Earlier text: THE SINNER'S INVITATIONTHE WORLD UPSIDE DOWN.
By D. F. Newton
A SLAVE TO THIS, A SLAVE TO THAT.
“Break ev’ry yoke;” the Gospel cries,
‘And let the oppressed go free;’
Let ev’ry burden’d captive rise,
And taste sweet Liberty.”
Your tea, brother, are you not as much a slave to it as the tippler is to his morning dram, his wine cup, or brandy bottle; or as the tobacco-monger is to his pipe, and his quid? Does this affect my salvation? Salvation, indeed! Talk about salvation, meanwhile wedded to an evil habit—the lust of appetite! ‘Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?’ Rom. vi, 16. ‘Every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things.’ ‘And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned except he strive lawfully.’ 2 Tim. ii, 5. Whence your fidgety and rickety spells, your often doubts, touching your safe and joyful entrance ‘into the everlasting kingdom?’ Your nervous system is affected injuriously by the use of this narcotic, to which you are a slave. The taste, or habit of tea drinking is unnatural, and acquired, as much so as a relish for the intoxicating bowl, or the vile ‘Indian weed.’ Look at your example, also. Consider the millions expended to gratify a perverted taste, worse than useless, that ought to go to build up the Redeemer’s kingdom, not Satan’s; to save souls, and not to destroy them. Brother, break loose from this tyrant, and be a free man. What! preach to sinners to put away their evil deeds, be ‘temperate in all things,’ and yourself a bond-slave, an idolater! Awful! ‘Physician, heal thyself.’ ‘Thou that preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal?’ Mothers, what are you doing? allowing your ‘little ones’ to sip their tea at meal times, acquire a vicious habit that will prove a curse in time, and jeopard their souls eternally? Stop, stop this wickedness. Stop and think before you farther go. Says an eminent physician: “Much of the nervous unrest and over anxiety of the women of this generation is due to the excessive use of tea. . . . I have known many who lived largely on their tea, eating little food and growing thin, sensitive and sleepless, sharp in feeling and often in words.
“Every year I am more and more surprised to see the number of women and children who are suffering from loss of appetite, loss of sleep, and that peculiar irritability which comes from the two combined, and yet have no idea of the cause, for they say, ‘I never dreamed black tea hurt any one.’ Now this same black tea may be excellent to help one through an emergency, when rest is needed and cannot be had, just as you would put spurs to a horse to win a battle, or meet a railway train; but to ride at this rate long would be ruinous to man and beast. Just so our women, spurred by this stimulant, rush on when they should rest. . . . As to coffee, all know it is injurious in many ways, save those who,
“—convinced against their will,
Are of the same opinion still.”
“No tea nor coffee do we drink,
Tobacco we despise;
And liquor as a beverage
Ne’er comes before our eyes.
“We are a happy, healthy band,
Our minds are bright and clear;
No awful dreams at night we have,
And tremor we don’t fear.
“We have escaped from Satan’s snares—
In this respect at least;
While others go to early graves,
We still remain to feast.”
Yes, look up, brother, look up! Do you ask who bids you do so? It is the Lord. Do you ask again why? Because redemption is just at hand. The bowed head is the symbol of sorrow. The uplifted head is the posture of joy. You cannot look up without lifting up your heads. You cannot fail to do either now without being disobedient to the Lord. We have seen the signs which he predicted, and should cheerfully take the revealed position. For centuries the church of God has traveled her lonely path with her head bowed, and eyes cast downward toward the grave. But as if in expectation of a deliverer from the skies, she has buried her dead with their faces turned upward, and the eyes in the right direction,—up. For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised and go sky-ward to meet Jesus. He is coming, and all should now take and keep the posture of expectancy, as they are bidden by the Master. It is the glorious privilege, as well as duty, of the last generation of Christians to live with their heads lifted up. It will be their privilege to stand at the judgment bar, meekly, but with their heads lifted up. It will be their happy privilege to march through the gates of the city of God with their heads lifted up. “Thou, O Lord, art a shield for me, my glory, and the lifter up of mine head.” Ps. iii, 3. He that refuses at the proper time to look up and lift up his head, and know that eternal redemption is at the door, is guilty of disregarding the express command of Jesus Christ. That time has come, and the light is so clear there is no excuse for the recreant. What a well of joy in trial, what a source of strength against sin, what a weapon of warfare against Satan, this belief would prove to the dear church of God everywhere, if she would but see and embrace it. The great heart of Christendom would be stirred with a mighty gladness; an exultant shout would go through the camp of the weary hosts; the enemy would tremble, and the multitude of believers would suddenly become engirded as with triumphant strength from the everlasting arms of the Almighty. Looking down begets weakness and a love of earth. Looking up inspires courage, and hope, and might, and indicates where the heart is gone, and around whom love and hope are entwined. Lift the drooping head, O weary watcher.389 With strained eyes and with ears intent, catch the first signal of the trumpet blast. Look up, for lo it soundeth, and the bell on the chronometer of coming eternity is about to strike, ONE! To the last minute keep the HEAD UP!—World’s Crisis. “Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal: The Lord knoweth them that are his. And let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.” The rendering of Dr. Macknight gives the following reading on this verse: “‘The Lord will make known them who are his.’ These are nearly the words which Moses spake to Korah and his company, who endeavored to overturn his authority. Num. xvi, 6. The Lord will show who are his, which the LXX have translated as the apostle hath done. “‘The Lord will make known them who are his.’” In accordance with this the prophet says, “Then shall ye return and discern between the righteous and the wicked; between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.” Mal. iii, 18. It will be a glorious thing, in the coming day, to be owned of God. “But of that day and hour, knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in Heaven; neither the Son, but the Father.” Mark xiii, 32. “It may be seen strange that the Son, who declared that he would come, and who, in the prophecy, had been pointing out the various signs by which his disciples might foresee his approach, should not have known the day and the hour, nor the particular time of his own coming. This difficulty some endeavor to obviate by supposing that our Lord spake of himself here only as a man. But the name Father following that of Son, shows that he spake of himself as the Son of God, and not as the son of man. Besides, the gradation of the sentence seems to forbid this solution. For the Son being mentioned after the angels, and before the Father, is thereby declared to be more excellent than the angels, which he is not in respect to his human nature, and therefore cannot be supposed to speak of himself in that nature.” “The proper translation of the passage, I think, affords a better solution. The Greek word here seems to have the force of the Hebrew conjugation, hiphil, which in verbs denoting action, making that action, whatever it is, pass to another. Wherefore the word, which properly signifies I know, used in the sense of the subjugation hiphil, signifies I make another to know, I declare. The word has this meaning without dispute in 1 Cor. ii, 2: I determined to know nothing among you, that is, I determined to make known, to declare nothing among you but Jesus Christ. So likewise in the text, ‘But of that day and that hour none maketh you to know, no, not the angels, neither the Son, but the Father only.’”—Macknight. INCIDENTS IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN.
By James Sawyer
In the county of Osceola, one hundred and twenty-three miles north, and eight miles west of the city of Battle Creek, at a distance of thirty miles from a post office, the way the road runs, is a family by the name of Reames. Mr. Reames moved into the woods in 1867, and made claim to a lot of Government land for a homestead. He owned an ox team when they arrived at their new home. The team had to be sold to get subsistence for the family until something could be raised on the land. But the purchaser of the team did not, or could not, pay as agreed. What was the consequence? As their supply began to grow small, Mr. Reames started out to the settlement to try and get some more food. It would take three days to go and return. A small parcel of food was left for the mother and three children. There was barely enough for the children, the mother saw at once. They proposed to divide with their mother, but she refused, and when they would eat their scanty meal she would leave the house. But that mother, who trusted in God for support, knew that he would provide for her. Early in life had she committed herself to the care of Him whose eye is over the needy. She plead with God in this time of trial, that she might be supported until her husband should return. Her mind was directed to feed upon browse, and for three days that was her only food. Her husband did return, but as he reached the door he fell exhausted with his load of 40 pounds of meal. The family soon had to leave their new home and work in a lumber shanty, until enough could be earned to support them while they cleared a parcel of land, and raise sufficient to last them until the writer visited them in February, 1868. A knowledge of the above facts was kept to themselves; but in a few weeks Mrs. Reames received a letter from her sister in Indiana inquiring if she was in want; for she had a dream that troubled her. She had dreamed that her sister was reduced to such a low estate that she had to live on browse. As I sat by their fireside and listened to the above account, I felt that Joel's prophecy was verified, and that this family were probably under the ministration of holy angels. I spent the Sabbath at Mrs. Reame's. Her husband was then away in the lumberwoods at work. Both she and her husband now welcome the REVIEW AND HERALD. She asks prayers for her family. She delights to teach her children daily to pray and thank God for his kindness. She believes the Lord will soon come in the clouds of heaven. Mr. Reames is not a professor, but reads the REVIEW with interest. May the Lord help them to endure. How many such lonely ones are scattered up and down in the earth for whom we should feel an interest at the throne of grace. ARE THE CHURCH PEOPLE ALIVE, OR DEAD?
By Rev. T. M. Thorpe
THE work of evangelizing the world, the church of God always presents to her children at the hallowed season of advent. A Saviour coming to us makes us anxious to seek out our brother Simon, and bring him also. How touching the words of Jesus: “Therefore saith he unto them, the harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth laborers into his harvest. Go your ways; behold I send you forth as lambs among wolves. Carry neither purse, nor scrip, nor shoes.” “He that receiveth you, receiveth me.” The field is the world! Taking even the corruptions of Rome, and the heresies of Unitarian and other like sectarian denominations as deserving the name of Christian, there are, notwithstanding, at this late day, after nineteen centuries, four Pagan and Mahometan infidels to one single nominal follower of Jesus of Nazareth. But when we reflect how many there are who only in the most general way “profess and call themselves Christians,” not being in any practical sense united to any branch of the church, well may we ask, “Are there few that be saved?” And when we reflect how many of those who are apparently joined to the Lord have rebelled against him, or, having itching ears, have heaped to themselves teachers in opposition to the true Catholic and Apostolic Church and ministry of sixteen hundred years, well may we tremble and add, “Many are called, but few are chosen.” Or, those other, “When the Son of Man cometh shall he find faith?” Luxury need never plead with her votaries. Every heart and every purse are open when the Devil presents his enticements. Civilized man drinks every year 30,000,000 bottles of genuine, and 15,000,000 of spurious, champagne; or nearly $200,000,000 worth. Yet the total expenses of Christian propagation may be roughly estimated at not more than that sum, if half as much. Tobacco is nauseous to every unsophisticated sense of man, a medicine as strychnine is a medicine; a concentrated drop of whose essential principle, if placed on the tongue of a dog, will cause him to die in convulsions; but, on the highest medical authority, the origin of nine out of every ten cases of real heart disease, original or inherited. It destroys the power of mastication by draining the salivary glands, and by its exciting properties is the gentleman-usher of intoxicating drink. So long ago as 1850, there were raised in the United States, 199,000,000 pounds, or what would now be equivalent to about $200,000,000 worth, and it is safe to say that the present consumption is nearly $300,000,000 worth. Suppose an ordinary case: A business man uses four, or sometimes many more, cigars a day, worth fifteen cents each, or fifteen or twenty dollars a pound; this, of itself, leaving out pipes, chewing-tobacco, lost time and lost opportunities, at the very lowest estimate is $200 a year. Now there is scarcely a parish that does not contain half a dozen such men, who might, if they would, give a handsome support to their overworked, uncomplaining clergymen. Do such facts as these indicate that so-called Christian men yet realize that “the field is the world,” and that they are sent in as laborers, to occupy till the Lord come? Even the little dove for Christianity is heavily loaded by Satan. All the money together that they contribute for foreign missionary effort, would barely commission one frigate for a month’s service. But pride and ambition use two or three hundred. It is, therefore, not to be wondered at, when we read that there recently sailed out of Boston a ship for Africa, whose principal manifest consisted of so many missionaries, and so many barrels of New England rum. The eagle recognized its own plume in the arrow that drank up its blood. Even so, Christianity is wounded by lukewarmness and schism in the house of its friends. Could this people be suddenly transplanted into the interior of Guinea, where men go naked and die as the beasts die; where life and property are not safe from a tyrant’s caprice for an instant; where virtue is unknown, and gratitude a word unrepresented in the language, they might honor their priests, and, as business men merely, liberally contribute to that conservative faith to which they are indebted for all that makes home dear. Zaccheus gave a half of his goods to feed the poor. So the Lord blessed him, and he was “chief among the Pharisees,” and a “rich” man. Even so now God takes away the one talent of the slothful and unfaithful servant, and gives it to him that hath two. You are “poor”? So you always will be so long as you neglect the “place of God’s honor.” Nine-tenths of the taxes of this country for the prevention and cure of crime, are paid by true Catholics and Protestants; nine-tenths of the expenses for the same are incurred upon Roman Catholics. So it will ever be. The world will sooner or later awake to the fact that even in a temporal point of view it is better to sustain our churches willingly, than to be forced to build State prisons. We squander $600,000,000 per annum on strong drink, receiving $48,000,000 “revenue.” But could you see on the other side of some great balance-sheet the crime, ruin, desolation, lunacy and poverty therefrom flowing, the $48,000,000 had better have been raised in direct taxes for God’s church ten, yea, forty times over. Truly saith the apostle, “The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.” Out of India’s 160,000,000 people, 213,182 are converts. And this is but a specimen of the fearful lack of Christian effort everywhere. Says St. Augustine: “The Old Testament Scriptures gave the promise of salvation; the New Testament Scriptures give us a Saviour.” And yet are we grateful? Let us see. The Jews, on the authority of Dr. Abel Stevens, gave at least one-third of all their property for benevolent purposes. And yet there never was a nation with fewer poor citizens. The Mormons, on joining their society, give up one-tenth of their actual property, and ten per cent. of their income ever after. We contribute $18 per year for each communicant. Allowing a due proportion to simple attendants, the rich might give ten times as much, or $180, and not feel the deprivation. Are we dead or are we alive? Do we read the Bible with simple faith, or do we merely glide over its surface? Does it penetrate our every-day life, or is it as “the face of strange children?” Let our hearts and lives answer. Suppose a congregation of even one hundred and fifty should average, as it easily might, fifty cents on Sunday in the plate collections. That would be $75 a week—enough to well support any parish, for a while, at all events. We shall have free churches and more of them when God sends us faith in him. As it is, our benevolence is, first, not of a conscientious, religious character; nor, second, “every first day of the week,” as the apostle has enjoined. “The field is the world.” With one fact, dear brethren, depart in peace. The expenses of our late war were about $5,200,000,000—that is, twice the present national debt, for every State, county, and family has a debt of its own. This would have built 520,000 plain, substantial wooden churches; costing $10,000 and seating 1,000 each, or 520,000,000 people—just one-half of the population of the globe, which would doubtless make the other half Christians also. “Pray ye, therefore, the Lord of the harvest that he would send forth laborers into the harvest,” for “the field is the world.”—Sermon by Rev. T. M. Thorpe, at West Hoboken, N. J. The following lines were written by Mrs. Ellen M. H. Gates, author of “Your Mission,” which Mr. Philip Phillips’ sweet rendering has made so beautiful. Such beautiful, beautiful hands,
They're neither white nor small,
And you, I know, would scarcely think
That they were fair at all.
I've looked on hands whose form, and hue,
A sculptor's dream might be,
Yet are these aged, wrinkled hands
Most beautiful to me. Such beautiful, beautiful hands—
Though heart were weary and sad,
These patient hands kept toiling on,
That the children might be glad.
I almost weep, as looking back
To childhood's distant day,
I think how these hands rested not
When mine were at their play. Such beautiful, beautiful hands,
They're growing feeble now;
For time and pain have left their mark
On hand, and heart, and brow.
Alas! alas! the nearing time,
And the sad, sad day to me,
When 'neath the daisies, out of sight,
These hands will folded be. But, oh! beyond this shadow-lamp,
Where all is bright and fair,
I know full well these dear old hands
Will palms of victory bear.
Where crystal streams, through endless years
Flow over golden sands,
And where the old grow young again
I'll clasp my mother's hands.