Earlier text: REJOICE EVERMOREMy song of praise to Thee I raise,
Now at the close of day,
For health and food and all things good,
And guidance on my way. Lord, through the night be thou my light,
And save from every harm;
Awake, asleep, do thou me keep
By thine almighty arm. Dwell in my heart, nor thence depart,
Though I forgetful be;
In joy, in pain, do thou remain
Mine to eternity. Teach me to love thyself above
Whate’er on earth is dear,—
To walk with thee, obediently,
In faith and filial fear. When, late or soon, at night or noon,
Thou callest me to die,
Lord, grant me grace to see thy face
Within thy home on high. PARENTS AS SOUL-WINNERS.
By Lily Manker Allen
Lily Manker Allen, in the Christian World. WHEN we consider how easily little children may be won for Christ, how naturally and lovingly they turn to Him almost from babyhood, we cannot but wonder why so many children of godly parents grow up without becoming Christians. I believe the chief reason for this state of affairs is because the child was not led to see that he was expected to give himself to Christ in childhood; that his acceptance of Christ was not ratified, as it were, by a definite surrender of himself. As he grows older, there comes a feeling of shyness in regard to sacred things, and he begins to hide his deepest feelings from others; and finally, not being definitely committed in the matter, he finds himself afloat to drift, it may be, among whirlpools and rapids and dangerous shoals, until perchance some strong impulse later in life shall lead him to seek and find anchorage. But how much harder it will be then! This is the course that parents are unwittingly leaving open to their children when they endeavor to leave them entirely unbiased during their early years, trusting that they will make the right choice “when they are old enough to decide for themselves;” but the parent who would avoid all this for his child should improve the blessed opportunities of early childhood. How much better to grow up and unfold in a sunny atmosphere than to be torn up by the roots later on, and transplanted to the spot where the Gardener wants them to be. By surrender to Christ I do not mean uniting with the Church, although that is often the beautiful sequence, and is certainly to be expected sooner or later. Nor would I intimate that the parent can take his child all the way, for no father or mother can give a change of heart. But we may go further than we often realize; and I would like to suggest some ways in which the parent may help the child to decide for Christ:— 1. By seizing the opportunity, when there is a loving desire in the heart, a softened turning toward the good, to invite the child to give himself now. 2. By renewed consecration. On birthday anniversaries, or occasions of deep experiences, the kneeling together of the family to reconsecrate themselves will help the members from slipping back or growing worldly. 3. By sharing our spiritual experiences with our children. It is natural that we should treasure in our hearts our sacred experiences—there is an instinctive shyness in regard to them. But is there not another side? It has been said, “Some experiences are too sacred to be kept.” I believe if Christians would open their hearts more to one another, that the kingdom would come far sooner. We are to be “stewards of the mystery of godliness,” and we shall be held accountable for the way in which the experiences granted us are used to help others. But, however it may be outside our family circle, surely we owe it to our children to let them know what God means to us. The mother who, surprised at her devotions, hurriedly and shamefacedly makes a pretense of doing something else, instead of inviting the child to come and kneel a moment with her, misses a great blessing for herself and a greater for her child. How are our children to know what our Saviour is to us if we constantly close up that side of our being? and how can we expect to win and keep their confidence if we withhold ours from them? A father who had been deeply moved by an unusual spiritual experience came to the breakfast table with the tears still shining in his eyes. “Papa, why are tears in your eyes?” asked one of the children. He was a practical, matter-of-fact man, but instead of trying to evade the question or turning it off lightly, he simply replied, “My child, they are tears of joy for what the Lord has done for me.” Could such an answer fail to impress the children? 4. By a definite surrender on the part of the parents, of their will, time, strength, money, children, home. Many a Christian parent would be astonished, not only at the permeating, spiritualizing influence such a surrender would have upon his own life, but also to see its effect upon his children and upon the home atmosphere. If parents are manifestly absorbed in the things of this world, how can they expect their children to regard the things of Christ as of supreme importance? Happy the family that, being “not conformed to this world,” can say, “He hath made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” On one of the trains entering New York last Saturday, a woman afforded her fellow passengers an unconscious but powerful object lesson. With the woman was a little girl about six years old. The day was warm, and through the open windows the dust drifted in a fine gray cloud. Every passenger was exceedingly uncomfortable, but each forgot his discomfort in the spectacle of that suffering child. The mother began operations by seating her little daughter beside her with a thump that made the child’s teeth rattle. Then, at intervals of one or two minutes during the weary journey, she paid the child these maternal attentions: She took off her hat; she smoothed her hair; she put the hat on again; she removed the child’s little jacket and put it on again; she straightened her collar; she wiped her face with her handkerchief; she removed an imaginary cinder from her eye; she smoothed her hair again; she took off and retied the ribbon on her hair; she stood her up and smoothed her down; she unfastened the bow at her neck and retied it. Over and over she followed this program while the awe-struck passengers looked on. The child accepted the situation with grim endurance. Evidently she had been used to it all her short life. The world to her was a strange place where mothers exhausted their nervous energy in useless attentions to little girls. Her small face was pathetically sad and tired. When the journey’s end was reached, she rose wearily, was put through it all once more, and got languidly off the car. Among those who watched the scene was a prominent New York specialist in nervous diseases. He turned to the writer and summed up the entire situation in one sentence which has in it a sermon for every American mother. “Each touch,” he said, grimly, “pushes that child a little nearer to the doors of the sanitarium that will some day open for her.” There were other mothers on the train. Perhaps they took the lesson home. APPRECIATES THE HOME DEPARTMENT.
By Mary Starrett
I AM indeed glad to see that so many of the sisters are writing for the Home page, in our good church paper. I love to see that department prosper. I do not feel competent to write for it, but I am so full of rejoicing that I cannot refrain from trying. I know there are many of our sisters who are able by their pen to give bits of their experience to us who are less fortunate. If they could but realize how we isolated women enjoy and profit by their encouraging words, the Home department would be filled every week. We are an isolated family, the REVIEW being our only visitor of like faith. I have thought of writing to some of those sisters whose names and addresses accompany their articles, especially to the isolated ones. Every article in the Home page is as a letter to me. I believe our dear Sister Henry encouraged us to write to one another and encourage one another in the truth. I can do nothing better this time than to advise you to read the description of a virtuous woman, in Prov. 31:10-29; for I know we all long to obtain a virtuous character. May the Lord bless the Home department in its work of edification. Dr. Arnold, of Rugby, that great and good lover of boys, used to say, “Command me to boys who love God and hate the devil.” The devil is the boy’s worst enemy. He keeps a sharp lookout for the boys. There is nothing too mean for him to do to win them, and then, when he gets them into trouble, he always sneaks away and leaves them. Not a bit of help or comfort does he give them. “What did you do it for?” he whispers. “You might have known better!” Now, the boy who has found out who and what the devil is, ought to hate him—it’s his duty. He can afford to hate this enemy of all that is good and true with his whole heart. Hate the devil and fight him, boys; but be sure to use the Lord’s weapons!— John Ruskin. The Bible as a Flower Requiring Prayer
The Bible is not an iron safe to be opened by those who are keen enough to discover the combination; it is rather a rare and delicate flower, that must have a certain atmosphere before it can be induced to unfold its petals and disclose its honey cup, and share with you its perfume. The atmosphere of the book is the atmosphere of prayer. When you have entered your closet, opened the window toward Jerusalem, and felt the heavenly breeze fan your cheeks, then the dull pages are transformed into a living voice, and the book becomes indeed the word of God. — Lutheran. It is almost always charged upon Seventh-day Adventists that the chief object of their “missionary work” consists of “making proselytes from other denominations.” To “proselyte” is defined to mean, “to cause to become converted to some religion, opinion, or system.” What is our business, then, but to proselyte? For how can sinners be brought to Christ, or those who sit in darkness be brought to the light, whether they be in one degree of darkness or another, without being proselyted? To proselyting in its objectionable sense, that is, to bring men to our way of thinking, without respect to their good, but simply to increase our numbers, or gratify our pride, we do not plead guilty. But we do believe that we have learned truths from the word of God, and discovered light in its pages in advance of what is taught by other religious bodies, and we wish others to share with us in this. If we did not think so, the consistent course for us to pursue would be to cast our lot with those whom we thought to be farthest advanced in these respects, and stop there. Believing, then, that we have advanced truth, what shall we do with it? Give it to those only who are down in low grades of daily life and error? They of course need it, and should (and so far as in our power shall) have it. But all who are destitute of any advanced light, lack just so much of what they might enjoy. All need it, and would be better for having it; for the truth makes free; and it is “in truth,” as well as “in spirit,” that we are to worship the Father. John 4:24. We, therefore, purpose to give what we believe to be the truth to saint and sinner alike. The fact that a man is already a professed Christian is no bar to our giving him any truth which we possess and he does not; and if he is in truth a Christian, he will be thankful for it. Carrying out their idea a little further, our critics add: “If they can succeed in unsettling some good Christian on the Sabbath question, they rejoice over it.” Ah, gentlemen, you state what is exactly the opposite of the truth. It is not to unsettle any one that we seek, but to settle all who are unsettled. “No question is settled till it is settled right.” No one can be truly settled on the Sabbath question, till he is rightly settled on the right Sabbath; and the only Sabbath upon which one can be firmly settled is the Sabbath which alone is brought to view in the Bible, the true Sabbath, the sanctified rest day of the Lord Jehovah. The main thing is for people to obey the truth. Now, if those in other denominations can receive and live out the truth, and still retain their denominational affiliations, let them do so. But they cannot do it. Their people will not allow them to do it. And this is just the trouble; the different denominations will not permit their members to receive new truth and still remain in their fellowship. In this they are unjust to their members, illiberal in spirit, and bigoted in their action. Every true Christian desires all the light and truth there is to be had, from whatever source it may come. This is to him more than creeds or church fellowship; and if those with whom he has been associated will neither receive the light themselves nor allow him to receive it and enjoy it in peace, in their company, it is a law of nature as well as of religion that he should seek some people with whom he can enjoy it, as it is his privilege to do. INTOLERANT LIBERALISM.
By L. A. S.
READERS of this paper have often heard it said, and perhaps many of them have come to believe, that the age we live in is too liberal to tolerate religious persecution. We have been told that persecution belonged to the times of ignorance and superstition, when fanatics and religious bigots exercised a controlling influence in the affairs of State; and that we must surely be mistaken in the idea that in this enlightened and liberal age, the intolerance visited upon Christians in former times is to be repeated. But inspired prophecy says, nevertheless, that the “beast” with “two horns like a lamb” “spake as a dragon,” and decreed that all who would not receive the “mark” which he enforced should be put to death. On the strength of this prophecy of Rev. 13:11–18 Seventh-day Adventists have long asserted that persecution would be directed against keepers of the commandments of God, all appearances of the times to the contrary notwithstanding. Truly we do live in a very “liberal” age. Men have become exceedingly liberal in regard to religious belief, but it is a liberality which means looseness. A church-member may believe almost anything and still be reckoned in good standing. Infidelity, only thinly disguised, has invaded the pulpit itself. The word of God has been liberally dispensed with, and error has been given abundant room to establish itself in the temple of Christian truth. And what is back of all this sort of liberality but the plotting of the arch-enemy of God and man, who is “a murderer from the beginning,” and the author of all the persecution from which the righteous have suffered since time began? Has he now become so liberal that he has outgrown his persecuting disposition? We will let this liberal spirit of the age speak for itself. It is worth while to know just what its attitude is toward those whose religious convictions oblige them to differ in some essential points from the practice of the majority around them. Here is a recent utterance from a prominent Chicago paper which assumes to lead the way in the march of modern liberalism and progress. Under the heading “Sunday Is Useful—Not Merely Religious,” it says:— “We learn from the Pittsburg Post that the Jewish merchants of Pittsburg have organized to secure modification of the Sunday law. They ask permission to continue mercantile pursuits on Sunday, alleging that they observe Saturday as their Sabbath, and should not be bound to observe a day of rest set apart by those of another religion. Their argument is logical FROM A RELIGIOUS STANDPOINT. The Constitution of the United States recognizes no religion whatever. It recognizes the existence of God, and forbids any law which shall establish, select, or prefer any particular religion. Therefore believers in the Jewish religion are justified abstractly in protesting against a custom which compels them to observe the first instead of the last day of the week as a day of rest. “But the question involved in the observance of Sunday is not merely a religious question. It is CHIEFLY a useful question. Sunday is a necessity, physically as well as mentally. One day in the week all men and all animals should rest and enjoy themselves. This is absolutely necessary to health and to normal development. Some one day in the week must be chosen, and all men must abide by that day—not for religious reasons, but for practical reasons. Business would be in a state of utter confusion, and many would suffer if the adherents of different religions were to select different days of rest. “On this matter of Sabbath observance, as in all others, the majority should rule. The majority in the United States at present believe Sunday the best day for resting; and the minority in this, as in all other matters of practical welfare, should abide by the decision of the majority. “We believe that the Jewish people of Pittsburg are unwise, as they will certainly be unsuccessful, in their attempt to overrule the majority in a purely secular utilitarian matter. (Italics ours.)” The same day that it voiced this “liberal” sentiment, this paper published an editorial on “The Crime of Credulity,” which, as embodying the essence of the modern liberalism which disbelieves everything that was “written aforetime” and believed by the godly men of old, is worthy of note. “It557 is our duty to doubt,” declares this exponent of liberal thought. “Skepticism is the highest duty, and blind faith is the one unpardonable sin.” This last sentence it quoted from one of the “ablest minds” of the day, and also this: “It is a great mistake to suppose that the religious notions of modern civilized peoples are on a much higher level than the crude spirit-like faith of primitive savages.” Then, as further setting forth the great utility of doubt, it said this:— “For ages the monkeys believed that they must always run on all fours. But one doubted. He tried to stand erect. And while he tottered feebly, as men totter mentally who try to think independently, that doubting monkey was the forerunner of those who now walk firmly erect, and look up to the stars for inspiration.” These quotations show that this journal is wanting in nothing as an exponent of the “liberal” philosophy and theology of the day. And this organ of liberalism declares—and every Seventh-day Adventist in the land ought to know it and make a note of it—it declares that “on this matter of Sabbath observance, as in all others, the majority should rule;” that “some one day in the week must be chosen, and all men must abide by that day;” and “the majority in the United States at present believe Sunday the best day for resting; and the minority, in this, as in all other matters of practical welfare, should abide by the decision of the majority.” This is plain enough, certainly. And now how much have you to expect from this liberal age in the way of protection for your rights of conscience? How much of a barrier will the boasted liberalism of to-day interpose against the enforcement of the “mark” of the “Beast,” and the infliction of that final persecution which the word of prophecy has led us to expect? How much more “liberal” will the age have to become before those very events will follow as a natural consequence of its liberalism? It is perfectly plain that the liberalism of to-day is all ready to join hands with the forces of religious intolerance for the enforcement of the Sunday sabbath. The prophecy of Revelation 13 is surely to be fulfilled; and if you have thought that the movement toward religious intolerance has become a dead issue, it is high time that you awake from the sleep of false security. This issue is very much alive; and whether you perceive it or not, it will certainly not overlook you. Now is the time for preparation. Now is the time to work with all energy and zeal, realizing that soon the rising spirit of intolerance will close against us many avenues for work that are now open. “We as a people have not accomplished the work which God has committed to us. We are not ready for the issue to which the enforcement of the Sunday law will bring us. It is our duty, as we see the signs of approaching peril, to arouse to action. Let none sit in calm expectation of the evil, comforting themselves with the belief that this work must go on because prophecy has foretold it, and that the Lord will shelter His people. We are not doing the will of God if we sit in quietude, doing nothing to preserve liberty of conscience. Fervent, effectual prayer should be ascending to heaven that this calamity may be deferred until we can accomplish the work which has so long been neglected. Let there be most earnest prayer; and then let us work in harmony with our prayers.”—Testimony for the Church, No. 33, pages 241, 242. It is a pet position of those who wish to avoid the claims of the Sabbath, to fall back on the assertion that it was given to the Jews alone, and was consequently binding upon them only. But this, like all other objections to the Sabbath, is turned against the objector by the command itself. The Fourth Commandment shows by its own testimony that it is a commandment not binding on the Jews alone, but of universal obligation. This will clearly appear from the language in which it is given. For instance, those who were to refrain from all labor on the Sabbath are enumerated in Ex. 20:10, as follows: “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates.” This expression, “thy stranger,” settles the whole question of the universality of the obligation of the Sabbatic institution; for this includes everybody. That is, persons not only from any part of Judea, but from any part of the earth, who chanced to be in a Hebrew home, would have been the “stranger” within the gates, and would therefore have come under the requirement to rest upon the Sabbath of the Lord. But why should he be required to rest there upon the Sabbath? Was it because he chanced at that time to be in one particular place, and not in another? Can any one suppose that a mere change of location would make any difference in regard to the obligation of such an institution as the Sabbath? that anything would become a religious duty just as soon as one reached Palestine, which would not have been a duty had he remained in Persia, Asia Minor, Greece, or Egypt? But it may be said that of course while the stranger was with the Israelites, he must conform to Israelitish customs and worship. O, no; that is the very thing he was not allowed to conform to. That is the very thing he was forbidden to do. Take, as an example, the Passover. That was a particularly Jewish institution; but of that the stranger was expressly forbidden to partake. Ex. 12:43. Now, had the Sabbath been a Jewish institution, like the Passover, the stranger would have been forbidden to have a part in that also. But no; every stranger in the land was obliged to keep the Sabbath, showing that it was an institution which was not peculiar to the Jews, not given for them alone, but was binding upon all men. NOT FOR SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISTS.
By L. A. S.
Under the heading, “Something of Importance,” we note the following in the Church Advocate and Holiness Banner, published at Fort Scott, Kan.:— “My Brothers and Sisters Scattered Abroad, Greeting in the Lord: As the time is almost here for our camp-meeting, we ought to make all the necessary arrangements we can beforehand. Now, we shall need a great deal of meat, and I think we had better buy our beef on foot, and kill it at the camp. I think we can buy it for two and one half or three cents per pound. Are there not some of the Lord’s cattle that can be donated to the meeting? If you cannot donate a whole beef, can you not donate a part? If you can’t donate, then write to the Advocate and Banner and give your price for beef cattle. . . . Attend to this at once. If any are donated, please let us know what day you can drive them to the camp.” Fancy a Seventh-day Adventist camp-meeting, with a herd of “the Lord’s cattle” being driven on to the grounds to be slaughtered and eaten by the carnivorous campers. We think it is well that such a picture would be but a fancy. Seventh-day Adventists cannot too highly appreciate the gospel principles which have saved them from considering a slaughterhouse as a necessary adjunct to the place of “holiness to the Lord.” “A great deal of meat” is not one of our needs at the feast of tabernacles. The truth puts a distinction between the camps. Editorial Notes.
By Editor
There will be no opportunity in heaven to learn to praise the Lord. If you will justify the Lord till the end of time, He will justify you till the end of eternity. If you are on the lookout for good people in this world, you will find good people on the lookout for you. The opening providences of God are discerned by those who are at the front, not at the rear, in His work. You will never have any burden in the service of Christ that is half as heavy to carry as the burden of sin. Only that which is spiritual is truly real. Only that which the natural eye cannot see is to endure throughout eternity. It is not the great abundance beyond your reach that you need, so much as the blessing of God upon the little that you have. Don’t become too anxious to preserve the gold that you have here, lest some other should take from you the crown of gold that is waiting above. We are all of us licensed to preach, by the Lord, and we are all of us preaching, too. But some of those who have a license from God are preaching for the devil. The true optimist is not he who believes the world is growing better, but he who believes that a better world is soon to take the place of this one that is so filled with sin and misery. There is but one genuine “sure cure” in the earth to-day, and that is the grace of God. The richest man has not money enough to buy it, and the poorest man has not poverty enough to shut it out. Do not complain because it is necessary that you should develop the “patience of the saints.” You must have great patience in order to be like God, and God must have great patience in order to get along with you. The sheep of the Good Shepherd will not follow a stranger, but “will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers.” It is not necessary to know evil and error in order to avoid them; the Christian’s safety is in not knowing them; he only needs to know that they speak with an unfamiliar voice. The Democratic party in Ohio has openly renounced “Bryanism,” and Democrats of Wisconsin and Georgia have followed suit. The Democratic party, if we may judge from indications, will have no more use for Mr. Bryan and his principles. As a means for getting the party into power, Mr. Bryan has proved a failure. During the campaign the Democratic orators and papers said much about their love for the principle of government by consent of the governed, and all those American principles which the other party were repudiating, but on this issue they failed at the polls. So the issue of the last campaign is to be dropped, and some other one found which will take them to victory. For victory at the polls is the chief thing in politics. If the Democratic party had won at the last election, then their love for the principles of the Declaration of Independence would have been unbounded; but as it is, these principles, so far as they constituted the issue in their last disastrous campaign, must be set aside. For whatever they do, they must, if possible, get back into power. A political party’s love of principle may be accurately558 measured by the usefulness of that principle to the party’s interests. For the great thing in politics, always, is not adherence to principle, but success. The love of success is greater than any other love in politics. The Reign of Lawlessness and Sunday Laws
By L. A. S.
“THE REIGN OF LAWLESSNESS” is a theme to which the leading organ of the Baptist Church in this country, the Examiner (New York City), feels that it must call special attention. It notes that “lawlessness is in the air.” “Not a few of our laws, solemnly placed upon the statute books for the protection of society against recognized evils, are openly and notoriously set at naught,” it says, “without an effort on the part of the constituted authorities to bring the infractors to justice.” It sees in this “an exceedingly alarming condition of affairs.” Then it explains: “There are the Sunday laws, for example, in the interest of society, to guard against the practical abolition of the day of rest, not on religious but on humanitarian grounds. But these laws,” it affirms, “are contemptuously disregarded in all our large cities,” and “there is no official attempt to hinder the violation of the law.” (This statement is seriously contradicted by recent news from Pittsburg, Pa.) Something must be done, of course, to stop this “reign of lawlessness.” This is what the Examiner means by what it says. And what then must be done with those who, by teaching that Sunday is not the Sabbath and that Sunday legislation is unjust, are directly fostering the “lawlessness” of which it speaks? The logical answer to this question we do not need to state. It is well that Seventh-day Adventists should know that this question is being raised, as it certainly is, by those professing to be the national guardians of law and order. All these indications admonish us that the crisis we have long looked for is coming, and that it is near at hand. L. A. S. [Designed for the consideration of such questions as will be of interest and profit to the general reader. All correspondents should give their names and correct post-office address, that queries not replied to here may be answered by mail.] 825.—The Bible and Healing.
Does the Bible tell of cases where people who were sick ever called a physician who prescribed medicine for them? What did people do in olden times to obtain relief from sickness? and is it right, according to the Bible, to use medicine prescribed by an M. D. in case of sickness? I ask this question because the Christian Science people say that there is no such thing as using medicine, in the Bible. A. G. N., Plainview, Neb. ANSWER.—The Bible plainly brings to view attempts at healing by material agencies. But Christian Scientists would probably quibble over what is meant by the term “medicine.” We take it that anything that is used as an agent by which to attain the end desired, would come under the head “medicine.” When the Syrian captain, Naaman, sought unto Israel to be healed of his leprosy, the prophet told him to go and wash in the Jordan seven times. The water, in his case, was the “medicine” employed in his treatment. When Isaiah gave directions, and they laid a lump of figs as a plaister upon the boil of Hezekiah, and he recovered, that plaister was the “medicine” administered to him. Isa. 38: 1, 9, 21. When the Lord spat upon the ground, and made clay and anointed the eyes of the blind man, and told him to go and wash in the pool of Siloam, and he should see, that anointing and that washing was the “medicine” for his healing. John 9: 6, 7. Luke is called “the beloved physician.” Col. 4: 14. A physician’s business is that of ministering to the sick, and answering their calls for help. Luke had succeeded so well in this that he seems to have been greatly “beloved.” See also the words of Christ: “But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them: They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.” Here is a plain statement from the Lord himself that they that are sick do need a physician. This applies in a physical as well as in a spiritual sense. The physician one employs should be one whose exhibitions of skill and experience and moral character show that he is entitled to confidence. Then his directions should be explicitly followed. No nurse or volunteer friend should take the responsibility of deviating therefrom. Mark speaks of a certain woman which “had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing better, but rather grew worse.” This was not very complimentary to the physicians; but it shows that such a profession was practiced, and people resorted to them with compensation for their services. The skillful physician aims to supply the proper conditions under which nature can go forward with her healing work. That condition cannot act detrimentally in any state; and no matter what we may consider to have been done for us, it is certainly right to supply rightful conditions so far as in our power.