FEW of those who advocate, and still fewer of the legislators who enact, Sunday laws have any desire to persecute any class of people; therefore it is difficult for them to realize that they are furnishing a mighty weapon to those who may at any time be wrought up to the pitch of vicious espionage of their neighbors, or a fanatical zeal for the "majesty of the law."
Many advocate the enactment of Sunday laws merely from a sentimental idea that this "form of godliness" adds to the dignity and respectability of the state or municipality. They look upon such a measure as an advertisement of the moral status of the people, commending the locality to favorable consideration by the "better classes" seeking a change of residence. It is thought by many that the mere fact of the existence of a legal recognition of Sunday will give a good name abroad, and as this is one of the common ambitions of "public-spirited" men in these days of sectional or municipal rivalry, the Sunday law or Sunday-closing ordinance, as the case may be, is seized as one means of commendation.
Men advocate and pass such measures who have not the least idea of their having any effect beyond the voluntary recognition of the people. Many advocates of such laws are actuated by political or business or social advantage, who have no thought of adhering to them themselves in a practical way. Others seem to think them justifiable if only a few saloons may be closed on Sunday, or part of the day; and they can not see, or will not acknowledge, the deep-seated possibilities of persecution that are hidden beneath the surface.
As has been the case in many states, the Sunday law may lie dormant for years, an apparently innocent ornament to the reputation of a community or state; and so long as public sentiment does not demand its active execution, it may be practically harmless. But it lies there like the charge of giant powder or dynamite, waiting the match or concussion, and sooner or later the explosion must come.7
Sometime, zealous (or jealous) religionists, wanting in other available resource or pretext, will appeal to this law. They will want to find occasion against some other class whose ways are offensive to them, and they will find the Sunday law their most convenient resort. A vicious neighbor may desire to gratify a vindictive disposition, and to annoy some one on account of a grudge or fancied injury, and the Sunday law is found a ready implement of revenge. The courts may see and acknowledge the injustice of the action, but the plea will be, We are here to execute the law, and we have no alternative.
Satan is now marshaling his hosts. It is now pre-eminently a day of deception. The very spiritual blindness that leads the multitude to seek the mystic "healer," and to seek communion with the dead, and to seek moral reform by means of civil law, will also lead to the folly of enforced Sunday observance as evidence of marked social, political, and religious advancement. And such deception naturally leads to that last resort of religious despotism, "The end justifies the means;" so, when other means fail, persecution must follow.
G.
THE OUTLOOK
IS IT REFORM?
A RECENT issue of the World of To-day, has these paragraphs:
Just now the charlatan reformer is too considerably in evidence. We are in an era of confession. Boodlers confess to escape punishment; good men to ease their conscience. Gentlemen with active imaginations confess in the interest of their income. It is the charlatan's golden age. A man's penitence has come to be his largest financial asset. There never was a time when reputations were so butchered to make newspaper and magazine circulation.
To uncover the sins of one's associates and one's self as a commercial adventure, and to advertise specifics or cure-alls, is a genuine menace to public morals. It is one thing for the department of health to open up a city's sewers. It would be quite another thing if sewer-opening became a commercially-lucrative fad. A man is not a prophet because he lays bare social evils. He may be a common yellow journalist. It is one thing to bare evils in the name of God; it is quite another thing to be a scandal-monger at so much a thousand words.
And this is true. The confession is generally forced or used from a selfish motive. It is not true repentance, because it does not stop the sin. It is the repentance often of the murderer caught red-handed, his knife dripping with his victim's gore. It is the repentance of the thief, caught with the stolen booty in his possession. This is the repentance which needs to be repented of. It is "the sorrow of the world" which "worketh death." See 2 Cor. 7:9-11.
Reformers are needed who will make bare the evils in the name of God; that will let men know that they are not breaking merely human laws, which a judge may misinterpret, nor are they to stand before merely human courts which are fallible and corruptible. They are transgressing God's law, infallible, unchangeable, which will stand out before them in all the white light of eternity. They must answer at that bar which makes no mistake, and whose decisions are never reversed.
In many cases such messages of God would lead to "a godly sorrow [which] worketh repentance, a repentance which bringeth no regret." And this is what such repentance would do for an offender: "What earnest care it wrought in you, yea what clearing of yourselves, yea what indignation, yea what fear, yea what longing, yea what zeal, yea what avenging! In everything ye approved yourselves to be pure in the matter."
Would God this could be said of the arrested and exposed criminals in our great cities, and in our great trusts and insurance companies, as it was said of the sinners in Corinth! Money would find its owner. Men would be honest with God. But this we do not see; the churl still "deviseth wicked devices." The evil work still goes on. Men are becoming indifferent to the most flagrant crimes. Conscience is becoming seared or dead. Nothing but the Spirit of God can arouse men, and this must be done by "the sword of the Spirit." But how can it be, when that Word is set aside for human grime and guess,—for evolution, "higher criticism," "New Thought," "Christian Science," "Spiritism," and the fruits of all open infidelity, ready to be deceived by any of the overmastering delusions of Satan which will appeal to human sense. Well said the Master of this time: "And because iniquity shall be multiplied, the love of the many shall wax cold. But he that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved. And this Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a testimony unto all the nations; and then shall the end come." Matt. 24:12-14. Praise God, that, notwithstanding the multiplied lawlessness, the everlasting good tidings of Christ's soon-coming kingdom is speeding to the world. The end is not far. Worldling, awaken. Christian, endure.
CATHOLICISM AND HEATHENISM.
By George
IN coupling these two ideas for comparison, we do so on the authority of a leading Catholic journal, the "official organ of the archdiocese of Baltimore." In support of the claim that the Catholic religion must take a firmer hold of the Japanese than any other form of Christianity, a contributor to the Catholic Mirror says:
Of all forms and expressions of Christianity, Catholicism is the only one which would be likely to meet with permanent acceptance by the people so mentally constituted as the Japanese. The experience of a recent English writer, who enjoyed exceptional advantages of studying the country and the people, and whose book is an admirable impressionist description of Japan and the Japanese, endorses this view. The religion, such as it is, of the Japanese has far more points of contact with Catholic belief than it has with Protestantism. Prayer for the dead, which with us is a link that unites the Church Militant with the Church Suffering, has, to a certain extent, its counterpart in Buddhist requiem services.
This Buddhist and spiritist doctrine is further indorsed as follows:
The loving recollection of the dead is deeply rooted in the hearts of the Japanese, and has often smoothed the way for Catholic teaching. . . .
The Japanese believe that those who die beloved, and for whom remembrance is constantly made, do not suffer in the shadowy place of Meido, that home of departed spirits, which is not a prison, and from which they constantly come to visit the living, to protect and comfort the bereaved.
The pure Shinto form of religion forbids funeral pomp, but enjoins the use of white robes, white woods, quantities of flowers, everything simple and cheering; just as white, instead of mourning black, is customary at a Catholic child's obsequies in the West.
The boast over Protestants, in the advantage the Catholics have in appealing to heathen forms already in vogue in Japan, is evidence of a feeling of security because of a fundamental kinship to Buddhism. Here it is in brief, altho the author elaborates it to quite an extent:
Protestantism, compared with Catholicity, must strike the Japanese, imbued with mystical beliefs expressed in a ritual that appeals to the imagination and the heart, as cold, unemotional, and repellant.
We do not refer to these admissions as anything new. It is the principle through which Catholicism evolved from the gradual apostasy of the church in the second to the fourth centuries. Compromising with Paganism, many of the festivals and ceremonies of the heathen were engrafted into the church in order to "smooth the way" for the heathen to become nominal Christians. In this way came Sunday observance, Easter, Christmas, etc., together with image worship, the mass, and almost every feature of Roman Catholic worship.
But this is not all; Protestants are adopting the same principle with regard to Catholic festivals and dogmas. And for this same reason Spiritism—which has its root in the immortal-soul doctrine—and the principle of church and state union are permeating nearly all the professedly-Protestant churches of our land. This is apparently the back-slidden Protestant manner of competing with Rome among the "heathen," but it will finally result in the absorption by Rome of all who adopt her dogmas and festivals and methods. God has revealed it that "all the world" will "wonder after" that power, and "worship" it, excepting those whose names are written in the book of life. Rev. 13: 1-8; 17:8. And they that have right to the tree of life are accredited with keeping "the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus." Rev. 14:12; 22:14.
SUNDAY ENFORCEMENT NOTES AND COMMENT.
By Editor
IN the Cleveland Leader of January 9, is an article with this head: "Will Lead His Flock in Giving a Play. Pastor Goes to Theater to Investigate Morals of a Drama. Tells Them It Is All Right." Out of this a bargain was made with the theater to present a new play with the pastor as one of the leading characters, for "the benefit of the church."
THE chief of police of Braddock, Pa., has inaugurated a movement looking toward the closing of all stores on Sundays, with the exception of the pharmacies.
THE question of the legality of Sunday wedding ceremonies when accompanied by music and dancing has recently been raised and passed upon in Boston, Mass., as the result of an officious attempt at Sunday enforcement. A police captain undertook to forbid and suppress music and dancing at Sunday weddings in the South End section of that city, with the result that a number of cases were put into court and considerable unfavorable comment was created, especially on the part of the Hebrews, who were chiefly affected by this attempt at Sunday enforcement. The protests raised "led to the chairman of the police board calling upon the services of the legal adviser of the board for light upon the law envolved," with the result that the following official statement was issued by the chairman on July 18: "For all charitable or religious entertainments on Sunday at which admission is charged permits are granted by the mayor of Boston. For all religious ceremonies where no admission is charged and music is part of the ceremony no permission is needed, as such ceremonies are allowed by law. Marriage is a religious ceremony, and if music is a part of the ceremony it is allowed by law." That's it. Marriage is a religious ceremony, therefore anything that is a part of the ceremony is allowed by the Sunday law, even tho it is not allowed in connection with other things that are not deemed religious. And yet we are told that there is nothing religious about the Sunday law. It seems that dancing at weddings on Sunday is left under the ban by this official statement on the subject.
THE EARTHQUAKES.
THE activity of Vesuvius and Stromboli just before the earthquake in Calabria and the reported formation of a new mountain in Samoa will confirm in the public mind the belief that when the great chimneys of the earth pour out lava it is preliminary to seismic disturbances.
In the scientific view this is a coincidence only. Yet these volcanic accompaniments to earthquakes are not infrequent. At the time of the India earthquakes last April our own, snow-topped Shasta belched forth mud and volcanic ashes and Pelée emitted clouds of smoke. Vesuvius was in eruption during the world-wide disturbances of August, 1903. The earthquakes in the Sunda Straits in 1883 followed an eruption of Krakatoa.
As a matter of fact earthquakes are due to a more superficial disturbance of the earth's crust than connection with volcanic phenomena would indicate. The shifting of strata is perhaps from ten to twenty miles below the surface.
Their lateral extent may perhaps be unlimited. The Charleston earthquake was felt in Canada. The August earthquakes of 1903 included Portugal, Sicily, the Pacific Coast, the Argentine Republic, and central New York. The Lisbon earthquake of 1755 sent its seismic wave across the sea to New England. The Calabrian shock was felt in France.
In point of violence and the number of fatalities this earthquake in southern Italy must rank among the important ones of recent years—with that in Manila in 1880, Spain in 1884, Charleston in 1886, Japan in 1891, Mexico in 1892, Guatemala in 1903. The most disastrous was that in India last April.
New York, if not immune from earthquakes, has experienced but few, and those of insignificance. For a city of skyscrapers an earthquake shock of severity would be an alarming visitation. But according to Professor Kemp, of Columbia, the skyscraper is safe, tho the occupants of top stories might suffer from seasickness.—New York World.
Religious Liberty in China
Sir Hiram Maxim, in a recent newspaper article, writes: "While we in Europe were floundering in the ecclesiastical slime of the Dark Ages and burning hundreds of thousands of people at the stake on account of religious opinion, China enjoyed as high a state of religious liberty as exists anywhere in Europe to-day."
SUPPRESSION OF JOHN HAY'S BOOK.
ROMAN CATHOLIC influence or intrigue has suppressed the circulation of the late Secretary of State John Hay's book, "Castilian Days," in the public libraries of Buffalo, N. Y.
At a meeting of the Brooklyn, N. Y., branch of the American Federation of Catholic Societies on September 17, it was reported that "the federation in Buffalo has been very successful in various undertakings, particularly in having the libraries of the city discontinue the circulation of the book 'Castilian Days,' written by the late Secretary of State John Hay, which it has been felt in Catholic circles was slanderous of Catholics and their customs." The report that the work had been successfully suppressed by the Buffalo federation was enthusiastically received by the Brooklyn contingent. This is indicative of the sort of work that may be expected of the Roman Catholic federation.
The Sympathetic Strike and Boycott
In a recent injunction case in San Francisco, the court drew a marked distinction between a combination of union laborers for self-protection, and a like combination for the purpose of injuring another. The ruling is that "all employees have a right to quit their employment, but no right to combine to quit in order thereby to compel their employer to withdraw from a mutually-profitable relation with a third person, for the purpose of injuring the third person, when the relation thus sought to be broken had no effect whatever upon the character or the reward of their services." This is a judicial blow at the conspiracy principle involved in the so-called "sympathetic strike" and the boycott.
HOW IMPERIALISM IS FOSTERED.
By G.
IT is hardly worth while to criticise the administration for imperial tendencies, when "the people love to have it so." The great popular apostasy from republican principle is especially manifest in the growth and multiplicity of secret societies. They are all founded on imperial principles—concentration of authority, high-sounding titles, gaudy regalias, and exclusiveness.
The Christian Cynosure truthfully remarks:
Daniel Webster, John Quincy Adams, Charles Sumner, Wendell Phillips, and other men of like stamp, saw and said years ago that secret associations were inconsistent with free government. The lodges train men for despotism; the officers to love and execute it, the rank and file to submit to it.
Of the recent great strike in Chicago, the same journal says: "As you all know, this was a secret society strike, pure and simple. Men with no grievance laid down work which they had engaged to do, and undertook to maim or kill any who should take it up."
Any association among men whose members are obligated, directly or indirectly, to screen one another, right or wrong, and who carry out this principle, is antagonistic to free government. It is this kind of concentration for selfish ends that saps the life-blood of free institutions, and instils imperialistic principles. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."
EVOLUTION AND GEOLOGY
By Geo. McCready Price
HISTORICAL SKETCH.
Buffon and Werner.
THE great French naturalist Buffon (1707-88) had little faith in the theories hitherto advanced about the past of our globe, and is credited by Zittel with the sarcastic remark "that geologists must feel like the ancient Roman augurs who could not meet each other without laughing." He boldly denounced the idea of a universal Deluge, and set about constructing an accurate (?) and detailed history of the past and future of our earth, basing his ideas on "all the actual observations hitherto recorded in geological science."
His work, Epoques de la Nature, appeared in 1778.
Buffon there enumerates five "facts" of first importance, and five additional "monuments" or comments. The "facts" are physical in character; they postulate the oblate-spheroidal form of the earth; compare the small amount of heat received from the sun with the large supply possessed by the body of the earth; the effect of the earth's internal heat in altering the rocks of the crust; and the presence of fossils everywhere over the earth, even on the tops of the highest mountains. The "monuments" assert that all limestones consist of the remains of marine organisms, and that in Asia, America, and the North of Europe the remains of large terrestrial animals occur at a small depth below the surface, showing that they apparently dwelt in these regions at no very remote age; whereas the deeper-lying remains of marine creatures in the same region belong to extinct species, or are related only to forms now inhabiting far distant seas.—"History," page 42.
Surely here was a wonderful array of "facts" and "monuments" from which to build up a circumstantial account of the exact formation of our globe!
Starting from these axioms, Buffon portrays in very attractive terms the beginning, the past, and the future (sic.) of our planet.—Ibid.
Speculations.
But I shall not weary my readers with the silly details of his seven "epochs" or periods in the history of the earth from the time it split off from the sun till the present or seventh "epoch" with man as lord of creation. And yet Zittel says of this flimsy tissue of wild, unscientific speculations that it "for the first time brought the historical possibilities of geology to the forefront."—"Possibilities"! yes, I should think so: the possibility of giving a quasi-scientific character to absurd speculations from the subjective standpoint."
And yet we can hardly estimate the far-reaching influence of these "dreams of a whirling brain" merely because of the fact that this brain happened to be that of the otherwise great naturalist Count De Buffon. From this time down it seems that the scientists who have dealt with geology in any manner have never had a shadow of doubt that somehow or other there has been a succession in the life upon the globe
from the low to the high,
and that it is the business of geology to straighten out the details of this wonderful fact of becoming. All subsequent theories of evolution, including that of Lamarck (1744-1829) and the more modern one of Charles Darwin, or the successive "creations" of Cuvier and the other catastrophists which are of the same stamp, seem to be only amplifications of this wonderful "induction" which Buffon extracted from his five precious "monuments" about the higher forms of life being found in the superficial deposits and lower forms in the deeper-lying strata. Even the seven "days" of Sir William Dawson and the other religious geologists, who tried to quiet the scruples of the church with their "Day-Period Theory of Creation," seem to have come bodily from Buffon's seven epochs, and it has taken a good many long years to develop the magnificent reductio ad absurdum argument against this general idea of life-succession or evolution which we now possess, and which is the very quintessence of the general results of modern science, brought about in these last days for the evident purpose of calling the attention of all men to "Him who made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters," and who has given us the Sabbath as a memorial of this event.
The period from 1790 to 1820 Zittel characterizes as "The
Heroic Age of Geology."
The characteristic features of this age, and that which gave it a rejuvenating significance in the development of geology, was the determined spirit that prevailed to discountenance speculation, and to seek untiringly in the field and in the laboratories after new observations, new truths.—Page 46.
To this age belongs Pallas, who spent six years (1768-74) in Eastern Russia and Siberia, and who was the first to call the attention of the world to the astonishing character of the remains of the mammoth, rhinoceros, and bison entombed in the arctic regions of Siberia in such countless numbers.
De Saussure (1740-99) is another of the founders of geology. He spent his life among the French-Swiss Alps, and his works are still regarded as "reliable books of reference for all Swiss geologists to the present day."
Werner's Teaching.
But far more famous than any geologist thus far is A. G. Werner (1749-1817), Professor of Mineralogy at Freiberg, who exercised an unrivaled authority amongst the followers of the strict descriptive method in natural history. By the skill and eloquence of his teaching, far more than by his books and writings, Werner inspired in his scholars and adherents a devotion toward exact methods of study.—Page 47.
From all parts of Europe students came, and, when they returned to their own countries, they spread the teachings of geognosy and mineralogy as Werner had taught it to them.—Page 57.
Werner was the great original "Neptunist," for he taught that all the rocks of the earth's crust had taken origin as mechanical or chemical precipitates from aqueous solutions, while volcanic products represented rock material originally formed in this way subsequently melted and ejected. He thought all volcanic rocks thus later than the sedimentary rocks, and that volcanoes were caused by coal deposits burning beneath the ground. On this last point he was certainly much nearer the truth than the current theories of the present day.
Following the theories of a certain Swedish scientist, named Bergman (1735-84), Werner distinguished five "suites" of rocks from the "Primitive" or crystalline—granite, gneiss, mica, schist, etc.—to the more recent or volcanic: these "suites" or series being characteristic of the successive epochs of the earth's history; and he imagined them all successively enveloping the whole earth like the coats of an onion, one outside the other.
Examination of Theories.
Let us now consider these theories. This is what Zittel says about it:
Unfortunately, Werner's field observations were limited to a small district, the Erz mountains and the neighboring parts of Saxony and Bohemia. And his chronological scheme of formations was founded upon the mode of occurrence of the rocks within these narrow confines.—"History of Geology," page 59.
And yet it is precisely such a charge as this that I have to bring against the modern doctrine of the successive ages based on the life-succession idea. Werner, from observations "limited to a small district," constructed his scheme of chronological sequence in a certain order based entirely upon the mineralogical or mechanical character of his "suites." And other geologists adopting his views long considered that the rocks everywhere conformed to this classification, even so great an observer as Von Humboldt thinking that the rocks which he examined in Central and South America fully confirmed Werner's chronological arrangement.
But geologists of to-day only smile at such notions, for it has since been abundantly demonstrated that, take the world over, the rocks do not occur in the order which Werner imagined. Besides, we have now pretty well digested the fact that while one kind of mineral or rock may be forming in one locality, a totally different kind of deposit may be in process of formation in another spot not far off at the very same time. But in a precisely similar way the idea of a time value was, as we shall presently see, transferred from the mechanical and mineralogical character of the rocks to their fossil contents; and from observations again "limited to a small district," William Smith and others conceived the idea that the fossils occurred always in a certain order; that9### only certain fossils
lived at a certain time; and that, for example, while the Trilobites were living and dying in one locality, Numulites, or Mammals, positively were not living and dying in another locality. Here is where the puerile assumption comes in. When we find the very same species of fossil in two separated localities we do well to regard the two deposits as (in a geological sense) "contemporaneous." But when, to repeat an example from a previous article, we find Carboniferous fossils lying next to the Archaean in Nova Scotia, and other coals of the Cretaceous rocks also lying next to the Archaean in Vancouver, it is only bold, unscientific assumption to say that the two can not have been formed at the same period of time. In the very same manner as that of Werner, Smith's "chronological scheme of formations was founded upon the mode of occurrence of the rocks within these narrow confines."
The two cases are exactly parallel; only it has taken us nearly a hundred years, it seems, to find out that the fossils do not follow the pre-arranged order of William Smith and Cuvier any better than the rocks and minerals do the scheme of Werner. Hundreds of geologists still seem to think that the fossils in general agree with the standard order, but then we must remember how many hundreds of sharp observers said the same thing for decades about Werner's scheme. As we have already remarked, even Humboldt in his epoch-making travels through Central and South America "thought that the distribution of the rocks in these regions fully confirmed Werner's chronological succession of the groups of formations."—"History of Geology," page 121.
Nature No Guide.
But these things only illustrate that profound truth thus set forth by one of the greatest of living scientists, now curator of the scientific part of the British Museum—
Nature, it has been well said, gives no reply to a general inquiry—she must be interrogated by questions which already contain the answer she is to give; in other words, the observer can only observe that which he is led by hypothesis to look for; the experimenter can only obtain the result which his experiment is designed to obtain.—E. Ray Lankester, "Degeneration," page 8.
How much better it would have been for the world, how much faster men would have progressed in true science, if they had always been content to make their hypotheses conform to the Word of God.
(To be continued.)
THE ONE STANDARD.
By Lutheran World
As Christians we ought not to be pretentious, but we must and do make some pretensions. We claim to have in the Bible a God-given moral law; the standard of moral excellence by which all human law and conduct must be judged. From this claim we can not, we dare not, make any abatement. "To the law and to the testimony" is our watchword. There must be no equivocation here; no mental reservation. Christ's teaching, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself," is the touchstone of Christian ethics; and tho we have not probed the depth of meaning, nor scaled the heights of practical possibilities involved in this central doctrine, it is the one standard by which every human action must be gaged, and all philosophy estimated. In our own consciences and hearts we must hold with integrity the unimpeachable nature of this great law. Here we dogmatize; and we hold it to be our clear Christian duty to tolerate no subtraction and to permit no addition. If the social morality of the age is to be inoculated with the principle of this great law, its divine authority must be boldly taught, firmly held, and practically acknowledged by the adherents of the Christian faith. The world does not appreciate half-heartedness. Mincing Christianity will not convince. If social morality is to be swayed by Christianity, the world must know that the moral code is not a shifting sand, but a solid rock—not a nerveless, indefinite rule; but an inexorable law. "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them," is a moral precept which has stood the test of long experience, commanded the respect of the world, and is the only fulcrum on which Christian influence on social morality can securely rest.—Lutheran World.
THE LAW OF GOD.
By Samuel Benjamin
BY SAMUEL BENJAMIN.
THE Ten Commandments are the constitution of this planet, the expression of the will of God toward mankind. They are the fundamental law by which our heavenly Father seeks to govern His great human family.
Let it carefully be borne in mind that each part of that code of great moral law is equally God-given and authoritative.
The fourth article in that immortal Decalogue relates especially to the Sabbath. It designates carefully the day in the week, and tells how to keep it. "But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God;" "Remember [it] to keep it holy."
There is no law of language that would permit any one to apply the fourth commandment to the first day of the week. The seventh day is the one "nominated in the bond."
The Sabbath was not founded on a sentiment that could be changed by the will, or at the caprice, of man. But its eternal basis is the great fact of creation.
Such an event deserved suitable dedication and a fitting memorial. This it had in the Sabbath ordained in Eden when creation, so far as pertains to this earth, was fully accomplished. Gen. 2:1-3.
The last clause in the Sabbath law (Ex. 20:11) refers back to the fact of creation as stated in Gen. 2:1-3, for the reason why the "seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God." If the reader will compare these two Scripture references, the fact that the seventh day of the week is the Sabbath of God and of the Bible, will obtain permanency in the mind.
"How firm a foundation,
Ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith
In His excellent Word."
It is an axiom in jurisprudence that a law on a given subject must fit the facts, and the facts must fit the law. This idea finds forceful illustration in the fourth commandment which is the official law of God governing the Sabbath. It corresponds with the fact as stated in Gen. 2:1-3; and that fact of a finished earth, dedicated on that seventh day in that first week, is in perfect correspondence with the law which says, "But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God." Thus law fits fact and fact fits law.
"Lo! from Mount Sinai's lofty peak
The great Jehovah deigns to speak
To mortal man. O, hear His voice,
Ye people of His love and choice."
The Sabbath is the memorial of creation. It is God's special reminder, in the weekly cycle, of that great and glorious event.
The completion of creation, so far as this system is concerned, took place on the seventh day of the week. From that God-ordained and established position human opinion or legislation can not dislodge it. There it stands, solid, grand, and immutable as He who built the round earth, and sent it rolling through illimitable space. God sanctified that special day; that is, He set it apart, and raised it in importance over all its fellows in the weekly cycle for a special and holy purpose. The Sabbath was to be creation's memorial.
The honor of God as the great, wise, and loving Creator is involved in the keeping of that particular day which, above all others, shows forth God as Creator. Also the integrity of the fourth commandment is involved, because it declares in plain language, "But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God."
A memorial day must correspond with the event on which it is predicated. Thus the Sabbath, as creation's memorial, must correspond with Gen. 2:1-3; and it must be the seventh day in the week rather than the first day.
Those who are seeking for the truth on this subject, and earnestly desiring to be right in the sight of God, should abandon the counterfeit Sabbath which Sunday certainly is, and accept and keep the Sabbath established by Jehovah.
That day, the seventh day, is the Sabbath of God and of the Bible. This world has never known any other true Sabbath, and never will.
Granby, Conn.
"MY SAVIOUR!"
By Helen A. Steinhauer
BY HELEN A. STEINHAUER.
I LOVE to call Him Master,
I love to own Him Lord,—
This precious, precious Jesus,
Who bought me with His blood.
What should I do without Him,
Than earthly friend more dear,—
This tender Elder Brother,
In whom I have no fear?
Of all that here concerns me
He knows—and thinks and cares;
My griefs I lay on Jesus;
He every sorrow bears.
I tell Him every trial,
The heart-ache and the pain,
For He's my great Physician
Who gives me strength again.
I am no longer "clinging,"
I rest on Jesus' arm;
He walks with me and shields me
From every real harm.
I love Him! O, I love Him!
Far more than tongue can tell,—
This wond'rous Friend and Saviour
Who saves my soul from hell.
Battle Creek, Mich.
Serving God
"They who seek God soon find a way of serving Him."
SEEING SELF IN CHRIST.
By Phillips Brooks
EVERY man who came to Jesus saw in Him the image of His own true self—the thing that might be, and ought to be. Hundreds of them were not ready for the sight, and went away to be not what they might be nor what they ought to be, but what they basely chose to be. But none the less the pattern had been shown to them in the Mount.
Can not you go to Christ to-day, and find the idea of yourself in Him? In Christ's thought of you at this moment there is a picture of you which is perfectly distinct and separate and clear. It is not a vague, blurred picture, with all the special colors washed away. If you give up your life to serving and loving Christ, one of the blessings of your consecration of yourself to Him will be that in Him will open up to you this pattern of yourself. You will see your possible self as He sees it, and then life will have but one purpose and wish for you, which will be that you may realize that idea of yourself which you have seen in Him.—Phillips Brooks.
