Earlier text: THE COST OF LIVING IN RELATION TO MISSIONARY GIVING

Troubles of the Pope.

According to the New York World Pope Pius X. is having a multitude of troubles, because of the pope’s innocence of diplomatic ways, and the youth of his secretary of state. He has created trouble with the government in Spain by his securing sympathy with the Carlists, and it took many explanations to settle it. He has stirred up Belgian Catholic societies to political strifes by a recent address to Belgian pilgrims, till a countermand from his secretary of state is necessary to quiet the belligerent Belgians. The pope’s address to Poles has brought protests from Russia, Austria, and Germany. In a note from the Vatican to the Washington Government the rights of Colombia in the isthmus were advocated; but, on Secretary Hay’s showing, this, too, was considered a diplomatic error. Trouble with France and Italy are very perplexing, and, altogether, the pope is having a pretty hard time. O, what a wonderful relief it is to stand free in God, and not be bound by the world, or, worldly powers. Diplomacy often means duplicity. The servant of God ought to be innocent of diplomacy.

What Would He Criticize?

“What Would He Criticize?”—At a recent meeting of the Ministerial Association of San Francisco the question was asked: “If Jesus were here to-day, what would He protest against in the organized piety which I represent?” The Rev. Miles B. Fisher (Congregationalist) thought Jesus would first criticize the ecclesiastical estrangements. Rev. Richmond Logan (Presbyterian) thought his church was guilty of idolatry in being “too much given to the worship of a certain Frenchman named John Calvin.” The Star, of that city, considers the best answer that of Rev. Robert Whitaker (Baptist), of Oakland. He said, among other things: “If I ever thought Jesus was a Baptist, I put that notion away years ago with childish things. Neither was Jesus a Methodist nor Presbyterian, a Protestant, or Catholic. Our little systems are broken lights of His vision of truth. But just where His criticism of the organized piety of the day would fall, I do not know. I am quite sure He would be out of sympathy with denominational braggadocio of every sort. The average denominational conference would weary Him with its emphasis on externals and incidentals, and its exaggeration of denominational self-consciousness.” And this is good as suggestive of the conditions of modern churches; but it is worthless as to what the Master would say. What He was when here, He is to-day. What He said when here, the word which His Spirit inspired in apostle and prophet is comprehensive enough to cover all. The Decalogue is still in force in God’s plan. The Sermon on the Mount is still current.

American Bible Society Authorizes Standard Revised Version

The American Bible Society on May 12 amended its constitution so as to authorize the society to issue the American Standard Revised Version, as well as the Revised Version and the Common Version. This action is good; it will help this best English Version to a better standing and broader field.

Italy and the Catholic Orders

As France is expelling from her territory the Catholic orders, they are flocking to Italy, where many public meetings have been held to protest against their invasion. The Socialists started the agitation against the Catholic orders. But the government feels that they can not be shut out, and should be respected. And soon Italy will be in trouble again with those whose mission it is to bring peace.

The Fruit of True Repentance

True repentance is a godly sorrow for sin. When it takes possession of the heart, this is the fruitage: “For godly sorrow worketh repentance unto salvation, a repentance which bringeth no regret: but the sorrow of the world worketh death. For behold, this selfsame thing, that ye were made sorry after a godly sort, 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.” 2 Cor. 7:10, 11. Thus true repentance always works out.

Which Is It?

—Dear soul, are you sorry for your sin, or for its consequences? Do you love the sin and the sinning still, but mourn over what has followed?—Know, then, that thy sorrow will not benefit you or others. Know, also, that more bitter consequences will follow further sinning. Know that the bitterest of all consequences, of all results, are inherent in the sin and the sinning. More deplorable than shame and humiliation, than suffering or imprisonment, is the stamp of sin upon your character and the hardening of your heart against all good. O, see the sin as it truly is, hateful and only hateful, evil and only evil. All the beauty it seems to have and the pleasure it seems to promise are the sugar coatings by which the devil disguises the awful bitterness.

Sin

“Sin.”—In his “Essays for the Day,” Dr. Munger declares that great authors often choose sin as their theme, “because it is the greatest theme.” He then asks, “Why is it great?” And thus he answers: “Because it is a violation of the order of the world, and is the defeat of humanity. It throws human nature wide open to our gaze; we look on the ruin, and see man’s greatness; on his misery, and so uncover pity, which becomes a redeeming force. Thus it opens the whole wide play of human life in its highest and deepest relations. Nothing so interests men as their sins and defeats. Tragedy is born of them, and tragedy fixes evermore the steady gaze of mankind.” And all sin’s greatness, all that makes it worthy of notice, lies in the righteous law of which sin is the perversion or transgression. “The strength of sin is the law.” Its power is perverted power. It is using life to enact the tragedies and horrors of the universe. Praise God, the theme in the world redeemed by the Conqueror of sin, will be redeeming love.

Dead in Trespasses and Sins

“Dead in Trespasses and Sins.”—It is said by those who do not believe that death is death, that the above passage proves that death is only a figure of speech, and not literal cessation of life. But death is as literal here as it can be anywhere. God gives His life according to law. To the brute beast the life comes through the sunshine, food, drink, and air. The physical law of the species is the channel of its life. If that law be transgressed, perversion, sickness and death follow. Man has a higher nature than the brute, a moral nature, the channel of which is God's moral law. The transgression of that law is sin, and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. He who yields himself to sin thereby closes the channel of spiritual life. He may have the physical life still, the life of the flesh, but he is dead, absolutely, literally dead, as regards the life of God. The only way he can recover that life is by being born again, created anew in Christ Jesus. And then he receives a new life literally, the life of God.

Freedom in Thought

The only free thinkers in the world are those who think in harmony with the Word of God. That Word was indited by the Spirit of Christ (1 Peter 1:10, 11), and the same Spirit leads one to think accordingly. “If, therefore, the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” John 8:36. For all the thoughts that lead one away from Christ into the bondage of sin are not free thoughts; they are inspired of the adversary, who would lead us into mental slavery. The habit of thought forms the character of the individual. “As he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” Prov. 23:7. David tells us that the law of God is the truth (Ps. 119:142); Christ made the law honorable (Isa. 42:21); Paul says the law is just (Rom. 7:12); David also says the commandment of the Lord is pure (Ps. 19:8); and all of these commend the law as an object of love (Ps. 119:97; John 4:34 with Ps. 40:7, 8; Rom. 7:22). So Paul, in summing up a line of thought that is specially profitable, says: “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” Phil. 4:8, R.V. “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in His law doth he meditate day and night.” Ps. 1:1, 2.

It Is Worth While to Know

It is worth while to know: The English soldiers were sent out to Tibet with ordinary open kettles for cooking and ordinary oil for lubricant. They did not know that at 15,000 feet above the sea, oil is no longer a lubricant, but a clog. They did not know that water boiling in an open vessel drops two degrees Fahrenheit for every 1,000 feet ascended. At the height of 15,000 feet water boils at 182°. This was not sufficient heat to cook food properly. Thereupon the men suffered. One Englishman points out that the cooking pots should have had air-tight lids, with safety-valves blowing off at a pressure of normal atmosphere at sea level, fifteen pounds to the square inch, and pure glycerine to lubricate the locks of rifles and Maxims. The suffering would have been saved. Facts in nature must not be ignored. Life and health come in harmony with the laws of life and health.

Patiently Wait

Patiently Wait.—Man is finite. He knows but little. He can not always tell the tares from the wheat. Sometimes the two plants are so intertwined that to root up one roots up the other. Therefore to man in this life is not committed the judgment of his fellows. Even Jesus did not thus judge. John 12:47. We must wait till the harvest, the end of the age, when the righteous will be taken to their eternal home, and the wicked receive the thing they have chosen, death. Then Infinite Wisdom will be the Judge, and even the condemned will acknowledge the justice of their sentence.

The Importance of Christ’s Resurrection

Of all the manifestations of the wonderful power of God, the “exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe,” was “wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead.” This is why the adversary tries so hard and in so many ways to deceive men with the idea that the resurrection is not a matter of very much consequence. They are taught that they have immortality naturally, and that they go to heaven at death, if at all. But the resurrection of Christ is so important, that without it all faith is vain. See 1 Cor. 15:12-26.

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