Earlier text: HOW TO GAIN SPIRITUAL STRENGTHPUTTING UP GREEN CORN — EXPLANATION.
In your issue of September 3, page 573, at bottom of column, under the heading, “To Put Up Green Corn,” you say, To four quarts of corn, use one quart of salt. Is this not an error? The ocean contains but three per cent of salt, and is not drinkable; but your recipe gives twenty-five per cent! If I were going to put up corn, I would use only from one quarter to one half an ounce for four quarts. GEO. GRAHAM. EXPLANATION.— The salt named was not to be eaten, but for preserving purposes. Read last clause: “Put to freshen the day before using, in afternoon, by pouring on boiling water, changing it.” Change water as often as necessary to make it sufficiently fresh—as we freshen salt fish before using. COMMON sense and good cheer are good ingredients to mix with one’s food. One of the frequent and common-sense utterances of Elder A. T. Jones upon the subject of healthful living is: “Live upon your victuals—not upon your vitals.” A prominent New York physician recommends fasting for that dread malady, consumption. He claims that in a few days this method of treatment dissolves the lung sores and takes away the disease. True health reform is positive, not negative. It not only tells people what not to wear, eat, or do, but also what is good to wear, eat, and do. It is more important for one to know what to do than it is for him to know all about what not to do. One’s health is affected more or less by the condition of the mind; but not so much as Christian Scientists would have us believe. An optimist will recover from a disease sooner than a pessimist. But, in each case, the physical causes of the disease must be removed before recovery can possibly follow. Germs abound everywhere, and cannot be avoided. The all-important thing is not merely to dodge as many of them as possible, but rather, to build up such a fund of physical vitality as shall annihilate all the germs that do get into the system—to create a preponderance of the health germs over the disease germs. The great efficacy of physical outdoor exercise is easily seen in the fact that hard-working lumbermen enjoy excellent health, in spite of their unhealthful diet of greasy pork and beans, while sedentary persons, without exercise, enjoy poor health in spite of the fact that they daily partake of the best health foods. Good food alone cannot produce good health. There are more people who die from overeating than from starvation. The writer’s grandfather lived to be a very old man. He made it a rule to always arise from the table a bit hungry. It is said that those who work in sulphur mines are never afflicted with colds or with la grippe. Therefore certain persons sprinkle powdered sulphur in their stockings during the winter months. The fumes permeate the entire body, and discolor all silver found upon the person. Whatever may be said as to the foolishness of the practice, it is certainly one which can result in no harm. Many physicians prescribe worse medicines. While it is true that many new diseases are springing into existence, many diseases which have been known for years are now called by new names. For instance, what used to be called inflammation of the bowels is now styled “appendicitis.” What was formerly simply inflammation of the lungs is now called “pneumonia.” In these degenerate days men make a great ado over ills which our forefathers met with a “grin-and-bear-it” spirit. Beware of diseased pets; for, according to the Marquise de Fontenoy, Lady Sybil Primrose, the daughter of Lord Rosebery, is at present “suffering from a serious disfigurement in the form of a species of skin disease, which she is understood to have taken from a cat, which she was in the habit of fondling and holding to her cheek, and which now turns out to have been suffering from some catching and virulent skin malady.” Her sister, Lady Crewe, is also seriously ill with the same malady. The reason why you do not enjoy good health may be due to the fact that your food does not contain enough bulk. Concentrated foods satisfy before they fill, and are therefore to be avoided, or at least supplemented with coarser foods, such as vegetables. Some horses were once being carried across the ocean. Those in charge of the ship had forgotten to take along sufficient hay, and nothing but oats was left for the horses to eat. Scores of the animals died. Finally one man thought that possibly it was bulk that the horses needed in their food. Accordingly the crew were set to work sawing wood, and sawdust was mixed with the oats and fed to the animals. No more horses died. Civilization might well be defined as that state of society in which man is the farthest removed from the necessity of physical exertion. The tendency of the age is to have machinery supplant the man unit everywhere. Still, with the great advantages of civilization are to be found corresponding disadvantages to the human race. In contrasting “the well-clad, reading, writing, thinking American, with a watch, pencil, and a bill of exchange in his pocket,” with the naked native of New Zealand, “whose property is a club, a spear, a mat, and an individual twentieth of a shed to sleep under,” Ralph Waldo Emerson well says: “Compare the health of the two men, and you shall see that in his aboriginal strength, the white man has lost. . . . Strike the savage with a broadax and in a day or two the flesh will unite, and heal as if you had struck the blow into soft pitch, and the same blow shall send the white to his grave. The civilized man has built a coach, but he has lost the use of his feet. He is supported on crutches, but lacks so much support of muscle. He has got a fine Geneva watch, but he has lost the skill to tell the hour by the sun. The solstice he does not observe; the equinox he knows as little; and the whole bright calendar of the year is without a dial, in his mind.” The great blunder of civilization is that society has been divided into two classes of men: those who work only with their brains, and those who work only with their hands. A. J. B. Owing to a growing realization of the fact that coffee is injurious, there has appeared on the market, during the last few years, a large number of substitutes for coffee. Some of these the manufacturers “modestly” claim to be:— “Healthful and nutritious.” “In every sense a pure health food.” “A perfect food, in liquid form.” “A pure food drink.” “It’s nourishing and strengthening.” “A palatable, nutritious, and wholesome beverage.” “It tones the blood, and by its daily use will impart the healthful glow of youth.” “It nourishes, strengthens, and vitalizes.” “A natural food drink.” “Contains the phosphorus besides other nourishment of the grain in a concentrated form.” “Recommended by the medical profession for its nutritious and healthful properties,” etc. Because of the extravagant claims for the nutritive value of the decoctions prepared from these coffee substitutes, the Maine Agricultural Experiment Station made careful analysis of a number of samples, and in Bulletin 65, in commenting on the figures obtained, says:— “Skimmed milk is generally considered a pretty thin beverage, but it contains from three to twenty times as much solids as these so-called nutritious drinks. . . . Viewed from the nutritive standpoint alone, . . . these coffee substitutes, like coffee itself, depend more for their food value upon the cream and sugar used than upon their own soluble constituents.” The only honest claim that can be made for cereal coffees is that they furnish a palatable hot drink, free from the injurious substances present in coffee; and such a cereal coffee, if in itself free from objectionable substances, serves a useful purpose.—Pacific Health Journal for September. The “bacteria of fatigue” is the latest discovery of science,—found by Professor Gautier, of the French institute,—and certainly the most unobjectionable. Other bacteria have been doing us infinite damage, poisoning us through the water and the air and a multitude of other avenues. But here is the bacteria of fatigue, which intends no further harm to us than to remind us that we must take a rest. People who have been hitherto reviled and sworn at as lazy and worthless will smile. They know now what has been the matter with them. They have been treated most unjustly; for, in fact, they would have been just as active and industrious as others if they had not been victims of the “bacteria of fatigue.” In many cases they were attacked from birth—or, as the phrase is, were “born tired.” One of these, no doubt, was the young man about starting in life who wrote home to his father that he was well except that he “had a strange aversion to every species of exertion.” He did not know it, but in reality he was suffering with “bacteria of fatigue.” There are really thousands and tens of thousands with this malady all over the world, and especially in this country at the present time of the year in the rural roads. We call them tramps, but they are actually invalids, inoculated with Professor Gautier’s “bacteria of fatigue.” And for most of them there is no cure. A SABBATH ARGUMENT OF FOUR WORDS.
This is direct and simple. It is easily remembered. It covers the whole question; and it rests upon the highest authority. The four words are, “Was made for man.” These words were spoken specifically of the Sabbath day. They were spoken by the One who made the Sabbath, and who has declared himself the Lord of the Sabbath, and therefore knows of what He speaks. How many foolish notions and false arguments respecting the Sabbath these words strike down at one blow! In the first place, the Sabbath “was made.” It was founded upon some definite and distinct act, or acts. It did not spring up by the will of man, nor grow up from any involuntary custom or chance action of men without object or design. But it was made. These thoughts give rise to a number of other questions. If it was made, by whom was it made? For whom was it made? Why was it made? When was it made? and by what act was it made? One of these questions two of the four words already quoted fully and definitely answer: “The Sabbath was made for man.” But now comes the plea to which so many resort in order to discard the Sabbath; that is, that the Sabbath was made for the Jews alone, and was confined to that people, and therefore I am not required to keep it. That is a very strange plea. God, we may be sure, does not make anything for anybody but that which is for his good, and which he needs. Man therefore needs the Sabbath which God has made for him. And the experience of the human family uniformly proves that man needs it as a period of relaxation and cessation from toil, physically and mentally, and certainly he needs it morally and spiritually for the benefit of his higher nature. In the face of Christ’s declaration that the Sabbath was made for man, any man by asserting that it was made for the Jews alone not only contradicts the words of the Saviour, but stultifies himself by virtually declaring that he is not included in the human family, and has none of those elements of being referred to, which are worthy of care and cultivation. But how does it happen, then, that we are so much worse than the Jews that such a blessing as the Sabbath should be given to them, and such a benefit be conferred upon them, and withheld from us? Is God thus partial? Paul asks in amazement, “Is He the God of the Jews only? is He not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also.” Rom. 3:29. The Sabbath was made for man. The word “man” is here used in its natural and unlimited sense. The Sabbath is a world institution, designed for all men; for all need it. And “there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon Him.” Rom. 10:12. Still the idea cleaves to many minds that if a man is a Christian, he need not keep the Sabbath. But why, not? What is there about the Sabbath that is unchristian? Is it the One who made the Sabbath? “Without Him [the Word, Christ, says John] was not anything made that was made.” John 1:3. When one begins to follow Him who declares himself to be “the Lord of the Sabbath,” should he think he is not included among those for whom the Sabbath was made, and to whom it was given? We have glanced at the benefits the Sabbath is designed to confer upon us. But what relation do we show that we sustain to God by keeping it? What is the attitude that we show on our part to God by its observance? God himself, by His prophet, answers this question fully; and it ought to stir every heart that professes to love and serve Him. See His admonitory instruction in Isaiah 58, the last two verses of which chapter read as follows: “If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath [that is, cease to trample it in the dust], from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable; and shalt honor Him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” Isa. 58:13, 14. A more searching test on the Sabbath question, it seems to us, can hardly be brought to bear upon any one than is involved in this scripture; for the reading shows that the honor of God is involved in our practice on this question: “If thou . . . call the Sabbath . . . the holy of the Lord, honorable; and shalt honor Him,” etc. One of our ministers some years ago was taken to task with the question whether or not the whole object of law was not for the good of the one of whom obedience was required, or rather, this was his assertion with which he intended to nullify the objection we make to the change of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week; for, urged the objector, would not a person derive just as much benefit from resting the first day of the week as from resting on the seventh? Would he not derive as much good from the latter as from the former? and as the object of the law is for the good of those who obey, why does not the first day answer the purpose of the law as well as the seventh? What a low and limited and material view of the Sabbath is this! What must be the working of the mind of the objector who conceives that the object of the law and the lawgiver is only to work for the material side of his subjects in the administration of his government! There is a much higher consideration than this to be taken into account. God must have some regard to his own standing in this matter; and in his answer the minister took this into account. No, said the minister, that is not the primary nor the leading object of law, to benefit the subject, but it is the honor of the lawgiver. Then he quoted Isa. 58:13, 14. This honor must be secured and maintained at all hazards. And when the Lawgiver of the Sabbath gave a law demanding the observance of the seventh day, and one or any number of His subjects undertake to change that and substitute the first day of the week, such a course is not honoring the Lawgiver, but nullifying all His authority, and as far as in his power turning everything back to antinomianism and chaos. So the Lord says that we, by turning away our feet from the Sabbath, and refraining from our own pleasure, calling the Sabbath a delight, not doing our own ways, nor finding our own pleasure, nor speaking our own words, honor the Lord; and the converse of all this is equally true, that by not doing these things, we dishonor the Lord. So the question for every one to decide for himself on this question is, Do I desire to honor the Lord? or am I willing to dishonor Him: to judge His law and turn against Him? How can any Christian have any other purpose or desire but to honor the Lord? And who could deliberately decide to take a course that He declares would be to His dishonor? “If then I be a father, where is mine honor? and if I be a master, where is my fear? saith the Lord.” Mal. 1:6. “Them that honor me I will honor.” 1 Sam. 2:30. And so the promise in Isa. 58:14 is, “I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth [raise thee to the highest exaltation known to men], and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father [bestow upon thee the blessings of the heavenly kingdom].” Can any promise exceed this? There is no statement, it seems to us, more calculated to stir and thrill our hearts than the statement that we are now living on borrowed time. And what is meant by living on borrowed time?—It is meant that the time now passing was not designed to be used as it is now being used, but was designed for something else, and was allotted to other purposes. It appears from authority which none of us question that it was our privilege years ago to enter really and literally and physically, not in a mere spiritual sense, into the kingdom of God, and that we might now be in the enjoyment of the indescribable felicities of that place and condition, but for our own failures and shortcomings. Here are the statements:— “If all who had labored unitedly in the work in 1884 had received the Third Angel's Message, and proclaimed it in the power of the Holy Spirit, the Lord would have wrought mightily with their efforts. A flood of light would have been shed upon the world. Years ago the inhabitants of the earth would have been warned, the closing work would have been completed, and Christ would have come for the redemption of His people.”—“Great Controversy,” p. 458. “Had the purpose of God been carried out by His people in giving to the world the message of mercy, Christ would, ere this, have come to the earth, and the saints would have received their welcome into the city of God.”—“Testimonies for the Church,” Vol. VI, page 450. “Had the Church of Christ done her appointed work as the Lord ordained, the whole world would before this have been warned, and the Lord Jesus would have come to our earth in power and great glory.”—“The Desire of Ages,” page 634. “Ye churches of the living God, study this promise, and consider how your lack of faith, of spirituality, of divine power, is hindering the coming of the kingdom of God. If you would go forth to do Christ's work, angels of God would open the way before you, preparing hearts to receive the gospel. Were every one of you a living missionary, the message for this time would speedily be proclaimed in all countries, to every people and nation and tongue. This is the work that must be done before Christ shall come in power and great glory.”—“Testimonies for the Church,” Vol. VI, page 438. This position is taken from a plain statement of Scripture, from which but one conclusion can be drawn: The scripture is 2 Peter 3:11, 12: “Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hasting [see margin] the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?” This plainly represents that Christians by being such manner of persons as they ought to be in all holy conversation and godliness, may hasten the coming of the day of God, and shorten the time between any given epoch in their experience and that day. Now it follows that the statements from “Great Controversy,” are true, that the world would have been warned, and the work closed up years ago if the Church had stood in the light, and done her duty. Then what becomes of all the temptations pressed upon us to say, My Lord delayeth His coming? Does any one feel like saying that?—We reply, Brother, we are living in the very time even now when we ought to be in the kingdom. We ought to be beyond the time when the Lord should have come, and we should have been basking in the delights of the immortal state. It is our own fault that we are not there. We are living on borrowed time, time borrowed from that during which we ought to have been in the kingdom. Let none sink down in discouragement with the thought that the Lord has delayed His work and His coming. It is not here now, only because we have not hastened it. It ought to make any one ashamed to be complaining that the Lord delays His coming, when he thinks that he ought to be in the kingdom here and now. “TOO MUCH LIBERTY,” SAYS THE POPE.
By L. A. S.
The clerical organ in Vienna, Die Information, states that the pope recently made an address to the Catholic bishops in which he touched on the subject of the cause of President McKinley’s assassination. The cause, he declared, was too much freedom. As this Catholic organ reported him, “President McKinley was a victim of the excessive freedom granted to the people of the United States.” And what is this “excessive freedom”? let us ask. The fundamental law of the nation—the Constitution—is its charter of liberty, and in this charter it is provided:— “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press.”—Article 1, Amendments to the Constitution. In this part of the Constitution, which is known as its “Bill of Rights,” it is further specified that the people shall be “secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures;” that “a presentment or indictment of a grand jury” shall be necessary to hold an individual for trial on a charge, of felony, except in the military service; that no person shall be twice “put in jeopardy of life or limb” for the same offense; nor be compelled to be a witness against himself; nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; that every person arrested for crime shall “enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial” by an impartial jury; that “excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines be imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted,” etc. All these safeguards of the public liberties were defined not by the imagination of evils that might come, but by the history of those that had been. The framers of the Constitution simply enumerated the ways in which human rights had been trampled on by the despotic governments of the old world, and declared that the repetition of these evils should not be under the government of the new republic. The black stain of this despotism was then fresh upon the pages of history, and was vividly before the minds of our forefathers while they were building the great bulwark of our freedom. And this despotism which they sought to exclude forever from the shores of this country was that of the lands which had been so long dominated by the papacy—that power which is to-day what it was then, according to its own admission and boast. The papacy did not believe then in “too much liberty,” and no more does it believe in American liberty now. We may trace this liberty further back and get more exactly at the reason of the papal feeling against it. Before the Constitution was framed, there had gone forth from the revolting colonists a “Declaration of Independence,” which asserted that all men possessed by gift from their Creator “certain unalienable rights,” with which no government could justly interfere, but which it was the proper purpose of civil government to preserve. But whence came this assertion of the doctrine of inalienable rights? Whence but from the great Reformation that had swept over Europe shortly before, proclaiming the doctrine of justification by faith, and thus asserting the right as well as the duty of every man to think for himself? The right to think for one’s self means nothing without the right to act for one’s self in harmony with one’s convictions of right and duty; and this meant to our forefathers the right to religious freedom, which in turn meant that there was a sphere in which the individual was free from all authority save that of God; which meant that with religious freedom and all that was essential thereto neither pope nor king could rightfully interfere; which meant that there was a sphere of “certain unalienable rights” possessed by every man; which meant that just government must recognize these rights; which meant that just government was not a monarchy, but a republic. Thus it appears that the “excess of liberty” which the pope beholds in America is a direct outgrowth of the Reformation, which so greatly curtailed the truly excessive liberty of the popes. It is not strange that the Roman pontiff is opposed to American liberty. He has been careful, however, about expressing his opposition, but deems the present occasion an opportune one to voice his sentiments and lend his influence to help forward a possible movement away from this liberty, back toward the old order of things for which the papacy has always stood. But no one who values the principles and doctrines of Protestantism will be willing to surrender in any degree the freedom guaranteed to men under the Declaration of Independence and the national Constitution. L. A. S. EVOLUTION AND ANARCHY.
By A. J. B.
HE who makes the Bible his rule of faith and practice cannot believe in the theory of evolution, nor become an anarchist. But nowadays it is exceedingly difficult to find people who have a living faith in the Bible, the sort of belief that leads to action. The majority of people pretend to believe in evolution, but would not for an instant be willing to acknowledge that in so doing they are to any degree fostering the foundation-principles of anarchy. Evolution and anarchy are not so far separated as many suppose. They belong to the same family, and should be banished from the mind of mankind. Both are opposed to law. Evolution would divorce God and His creative power and laws from the making of this world. Anarchy would banish and uproot the laws of man and the fundamentals of society. Instead of believing the Bible record of creation, found in Genesis: that God made a perfect earth and a perfect man and woman at the beginning, evolutionists pretend to be able to show how “all the species of living things can evolve, not only their eyes, but their legs and wings and lungs, and every part of them from a little bit of primeval life stuff, called protoplasm, by the influence of Natural Selection.” According to evolutionists the ancestors of men were monkeys. For, says Mr. Darwin: “The early progenitors of man were no doubt once covered with hair, both sexes having beards; their ears were pointed and capable of movement; and their bodies were provided with a tail having the proper muscles. The foot, judging from the condition of the great toe in the fetus, was then prehensile, and our progenitors, no doubt, were arborial in their habits, frequenting some warm forest-clad land. The males were provided with great canine teeth, which served them as formidable weapons.” He then continues his assertions to the effect that this kind of animal from which man has sprung, “if seen by a naturalist, would undoubtedly have been ranked as an ape or a monkey. And as man, under a genealogical point of view, belongs to the Catarrhine, or Old World, stock (of monkeys), we must conclude, however much the conclusion may revolt our pride, that our early progenitors would have been properly thus designated.” Then, to cap his nonsensical climax, he says: “Thus we have given to man a pedigree of prodigious length, but not, it may be said, of noble quality.” Such is the stuff taught daily in the great colleges and universities of this and other lands. The so-called men of science occupying the professorial chairs of these institutions go to their wits’ ends in the vain endeavor to crowd God out of the scheme of creation. They rack their brains to try to prove that the original spark of life originated itself—that God had nothing to do with it. Of course, some evolutionists who pretend to be Christians as well, admit that possibly God did create the protoplasm from which all life has come. But, to ask these simpletons to explain why it is any harder for the Creator to make a perfect man at the first stroke, is to annihilate their argument. Their reasoning is about as logical as that of the ancients, who said that the earth rested upon the shoulders of Atlas. When asked upon what Atlas stood, they said his feet were planted upon a turtle. But when asked where the turtle stood, they had sense enough to acknowledge the fallacy of their arguments. Nothing but the evolution theory is tolerated in the university class-room. The student who believes the plain, unvarnished story of creation, as found in the Word, is frowned out of a hearing. For example, not long ago the following instance was related to the writer by a friend, a graduate of the University of Michigan: Professor Worcester, a member of the Philippine Commission, was conducting a class in biology. He finally asked the question: “Where did life originate?” One of the students (not an Adventist) who was a believer in the Bible, promptly spoke up and said that he believed that life was the result of a direct act of creation on the part of God. The professor immediately looked up, and “with fire flashing from his eyes,” told the student who thus responded that he might stay after class and discuss that subject. Of course, this instance is but one of many, and serves to show the atheistic tendency of modern popular education and the great need that exists for schools where God-fearing and Bible-loving parents can send their children without fear. What has all this to do with anarchy?—Simply this: Evolution teaches disrespect for God, for His laws, and hence, for all laws in general. Anarchy is like unto it, teaching total disrespect for all human laws, and also for such of God’s laws as relate to marriage and other sacred institutions. Every seed of evolution planted is also a seed of anarchy. By shutting out the great Lawmaker, evolution also shuts out the laws of the great Lawmaker. Anarchy, in striking at the last six commandments of the law of God,—those relating to man’s conduct toward his fellow beings,—strikes at the whole decalogue and at its Author. In this respect, therefore, evolution and anarchy are alike. To teach one is to assist the other. The Bible prohibits both. Evolution strikes at that portion of the Fourth Commandment which says: “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day.” But Christ divided the decalogue into just two parts (Matt. 22: 37-40), and thus expressed the essence of the whole law:— “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Evolution would do away with the first four commandments. Anarchy would do away with the last six. But, since the law is all one, he who strikes at one part also strikes at all parts of the same. Therefore both evolutionists and anarchists are at war with the Law of God. And, since that Law is but the expression of God’s character, it must be concluded that believers in either theory are fighting against God. [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.] 828.— A MATTER OF HISTORY.
Many times I have been confused by your explanation of verse 14 of Daniel 11. You state that the powers that came against the infant Ptolemy, were Antiochus, King of Assyria, and Philip of Macedon; that this was 200 B. C. But was not Philip of Macedon father of Alexander the Great, and he died about 331 B. C.? How could he then be the father of Alexander, and have a part in the attempted overthrow of Ptolemy Epiphanes, B. C. 200? Please give a little light on this, as it has puzzled me for a number of years. F. W. H., Kanopolis, Kan. Answer.—The writer of this query undoubtedly noticed that this incident in the history of Ptolemy was a direct quotation from Rollin’s Ancient History, Book 18, Chapter 50. Of the four volume edition of Rollin’s History, published in 1845 by Nafis & Cornish, Philadelphia, now before us, the quotation is found on page 8 of volume 4. If there is any638 inaccuracy or inconsistency in the statement it must be referred to that standard historian. But the matter is relieved of all difficulty by the fact that it is not Philip the father of Alexander that is referred to, but Philip IV, a king of later date. See Philip Smith’s History of the World, Vol. 2, page 103, and onward. Does not Col. 2:14 refer to our sins, inasmuch as it is our sins that are against us, and contrary to us, and that which Christ nailed to the cross, when he bore our sins in his body on the tree? 1 Peter 2:24. D. B. H., Toronto, Kan. Answer.—The reference in this scripture cannot be to our sins; for we understand that our sins have not yet been blotted out, and will not be till the cleansing of the sanctuary is finished; again it would be difficult to understand how our sins are in any sense “ordinances,” and how they could be called the “handwriting” of ordinances. And more than this, the idea that our sins are what is referred to would hardly agree with the conclusion which the apostle draws from the facts which he states; namely, “Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days.” Is it because our sins are blotted out and nailed to the cross that we are not to be judged in meats or drinks, etc.? But there were ordinances under the old dispensation which did pertain to these things, and they were matters of “handwriting” written by the hand of Moses, and written in a book where they could be said appropriately, to be blotted out. Ex. 24:4; Deut. 31:24-26. The writing in this book was blotted out and nailed to the cross. So it seems evident that matters relating to the change of dispensations, are what is referred to as the subject of this scripture, not individual sins in personal experience. Christ bore our sins in His body on the tree, or on the cross, as our offering, not as our priest.