Earlier text: Present Condition of the WorldKnowing the Time.
By C. A. Osgood
There have been some times in past ages when it was of the utmost importance to the people then living to understand the peculiarities of the times they lived in, and when they were called upon to adapt their labors to the wants of those times. Noah lived in such a time. God had purposed to destroy the wicked inhabitants of the earth with a flood. He made known his purpose to Noah, and directed him to build an ark, wherein he and his household should be preserved. Noah was already a pious man. “He walked with God.” But with increased light, God required of him the performance of a new duty. This duty was one that would cost much expense and time. It would also subject him to much reproach. Moved by faith, he walked in the new light. He built the ark. The result was most happy for himself and family. Had he taken the opposite course, and lived up only to the light he had before, without doubt, he would have perished with the ungodly. In plain fulfillment of the prophetic scriptures, the Saviour appeared on earth. The tribe from which he should come had been pointed out; the place of his birth, the manner of his birth, the manner of his life, and the manner of his death, had all been described, and were fulfilled before the eyes of the Jewish nation. The Father had testified publicly, “This is my beloved Son.” Yet they rejected him. This was the time of their special visitation. This was the time when new light was shining upon them. Jesus said to them, “While ye have the light, walk in the light, that ye may be children of light.” He further said to them, “If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins, and whither I go ye cannot come.” They decided not to receive and obey the new light. Our Saviour, at one time near the close of his ministry among the people, beheld the city of Jerusalem “and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another: because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.” That people not discerning the times, and not heeding the instructions of the Saviour, experienced the wrath which had been predicted. But the disciples of Christ, who walked in the light, who heeded his teachings, and understood the signs that indicated the overthrow of the city and nation, fled away when the Roman army came against the city, and were saved. In the history of the world, we are now brought to another period of great importance, when to be acquainted with the peculiarities of this time is very necessary to our best good. Our Saviour taught his people when they might expect his second coming, so that they might make a special effort to be ready for it. The signs in the sun, moon, stars, and upon the earth, have appeared. The sun has been darkened. The moon has withheld its light. The stars have fallen. The sea and the waves have become unusually boisterous. The Saviour said, “Now learn a parable of the fig tree, when its branch is yet tender and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh. So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near even at the doors.” Here, at this point of time, we are commanded to know that his coming is near at hand. If it were not important that we should know this, he would not have so commanded us. If it was necessary for God to give notice to Noah and Lot of coming judgments, so that they might escape them, is it to be expected that the unmingled wrath of God will be poured out upon the ungodly, and the Saviour return to the earth, and his people have no notice of it? The last days are to be as the days of Noah were. They are described as days of peculiar peril, when false prophets will appear, who will show great signs and wonders, insomuch that if it were possible they would deceive the very elect. Those who do not know what times these are, are in danger of being deceived and ruined by them. Those who do not watch now, will be overtaken as by a thief. The last days were to be perilous, in consequence of the decay of morals, the lack of faith, and the decrease of piety. They were to be days of pre-eminent selfishness, pride, injustice, and gluttony, when men should be “lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.” This is fulfilled before our eyes. And what renders the condition of mankind more dangerous, is the fact, that all the world, with but few exceptions, are in a state of profound slumber with regard to those things that make haste to come upon them. “When they shall say, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them, and they shall not escape. “Oh! how terrible the state of the unbelieving multitude. How important the injunction of the apostle: “Let us not sleep as do others, but let us watch, and be sober.” Also, the warning of the Saviour: “Take heed lest at any time ye be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares.” “They Bring no Fruit to Perfection.”
By B. M. Minor
An ex-governor of California has given a great party at his residence, and a San Francisco paper in describing it has the following heading: “The Feasts of Lucullus Rivaled in Splendor.” Lucullus was a celebrated Roman General, the luxury, elegance, and extravagance, of his life have made his name a by-word in the world. Then comes a description of the furniture and so on, which was costly and magnificent in the extreme, artificial flowers hanging everywhere, pendant from which artificial birds warbled forth sweet music, and a fine billiard room for the use of the guests. At supper, for each guest there were six different wine glasses, and the entire table service was of solid silver. All were dressed in the height of fashion. Most all of the ladies wore a profusion of ornaments, diamond rings, diamond necklaces, diamond bracelets, emeralds, braids, curls, feathers, etc. What a commentary on society as constituted at this time. No wonder corruption is so prevalent in high places. The newspapers are full of descriptions of balls, parties, feasts, and all manner of riotous pleasures. Statistics taken in different countries prove that murder, arson, drunkenness, and all manner of sin which Satan can devise or man can commit are increasing. The Bible, history, men's actions, the convulsions of nature, all foretell that a great change is near at hand, even at the door. A majority of intelligent Christians believe, I think, that some great event that will change the current of human affairs is near at hand. Yes, a change is soon to take place. Let us strive earnestly and firmly to be so prepared that we may stand the great test and trials that will be brought upon us. Let us all cut loose from the extravagance, folly, and pride, of these days, and try to humble ourselves before God, that by his grace we may bring fruit to perfection, and not be found among those of whom it is said that “because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.” May we all be prepared to say as David did, “Thou wilt show me the path of life; in thy presence is fullness of joy, at thy right hand there are pleasures evermore.”
B. M. MINOR. Live for some purpose in the world. Always act your part well. Fill up the measure of duty to others. Conduct yourselves so that you shall be missed with sorrow when your are gone. Multitudes of our species are living in such a selfish manner that they are not likely to be remembered after their disappearance. They leave behind them scarcely any traces of theirs, and are forgotten almost as though they had never been. They are, while they live, like some pebble lying unobserved among a million on the shore; and when they die, they are like that same pebble thrown into the sea, which just ruffles the surface, sinks, and is forgotten, without being missed from the beach. They are neither regretted by the rich, wanted by the poor, nor celebrated by the learned. Who has been the better for their life? Who has been the worse for their death? Whose tears have they dried up? Whose wants supplied? Whose misery have they healed? Who would unbar the gate of life to re-admit them existence, or what face would greet them back again with a smile? Wretched, unproductive mode of existence! Selfishness is its own curse; it is a starving vice. The man who does no good gets none. He is like the heath in the desert, neither yielding fruit, nor seeing when good cometh, a stunted, dwarfish, miserable shrub. Companionship of Children.
The man who never tried the companionship of a little child, has carelessly passed by one of the pleasures of life, as one passes a rare flower, without plucking it, or knowing its value. A child's eyes! Those clear rills of undefiled thought—what on earth can be so beautiful? Full of hope, love, and curiosity, they meet your own. In prayer, how earnest! in joy, how sparkling! in sympathy, how tender! A child cannot understand you, you think! It will take, it is true, no measures or soundings of your thoughts, but its whole soul will incline to yours, and engraft itself, as it were, on the feeling, which is your feeling for the hour. A child should always go to bed happy. Whatever cares press, give it a warm, good-night kiss, as it goes to its pillow. The memory of this, in the stormy years that the future may have in store for the little one, will be like Bethlehem's Star to the bewildered shepherds.—Sel. [The following which appeared some years since in the Review, we republish by request.] “The ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads.” Isa. 35:10. Where the faded flowers shall freshen,
Freshen never more to fade;
Where the shaded sky shall brighten,
Brighten nevermore to shade;
Where the sunshine never scorches,
Where the starbeams cease to chill;
Where no tempest stirs the echoes
Of the wood, or wave, or hill;
Where the morn shall wake in gladness,
And the noon the joy prolong;
Where the daylight dies in fragrance,
’Mid the burst of holy song;
Brother, we shall meet and rest
’Mid the holy and the blest! Where no shadow shall bewilder,
Where life’s vain parade is o’er,
Where the sleep of sin is broken,
And the dreamer dreams no more;
Where the bond is never severed,
Partings, claspings, sobs and moans,
Midnight waking, twilight weeping,
Heavy noontide—all are done;
Where the child has found its mother,
Where the mother finds the child;
Where dear families are gathered,
That were scattered on the wild,
Brother, we shall meet and rest
’Mid the holy and the blest! Where the hidden wound is healed,
Where the blighted life reblooms,
Where the smitten heart the freshness
Of its buoyant youth resumes;
Where the love that now we lavish
On the withering leaves of time,
Shall have fadeless flowers to fix on,
In an ever spring-bright clime;
Where we find the joy of loving
As we never loved before,
Loving on, unchilled, unhindered,
Loving once, and evermore,
Brother, we shall meet and rest
’Mid the holy and the blest! Where a blasted world shall brighten,
Underneath a bluer sphere,
And a softer, gentler sunshine,
Sheds its healing splendor there;
Where earth’s barren vales shall blossom,
Putting on her robes of green,
And a purer, fairer Eden
Be where only wastes have been;
Where a King in kingly glory,
Such as earth has never known,
Shall assume the righteous scepter,
Claim and wear the holy crown,
Brother, we shall meet and rest
’Mid the holy and the blest! “God Sees to Me.”
By Mrs. Sangster
A MAN in the full strength of his years, but most helpless, being very deaf and almost totally blind, is an occasional visitor at our house. We take turns in talking to him, for the talk must be carried on in a key that soon tires ordinary lungs. The other day, I was “the relief,” and as I talked with the poor fellow, I learned a lesson myself; for the man has wonderful faith. He cannot work, though willing enough, and he will not beg, but, from day to day, God feeds him. “Have you no fears in going about as you do,” I said to him, “in cars, and boats, and on the crowded streets?” “I used to have,” he said, in the soft, low voice, which contrasts with the way people must shout at him, “but I never have now. God sees to me. I am always taken care of. Somebody finds me a seat, or helps me in and out, and I get along.” “Do you ever hear anything in church?” is an other question. “Well, not much, but I always go. I like to be there, and I find a blessing.”—MRS. SANGSTER, in the Christian Weekly. Keep Your Hearts Full of Good Thoughts
BAD thoughts are worse enemies than lions and tigers; for we can keep out of the way of wild beasts, but bad thoughts win their way everywhere. The cup that is full will hold no more; keep your hearts full of good thoughts, that bad thoughts may find no room to enter. Victory over self is victory over the world. It is not the outward enemy, but the traitor within, that storms or undermines the citadel of spiritual life. Alas, that the gates are so often unbarred for the hosts of evil to enter! Alas, that the soul should so easily surrender, and suffer itself to be laid waste! As in the conflicts of nations, the conquering army re-enforces its own strength by the munitions of war taken from the vanquished foe, so does the victorious soul gather new force from every temptation. Yet the victory is gained—not by self-confidence and spiritual pride, but by humility and self-abnegation. The humble soul alone is truly strong, and safe from fall. What outward power can abuse him who, while he reverences the nature God has given him, still is lowly in his own eyes, “esteeming others better than himself?” What circumstances or condition of life can be adverse to him whose will is merged in the will of God? Oh! the strength that grows from self-denunciation! Oh! the peace that flows in upon the will subdued, when the man, though “lord of himself,” through entire mastery over his affections and passions, feels that all his “strength is in God,” and in the might of Him who overcame the world! To him the tide of life flows “like a broad river’s peaceful might,” through sunshine and through storm, bearing steadily on its appointed course. His abundant peace is not stoicism. Like that of his divine Master, his heart is the home of all sweet affections. He is still a being of smiles and tears—tenderly alive to the joys of human sympathy, both in giving and receiving the blessed charities of life. At leisure from internal strife, he has a word of courage for the tempted, comfort for the sorrowing, reproof for the hardened sinner, hope for the penitent. Such lives are led by God’s best children here below. Lord, evermore grant us the peace that springs from victory over selfish aims, and the absorption of our wills into thine.—Sel. If man is immortal we should naturally suppose that the Bible would make known some weighty truth in some of the instances where it has had occasion to use the words immortal and immortality. Where else could it more properly be revealed? And the fact that its use of those terms affords no proof that man is in possession of this great attribute, but rather that it belongs to God alone, should cause a person to receive with great allowance the positive assertions of popular theology on this question. Nevertheless it is supposed that there are other sources from which proof can be drawn that man has a hold on life equal with that of Jehovah himself; so that he will live, as long as God exists. The first of these is the opening testimony of the Bible concerning man, which asserts that he was to be made in the image of God. Gen. 1: 26, 27: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” The first impulse of a person unacquainted with this controversy would be to ask in astonishment what this has to do with the immortality of man; nor would his astonishment be in any wise diminished when he heard the reply that as God is immortal, man, made in his image, must be immortal also. Has God, then, no other attribute but immortality, that we must confine it to this? Is not God omnipotent? Yes. Is man? No. Is not God omnipresent? Yes. Is man? No. Is not God omniscient? Yes. Is man? No. Is not God independent and self-existent? Yes. Is man? No. Is not God infallible? Yes. Is man? No. Then why single out the one attribute of immortality, and make the likeness of man to God consist wholly in this? In the form of a syllogism the popular argument stands thus:— Minor Premise: Man is created in the image of God. Gen. 1: 27. Conclusion: Therefore man is immortal. This is easily quashed by another equally good, thus:—- God is omnipotent.
- Man is made in the image of God.
- Therefore man is omnipotent.
This conclusion, by being brought within the cognizance of our senses, becomes more obviously, though it is not more essentially, absurd. It shows either that the argument for immortality drawn from the image of God, is unqualified assumption, or that puny and finite man is clothed with all the attributes of the deity. In what respect, then, is man in the image of his Maker? A universal rule of interpretation, applying to Bible language as well as any other, is to allow every word its most obvious and literal import, unless some plain reason exists for giving it a mystical or figurative meaning. The plain and literal definition of image is, as given by Webster, “An imitation, representation or similitude of any person or thing, sculptured, drawn, painted, or otherwise made perceptible to the sight; a visible presentation; a copy; a likeness; an effigy.” We have italicised a portion of this definition as containing an essential idea. An image must be something that is visible to the eye. How can we conceive of an image of anything that is not perceptible to the sight, and which we cannot take cognizance of by any of the senses? Even an image formed in the mind must be conceived of as having some sort of outward shape or form. In this sense, of having outward form, the word is used in each of the thirty-one times of its occurrence elsewhere in the Old Testament. The second time the word image is used, it is used to show the relation existing between son and father, and is a good comment on the relation which Gen. 1: 26, 27, asserts to exist between man and God. Gen. 5: 3: “And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image.” No one would think of referring this to anything but physical resemblance. Now put the two passages together. Moses first asserts that God made man in his own image, after his likeness, and a few chapters further on asserts that this same man begat a son in his own likeness, after his image. And while all must admit that this latter refers to bodily form or physical shape, the theological schools tell us that the former, from the same writer, and with no intimation that it is used in any other sense, must refer solely to the attribute of immortality. Is not this taking unwarrantable liberty with the inspired testimony? There is no room for any other conclusion than that just as a son is, in outward appearance, the image of his father, so man possesses, not the nature and attributes of God in all their perfection, but a likeness or image of him in his physical form. It may be said that the word image is used in a different sense in the New Testament, as, for example, in Col. 3: 9, 10: “Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.” Let it ever be borne in mind that the point which popular theology has to prove is that man is immortal because in the image of God. This text is against that view; for that which is here said to be in the image of Him that created him, is not the natural man himself, but the new man which is put on, implying that the image had been destroyed, and could be restored only in Christ. If, therefore, it meant immortality as used by Moses, this text would show that that immortality was not absolute but contingent, and having been lost by the race, can be regained only through Christ. Eph. 4: 24, shows how this new man is created: “And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.” Nothing is said about immortality even in connection with the new man. Again: The word here translated image (εἰκών) is defined by Greenfield, as meaning by metonymy, “an exemplar, model, pattern, standard, Col. 3: 10.” No such definition as this is given by Gesenius to the word in Genesis. So, though this Greek word may here have this sense, it affords no evidence that the Hebrew word in Gen. 1: 26, 27, can refer to anything else but the outward form. The same reasoning will apply to 1 Cor. 15: 49, where the “image of the heavenly,” which is promised to the righteous, is something which is not in possession of the natural man, but will be attained through the resurrection: “we shall bear the image of the heavenly.” It cannot therefore refer to the image stamped upon man at his creation, unless it be admitted that that image, with all its included privileges, has been lost by the human race—an admission fatal to the hypothesis of the believers in the natural immortality of man. In 1 Cor. 11: 7, we read that man, as contrasted with the woman, is “the image and glory of God.” To make the expression “image of God” here mean immortality, is to confine it to man, and rob the better part of the human race of this high prerogative. In Gen. 9: 6, we read: “Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God made he man.” Substituting what the image is here claimed to mean, we should have this very singular reading: “Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for he made him immortal, and his life cannot be taken.” Evidently the reference in all such passages is, not only to “the human face divine,” but to the whole physical frame, which, in comparison with all other forms of animated existence, is upright and godlike. But here the mystical interpretation of our current theology has thrown up what is considered an insuperable objection to this view; for how can man be physically in the image of God, when God is not a person, is without form, and has neither body nor parts? In reply we ask, Where does the Bible say that God is a formless, impersonal being, having neither body nor parts? Does it not say that he is a Spirit? John 4: 24. Yes; and we inquire again, Does it not say that the angels are spirits? Heb. 1: 7, 14. And are not the angels, saying nothing of those instances in which they have appeared to men in bodily form, and always in human shape (Gen. 18: 1–8, 16–22; 32: 24; Hos. 12: 4; Num. 22, 31; Judges 13: 6, 13; Luke 1: 11, 13, 28, 29; Acts 12: 7–9; &c., &c.) always spoken of as beings having bodily form? A spirit, or spiritual being, as God is, in the highest sense, so far from not having a bodily form, must possess it, as the instrumentality for the manifestation of his powers. 1 Cor. 15: 44. Again, it is urged that God is omnipresent; and how can this be, if he is a person? Answer, He has a representative, his Holy Spirit, by which he is ever present and ever felt in all his universe. “Whither shall I go,” asks David, “from thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?” Ps. 139: 7. And John saw standing before the throne of God seven Spirits, which are declared to be “the seven Spirits of God,” and which are “sent forth into all the earth.” Rev. 4: 5; 5: 6. We now invite the attention of the reader to a little of the evidence that may be presented to show that God is a person, and so that man, though of course in an imperfect and finite degree, may be an image, or likeness of him, as to his bodily form. 1. God has made visible to mortal eyes parts of his person. Moses saw the God of Israel. Ex. 33: 21–23. An immaterial being, if such a thing can be conceived of, without body or parts, cannot be seen with mortal eyes. To say that God assumed a body and shape for this occasion, places the common view in a worse light still; for it is virtually charging upon God a double deception: first, giving Moses to understand that he was a being with body and parts, and, secondly, under the promise of showing himself, showing him something that was not himself. And he told Moses that he would put his hand over him as he passed by, and then take it away that he might see his back parts, but not his face. Has he hands? has he back parts? has he a face? If not, why try to convey ideas by means of language? Again Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy of the elders, saw the God of Israel. Ex. 24: 9–11. “And there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone.” Has he feet? Or is the record that these persons saw them, a fabrication? No man, to be sure, has seen his face, nor could he do it and live, as God has declared. Ex. 33: 20; John 1: 18. 2. Christ, as manifested among men, is declared to be the image of God, and in his form. Christ showed after his resurrection, that his immortal, though not then glorified, body, had flesh and bones. Luke 24: 29. Bodily he ascended into Heaven where none can presume to deny him a local habitation. Acts 1: 9–11; Eph. 1: 20; Heb. 8: 1. But Paul, speaking of this same Jesus, says, “Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature.” Col. 1: 15. Here the antithesis expressed is between God who is invisible, and his image in the person of Christ which was visible. It follows, therefore, that what of Christ the disciples could see, which was his bodily form, was the image, to give them an idea of God, whom they could not see. Again: “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God.” Phil. 2: 5, 6. It remains to be told how Christ could be in the form of God, and yet God have no form. Once more: “God who at sundry times, and in divers manners, spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person,” &c. Heb. 1: 1–3. This testimony is conclusive. It is an inspired declaration that God has a personal form; and to give an idea of what that form is, it declares that Christ, just as we conceive of him as ascended up bodily on high, is the express image thereof. The evidence already presented shows that there is no necessity for making the image of God in which man was created to consist of anything else but bodily form. But to whatever else persons may be inclined to apply it, Paul in his testimony to the Romans, forever destroys the possibility of making it apply to immortality. He says, Rom. 1: 22, 23: “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.” The word here rendered uncorruptible is the same word that is translated immortal and applied to God in 1 Tim. 1: 17. Now if God by making man in his image stamped him with immortality man is just as incorruptible as God himself. But Paul says that he is not so; that while God is incorruptible or immortal, man is corruptible or mortal. The image of God does not, therefore, confer immortality. Christ’s Love Is the Church’s Fire
CHRIST'S love is the church's fire; thither bring thy heart when it is cold, frozen, and dead; meditate of his love, and pray until you can say, “He loved me, and gave himself for me.” INQUISITIVE people are the funnels of conversation; they do not take anything for their own use, but merely to pass into another. IN another column will be found the obituary notice of our venerable brother, Eld. Joseph Bates, who died in this city the 19th ult., in the eightieth year of his age. Of the life, character, and labors of this servant of God, who, though he had seen so many years, was, up to within a few weeks of his death, active in his chosen work as a minister of the gospel, it is not necessary for us here to speak. He has been so long and so extensively known among us, his Autobiography narrating many of the thrilling incidents of his long and adventurous life, has been read by so many, that his name and history are almost as familiar among us as household words. But his life record is now closed. What a subject for study. Active in the earliest reforms agitated in this country against the evils of intemperance and slavery, adopting sound and correct principles, and governing his life rigidly thereby under all circumstances, following promptly wherever the light of truth should lead the way, at whatever cost or sacrifice, espousing every cause which he thought was right, however unpopular, embracing early the great doctrine of the second coming of Christ, and ready among the first to follow it out to its legitimate issue and crowning development under the third message, ever true, straight-forward, full of faith and hope and courage, he has left an example which all can study with pleasure, and imitate with profit. He was the first to commence the observance of the Bible Sabbath understandingly in the light of prophecy. We cannot forbear quoting the following paragraph from Eld. A. H. Lewis’ Sabbath History touching his experience in this matter. “Eld. Preble’s first article in behalf of the Sabbath, March, 1845, was the means of calling the attention of Eld. Joseph Bates to this important truth. He soon became convinced of its obligation, and at once began to observe it. He had acted quite a prominent part in the Advent movement of 1843–4, and now with self-sacrificing zeal he took hold of the despised Sabbath truth to set it before his fellow men. . . . The heavenly sanctuary began about this time to interest many Adventists, and especially Eld. Bates. He was one of the first to see that the central object of the heavenly sanctuary is the ark with the law of God. He also called attention to the proclamation of the third angel relative to God’s commandments. He girded on the armor to lay it down only when his work should be accomplished. He has been instrumental in leading many to the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, and few who have received the Sabbath from his teaching have apostatized from it.”
This prophecy has been fulfilled—he laid down his armor only when his work was done. Our churches will feel that truly a father in Israel has fallen. But the light of hope rests with a strong, unflickering ray upon his hallowed grave. If any man since the days of the heroic Paul could appropriately adopt his triumphant language, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord the righteous judge shall give me at that day,” it seems to me it is this faithful soldier in the cause of Christ. His warfare is over; but the glorious coronation day is, for him, next to come. And as these veterans fall in the strife, let us all who remain, gird on our armor anew for the conflict, that when they shall come up to receive an eternal reward for their brief though lifelong service, we may behold and share with them their triumphant joy. “MOUNT HOOD is throwing out a dense column of smoke, indicative of volcanic action.”—Hartford Courant. “SIX AND EIGHT HUNDRED DOLLAR DRESSES were among the new articles at A. T. Stewart’s late spring opening.” “There never was a time when so much was given for the maintenance of the gospel as now, and, we might add, so little true worship.”—Portsmouth (N. H.) Journal. “The N. Y. Commercial says that ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY MURDERS were committed in that city during 1871, and not one person has been executed for any of them. No wonder that Stokes expects to escape justice.”—Boston Journal. “Within the past year, one hundred and fifty-one murders were committed in London, while only ninety-six individuals were tried for murder, and not all of them were convicted. . . . If we may add to the deaths by violence, the long list of those by poison, which are never suspected even, we have a terribly suggestive result.”—Boston Daily Globe. To follow these fearfully suggestive items, we copy the following from an article over the signature of “P.,” in Boston Journal:— “A New England murder at the former period (1800), in the county of Worcester, Mass., a death blow by a hoe, two men disputing in a field, caused a great excitement throughout the country. Our frequent city, daily murders at the present day are only common occurrences! The cowardly Italian brigand’s knife, and the modern six-barreled pistol to revenge supposed injuries, are resorted to instead of the fair contest or appeal to the laws of the country.” “Europe continues to laugh, eat, and sleep, precisely as if the volcanoe under it was not ready to burst forth. It has been so often hinted at that no one believes one can possibly occur.”—Boston Journal. “There has been seen lately what probably never was seen before—Wines peddled on the sidewalks in New York city. All the favorite brands were put up in the most attractive style in five cent bottles for children’s first steps to ruin!”—Temperance Advocate. “If there is not enough virtue in New York city to frown down, and put a stop to, such an infamous operation, let it meet the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah. Our children and youth must be saved, even though cities perish.”—Christian Secretary. “Louis Muller was sent to the penitentiary yesterday for six months, by justice (?) Bulkley, for having stolen a meerschaum pipe and bartered it for food and medicine for his child which was dying with small-pox.” “On the same day, Wm. M. Tweed, of New York city, whom no man doubts has robbed that city of millions of dollars, was admitted to bail on a charge of deceit and fraud, and will never go to State Prison.” “Muller was a poor man. Tweed is a rich one, made so by theft. Call you this justice? Out upon such flimsy pretexts as this. Muller should be freed. Tweed should be imprisoned for life.”—N. Y. Tribune. While copying the above, my mind reverted to the following: “And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off; for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.” Isa. 59 : 14. “The sixteenth century was an epoch of a great separation; the nineteenth must be that of a great union.”—D’Aubigne’s Hist. Ref. “It will be necessary to use once more the old phrase, ‘The world moves.’ Free discussion has been inaugurated under the very shadow of the Vatican; nay, the pope himself has specially authorized a debate between leading Catholics and Protestants, on the remote, to be sure, but still important, question: ‘Was St. Peter ever at Rome?’ involving, of course, the apostolic founding of the Roman Catholic Church.”—Boston Journal. “A correspondent of the Congregationalist asks and discusses the question as to how much it is the Christian’s duty to give for charitable and religious purposes. The answer usually is to ‘give liberally.’ But what is to be understood by liberally? The Jews gave, at the least, one-tenth of their income to God. Average Christians do not give one-twentieth. Here, for instance, is a farmer, the profits upon whose crops have been $1500. He sets aside $12 for the charities of the year. One-tenth of $1500 is $150. Another has an income of $1000. When he became a Christian, he consecrated himself and all he had to Christ. He desires to be systematically liberal, and so contributes annually $10. Ninety dollars more would make his gift one-tenth. Here is a merchant with an income of $3000. He contributes to religious objects, including the support of the gospel at home, about $100. One-tenth is $300. There are numberless claims for expenditure for personal or domestic purposes, and it often becomes a perplexing question just how much ought to be given in charity and benevolence. But it is probable that the average Christian deceives himself when he believes his contributions to be truly liberal.”—F. A. BUZZELL.