We do not know what milder term to call the following extract from a preacher whose syndicate sermons are world-wide:—
"It is the first Saturday afternoon in the world's existence. Ever since sunrise Adam has been watching the brilliant pageantry of wings and scales and clouds, and in his first lessons in zoology and ornithology and ichthyology he has noticed that the robins fly in the air in twos, and that the fish swim the waters in twos, and that the lions walk the fields in twos, and in the warm redolence of that Saturday afternoon he falls off into slumber; and, as if by allegory, to teach all ages that the greatest of earthly blessings is sound sleep, this paradisaical somnolence ends with the discovery on the part of Adam of a corresponding intelligence just landed on a new planet. Of the mother of all the living I speak—Eve, the first, the fairest, and the best."
Now, what is the object of using that expression, "Saturday afternoon," unless it be to teach that Saturday was the sixth day, and Sunday, the day following, the seventh. There is no truth in the suggestion, and every Bible student knows it. It was on the sixth day that Adam and Eve came from their Creator's hand. On the seventh day, what a Roman would call Saturday, was God's rest and origination of the Sabbath.
Why Not Talk with God?
Why Not Talk with God? — Says Dr. Crane, of Chicago, in referring to education: "Speaking of utilities, is there anything that can be more useful to one than to have a true and sane taste for literature? Reading makes up the most part of thought life; it is what we read directs our dreams and molds our ambitions. And why should we gabble with tattle-tales and court jesters when we may talk with the kings?" By kings Dr. Crane means the Greek and Latin classics, the heathen writers of bygone days, who in their wisdom knew not God, just such ones as in Athens asked concerning Paul, "What will this babbler say?" Why should we gabble with these so-called "kings" when we may hold rich converse with the King of the universe, and drink in of the "riches of his grace; wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence"? Eph. 1:7, 8.
Inflamed Conscience
By Editor
Inflamed Conscience.—One of the purposes of the Christian Citizenship movement is said to "inflame the public conscience." That is what an apostate Christianity has always endeavored to do; and it has inflamed it in its pathological and worst sense. It did it in the days of Constantine and Justinian, and the fever and corruption of the Dark Ages followed. Its result will be the same to-day—a sick body politic and a sicker church. The inflamed conscience in favor of a union of Church and State will become a seared conscience when the "heretical" children of God and the principles of truth and justice are on trial. What the public conscience needs is life from God, and this would come by a faithful preaching of the Word of God, the Gospel of Christ, which knows no political salvation, no Gospel of force.
Not Luther, but Christ
By Editor
Not Luther, but Christ.—The Catholic Mirror is publishing a long-continued "Letter to a Protestant Friend" against Martin Luther, full of quotations, justly and unjustly used, tho perhaps not intentionally unjustly, and for the evident purpose of thus overthrowing Protestantism. The object and hope of the writer are vain. Luther made many mistakes, we freely admit; but they were the result of his education in the Roman Catholic Church. But true Protestantism is not based on Luther or any other man or men, but on Jesus Christ and the rock of his Word. All Protestantism that is not thus founded, that is based upon men, is only Roman Catholicism in another form. In essence, it is the same, based on human merit.
