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Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. XXX, No. 12

FAITH IN PROPHECY.

Advent Review and Sabbath Herald

September 3, 1867

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · September 3, 1867

FAITH IN PROPHECY.

By R. F. Cottrell

BY ELD. R. F. COTTRELL.
(Concluded.)
Those prophecies that have their fulfillment through the agency of men are equally sure and reliable. No man but John the Baptist ever appeared in fulfillment of the “voice of one crying in the wilderness,” or the “messenger” sent before the face of the Lord, to prepare his way before him. In like manner there will be but one fulfillment of the three messages which are to precede the second coming of the Son of man. Rev. xiv, 6-12. When the time came that the Christ was about to be manifested to Israel, John began to preach in the wilderness the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins, to prepare the people to receive the Messiah. Those who believed the preaching of the Baptist, and were baptized by him, were approved of God; while those who rejected his preaching and baptism, “rejected the counsel of God against themselves.” Luke vii, 30.
Now what were the evidences of John’s mission?—what were his credentials that laid the people under obligation to believe? It is expressly stated that “John did no miracle.” John x, 41. There was nothing, then, to convince the people, but the signs of the times in the fulfillment of prophecy, the expiration of the prophetic period of Dan. ix, 25, and the simple declaration of John: “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Isaiah.” John i, 23; Isa. xl, 3. Would John’s preaching have been received upon such evidences in our day, had it been designed for this generation? Would he not rather have been regarded as a wild and presumptuous fanatic? We can best decide this by the way the prophetic messages designed for our own day are received.
These are recorded in Rev. xiv, and are now being fulfilled. A child can understand, from the reading and the connection, that they are warning messages to be preached to men just before the second coming of Jesus. Are they not plainer and easier to be understood than the message of John the Baptist, as recorded in Isa. xl, 3? And here is the advantage of three messages to be delivered in regular, specific order. The first is evidently based on prophetic time, and announces the commencement of a period called, “The hour of judgment.” As our Saviour in the beginning of his ministry said, “The time is fulfilled,” referring to the sixty-nine weeks of Dan. ix, 25, so this message, evidently with reference to the ending of the 2300 days of Dan. viii, 14, makes the solemn annunciation, “Fear God, and give glory to him, for the hour of his judgment is come.” The second message announces the moral state of the divided, confused, Babelized organizations of religionists, who are following in the footsteps of “Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots.” The cry is, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, because she made ALL NATIONS drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. If there are any churches that do not partake of the false doctrines of her who professes to be the Mother Church, but is in reality the “mother of abominations”—the head and leader of the great apostasy—churches that have not thus partaken of the wine of her “raging fornication,” they are not alluded to in this annunciation. Therefore they will take no offense at the faithful proclamation of this message. The third message is a solemn warning against following in the footsteps of the papal apostasy; and, on the other hand, it characterizes those who heed it as those “that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.” This is the final, reformatory message before the coming of the Lord. It is a judgment message, dividing worshippers into two classes; separating the worshippers of God from the worshippers of the beast. Wrath unmingled follows it, closing the history of the present state.
Now to the point in our argument. These messages have all been announced in the given order in our own day, by those who have preached the advent of Christ at hand. Previous to 1844 it was clearly discovered by the fulfillment of prophecies and predicted signs in heaven and on earth, that the second advent of Christ was at hand, even at the doors. It was also demonstrated that the prophetic numbers were understood, and it was clearly proved that the great prophetic period of 2300 days, at the end of which the sanctuary should be cleansed, would end at the close of 1843, or in 1844. Based upon this definite time, given in prophecy, the cry was raised, “Fear God and give glory to him, for the hour of his judgment is come.” This sound was heard to the ends of the earth; and, as the beasts of the forest tremble “when a lion roareth,” so the inhabitants of the earth were moved at the sound of this solemn announcement. In the summer and fall of 1844, the announcement of the second prophetic message, Babylon is fallen, became a matter of historic record. And since that time, the third and last solemn warning has been rising; the work and worship of the beast are being made clear, and thousands, in obedience to it, are now trying to keep all the ten commandments of God, having discovered, by the light of this proclamation, that they were not doing so before. It is a matter of fact, then, that these messages have all been announced in their order, and the closing one is doing a work corresponding exactly to the prophecy.
Is this work true or false? If it is false, what is the God of prophecy, the Author and finisher of faith, doing, that he does not bring it to confusion and put a stop to it? Instead of this, it seems to be doing a good work—reforming men, making them more pious and devoted to God, and causing them to keep more of the commandments of God than before, and keep them all more zealously. If this work is not of God, he could stop it; or, rather, he could have prevented its rise. And was he not under obligation to do so? The prophecies are his word; and what confidence can be reposed in his word, if he suffer it thus to be trifled with? There is an end of faith, if the word of God is thus valuable to the enemy, being liable to derangement by a false fulfillment; and that at the very time when we should look, according to his instructions, for the true. His providence had veiled the sun and moon, in fulfillment of the prediction of his word, and caused the falling stars innumerable to trace their luminous paths adown the strangely resplendent heavens, to notify the inhabitants of earth of the glorious appearing of the Son of Man at hand; and then a false fulfillment of the promised messages of his prophetic word is permitted to go forth, to cheat the faith of those who rely upon, and trust his word! I cannot thus charge God with breaking his word and trifling with those that believe it. Then we can come to only one conclusion; and that is, that the promised messages are now being proclaimed by divine impulse; that their fulfillment, like the mission of John the Baptist, is from Heaven and not of men; and that to believe and obey their warnings is to be saved, and to disbelieve and disobey is to reject the counsel of God against ourselves and to be condemned.
It may be asked, as an offset to what I have said, Why does God permit the world to be deceived by Spiritualism? Could he not have prevented its introduction? or can he not stop its progress? I reply: Spiritualism is abundantly predicted in the word of God, as the “working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders”—as the last work of Satan and his angels in the earth—“the spirits of devils working miracles,” who gather the wicked to the “battle of the great day of God Almighty.” The fulfillment of these predictions does not destroy the faith of the Christian, but confirms it. If those things did not begin to appear, we might well begin to doubt. But the preaching of the advent messages is a promised work of God. To let Satan fulfill these, would be a failure of the word and promise of God. Again, it may be objected that the preaching of the first of these messages was a failure; that the hour of judgment did not then come, and that it ended in the disappointment of its believers, at the expiration of the set time in 1844.
To the assertion that the hour of Judgment did not then come, I reply by asking, How do you know it? It may refer to the time and work of the cleansing of the sanctuary or the blotting out of the sins of God’s people, which must be done by Christ while he is a High Priest before the throne of mercy, and therefore before his second advent. But if you will have it that Christ must come to the earth, at the time when this judgment hour arrives, you will be disappointed, as we were, should the true message be proclaimed in your day; for there are two divine warnings to be given after the judgment-hour cry, before the coming of the Son of man. You will do better to learn the lesson which our disappointment taught us, than to claim that the judgment-hour message is the last, and thus ignore the messages which are to follow it. Probation does not close with this message, but men are still to choose between the commandments of God and those of the beast, before the day of the revelation of the Lord Jesus in flaming fire, in the great day of the “wrath of the Lamb.”
As to the fact of our great disappointment, it proves nothing against the divinity, the heavenly origin of the message, but confirms it. As the testimony in favor of the resurrection of Christ is more convincing from the fact that his most intimate disciples evidently did not expect it, so the fact that we thought our work was done when only the first and second of the three messages had been announced, is proof that the providence of God, and not the shrewdness of men, is fulfilling these messages of his word. As it was necessary for Jesus to convince the disciples of his resurrection by “many infallible proofs,” so the Adventists of 1844 ignored the last, most solemn and important message of all, till forced, as it were, by the providence, the word and the Spirit of God, to accept and proclaim it.
Does the disappointment disprove our position in the work of God? Not at all! The first disciples were disappointed also. They were sadly disappointed when the Lord was slain; and again most happily disappointed when they learned that he was risen from the dead. I love to trace the parallel between their experience and ours. They were buoyant in expectation of the reign of Christ; so were we. They shouted, and so did we. They strewed their garments in the way; we seemed to set but little value upon earthly goods. They cried, Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord! We cried, Fear God, and give glory to him, for the hour of his judgment is come. The Son of David is coming the second time. “Some of the Pharisees,” were offended at their shouting and wished them rebuked; so it was in our case. They fulfilled an important prophecy; so did we. Had they not done so, the stones would have cried out; so it would have been in this case; for prophecy must be fulfilled. They were blind as to what should follow; so were we. Consequently they were sadly disappointed; so were we. They were sad, while the world rejoiced; so were we. But their sorrow was turned into joy when the prophecies were more fully opened to their minds; so it was with us. They could take the prophecies and explain their disappointment; so can we. They learned that their work of preaching was but just begun; we have learned the same. They had a new message to preach; so have we. Theirs was a further development of God’s truth in a crucified and risen Saviour; ours is the last development of saving truth—the last merciful warning to mankind, before the return of that same Jesus. Theirs proclaimed Jesus, the crucified, exalted at the right hand of God, as a Prince and High Priest, there, beyond the reach of mortal ken, pleading before the throne of mercy in behalf of those who come to God through him; ours proclaims him within the ‘second veil,’ closing up his intercessions, and about to return to gather his elect—those who have been reconciled to God through his blood—and reward them with eternal life. Both are things out of sight, and are matters purely of revelation and of faith, the one as much as the other. There is no difference between the two, except that the latter is “the present truth,” and consequently requires actual, living faith, while the former has been so long held that it is an easy matter to assent to it.
Now, dear friends, the great truth I wish you to learn is, that the prophecies are, like every other part of the word of God, infallible. That they are not only sure of fulfillment, but that they cannot be fulfilled out of their proper time; so that an exact fulfillment may always be safely relied upon. Especially I wish you to bear in mind that when God promises a message of truth, a message of warning, it never comes until he sends it; and when it does come, it must be heeded by those who would please God; for “without faith it is impossible to please him.”
These principles being correct—and they cannot be disproved—the last solemn warning which is to be given before the coming of Christ, is now doing its fearful, heart-trying, sifting, separating, judgment work. It requires of you the very work of reform which you need and must have, to be saved alive by him at his coming. Will you believe God’s word, obey his warning voice and be translated to Heaven at his coming? The Lord is offering you the very thing—the only thing—that can prepare you for that great event, which is as surely pending as his word is true. Will you believe? Will you obey? Will you be saved? May God grant it for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

TRUST IN GOD.

MARINER upon the ocean, By tempestuous billows tossed, What can still thy heart's commotion, When all hope of life is lost? Let thy soul on God be stayed, Heaven is near, be not dismayed.
Mourner by the sable bier, Whither all thy joys are fled, All thou'st held on earth most dear— Laid within this narrow bed. Cease thy grief—on Canaan's shore Loved ones meet to part no more.
Pilgrim on life's varied road, Worn with grief, and toil, and care, Wouldst thou lay aside thy load, Doubting, brooding o'er despair! Nay, but cast thy fear away; Trust in God, he is thy stay.

The Sermon.

I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom.
PREACH THE WORD. 2 Tim. iv, 2.

REPORT FROM IOWA.

By D. T. Bourdeau; Geo. I. Butler

Our last report brought us to the conclusion of our labors at Clermont. From thence we removed to Fayette, where we have remained till the present time. This village is twenty miles south of Clermont, and ten from West Union. It contains not far from eight hundred inhabitants, we should judge, and is a pleasant, enterprising town.
For several years there has been an earnest desire to have the truth preached here, on the part of one of our brethren who resides in the place; and as it was necessary during harvest to be in a place large enough to support evening meetings, and as our way seemed hedged up in other directions, after making it a subject of prayer we concluded it was duty to pitch the tent here.
But we expected from the beginning we should have a heavy influence to contend with, for the Methodists have an Institution of learning in the place which exercises a controlling influence over many minds; and their preachers are very numerous, and of course the people are more or less church-bound.
We commenced our meetings July 25th, and have given twenty-one discourses thus far, commencing on the Advent doctrine, and then taking up the Sabbath question, on which we have given some nine discourses. Our audiences have averaged from one hundred to two hundred, evenings, while Sunday evenings we have had a tent full; we have quite a number of attentive hearers who are always present, who seem much interested.
When the Sabbath question was introduced a week ago last Sunday, it created quite a stir. The next day knots of men in every part of the street, and in the shops, were seen discussing the subject, some in favor, and some against; and an unbeliever remarked yesterday that the Bible had never been read so much in this town as it has since we have been here. Some are already convinced that the Sabbath is binding, but whether they will have grace to keep it, remains to be seen.
Last Sabbath evening after the discourse and after the appointments had been given out for Sunday, the Methodist minister who preaches upon the circuit here, arose and stated that he would preach upon the Sabbath question in the chapel, Sunday morning, by request of some of his members, in which he would prove that they were keeping the true seventh-day from creation.
We told him we should be glad to have him use the tent, as we desired our audience to hear him; but he would not consent. So we withdrew our appointment, and desired all our congregation to attend, and hear both sides. Of course we were present and took notes, and after he dismissed his meeting we informed them that the subject would be reviewed at the tent in the evening. In his discourses, for he spoke in the forenoon and afternoon upon it, he took substantially Mr. Aker's position, claiming that the fourth commandment required us to keep the seventh part of time, but that Sunday was the true seventh-day of the Adamic week. That it was necessary to know the exact number of days from creation in order to know when the true seventh-day comes. He claimed that the Septuagint version contained the only correct chronology, and called in Josephus for proof, stating that after the coming of Christ the Jews corrupted the genealogical tables of the other version. After trying to establish these points by a series of mathematical calculations with the solar cycle of twenty-eight years for a basis, claiming that in that length of time exactly the same day of the week would come on the same day of the month, and year, he tried to fix the day of the week in which the fourteenth day of the first month spoken of in Ex. xii, 18 would occur, and then with this cycle, taking the number of years to Christ, and applying it, tried to show that Christ arose from the dead on the true seventh-day of the Adamic week. That at the time the Israelites came out of Egypt they changed the commencement of their year, their month, and also their Sabbath, from the seventh to the sixth day of the week, and then at the resurrection the disciples all commenced keeping the resurrection or true seventh-day again.
In his afternoon discourse he tried to make his audience believe with quite a flourish of trumpets that should this chronology of Dr. Aker's be upset, it would destroy the reckoning of sea voyages, the calculation of eclipses, and almost the regularity of the seasons; that it was quite a job one had on hand to show the falsity of this position; for he said it would take eighteen years to go through the figures and disprove them. That this view was the one being generally adopted in the Methodist denomination; that all their young ministers were being instructed in it, &c. We could see very plainly how the large audience drank down the remarks, by the way many of them would look around at us. The professors on the platform and the people on the floor seemed to think the argument triumphant; although it was an effort almost entirely outside of the Bible, and probably not a dozen persons in the room could follow it through or comprehend it, and it was as contrary to their own position, before the meeting, as it was to ours; for this involved two changes of the Sabbath, and their former position but one. But it shows the eagerness with which people will grasp at any thing that releases them from their obligation to keep the Sabbath of the Bible. We do not know how nearly he followed Mr. Aker, not having his book; but these were his positions.
In our reply at the tent we tried to show that the commandment required a definite day, the very day upon which God rested; that no other day could satisfy his demands; and that it referred back to the creation, for its institution. All the readers of the Review are familiar with the argument on this point. We tried to show that it was impossible to find the exact number of days from the creation of the world; that no chronologist but Dr. Aker pretended to give even the exact number of years, and the reason he did it, was because he had a special theory to sustain; that Usher, Hales, and others, whose fame was world-wide as chronologists, and who had given to this subject long years of patient study, only claimed to come at it approximately, and all chronologists differ more or less among themselves, and differ also from Mr. Aker. We then contrasted the language of St. Paul with that of Mr. Aker. Paul when speaking of different periods of time which enter into these very calculations of Aker says, Acts xiii, 18, 20. “And about the time of forty years,” “and about the space of four hundred and fifty years,” &c. Thus the inspired apostle does not even profess to give the exact number of years, in these limited periods; but Mr. Aker claims to give the precise number of years, days, and minutes, from the creation of the world! And Mr. Anderson told us in his discourse that the loss of one day would destroy the whole theory; and any one can see that the difference of one day might bring the Jewish Sabbath from the sixth to the seventh day of the week.
Again this theory is all based upon the Septuagint version of the Holy Scriptures. What authority have we for saying that its dates are more perfect than those of the original from which it and all other versions are translated? The fact that the translators of the Bible used the dates given in the original Hebrew, shows that they regarded them as correct; and their opinion would be as good certainly as Mr. Akers' who has a pet theory to sustain. Thus we see on what an insecure basis this theory stands. It is like a mighty pyramid standing on its apex. Without the certainty of having a correct starting point, if the calculations were correct, we should not be sure to come out right.
Again if Mr. Anderson's effort to find the length of time from creation to the fourteenth day of the first month, Ex. xii, 18, could be established, it would not prove his position, for the seventh-day Sabbath is not mentioned in that chapter, and the exact number of days from that period to Christ is not known. He tried to make it appear that the Passover Sabbath mentioned there was the weekly Sabbath, and stated that the reason the Jews did not keep it weekly, was that they backslid, and so did not keep it but once a year. The absurdity of this position can be seen by thinking of keeping the 4th of July as a weekly institution. We thought he must presume much upon the ignorance of his hearers.
We took the ground that it was utterly impossible to tell upon what day of the month the seventh-day Sabbath brought to view in Ex. xvi, and in the fourth commandment, did occur at the time of the exode from Egypt.
Let us examine now his position on another point. That at the exode the children of Israel changed their Sabbath from the seventh to the sixth day of the week. This was two months before the giving of the law, and one month before the fall of the manna, recorded in Ex. xvi. Where is the evidence that any such change was made? There is none whatever; but the word of God directly contradicts it. In this chapter, verse 22, we learn that the people gathered twice as much on the sixth day as on others, and the rulers came and told Moses; and in the 23d verse we learn that Moses tells them, “To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord,” &c., and in verse 30, “So the people rested on the seventh-day.” Mr. Anderson says they had commenced resting on the sixth-day a month previous.
Again, when we come to the giving of the law, one month after the event just noticed, God commands the people to keep the seventh-day, the very day of his rest at the creation of the world. The position of Mr. Anderson involves the absurdity of supposing that God would have them keep a day contrary to the one he had just commanded them to keep. According to this position, all of God's prophets who spoke by inspiration of the Holy Spirit were breaking one of his commands and keeping a day he never commanded, and did not know it.
Mr. Anderson quoted Josephus to prove his chronology correct. If he is good evidence on that point he is certainly competent to testify what day of the week the Jews were keeping as the Sabbath, being a Jew himself and fully acquainted with their history in the past. He says positively (Ant. of the Jews. Book 1, chap. 1, speaking of the creation of the world and the rest on the seventh-day), “Whence it is that we (the Jews) celebrate a rest on that day and call it a Sabbath,” &c., while Mr. Anderson says it was on another day.
But Mr. Anderson tells us there was another change made at the resurrection of Christ; that the resurrection day was the true seventh-day. Having traced down the day and shown by positive proof that the Sabbath mentioned in Ex. xvi, and Ex. xx, was the true seventh-day that God blessed in the beginning, we will next try to identify the day that we kept at the resurrection of Christ. Luke xxiii, 55, 56. Here we learn that the holy women rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment, and furthermore, that this was the day next preceding the day on which Christ arose from the dead. As the day according to the commandment, was the one God blessed and sanctified at the creation of the world, and as this was the day before the resurrection, what shall we think of Mr. Anderson's assertion?
We next proved, that if the Jews and holy women were keeping the sixth-day of the week as is claimed, Paul and the disciples went on keeping it, and continued to do so till set right by the Man of Sin; for we learn in Acts xiii, 42, 44; vi, 13; xvii, 2; xviii, 3, 4, 11, that the day Paul observed, and upon which he preached to Jews and Greeks, was the same day in which the Jews met in their synagogues, which Mr. Anderson tells us was the sixth day of the week; and those who have read the extracts from first-day writers in Bro. Andrews' History of the Sabbath, know that the early Christians continued to observe it for three hundred years, and some who did not come under the influence of the Man of Sin, even observe that old sixth-day Sabbath, as Mr. Anderson calls it, even till the present time.
We think beyond all controversy that this modern view of Mr. Aker is as much more absurd than the one so commonly received, as two absurdities are greater than one. First-day believers generally claim that the Sabbath was changed once. No good reason is ever assigned for this, and no record is ever shown in the Bible where this change was made; but this theory tells us that two such changes were made, of which the Bible gives no account. But perhaps enough has been said on this subject.
There is still an interest to hear on these subjects here. Brethren, pray for us.
D. T. BOURDEAU. GEO. I. BUTLER.

REMARKABLE ESCAPES OF EMINENT MEN.

An English journal enumerates some examples under this head, which illustrates the truth of an overruling Providence:
“Some years ago, a young man, holding a subordinate position in the East India Company's service, twice attempted to deprive himself of life by snapping a loaded pistol at his head. Each time the pistol missed fire. A friend, entering the room shortly afterward, he requested him to fire it out of the window; it then went off without any difficulty. Satisfied thus that the weapon had been duly primed and loaded, this young man sprang up exclaiming, ‘I must be reserved for something great;’ and from that moment gave up the idea of suicide, which for some time previous was uppermost in his thoughts. That young man afterward became Lord Clive.
“Two brothers were on one occasion walking together, when a violent storm of thunder and lightning overtook them. One was struck dead on the spot, the other was spared; else would the name of the great reformer, Martin Luther, have been unknown to mankind.
“The holy St. Augustine having to preach at a distant town, took with him a guide, who by some unaccountable means mistook the usual road and fell into a by-path. He afterward discovered that his enemies having heard of his movements, had placed themselves in the proper road with the design of murdering him.
“Bacon, the sculptor, when a tender boy of five years old, fell into the pit of a soap-boiler, and must have perished had not a workman, just entering the yard, observed the top of his head, and immediately delivered him.
“When Oliver Cromwell was an infant, a monkey snatched him from his cradle, leaped with him through a garret-window, and ran along the leads of the house. The utmost alarm was excited among the inmates, and various were the devices used to rescue the child from the guardianship of his newly found protector. All were unavailing; his would-be rescuers had lost courage, and were in despair of ever seeing the baby alive again, when the monkey quietly retraced his steps and deposited his burden safely on the bed. On a subsequent occasion, the waters had well-nigh quenched his life. He fell into a deep pond, from drowning in which a clergyman named Johnson was the sole instrument of his rescue.
“By the siege of Leicester, a young soldier, about seventeen years of age, was drawn out for sentry duty. One of his comrades was very anxious to take his place. No objection was made, and this man went. He was shot dead while on guard. The young man first drawn, afterward became the author of the Pilgrim's Progress.
“Doddridge, when born, was so weakly an infant he was believed to be dead. A nurse standing by fancied she saw some signs of vitality. Thus the feeble spark of life was saved from being extinguished, and an eminent author and consistent Christian preserved to the world.
“John Wesley, when a child, was only just preserved from fire. Almost the moment after he was rescued, the roof of the house where he had been fell in.
“Of Philip Henry a similar instance is recorded.
“John Knox, the renowned Scotch Reformer, was always wont to sit at the head of the table with his back to the window. On one particular evening, without being able to account for it, he would neither himself sit in the chair nor permit any one else to occupy his place. That very night a bullet was shot in at the window purposely to kill him; it grazed the chair in which he usually sat, and made a hole in the foot of a candlestick on the table.
“Many years have now elapsed since three subalterns might have been seen struggling in the waters of St. Helena; one of them, peculiarly helpless, was fast succumbing. He was saved to live as Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington.
“The life of John Newton is but the history of a series of marvellous deliverances. As a youth, he had agreed to accompany some friends on board a man-of-war. He arrived too late to go; the boat in which his friends had gone was capsized, and all its occupants drowned. On another occasion, when tide surveyor in the port of Liverpool, some business had detained him, so that he came to his boat much later than usual, to the great surprise of those who were in the habit of observing his then undeviating punctuality. He then went out in the boat as heretofore to inspect a ship, which blew up just before he reached her. Had he left the shore a few minutes sooner, he must have perished with the rest on board.”

CHURCH STATISTICS OF NEW YORK CITY.

The American Quarterly Church Review for July, opens with a very long and interesting article called “New York City a Field for Church Work,” which gives the following statistics:
“The number of churches and chapels of the Protestant Episcopal church in this city is sixty-three. Supposing thirty-one of these churches and chapels to accommodate one thousand worshipers each, and thirty-two to accommodate six hundred each, and we have, provided by the church, accommodations for the worship of God for fifty thousand and eight hundred souls; leaving nine hundred and forty-two thousand and two hundred persons for whom she has made no provisions.
“According to a late report the Romanists have thirty-one churches, (of which six are for Germans,) and sixty-four ministers in the city; the Presbyterians have fifty-five, the Dutch Reformed, twenty-two; the Methodists, forty-one; the Baptists, thirty-three; the Congregationalists, four; the Unitarians and Universalists, six; the Jews, twenty-four Synagogues; and there are for miscellaneous sects, sixteen buildings or halls. Now, of these two hundred and thirty-five churches and chapels, &c., allowing one hundred of them to accommodate one thousand persons each, and the remainder half that number each, and the estimate is a large one, we have church accommodations of some sort for one hundred and seventy-seven thousand and five hundred persons; and still there are seven hundred and seventy-one thousand and seven hundred persons in this Christian city of New York for whom no provision to worship Almighty God after any form has been made. After allowing all the necessary deduction for the young, the aged, the sick and the infirm, who cannot attend upon public worship if they would, still the fact stares us in the face that there are hundreds of thousands of persons in this city to-day who could not, even if disposed, worship at Christ’s altars in any form or manner whatever.”

Seeing God.

By E. S. W.

In my flesh shall I see God. Job xix, 26. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. 1 Cor. xv, 50. Please reconcile the foregoing passages. A. S. Ottawa Co., Mich.
Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; but flesh and spirit can.
Temporal or natural life is in the blood. “For the life of the flesh is in the blood. For it is the life of all flesh: the blood of it is for the life thereof: therefore I said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh: for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof.” Lev. vii, 11, 14.
Eternal life is in the Spirit. Paul in speaking of the resurrection of the dead, says, “It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.” 1 Cor. xv, 44.
Temporal life—Flesh, bones and blood. Eternal life—Flesh, bones and spirit.
The Saviour after his resurrection had flesh and bones. When he appeared suddenly among his disciples they “were terrified and affrighted and supposed they had seen a spirit.” [Phantom, marg. Gr. Test.] And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself, handle me, and see; for a spirit [phantom or specter] hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have.” Luke xxiv, 37–39. And Ezekiel in speaking of the resurrection of the dry bones, says, “Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones. Behold I will cause breath to enter into you and ye shall live; and I will lay sinews upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you and ye shall live.” Eze. xxxvii, 5, 6. E. S. W.
Continue reading: **Infidel Objections to the Bible Answered. No. 11.**