THE first ten verses of 2 Cor. 5 is a metaphor; because the words tabernacle, building, house, clothed, unclothed, and swallowed up are not used in a literal sense. All such scriptures must be explained by other and plain scriptures. A careful comparison of this metaphor with the plain language of 1 Cor. 15: 40–58 will make it plain; for it is obvious that the same thoughts were in Paul's mind at the two writings. In 1 Cor. 15: 54, we have the words, “Death is swallowed up in victory.” In 2 Cor. 5: 4, we have the words, “That mortality might be swallowed up of life.” The same idea is expressed in the two passages.
IN 1 Cor. 15 we have two images or likenesses, and three states: 1. The image and nature of the earthly Adam. 2. Death or sleep. 3. The image and nature of the heavenly Adam, Christ. In 2 Cor. 5, we have two houses and three states: 1. The earthly house [Adamic body]. 2. Unclothed [death or sleep]. 3. The house from heaven [glorified body]. The house from heaven is the glorified spiritual body like unto that of our coming Redeemer, who is now both a pattern and a pledge of the glorious bodies we shall have at the resurrection. “And as we have borne the image of the earthy [Adam], we shall also bear the image of the heavenly” [Adam, our glorified Saviour]. 1 Cor. 15: 49; see also Phil. 3: 20, 21.
To claim that mortality is swallowed up of life as soon as we die, would be to array Paul against Paul; for he teaches that “Death is swallowed up in victory,” at the resurrection. Besides, where would the unclothed come in? Would Paul have used the word unclothed if he had meant to give such an idea? To admit the truth that mortality is swallowed up of life at the resurrection, is to deny that the soul is immortal; for mortality (not immortality) is swallowed up of life.
IF Paul in the plain language of 1 Cor. 15 had used the word unclothed instead of death or sleep, then he would have connived at the idea of an apparitional man, with neither an Adamic nor a Christ-like body. But his use of unclothed in the metaphor only carries out the metaphor. Its literal sense would demand that clothed, tabernacle, and house, also be literal.
NOW let us mark: The desire is “To be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven,” and the unclothed is not to be desired. We will not be with the Lord while unclothed. Mortality is not swallowed up of life unless we are “clothed upon with our house which is from heaven.” To be absent from the body is not to be present with the Lord, unless we are clothed upon with the spiritual body of which our resurrected Saviour is both a pattern and a pledge. “Wherefore we labor, that whether present [still living] or absent [asleep] we may be accepted of him” [at his coming]. “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ,” &c.
THE ninth verse contains the same idea as that given in 1 Thess. 5: 10, “That whether we wake [are living], or sleep, we should live together with him” [at his coming]. It is but natural that one, believing that death is a dreamless sleep, a blank in consciousness, would look beyond to the promise, “I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am there ye may be also.” EPSILON.
The Character of Christ
The loving women who followed Christ must have found a daily heaven in his serene nature; his beneficence; his encompassing sympathy; his disinterestedness, that gave everything and asked nothing; his supernal wisdom; his powers over life, and his regency over nature.
Temperance.
By Mrs. M. A. Kidder
ANSWER, NO!
“What will you take,
For friendship’s sake?”
I’ll take the fruit that God has spread
In blushing beauty o’er my head;
I’ll take the water from the brook;
I’ll take, perhaps, a pleasant book.
I will not take the sparkling wine,
Howe’er its ruby waves may shine.
When tempted to embrace the foe,
God give me grace to answer, No!
What will I take
For friendship’s sake?
I’ll take the rye, I’ll take the wheat,
And corn for bread that I may eat
And live; from all my daily dish
I will partake of flesh or fish.
I will not drink at yonder bar—
I’ll put the poisonous draught afar.
When tempted thitherward to go,
God give me grace to answer, No!
What will I take,
For friendship’s sake?
I’ll take the sunshine bright and fair;
I’ll take a draught of God’s sweet air;
I’ll take the steady hand and true—
I’ll take the task that I must do!
I will not tarry at the wine,
To rashly quench the spark divine;
Though legions seek my overthrow,
God give me grace to thunder, No!
—Mrs. M. A. Kidder.
Killed by Kindness.
By Sel.
A PHYSICIAN informed your correspondent that in a very severe case of sickness of a child that he was attending, he found that the remedies given did not have their usual effect, and he instituted a searching inquiry and ascertained that the anxious mother, who was nursing the child, was in the habit of giving her everything that callers suggested. He remonstrated with her, and finally informed her husband that he could not consent to continue in charge of the case unless the mother would adhere strictly to his instructions. He was assured that the husband would endeavor to correct the fault of his wife, and continued in charge of the case. But the child died, and, when the neighbors called to condole with the afflicted mother, she assured them that it was a great comfort to her to know that she had done all that she could for the dear departed child. She gave it everything that was recommended or that she could think of, but nothing seemed to do any good, and she supposed her little daughter's time had come; “it was to be.”—Sel.
The Liquor Traffic
IN Boston, over 200 more licenses were issued this year than last. From these came but $26,000 increase in revenue, while $35,000 were spent for extra expense of police, etc., to control these; and expenses at Deer Island were increased $50,000. Of the 10,042 commitments to Deer Island, over 9,000 were for drunkenness or for crimes committed under the influence of liquor. On the authority of the Law and Order League, there are 1,000 places in the city selling illegally. If this existed under prohibition, what a hue and cry would be raised for its repeal! But the friends of license are not so moved by its non-execution.
PERSONAL liberty ceases when it reaches a point where another is injured. This point is reached by the liquor-seller the moment he locates and opens his dram-shop. The neighborhood becomes less desirable and property less valuable.
THE question of the prohibition of the liquor traffic is of vastly more importance than the tariff or free trade, civil service reform, or any other question which concerns the ascendancy of either party.—Ex.
The Day of the Sabbath.
TRUE STATE OF THE CONTROVERSY.
At the beginning of our examination of this question we stated that the Sabbath controversy is entirely over the day. All classes are willing to accept a Sabbath—a day of rest and worship, or a day of “rest and recreation,”—if they can have the privilege of choosing the day. God chose a day for his rest, and sanctified it as a season of worship and a memorial of his work of creation, and made plain in the Scriptures which is that day, and his will concerning it. But almost all classes unite in rejecting it and choosing another in its stead. They cannot at all agree in any reason for their action, because it has not the truth of revelation for its ground. When they argue the question they come in as direct conflict with one another as they do with us, and sometimes even more so; yet, strange as it may appear, they always agree in the result. This is owing to the fact that they have the same object in view; they are impelled by the same desire, namely, to exercise their own will and pleasure in the matter of one of God’s commandments. This is not a harsh judgment, considering how plain the commandment is which specifies the seventh day as the Sabbath of the Lord, and imperatively requires its observance.
But the present state of the controversy is peculiar. As stated in our first article, it has greatly changed in the present generation. Half a century ago the Sunday-Sabbath believers were rigid believers in the inspiration and credibility of the Bible; at the present time there is no other class of people who are doing so much to destroy faith in the Bible, and to undermine its authority as a reliable book of information on points of duty. Notice the positions now assumed by them, as evidence of the correctness of our affirmation.
1. The Bible plainly says that God made the world in six days; that he rested on the seventh day—the seventh day from “the beginning,” from which point the seven days of the week were reckoned—and blessed and sanctified it because on it he had rested from “all his work.”
In contrast with this, men are now putting forth the idea that the original Sabbath was related only to the creation of man, and that the day chosen being the first complete day which Adam saw, it is now proper to call the first day the Sabbath, and not the seventh.
2. In the fourth commandment, Ex. 20, God himself said the seventh day was his own Sabbath or rest, because in it he rested from all his work of creating and forming the world; and that he blessed and sanctified it for that reason. And he never gave any other reason.
In contrast with these words of the Lord, men now say the seventh-day Sabbath was instituted because God brought the children of Israel out of Egypt, which idea is maintained only by denying the words of the Lord in Ex. 20, and perverting the words of Moses in Deut. 5 and other places.
Another contrast is presented by men saying that the Sabbath of the fourth commandment is not the seventh day in fact, but the sixth day; that the Sabbath given to Israel was not the day on which God rested when he made the world, but the day preceding. This view claims as a Bible fact that of which the Bible never speaks, namely, a change of the day; and it denies that which God in his commandment plainly declared.
3. The New Testament states in plain terms that certain things took place on “the first day of the week.”
In contrast with this declaration men now say it was not the first day of the week at all; that it was truly the seventh day, the day which God sanctified when he made the world.
This last position has one merit, and only that; which is, that it admits that the uniform teaching of the Protestant Church, in which it follows the lead of the Catholic Church, namely, that the Sabbath was changed from the seventh day to the first day of the week, by Christ, or the apostles, or by all together, is all wrong; that the first day of the week was not and is not the Sabbath. But this admission is not made to further the cause of truth, but to evade the truth of the fourth commandment, and is therefore productive of the same evil as the long-established theory which it so completely yields.
If we trace the history of the effort to exalt the “day of the sun” to the place of the Sabbath of the Lord God, we shall find that this is only one of many changes of methods and positions which have taken place. And these changes of front are made because the Sunday rest-day, as an institution, has no Bible evidence in its favor. If it rested on Bible facts and declarations there would be no need of such changes, because such facts and declarations would always remain to be produced against any theory which was contrary to them.
Now we appeal to the reader. 1. There are no facts in all the Bible more plainly stated than these in Genesis, that God blessed the seventh day from the beginning, because it was his rest-day from all his work of creation. 2. There are no facts in the Bible more plainly stated than these in the fourth commandment, that the seventh day therein commanded is the Sabbath of the Lord God, blessed and hallowed because that in it he rested from the work of creation. 3. There are no facts in all the Bible more plainly stated than these, that the day called the Sabbath in the New Testament was the day enjoined in the commandment, and that it was succeeded by the first day of the week. And this it must have been, as one week follows another. If such plain truths as these—truths which point out our duties as creatures to our Creator—can be set aside by the church and church teachers; if they may be made void, virtually declared untrue, and contrary declarations substituted for them, without detriment to the moral and Christian standing of those who use them so, then, we ask, how shall it be proved that the words of the Bible ought to be maintained, and that its declarations and precepts have authority to govern our actions? We verily believe that Robert Ingersoll and all who are associated with him in his efforts, are not doing as much to undermine the truths of the Bible, and to destroy the confidence of the people in it as a book to be implicitly believed and obeyed, as are those who teach as above noticed, namely, that its plainest declarations may be set aside, ignored, or contradicted, without displeasing God or endangering our standing in the Judgment.
Reader, in contending for “the day of the Sabbath,” the sanctified rest-day of Jehovah, the Creator of all things, we are following no “whimsey,” nor “cunningly devised fables,” but rather exalting and honoring the word of the Most High God. His word is above everything. Indeed it is declared that he has magnified his word above all his name. Ps. 138:2. Once only, in the history of our fallen race, he spoke precepts with his own voice, in the hearing of all his people. Then the terrors of his majesty were displayed as never before or since were they displayed on earth. Then he said: “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work.” Then he declared that the day of that commandment was blest and hallowed because that in it he had rested from all his creative work. Yet men dare to lift up their hands against the commandment, and trample upon, yes, despise the institution of Jehovah. And while doing this they claim to be his own peculiar people! Was ever blindness so great, and presumption so strong? How well is their action described by the prophet: “Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God.” Isa. 58:2.
By the same prophet the Lord said, “But to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.” Isa. 66:2. Surely they who turn away from his commandment which he spoke with his own voice do not tremble at his word. They follow the multitude in the broad way, and walk after the counsel of their own hearts. To such the Lord speaks thus: “Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honor me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men; therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder; for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid.” Isa. 29:13, 14. And that this is strikingly fulfilled, witness the fallacies and contradictions of those who make void the fourth commandment to follow the traditions of men.
While men cast contempt upon the seventh-day Sabbath—the only day honored and sanctified of Jehovah,—and say that it is a matter of indifference whether it be kept or not, or that it is even more pious to keep another day in its stead (cf. Matt. 15:3–9), the Lord has, in many ways and at many times, shown that he highly esteems it, and that he has at once related it to our good and to his own glory. Thus he says:—
“If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable; and shalt honor him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” Isa. 58:13, 14.
This promise, this security, is good to him who trembles at Jehovah’s word. But of him who will not heed his commandment he has said: “He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination.” Prov. 28:9. O that men would hear and heed his word while the warning is being given, before it shall be too late, when they will call and plead in vain. See Rev. 14:9–12; Matt. 7:21–23.
A Prophecy Fulfilled.
PAUL gives the following plain description of professedly Christian people in the last days: “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lust shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.” 2 Tim. 4:3, 4. We claim to have reached that time, and that the disposition which Paul describes is plainly exhibited on the part of most of the churches of the land. This is why it is so hard to gain the ears of the people for the proclamation of the truth. They are turned away from it to pleasing fables which suit them better. Hence it is at this time that the ministers of God are reined up by the charge of the apostle, in view of the impending advent of the Lord Jesus, to preach the word.
But when we apply this language to the popular
The Signs for 1884.
By Stephen Nelson Haskell
The SIGNS OF THE TIMES has now entered upon its tenth volume. It has gone forth on its mission to tens of thousands of homes, their only source of light upon the subject of present truth.
The work now before us is one of the greatest importance that has ever been committed to fallen man. The paper, we believe, was established in the order and providence of God; his Holy Spirit bearing witness to the position it should fill in the work of God. It has been taken by the missionary worker and sent to all parts of the world, wherever the English tongue is spoken. Through its agency alone, scores have embraced the truth and thousands have had their attention called to the solemn truths it contains.
The present year, in many respects, will be the most important that we have ever experienced in the history of the work. The demand for our publications is increasing yearly, and not a stone should be left unturned to place our reading matter before the thousands who may be interested to read. With the plans that have been previously laid, and the experience of our Tract Societies with this pioneer sheet, we expect a greater work will be performed by them than ever has been in any one year in the past. The present regular issue of the SIGNS is between fifteen and sixteen thousand, and about three-tenths of this entire number are taken by three Conferences. For a time last season, the circulation of the paper ran up to twenty thousand; but this was in the season of our camp-meetings, while many of our Conferences were using it to obtain short-term subscriptions to prepare the way for the meetings.
When the President of the General Conference stated in an article in the Review, a few weeks since, that the SIGNS should have a circulation of fifty thousand the coming year, he stated it none to high. But the questions arise, How can this be accomplished? Are the various societies able to do this? Is there room for it in the great harvest-field, while the Review, the Sentinel, and Youth’s Instructor have a place to fill? We answer emphatically, Yes. There is no conflict in the mission of our various periodicals. Each paper has its specific sphere. No two of our English periodicals are alike. They contain entirely different matter, much of which is well calculated for all classes of readers, yet each has its specific place in connection with the great work of sounding the last notes of warning to a dying world.
Each Tract and Missionary Society should immediately lay plans for the coming year. There should be twenty colporters in the field this year where there was one last. Every camp-meeting should be preceded by this paper, not only advertising the meeting, but calling the attention of the people to the important truths for this time. It will be the object of the conductors of this paper to make it just the paper to precede any general meeting; and to accomplish this each Tract Society should receive large numbers of the paper, which they can direct to the various openings as they may present themselves, and use before each of the general meetings which may be held throughout the country, as camp-meetings, etc. That section of the country in which the meetings are to be held should be canvassed, short-term subscriptions be solicited, and a special invitation be given to attend the meeting. Not an opportunity should be passed by without our doing our utmost to warn the people. Every avenue should be entered, and we should make openings where they do not exist. Short-term subscriptions should be taken and the interest followed up, in every part of the field, by Bible-readings and colporter work. The SIGNS should be placed on board of ships, in public reading-rooms, in boarding-houses, and all public places. We look for a large increase this year in its circulation.
The New England Conference receives weekly fifteen hundred copies, and also two thousand copies of the Sabbath Sentinel. The Sentinel reaches a class of readers who take the paper with other objects in view than simply to learn the truths of the Bible. It is made use of by the Tract Societies to secure a class of names to which the SIGNS may be sent, which otherwise we would not have, and it gives us the addresses of these individuals to whom sample copies of the SIGNS may be sent. Now is the time to move forward; and while this paper goes forward on its mission, the Review should have a place in every home of S. D. Adventists. This is our church paper, and there should be no family, who observe the Sabbath and believe in the solemn truths which relate to this time, to which this periodical should not find its way; and time should be spent to read our periodicals.
May the Lord bless the Tract Societies this present year, and before its close may we see a large increase in subscribers for both the Review and Herald and our pioneer sheet.
S. N. HASKELL.
Manual Labor in Schools.
By George Ide Butler
We give a short article below from the Springfield Republican of Dec. 28, 1883, on this subject, which shows the drift of public opinion, and what thoughtful educators are doing and saying about it. This question is assuming a great importance of late. One special reason for it is that the present system is unsatisfactory. Many graduate with a good degree of book knowledge, but badly fail when it comes to the practical application of knowledge. They are only half educated. Nine-tenths of the human family must always have to do with physical labor. Their hands need educating in some useful business as well as their brains in book knowledge. The following article shows that the subject is attracting considerable attention:—
“Manual training has received a good deal of attention at Boston, and Superintendent Edwin P. Seaver of the public schools there, is out with a long argument for a public training-school to go side by side with the high schools, where boys shall be taught the use of tools. He recognizes the fact that most of the children that come out of the public schools have their own living to earn, and declares that the boys are only fit for store or office clerks or college students. The boys of thirty or fifty years ago were in school less than those of to-day, and were more on the farm and in the work-shop, both of which developed their faculties for doing things, and enabled them to make their way in the world. The city boy of to-day has no such training. The old system of apprenticeships has broken down, and Mr. Seaver argues that it is the business of society to establish something in its place.
“The Winthrop School for girls has tried teaching girls to cut and make clothing with great success. The sewing hours did not interfere with the other work, and the girls who received this instruction were able to get good places as seamstresses, while the girls who had been through the full course of study and then graduated at the Normal School were not able to find work of any kind. Principal Swan is so enthusiastic over this experiment that he now wants to add a cooking school. There are no free schools for boys as yet where similar experiments have been tried; but the results in the school for mechanic arts at Boston and the manual training-school at St. Louis are such that the friends of the movement are sanguine of its success in free schools. Boston has been feeling its way toward that end with some experiments at the Dwight School, and is talking about repeating them on a larger scale.”
It is well that we as a people are not only looking into this subject, but are trying in a humble way to carry it into effect in some of our schools already. If our people will act up to the resolutions passed at our last General Conference, and furnish the necessary means the coming season, we hope to see our College at Battle Creek make provision for connecting physical labor with the course of study. This is our leading institution of learning. Why should it not set the example? In this case, we shall not only be abreast of the times in matters of education, but ahead of the schools of any other denomination in the land. It is evident that thoughtful minds are coming to the conclusion that this is the true theory of education. It is no small satisfaction to us that the Lord has guided us to the best way in such important subjects as the proper methods of education. —G. I. Butler, in Review and Herald.
The Source of Reformation.
By W. N. GLENN.
“It is no exaggeration to say that each great movement for good in the Christian Church has coincided with fresh study of the Bible. It was so with the great fathers of the first ages, with Origen, and the masters of Alexandria; it was so with Jerome and Augustine; it was so in the tenth, the fourteenth, and the sixteenth centuries. At each crisis deeper investigation of Scripture found new treasures which answered to the wants of a new society. And by God’s help it will be so now. The power of the Bible is unchanged and inexhaustible. It speaks with authority to societies and to men; it speaks with sympathy; it speaks with authority because it speaks with sympathy; because it speaks with a human voice, through men and to men, in many fashions, and many parts. Let us emphasize this thought. We commonly describe the Bible as a “book.” It is a book, one book; and it is more. The first title which was given to it in the West was “Bibliotheca Divina,” and it is indeed a Divine Library, rich in every region of human interest, rich in every variety of human record.”—Prof. Westcott.
A notable example of the truth of the foregoing is found in the experience of Josiah, king of Judah, an account of which is recorded in 2 Kings 22 and 23. It would appear from this record that the book of the law had been entirely lost, even by the high priest. The long wicked reign of Manasseh had just preceded Josiah’s accession to the throne, with the exception of the two-years’ reign of Amon, who had walked in the ways of his father. Manasseh had gone so far in idolatry as to “build altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord.” Chap. 21: 5.
However there must have been some good men left in the kingdom, who were desirous of serving the Lord; for when Josiah, at the age of eight years, began to reign, “he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in all the way of58David his father.” Chap. 22: 2. This course must have been the result of the good influence of others, for he was too young to have inculcated the idea himself, especially under the pernicious influence of his father and grandfather. God never lets his fire die out entirely; in the darkest days there has always been a spark left, which could be fanned into a flame when the right man came to the front.
With the honest desire and manifest determination to do his will, there always comes the light of his truth. So when Josiah began to repair the house of the Lord—the breaches that had been made through its misappropriation—the book of the law, the plain word of God, was found. It came to him as “a light that shineth in a dark place.” When it was read to him he learned the condemnation the people were under through disobedience. (By the law is the knowledge of sin. Rom. 3: 20; 7: 7.) This led to deep humility on the part of the king. “And the king stood by a pillar, and made a covenant before the Lord, to walk after the Lord, and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes, with all their heart and all their soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people stood to the covenant.” Chap. 23: 3. And when the passover time came, the king commanded that it should be kept “as written in the book.” Of this occasion it is said, “Surely there was not holden such a passover from the days of the judges that judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, nor of the kings of Judah.” Verse 22.
So, in the days of the Saviour, when darkness covered the earth, and gross darkness the people (Isa. 60: 2), he pointed them to the Scriptures: John 5: 39, 45; Luke 16: 29. Their faith had greatly degenerated and they erred because they were ignorant of the Scriptures. Mark 12: 24, And the great work of his reformation did not fully open until after his resurrection, when he enlightened the minds of his disciples so that they understood and were able to reason out of the Scriptures. This “sword of the Spirit” was their reformatory weapon.
The reformation in Luther’s time was brought about by a fresh and close search of the Bible, and a determination to make it the only standard of doctrine. The church had become corrupt to an unparalleled degree because the word of the Lord was taken away, and they had not the means of knowing right from wrong. A renewed search of the word, and the finding of the law by the people, which gave them the knowledge of sin, brought about the reformation. And the same cause and effect was experienced in Wesley’s day.
While it is true that all substantial reform comes from “fresh study of the Bible,” it is equally true that degeneration and apostasy are the fruits of its neglect or of a false interpretation. There is an acknowledged spiritual “falling away” in the churches of our time. This is not because the word of life has been literally taken away; but because the popularly recognized exponents have robbed it of its legal force, which is the pith of the whole. This taken away, it no longer points out sin; it loses its power, and is consequently neglected.
The reformation needed to-day, and which is now going on, is to cause another “fresh study of the Bible;” another “repairing of the breaches” made by idolatry, which will lead to a rediscovery of the law of God, and a humiliation before him on account of its transgression. There are hundreds of people in the world to-day who have come out of the popular churches and united with the cause of “present truth,” and they invariably declare that under its light the Bible appears as a new book. “Every scribe [teacher] which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven, is like unto a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old.” Matt. 13: 52. [New and old—a Jewish phrase for great plenty.—Clarke.] “Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out thy law.” Ps. 119: 18. W. N. GLENN.
U. S
By Uriah Smith
churches, we are accused of being captious and uncharitable. Well, will they receive it any better from one of their own number? If so, we have the testimony. The celebrated C. H. Spurgeon will not be accused of any sympathy with the Adventists or their views; yet he bears the following unwitting testimony to the fulfillment of Paul's language at the present time. We italicize a few words for the special consideration of the reader:—
“It is, I think, a matter for very deep regret that this is not an age in which Christian people want to be edified. It is an age in which they like to have their ears tickled, and delight to have a multiplicity of anecdotes and of exciting matter; but they little care to be well instructed in the sound and solid doctrines of the grace of God. In the old Puritanic times, sermons must have been tiresome to the thoughtless, but now-a-days I should think they are more tiresome to the thoughtful. The Christian of those days wanted to know a great deal of the things of God; and provided that the preacher could open up some point of Christian practice to make him holier and wiser, he was well satisfied, though the man was no orator, and might lead him in no fields of novel speculation. Christians did not want a new faith; but, having received the old faith, they wished to be well rooted and grounded in it, and, therefore, sought daily for an illumination, as well as for quickening; they desired, not only to have the emotions excited, but also to have the intellect richly stored with divine truth, and there must be much of this in every church, if it is built up. No neglect of an appeal to the passions, certainly; no forgetfulness as to what is popular and exciting; but with this, we must have the solid bread-corn of the kingdom, without which God's children will faint in the weary way of the wilderness.”