THE little difference that remains to-day between the worship that is seen in the English Established Church and that of Rome, is the subject of comment by a London religious journal, which says:—
A Royal Commission, with Sir Michael Hicks-Beach in the Chair, has been appointed to “inquire into the alleged prevalence of breaches and neglect of the law relating to the conduct of divine service in the Church of England, and to consider the existing powers and procedure applicable to such irregularities, and make such recommendations as they thought fit.” The Rev. W. E. Bowen has published the result of an inquiry into the services conducted in ninety-one different churches. In most cases he found Romish ceremonies, many of them of an advanced order. Mr. Bowen has also purchased and examined thirty ritualistic manuals now in circulation. His investigations have convinced him that the following Roman Catholic innovations have made their way into the English church: “children’s masses; the reservation of the sacrament, with subsequent acts of adoration; the use of devotions and secret prayers from the Roman Catholic missal; the recommendation of confession as an habitual practice; masses for the dead, and the absolution of the dead; the doctrine of purgatory; the invocation of saints; the use of litanies and other devotions to the Virgin Mary; the doctrine of the immaculate conception.” Between Romanism and rationalism, how much is left to English Protestantism?
The United Christian Party
By L. A. S.
THE New York Sun calls attention to the formation of “a new political party,” which last month held a convention at St. Louis, Mo., preparatory to putting in the field a ticket for the coming presidential campaign. “It is called the United Christian Party,” says the Sun, “and its purpose is to secure a specific recognition of Christianity by the government, and the enforcement of Christian principles in the laws. If it can induce either the Democrats or the Republicans at their national conventions to support the demands of its religious platform, it will agree to withdraw its own candidates, and vote for those of the consenting party.”
The Sun states that the aim of this party is to secure a specific recognition of God in the national constitution, and makes allusion to the Reformed Presbyterian Church, which, because of the failure of the constitution to recognize the Deity, regards the federal government as an atheistic institution, under which it is sinful to vote or to perform the duties of a citizen. The Reformed Presbyterian Church and the United Christian Party occupy nearly identical grounds.
This is not, as the Sun states, a new party, but a revival of a party which made its appearance some years ago, and at one time put in the field nominees for president and other federal offices. It seems that the present is deemed an opportune time for a revival of the effort to bring about an open alliance between politics and religion.
The Sun mentions that it finds “in a Presbyterian paper of Virginia expressions of sympathy with the objects of this new party, though it looks on the formation of a distinct organization for their attainment as ‘mistaken or useless.’” “This paper,” says the Sun, “speaks of ‘the extreme positions that have been taken by state and federal government in enforcing so-called personal liberty and in the separation of religion from the state,’ as being a grievance greatly felt by many religious people, who, because of laxity in Sunday observance, the running of Sunday trains on railroads, and ‘the expulsion of the Bible from the schools,’ are asking if ‘we have not gone too far, and are not sowing seeds of moral destruction and anarchy.’”
The lapse toward moral destruction and anarchy is painfully evident in the religious world at this time; but nothing is better calculated to hasten the downward plunge than is an alliance of religion with politics. L. A. S.
Medical Missionary Workers to Reveal Christ’s Character
By Ellen G. White
MRS. E. G. WHITE
True medical missionary work is of divine origin, and has a most glorious mission to fulfil. In all its bearings it is to be in conformity with Christ’s work.
At this stage of the medical missionary work nothing will help us more than to understand the mission of the greatest Medical Missionary that ever trod the earth; nothing will help us more than to realize how sacred is this line of service, and how perfectly it corresponds to the life-work of the Great Missionary. The object of our mission is the same as the object of Christ’s mission. Why did God send his Son to the fallen world?—To make known to mankind his love for them. Christ came to earth as a Redeemer. Throughout his ministry he kept prominent his mission to save sinners.
When Christ was about to ascend to heaven, he committed to his disciples the mission that his Father had committed to him; and he taught them how to fulfil this mission. He declared that as he had represented his Father to the world, so they were to represent him. Although he would be invisible to the natural eye, yet all who believed on him would be able to behold him by faith. He told his followers to work as he had worked. They were to be a spectacle to worlds unfallen, to angels, and to men, revealing the Father through a revelation of the Son.
The Saviour lived on this earth a life that love for God will constrain every true believer in Christ to live. Following his example, in our medical missionary work we shall reveal to the world that we are his representatives, and that our credentials are from above.
Christ knew that his Father had chosen him to carry out the great plan of redemption by coming to the fallen world to die for sinners. And when he came to fulfil his mission, he was, in every sense of the term, a medical missionary. We can do medical missionary work in a Christlike manner only when we are one with him. United with him, we receive spiritual life and power, and learn to be “laborers together with God,” manifesting love for every one for whom he died, and working earnestly to bring into the heavenly garner a harvest of souls. Filled with his Spirit, men and women are animated with the same desire to save sinners that animated Christ in his life-work as a missionary sent of God.
I am instructed to say that God desires to have the medical missionary work cleansed from the tarnish of earthliness, and elevated to its true position before the world. Our medical missionary workers must rise to heights that can be reached only by a living, working faith. At this time in our history, we are to allow no confusion of sentiment to prevail in regard to what should be expected of medical missionaries sent of God. There should be a more clear, definite understanding of what medical missionary work comprehends. Those who desire to honor God will not mingle worldly policy plans with his plans in attempting to accomplish that which this work is ordained by him to accomplish.
Clothed with humanity, Christ performed a work that revealed the invisible Father, in order that his disciples might understand the meaning of the prayer, “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” But how many who claim to be his followers concede to a worldly policy! This is because their hearts are not filled with love for the truth. God’s purpose in committing to men and women the mission that he committed to Christ, is to separate his followers from worldly policy.
The people of God, those who claim to love him and to keep his commandments, are to reflect a much clearer, purer light than they now reflect. Even Christ desired men to know that he was not acting independently, but in behalf of another, who had sent him. He never for a moment lost sight of the greatness of his mission. He was always conscious of the fact that he was the Sent of God. And to his Father he declares concerning his disciples, “As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.”
Our work is clearly defined. As the Father sent his only begotten Son into our world, even so Christ sends us, his disciples, as his medical missionary workers. In fulfilling this high and holy mission, we are to do the will of God. No one man’s ideas or judgment are to be our criterion as to what constitutes genuine medical missionary work. We can have power and efficiency only by working as Christ worked. And we can be Christlike in word and deed only when his will is perfected in us. Then shall his righteousness go before us, and the glory of the Lord shall be our rearward.
The life of Christ must become our life, our light, our exceeding great reward. Our words and works must bear a living testimony that in our lives we are not lying against the truth we claim to believe. If Christ is indeed formed within, the hope of glory, we shall manifest that tenderness, that love, that fervency of spirit, which reveals his character. Our hearts will be humble, our spirits contrite. Our works will bear witness to his indwelling presence. His disposition, his kindness, his compassion, manifested in us, will inspire hope in the hearts of the most hopeless. Thus in act, as well as in word, we shall reveal to the world the character of the Unseen.
A Short Sermon by a Layman
By H. F. Phelps
H. F. PHELPS
I HEARD a short sermon the other day, and I want to tell it to others. It was delivered on the cars. Returning from a visit to one of our churches, the train stopped at —, where there had been an organized church. Among the passengers that boarded the train was Brother —. As was natural, we began to talk about the past, and made inquiry for some with whom we had walked to the house of God in company. Some had moved to other places. Of one it was said that he was sometimes up, and sometimes down; of others, that they had gone back into the world.
After a moment of silence, this brother laid his hand on my knee, and exclaimed: “I tell you what it is, Brother Phelps, when a man gives up family worship, he is gone!” With deep feeling he added: “It don’t seem to me that I could live if it were not for family worship.”
Let these words be well considered, and ever remembered. In them is the sermon by a layman. They tell an everlasting truth. “When a man gives up family worship, he is gone.” And a9family that does not have family worship, does not live the life of the Christian. Let all beware how they neglect family worship. Nothing would please Satan better than for Seventh-day Adventists to give up family worship. It is the defeat of any man or woman who dares to do it.
Have Faith in God
“Have faith in God” —
What though behind, the foe,
In front, the sea may rise with threatening might!
The pillar of God’s presence, in the night
As fire shall glow;
Darkness around, he will to thee give light,
Thy foes o’erthrow.
Stretch forth, in trust, prayer’s wonder-working rod;
Have faith in God.
“Have faith in God” —
He holds the winds and waves
Within the hollow of his own strong hand!
All things obey one word of his command,
And Jesus saves!
The starry hosts he binds with circling band,
Shuts storms in caves,
His sacred feet the surging billows trod;
Have faith in God.
“Have faith in God” —
Though fig-tree blossom not,
The labor of the olive seem to fail,
The vine leaves wither ’neath the pelting hail,
And falling, rot;
They shall enrich the mold; while we bewail
Their wasted lot,
New fruit is forming down below the sod;
Have faith in God.
“Have faith in God” —
Omnipotent his love!
Though mountains bar thy way, he shall again
Thresh the high hills, till they become a plain,
Or far remove;
Things deemed impossible by men, and vain,
Are wrought above,
And for rough places, feet with iron are shod;
Have faith in God.
—Selected.
Sunday Legislation in the Dominion Parliament
By G. B. Thompson
G. B. THOMPSON
The following, clipped from the May number of the Lord’s Day Advocate, a monthly journal published by the Lord’s Day Alliance, gives the progress of the matter of Sunday legislation in Parliament up to the present time:—
“Readers will remember that a Draft Dominion act was submitted to the government with request that they introduce it and have it enacted. The government asked the minister of justice for an opinion as to the respective jurisdictions of the Dominion and the provinces in the light of the privy council’s decision given in July last. He replied in effect that (1) the Dominion has full jurisdiction ‘under its power to enact criminal law; (2) the Dominion alone can legislate to control Dominion railways, works, and other undertakings; (3) the provinces can, nevertheless, legislate to cover a good deal of the ground covered by the Draft act under consideration of the government.
“The government was loathe to undertake to legislate covering any ground which could also be covered by provincial legislation. On the suggestion of the minister of justice, therefore, they decided to draft a law similar to that submitted by the Alliance, have it introduced in Parliament, and then referred to the supreme court, and, if necessary, to the privy council, to adjudicate as to whether it trenched upon provincial jurisdiction, the government to pay all costs of argument, including the fees of the counsel of the Lord’s Day Alliance.
“Subsequently this decision was modified to the extent of drafting a provincial act such as the minister of justice considers could be validly enacted by any province, and referring this to the courts. By either method of procedure there is the probability of getting the vexed question of jurisdiction finally settled. So far, good. There is, however, the danger, if not the certainty, of the legislation sought being laid over for another session of Parliament. We shall have, besides, the novel spectacle of the Dominion through counsel arguing before the courts in favor of provincial jurisdiction, and quite likely some of the provinces arguing in favor of Dominion jurisdiction. Charity, however, requires us to assume that in this the good politicians are but practising the Scriptural injunction, to ‘look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.’
“Meantime, we see no good reason why the Dominion Parliament should not proceed at once to regulate as to the Lord’s day business, work, or traffic on the railways, and other things admittedly within its exclusive jurisdiction.
“The Dominion has taken upon itself to declare certain electric railways ‘works for the general advantage of Canada,’ and so brought them under its exclusive jurisdiction. These roads, therefore, in the absence of any Dominion Sunday law, are free to operate their systems on the Lord’s day, no matter what the people of the communities and provinces affected may desire. One of these, the Grand Valley (Brantford, Paris, Galt, etc.), is already operating its road, and is said to intend putting on a Sunday service this summer. It aims at developing a large traffic to a park accessible to the various centers of population, fitted out with dance pavilion, theater, facilities for the sale of refreshments, solid, liquid, hard and soft, and other down-to-date attractions. No comments are necessary in order to make it clear that such an institution is likely to prove ‘a work for the general disadvantage of Canada,’ or, at least, of the communities afflicted. Petitions are now in circulation asking the Parliament of Canada to make these roads subject to the Sunday laws of the several provinces.”
It would seem from the foregoing that the Alliance hardly expect to secure further legislation on the Sunday question at this session. Meanwhile the agitation will continue, and the laws already in existence be enforced as far as possible. This is the most favorable time we shall ever have to educate the people upon this great question.
Greater Success to Attend Our Efforts
By Daniel T. Bourdeau
D. T. BOURDEAU
WONDERFUL success is sure to attend the efforts of those who, under the reviving influences of the latter rain, an emblem of the Holy Spirit, shall earnestly contribute to the advancement of the final gospel work on earth; for it is predicted of them that “they shall increase as they have increased.” Zech. 10:8 compared with Zech. 10:1; 9:15, etc. Here a comparison is instituted by bringing into requisition the future and past tenses, coupled with the idea of an increase with regard to those concerned. Those referred to, true Christians, “shall increase as they have increased.” They once increased so rapidly that three thousand were added to them in one day. Acts 2. This will be repeated in the near future, when God shall bestow upon the remnant church an extraordinary effusion of his Holy Spirit. But before this is realized, a proper answer must be returned to the following question:—Why is it that though the signs of Christ’s soon coming are so striking, and we are so near the close of probation, it is a sad fact that, at least in our home field, our numbers being taken into account, there are, notwithstanding our increased facilities and the encouragement held out to our laborers on the point of support, etc., fewer new companies and churches raised by our workers and the rank and file of our people than there used to be in the earlier history of this movement which God himself, through his prophetic word, has called us to advance in the earth?
Is this due simply to the fact that men’s hearts are becoming more hardened as we draw near the end? It is hardly logical to attribute this difference merely to such a cause. Surely our increased facilities, the fact that our laborers are now, as a rule, liberally sustained, so that they can devote all their energies to the special work of their calling, together with the encouraging fact that a greater measure of God’s Spirit is now offered us in this favored period of the latter rain, are sufficient fully to remove the sad difference that now confronts us and saddens every true believer in present truth.
There must, therefore, be some causes besides an increased hardness of hearts for the painful difference referred to. Taking a retrospective view of the early believers in present truth, we see that to receive and obey the message that made them a peculiar people, they had to come to the point of giving up all for Christ. Their acceptance of the message exposed them to reproaches, cruel mockings, and bitter persecution. In this respect, their position answered to that of those who received the Saviour and the message he proclaimed at his first advent. As a general thing, they were a consecrated people. They loved one another, and could lay down their lives for those of like precious faith, and for the cause of their Master. Is this true of the majority of our people to-day? In those days God’s people were plain in their attire, and simple and natural in their worship, and did not imitate the vain fashions of Babylon, nor manifest pharisaic exactitude in following set rules in their worship, in imitation of the example of backslidden professors of Christianity around them. They did not in those days attach more importance to external popular forms than to inward piety and practical godliness. Can this be truthfully said at the present time of most of those who profess faith in the great prophetic message for our times? No such state of things existed among us in the early days of the remnant church.10Then the believers attached importance to ways and customs that were sensible, but they suppressed even the desire for vain show, and for popularity from the standpoint of the world and worldly professors of Christianity.
In those early times believers did not run after vain, worldly pleasures and amusements, but considered that the greatest earthly enjoyment was that experienced in the service and worship of God, in loving God and their brethren. Then believers, whether ministers or laymen, did not seek popularity; for they were convinced that to do so would be to deny the cross of Christ, by which the world is crucified unto us, and we unto the world (Gal. 6:14), and that without the true cross of Christ seen both in theory and in the life, there can be no dying to self, no separation from the world and from fallen Christians, no genuine conversion, and no advancement in true sanctification.
The message for our times can never be made popular. If it were made so, it would be perverted, and would cease to be what it now is, a converting and sanctifying message, a message that is in every respect fitted to prepare a people for the perils of the last days, and to meet the Lord blameless and in peace at his coming. It was in this light that our pioneers viewed this message. And those ministers among us who have taken a different view of this subject, who have been afraid to put the threefold message of Revelation 14 at the front, have refrained from bearing a plain testimony in harmony with this message, and have tried to make present truth popular, and to please their hearers, to receive praise from them, as do the popular preachers of our day, have either apostatized from the truth or have seen their error and reformed in their way of proclaiming present truth. And those who have pursued this course have been encouraged in seeing souls converted to the Lord. If the naked truths of the threefold message of Revelation 14, backed up by the Spirit of God, and delivered with the earnestness and power that attended the ministry of the early disciples, and which attended that of the first ministers who bore the second-advent message to their fellow beings, will not convert souls, what will?
In the early history of this cause, a spirit of rivalry, and wire working for position and office and greater wages, was rarely manifested by our laborers. Each believer, whether minister or lay member, rejoiced as much in the prosperity of his brethren and sisters as he did in his own prosperity; and simply because each believer loved his fellow believer as he did himself. In those days the highest ambition of believers was to communicate present truth to others, and see them embrace it. The highest ambition of ministers then was to see souls saved from the power and bondage of sin, and made free in Christ Jesus. They kept the near coming of Christ in view, and their agonizing prayer was, “Give me souls as the seal of my ministry, or I die. Give me the power of love and of thy Spirit, with which to win souls to Christ. Deny me what thou wilt, and let me endure any hardship and suffer any self-denial; but grant me souls saved from the thraldom of sin as the greatest earthly reward for my labors.” And God heard such prayers, and souls were converted to God and to his truth. The people partook of the spirit of the ministers, and did all in their power to remove every obstacle they had placed in the way of souls embracing the message.
Nearly forty-four years ago our lamented brother, Elder C. W. Sperry, and the writer were visiting the few scattered believers and churches of believers in New England, and lecturing at different places in the Eastern States. We stopped at one place where there was a small company of our people, and began lecturing to unbelievers. The interest was good, but as we encouraged our hearers to take their stand in favor of the truth, we saw that there was something that kept them from responding. At the close of one lecture, we took the few believers aside, and told them that it was our conviction that there was something either in their relation with one another or with their neighbors that clogged the work. This we said without having been told a thing about their condition; and we told them we did not want to know about the cause of the drawback, unless it was absolutely necessary, because it was much better in every way for them to settle such matters themselves, if possible. We told them we would suspend our meetings for two nights to give them an opportunity for self-examination and to see that all was right between them, and that there was no difficulty existing between them and their neighbors. The third night we resumed our effort, and eleven noble souls decided to obey the truth.
And may it not be true to-day that the scrutinizing eye of Him who can not err, does now discern that not a few companies and churches of our people are in a condition similar to that which hindered the work in the case referred to, and that if a course was pursued similar to the one recommended and followed in this instance, glorious results would be seen in the conversion of many souls to God and his truth? How can holy angels and the Spirit of God urge souls to join with those who, instead of being nursing fathers and mothers to them, would, by their inconsistent course and unconsecrated lives, lead them to turn away from the truth and from the sanctifying work for these times? May God thoroughly purge his people by the close and testing message to the Laodiceans, and by a proper application of church discipline, that the work of the Lord may advance more rapidly in the earth.
There is no reason why our ministers and workers, receiving the reasonable compensation that is now granted them, should not, with a consecrated and sacrificing church to stand by them, go forward, giving their whole strength to the special work of their calling, and showing to both believers and unbelievers that they really believe Christ is soon coming, and consequently act like pilgrims traveling to a better country, in transferring their treasures to heaven, instead of giving a lie to their profession by laying up treasures on earth to be swept away by God’s judgments in the forthcoming day of wrath.
More than a third of a century ago two of our ministers went to a distant field, and started an important mission largely at their own expense. Good counsel soon came to them from two very different sources. One came from Elder James White, and was expressed in these terms: “Brethren, work in God, work through God, and have no separate interest to divert your minds from the great object for which you have gone to that field,—that of raising church after church and seeing them established in the truth.” The other counsel came from an infidel, and was expressed in these terms: “I see that you make the old Book look pretty straight and consistent. Work like beavers, and you will succeed.” All know how beavers work. They cut down trees with their teeth, use them and mud in making dams to gather fishes at one point, catch them, and feast upon them. The two ministers heeded these counsels, held five hundred meetings a year, besides selling hundreds of dollars’ worth of our literature and laboring much from heart to heart in families; and in eighteen months the mission was declared self-sustaining. Both of the ministers referred to are alive to-day. Their hard work did not kill them; and their highest ambition now is to continue laboring for the advancement of this the best of causes.
May God restore to us the old-fashioned second-advent faith, consecration, earnestness, undying love for perishing men, methods of labor, and spirit of sacrifice, to which was due the success of our pioneers and early believers in winning souls to Christ and to present truth. We have everything to encourage us in this glorious period of the latter rain. Signs of rain are visible in the spiritual heavens. There is seen and heard a moving in the top of the mulberry trees, and many are now enjoying the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Let us fully clear up the King’s highway, that he may come in with all his fulness, and work for us and through us. Thus may his work be cut short in righteousness. May God help us fully to prepare the way for the reception of his Holy Spirit “without measure.” This his great heart of love and mercy is more than willing to grant unto us, with all the gifts and efficacy of the Representative of God the Father and God the Son, for the finishing up of the gospel work of salvation in the earth.
The Importance of Family Prayer
“A FAMILY without prayer is like a house without a door, exposed to every danger, and offering an entrance to every evil.”
Preparation for Service
By MARY E. KENNIBURGH
MARY E. KENNIBURGH
To all of us has come the commission, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature;” and “lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world;” and all who have heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” and who have sincerely responded, “Here am I; send me,” have felt the need of a careful preparation for this the noblest of all work.
Christ has said, “Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed.” So God wants us to be able and efficient workers who can hold up the light of gospel truth in this generation of popular error and superstition.
All workmen require a certain amount of training to fit them for the vocation they have chosen. Some require comparatively little, others years of patient toiling. What should be our preparation who expect to become co-workers with Christ in the saving of souls from death?
The disciples were plying their trade of fishermen when Christ offered them a preparation which would make them fishers of men.
The preparation is the foundation on which we must work. As many a block of pure marble is rendered worthless through the unskilful artist, so many a young life, which might have done efficient work in the Master’s vineyard, has been rendered useless through a wrong course of training.
Christ was the greatest missionary the world has ever known, and so every Christian, if he would be a true follower of the Master, must be a missionary. Since Christ gave his life for us, we must, if we would be true to our Christian principles, be willing to give our service, and our lives, if need be, to save our fellow creatures.
To all God has given a talent; to some he has given more, and by the parable of the talents we know that God expects us to use them to the best of our ability. We will be rewarded, not according to the little use we made of a great number of talents, but of the great use which we have made of our few talents.
As spiritual things are separate from worldly things, so a spiritual education must be entirely separate from a worldly education. The latter fits one better to enjoy the pleasures of a mortal life, the former the eternal pleasures of an immortal life.
To those whom God calls for a special work he also gives the preparation necessary for it. Oftentimes it is not the kind of training that the human mind craves; but it is necessary to fit us for the work that God has assigned us.
Abraham was led out from his father’s house to receive his training as he wandered from place to place, a stranger in a strange land, relying solely upon the promise God had made him; and from a doubting, wavering follower, his preparation led him to the sublimest heights of faith, where he accepted the promises of God, and believed his children would be as numberless as the stars in the vast firmament above him, while as yet he had no child.
God’s ways are not man’s ways, and his preparation for Jacob was twenty years of service as a servant in the house of his father-in-law. From an avaricious and greedy man Jacob’s training transformed him into an earnest and faithful follower of Christ, who could wrestle with God and prevail.
Joseph’s path to honor lay through the weary and toilsome years of slavery, and the darker years in a gloomy Egyptian prison. What a contrast it must have been to the boy so tenderly cared for by a doting father! From a self-sufficient and exacting youth he was transformed through fiery trials to a noble, unselfish man well qualified to conduct the affairs of a great nation at its crisis.
The formation of a noble character is the work of a lifetime, and must be the result of diligent and persevering effort. God gives the opportunities; success depends upon the use made of them.
Moses received the best education, no doubt, that Egypt afforded, because it was expected that he would one day be their king. And when at the age of forty years he entered the school of God in the wilderness, it was to spend another forty years in becoming acquainted with the ways of God, and in unlearning much that he had learned at the court of Pharaoh. “His education had made deep impressions upon his developing mind, and had molded to some extent his habits and character. Time, change of surroundings, and communion with God only could remove these impressions. It required on the part of Moses himself a struggle as for life to renounce them and accept truth; but God would be his helper when the conflict should be too severe for human strength; while alone among the mountains, and wandering from place to place with his flock, God was his teacher. His pride and self-sufficiency were swept away; he became patient, reverent, humble, and meek above all that were upon the face of the earth, yet strong in faith and courage. He became a leader, not the kind that, perhaps, he first expected to be, but a captain to lead a tribe of slaves from their land of bondage.” Moses had turned from courtly honors and from a prospective kingdom in Egypt to cast in his lot with God’s chosen people. His life was full of vicissitudes and hardships, yet he did not regret the choice he had made. His preparation was so thorough that but one wrong act marred his record, and because of that act he lay down to rest upon the summit of lonely Mount Nebo, soon to awaken to an inheritance far more glorious than the earthly Canaan.
John the Baptist’s life of privation and hardship in the wilderness, which was spent in close communion with God and nature, fitted him to be the forerunner of the Christ, the one who would herald his coming to that proud and wicked generation. And does his preparation seem incomplete to us when in Herod’s gloomy prison his faith faltered, and doubts arose to cloud and darken the bright horizon of his faith?
(To be concluded)
To-day
By Harriet Prescott Spofford
UPON John Ruskin’s writing-desk
A slab of chalcedony lay,
And on it, cut in careful script,
The word “To-day.”
Honored of all, a wondrous man,
And held a prophet in his way,
He let “To-morrow” bide its time,
And used “To-day.”
Upon the tablet of the will
How good to write the selfsame way,
Putting to-morrow’s uses by,
The word “To-day!”
— Harriet Prescott Spofford.
My Foolishness
By T. E. Bowen
T. E. BOWEN
PRIDE comes because men and women regard themselves better than they really are. Down in their hearts they often know they are not what they desire to have people think them to be. But however well or long we may be able to hide from men the true condition of the soul, God knows it all, and knows it all the time. This truth, kept ever in mind, would result in constant and true humility.
The psalmist exclaimed: “O God, thou knowest my foolishness,” and my sins are not hid from thee.” Ps. 69: 5. Surely the thought that God knows all about the foolishness of our lives is humiliating. We try sometimes to flatter ourselves that he does not see it all, but he does. How offensive pride must be to God! This flattery of the human heart of excusing in ourselves our departures from the right—our foolishness—and magnifying our virtues, is pride, and an insult to God. It is the remembering that we are but dust, that helps us constantly to rely on God; and it is this constant dependence upon him that gives him pleasure and us peace. Thus we are prepared to render to him all the glory for benefits received.
God knows all about our entrusted talents. He knows also the use made of them. He knows our foolishness. Let us not forget this. He is gracious to those who humble themselves to walk with him, but mighty to bring down every high look.
“Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall. My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me. This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. . . . It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.” Lam. 3: 19-26.