GREAT public interest is concentrated upon the present struggle of Germany with the papal power, and the free discussion of the relations of that power to the allegiance of the citizen to his own Government, now in progress in England. Mr. Gladstone’s manifesto has placed the vital question involved squarely before the English people, and not less plainly before all the people of Europe. The ingenious protest and denial of Archbishop Manning and other adherents of His Holiness, have failed to do away with the charge of the ex-Premier, simply because it cannot be done away with. The assumption of supreme authority over the consciences of men by a man who claims infallibility, is one which no Government constituted like the British can tolerate with either dignity or safety. The German Government is right in principle on this question, whether it be just and wise in its measures or not; and Mr. Gladstone occupies a position that is impregnable. The dogma of papal infallibility is an offense to the common sense of the world, and the doctrine of supremacy which grows out of it as naturally as a tree grows out of the soil, is a challenge and an insult to every Government that holds and protects a Catholic subject within its limits.
This would seem to be too plain a matter to call for argumentation. To claim supremacy in matters of conscience, and to hold, at the same time, the power of deciding on questions of conscience—of declaring what is right and what is wrong, in all things, civil as well as religious—is to claim the supreme and all-subordinating allegiance of every man who belongs to the Catholic communion in every country of the world. How any fair-minded man can deny this is beyond our comprehension; and the only reason why the matter does not make as great a commotion in America as it does in Great Britain and Germany, is that, as a State, we have no connection with the church. Practically, the matter is of very little importance to us. The Catholic church has the same toleration here that the Methodist church has—no more, no less. Our Government simply protects it in its liberty, and sees that its own laws are obeyed, irrespective of all church communions. We come into no collision with it, because we assume no church prerogatives and functions. England has a State church, and it cannot tolerate the existence of two authorities that assume supremacy within the same kingdom; but England is weak in its position, because itself assumes to be an authority in matters of religion.
Theoretically, the sovereign of Great Britain “can do no wrong.” Here is a doctrine of “infallibility;” and though it has no such range as that of the papacy, and is applied rather to the breaking than the making of law, it is just as absurd as that against which Mr. Gladstone inveighs so mightily. There the state undertakes to meddle with the church. It supports and in many ways directs it, and exercises functions that are just as illegitimate and presumptuous as those assumed by the pope with relation to the different States. The same may be said of Prussia; and the pope has good right to say, if he chooses to do so: “Take your hand from religion, and I will take mine from the State. So long as you choose to make a State affair of religion you must not blame me for doing the same. Give me back my kingdom and my temporalities. Shape your policy to the necessities of my church. Until you do so, I will define the limits of your power, and of my own, as it seems best to me, and best for the interests I have in charge.”
For ourselves, we rejoice to witness the present struggle. In the progress of the world, and in the free development of the power of Christianity, it was necessary that it should come; and its coming marks an epoch and demonstrates an advance. Just so soon as the nations of the world can comprehend the fact that the kingdom of Christ is not a kingdom of this world; that it is within men, and is not in any way complicated with civil organization and administration,—just so soon will all strife between the State and church cease. The pope, if report be true, has recently said that the only country where he is truly and practically respected is the United States. The reason is, that the state simply minds its own business, and lets him alone. When other States attend only to their civil functions, and let the church, in all its denominations, take care of itself, they will care no more about the dogma of papal infallibility than they do about the civil dogma of regal infallibility. They will not even take the trouble to “speak disrespectfully of the equator.” It is now essentially a fight between the head of the greatest of the churches and the civil heads of the smaller churches. We have no such head in America, and therefore we don’t care. Particularly, we do not care how soon the fight proceeds to its predestined end—the disestablishment of all the churches of Europe. That is the natural solution of the difficulty, and the only possible one. It may come through “a great religious war,” which the wise are foretelling, but which real wisdom will avoid, by putting away, at once and forever, its cause.
The ox is a strong and excellent beast, but he cannot be yoked with the horse, who is equally strong and excellent. The horse cannot work according to his law without wearing out the ox, and the ox cannot work according to his law without degrading the horse, and cheating him of his power. The church and the State can no more be yoked together with natural advantage than the ox and the horse. Their nature, wants, modes of action, and drift of power, are utterly different, and in the long run the ox will drag down and degrade the horse. To undertake to unite the machinery of the State and the church is, in the end, to degrade the latter. To make the church in any way subordinate to the shifting necessities and caprices of politics is a practical desecration of holy things. We believe that no State church ever existed, whether presided over by pope or king, that did not become corrupt, or so nearly dead as to lose its aggressiveness and healthfulness as a spiritual power.
Mr. Gladstone, and his friends, have only to labor earnestly for the disestablishment of the Church of England, to lose all practical interest in the papal dogmas, and the papal assumptions. By doing this, they will at least be in a position, as Englishmen, to oppose them with some show of consistency.—Dr. J. G. Holland, in Scribner for February.
The Signs of the Times.
All who watch religious movements must be impressed with the evidences of unrest almost everywhere abounding. In Roman Catholic countries, this has been apparent ever since the dogma of papal infallibility was promulgated—not only nor mainly in the Old Catholic movement, which of itself has had but little weight and secured but a feeble following, but in the bold stand taken against papal assumptions by civil governments. These oppositions are not on the part of despotic governments representing but one will, but from governments in which legislative action, reflecting largely the will of the people, has force. There can be no doubt that as the people grow in intelligence they are losing their reverence for ecclesiastical authority. If in this country and England a counter current seems to have set in toward that church, it is mainly with a class not in sympathy with the spirit of the age. Among Protestants, the tokens of dissatisfaction and revolution are seen on every hand. In Germany, Rationalism is completely unsettling the orthodox faith and supplanting it. In England, the established church is distracted with ritualistic and broad church tendencies. In this country, the Episcopal Church is seriously agitated, and unless compromise measures are adopted to conciliate the Low Church wing, there will probably be a considerable defection in favor of the Reformed Episcopal Church. The recent Church Congress, held in the city of New York has initiated a movement designed to disseminate more liberal principles and unite the various elements of opposition to Ritualism. The Presbyterians are ill at ease. They have largely outgrown some of the doctrines of the Westminster Confession, and can only avoid rupture by winking at flagrant departures from the letter and spirit of a creed which they fear to revise, yet cannot enforce. The Baptists are agitated with the question of open communion—a question that involves much more than appears on the surface. The opposition to their prevalent teaching and practice on that question is growing more decided and evidently finds large sympathy in some quarters. Among the Congregationalists, if there are no marked tokens of discontent, it is because there is no attempt to press severe theological tests. Were such an attempt made, it would develop wide-spread opposition, especially in the West. Their ministry has, in the last few years, gone rapidly away from the old Calvinistic teaching.
The Friends are so rapidly changing that in a few years it will be impossible to identify them with the old-time Quakers. Regular preaching—a paid ministry—organs in Sunday-school—an abandonment of their rules respecting marriage and dress—protracted meetings, with the popular revival appliances: the growth of all these proves that they are drifting rapidly away from the old landmarks. Universalists are seriously discussing a new departure, in which future punishment shall be emphasized, and the whole style of preaching be made more evangelical. Adventists are full of debate and flourishing more in the direction of schism than in any other.
It is clearly evident that we are to witness new and radical changes. Many sects must change their ground, or suffer heavy loss and witness the upspringing of rival sects. Creed authority is rapidly waning. Ecclesiastical bonds are losing their sacredness. Speculative doctrines and ecclesiastical rites are coming to be rated at their true value. But to what is all this tendency? Is it opening the way for the restoration of original Christianity—a return to the simple, spiritual religion of the New Testament—the pure faith in Jesus, unity of spirit, the catholic fellowship, the brotherly love, the deep humility, the holy living, the genuine humanity and broad philanthropy of the original church of God? We wish we could speak more hopefully at this point. It would be the greatest joy of our heart to be able to say that we can see in all this breaking up of established faiths and practices—this threatened deluge of doubt and rebellion—a bright promise of return to the faith and practice of the apostolic church. But we cannot say it. Doubtless there are many individual minds and hearts that will be won to this simple faith and practice. But the general drift does not look to us to be in this direction. It is the assertion of individualism against ecclesiasticism—the protest of bound souls against the tyranny of ecclesiastical and theological systems—the advancement of the claims of practical religion against those of doctrinal theology, of humanity against creed orthodoxy, and of liberalism against sectarian narrowness and bigotry. But while, negatively, it has much force in its denials and objections, positively, in its aims and teachings, it gives little promise of good. It threatens to sweep away divine as well as human authority, positive Christian faith along with human dogmas, divine ordinances as well as human rites; and to establish a kind of sentimental Catholicism that shall embrace all of generous heart and upright life, with but feeble and scarcely more than formal emphasis on the faith and obedience to which the word of God calls us.
The letter of the New Testament is to be held in little esteem. A huge license of interpretation is to be granted, so that it may be allegorized, or spiritualized, or rationalized, until the offense of the cross shall cease, and the rebellion of human reason and human pride against the plain utterances of the word of God shall be sufficiently propitiated to allow men of no faith and of any faith to unite in some sort of human and social compact, sustained by a style of worship and of preaching marked chiefly by such aesthetical, philosophical, and classical attractions as will make the church a desirable place of entertainment. The stone of stumbling and rock of offense is to be chiselled and polished and wrought into a statue of classic beauty and elegance.—Cincinnati “Christian Standard” of Oct. 17.
Be a Bible Christian.
By M. A. M.
EIGHTEEN hundred and seventy-four is in the past. The old year has given place to the new, and fair and unspotted lie before us the unsoiled pages of the year eighteen hundred and seventy-five. As we look back over the past year, we see it strewed all along with broken resolutions, and we have oftener been overcome than the overcomer. Shall we not do better this year than we did last, dear reader? If so, let us resolve to be Bible Christians; that is, do what the Bible requires, avoid what the Bible forbids, and accept all that the Bible promises.
Young Christians are apt to look around and observe how others, professing Christianity, live; how far, and in what thing, they conform to the world; what duties are considered important, and how many it will answer to omit. From this they form a judgment as to how much is expected of them; and if they succeed in meeting these expectations, they are very apt to think they have done enough. They may not do all this deliberately, but they naturally and imperceptibly fall in with the current. Never was there a greater mistake. It seems to me that of all the dangers which beset the path of the young Christian, this is the greatest. Let each young convert take the Bible for his guide, resolving in the strength of the Lord to be a Bible Christian. Do not look to this or that professor as an example, but to a more perfect pattern—our divine Lord.
The twelfth chapter of Romans, the thirteenth chapter of the first book of Corinthians, and the Sermon on the Mount, give a full-length portraiture of the Bible Christian. No doubt you have read them many times, but let me ask you to read them again. Perhaps after reading these scriptures carefully, you are ready to shrink back, and to say, “How can I undertake to come up to so high a standard.” True, the standard is high, but our best efforts fall so much below what we undertake that if the standard be not an elevated one we shall never attain to any degree of excellence in the Christian course.
Soon the heavens will depart as a scroll when it is rolled together, and all, both small and great, shall stand before God, and be judged by the statute book—the Bible. If we expect to stand acquitted in that great day, we must now be Bible Christians.
M. A. M.
Opium—Fearful Facts.
Until 1840 our importation of opium did not exceed the proper medicinal demand for the drug. We used in that year about 24,000 pounds of it. In 1870 we imported 154,841 pounds; 1872, over 250,000. The Chinese demand for opium prepared for smoking accounts for about one-eighth of this. Three-eighths are absorbed in prescriptions—prescriptions which are too often recklessly written, as we shall show hereafter. This leaves fifty per cent, or about 125,000 pounds of poison, unaccounted for. The books of wholesale drug houses in the East show heavy sales of opium to the country dealers. The habit of opium-eating seems to prevail chiefly among women. This fact may explain the great percentage of farmers’ wives in lunatic asylums. The author of “The Opium Habit” estimates that there are 80,000 or 100,000 habitual opium eaters in the country. There are somewhat precise returns, however, only from the State of statistics—Massachusetts. The apothecaries in the smaller towns of the commonwealth report an alarming state of things. We subjoin a few notes furnished by different druggists to the Board of Health.
Those addicted to opium are all females.
Several nervous women take opium here.
I think the use of opium has slightly increased, mostly among females.
There are probably half a dozen opium-eaters here, all females but one.
One opium-eater in town—a woman.
The use of opium has greatly increased, especially among women.
The causes of this alarming habit of self-poisoning are several. The taste is often implanted in early infancy by the use of the drugged sirups which foolish mothers give their restless babies. The Massachusetts Board of Health indorses the author of “Opium Habit and Opium Appetite” in his statement that the “basis of what is known as Winslow’s Soothing Sirup is morphia.” A recent analysis of a sample of this medicine gave one grain of the alkaloid to an ounce of the sirup, the dose for an infant, as directed, being four or five times that usually regarded as safe. Another cause is the rashness of physicians in prescribing the drug. Out of fifty apothecaries, fourteen mention this as a great reason of the growth of the habit. The opiate treatment of neuralgia is very common and very mischievous. This disease, by the way, first led DeQuincey to use the deadly drug. The third great cause is the denial of the natural craving for alcohol. Man, balked of one stimulant, takes another. “It is a significant fact that both in England and in this country the abstinence movement was almost immediately followed by an increased consumption of opium. The English importation doubled within five years after the outbreak of the movement. When the teetotalism gained ground in America, our importation, although the price of opium had just increased fifty per cent, rose in proportion of 3.5 to 1.” Still, in his “Therapeutics and Materia Medica,” says, “The habit of opium-chewing has become very prevalent in the British Islands, especially since the use of alcoholic drinks has been to so great an extent abandoned.” Morehouse, in his “History of Inebriating Liquors,” declares that the Mahometans began to use opium when wine was forbidden them. In Turkey, increased demand for wine, of late years, has been accompanied by diminished demand for opium. In hot countries, opium and similar substances are very generally used in place of alcoholic stimulants. These instances establish a probability that opium and alcohol conflict with each other. The use of one is apt to involve the disuse of the other. A number of Massachusetts apothecaries take this view. One Boston druggist says, “Have but one customer, and that a noted temperance lecturer.”
The prevalence of the habit among women is probably explained by the unhappiness of most of them, the mental stagnation, the liability to nervous depression, and in the country, the seclusion and the grinding physical work. Moreover, women are excluded by public opinion from the beer hall and the dram-shop, and they are very subservient to that opinion. Their stimulants must be secret. Opium, in its various forms of laudanum, paregoric, and sulphate of morphia, can be taken readily in private and without interruption of duty.—Chicago Tribune.
Preserving the Spirit of Prayer in Daily Labor
LABOR to preserve the spirit of prayer when not engaged in the act.
The Bible vs. the Koran.
In Stanley’s History of the Eastern Church, pp. 369-377, we find a very beautiful and striking contrast drawn between the sacred book of Christians and that of Mohammedans—the Bible and the Koran. Many enemies of God’s word in these days affect to find a contrast between the Bible and other books which claim to be sacred, unfavorable to the former. A candid examination will every time show that their adverse decisions arise from the opposition of their unsanctified natures to the pure teaching and holy precepts of the Old and New Testaments. The more closely the subject is examined, the more striking does the superiority of our blessed Bible appear. What is true of the Bible as compared with the Koran, is true of it, in a general sense, as compared with all other so-called sacred books. It alone, as seen in the variety of its topics, the wide range of its subjects, the sublimity of its themes, the holiness of its teaching, the harmony of its different parts, though written by so many different men, and in so many different ages of the world, and its adaptability to all nations and to all time, bears the impress of the divine hand. Let us more fervently love, more cheerfully study, and more closely follow, this Book of books. Mr. S. says:—
“The Koran has special claims on our attention as the sacred book of the world which can best be compared with our own, and which, by that comparison, furnishes not merely an evidence to the Divine supremacy of the Bible, but also brings into the strongest relief the true character of the contents and authority of the Scriptures, in contradistinction to the modern theories which have sometimes been formed concerning them.
* * * * * * * * * *
“But the contrasts are far greater than the resemblances. I do not speak of the acknowledged superiority of the Christian doctrine, morals, or philosophy. For this, let a single instance suffice. What is there in the Koran that can be named for a moment, as a proof of inspiration, in comparison with St. Paul’s description of charity? I confine myself to the contrast of form between the two books. The Koran shows us what the Bible would be if narrowed down to our puny measurements, and what in its own divine and universal excellence it actually is. In the comparison between the two we clearly see how the Koran is marked by those attributes which we sometimes falsely ascribe to the Bible; how the peculiarities which we are sometimes afraid of acknowledging in the Bible are exactly those excellences which most clearly distinguish it from the Koran.
“The Koran is uniform in style and mode of expression. It is true, as I have just remarked, that when chronologically arranged it exhibits to us, though in an indistinct form, the phases through which the mind of that one person passed. It is, as Mahomet’s followers called it, ‘his character.’ It is, in this respect, as the Old Testament might be if it were composed of the writings of the single prophet Isaiah or Jeremiah, or the New Testament if it were composed of the writings of the single apostle St. Paul. It is what the Bible as a whole would be, if from its pages were excluded all individual personalities of its various writers, all differences of time and place and character. But the peculiarity both of the Hebrew and of the Christian Scriptures is, that they are not confined to one place, or time, or person. They abound in incidents, so varied as to give to the whole book that searching application to every condition and character of life which has been a principal source of its endless edification. The differences between the several prophets and historians of the Old Testament, between the several evangelists and apostles of the New Testament, are full of meaning. On the face of each book we see what each book was intended to be and to teach. In each portion of each book we see what is prose, and what is poetry; what is allegory, or parable, or drama, or vision, or prophecy; what is chronicle, or precept, or narrative. The Bible is in this way not only its own interpreter, but its own guide. The styles of Scripture are so many Heaven-planted sign-posts to set our feet in the right direction. There is no other book which, within so short a compass, contains such ‘many-colored [πολυποίκιλος] wisdom,’ such a variety of minds, characters and situations.
“The Koran represents not merely one single person, but one single stage of society. It is, with a few exceptions, purely Arabian. It is what the Bible would be, if all external influences were obliterated, and it was wrapped up in a single phase of Jewish life. But in fact the Bible, though the older portion of it is strictly Oriental, and though the latest portion of it belongs not to the modern, but to the ancient, and now extinct, world, yet even in its outward forms contains within it the capacities for universal diffusion. Emanating from Palestine, the thoroughfare of the Asiatic and European nations, itself a country of the most diverse elements of life and nature; it contains allusions to all those general topics which find a response everywhere. Whilst the Koran (with a very few exceptions) notices no phenomena except those of the desert, no form of society except Arabian life, the Bible includes topics which come home to almost every condition of life and almost every climate. The sea, the mountains, the town; the pastoral, the civilized, the republican, the regal state; can all find their expression in its words. Women emerge from their Oriental seclusion and foreshadow the destinies of their sex in European Christendom. And not only so, but Egypt, Chaldea, Persia, Greece, Rome, all come into contact with its gradual formation; so that, alone of sacred books, it avowedly includes the words and thoughts of other religions than its own; alone of Oriental books, it has an affinity of aspect with the North and the West; alone almost, of religious books, its story is constantly traversing the haunts of men and cities. The Koran ‘stays at home.’ The Bible is the book of the world, the companion of every traveler; read even when not believed, necessary even when unwelcome.
“The Koran claims a uniform completeness of materials. It incorporates, indeed, some of the earlier Jewish, Christian, and Arabian traditions, but it professes to be one book. It has no degrees of authority in its several chapters, except in the few instances of direct abrogation of precepts. With these exceptions, it is entirely stationary. It has no progress, and therefore no sequence, and no coherence. The Bible, in all these respects, stands on what some modern writers would deem a lower level, but on what is in fact a far higher one. Its composition extends over two thousand eventful years. In most of its books are imbedded fragments of some earlier work, which have served to keep alive and to exercise the industry and acuteness of critics. It is not one Testament, but two. It is not one book, but many. The very names by which it was called in early times indicate the plurality of its parts. The word ‘Bible,’ which by a happy solecism expresses the unity of its general design, is of far later date and lower authority than the words ‘Scriptures, The Books, Biblia Sacra,’ by which it was called for the first twelve centuries of the Christian era, and which expressed the still grander and bolder idea of its diversity. The most exact definition which it gives of its own inspiration is, that it is ‘of sundry times and in diverse manners.’ In the fact and in the recognition of this gradual, partial, progressive nature of the Biblical revelation, we find the best answer to most of its difficulties and the best guarantee of its perpetual endurance.
“The Koran contains the whole religion of Mahomet. It is to the Mussulman, in one sense, far more than the Bible is to the Christian. It is his code of laws, his creed, and (to a great extent) his liturgy. The Bible, on the other hand, demands for its full effect, the institutions, the teaching, the art, the society of Christendom. It propagates itself by other means than the mere multiplication of its printed or written copies. Sacred pictures, as is often said, are the Bibles of the unlettered. Good men are living Bibles. Creeds are Bibles in miniature. Its truths are capable of expansion and progression, far beyond the mere letter of their statement. The lives and deeds, and, above all, the One Life and the One Work which it records, spread their influence almost irrespectively of the written words in which they were originally recorded. It is not in the close limitation of the stream to its parent spring, but in the wide overflow of its waters, that the true fountain of Biblical inspiration proves its divine abundance and vitality.
“‘Mohammed’s truth lay in a holy book,
Christ’s in a Sacred Life.
“‘So while the world rolls on from change to change,
And realms of thought expand,
The letter stands without expanse or range,
Stiff as a dead man’s hand.
“‘While, as the life-blood fills the growing form,
The Spirit Christ has shed
Flows through the ripening ages fresh and warm,
More felt than heard or read.’”
The Responsibilities of Our Work.
By Stephen Nelson Haskell
The cause of present truth is an aggressive one. It presents before us a definite object. The third angel’s message of Rev. 14:9–12, is designed to accomplish a special work in the earth. It is to be proclaimed before many nations, kings, tongues, and peoples, that the world may be warned of its impending doom.
It has seemed fitting to the Spirit of God to select this country as the place in which this work should commence and the burden of it should more especially rest. Doubtless there are reasons for this. The character of this government and the nature of its laws are such that there is an attractive influence which invites the oppressed from every despotic nation on the globe. Individuals come here from different parts of the world in search of religious and political liberty, and in many respects are not disappointed. So of this country it may be said that the civilized world is here represented.
Individuals of these different nationalities are embracing the truth, and thus they become avenues through which the truth finds its way to their native land. It places a responsibility of no small magnitude upon those who believe that we are giving the last notes of warning to a dying world.
Probably among those who will read these lines there will be individuals who have friends in every part of the world wherever the English language is spoken. We have in our midst channels through which the rays of light might find their way to thousands who now sit in darkness in different parts of the earth. Why has God thus arranged this matter if it be not for this very purpose?
To every one of God’s servants there has been at least one talent committed which the Judge of all the earth will require with usury in the day of final reckoning. If our lives have been such that we have no influence for good over those with whom we have been and are acquainted, we alone are responsible for it. If we excuse ourselves by saying we can do nothing in this cause by our means or our influence or by sending the publications which have been so carefully prepared by those whom the Lord has called for this purpose, and then made ready to our hand by the Tract Societies, we shall find in the day of Judgment that we have digged in the earth and have hid our Lord’s money. Truly it is said that we are not doing one-twentieth of what we might do, did we feel the responsibility that rests upon us. Shall we not as a people wake up to the importance of this matter and like a well-disciplined army put forth more of a united effort to prepare the way of the angel which shall come down from Heaven and the earth be lightened with his glory? Rev. 18:1.
Each Conference of S. D. Adventists has adopted a system which places our publications in the hands of every member of our churches, if they will become connected with our missionary work; so that wherever in any portion of this earth, whether among the Norwegians, Danes, Swedes, French, Germans, or those who speak the English language, there are persons interested to read. They can be sent to them by their friends in this country. Also especial attention should be paid to correspondence by the proper persons with those who may become interested even if we may not be acquainted in the flesh. Every opening should be sought whereby the attention of individuals may be favorably called to the subject of present truth.
We do not say scatter the tracts promiscuously without any reference to whether persons may be interested to read or not. But we should individually feel that God has laid upon us a responsibility of not only doing something, but doing that something in such a manner that God can bless the effort to the salvation of others.
Our responsibility does not cease in simply giving away a few tracts or in obtaining subscribers for our periodicals. Yet these are very important duties in the discharge of the responsibilities that rest upon us. Obtaining subscribers for our periodicals and a judicious distribution of our publications are one essential means of accomplishing the object we have in view; namely, to bring men and women to a saving knowledge of the truth.
We must have the Spirit of God to accompany our efforts if we would be successful. There should be a living connection between Heaven and our own souls. We should be men and women that walk and talk with God and that can recognize and understand the voice of God and tell when good cometh.
We are placed here as sentinels, not only to guard the sacredness of the truth by a well-ordered life and a godly conversation, but to seek every avenue by which the truth may reach the hearts of others. Every lawful means should be seized upon with courage to carry the glorious light of God’s truth into regions beyond, and make favorable impression upon honest minds.
There is no Conference of S. D. Adventists this side of the Rocky Mountains which presents a more promising missionary field than that of Wisconsin. I am informed by those who are acquainted with the facts that in this State there are thirteen distinct nations represented by settlements varying in number from hundreds to thousands, besides families of the native Russians, Prussians, and other nationalities, making, including our American people, over sixteen different nations represented here in this Conference.
Twelve of these nationalities are represented in the cause of the third angel’s message, and among all of these different people are those who understand our language as well as their own. The providence of God has thus prepared the way in a remarkable manner to prophesy before many nations, peoples, and tongues.
How shall we approach these companies in a manner that the seeds of present truth may be scattered throughout their midst and directly through them to their native land so that fruit may be gathered from fifteen or more different nations in Europe for the kingdom of God? This is a question of the most solemn importance. And what makes this matter still more interesting is the fact that the angel of mercy seems in an especial manner to be hovering over this State. Over one hundred have here embraced the truth since the camp-meeting in June, 1874. Two meeting-houses have been built, and others are in process of erection. And it is ascertained that the larger portion of the above number who have embraced the truth first became interested by the judicious distribution of publications and the Christian deportment of lonely individuals professing the truth. What is true of Wisconsin is true to a very great extent of Minnesota; and the same might be said, although in a more limited degree, of all our Conferences, especially those in the West.
In view of the work as it opens before us, we might well say, Who is sufficient for these things? Where are the young men and women that fear God who will devote their lives to a cause which has been purchased by the precious blood of Jesus Christ. The providence of God and his Holy Spirit call loudly for laborers to enter the great harvest field. The harvest truly is plenteous and the laborers are few; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that he would send forth laborers into his harvest.
The responsibilities of the Tract & Missionary Societies increase as avenues present themselves, through which the truth may reach others. Thirty thousand new readers of our periodicals are called for; and in those Conferences where29the Advent Tidende can be used, we suggest that this periodical help make up the quota of names apportioned to each Conference. In this country it can be sent to individuals when paid for by the Tract Societies for 50 cents; to Europe, with the postage added, for $1.00.
We suggest also that an especial effort be made by the tract workers to secure as many as possible of interested readers of those who are foreigners by birth, so they may become channels by which the truth may reach their native land. There should be a blending together of different nationalities in this work; for here we “are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and the household of God.”
If the brethren in Wisconsin who are laboring in word and doctrine, as well as tract and missionary workers, keep the spirit of sacrifice and union, and labor to the point, making God their trust, we expect much fruit will yet be seen through these representative men of other tongues. The same may be said of each Conference Tract Society. The work in which we are engaged is of the utmost importance. A great work must be done, and the time is short in which to do it. But it is the most sure and certain enterprise that men ever engaged in. Banks may suspend payment, railroad stock may fall in the market, currency may depreciate in value, be counterfeited, &c., &c.; but there is no failure in the cause of truth. “He that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal; that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together.” John 4:36. “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.” Ps. 126:5, 6.
The promise is not to them who go forth in a careless and indifferent manner, and recklessly engage in this work, but to them who feel the burden of souls and the sacredness of the cause of Christ. All such are invited to come to the great source of light and strength, and draw from the never-failing fountain that grace which is needed to discharge the responsibilities resting upon us.
We expect much from the careful selection of thirty thousand interested readers of our periodicals this winter. The REVIEW list at Battle Creek shows that hundreds have become permanent subscribers of our valuable denominational paper besides scores who have embraced the Sabbath of the Lord both in the old world and in this, including missionaries and professors in colleges as the result of the trial volume one year ago.
We therefore are encouraged to enter upon the enterprise of obtaining names this winter in a more careful and judicious manner expecting far greater results. God’s hand is in this work. From the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains we hear of success attending the labors of our licentiates where they have entered fields prepared by the effort of the Tract Society in sending our periodicals on trial, and distributing our publications. While I am writing at the house of Bro. Atkins he has returned from a field of labor where there was an interest awakened by reading, and reports that eight have fully committed themselves upon present truth by only ten days’ labor, men coming five miles on foot to hear. We rejoice to hear that many of our Conferences are fast filling the quota of names assigned them. Over one thousand sample copies of The Voice of Truth and Reformer have been sent out to the missionary workers to use in canvassing for the same. Let not the heart sink in discouragement nor the hand grow weary in this work. But with greater devotion to God and more consecration to his service let the work be pushed forward until it is completed; until the world is warned, and the saints are taken to their eternal reward.