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Review and Herald, Vol. 49, No. 3.

LAW VS. CONSCIENCE

Review and Herald

Jan 18, 1877

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 18, 1877

LAW VS. CONSCIENCE.

The Sunday Law Before the Supreme Court.
The Commonwealth vs. Gehring Has.
Brief and Argument of Defendant's Attorney.
[From The Boston Herald.]
Last June a German named Has, of Roxbury, was convicted of keeping his shop open on Sunday for the sale of candy, ice cream, etc., and appealed. He was tried on his appeal in the Superior Court, last September, and was convicted there under the instructions of the court. To this he took exceptions, which are as follows, and
State the Case fully:
COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS.
Superior Criminal Court.
COMMONWEALTH vs. GEHRING HAS.
Defendant's Exceptions.
This was a complaint (a copy whereof is annexed), charging defendant with keeping open his shop for the purpose of doing unlawful business on the Lord's day. At the trial he admitted keeping the shop open to do lawful secular business and traffic with the public therein. And he testified that when he did so, he conscientiously believed that the seventh day of the week ought to be observed as the Sabbath, that he so observed it, and that he disturbed no person. All this was uncontradicted. This was the defense. But the court ruled that it was no defense; that section 1 of chapter 84 of the General Statutes contained two classes of offenses so far as the ninth section was concerned, viz.: 1. Keeping open a shop, warehouse, or workshop on the Lord's day. 2. Doing labor, business, or work, etc., on Sunday. And that section 9 of the same chapter relieved only the second offense from punishment (i. e., the doing of labor, business, or work, on the Lord's day), and made the first offense (keeping open shop for doing such business) absolute. The defendant having admitted that he had committed this offense, the jury were told by the court they must find him guilty if they believed that he kept an open shop on the Lord's day for the purpose of doing business with the public therein, whatever his conscientious scruples about the seventh day might be. To this ruling, defendant excepted; and prays his exceptions may be allowed.
G. HAS.
Sept. 19, 1876. Geo. Sennott, his Attorney.
Examined and allowed.
Wm. S. Gardner, Justice Supreme Court.
On Nov. 27th, the exceptions were argued before the Supreme Court by Mr. George Sennott for Has, and by Mr. Loring, Assistant Attorney-General, for the Government. On the 28th, the Chief Justice sent for Mr. Sennott, and said that his case had some points in it, which were important and new in this commonwealth, and that if he desired he might re-argue it before the full bench, for yesterday there had been barely a quorum present. Mr. Sennott accordingly, on Wednesday morning, presented the following:—
Brief.
COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS.
Supreme Judicial Court.
COMMONWEALTH vs. GEHRING HAS.
Defendant's Brief.
I. Exceptions state the entire case. Now is the defendant punished under General Statutes, sec. 1, chap. 84, for quietly keeping open his shop for business, forbidden on Sunday, but lawful on any other day?
II. Said sec. 1 is said to contain two offenses: First, keeping open shop; second, the transaction of week-day business on Sunday. The second is said to be permitted to be performed to conscientious and quiet observers of Saturday, the other not.
III. The distinction seems to be capricious and absurd. It is not possible to do shop-keeping without keeping a shop open to do it in, or a warehouse or other convenient building. This construction would prevent the Jews from doing anything at all on Sunday except peddling. Keeping the shop is doing the business.
IV. Has' conscientious scruples as to keeping Saturday for his holy day are uncontradicted and must be taken to be true, if that be so, to punish him in any way for doing the business of a shop-keeper on Sunday robs him of one day of the week on account of his religion, and makes the Legislature violate Art. 2 amendatory of Art. 3 of our Bill of Rights. This court will not suffer that.
V. The statute may or may not be grammatically divisible against unconscientious people and unlawful trades. Whether so or not, it is legally and constitutionally one in favor of liberty of conscience. I mean by that, that although you can divide it so as to punish a rum seller twice for the same facts and circumstances—which I never did consider good law—yet you cannot do that, or anything else, to punish a man for his religion; that is, if you care for our Constitution at all. Our Legislature was always in favor of free conscience. Why suppose they ever wanted to take back with one hand what they gave with the other?
VI. Penal laws are always construed liberally against the Government. This construction is strictly against the defendant.
VII. Nothing at all is here in question but liberty of conscience. But our judicial decisions and our legislation may be referred to, to show how constantly they have inclined against oppressive Sunday laws.
Laws Mass., Vol., 1791, c. 58; 1796, c. 89.
13 Mass., 324, Pierce vs. Atwood, 5 R.S., c. 50.
It was thought inappropriate to enter into the general subjects of Sunday laws, or to go at all outside of our own laws before the court.
With the brief, Mr. Sennott submitted the following:—

ARGUMENT:

The exceptions are brief—only sixteen lines—not one of which can be left out. They fully describe the case, however, which is one of the highest importance. The question presented is whether our laws allow conscientious and quiet observers of the seventh day of the week to do business on Sunday which would be lawful on any other day. In this case the business done was “keeping open a shop for the purpose of doing week-day business on Sunday.” The government admits that the law allows such people to do week-day work on Sunday. But it contends that the same law forbids them to keep open a place to do it in. This imputes to the legislature

A CAPRICIOUS AND QUIBBLING INTENT

to give with one hand and take back with the other, in matters of conscience. This construction says to the Jews, for instance, “Do any secular (week-day) work you can on Sunday, but take care not to keep any place open to do it in.” What sort of a law is this? Does it not resemble the judgment of Portia against Shylock, which gave him his pound of flesh, provided he could get it without a drop of blood—rather than the law of a liberal Christian legislature? It reminds me of the rabbinical tale of the poor man who found himself begging in the city of the demons. The demon who guarded the gate, with a look of hellish compassion, gave him a brass token stamped with characters which the poor creature could not understand. “Take this,” said he, “and purchase what you can with it.” The beggar went to every house and every shop, but the characters on the token were, “Give this dog nothing.” And he got nothing, but nearly starved to death with the gift of the devil in his hand. From such a constitution as this and such laws, may “God save the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.”
The practical effect of this construction would be a plain violation of Article 1, amendatory of Article 3 of the Bill of Rights, particularly the last clause: “All religious sects and denominations demeaning themselves peaceably and as good citizens shall be equally under the protection of the law, and no subordination of any one sect or denomination to another shall ever be established by law.” Is an “equal protection” afforded by this construction, which robs the Jew or Seventh-day Baptist of one day in the week on account of his religion? Does it or not compel the quiet and conscientious observer of the seventh day to lose the first day of the week, under a penalty if he uses it? Is not this the whole question, and is not the attempt to evade it by dividing the statute a rather feeble attempt to swim against the current of sensible decisions and liberal legislation?

THE QUESTION

might well rest here. If the construction of the government contradicts the plain intent of the legislature, it is no construction. If the intent of the legislature favors the construction, but is against the plain meaning of the Constitution, there is so far no legislation. When a lawyer once said that he had several reasons for not producing a witness, the first reason being that the witness was dead, the court remarked that the other reasons need not be stated. This case, it strikes me, is remarkably like that. To please the government, however, let us consider whether the course of this government opposes or supports their construction of General Statutes, chapter 84, sections 1 and 9.
The act of 1791, chap. 89, sec. 14, expressly repeals every preceding Sunday law. The preamble of that act fully shows its purpose. There is no exception on account of conscientious scruples in that. On the contrary, tithing men, constables, and inferior magistrates, are clothed with extraordinary powers of interference and annoyance. But ere long, as Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe advertently remarks in her “Old Town Romance,” “the Sabbath began to abate.” The laws began to feel the movement of the age. The courts felt it long before, and in the famous case of Pierce vs. Atwood, in thirteenth Massachusetts, they expressed the feeling. Then followed the revised Statutes, when free conscience had her first entire legislative recognition and support. The strictness has always been against unconscientious traders or unlawful trades. We find, as in the 7th of Gray, 164, feeble attempts at stringency and close construction in favor of wrong-doers steadily and rather indignantly repressed by this honest court.
Something, I am told, is to be said by the government like this: “Strict Sunday laws are constitutional, because they promote the public trade and the public health.” An assembly of doctors, or a State board of trade, it seems to me, would be

BETTER JUDGES OF THESE SUBJECTS

than the Great and General Court. Besides, when a man keeps Saturday for the love of God, I think it would hardly promote his piety if you made him keep Sunday, too, for the good of his health. Is it not enough that we keep one day in seven, and that on a day selected by law? The fact is that the judge's order to the jury to convict my client if they believed him, no matter what his conscientious scruples might be, is directly against the Constitution of Massachusetts, and is wrong in manner, matter, form, spirit, and intention; is against common sense, good logic, sound morality, plain law, and the Christian religion! In the face of all these, my client was convicted on account of his religion by a judge's order, and if he is punished on that conviction, he might as well be hung! We may divide the statute, but can we divide the conscience? Is the court prepared to say to any Christian, You are to obey man rather than God, no matter what your conscience may be? Whether we are to obey God rather than man, judge ye!

“PREPARE WAR,”

“A DEATH ENGINE,” of an ugly and effective character, has just been tried in the United States. The Philadelphia Evening Telegraph, of Sept. 22, says:—
“A special dispatch from Sandy Hook to the New York Herald of this morning, relative to official experiments with the Hotchkiss revolving cannon, gives a description of the terrible engine and its workings that is very grimly interesting. The following is a description of the new weapon. It consists of five barrels grouped around a common axis and revolved in front of a solid breech block which has in one part an opening for the introduction of the cartridges, and another through which to extract the empty shell. Both operations are accomplished at the same time, and as the cartridges are fed to barrels on the same principles as with the Gatling gun, the fire can be maintained continuously at the rate of eighty per minute, if necessary.
“The calibre of the barrels is one and a half inches, and the charge weighs three and a half ounces, with a shell weighing about one and a quarter pounds. The shell is exploded by a percussion fuse, and bursts immediately on striking any object it meets. The barrels are revolved by a crank which controls all the mechanism of the gun, so that really a stream of shells, like water from a fire hose, can be poured on any given point with absolute accuracy and fearfully destructive effect, with scarcely more difficulty than playing on a street organ. A peculiarity of the revolution of the barrels is that they stop to discharge, so that the accuracy of the fire is not in any way impaired by a continuation of the revolution at the moment the firing pin strikes the exploding cap behind the charge.
“Judging of the gun, after this preliminary trial, which was conducted with the utmost care by the ordnance officers, the Hotchkiss revolving cannon takes a high rank among the most terribly effective engines of modern warfare. A battery of such guns, ably served, could hold its own against a division of the best troops in the world, because the pieces being so easily handled, they can be turned in any direction. To resist flank attacks a lighter gun on the same plan has been built by Mr. Hotchkiss for service with cavalry, and is believed to be even more effective than the heavier piece. In wars like that against the Sioux they would be invaluable, for no horseman, civilized or savage, could withstand their fire. The trial yesterday demonstrated that infantry in column would melt away under the fire of these guns like a tallow candle before a furnace grate. A continuous shower of splinters seemed to rain on the ground all around the targets while the inventor kept grinding out shells from his deadly mill.”
We have no doubt that there will soon be use for this and similar weapons; for we believe that the last wars are just upon us, and that the Lord is at the door. We have seen the weapon described, and as we looked at it a shiver passed through our frame. We thought at the time, there is indeed reason for men’s hearts to fail them for fear, and for looking after the things that are coming on the earth. We know, however, that these ills that threaten the earth are but a sign of Jesus’ near advent; and if any should cry out, “Wonder what will come next?” we feel able to reply, in view of prophetic Scripture, “The Lord Himself.” For itself, the dark day so close upon us is not welcome; but since it brings our Redeemer, the sooner it comes the better.—The Bible Echo.

PRAYER AND ASSURANCE.

By Lilla D. Avery

O Thou who dwell'st on high and dost behold With tender love the creatures of thy care, And dost in majesty and strength uphold The starry hosts that glimmer bright and fair, And guidest the planets round the fiery sun, I humbly ask thine aid, Eternal One!
O Great Jehovah, grant to hear my cry, My feet are weary, and the way is long, The fearful tempest sweeps along the sky, And Earth is filled with violence and wrong— O lead me gently o'er the dark'ning way. I'm weak, and fainting; give me strength, I pray.
Mine own unworthiness, dear Lord, I feel; My foolish heart is full of guilt within. I pray in mercy thou wilt kindly deal, And grant to pardon all my pride and sin. In thy great goodness, Father, I will trust, For thou dost know that I am “only dust.”
I'm weak and sinful, and my need is sore, There's nothing good within my heart, I own; I feel my weakness, Father, more and more; I'm poor and needy, desolate and lone. Regard me gently from thy throne above, And give me, Lord, a token of thy love.
Poor, faithless child!—a token dost thou crave? How canst thou doubt thy Father's care for thee? Dost thou not know my mighty power to save? My strength, my wisdom, mine immensity? No longer doubt thy Father's love and power, That doth sustain and bless thee every hour.
Lift up thine eyes, my child, no longer fear; Bright streaks of crimson light the distant west; The morning dawns! The glorious day is near When toil is changed to everlasting rest. Then wait in patience; thy reward is sure, If to the weary end thou shalt endure.
LILLA D. AVERY.
Locke, Mich., Dec. 9, 1876.

Mr. Moody’s Sermon on the Coming of the Lord.

[From the Chicago Daily Tribune.]
The principal event of this week of revival since the watch-meeting on New-Year’s Eve was the long-expected sermon of Mr. Moody on the return of our Lord. All his other topics have been such as all orthodox ministers dwell upon; all his utterances have been along the line of “those things which are most commonly believed among us,” but when, some ten days ago, Mr. Moody announced this sermon, there arose no small stir to know what he would say on this theme, which was understood to be about his only theological specialty. That he should preach for three months and never once allude to this doctrine, which, from the discourse of yesterday, appears to be as fire shut up in his bones, shows him to be possessed of that Christian wisdom which Paul says is “profitable to direct.” This is a controverted point; sinners can be brought to Christ without it; believers can be roused to helpfulness by other motives; and thus it is among his very last utterances, during a supplemental series of meetings, that he brings out his favorite theory of the speedy second advent of Jesus Christ to take his church out of the world.
The service, which was attended by nearly 5,000 people, was opened with the ninety-sixth hymn of the Bliss and Sankey collection, entitled “Till He Come.” The opening prayer was by Rev. S. H. Adams, of Centenary M. E. Church. Another hymn, written by Mr. Bliss, was sung as a solo and chorus, beginning with the words, “Down life’s dark vale we wander till Jesus comes.” Then a hymn by the whole congregation, “Rejoice and be glad, for he cometh again.” After which Mr. Moody commenced.

The Address

As follows: In 2 Timothy 3:16, Paul declares, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for instruction in righteousness”; but there are some people who tell us when we take up prophecy that it is all very well to be believed, but that there is no use in one’s trying to understand it; these future events are things that the churches do not agree about, and it is better to let them alone, and deal only with those prophecies which have already been fulfilled. But Paul doesn’t talk that way; he says, “All Scripture is . . . profitable for doctrine.” If these people are right, he ought to have said, “Some Scripture is profitable; but you can’t understand the prophecies, so you had better let them alone.” If God didn’t mean to have us study the prophecies, he wouldn’t have put them into the Bible. Some of them are fulfilled, and he is at work fulfilling the rest, so that if we do not see them all completed in this life, we shall in the world to come.
I don’t want to teach anything to-day, dogmatically, on my own authority, but to my mind this precious doctrine—for such I must call it—of the return of the Lord to this earth is taught in the New Testament as clearly as any other doctrine in it; yet I was in the church fifteen or sixteen years before I ever heard a sermon on it. There is hardly any church that doesn’t make a great deal of baptism, but the New Testament speaks about baptism only thirteen times, while it speaks of the return of our Lord fifty times; and yet the church has had very little to say about it. Now, I can see a reason for this: the devil does not want us to see this truth, for nothing would wake up the church so much. The moment a man takes hold of the truth that Jesus Christ is coming back again to receive his friends to himself, this world loses its hold upon him; gas-stocks and water-stocks, and stocks in banks and in horse-railroads, are of very much less consequence to him then. His heart is free, and he looks for the blessed appearing of his Lord, who at his coming will take him into his blessed kingdom.
In 2 Pet. 1:20, we read, “No prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation.” Some people say, “Oh! yes, the prophecies are all well enough for the priests and doctors, but not for the rank and file of the church.” But Peter says, “The prophecy came not by the will of man, but holy men spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost,” and those men are the very ones who tell us of the return of our Lord. Look at Daniel 2:45, where he tells the meaning of that stone which the king saw in his dream that was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that broke in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold. “The dream is certain and the interpretation thereof sure,” says Daniel. Now we have seen the fulfillment of that prophecy all but the closing part of it. The kingdoms of Babylon and Medo-Persia and Greece and Rome have all been broken in pieces, and now it only remains for this stone cut out of the mountain without hands to smite the image and break it in pieces till it becomes like the dust of the summer threshing-floor, and for this stone to become a great mountain and fill the whole earth.

But How Is He Going to Come?

We are told how he is going to come. When those disciples stood looking up into heaven at the time of his ascension, there appeared two angels, who said unto them (Acts 1:11), “Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.” How did he go up? He took his flesh and bones up with him. Look at me; handle me; give me something to eat; a spirit has not flesh and bones as ye see me have; I am the identical one whom they crucified and laid in the grave. Now I am risen from the dead and am going up to Heaven. He is gone, say the angels, but he will come again just as he went. An angel was sent to announce his birth of the Virgin; angels sang of his advent in Bethlehem; an angel told the women of his resurrection; and two angels told the disciples of his coming again. It is the same testimony in all these cases.
I don’t know why people shouldn’t like to study the Bible, and find out all about this precious doctrine of our Lord’s return. Some have gone beyond prophecy, and tried to tell the very day he would come. Perhaps that is one reason why people do not believe this doctrine. He is coming, we know that; but just when he is coming we don’t know. Matthew 24:36 settles that. The angels don’t know, and Christ says that even he doesn’t know, but that is something the Father keeps to himself. If Christ had said, “I will not come back for 2,000 years,” none of his disciples would have begun to watch for him, but it is the proper attitude of a Christian to be always looking for his Lord’s return. So God does not tell us when he is to come, but Christ tells us to watch. In this same chapter we find that he is to come unexpectedly and suddenly. In the twenty-seventh verse we have these words: “For as the lightning cometh out of the east and shineth unto the west, even so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.” And again in the forty-fourth verse, “Therefore, be ye also ready, for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.”
Some people say that means death; but the word of God does not say it means death. Death is our enemy, but our Lord hath the keys of death; he has conquered death, hell, and the grave, and at any moment he may come to set us free from death and destroy our last enemy for us; so the proper state for a believer in Christ is waiting and watching for our Lord’s return.
In the last chapter of John there is a text that seems to

Settle This Matter.

Peter asks the question about John, “Lord, what shall this man do?” Jesus said unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou me. Then went this saying abroad among the brethren that that disciple should not die. They did not think that the coming of the Lord meant death; there was a great difference between these two things in their minds. Christ is the Prince of Life; there is no death where he is; death flees at his coming; dead bodies sprang to life when he touched them or spoke to them. His coming is not death; he is the resurrection and the life; when he sets up his kingdom there is to be no death, but life forevermore.
There is another mistake, as you will find if you read your Bibles carefully. Some people think that at the coming of Christ everything is to be all done up in a few minutes; but I do not so understand it. The first thing he is to do is to take his church out of the world. He calls the church his bride, and he says he is going to prepare a place for her. We may judge, says one, what a glorious place it will be from the length of time he is in preparing it, and when the place is ready he will come and take the church to himself.
In the closing verses of the fourth chapter of 1 Thessalonians, Paul says: “If we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so also them which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. . . . We which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.” That is ever the comfort of the church. There was a time when I used to mourn that I should not be alive in the millennium; but now I expect to be in the millennium. Dean Alford says—almost everybody bows to him in the matter of interpretation—that he must insist that this coming of Christ to take his church to himself in the clouds is not the same event as his coming to judge the world at the last day. The deliverance of the church is one thing, judgment is another. Now, I can’t find any place in the Bible where it tells me to wait for signs of the coming of the millennium, as the return of the Jews, and such like; but it tells me to look for the coming of the Lord; to watch for it; to be ready at midnight to meet him, like those five wise virgins. The trump of God may be sounded, for anything we know, before I finish this sermon,—at any rate we are told that he will come as a thief in the night and at an hour when many look not for him.
Some of you may shake your heads and say, “Oh! well, that is too deep for the most of us; such things ought not to be said before these young converts; only the very wisest characters, such as the ministers and the professors in the theological seminaries, can understand them.” But, my friends, you find that Paul wrote about these things to those young converts among the Thessalonians, and he tells them to comfort one another with those words. Here in the first chapter of 1 Thessalonians Paul says, “Ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from Heaven whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus which delivered us from the wrath to come.” To wait for his Son; that is the true attitude of every child of God. If he is doing that, he is ready for the duties of life, ready for God’s work; aye, that makes him feel that he is just ready to begin to work for God. Then over in the next chapter (verse 19), he says, “For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye, in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ, at his coming?” And again in the third chapter, in the thirteenth verse, “To the end that he may establish your hearts unblamable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.” Still again, in the fifth chapter, “For ye yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.” He has something to say about this same thing in every chapter; indeed, I have thought this epistle to the Thessalonians might be called the gospel of Christ’s coming again.
There are three great facts foretold in the word of God: First, that Christ should come; that has been fulfilled. Second, that the Holy Ghost should come; that was fulfilled at Pentecost, and the church is able to testify to it by its experience of his saving grace. Third, the return of our Lord again from Heaven; for this we are told to watch and wait “till he come.” Look at that account of the last hours of Christ with his disciples. What does Christ say to them? If I go away I will send death after you to bring you to me? I will send an angel after you? Not at all. He says, “I will come again and receive you unto myself.” If my wife were in a foreign country, and I had a beautiful mansion all ready for her, she would a good deal rather I should come and bring her unto it than to have me send some one else to bring her. So the church is the Lamb’s wife. He has prepared a mansion for his bride, and he promises for our joy and comfort that he ## Will Come Himself and bring us to the place he has been all this while preparing.
My friends, it is perfectly safe to take the word of God just as we find it. If he tells us to watch, then watch! If he tells us to pray, then pray! If he tells us he will come again, wait for him! Let the church bow to the word of God, rather than to be trying to find out how these things can be. “Behold, I come quickly,” said Christ. “Even so, come, Lord Jesus,” should be the prayer of the church.
Take the account of the words of Christ at the communion table. It seems to me the devil has covered up the most precious thing about it. “For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show forth the Lord’s death till he come.” But most people seem to think that the Lord’s table is the place for self-examination and repentance, and making good resolutions. Not at all; you spoil it that way; it is to show forth the Lord’s death, and we are to keep it up till he comes.
Some people say, “I believe Christ will come on the other side of the millennium.” Where do you get it? I can’t find it. The word of God nowhere tells me to watch and wait for the coming of the millennium, but for the coming of the Lord. I don’t find any place where God says the world is to grow better and better, and that Christ is to have a spiritual reign on earth of a thousand years. I find that the earth is to grow worse and worse, and that at length there is going to be a separation,—two women grinding at a mill, one taken and the other left; two men in one bed, one taken and the other left. The church is to be translated out of the world, and of this event we have two examples already, two representatives, as we might say, in Christ’s kingdom, of what is to be done for all his true believers. Enoch is the representative of the first dispensation, Elijah of the second, and, as a representative of the third dispensation, we have the Saviour himself, who is entered into the heavens for us, and become the first fruits of them that slept. We are not to wait for the great white throne judgment, but the glorified church is to sit on the throne with Christ, and to help to judge the world.
Now, some of you think this is a new and strange doctrine, and that they who preach it are speckled birds. But let me tell you that most of the spiritual men in the pulpits of Great Britain are firm in this faith. Spurgeon preaches it. I have heard Newman Hall say that he knew no reason why Christ might not come before he got through with his sermon. But in certain wealthy and fashionable churches, where they have the form of godliness, but deny the power thereof,—just the state of things which Paul declares shall be in the last days,—this doctrine is not preached or believed. They do not want sinners to cry out in the meeting, “What must I do to be saved?” They want intellectual preachers who will cultivate their taste, brilliant preachers who will rouse their imagination, but they don’t want the preaching that has in it the power of the Holy Ghost. We live in the day of

Shams in Religion.

The church is cold and formal; may God wake us up! And I know of no better way to do it than to get the church to looking for the return of our Lord.
Some people say, “Oh! you will discourage the young converts if you preach that doctrine.” Well, my friends, that hasn’t been my experience. I have felt like working three times as hard ever since I came to understand that my Lord was coming back again. I look on this world as a wrecked vessel. God has given me a lifeboat, and said to me, “Moody, save all you can.” God will come in judgment and burn up this world, but the children of God don’t belong to this world; they are in it, but not of it, like a ship in the water. This world is getting darker and darker; its ruin is coming nearer and nearer; if you have any friends on this wreck unsaved, you had better lose no time in getting them off. But some one will say, “Do you then make the grace of God a failure?” No; grace is not a failure, but man is. The antediluvian world was a failure; the Jewish world was a failure; man has been a failure everywhere, when he has had his own way and been left to himself. Christ will save his church, but he will save them finally by taking them out of the world.
Now, don’t take my word for it; look this doctrine up in your Bibles, and, if you find it there, bow down to it and receive it as the word of God. Take Matt. 24:50: “The Lord of that servant shall come when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, and shall cut him asunder and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Take 2 Peter, third chapter, fourth and fifth verses: “There shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.” Go out on the streets of Chicago and ask men about the return of our Lord, and that is just what they would say: “Ah, yes, the Lord delayeth his coming!”
“Behold, I come quickly,” said Christ to John, and the last prayer in the Bible is, “Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly.” Were the early Christians disappointed then? No; no man is disappointed who obeys the voice of God. The world waited for the first coming of the Lord; waited for 4,000 years, and then he came. He was here only thirty years and then he went away; but he left us a promise that he would come again; and as the world watched and waited for his first coming and did not watch in vain, so now to them who wait for his appearing shall he appear a second time unto salvation. Now let the question go round, “Am I ready to meet the Lord if he comes to-night?” “Be ye also ready, for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.”
There is another thought I want to call your attention to, and that is: Christ will

Bring All Our Friends with Him

when he comes. All who have died in the Lord are to be with him when he comes in the clouds of heaven. “Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection; on such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.” (Rev. 20:6.) “But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were past; this is the first resurrection.” (Verse 5.) That looks as if the church were to have a thousand years with Christ before his return to the final judgment, when Satan shall be cast out and there shall be new heavens and new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.
Now, I want to give you some texts to study at home: 1 Cor. 2:26; Luke 19:13; 1 Tim. 6:12; 1 Thess. 1:7; James 5:8; 1 Thess. 4:17, 18. And so let us watch and wait till he comes.
Mr. Moody then closed the service with prayer and the benediction.
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