A CAREFUL and unprejudiced study of evidences concerning the Sabbath in the first centuries of the Christian era, according to all ancient history, will lead to the following conclusions:—
1. That as the gospel was given "to the Jew first," and for a definite period "to the Jews only," the Sabbath must have been universally kept at the beginning according to the example of the disciples who "kept the Sabbath according to the commandment" on the day before the first day of the week, at the time of Christ's crucifixion (Luke 23: 56); for it is on all sides acknowledged that the Jewish, or Nazarene, church ever maintained the observance of the Sabbath.
2. That the gospel as held by the Jewish converts was preached to the Gentiles, but in all the early churches the nucleus was at the first Jewish, and the Gentiles received the precepts and practiced at first in harmony with the Jewish Christians. 1 Thess. 2: 14.
3. So manifestly was the larger part of the early church drawn from Judaism, and belief and practice allied them to that people, that in the early persecutions of the Christians under the emperors of Rome, they were held to be Jews, or as one sect of the Jews, no distinction being made between them.
4. The silence of history fully attests that the Sabbath question was not then discussed. No Jew ever accused the Christian of this period for not keeping the Sabbath for the evident reason given by Paul: "Neither against the law of the Jews, . . . nor yet against Cæsar, have I offended anything at all." Acts 25: 8. They were in perfect harmony with the "law and the prophets," which Christ taught in their fullness. Sunday was not then known as a day of rest, or holy day.
5. At the conclusion of the first century a manifest change came about. There was such a relaxation in the discipline of the church that it now became thronged with "heathen Christians," and, according to the677unimpeachable word of Uhlhorn, the church stood out distinctively Gentile, while still another class, fewer in number, the Nazarene church, embodied those, of Jewish extraction. It is fully acknowledged that the Nazarene church continued still to keep the Sabbath.
6. The Sabbath was retained also in the Gentile church and became a subject of much contention. Eusebius mentions Melito, bishop of Sardis, as a writer in the Easter controversy, stating in the preface that the volume was "written at a time when there was great stir at Laodicea concerning the Sabbath, which by reason of the times was broken up." Such a glimpse from such a source reveals very much to us. I shall show how the Sabbath was retained in the Catholic Church both East and West yet for several centuries; but at the early period when Melito wrote, it began to be broken up through heathen influx, innovation, and lawlessness. We may well suppose this "great stir" over the Sabbath question to have agitated the other churches as well as the one at Laodicea.
7. After this "breaking up," when perhaps the majority came to disregard it as the Sabbath, beyond all controversy it was still retained as sacred and eternal, and by no small modicum of the church. As a proof, take the writings of Archelaus in "Disputation with Manes," which was written about A.D. 280, who says, "Again, as to the assertion that the Sabbath has been abolished, we deny that he has abolished it, plainly," etc.—Sec. 42.
Again, in the "Apostolic Constitutions," some nine times over we have the Sabbath question mentioned and enjoined as the rest of creation:—
Keep the Sabbath and the Lord's day festival, for the former is the memorial of creation and the latter of the resurrection.—Book 7, sec. 2, par. 2, 3.
Thou shalt observe the Sabbath on account of him who ceased from his work of creation.—Book 2, sec. 4, par. 36.
The Sabbath and Sunday, called now the "Lord's day," are ranged side by side in all these writings. The former, the Sabbath of the Scriptures, sacredly to be kept according to the law, the latter a festival of the church, having no scriptural authority. Again the longer form of the Ignatian epistle to the Magnesians, a forgery of the third century, says:—
Let every one of you keep the Sabbath after a scriptural manner, rejoicing in meditation on the law, . . . and after the observance of the Sabbath, let every friend of Christ keep the Lord's day as a festival, the resurrection day, the queen and chief of all the days.—Chap. 9.
Says Chrysostom: "There are many of us who fast on the same day as the Jews and keep the Sabbath in the same manner."—Hom. on Gal. and Eph. Lib. of Fathers, pp. 15, 42. Let the grandest of all church historians conclude: "It was the custom of many provinces of the ancient church to observe Saturday as the feast of creation." This is all sufficient to establish in every ingenuous reader's mind the fact that the Sabbath continued to be kept in the Catholic Church as indeed the Sabbath, not a festival.
8. But the Sabbath in the second and third centuries came to be loosely held as a feast day coördinate with Sunday. For this we have the undisputable authority of Tertullian, Origen, Cassian, Athanasius, and Ambrose, which for lack of space I will not quote, but will cite the historians of the period. Socrates, the first and best, says:—
Such as dwell at Rome fast three weeks before Easter, except the Sabbath and Sunday. . . . Again, touching the communion, there are sundry customs: for, although all the churches throughout the whole world do celebrate and receive the holy mysteries each returning week upon the Sabbath, yet the people inhabiting Alexandria and Rome refused to do this. The Egyptians, who are neighbors to the Alexandrians, together with the Thebians, celebrated the communion on the Sabbath.—Eccl. Hist., book 5.
Again he says: "Therefore when the festivals of each week occur, namely, the Sabbath and dominical day [Lord's day]," etc.—Id., book 6.
Sozomen, A.D. 460, thus writes: "The Sabbath from the evening forward, for a suitable time is used in vigils and prayers, and the day following there is a public meeting of all in common, when each partakes of the mysteries." All understand, or should, that the evening of the Sabbath is the sixth day, or Friday evening, for at the setting of the sun on Saturday the Sabbath closed. So the "Sabbath from the evening forward" begins at the setting of the sun on Friday. Hear him once again: "Likewise some meet upon the Sabbath and upon the day after the Sabbath as at Constantinople and among almost all others. At Rome and Alexandria they do not. Among the Egyptians likewise, in many cities and villages there is also a sacred custom among all of meeting on the evening after the Sabbath, when the sacred mysteries are partaken of."—Liber 7, chaps. 18, 19.
It should be borne in mind that Wednesday and Friday were also assembly days, called "Stationes." They were to commemorate the betrayal and crucifixion of Christ. Basil speaks of receiving the sacrament on these days also. Epiphanius ranked the Wednesday and Friday festivals in the same antiquity, and grounded them upon the same authority, as he did the Sunday.—Acybyn.
The time came in the decline of the Sabbath when it ranked just about equal with the "queen of days," Sunday, as a festival. For this we have unquestionable authority. The Wednesdays and Fridays were fast days, but the Sabbath was not so held at the first. I will quote from "Ancient Christianity," Stanford Rivers, England, 1842: "The custom of paying regard as well to the Sabbath as to the Lord's day continued long in the church. Both days were festivals and fasting therefore inappropriate."
Joseph Bingham, one of the most perspicuous writers, quotes Socrates as "speaking of the churches of Constantinople in the time of Chrysostom. He reckons Saturday and the Lord's day as the two great weekly festivals on which they always held weekly assemblies. And Cassian takes notice of the Egyptian churches, that among them the service of the Lord's day and the Sabbath was always the same, for they had the lessons then read out of the New Testament only, one out of the gospels, and the other out of the epistles of the Acts of the Apostles, whereas on other days they had them partly out of the Old Testament."
A quotation from Gregory of Nyssa—recognized church authority, as well as Cassian—will suffice: "With what eyes can you behold the Lord's day when you despise the Sabbath? Do you not perceive that they are sisters, and that in slighting one you offend the other?" The days then stood on a par, as festivals. With growing apostasy, regard for the Sabbath began to wane.
9. By little and little the Sabbath was lowered from the pedestal which it held as a feast day. Let me note right here that all the honor that it ever received from the Catholic Church was in consequence of the place which it holds in the Bible, not commemorative of any event in Christ's life. It was soon transformed into a fast. In the times of Augustine, near the beginning of the fifth century, as Augustine himself testified, there was, in one and the selfsame church, some that dined and some that fasted; so in all the provinces. Thus it stood for a time. It was now wending its way out of the church altogether. The Council of Laodicea about this time decreed: "Christians shall not Judaize and be idle on Saturday, but shall work on that day, but the Lord's day they shall especially honor, and as being Christians shall, if possible, do no work on that day; if, however, they be found Judaizing they shall be shut out from Christ."—Hefele, vol. 2, p. 316.
Commanded to work soon they were required also to fast on that day. Thus by continued stages was the Sabbath shut out. Lord King states the reasons why the Sabbath came to be recognized by the Roman Church as a fast day in direct opposition to those who regarded it as a Sabbath: "Some of the Western churches, that they might not seem to Judaize, fasted on Saturday, as Victorinus Petavionensis writes: 'We used to fast on the seventh day, and it is our custom then to fast that we may not seem with the Jews to observe the Sabbath.'" Thus it sank to a half holiday and was dismissed. An indescribable detestation arose on the part of Jew and Catholic against each other. Anything in common with the Jew was execrable.
We have seen the Sabbath fully in the church, continuing in the Jewish and partly in the Gentile church, but turned to a festival day by the majority, then to a fast, and finally dismissed.
IS IT THE BEGINNING OF THE END?
By Editor
We have several times drawn the attention of our readers to the probability of a universal revolution similar to that which caused the downfall of Louis XVI. in France, if not worse, and wider in extent than the troubles of 1848. As we recognize the illness of an individual from the throbbing of his pulse, the color of his complexion, the appearance of his eyes and his tongue, thus have we certain signs by which we may form the diagnosis, as well as the prognosis, of the ills of society. No one in the least acquainted with the actual condition of affairs to-day will deny that society is suffering from a malady of the gravest character. In the first place, its pulsations are rapid, indicating a feverish and excited condition of its organism. It suffers from severe headaches, the fear of impending evils on the part of its rulers; it has heart disease, namely, a morbid sensuality, to some extent not unlike that of Pagan Rome in the days of its decline. Its brain is affected by widespread infidelity, while the inflamed condition of its eyes, rolling anxiously hither and thither, as if in quest of the solution of some difficult problems, indicates that it is not far from delirium. There is no doubt that this is a dangerous case, and that the patient is very, very ill.
The agitation is becoming worse day by day, and the fever is increasing. Alarming information comes to us from France, from Germany, from Spain. The worst news of all, however, reaches us from Italy. It is evident from the precautions of the Italian Government that the Sicilian agitation is viewed678with considerable alarm. The fact of its lasting as long as it does proves that it is not as insignificant as might otherwise be supposed. The rest of Italy is comparatively quiet, but it would not take much to fan the embers into a flame, and then where would it end?
Look at 1848. Trouble began in Sicily, also. Italy and Hungary followed. Then came the revolution in France and the downfall of Louis Philippe. Socialism was the soul of those days of blood under the leadership of Ledrue-Rollin and others. The signal for a general movement was given, the alarm was taken. The French Republic was proclaimed on February 24. On the 28th the revolution broke out in Wurtemberg and Darmstadt, on the 29th in Mayence and Baden, on March 1st in Hesse-Cassel. Then followed revolutions in Cologne, West Baden, Saxony, Brunswick, Bavaria, Austria, and Prussia. The greater portion of Europe was in a blaze. The Socialists were at the bottom of the movement. Had the people possessed a leader, the outcome might have been altogether different. "What is wanting," said Lamartine, "is a European Washington," but that Washington was not to be found, and, in 1849, the reaction set in. We know that history frequently repeats itself. What was, may be again. The revolution need only gain sufficient strength to stand, then let a concerted movement follow in various parts of Italy, so that the attention of the army be divided, and you have the first conflagration. Where is the remedy to be found? This is an important question, which, for the present, we leave to the meditation of our readers. On another occasion we may discuss further the condition of our patient, and endeavor to find a remedy which, if applied, will heal him.—Catholic Mirror, Jan. 27, 1894.
SIDE LIGHTS TO PURITAN LIFE
By Percy T. Magan
[This article is No. 30 in the series entitled "A Review of Sunday Legislation in Century Nineteen," but it will be of equal interest to those who have not read preceding numbers.—ED. S. of T.]
SIDE LIGHTS TO PURITAN LIFE.
THERE are a few other side lights to Puritan life which may be viewed with interest and profit. The religion of a large class of the Puritans was a cold, heartless system, devoid of the milk of kindness, human or divine. They loved to dwell upon blood-curdling themes. The infinite mercy of an infinite God; the vicarious sacrifice of the world's Redeemer; the blessed agency of the Holy Spirit, bequeathed to fallen humanity in those compassionate words, "I will not leave you orphans," found no place in their sermons. On the contrary, it was fearful visions of eternal torture and an offended Majesty. So fearful were the stories told by Puritan divines and mothers to little children, that some of them went insane. Says the author last quoted:—
People—men and women, old and young, down to the very children in the nursery—were crushed and driven to the verge of insanity, and often over that verge, by a superstitious terror—the terror of what their teachers defined as God's "vindictive justice." If anyone doubts this statement, or feels disposed to put it aside as an exaggeration, he has but to turn to Jonathan Edwards' "Faithful Narrative," and Cotton Mather's "Magnalia," and there read the piteous stories of little Phebe Bartlett and Anne Greenough, each aged five, blighted and driven crazy in their nurseries by fear of death and hell; and for that reason exhibited as prodigies of infant piety.
Here are some of the rhymes that were taught to the little ones. These appeared in the "New England Primer," and in the Rev. John Cotton's "Spiritual Milk for American Babes":—
"There is a dreadful fiery hell,
Where wicked ones must always dwell;
There is a heaven, full of joy,
Where goodly ones must always stay;
To one of these my soul must fly,
As in a moment, when I die."
These doctrines were impressed upon the youthful minds by ditties like the following:—
"In the burying place may see
Graves shorter there than I;
From death's arrest no age is free,
Young children too must die;
My God, may such an awful sight
Awakening be to me."
In the Primer is a "dialogue between Christ, Youth, and the Devil":—
"Death—Thou hast thy God offended so,
Thy soul and body I'll divide;
Thy body in the grave I'll hide,
And thy dear soul in hell must lie
With devils to eternity."
THE CONCLUSION.
"Thus end the days of woful youth,
Who won't obey nor mind the truth,
Nor hearken to what preachers say,
But do their parents disobey;
They in their youth go down to hell,
Under eternal wrath to dwell.
Many don't live out half their days,
For cleaving unto sinful ways."
These are just a few samples of literature for children during the "good old days." The lines arranged for those of more mature years were not much more comforting, to say the least of it:—
"With iron bands they bind their hands and cursed feet together,
And cast them all, both great and small, into that lake forever.
Where day and night, without respite, they wail, and cry, and howl,
For torturing pain which they sustain in body and in soul.
"For day and night, in their despight, their torment's smoak ascended,
Their pain and grief have no relief; their anguish never endeth.
There must they lie and never die, though dying every day;
There must they dying ever lie, and not consume away.
"Die fain they would, if die they could, but death will not be had;
God's direful wrath their bodies hath forev'r immortal made.
They live to lie in misery, and bear eternal wo;
And live they must while God is just, that he may plague them so."
These are a few samples of Puritan poetry. They are certainly not very soul-inspiring. But the worst of it was that this was about the only class of literature which emanated from the brains of the New England thinkers. Science and art were at a standstill. Nothing but these horrible, blood-chilling, doggerels, and equally fearful sermons, to wit:—
When the saints in heaven shall look upon the damned in hell it will serve to give them a greater sense of their own happiness, seeing how vastly different their case is from their own. The view of the doleful condition of the damned will make them the more prize their own blessedness.
Consider how it will be at the day of judgment, when you shall see Christ coming in the clouds of heaven, when you shall begin to wail and cry, as knowing that you are of those who are to be condemned; and perhaps you will be ready to fly to some of your godly friends; but you will obtain no help from them; you will see them unconcerned for you, with joyful countenances ascending to meet the Lord, and not the less joyful for the horror in which they see you. And when you shall stand before the tribunal at the left hand, among devils, trembling and astonished, and shall have the dreadful sentence passed upon you, you will at the same time see the blessed company of saints and angels at the right hand, and shall hear them shout forth the praises of God while they hear your sentence pronounced. You will then see those godly people with whom you shall have been acquainted, and who shall have been your neighbors; and with whom you now often converse, rejoicing at the pronunciation and execution of your sentence.
When the saints in glory, therefore, shall see the doleful state of the damned, how will this heighten their sense of the blessedness of their own state so exceedingly different from it! When they shall see how miserable others of their fellow-creatures are, who were naturally in the same circumstances as themselves; when they shall see the smoke of their torment, and the raging of the flames of their burning, and hear their dolorous shrieks and cries, and consider that they in the meantime are in the most blissful state, and shall surely be in it to all eternity, how will they rejoice?
But enough of this horrible picture. These are only a few quotations out of many which might be given. They show the cruel, devilish condition of mind in which the author of such words must be. One hears a great deal of the "good old days." But the old days, methinks, were not so very good after all.
To say that the Puritans had a very fine sense of purity is to misstate facts. It is certain that the Puritan ministers drank hard. One Puritan, himself a divine, has put it upon record that among his brethren in the ministry "he knew forty-four who drank so much as to affect their brains, and he had assisted in putting four to bed on occasions like ordinations." This does not speak very well for the temperance of these saints of "ye olden tyme." They were most certainly respecters of persons.
Such were the Puritans of New England. And yet there are found men to-day who admire their religion. As has been said before, there was nothing kindly about it. A great majority of their discussions were over questions containing but one virtue, and that was that no one, not even the disputants, could possibly understand them, which quality rendered them quite harmless. In proof of this I append the three leading questions discussed by the famous synod which drew up the Cambridge Platform of 1637:—
1. That the new creature is not the person of a believer, but a body of saving grace in such a one; and that Christ, as a head, doth enliven or quicken, preserve or act the same, but Christ himself is no part of this new creature.
2. That though, in effectual calling (in which the answer of the soul is by active faith wrought at the same instant by the Spirit), justification and sanctification be all together in them; yet God doth not justify a man before he be effectually called, and so a believer.
3. That Christ and his benefits may be offered and exhibited to a man under a Covenant of Works, but not in or by a Covenant of Works.
"It is not easy," says Adams, after quoting the above, "to realize now that strong, matter-of-fact, reasoning men could ever have been educated to the point of inflicting persecution, banishment, and torture in the propagation or in the defense of such incomprehensible formulas. They furnish in themselves679at once the strongest evidence and the most striking illustration of the singular condition of religious and theological craze in which early New England existed. As the modern investigator puzzles over these articles of a once living faith, in vain trying to find out in what lay their importance,—even conceding their truth,—the synod, and the outcome of its wrestlings, calls to mind nothing so much as that passage from the poem of the greatest of its co-religionists, wherein, with bitter mockery, one portion of the 'host of hell' is represented as sitting on a hill apart, where they
> 'reason'd high
> Of Providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate,
> Fix'd fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute;
> And found no end, in wandering mazes lost.'
"The difference between Milton's devils and the early New England divines seems to have been that, while the one and the other lost themselves in the same mazes of the unknowable, the former evinc'd much the more Christian spirit of the two in their methods of conducting the debate. Both were suffering banishment from their former homes; but, while the synod of the fallen angels, in their place of exile, amicably discussed points of abstract difference, the similar synod of New England ministers betrayed, throughout their proceedings, all 'the exquisite rancor of theological hate.'"
Here let us leave them. That Sunday was enforced under the theocratic system of the Puritans goes without saying. In fact, it was an incident to the system itself. To consider their Sunday laws would be wearisome. Much has been written upon them. We can only say, in closing, that if "this is a Christian nation" by virtue of the Puritans, deliver us from such a Christianity. We can only say that if the Puritan creed were again to be made the State religion, whippings and banishments, cart tails, pillories, and the gibbet must inevitably follow. And in the light of these facts we can hardly agree with the sigh of a divine who, in his longings for Sunday laws, exclaimed, "Oh, for a breath of the old Puritan!"
TO ARMS!
ALMOST simultaneously with the repeal of the Sherman law comes a recommendation from the Adjutant General that military tactics be taught in the graded schools.
What does all this mean? Why is this eagerness on the part of the government officials to familiarize even the children with methods of war? Churches, too, contrary to the teachings of Him whom they profess to worship, are falling in with these instructions.
Detroit has 27 church military organizations, containing 651 men and 43 officers. The largest is the Baptist cadets, with 66 men and 3 officers. Then come the Maybury cadets, an Episcopal organization, with 60 men, the First Congregational cadets, with 53, the first and last being armed with rifles. The Episcopalians have 6 companies, the Catholics 8, the Presbyterians 7, Baptists 3, Congregationalists 2, and Lutherans 1.
Thirteen of the companies are armed with rifles and one with swords. These, it must be remembered, are all church military companies, and have no connection with the civil societies of the State militia.
The administration through federal patronage and the system of "pinching business" has succeeded in subjugating congress. Is it now the plan to force the people into submission? Are even the children to be armed and taught that allegiance to despots is patriotism?
God forbid! The American people are not yet so prostrate at the feet of tyranny.
—Corner Stone, Lansing, Michigan.
ETERNAL LIFE.
By Elder Eugene Leland
A GREAT deal of misunderstanding arises in consequence of not studying the meaning of terms; and much of the controversy in the world might be avoided if the parties concerned would become investigators instead of contestants. If each would carefully consider the meaning of the terms used by the other, instead of contending fiercely for a meaning which they have given to those terms, they would often be astonished to find that their contention had been carried on over differences which did not exist. Nowhere is this principle more important than in the study of the Bible. Words and phrases are often used which have different meanings; and when such a term occurs, that meaning should be given to the word or phrase which the sense of the text seems to require.
On the subject of eternal life a great deal of misapprehension has existed in consequence of a failure to understand what is meant by the term. The expression is usually supposed to signify eternal existence in a conscious state, and in some cases it undoubtedly has this meaning, but in many places where the expression is used, we are inclined to the opinion that it has an entirely different signification.
That eternal life is in the possession of believers in this present life, is certainly a scriptural doctrine; but it is no less a scriptural doctrine that eternal existence in a conscious state is not now, and will not be, in the possession of believers until the resurrection. Both of these statements are clearly sustained by a single passage of Scripture.
"Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day." John 6:54.
He "hath eternal life" now, but he has not eternal existence in a conscious state until he is raised up "at the last day." The same thought is expressed in verse 40:—
"And this is the will of Him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day."
Again, in verse 47, and in many other passages that might be quoted, the idea is clearly conveyed that believers in Christ have eternal life as soon as they believe; but we know as a matter of fact that saints as well as sinners die; and therefore the eternal life which the saints come into possession of by believing in Christ is something distinct from eternal existence in a conscious state.
What, then, is this eternal life?—It is the eternal character of Christ which he lived in his life here on the earth, and which he will live in the life of everyone who will open the door of his heart and let the Saviour in. The word "life" often has the signification of character. We say of a certain person that he leads a worthless life. His life has not been exemplary. By this we mean that his conduct, his behavior, has not been worthy of imitation. Of another we say, "His life is blameless." By the word "life" we mean his deportment, his conversation, and everything of that character that goes to make up life.
The life of everyone is felt in the world in proportion to the influence which it has exerted; but the influence of no life, however evil or however exemplary it may have been, has been so great as to be felt by everyone who680has lived or that ever will live. Some lives have exercised a moulding influence on the world after they were dead, but that influence has not been so great as to affect the life of everyone in the world, nor of any considerable number for any considerable length of time. Sooner or later the influence of every human life will cease to be felt, however widely the influence of that life may have extended. But the life of God, as manifested to the world in Jesus Christ, has an influence so wide that it will be seen and felt by everyone that cometh into the world. "In him was life; and the life was the light of men." "That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." John 1:4, 9.
This life of God is not simply the existence of God as a conscious being, but it is the character and its manifestations, the conduct, the works of God. We would not wish to be understood that the works of God can be separated from his existence, for his existence is necessary to his works. But his works, his life, may be manifested to the world without the conscious existence of the object in which it is thus manifested. "The heavens declare the glory [the character, the life] of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor language [there is no conscious existence], without these their voice is heard." Ps. 19:1-3, margin.
Christ manifested the life, the works, of God to the world, and it was the eternal life of God that was thus manifested. But Christ died. His life as a conscious being was given up, but his eternal life, in the sense of his character, his RIGHTEOUSNESS, still lived, as it always had lived, and as it will always continue to live throughout the endless ages of eternity. And the blessedness of it all is "that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." 1 John 5:11, 12. And as that eternal life continued to manifest itself while the Son of God, who is the Author of it, lay in the grave, so that eternal life in us in the sense of character will manifest itself to the world even after we have been called upon to give up our lives as conscious beings. As an illustration of this truth it is said of Abel that "he being dead yet speaketh." Heb. 11:4. The influence of that character, which Abel obtained by faith, is so great that it still continues to be felt in the world; and when Abel shall rise in the first resurrection, that same eternal life, that same character, will be his, and then as a conscious being he will show out that eternal life to all eternity. So of us, if the life that we have lived has been "by the faith of the Son of God," "when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory."
Our chief concern, then, should be as to how this life may be obtained; but the Scriptures are as explicit on this point as they are upon those which we have already noticed. "The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Rom. 6:23. But God does not bestow this wonderful gift unconditionally. If such were the case, all would receive it. What, then, is the condition upon which eternal life depends? Said the Saviour, "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments." Matt. 19:17. But the carnal mind "is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." Rom. 8:7. How, then, can the condition of eternal life be fulfilled in the sinner? Not by the deeds of the law, "for by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in His sight." Rom. 3:20. "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh; that the righteousness of the law [the keeping of the commandments] might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Rom. 8:3, 4.
The condition of eternal life is that the righteousness of the law (the keeping of the commandments) be fulfilled in Christ. See Rom. 3:21, 22. But believing in Christ not only brings righteousness, but life, eternal life, also. See 1 John 5:11-13. And therefore it follows that eternal life, which comes through faith, is itself righteousness, and the righteousness is life. Rom. 8:10. "Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift."
Millington, Mich.
THAT BUDDHISTIC “LIFE OF CHRIST.”
By Editor
SOME interesting speculation has been indulged in regarding a reputed wonderful find in a Buddhist monastery in the Himalayas, of a life of Christ, or “Issa,” that is 1,694 years old. The reputed find was made by one M. Notovitch, a Russian traveler, in the monastery of Hemis, near Leh, the chief town of the province of Ladakh, in the Cashmere. A French translation has been made of it, and it represents “Issa” as sojourning among the Buddhists before he began his preaching in Galilee. The story has been received with distrust, and the manuscript pronounced a probable fake. In the Evening Post, New York, July 3, appears a letter from a Moravian missionary in Leh, which seems to confirm this view of M. Notovitch's story. The following is the letter in full:—
LEH, LADAKH, via IRINAGER, North India, May 15, 1894.
SIR: My attention has been drawn to a notice in your paper (number and date not mentioned), that a certain Nicholas Notovitch, when traveling in Ladakh, broke his leg near Hemis Monastery, and was nursed by the monks, who showed him a Pali manuscript, being a “life of Issa,” a saint much venerated by Thibetan Buddhists. This work proved to be a life of Jesus Christ, and has been published in a French translation. This information, more than which has not reached me, is rather vague; but I must beg to draw your attention to the following facts:—
1. I have been resident in Leh since November, 1890. Since that time no person named Notovitch has visited Ladakh.
2. Scientific visitors invariably call for information of all kinds on the Moravian missionaries, who live close to the garden set apart for the use of travelers. The official record of the mission, extending from 1885 onward, contains many names of such visitors, but the name Notovitch is not to be found.
3. The Hemis Monastery is only twenty miles from Leh. It is incredible that any traveler could have met with an accident, and have been nursed by the monks, instead of being brought by an easy road to Leh, where he would have had proper attention at the hands of the medical officer in charge of the British dispensary. I have examined the medical register from 1882 onward without finding Notovitch mentioned.
4. Careful inquiry among the inhabitants has failed to elicit any information about such an accident having happened anywhere in Ladakh within the last twenty years.
5. Issa is the Mohammedan name for Jesus, and the Buddhists do not venerate him in any way at all.
6. The monks assert that their old books were destroyed by the Dogras fifty years ago. Their present books are all new editions.
7. Pali is absolutely unknown in Ladakh; not a single person can read the language. The monks could not possibly know what a Pali volume contained, even supposing it to exist.
8. The Hemis Monastery has for the last forty years been frequently visited by Moravian missionaries. The existence of a volume written in a character so totally different from Sanscrit and Thibetan as Pali is could not have remained hidden.
Your readers will now be able to form an opinion as to the authenticity of this purported discovery.
I remain, sir, yours truly, F. B. SHAWE, Moravian Missionary.