Earlier text: Temperance and Gospel SongsHEALTH AND TEMPERANCE PUBLICATIONS.
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By Rev. O. W. Gates
tion shown. at Bethel. When this message from God fell upon Jacob's ear, he was removed, in point of time, some twenty years from the scenes, the prayers and pledges of the memorable spot to which he is remanded. How far he had wandered in spirit we cannot tell with certainty. We must believe that he had declined from God and needed renewal and quickening. The associations of Bethel would stir his emotions, awaken penitence, and arouse him to consider anew the sure promises and unchanging faithfulness of the God of Bethel. The command, "Arise, go up to Bethel," has force and meaning for every Christian. True, he is not called by it to Bethel of Palestine, nor to any chosen spot of earth. It simply requires him to stop where he is, look back, repent, and recall those periods in his spiritual history when mercies were shown, when deliverances were granted, when Heaven smiled, and he lived and walked in sweet and conscious communion with his Redeemer. To these Bethels we are remanded. As related to them, where are we? Has the brightness of their revelations faded? Has the tenderness of heart we then felt slipped from us? Have we let go of God's promises? Have we forgotten our voluntary vows? Have we ignored our solemn pledges? Let us arise and go up to the Bethel of God's gracious manifestation in pardon to our souls, and dwell there, face to face with its light, its peace and joy. Thought fails to grasp and words fail to tell all that Bethel meant to Jacob. Its tender and precious associations must have invested the name and the place with a peculiar charm. In fact, it was what he found there, saw there, felt there, did there, gained there, which originated the name and consecrated the spot. When the reality and significance of his visions and experiences broke upon him, he said, "God is here; this is God's house; this is Bethel." The very mention of the name would thrill him like a fresh revelation; for it would speak to him of startling fears quieted, of threatening dangers taken away, of bewildering doubts removed, of odious sins pardoned, of weak faith strengthened, and of helping grace given. You remember Jacob's first visit to Bethel. He was a fugitive from his home. Esau's angry threat, "I will kill my brother," was ringing in his ears. Gloomy forebodings, like spectres of darkness, haunted him. He was self-convicted of wrong. His remembered act of deception was like the sting of a scorpion. He was alone and without pillow for his head or shelter for his body. The long, sad, wearying day of his departure from home is gone. Night gloom gathers around him. In bitterness of spirit he lies down to rest, having the ground for his bed, a stone for a pillow, and the sky for a covering. To this exile, on that night, in that place, heaven was opened and he saw visions of glory and of God. How sudden and wonderful the manifestation! How great the change! Nature's midnight lingered longer than the gloom on Jacob's soul. Morning had not saluted the mountain tops and brightened the hills, when day-gleams had cheered the heart of the wanderer. The minstrelsy of field and wood was yet silent, but God had given the sleeper songs in the night. The manner of the divine manifestation, in brief, was this: A ladder, or staircase filled all the space between earth and heaven. Above the top-most stair Jehovah's cheering presence was seen. His angels, in readiness to do their Lord's will and minister to their Lord's servant, are all alert and active, going up and coming down the shining celestial way. How his own journey would end Jacob could not foresee, but here, for him, was a sure, direct, and guarded way from his resting place to the abode of his God. Haran, whither he was going, might bring little or no good to him, but the fact was attested that heaven was free in its ministries, and rich in its blessings. And this is the very lesson which the believer's Bethel of pardon teaches. Arise go up to it! Then and there, thy soul vision was of the God-man, thy Redeemer, filling all the space between thy deep sinfulness and God's spotless holiness. He was God's way to thee, and thy way to God. Through him you entered Heaven. Seeing him, who he was, how tenderly human, how gloriously divine, how near you, and at the same time how near God, you made the cheering discovery that he was all you needed and all God could ask, and exclaimed "He is my salvation." As related to this Bethel of pardon where art thou now? How long is it since thou wast face to face with its heavenly vision? One year? Ten years? Twenty years? To what Haran of worldliness hast thou been? What spiritual losses hast thou suffered? Into what indifference hast thou fallen? To what idle ways hast thy heart declined? At once go up to this Bethel and abide there. Thy Lord calls thee. He will speak a fresh pardoning word in thine ear, and the result will be, a richer experience, a stronger faith, a fuller joy, a better service, a calmer life and a surer hope. Bethel, for Jacob, had its vision of God. It had also its word from God. Ear was addressed as well as eye. The word which the divine lip dropped, and the opened human ear caught, was a gracious and glorious promise, with a sweep, depth, reach, vastness and grandeur truly sublime. That promise awakened interests and hopes and unveiled prospects of which the patriarch had never dreamed. Time tried his faith. How does the promiser seem after twenty years? Is his simple "I will" grasped and prized as actual fulfillment? Does the pledged inheritance prove a minister to enjoyment as though it were a possessed inheritance? Alas, our human limitations! Alas, our materialistic tendencies, our subjection to sense, our bondage to the present! Our eyes too soon lose the glowing impression of Bethel scenes; our ears too soon fail to keep the distinct echo of Bethel words; and our memories too soon let go of solemn Bethel pledges. Depressed and disheartened believer, arise, and go up to the Bethel of thy Saviour's promise! He has given thee himself; he has promised thee his kingdom and glory. His promise is a sun which earth-born mists and darkening clouds only hide, but cannot destroy. Perhaps the shadow of a cloud hangs over you, and you shiver in the chill air, and are ready to say, "the warm sunshine is all shut back, earth has no attraction and heaven no brightness." You misjudge. It is not so. The cloud is low, and thin, and narrow. Were you lifted heavenward a little way, it would be under your feet. Look yonder at those hills! They are basking in the direct rays of the sun. Wait a little and the wind will scatter all the clouds that annoy and chill you. At Bethel the unclouded light of the divine promise shines like the sun. Go there, dwell there, and be warmed, cheered and revived. "In darkest shades if he appear
Your dawning is begun;
He is your soul's sweet morning star,
And he your rising sun."
—Rev. O. W. Gates, in Herald of Truth. AVERAGING THINGS WITH THE LORD.
A MAN who prided himself on his morality, and expected to be saved by it, was constantly saying, "I am doing pretty well on the whole. I sometimes get mad, and swear, but then I am perfectly honest. I work on the Sabbath when I am particularly busy; but I give a good deal to the poor, and I never was drunk in my life." This man hired a canny Scotchman to build a fence around his pasture lot. He gave him particular directions. In the evening, when the Scotchman came home from his work, the man said:— "Well, Jock, is the fence built, and is it tight and strong?" "I canna say it is all tight and strong, but it is a good average fence, anyhow. If some parts are a little weak, other parts are extra strong. I don't know but I left a little gap here and there a yard or so wide; but then I made up for it by doubling the rails on each side of the gap. I dare say the cattle will find it a good fence on the whole, and will like it, though I canna just say it is perfect in every part." "What!" cried the man, not seeing the point, "do you tell me that you built a fence around my lot with weak places and gaps in it? Why, you might as well have built no fence at all! If there is one opening, or a weak place where an opening can be made, the cattle will be sure to find it, and will go through. Don't you know, man, that a fence must be perfect or it is worthless?" "I used to think so," replied the Scotchman, "but I hear you talk so much about averaging matters with the Lord it seemed to me we might try it with the cattle. If an average fence will not do for them, I am afraid an average character will not do in the day of Judgment.— N. Y. Evangelist" “THE mightiest force in all the universe,” says Alexander Maclaren, “is the force which has neither speech nor language. The parent of all physical force, as astronomers seem to be more and more teaching us, is the great central sun which moveth all things, which operates all physical changes, whose beams are all but omnipotent, and yet fall so quietly that they do not disturb the motes that dance in the rays. Thunder and lightning are child’s play compared with the energy that goes to make the falling dews and quiet rains. The power of the sunshine is the root-power of all force which works in material things. And so we turn, with the symbol in our hands, to the throne of God, and when he says, ‘Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ we are aware of an energy, the signature of whose might is its quietness, which is omnipotent because it is gentle and silent.” How often have we seen in the trembling limbs and the rolling tears, and heard in the faltering, quivering, broken cries for mercy, unmistakable evidences of that silent energy!—Christian Standard. ETERNITY has no gray hairs. The flowers fade, the heart withers, man grows old and dies; the world lies down in a sepulcher of ages, but time writes no wrinkle on the brow of eternity. Eternity! Stupendous thought! The ever-present, unborn, undecaying and undying—the endless chain, composing the life of God—the golden thread, entwining the destinies of the universe. Earth has its beauties, but time shrouds them for the grave; its honors, they are but the sunshine of an hour; its palaces, they are but the gilded sepulcher; its possessions, they are toys of changing fortune; its pleasures, they are but as burdening bubbles. Not so in the untried bourn. In the dwelling of the Almighty can come no footsteps of decay—its days will know no darkening—eternal splendor forbids the approach of night. Its glory will never wane, for there is the ever-present God. Its harmonies will never cease, exhaustless love supplies the song. MANY of us pray to be delivered from sudden death, and do we not worry ourselves into it? If we do, can we help it? To most of us it is not given to choose our lives, to avoid the rough places, to gently shoulder to one side disagreeable facts. We must climb over the rocks though they hurt us sore, and the difficulties, however they may annoy us, must be met without fret and wear until they are conquered, or we have passed them. They are as real, living, annoying, as any tangible headache or pain could be; as brushing and irritating as peas in the shoes of pilgrims of old. Nervous health is one thing, and purely physical health is quite another different thing. Calm and steady mental work is conducive to long life; but nervous emotion, mental work that is a constant urging, and at the same time, is an unhinging of the even tenor of the mind, eats away the brain faster than any mental labor, no matter how hard, that is systematic. As men do not really die of heart disease as often as supposed, but of apoplexy, or congestion of the lungs, so they do not die of brain work, but of brain worry. Making the Most of Life’s Opportunities
LIFE is in a great degree what we make it. We are not to sit passively awaiting the end of life. That will come in God's own good time; but we are to strive with a mighty strength of purpose to make ourselves examples of goodness, wisdom, integrity and high moral courage, so that when the end shall come we shall feel that we have not lived in vain. And how shall we succeed if we pass by, heedlessly, life's precious opportunities? We would not enforce upon our readers the necessity for grasping great opportunities alone, far from it; for do not the little drops of water make the broad, restless ocean? And where the desert but for the little grains of sand? So it is that little opportunities for doing good, little lessons that may at present seem unimportant, help materially to lay the foundation for a great and useful life. SIN is never at a stay; if we do not retreat from it, we shall advance in it; and the further on we go, the more we have to come back. HOW THE SABBATH WAS CHANGED.
By Roswell F. Cottrell
Since a change of the fourth commandment of the decalogue is, by the admission of Dr. Patton, "one of the hardest things to prove," light upon the modus operandi by which the change was effected must be desirable with those who advocate the change. I have before me a tract entitled, "The Divine Law of the Christian Sabbath," by Orceneth Fisher, of East Texas Annual Conference, in which are some arguments which commend themselves to every mind capable of appreciating the force of an argument, on the origin and perpetuity of the Sabbath instituted in Eden before man fell, its nature and significance as a memorial of creation, from which he justly concludes, that, "As long as creation stands to proclaim a Creator, so long must the Sabbath remain to attest that God made it, and that he made it in six days." But when he comes to speak of the change to the first day, he has something new, and something important too, provided he has truly revealed the manner in which the change was effected. First, however, in speaking of the sufferings and death and resurrection of Christ, he justly concludes that it was "important and necessary that there should be some monument, divinely erected, to keep the world in memory of the fact." He adds, "the sacrament of the Lord's supper, indeed, was appointed to commemorate his death; but this was only half the work." Baptism being changed to sprinkling in our writer's creed, of course he did not think of that as commemorating the burial and resurrection of Christ. Thus one error makes room and creates the necessity for another. He proceeds:— "A fact so vitally connected with, and so fundamental to, the whole cause of Christianity [the resurrection of Christ], could not be too well attested not only to that, but also to all succeeding generations. It was natural that the day of the week, on which this most glorious event transpired, should be held sacred to its memory. "But as two Sabbaths in one week would so abridge the time of man's labor that it would in many instances put it out of his power to support himself and family, and would at once conflict with the law that has said, 'Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work,' it was necessary that the Sabbath itself should be moved out of its place to accommodate this matter. The bare setting apart a day from common to sacred purposes, as in the original institution of the Sabbath, would not here answer the purpose. The subject was too august and important to be put upon a level with creation; it stood on far higher ground. When the prodigal son returned to his father's house, things were not allowed to go on in their usual course, but the fatted calf must be killed, and there must be a time of general joy. So when God redeemed the world by the blood of his Son, things were moved out of their regular courses: The sun was darkened without eclipse, the earth shook with strange convulsions, the rocks lost their adhesiveness and rent asunder, the graves opened of their own accord, and the long-sleeping dead were stirred, and the old Sabbath of four thousand years' standing is moved out of its place! and now no longer brings up the rear of days, but stands in front of all the rest, and leads the van in a new era of the world's history, and a new dispensation of the moral government of God!" Much has been attempted in the past to remove the Sabbath from its primitive foundation. But seeing every appeal to the word of God for this purpose has proved abortive, our author invokes the earthquake's power, and, lo! he fancies he sees the Sabbath move! The voice of God once shook the earth, when he spake his "fiery law" from Sinai; and he has promised that once more he will shake the earth and the heavens. Heb. 12:18-29. When this takes place, the false foundations will be discovered, Eze. 13:14, and the things that cannot be shaken will remain. Then it will appear that the Sabbath of the Lord stands firm upon its original foundation, where Jehovah placed it. The latter utterance of God's voice will not contradict the former, but confirm it. But what will then become of such assertions as these of our author following: "Immediately after the resurrection, the first day of the week was kept as a Sabbath, and all Christians from that time onward met on that day for divine service," and that "several times the Saviour met them in their meetings on that day," assertions that have been a hundred times refuted? The Scriptures inform us of but one first-day on which the Saviour met with his disciples—the evening following his resurrection. On this occasion he did not find them "in their meetings," but at home, eating their supper. Mark 16:14. He did not find them celebrating his resurrection, for they did not believe that he was risen. This first-day is "several times" mentioned in the four gospels, but it is all the one that is mentioned at all in them. The assertion of our author puts me in mind of the theological professor who told his class that the Saviour met with his disciples eight or ten successive Sundays after his resurrection; all of which must have occurred during the forty days between his resurrection and his ascension! There is but one religious meeting, on the first day, recorded in the New Testament, Acts 20:7, and there, upon the same day in which the apostle preached and broke bread, he started upon a long journey. But our writer says that "immediately after the resurrection, the first day of the week was kept as a Sabbath." The Scriptures say no such thing, and history says no such thing. How, then, do they know it? Sir Wm. Domville says, "Centuries of the Christian era passed away before the Sunday was observed as a Sabbath. History does not furnish us with a single proof or indication that it was at any time so observed previous to the Sabbatical edict of Constantine in A. D. 321." Heylyn also says of the term Sabbath in the ancient church:— "The Saturday is called amongst them by no other name than that which it formerly had, the Sabbath. So that whenever, for a thousand years and upwards, we meet with Sabbatum in any writer of what name soever, it must be understood of no day but Saturday." If these and like testimonies can be disproved, let it be done. But I have said more than I intended. It struck me as a curiosity how the earthquake at the crucifixion should shake the Sabbath of the fourth commandment off from the seventh day on to the first, without jostling into pi the other commandments of the decalogue. MR. JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE has much to answer for. The publication of the first two volumes of his great History in 1856 was followed by the most dire consequences. Mr. Froude undertook to show that the character of Henry VIII. had been wholly misunderstood by his contemporaries and by historians. Instead of being a modern Bluebeard, gross in tastes and sensual in habits, he was in reality the most faithful and forbearing husband who ever had the misfortune to be married to a succession of faithless and ill-tempered wives, a saintly Christian, a gentleman and a scholar. Mr. Froude was an able advocate, and he pleaded his cause so well that most of us who read his fascinating pages were staggered, if not convinced. We did not, perhaps, accept his portrait of Henry VIII. as a correct likeness, but we were inclined to think that the verdict of history had been a little too severe. Nobody doubts, we suppose, that Mr. Froude's account of Henry VIII. was the result of conclusions honestly reached after his study of that monarch's career. But the popularity of his History produced a large crop of imitators, who took to furbishing up rusty reputations and whitewashing blackened names, from pure love of paradox and desire to make a sensation in the world535 of letters. The result has been to make the last twenty-five years an era of whitewashing. No one of the men of past ages has been too criminal, too sensual, to deter these historical whitewashers from trying their hands at touching up the dark places in his life, in the hope of reversing the verdict of history. Caligula and Nero have been represented as wise and humane rulers; it has been charitably pleaded that Judas betrayed his Master out of the purest motives; and it has even been argued with apparent gravity, that Cain murdered Abel during an attack of emotional insanity. In the case of men less criminal, yet condemned by the moral sense of mankind, pleas are made from time to time for a modification of our condemnation. This is especially frequent in the case of men of genius. Because Byron, Burns and Poe wrote poems that will endure as long as the English language is spoken or read, their biographers would have us deny, or at least forget, that their lives were dissipated and their characters vile. We need not say how common this art of whitewashing is in political and social life. Every day brings a fresh instance of the freedom with which the brush is applied to damaged reputations. It is not unknown among the churches. Just before we began to write these words, we had in our hands a copy of complimentary resolutions passed by a certain church, speaking in very high terms of the pastor who had just resigned, the signature of the church clerk being appended. A private note accompanying the resolutions said, "the real reason why Brother —— left us was," etc., giving a very different account of the man from that embodied in the resolutions. The strangest thing about it was, that the writer seemed to think this way of doing things all right. This is not the first time that such a thing has happened. In fact, it has come to such a pass that when a church adopts such resolutions on the resignation of the pastor, to a great many people that fact has a suspicious appearance of whitewash. We all know, too, how prompt churches are to set on foot an "investigation" of charges of immorality brought against a pastor; how uniformly a "complete exoneration" follows; and also how little effect such an exoneration has on public opinion. "Whitewash" says everybody, and the last state of the pastor is worse than the first. Then there is that other very common form of whitewashing—eulogies of the dead. No magician's wand ever worked such marvelous transformations as the simple fact of death often makes. The most mediocre men are extolled as prodigies of learning or ability; the most ordinary and commonplace of women are endowed with qualities beside which Solomon's "virtuous woman" appears dim. Virtues that nobody ever suspected before are discovered, and a notorious sinner is not unfrequently found to be worthy of canonization. Now all this is an evil, a great evil. Must Mr. Wendell Phillips add to his list of forgotten secrets, in his lecture on the "Lost Arts," the art of speaking the truth about men? The worst of it is that this evil is not recognized as such. Slander, everybody admits to be a sin, and nobody wishes to be thought a slanderer. But it may be questioned whether slander is not a less evil than whitewashing, after all. Is it not worse for the world to have a base man made to pass for the beau ideal of all that is noble and manly, than to have a good man calumniated? Is not the moral standard of mankind lowered more perceptibly by seeing Tweed honored than by hearing Lincoln abused? The conscience of the public revolts against slander, while it tacitly approves whitewashing. At any rate, they should be recognized as twin evils, alike to be fought by all men who love the truth. It is not always necessary to tell the truth about a man; one can sometimes be silent. But what one says should be true. It is as bad to exaggerate virtues as to depreciate vices. Let Christian people combine to make the next quarter century an era of truth-telling—of speaking the truth only, about the living and the dead alike. The moral standard of Christian people soon becomes the moral standard of the world. If this shall be done, whitewashing will speedily cease to be one of the fine arts, and will decline to its ancient and honorable, though more humble use.—Examiner and Chronicle. THE TWO PROPHETS.
By J. B. Dynot
FROM Judah comes a prophet,
As incense doth ascend
At desecrated Bethel,
While royal hands attend. His testimony ended
The Lord attests his word;
The haughty king is humbled,
The prophet's prayer is heard. "Come," says the king, "refresh thee;"
But the good man replies,
"God sent me here a witness,
Refreshment he denies. This said, the prophet turns him,
And by another way
He homeward toils, though feeble,
Jehovah to obey. In those polluted precincts
Abode a prophet old,
Whose sons unto their father
The circumstances told. The old apostate prophet
Upon his ass did ride
And soon his way-worn victim
Beneath an oak espied. "Come home," said he, "and eat thou
A fellow-prophet's bread."
The hungry man consented,
The morrow found him dead. Ah! has not God appointed
And sanctified for man
The seventh day—the Sabbath—
E'er since the world began? He will not bid his creatures
To do and to refrain;
Though earth and heaven perish
His statutes shall remain. Heed not, then, the deceiver,
Who to the ground hath trod
The truth, and thought to alter
The times and laws of God. J. B. DYNOT.
San Rafael, Cal., 1880. CHARITY.
By Ellet Joseph Waggoner
"AND above all things have fervent charity among yourselves; for charity shall cover the multitude of sins." 1 Pet. 4:8. Many persons suppose that this text teaches that it is wrong to point out the errors of individuals. When a person is guilty of sin either intentionally or ignorantly, he cries out against the one who would reprove his course, and accuses him of a want of charity. Now, although the Bible teaches that charity "thinketh no evil," and that we should be very cautious about judging the motives of others, yet it nowhere teaches that it is any part of charity to uphold wrong-doing in any manner whatever. Charity "rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth." The spirit which would shield the evil-doer from justly merited censure is not charity, but perverted sympathy. He has the most true charity who is the most faithful in reproving sin. How then can charity be said to cover a multitude of sins? A few texts will make this plain. We read in Jas. 5:20 that "he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins." By comparing this text with 1 Pet. 4:8, we learn that the exercise of charity results in the conversion of sinners. But sin is the transgression of the law, 1 Jno. 3:4; and the law of God alone will convince a man that he is a sinner. "I had not known sin but by the law." Rom. 7:7. The law, then, is the active agent in conversion. (See Ps. 19:7). When the sinner, by means of the law, realizes his guilt, and is led to exclaim with Paul, "who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" he finds that it is only "through Jesus Christ our Lord." He comes to "the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world," and obtains forgiveness for his sins. If he continues faithful his sins will be finally blotted out, Acts 3:19; and thus his "multitude of sins" will be covered. We conclude, therefore, that Bible charity, or love, consists in keeping God's law and leading others to do so. This is verified by the following texts: "For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments; and his commandments are not grievous," 1 Jno. 5:3; "love is the fulfilling of the law," Rom. 13:10; and, "the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned," 1 Tim. 1:5. We are not to suppose, however, that we are to be ever on the alert to point out some defect in our neighbors. If our eyes are opened to behold "wondrous things" out of the law, we shall have quite enough to do to bring our own lives up to the proper standard; and this will generally prove the most effectual, and for most persons, the safest way to reprove others. The godly life of a humble follower of Jesus will often send conviction to the heart of the sinner when words would simply harden his heart. "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven." Matt. 5:16.