Are you ready for the Bridegroom? Are you ready for the King?
For the glorious reign of righteousness, which He will usher in?
For He's coming! He is coming! Are your lamps all trimmed and bright
To go forth to meet the Bridegroom, be it morning, noon, or night?
Are you ready for the Bridegroom, for His coming drawing nigh?
Are you listening for His footsteps, and that glad but solemn cry,
“Behold, the Bridegroom cometh! Go forth to meet your Lord!”
Who will for faithful service abundantly reward?
Are you ready for the Bridegroom? Are you watching unto prayer?
Are you working while you're waiting for the Master to appear?
Have you traded with your talents, be they ten, or five, or one?
If you've been a faithful servant, you will hear your Lord's, “Well done.”
Are you ready for the Bridegroom, holding fast His precious Word,
Telling out the truth to others—a true witness for your Lord?
Are you watching from the watch-tower for the first faint streaks of gray
Which proclaim the glorious coming of the glad millennial day?
Are you ready for the Bridegroom? Are your garments clean and bright,
So that when the Master cometh, you may walk with Him in white?
For He's coming, surely coming, all His ransomed ones to own,
And they, covered with His glory, shall sit with Him on His throne.
Are you ready for the Bridegroom? Are you waiting for the King?
Have you set your house in order? Can you with true gladness sing:
“I am longing for Thy coming, O Lord Jesus, quickly come,
To restore earth's faded paradise, and gather Israel home”?
Are you ready for the Bridegroom? Do you long to see Him reign
O'er this world in glorious power, wherein He for us was slain—
When righteousness and peace shall spread o'er all this earth abroad,
And heaven and earth shall own as king, “Immanuel,” Christ the Lord?
Fairbury, Nebraska. E. M. ETON.
A SHY BEARER.
As I PASSED his orchard on my way to town, I saw my friend Jenkins cutting down some large and healthy-looking trees. I stopped and said: “What is the matter with those trees? Has the codlin moth got into them? They don’t show any signs of disease or decay.”
“No; they grow vigorously, but they are shy bearers. Some years they blossom well, but the fruit does not mature, and I get only a quarter of a crop. I can not afford to give such a soil as this, and the best of culture, to trees that don’t pay. I must get rid of them, and put in their places those that will bear full crops.”
I admitted the wisdom of Jenkins’ course, and yet I could not help feeling sad as I saw those noble trees falling. What a pity they were so irregular and capricious in responding to the purpose for which they were planted and cultivated!
As I drove on, I thought of the shy bearers in the garden of the Lord. Our Saviour said, in His beautiful parable of the vine, “Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit.” The emphasis is on the adjective. When we see a tree with only a few gnarly apples on it, we are tempted to think that it has been neglected. And when we see one loaded with large and luscious apples, we feel like saying, “That orchardist understands his business.” Much fruit glorifies the cultivator. And that is the kind of glory God seeks in our characters and lives. If we are only a little better than the worldlings around us; if we give only a small pittance of our means to the cause of Christ; if our Christian activity is occasional and spasmodic—the men who take knowledge of us will say, “There is probably something in religion, but not much; if it be all that it claims to be, these pious people would be giving a great deal more than they give, and doing a great deal more than they do.”
And how sadly the Lord must look down upon the shy bearers! No doubt He often feels like saying in regard to many of them, “Cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?” And yet He spares us, tho we so sadly dishonor Him as the husbandman. O, if all His trees of righteousness responded to the richness of the soil in which He has planted them, and to the wise and loving culture that He bestows upon them, the world would speedily be attracted by the abundance and the excellence of Gospel fruitage!—Herald and Presbyter.
A SICK UNIVERSE.
IN another column will be found an article from a well-known (in astronomical circles) Christian astronomer. He shows, from the view-point of present astronomical facts and hypotheses, that the destruction and burning of our earth, as predicted by the Word of inspiration, is highly reasonable. From all that astronomers can learn, other worlds or suns have been destroyed or burned; why not ours? Just how the great Arbiter of the universe may do this, we know not. “Gamma Beta” presents two theories; but we are sure that he is willing to concede there may be others. Either of his hypotheses are plausible; and he presents them as nothing else.
The subject of a burning-out, or dying, sun awakens many thoughts. What does it mean? Did God, the Lord of life and existence, create to destroy? We can not conceive this to be true. Yet these dying worlds, this dying earth, are witnesses that something is wrong. What is it?
Here are the words of the apostle, which will give us light:—
“For the earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.” Rom. 8: 19–23, R.V.
Note the facts here stated, or clearly implied:—
1. The creation is waiting in earnest expectancy for something better. “Earnest expectation” implies dissatisfaction with the present, a longing for something better than is now possessed. The original term is one word compounded of three, signifying “a watching with the head outstretched,” a “waiting in suspense.” This is what the whole creation is represented as doing. The object and time for which it longingly waits we will consider later.
2. The whole creation was made subject to vanity, “aimlessness,” “fruitlessness.” It is out of course. It is running contrary to the law of its Creator, and is liable to accident and collision. Nay, more; it is in “the bondage of corruption.” It is in slavery to ruin; for so the word rendered “corruption” means. The cause of all this the apostle has previously shown, in this wonderful epistle, to be sin. In his own organization, a miniature universe, he had found the law which was ordained to life to be unto death. Rom. 7: 10. Sin had come in and perverted that which was created good.
The root idea of sin is missing the mark. It is fitly represented by the swerved arrow, the perverted current of electricity or water, the misapplication of that which is good. Character can be formed only by free choice, and free choice involves the risk of sin. God’s plan in the beginning was such that sin might have been forever avoided; but even tho sin should enter, no soul need share in its ruin. But having entered, and entered as an improvement on God’s plan, it must be allowed to work out the evil that is in it as a vindication of the character of God, and the eternal safety of the universe thereafter; that is, when sin had manifested its power and character, and had perished in the ruin it had wrought.
The universe is involved in that sin, but not of its own will. Sin did not come by God’s creation, but by perversion of God’s creation. The infinitely loving, long-suffering God has permitted sin to work its evil, to mar creation, but not to eternity. It is subjected in hope. It is a prisoner of expectancy.
Being subject to sin, aimless in its own workings, it is in the “bondage of corruption,” or “ruin.” “Sin, when it is full-grown, bringeth forth death.” James 1: 15, R.V. Death, ruin, is the finished fruit of sin, and is of no more use; and that which is of no further use is worthy only to perish. But God reveals to the subjects of vanity—to those in the bondage of corruption—that they are prisoners of hope thru His mighty power.
The Creation One.
3. During this time of sin, since the highest of all created beings selfishly aspired to dethrone Infinite Love since God’s law of wisdom and love was perverted, the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain. The word rendered “groaneth” means to “groan jointly” as experiencing a common calamity. The word translated “travaileth” means pangs, in company with, to sympathize. What a wondrous revelation is here!
God is one, the Lord of all life, the Fountain of all good. His universe is one. When it came from His hand it was throbbing with His life, revealing His love. The life-currents were opened everywhere. The nerves were normal. Communication with the Head was perfect and complete.
But sin entered. With sin came suffering and pain. It was small at first, but all creation felt it, or was affected by it. See that strong man writhing in pain. He finds no rest day nor night. He has mighty, important work before him to accomplish. It may be the penning of a message which affects a nation, or which will change the geography of the earth. But he can not write it. Why?—Because of a pain in an insignificant tooth. It is ulcerated. It aches. The pain may be in the little toe. The member is small, but it completely upsets the strong man. Every member of his universe of body sympathizes with the affected part. They groan and are in pain together. The man is told that at such a time the arrival of a physician will relieve him; and he is in eager expectancy in every overstrained, sympathetic member of his being.
Such is the condition of the whole creation of God at the present time. Sin has entered. Those whom God designed to reign as kings, have made themselves slaves by self-seeking to be gods. Lucifer, the brightest of the host of God, deceived many of the angels, and induced Adam, the king of the earth, to imbibe the same spirit, to gather to himself, giving naught, and so becoming “creation’s blot, creation’s blank.”
In this old, sick earth doubtless we see the member most diseased, tho there may be many uninhabited worlds which God has suffered to proceed to quick decay as object-lessons to the universe. Dead suns and moons and planets there may be, even as there are dead members in the diseased man. Sometimes the divine Surgeon touches them with His electric cautery, and burns out the gangrene; sometimes they have been scattered, and are seen in meteoric fragments. All these perturbations, these abnormal manifestations, these dead, lone suns, these wandering comets, are the results of sin; and we witness their manifestations as the groaning and travailing of the universe of God.
This reveals another great truth, which scientists, who ignore God’s revelation, do not take into their reckoning, namely, that it is impossible to obtain correct results thru perverted media. The atmosphere is marred and misted and hazed on account of sin. The atmosphere of earth may greatly differ from that of other planets because of the greater effects of sin here. There may be different elements, or combinations of elements, in the composition of some bodies than aught we see in this earth. There are so many things which sin has marred and perverted and obscured and ruined, which elsewise would have been perfect and true and gloriously clear and useful. We do not see the normal man in the individual groaning and writhing in pain. We do not see God’s universe in the marred and travailing outlook before us. Yet we do see in all these the truth of the Word of God.
4. Yet there will come deliverance from the bondage of corruption. The sons of God will be revealed. God’s holy laws may be perverted in the creation; they are perfect in the all-powerful, all-sufficient Creator. His life may be perverted into channels of death, but it flows out from the great Fountain as everlasting life. It still feeds a sick and groaning universe. It still sustains even those who are in rebellion against the only Power which can perpetuate life, and maintain government perfect, pure, and beneficent, without end. Long-suffering love is waiting till every sentient, responsible soul shall have either yielded to Him, to become to all eternity a son of God, or has rejected His love, and finally, irrevocably, chosen the way of sin and death.
In the weakness of a perverted physical nature there are sons of God even now. Christ, the Creator, has been born within. “The power of an endless life,” received thru faith from the great Fountain, makes them triumphant over sin, and stamps them with the character of their Master. They are not now revealed. Tho winning mightier battles than Alexander or Cæsar, the world often looks upon them as fanatics or fools. Even so did they upon Him, the Son of God. God has called to them spiritually, and they have responded. They know that outside of it is inharmony, corruption, and death.
When the last loyal soldier is recruited, the last appeal for the impenitent and rebellious made, then will come to pass that of which every earthly judgment, and every heavenly catastrophe, has been prophetic,—the destruction of the useless, the perverted, the ruined, from the universe of God. In that day will God call to all his sons physically, and immortal character shall be united to immortal body, and they will be revealed as they are. “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him.” 1 John 3: 2. “Who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of His glory, according to the working whereby He is able even to subject all things unto Himself.” Phil. 3: 21, R.V. In that day of Christ’s coming shall be revealed “the liberty of the glory of the children of God,” and the “earnest expectation” of the whole creation shall be satisfied.
In the blazing light of the glory of God, everything that does not possess that glory inwardly shall perish,—be consumed with “the forthshining of His presence.” 2 Thess. 2: 8, literally. When God shall utter His voice from on high, saying, “It is done,” then will He shake the universe. His voice once shook the earth, when He spoke His law, with which earth was not in accord. He declares: “Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.” And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are [“may be,” margin] shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which can not be shaken may remain.” Heb. 12: 26, 27. The things in harmony with the Life of the universe will be ballasted by its power. All not of Him will be shaken, and shaken to be destroyed or created in new forms. Let us heed the exhortation: “Wherefore, we receiving a kingdom which can not be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear; for our God is a consuming fire.” Verses 28, 29. He consumes only sin. All identified with inharmony of God will perish. All who are His will reign with Him as sons of God, over “the whole creation,” eternally redeemed and glorified, and “affliction shall not rise up the second time.”
THE SPIRIT OF IMPERIALISM.
By T.
IMPERIALISM is one of the subjects that is talked of as much, if not more to-day, than any other of the matters that are up for public discussion. We have had a great deal to say about it from time to time in the SIGNS OF THE TIMES. When “imperialism” is spoken of, many persons at once think that the administration in Washington is what is in mind, and that the President and his advisers are being talked against.
But there is something to this subject of “imperialism” that is much more far-reaching than any president, or administration, or any other one thing, or party, or class, or set of men, that could be mentioned. The whole spirit of the times is toward concentration. It is combines and concentrations of wealth on the one hand, until everything is being fastened in the strong grasp of relentless greed. And against this, labor has combined, and is still combining, until a large part of the people have combined to fight for what they regard as their rightful dues.
All of these combines and contractions of power and wealth are the exact opposites of the principles7that were laid as the corner-stones in the republican institutions of this country. Hence it is the great tendency of the times that is dragging everything into imperialism, and not alone the administration that is in power while it is going on. These facts and distinctions have been pointed out again and again in these pages, and we wish to have the issue well defined, and keep it well defined. It is not so much what a few men are doing at the present time as the principles that are taking hold of the great mass, that make the times perilous.
We should see these things, and seeing them should recognize the fact that the world has reached another zenith in its history, and that, amid all the splendors of the splendid century that has just closed, it is again turning toward another “Dark Age.” Any one who has studied the past thru its history, and who will be so alive in the present as to get the full force of the meaning of the events of to-day, should be able to see these things clearly. There is another great truth also that he should see, and that is that the prophetic Word makes it clear beyond a peradventure that the world will not swing very far upon this backward track until Christ will come in person to put an end to it, and to establish His reign of righteousness.
From the standpoint of the world, as we look at the dangers that threaten these times, everything is dark, and gloomy. But the Lord has given us a bright picture to look at instead of this. He wants us to see that His Word is fulfilling most rapidly, and that the coming of His Son is even at the doors. He commands us to know these things, and gives us the evidence by which we may know them of a surety. Have you examined the evidence? Do you know that the coming of the Lord is at hand? T.
THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS.
By G.
THE earthly career of Jesus Christ was noted for His purity of life, His plain, practical teaching, and His wonderful works. His darkest experience immediately preceded the dawning of His greatest victory over the adversary. When the enemy of all righteousness supposed that the voice of Jesus of Nazareth was forever silenced, He came forth from the tomb, and brought with Him a multitude of captives as trophies of His signal victory. Matt. 27: 50-53.
It is remarkable how God overruled the shrewdest precautions of the enemies of Christ, so that the triumph was thereby made more conspicuous. When Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, saw what God had done in bringing the children of Israel out of Egypt, he said, “Now I know that God is greater than all gods; for in the thing wherein they dealt proudly He was above them.” Ex. 18:11. David says, “Surely the wrath of man shall praise Thee; the remainder of wrath shalt Thou restrain.” Ps. 76:10. And Paul testifies that “we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth.” 2 Cor. 13:8.
All this was thoroly demonstrated in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The archenemy of the plan of salvation was determined on the death of Jesus, yet it was essential to that plan that He should die. The persecutors of Jesus were determined that He should die, and it was officially demonstrated that He was dead before He was taken from the cross. One of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and there came out blood and water, and the commanding officer testified to the governor that He was dead. It was so evident that no one thought to dispute it. It was also demonstrated that He died “according to the Scriptures;” for it was written that “a bone of Him shall not be broken.” John 19:36. The legs of the men who were crucified with Jesus were broken, because it was requested by the Jews that the victims be taken down from their crosses before the Sabbath came on. But the legs of Jesus were not broken because He was dead.
Then the Jews were fearful that the disciples would steal the corpse from the tomb, and pretend that He was raised to life. So they had a strong guard of Roman soldiers placed at the sepulcher, and had the great stone at the door officially sealed. This was a very effective precaution against robbing the tomb by men. The guard had no interest in any deception, moreover there was a death penalty for sleeping on guard, or for breaking an official seal. So these precautions emphasized the genuineness of the resurrection. So much so that when the soldiers reported it to the Jewish rulers, they had no alternative but to bribe the guard to tell a most absurd falsehood. There was no thought of claiming that Jesus had not been dead. All the circumstances precluded the possibility of deception in the matter, excepting by imposing a most improbable story upon the credulity of the people. Yet, strange as it may seem, the story was quite extensively believed. Such is the power of Satanic delusion over those who reject the truth. See 2 Cor. 2: 7-12. The Spirit of God thru His Word is our only safeguard against deception, and if men disregard this He interposes no other. Having ignored the only defense against delusion, they are allowed to have it to the full. God is represented as sending “strong delusion” because He stands out of its way, and lets it come upon those who will not heed the truth.
The death of Christ was accompanied by great darkness. All nature seemed saddened because the disobedience of the creature had caused the death of the loving Creator. On the contrary, the resurrection was accompanied by an extraordinary light. Matt. 28: 2-4. From the darkness of the tomb the Creator came forth to demonstrate that He was indeed “the light of the world;” that He was indeed “the way, the truth, and the life;” and that the “life was the light of men.” He could now say, as an accomplished fact, that He had power to lay down His life, and power to take it up again. John 10:18. He had proven His claim to being the “resurrection and the life.” Now He can truly say before the universe, “I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive forevermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.” Rev. 1:18.
A prominent feature of the death and resurrection of Christ was the vindication of the law of God. Among the delusions of the adversary is the doctrine that the law was done away in the death of Christ. This is in plain contradiction of His Word, that He came “not to destroy, but to fulfil.” Matt. 5:17. It was because the law was unalterable that Christ must die in order to save the sinner. “Sin is the transgression of the law” (John 3:4), and “the wages of sin is death.” Rom. 6:23. So Christ died and paid the penalty for all men, the condition for each individual being faith in His atoning blood. “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God thru our Lord Jesus Christ.” Rom. 5:1. “Do we then make void the law thru faith? God forbid; yea, we establish the law.” Ch. 3:31.
In baptism we publicly express faith in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, and all that is comprehended therein. We are “buried with Him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection; knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him; knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over Him. For in that He died, He died unto sin once; but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God thru Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.” Rom. 6: 4-12.
Then the true Christian has “put on Christ,” being “alive from the dead.” Verse 13. “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” 2 Cor. 5:17. Now what are the old things?—Sin, the “works of the flesh.” Gal. 5:19-21. Old things are the transgressions of the law. What are the new things?—The things we find in Christ, harmony with the law of God (Ps. 40:8; John 15:10); life composed of principles against which there is no law (Gal. 5:22-23). G.
Love Your Enemies
“Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you.”
BIBLE CONSISTENCY.
How much more sensible and consistent is Bible truth than the theories of men opposed to the truth! Egypt claims great antiquity of itself. Learned men, contending that the claims are false in the main, concede them in part. They allow that Egyptian civilization is doubtless the oldest the world knows, and entirely independent of Babylonian and Assyrian.
The Bible gives us the story of a universal flood, and the peopling of the earth by the survivors of that flood. And from all parts of the earth, from people of all races, come traditions, all perverted more or less, of that same story of the flood. The Bible presents the true. The counterfeits prove the genuine.
The Bible story shows that the earth was peopled by the descendants of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and for aught we know other sons were born unto Noah. As these multiplied in the vicinity of the place where the ark rested, colonies of men pushed out. Some of these, strong and intellectual, founded cities, and various nuclei for the other companies, till they built up cities, tribes, kingdoms, empires.
Nimrod, of the family of Ham, founded Babylon, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh. Some of Ham's descendants pushed on into Canaan, Arabia, Africa, Egypt. It is said that Egyptian remains show her to have had no connection with the more eastern civilizations. But Mizraim, who founded Egypt, and others who joined him, may have been driven out by force, and in their enmity may have cast off everything of the parent civilization, reversing and perverting all so that they possessed naught in common save the same unsubdued, carnal, human nature. Man changes his customs, but he can not his heart.
Among the most ancient cities of Egypt was Zoan, an ancient royal seat, the Tanis of the Greeks. But Moses tells us, and he writes with the definiteness of one who knows, that Hebron, in Palestine, “was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.” Num. 13:22. And all this is in harmony with the story of Genesis 10. One company of great men—giants they were—went westward and southward, came to the site of Hebron, and founded that city. Seven years later a new colony leaves the parent nest, passes on by Hebron and founds Zoan in Egypt. Perhaps they went from Hebron to Zoan. Either supposition is plausible. But of this we are assured, Hebron outdated Zoan. As Sayce well remarks (and it is as true of Egypt as of Babylon and Assyria), “It is only the Old Testament which gives us fuller and more trustworthy information.” “The Word of the Lord endureth forever.”
Question Corner
1141. J. J.—Read Eph. 5:24 in connection with verses 25-29. If you are a husband, find your duty in the latter passage. If you are a wife, find your duty in God’s instruction to wives. If a husband, learn how Christ loved the church, gave Himself for it, and leads it as a shepherd his flock. If the husband is like Christ, he need not borrow so much trouble about the duty of the wife.
1142. R. A. H., Gal. 6:1.—A truly converted man is a spiritual man, for conversion is wrought by Spirit; but there are degrees in spiritual growth. The apostle gives the instruction he does, that the man who attempts correction may be sure that his course is of the Spirit not the flesh.
1143. C. P., Luke 24:39.—The apostles supposed they had seen a spirit, that is, a spiritual being, such as a demon or angel. There is no evidence whatever to indicate that they thought they saw the spirit of one dead. “Spirit” is sometimes used of Deity, sometimes of angel or demon, a spiritual created being; sometimes it means simply life. The context and use must decide its meaning. There is nothing in the text above referred to which shows the spirit to be either mortal or immortal, dying or deathless. And the words of Jesus simply show that spirits are not composed of the gross material of human beings. When man dies, his spirit or life goes back to God who gave it, not as a new being, a conscious entity, but as life.
1144. E. F. G.—Edom was defeated at different times. See 2 Sam. 8:14; 2 Kings 14:7. They were completely subdued by John Hyrcanus. 1 Maccabees 5:1-3; also Josephus.
1145. B. W.—The Bible nowhere speaks of the chariots of fire and iron and ships to sail in the air. Some one has the accounts of Elijah’s translation in 2 Kings 2:11, and the Valley Canaanites in Judges 1:19, and “Mother Shipton’s” prophecy mixed up. Job 38:35 is considered by many as a prophecy of the telegraph and telephone.
A POPULAR REVOLT.
By C. M. S.
The American republic was founded in the providence of God. It was to be a standing object lesson to both nations and individuals in God’s design concerning the freedom of mankind—a lesson which the common people were not slow to appreciate. Whatever it has come to be at the present time, God’s design in its founding was that it should teach men the blessing of liberty, and teach it by the example which it set within its own borders. The principle enunciated in the Declaration of Independence, that none are by the mere accident of birth authorized to lord it over their fellow-creatures, is one of the principles of the Gospel of Christ. The equality of men so far as liberty and human rights are concerned was not new in 1776 except to the officials of monarchical governments and to those who had been taught that some were created for the special service and caprice of others deemed better by birth. To such it was a new doctrine, and to some of such the doctrine of arrant heresy; but it is as old as the Gospel itself.
Here, then, was the opportunity of the ages; and here was the chosen instrument to make known the glorious glad tidings to men. Humanity had groaned thru centuries because of involuntary servitude, and in the trackless wilderness of America God planted a tree whose leaves were designed for the healing of the bruised and suffering people of this present world. They have flocked to it from all quarters of the globe, till the nations have been compelled, for the security of their own existence, to grant a measure of liberty which their inhabitants had never before experienced. On the highest hill of the world sat God’s last national object lesson for the last generations of men; and the oppressed of all the world have been struggling up thru the crust of imperialism, monarchism, to reach the sunlight of free government in their own land or flee to a government already founded upon the principles of the equality of man.
The distrust of the Cubans is caused by the fear that America has thrown aside her chart and compass and is drifting with the gale on a backward track. The Filipinos know to their sorrow that the principles which made us a nation have been thrown to the winds, and that instead of being a free people governing themselves, they are to be a subject people governed by another people seven thousand miles away. It is this same love of liberty which is causing the farmers of the two Dutch republics to persist in their pitiful warfare against overwhelming odds. However unreasonable they may have been, or fanatical if they were, or however undemocratic their democracy appeared, there is something pathetic in the almost interminable struggle they are making to be free from the rule of another people—that “government of the people, by the people, for the people, should not perish from” their part of “the earth.”
One after another, Mexico and the South American States threw off the yoke of foreign domination in temporal affairs and set up for themselves as sovereign States; but, not learning the lesson well, they have failed in the most important feature of their government. They permitted the control of their affairs by a foreign ecclesiastical prince, the self-chosen pretender to the thrones of the whole world. Because of that domination they refused freedom of worship, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, teaching, reading; and in refusing these things, denied themselves the very blessings that home government would have showered upon them. They allowed to slip out of their reach the blessings their hands had almost clasped; and warring factions have sapped and will continue to sap the substance of their people, and the progress of the Gospel there is necessarily slow. In Venezuela and Colombia the people are in open revolt against the clerical party, and in some of the other States a hopeful spirit of toleration is coming in which is bitterly opposed by the officials of the church both at home and in Rome.
In Portugal there is a popular revolt against the exactions of the Jesuits. In Spain, pampered child of the Papacy, the military are now called out to protect the lives and property of the members of the Catholic orders. In Austria and Germany the cry of, “Los von Rom” (Away from Rome), grows louder as the oppressions of clericalism grow more burdensome; and the most perplexing question of the day in the Philippines is the question of the return of the friars—a question that is fraught with the utmost danger, both to the United States and to the people of those islands. It has been asserted and reiterated that the friars were wholly responsible for the loss of the islands to Spain, and in the fear that the United States will reinstate the order lies the secret of the principal opposition to American government there. To many of them the fear of death is less dreaded than the fear of friar rule.
Mutterings and protests against oppression are heard in Finland, Poland, and Macedonia; and Russia herself is like a huge cauldron seething over the fires of Nihilism. The doctrines of the Jesuits have been held up to public ridicule in the French Chamber of Deputies, and to contempt and scorn in the legislative halls of Austria.
Thus in all parts of the world there is a reaching out after liberty—a popular revolt. In some countries the protest is against the oppression of the priesthood; in others it is against the exercise of despotic power on the part of the government.
The lesson set by America in her earlier history is bearing fruit in all quarters of the earth. In many instances, however, they have followed her a great way off. The example which she set was for a people’s government, by and for the people, and without the interference of pope or priest; that is, a government in which Church and State should be entirely and unequivocally separate.
But the fundamental principles of her government require that she have the same respect for the rights of all other peoples that she demands for those of her own people; that, while demanding self-government for herself she be willing to grant it to the people of all other lands, and help them by her example to attain to the fullest possible measure of both civil and religious liberty. That was the hope of her founders and that the theme of her orators for more than a hundred years. Now there comes a change. We thought we were the heralds of liberty; but when the forbidden fruit of pomp and world power was set before the eyes of the nation, it tasted and fell; and since then we have been hiding under every shrub of pretense, knowing full well that we have forfeited our right to be the tenders of the garden of liberty. Satan caused the glories of world dominion to pass before our eyes, and instead of saying, “Get thee behind me, Satan,” we fell down before the bauble, and lost the high estate we might have won in the estimation of the whole world; lost the real honor we might have had as teachers and leaders of the people; and, clutching the leading-strings of imperialism and monarchy, we became a part of the mixed multitude clamoring for the flesh-pots of Egypt.
It is well for us to learn the lesson there is for us in the upheaval now going on among the people of the earth. It is well for us also to know the place this country should have occupied before the world, as well as the position she will occupy when the final great test comes. She is now on the backward track, and the time will come when she will join the other nations of earth in giving power and honor to that power which demands the right to rule all men everywhere in both civil and religious things. The prophecy declares that she will abandon both of the great principles upon which the government was founded. She has abandoned one already, and the rest is sure to come. But the world has had its awakening in the popular revolt that is now in progress. The lines will be drawn more closely, the struggle become more bitter, until the great example of popular government shall speak “as a dragon” (Rev. 13:11), and cause men “to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.” Verse 12, etc. She will become the persecutor of those who “worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences.” That she will do these things inspiration has declared, and that she has begun to do them already the world knows. “Government of the people, by the people, and for the people” has already begun to “perish from the earth.” But to the one who believes the Word of God this fact becomes the harbinger of a better government,—the government of the Lord Himself, by the Lord Himself, and for the benefit of the whole universe of God. The need for a popular revolt will no longer exist, but righteousness and peace shall kiss each other, and the meek inherit and inhabit the land forever.
