such an error in the multiplier. These rash assumptions have greatly multiplied since Mr. Acres ridiculously assumed that he could tell the age of the world to the very day. But we dismiss them all as unworthy of any further notice. “IS IT POSSIBLE?”
By Roswell F. Cottrell
Can it be possible that any one who has seen the light of truth, which shines so clearly from the word of God on the events of these last days, has embraced the closing message of the gospel, which is being preached to the nations of the earth, and has run well for a season,—can it be possible that such should turn away, blinded and allured by worldly wealth or honor, or led by the deceitfulness of sin, and thus lose eternal life, bartering it away for less than a mess of pottage? Can it be that those who have had faith that the present message is the fulfillment of the prophecy—a message from Heaven—and have given freely of their means to advance it, should now, as the work is so evidently drawing to a triumphant close, let their liberality dry up, covetously withhold the Lord’s tithes, let their ardor cool, and become alienated in their affections, and finally go to perdition? How sad the thought that any should backslide from the commandments of God, which are testing the world; and while we see the way rapidly preparing for the great trial of our faith by the enforcement of the worship of the image of the beast, that they should be unprepared to bear the test, and finally be found in the ranks of the enemies of God and share their fate. Dear brethren, awake! arouse! Now is not the time to be indifferent. What we have looked for is speedily coming. There is work to be done; the world is to be warned; and unless we are sharing in this work, we shall not be able to stand. The faithful servant will give food to the household in due season. He will be found helping others, when the work shall close and the great day of wrath come. “Blessed is that servant whom his Lord when he cometh shall find so doing.”