WHY must we be affected by what people say? Why is it that popular opinion has so much weight with us? There are in this world many people who season their conversation with disagreeable sayings, unpleasant comments, uncomfortable insinuations.
In the first place, we must realize that certain remarks indicate certain conditions of our friends' minds, which, as we can not hope to alter, we must resign ourselves to. A disagreeable thing is either true in itself, or true as representing the speaker's state of feelings. All of us, no doubt, have friends, relatives, and acquaintances who think it quite a sufficient reason for saying a thing, that it is true. We ourselves know the state of mind in which we find a certain fact or opinion a load to be got rid of; and, under the gross mistake that all truth must be spoken, and convinced that truth, like murder, will out, we ourselves take the part of executioner. Most of us have suffered from the crude simplicity of some one who has acted the enfant terrible.
There are many who even turn friendship into a system of lawful and unpunishable impertinence. "Why did you tell that young lady her dress was very unbecoming?"
You say, "I really thought so."
It is, strange to say, noticeable in persons of this obtrusive candor that they have eyes for blemishes only. They are never impelled to tell pleasant truths. They seem always to hit upon the wrong thing and instinctively ferret out sore subjects.
We must care for the opinion of a person in order to have sayings of this sort keenly annoy us. A real expert in this art can hit one in his most vulnerable part, and send him off depressed and uncomfortable, without a word that can be fairly taken hold of.
If we should seek the cause of the unrest and unhappiness of most people, we would find that it came primarily from the fear of what people will say and what they will think of me, of my actions, and my surroundings. "So they say," is a common expression, and "they" will say anything and everything. "They" say things that break up families, crush hearts, blight hopes, and smother worthy aspirations. Never repeat those words, "So they say."
There are many who spend their entire lives in trying to conform to the opinions of others. What is there in opinion that we should bow down to it? It is man-made, merely human conjecture, and not necessarily true. Cast away all regard for opinion and you are saved much labor and suffering. Consider that everything is merely a matter of opinion, and opinion is in your power. Who can hinder you from casting it away? It is your God-given right to live in the greatest tranquillity of mind even if all the world cry out against you.
If you are doing your duty and living up to your highest light, whether ill-spoken of or praised, nothing which can be said concerning you can in the slightest degree change you. You are the same whether praised or blamed, and why then should you be elated or depressed by either? It is in the power of each soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquillity. You can live as on a mountain and still hear all the noise and turmoil in the valley.
Think every morning as soon as you awake, whether it makes any difference what another does, as long as you do what is just and right. Think as much as possible of the virtues of those about you, and never of their evil qualities. Cultivate the habit of searching as earnestly for good in everything as you have for evil. Remember, if we can not make ourselves perfect how then can we expect those about us to be perfection? We notice small things in others, and pass over great matters in ourselves.
How seldom we weigh ourselves in the same balance with our neighbors? We call to mind a man who was always finding fault with those about him. He had moved many times, but never found pleasant neighbors, and one day he remarked to his little daughter:—
"Mary, no one seems to understand or appreciate me, and the people next door are so very disagreeable I think we will move again."
The little girl looked up in his face and said, "But, papa, you will be there."
That is it, we think if people only treated us better, or had a higher opinion of us, we would be happy; but it is the "old man" within. "Nothing can bring you peace but yourself." Let us learn first to keep ourselves in peace, and then we shall know how to make peace among others; and remember ever that the most profitable lesson is a true knowledge of ourselves. Let us have that perfect love which shall overlook the faults of others, and which shall make us invincible to either praise or blame.
"What is man that Thou art mindful of him?" Say to thy soul in seasons of unrest, "What is that to thee? follow thou Me." There is but One whom we should strive to please, even the Father.
The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.
Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen;
Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay wither’d and strown.
For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed on the face of the foe as he pass’d;
And the eyes of the sleepers wax’d deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew still!
And there lay the steed with his nostrils all wide,
And through it there roll’d not the breath of his pride;
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beaten surf.
And there lay the rider, distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail;
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances uplifted, the trumpet unblown.
And the widows of Asshur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord.
—Byron.
THE SABBATH THE TEST OF OBEDIENCE.
By G. E. Fifield
THE present is but a continuation of the theme of my last article, as space forbade me to complete it then.
On earth, the highest type of Divinity is noble fatherhood. Jesus taught us to pray, "Our Father, who art in heaven."
In Christ's recorded words, oftener than any other name or title for God occur the sweet words, "My Father," and, "Your heavenly Father." It is scarcely too much to say that the whole teaching of Jesus was an effort to make men practically realize the fact of the divine Fatherhood.
Since God is the ideal Father, it follows that His government is but that of the loving, tender parent for his children.
The good father does not seek to ostentatiously display his authority, he does not arbitrarily command his child. His laws are but family regulations, given not merely to manifest his authority, but because they are absolutely necessary to the happiness and well-being of his children.
But while the father has some loving reason for every requirement, many of these reasons are as yet not apparent to the children.
The only reason he assumes the right to command them, is because they are children, and as yet not wise enough to know the best way. So far from seeking to keep them in a state of vassalage, where they will continually require to feel the restraining force of his laws, his one object is to so instil the principles of his government into their lives that they may become capable of self-government, or of absolute liberty. At the age of twenty-one, it is hoped that these principles may have been so written in the heart as to have become the inner actuating law of the life ever after. Then the outer parental restraint does not consciously fall off all at once, but it has unconsciously and imperceptibly become the law of the inner desires of the heart, leaving the child absolutely free to do as he pleases, since he now pleases to do only those things which are in harmony with the liberty and joy and peace of all the members of the family.
This is a perfect illustration of the divine government.
He required us all to give to Him, the one Father, our supreme love and worship, not only because He loved us and it was the only natural, normal attitude of the soul to love Him, but also that by that common love of the one all Father, He might forever unite us all in one loving family of brothers and sisters.
Image-worship was forbidden because He foresaw that by it men would get to worshiping different gods, and so disregard and deny the universal brotherhood.
An image also is a creed in marble, holding the mind to its present conceptions of God instead of leaving it free to forever progress to higher, nobler thoughts of Him. That holy name must not be taken vainly or lightly upon the lips, lest it lose its power to lift all hearts into the attitude of reverent, loving, brotherly praise, so bringing them nearer to God and nearer to each other.
The Sabbath was the sign that the only true God was the Creator, so if all men continued to worship the Creator only, as the one Father, the brotherhood could never be broken.
Then, too, there is an infinity of beauty in every flower, which, with all our microscopes, we can never fathom.
How, then, if we worship the Creator only, can we expect to ever fathom the spiritual beauty of Him who made the flower, or hold ourselves other than ever ready to receive higher, truer, more loving thoughts of Him, that shall bring us all nearer together, and nearer to His great heart?
To honor the father and the mother is necessary to the happiness of every family.
"Thou shalt not kill." This guards the joy of living. "Thou shalt not commit adultery." This guards our sacred domestic happiness. "Thou shalt not steal." This guards the joy of honest possession. "Thou shalt not bear false witness." This guards also the joy of property and life, as well as of reputation honestly earned. "Thou shalt not covet." This is to cut off the thought of sin, and so leave the soul safe and secure in its joy forevermore.
It is easy to believe that God, who made this heaven and this earth, might unmake them if He chose. But it is not even thinkable that He could ever so make them over that the disregard of these precepts would not surely be fatal to the happiness of all intelligent beings who should inhabit them. This is what Christ said: "It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than for one tittle of the law to fail."
This, then, is God's law unchangeable, everywhere.
It is perfectly obvious that the only way such a law as this can ever be abolished, or done away, is by so writing its divine principles of love in the inner life of the soul that they shall be our own, and so actuate us from within, instead of restrain us from without. We then can do what we please, because we please to do only what the law requires, and so there is an end of all legal restraint. This is how Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one who believes.
As illustrated at the beginning of this article, our Father gave these laws to His children, because they were absolutely necessary to our happiness and life as members of His family. He did not even then compel us to keep them, but lovingly warned us by telling us the result of not obeying them. Altho through our disobedience misery and death have come, He still seeks, by His love, through the Gospel, to so write these precepts in our hearts as to make us capable of happiness and perfect liberty forevermore.
So far from seeking to keep us under the arbitrary control of even this necessary and loving law, He seeks in this childhood state to so educate us and write these principles in our inner souls, that He may give us our majority by and by as men and women in Christ, and make us perfectly free to do as we please forevermore, since we will then please to do only those things which are in harmony with liberty and life.
What has all this to do with the Sabbath? We answer, Very much. The Sabbath is the only point in all this law which tests us upon obedience to God's naked Word.
We can easily see that if God had not said so, to lie, to steal, to kill, to commit adultery, and to covet, and to dishonor our parents, would have made every world a hell, and rendered happiness, and even life in the end, impossible.
So, too, to have imaged God, would have inevitably led to the worship of different gods, and this would have destroyed the peace and unity of the family, and filled the world with hostile tribes, who disowned and denied their brotherhood. To take God's name in vain would as surely have destroyed the reverence for the universal Father, and the happiness of His family, as is disrespect of an earthly parent destructive of family happiness here.
These principles are all written in the inner nature of things. It is not thinkable that they should be different. They are not so merely because God said so, but He said so because they were so.
Of the Sabbath, however, it is apparently different. If God had seen fit to put His blessing upon some other day, setting it apart, and commanding us to keep it, we can not see but that it would have done as well.
So far as we can understand, this matter of the precise day of the Sabbath rests solely on the fiat of God, as does no other part of the law.
It is for this reason that men argue that it is unnecessary to strictly obey here. This is precisely the reasoning of the disobedient child.
No child refuses obedience when he sees and fully understands the reason of love back of the command, and so finds it in accord with his own desires, and proceeding from his own enlightened soul, as well as from the father's will.
It is only when he sees no reason that appeals to his own soul, but must obey, if at all, simply because the father requires it,—it is only then that his faith in the father's wisdom and love is tested at all. At other times he is really obeying his own will, since the two, his will and the father's, are in accord; it is only now that his obedience is tested, and he is learning to say, "Thy will, not mine, be done."
As we have seen, the good father commands his child only because he is above him in knowledge and wisdom, and he seeks to lift him to his own higher and wider range of vision, and to set him free.
The child that refuses to yield to the father only where he can now see and comprehend the reason, stops all this beneficent work of the father in his life, and condemns himself to stay at his present low level of ignorance and imperfection.
So also our heavenly Father seeks to command us only that He may broaden our view by lifting us unto love's everlasting mountain-top with Him, so making us free forevermore.
How much of real Christian experience lies right here! It is this walking with God in ways that we do not know, and can not yet understand, content to go only because He leads the way, and we have learned, since He is Lord, that His way is best, that leads us always to pray, "Not my will, but Thine, be done."
As Whittier says, "The steps of faith fall on the seeming void, but find the rocks beneath." It is thus that Jesus was ever saying: "Not My way," "Not My will," "Not My word," "My doctrine is not Mine, but His that sent Me."
Submission to the higher will and the infinite intelligence, is the very key-note of the Christian life.
Without this submission, God can not make7with us His covenant and work out His ideals in our lives.
The Christian must learn with Christ, not on the transfiguration summits only, but also in the Gethsemane valleys, as well, to pray, "Not my will, but Thine, be done."
Now the Bible says, "The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul." And I ask you, dear hearts, if it did not test us on this one, all-important point, whereon all Christian growth and true conversion depends,—if it did not test us on this point of submission to the naked will of God, would it be a perfect law? Could the Spirit's Gospel power use a law that was minus this test to convert the soul? I know you will answer that it could not, for the conversion of the soul is simply the soul's change from following the ignes fatui of our own wills, to submission to the abiding will of God.
But it is the Sabbath pre-eminently, if not exclusively, as we have shown, that, of all the requirements of the law, tests us on yielding our wills to God's naked Word.
The child who will obey his father implicitly, when he can see no other reason, only because the father says so, and he knows his way is best, that child will render unfailing submission and obedience elsewhere and everywhere. So, also, the Christian who will obey God's will, yielding his life in trusting submission to do His will, merely because God requires it and the soul recognizes His command as sacred, that soul will yield to God everywhere and at all times, and the Father can work His own will in that life. The Sabbath alone, of all the requirements of the law, tests the soul on this kind of submission to God. It is therefore the test of true obedience, the sign of the soul's submission to God, that enables God to make with us His covenant.
"It is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you."
G. E. FIFIELD.
THE BLOOD.
By D. L. Moody
[Gleaned from a sermon delivered by Mr. D. L. Moody, in Oakland, Cal.]
THE churches do not like to talk about "the blood" nowadays. "It is old-fashioned," they say. So they devote their time to subjects which they believe will be more pleasing to their congregations, and more in keeping with advanced thought. O, my brethren, why do you make such a terrible mistake? The power of the church is in the blood of Christ.
A Sunday-school teacher asked a little girl in her class if she could think of anything that God could not do. "Yes, ma'am," she replied, "God can not see my sins through the blood of Christ." Praise the Lord! The little girl told the truth.
The blood of Christ pleads for the salvation of the sinner who accepts it; but it cries out for the condemnation of the man who tramples it underfoot. What are you doing about it, my brother?
The story is told of a man who was accused of a crime, the penalty of which was death. He obtained an audience with the king, who promised him that his life should be spared. But the king's pardon was not to be made known unless the man was found guilty. The court assembled, the trial proceeded, the evidence was clearly against the prisoner, he was declared guilty, and the fearful sentence of death was pronounced. But to the surprise of the judge and all assembled the condemned man displayed no trace of fear. With firm step and face radiant with joy, he approached the judge, handed to him the reprieve signed by the king, and walked away a free man.
Have you the King's pardon in your pocket, my poor condemned brother? Why will you die for your sin when you may live for the asking? Secure the pardon to-day. In the name of the King I offer it to you freely.
Give me the good old hymns that exalt the blood of Christ. They thrill my soul and melt my heart as nothing else can. They never lose their glorious power. Listen to this:—
"Just as I am, without one plea,
But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bidst me come to Thee,
O, Lamb of God, I come!"
If you want power with God and man exalt the blood. O, how I pity the church that does not let the scarlet thread run through its hymns!
God thinks a good deal of this world. His Son bought it with His blood. When He ascended He left His blood on earth, and to-day it is the only antidote for sin and death. If I have a remedy which is a sure cure, I don't waste my time discussing the value of other remedies. Praise God, the blood of Christ will surely heal and redeem you.
A CLERGYMAN AND THE SABBATH.
By George W. Spies
A METHODIST clergyman stated recently that the Sabbath, a memorial of creation, was obligatory before the death of Christ, but that since that event the Lord's day, a separate and distinct institution, should be observed upon the first day of the week, as appointed by Christ. The Sabbath ended at the cross, he said, where the Lord's day began. But are these statements true?
That the Sabbath did not cease at the cross is shown by the following facts: (1) The first thing we meet with after the cross is Sabbath observance. Luke 23:55, 56. (2) Inspiration recognizes the Sabbath over twenty years this side of the cross. Acts 17:2; 18:4. (3) Paul and the early church kept it twenty years after the cross. Acts 16:13. (4) Christ commanded His disciples to remember the Sabbath in their prayers as late as the destruction of Jerusalem, in A.D. 70, thirty-seven years after the cross. (5) John, the beloved disciple, was in the spirit on the Sabbath (Rev. 1:10; compare with Mark 2:28), A.D. 97, sixty-four years after the cross.
That the first day of the week has not been kept as the Lord's day since the cross, and was not so instituted by Christ, is shown by the total silence of the Scriptures concerning such a change. It was first called "Lord's day" by Tertullian, A.D. 200. This is the earliest authentic instance. See Kitto's "Cyclopædia of Bible Literature," original edition, article "Lord's Day." It was first authoritatively so called by Pope Sylvester, at Constantine's request, about A.D. 324. Hence Christ did not establish this institution, but "the church" did.
It is evident that a change in the Sabbath would necessitate the abolition of, or a change in, that part of the Decalogue relating to the Sabbath, i. e., the fourth commandment. But did Christ do either of these things? John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, says:—
The moral law, contained in the Ten Commandments . . . He [Christ] did not take away. It was not the design of His coming to revoke any part of this. Every part of this law must remain in force upon all mankind and in all ages, as not depending on either time or place, or any other circumstance liable to change, but on the nature of God and the nature of man, and their unchangeable relation to each other.—Sermons, pp. 221, 222.
This law is spiritual and perfect . . . and can never be changed or annulled.—Binney's Theological Compend, Improved, p. 153.
The ablest exponent of Methodism in this country says:—
Let us not suppose that His [God's] will concerning this matter [of Sabbath observance] has changed. The obligation to obey Him in this [the fourth] commandment, is universal and perpetual. And what is true of the fourth commandment is equally true of every other part of the Decalogue.—Christian Advocate, New York, June 20.
The following official utterance is worthy of attention:—
The Sabbath instituted in the beginning, and confirmed again and again by Moses and the prophets, has never been abrogated. A part of the moral law, not a jot or tittle of its sanctity has been taken away.—M. E. Bishop's Pastoral, 1874, published in New York Herald.
So, according to these high Methodist authorities, the law has not been abolished. It has not been changed by Christ or by any one else having authority to change it. The obligation enjoined by the fourth commandment is "universal and perpetual," and "what is true of the fourth commandment is equally true of every other part of the Decalogue." Conversely, what is true of every other part of the Decalogue is true of the fourth commandment. But every other part of the Decalogue is understood to be literally binding upon all men, hence the fourth commandment is binding upon all, just as it reads: "The seventh day is the Sabbath."
How do the admissions made in these extracts annihilate the theory that a new institution has superseded the Sabbath "instituted in the beginning," the Sabbath that is "a part of the moral law," the Sabbath "confirmed again and again by Moses and the prophets!" And where do these admissions place our Methodist brethren? How do they relate them to the Decalogue? Plainly they bind all Methodists to the observance of the fourth commandment, the original seventh-day Sabbath. There can be no other just conclusion. We trust that many of them will see this matter in its true light, and respect these teachings of their church, which are clearly in harmony with the Word of God.
GEO. W. SPIES.
The Church Against Intemperance
A CHRISTIAN woman in Illinois, says the London Freeman, recently followed a drinker, in whom she was deeply interested, into a saloon. Just as he was about to take a glass she tapped him gently on the shoulder and requested him to go with her. He complied, and as they marched toward the door the saloon-keeper recovered sufficiently from his amazement to ejaculate, "That beats the devil!" The lady turned and emphatically retorted, "Yes, sir; it was my intention to beat the devil." If it is the intention of the church to beat the devil, his Gibraltar of intemperance must not be ignored.
Christian Ministers in Heathen Lands
The United States has one Christian minister to every six hundred persons. Only one is allotted to every half million in heathen lands. —Christian Worker.
Do Men Make Circumstances?
"Do MEN make circumstances, or circumstances make men?"
Trials Are Spiritual Thermometers
“TRIALS are spiritual thermometers.”
The Christian Must Not Rest
"The captive's oar may pause upon the galley;
The soldier sleep beneath his plumed crest;
And peace may fold her wings o'er hill and valley;
But thou, O Christian, must not take thy rest!"