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The Review and Herald, Vol. 62, No. 11

GONER

The Review and Herald

Tuesday, March 17, 1885

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Tuesday, March 17, 1885

GONER

VILLE

THE TEMPLE IN HEAVEN.

By W. H. Littlejohn

INVESTIGATION OF THE THIRD MESSAGE COMMENCED; SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISTS AND THEIR RELATION TO THE SUBJECT; WHEN AND HOW THEY ARISE.
BY ELD. W. H. LITTLEJOHN.
Mr. B.—By agreement I am at this time to enter upon the examination of the third angel’s message, as brought to view in Rev. 14:9-11. We may proceed to our task intelligently, I call upon Maud to read the verses in which it is embodied.
Maud.—Wait a moment, till I turn to them. Here they are: “And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead or in his hand, the same shall drink the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb; and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever; and they have no rest day nor night who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.”
Mr. B.—The preliminary work of our investigation has been already very largely accomplished. Having decided that the first and second angels which are found in the series in which the third is grouped, represent religious movements, it would be superfluous to demonstrate that the same general fact must be true of the third angel. Again, as it is distinctly stated that the third followed the first and second angels in the order of their presentation in the view given to John, it needs not to be proved that they will succeed each other in the line of their historic fulfillment. Once more; since it has been proved already that the first and second messages have been given to the world this side of 1844, we are shut up to the conclusion that the third message could not have been due until we had reached a point this side of that date. As a rule, the genuine fulfillment of prophecies takes place before the spurious ones are allowed to transpire. There are two reasons for this: First, were the spurious fulfillments allowed to precede the genuine ones, the effect would be to hinder the reception of the latter; secondly, when a genuine fulfillment of a prophecy has been realized, those who have rejected the same, as an act of substantial justice are given over to blindness of mind and hardness of heart. The Devil, seeing that his opportunity has come, then steps in, and easily captures by a bogus work those who have refused to receive the truth in the love of it. A good illustration of this principle is found in the crop of false christs which immediately sprang up and deceived the people after the true Messiah had been put to death.
I make these remarks with a view to creating a presumption in favor of Seventh-day Adventists, who, so far as I know, are the only body of Christians who can with propriety be said to be giving the third angel’s message. As they are the first to claim this honor, and as the movement with which they are identified has been in progress for nearly forty years, they are at least entitled to a candid hearing. I will speak first of their rise.
Immediately after the disappointment of 1844, at which time the first and second angels’ messages had been given, there followed a brief period of uncertainty in regard to the experience of the past and their duty for the future. While all who were connected with the first and second messages were confident that God’s hand had led them in the work in which they had been engaged, they could not deny that they had been mistaken at least to a certain extent respecting the coming of Christ. For awhile they consoled themselves with the thought that their disappointment could be attributed to some little inaccuracy in the dates which had formed the basis of their calculations. It did not take long, however, to dispel this theory; since after repeated efforts it was found to be impossible either to answer the logic which they themselves had employed in fixing the commencement and the termination of the twenty-three hundred years, or to formulate even a plausible argument in support of any other view that would locate their beginning and end elsewhere than they had located them in the outset. In process of time the light shone out upon the sanctuary question as I have presented it in these talks. O. R. L. Crosier seems to have been the first person to whom it occurred that while they had been right in the matter of the time it was possible that they had been mistaken respecting the true nature of the sanctuary which Daniel declared should be cleansed at the end of the prophetic period brought to view in Dan. 8:13, 14.
Gradually the temple in heaven, in all of its grandeur and beauty as the antitype of the temple of Solomon on the earth, was evolved from the types and shadows of the Mosaic law, as the outlines of distant mountains, hills, valleys, and cities are developed out of the mists of the morning by the rays of the sun. At last everything was perfectly defined. It was seen beyond all question that the temple or tabernacle of God in heaven, and not the earth, constituted the sanctuary that was to be cleansed in 1844. It was also discovered that the cleansing of that sanctuary was nothing more nor less than the work of the Judgment. By putting this and that together, several important additional facts were brought out. It was distinctly seen that if the heavenly temple were the antitype of the earthly tabernacle and temple, it must, like them, contain the ark and law of God. Not only so, but as the day of atonement, as celebrated in connection with the services of the Mosaic tabernacle and the temple of Solomon, was a type of the Judgment, and as in the type the blood was sprinkled before the ark that contained the law of the ten commandments,—thus recognizing them as the standard of judgment,—so that law must necessarily be the standard of judgment in the temple in heaven. As a consequence, it was at once perceived that exact obedience to the decalogue was a matter of infinite importance to all, since it was to be the criterion of judgment in the cases of all.
In the meanwhile a Sabbath-keeping lady, by the name of Rachel D. Preston, had providentially been brought in contact with a few Adventists who lived at Washington, N. H. She laid before them in a plain and simple manner the argument in favor of God’s ancient seventh-day Sabbath as it is drawn from the fourth commandment of the decalogue. Some of those who belonged to the Washington church commenced the observance of the seventh day of the week as the result of her teachings. From them Eld. T. M. Preble received the light, and in 1845 presented his views through the press to the whole body of advent believers. The minds of a few of these were in that peculiar state of transition where they, being conscious that there must be a route that would lead them out of their difficulties, if only they could find it, were particularly receptive of truth. The logic of Eld. Preble was unanswerable. Beyond all question, some one had been tampering with the law of God, and had transferred the Sabbath from the last to the first day of the week. Turning to the Bible in the simplicity of the faith that it would furnish a key to the situation, the Adventists opened to the 14th chapter of Revelation, with which they had thought they were as familiar as they were with the multiplication table. They discovered in it startling declarations which had never before attracted their attention. There were the first and second angels’ messages just as they had read them a hundred times. They could neither add to nor take from the interpretation that they had always placed upon them. But how about the third message? It seemed to read differently from what it ever had done before. How was it that it had previously attracted so little of their attention? That twelfth verse particularly—what did the Revelator or the angel mean by the words, “Here is the patience of the saints; here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus”? Why, evidently the first and the second messages were to be given to the world, and then a third message was to be proclaimed with great power in all the earth, warning men against the worship of a certain beast and the reception of his mark. Furthermore, it was clearly stated that those who should give this warning message would be distinguished by the characteristic of keeping the commandments of God and also the faith of Jesus. But were not all Christians doing this?—Manifestly not, if they were violating the fourth commandment by substituting as the Sabbath the first day of the week in the place of the seventh, provided that commandment enforces the observance of the latter; since James says, “Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.”
The situation was a trying one. Could it be possible that the whole Christian world was actually involved in the observance of a counterfeit Sabbath? At first blush such a thing seemed incredible; but there were the facts, stubborn and inexorable, as facts always are. The only Sabbath law contained in the Bible declared in so many words that the seventh day is the Sabbath. Furthermore, Moses, who received that law from the hands of God and Christ, who was with him in the mount, as well as the people in whose language it was written, united, as proved by their uniform practice, in interpreting that law to require the observance, not of the first but of the last day of the week. What, then, should they do under the circumstances? They could not deny the binding obligation of the ten commandments; for that was too clearly taught in the word of God to admit of question. Should they decide, then, that Moses and Christ had placed a wrong interpretation upon the Sabbath law? So far as Moses was concerned, that was barely possible, though in the highest degree improbable. With Christ, however, the case was different. Admit for a moment that he did not understand the true import of his Father’s law, and you would virtually deny his divinity! Concede the point that he understood that the fourth commandment enforced the observance of the seventh day of the week, and that he hallowed its hours by devoting them to rest and worship, and then you would have his example superadded to the letter of the law in favor of seventh-day observance. Whichever way they looked, the result was the same. Everywhere God’s ten words confronted them, and they seemed to hear his majestic voice uttering the emphatic declaration, “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work.” Was there, then, no way out of the dilemma? Had not Christ the power to change the law of the Father? Did he not do so, and was not that after all the true explanation of the whole matter? Certain it was that if he had done so, the history of the transaction could be found somewhere in the record of his life and teachings.
With patient industry and prayerful anxiety they turned through the New Testament again and again in a fruitless search for the coveted passage that should give the time, the place, and the manner in which Christ had changed the law of his Father on the Sabbath question. It was of no use, however. Neither the gospels, the Acts, the epistles, nor the book of Revelation furnished so much as a hint that the Sabbath had ever been changed. Indeed, the very reverse was true. Wherever the term Sabbath was used, it was uniformly applied to the last day of the week. Perplexed, or rather dumbfounded, they asked each other significantly what this could mean. That the Sabbath had been changed was beyond dispute. That the Saviour had changed it, was incredible, since, were it true that he had done so, he certainly would have caused the record of that act to be preserved for the benefit of his people. Who, then, had brought about the change of the Sabbath? If it was not Christ, might it not have been anti-christ? If so, doubtless the Scriptures would furnish some clue to the facts. The book of Daniel was as familiar to them as household words. Speedily their minds reverted to these words found in the 7th chapter and 25th verse of that book: “And he shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws; and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.” These words, as they knew very well, applied to the papacy. In them beyond all question was a prediction that the pope of Rome would assume that he was able to change the law of God.
Mr. T.—How did they know that the laws in question were the laws of God? The passage does not say so in so many words.
Mr. B.—Very true; but the connection makes that point clear. The antecedent of the word “he,” as you will see by referring to verse 24, is a certain king who was to arise in the Roman empire. That king, as is generally admitted by Protestant commentators, was the pope of Rome. Now it would be absurd to reason that the laws under discussion were the laws of the pope’s own kingdom; since every king has a right to change the laws of his own dominion. Again, it is said that the king in question should “speak great words against the Most High, and should wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws.” Inasmuch, therefore, as the words spoken were against the “Most High,” and the saints who were to be persecuted were to be the saints of the “Most High,” it is but natural to conclude that the laws to be changed were also those of the “Most High.” This conclusion receives additional confirmation from the reading of the 26th verse. In verse 25 we are informed that the “saints” and the “laws” were to be delivered into the hands of the king in question “for a time and times and the dividing of time;” i. e., for 1260 years. In verse 26 we are told that at the time of the Judgment the dominion of this priest-king would be taken away. But it is hardly to be supposed that the great God, while in the midst of the solemnities of the Judgment of the world, would concern himself particularly with the dominion of any king unless he were in a special sense irreligious. Any action on his part so trivial as that of changing his own laws or those of other earthly potentates, would never have been mentioned in such a connection.
But to return to my narrative. As I was saying, the Adventists, whose attention had been called to the change of the Sabbath, found in Dan. 7:25 presumptive evidence that the pope of Rome was the one who had been tampering with the fourth commandment; since they learned from this passage that he was to think to change the law of God, and since it was evident that, to say the least, some one besides Christ had changed the practice of the church in the matter of the day to be observed as the Sabbath.
Maud.—It is ten o’clock, father.
Mr. B.—Can it be possible? Well, at our next sitting I will tell you what our Adventist friends, upon investigation, found that the pope himself had to say about the change of the law and the Sabbath.
Mr. T.—You do not mean to intimate that the pope really claims that he has changed the Sabbath?
Mr. B.—Yes, sir; that is exactly what I expect to prove.
Battle Creek, Mich.

“WHAT TIME I AM AFRAID.”

By Toria A. Buck

BY TORIA A. BUCK.
“What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.” Ps. 56:3.
Once more the shadowy past its veil has riven; Again I see him stand. With right arm raised unto the glowing heaven, His gleaming sword in hand.
Again I hear his cry, “To Thee I'll sing, Thy glory I shall see; What time I am afraid [O happy king], My soul shall trust in Thee.”
Though sin, with death, its deadly warfare wages, And nations rise and fall, Thy grand old psalms come sounding down the ages Like a sweet bugle-call.
Like a sweet bugle-call their notes are ringing, By God's warm breath are blown; Thine has been called by far the sweetest singing The world has ever known.
God's strong right hand still rests upon the lever That guides this erring world; His sons still journey toward that grand forever, Where war's red flags are furled.
Six thousand years shall vanish like the morning, And high on Zion's hills, Thy sons shall stand, while peals the angel's warning, And heavenly music thrills.
There, safe from sin, from death and all pollution, Thy ransomed ones shall stand With brave King David and his splendid legion, In Canaan's promised land.
Randolph, N. Y.

OUR HIGH CALLING.

By R. F. Cottrell

BY ELD. R. F. COTTRELL.
“I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called.” The Christian is called to a high and holy vocation. To walk worthy of it requires consecration to God and to his service such as few know who profess the name of Christ. It is known to those only who daily strive to have that connection with Christ which is fitly represented by the connection of a living branch with the vine. All the members of the body of which Christ is the head, are called to this vocation, and are exhorted to walk in a manner corresponding with its sacred character. All are to be the light of the world; all are to truly represent Christ by their daily walk.
But if there is a difference,—if any have a greater need to heed the exhortation of the apostle, those who are called to devote their time to the gospel work, not only ministers, but all in every position who spend their time in the work of spreading the truth in any capacity, should feel that they are especially called upon to walk in a manner to adorn their profession. All should obey the admonition; but it is especially obligatory upon those who have a close connection with the work of the Lord. It is written, “Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord,” are called to be “ensamples to the flock,” and faithful to their trust, when the chief Shepherd shall appear, they shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away.
Let us all who are called to take a special part in spreading the truth, realize the sacredness of the work in which we are engaged. If we have that devotion to the cause which God can accept, if we walk worthy of our vocation—the Lord will still give us a part in his work, and finally a place in his everlasting kingdom. Otherwise our names will be dropped, and others will come in and receive our crowns.

THE SABBATH.

By J. O. Corliss

A REVIEW.

BY ELD. J. O. CORLISS.
A TRACT of twelve pages has been forwarded me from Fairfax Court House, Va., with the request that I reply to its points in the REVIEW HERALD. The subject matter contained in the tract was published in the Fairfax Herald in the summer of 1883, while I was there with it, and was reviewed in the tent before a large audience. By request we notice the points again, because they are new to the readers of the REVIEW, but to give the friends of the cause an opportunity to defend the truth as widely as this tract against it has been circulated.
The objections urged against the Sabbath, we cannot call them arguments—are those met with, more or less, in every community where truth is preached; viz., the abolition of the law. It is very evident, too, that all who use this common weapon against the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, either labor under a serious misapprehension of the Scriptures, or are purposely blind when dealing with this subject. We wish, then, to let the mantle of charity have its place while dealing with our Fairfax friend, and will say that through his misapprehension of Bible terms with which he deals, he is unable to rightly divide the word of truth.
He classes ceremonial types and the moral law together, then, because he finds something done away, in one grand sweep he abolishes the Sabbath of the ten commandments, of which it is a part, with the ceremonial ordinances buries them in dark oblivion. Notice how this is done as we proceed to quote from the tract:—
Paul, speaking of Christ and the blessed operation of his power under the gospel dispensation, brings into view the abrogation of the types and shadows of the law by the coming of the spiritual realities to which they pointed, in the following striking language: “Blotting out the hand-writing of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross. . . . 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, which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ. . . . Wherefore if ye died with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, do ye subject yourselves to ordinances (handle not, taste, nor touch all which things are to perish with the using), after the precepts and doctrines of men?” Col. 2:14–20.—Revised Version.
Notice that our friend acknowledges the above to refer to types and shadows alone. But because he finds “sabbath days” there, he concludes that it must sweep the weekly Sabbath entirely away. But let us carefully examine the statement he maintains. The apostle speaks of sabbath days which are a shadow of things to come. Those days, then, looked forward to things to come. The body of Christ cast that shadow back into the Jewish age, and all the ceremonies of that time were types looking forward to Christ; the same as the shadow of a monument, if followed from point of base, will lead directly to the monument itself, the object that casts the shadow. The law of reflection would also cause the shadow to cease at the base of the monument, and not to be seen on the sides of the substance casting the shadow. Exactly the same way do all the shadowy ceremonies cease that pointed, or led forward, to Christ. When Christ, the body that cast these shadows, appeared, and died on the cross, the shadows must cease,—must expire by limitation. If the weekly Sabbath was instituted to shadow forth the work of Christ, it too must cease at the cross, as a Jewish ceremonial. But it was not given for that purpose, it does not belong to that category, and is therefore exempt from the fate of those shadowy “days.”
We are now prepared to inquire why the weekly Sabbath was instituted. The quickest way to get an answer to the question is to turn to the commandment itself. We therefore read: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. . . . For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore [for this reason] the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.” Ex. 20:8–11.
It is very obvious from the commandment itself, that the reason for the institution of the weekly Sabbath was not because Christ was coming to die, but because of the facts of creation. Then the weekly Sabbath is not a shadow of things to come, but a memorial of things in the past. It was, moreover, instituted at the close of creation week before man fell, consequently before man needed a Saviour, and did not therefore possibly look forward to Christ. It does not therefore belong to that hand-writing of ordinances that was blotted out; for those, the apostle said, were shadows of things to come. But were there any days in the old dispensation of the nature indicated by the apostle—shadowy sabbaths—whose obligation ceased with the death of Christ? Certainly. Please turn to Lev. 23, and there we have enumerated at least seven such days that occurred, not on a particular time of the week, but on certain days of the month, regardless of the days of the week. Verse 4 says: “These are the feasts of the Lord, even holy convocations, which ye shall proclaim in their season.” They are then enumerated: “In the fourteenth day of the first month at even is the Lord’s passover.” After speaking of three of these days, verse 24 adds: “In the seventh month, in the first day of the month shall ye have a sabbath.”
In verse 27 another one is mentioned: “Also on the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be a day of atonement: it shall be a holy convocation unto you.” This was not only a day of holy convocation,—a day of coming together, but it is also called a sabbath: “It shall be unto you a sabbath of rest.” Verse 32.
It will be noticed that these sabbaths fell on certain days of the month, regardless of the time of the week. Sometimes they would fall on one day of the week, sometimes on another; but in no two years in succession on the same day of the week. Now in verse 37 the Lord continues his instruction. He says: “These [referring to the days just mentioned, with others spoken of in the chapter] are the feasts of the Lord which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, to offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord, a burnt offering, and a meat offering, a sacrifice, and drink offering, everything upon his day; beside the Sabbaths of the Lord.”
All can easily see by this that the Sabbaths of the Lord are carefully excluded from the list of ceremonial sabbaths. He says these annual sabbaths were to be kept besides the Lord’s Sabbath, and that on these yearly sabbaths they should offer gifts of meat and drink, which the apostle says belonged to the hand-writing of ordinances, and were blotted out by Christ. We are certain that the scripture under consideration does not in any way allude to the weekly Sabbath. The following scripture next quoted by our friend in support of his position, we will proceed to examine:—
“But now after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed labor upon you in vain.” Gal. 4:9–11.
It does seem strange that one should quote this text from Paul, and apply it to the Sabbath. What a peculiar tact some people have for ferreting out such texts, and yet fail to see others that are fully as prominent in the same blessed Book. By reading the verse previous to those quoted above, it will be noticed that the apostle addresses a class of people who, before they came into the Galatian church, did not know God; yet he says they did service unto them which by nature are no gods. Here were people who served gods that were not so naturally; in other words, they were heathen, and had served gods of their own making. He then asks if they desire to turn again to the same condition. Why any one should feel warranted in saying that the days in the above text mean the weekly Sabbath days, no more, no less, we have no way of knowing; yet no one would think of quoting this and applying it to the first day of the week, the day so many profess to observe. But why not? Their practice certainly obliges them to observe just as many days each year as those do who observe the seventh day. And even the author of the tract now under consideration admits that the members of his denomination “concur in setting apart the first day of the week as a day of rest and relaxation, to be devoted to public worship and religious improvement.” Paul did not say they considered the days they set apart as holy, only they observed them, it may be by some kind of games. It cannot be found where he ever condemned the proper observance of the Sabbath; for he himself observed that to the day of his death. See Acts 13:14–44; 16:12, 13; 17:2; 18:1–11; 28:17.
To be certain that Paul did refer to heathen customs, and not to the Sabbath of the Lord, when speaking of the days, months, times, and years, which they were desirous of observing, we call attention to Lev. 19:26: “Ye shall not eat anything with the blood; neither shall ye use enchantment, nor observe times.” But still he adds in verse 30: “Ye shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary; I am the Lord.” How plain that while God forbade the children of Israel to observe times like the nations around them, yet he required them to observe the Sabbath!
The concluding quotation of our would-be theologian upon this point is as follows:—
“One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day regardeth it to the Lord, and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it.” Rom. 14:5, 6.
Whoever will carefully read the fourteenth chapter of Romans from the first to the sixth verse, cannot fail to see that the apostle does not treat of the Sabbath-day at all. He is there speaking of days on which certain kinds of food were not to be eaten. In other words, these are the days before referred to in Leviticus, on which certain meats and drinks were used in their festivals. The organization of the church in Rome being largely from Jewish converts (see Rom. 2:17; 4:1, 7:1), these, being conscientious, tried to impose upon others the festival days of the Jews, which they themselves had not yet seen were done away in Christ. Thus Paul tells them, as he does in writing to the Colossians, not to judge others on this point. He conveyed the idea that it made no difference which way they did, evidently believing that the temporary observance of those ceremonies in eating on certain days could not harm those who indulged, as they would doubtless soon be led to see the real design of those things in pointing them to Christ. Knowing full well their typical nature, he would not have the observance of them enforced upon others, and therefore cautioned the church on that point.
Evidently not being satisfied that the texts quoted would sustain his position that the Sabbath was shadowy, our author next takes another turn to bolster up the theory. If assertions would prove him correct he has made out a very fair case. He denies that there is any morality in the fourth commandment; because, he says, it was a “statute law just like the rest of the ceremonial.” How does he know this? He determines that it is so by simply saying that lawyers make a difference between “statute laws” and “common laws.” Profound reasoning, to be sure! Does our friend mean to determine the force of God’s laws by the technical terms of lawyers? It is possible that God’s laws antedate all these. “What is moral law?” asks our reviewer. He then answers by saying, “It is one which does not depend for its force upon any special enactment. It is in force whenever and wherever human beings, endowed with reason, exist.” Now we are not disposed to grant all this. Had man always continued perfect, he might perhaps have known better than now the true signification of moral law. But man is fallen, and must needs have even a moral law revealed to his understanding, since the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God. 1 Cor. 2:14. This being true, the lower man falls, the more necessary it becomes to make plain in detail even moral law. Otherwise, it could be of no value to any other than its originator. In “Chitty’s Blackstone,” Vol. 1, p. 31, the author says: “A bare resolution, confined in the breast of the legislator, without manifesting itself by some external sign, can never be properly a law. It is requisite that this resolution be notified to the people who are to obey it.” This is very plain. Now as all law must have some source of origin, the moral law must also come through some source. Being given for the express purpose of regulating the morals of mankind, it must have originated with Him who has the good and only the good of the race in view. Who, then, but the Creator of man could fully understand the wants of man and thus provide for his needs? Yet, as we have already seen, though God did originate principles to regulate the morals of mankind, they could never be properly a law until manifested to those whose they were designed to benefit.
But after the resolutions of a legislator become a law, as they only can by proclamation, it carries no force without a penalty. Upon this point we quote from “Blackstone,” p. 37: “It is but lost labor to say, ‘Do this, or avoid that,’ unless we also declare, ‘This shall be the consequence of your non-compliance.’ We must therefore observe, that the main strength and force of a law consists in the penalty annexed to it.” Taking our friend, therefore, on his own ground, it is shown that his idea of the force of moral law has no foundation in fact.
(Concluded next week.)

THE UNWRITTEN SONG.

By L. D. Santee

BY ELD. L. D. SANTEE.
You ask that my pen should betray me, And write you the unwritten song That, down in the deeps of the spirit, My heart carries all the day long. You ask me to write out my longings, You wish me to pen you the rhyme That, down in the heart of the singer, Chants its wonderful music sublime.
Far out on the sea there are billows That on the shore never shall break; And down in the soul of the singer There are longings no language e'er spake. There are passionate depths of emotion That never find voicing in words; There are songs of a holy devotion, And their cadence the spirit has heard.
Deep down in the heart's cloistered chamber Is an altar, a pure, holy shrine; And there does the soul of the singer Bow down with a rapture divine; There are loves in the heart of the singer, Each one in its own chosen place, And he visits this "holy of holies," And leaves them with tears on his face.
Then ask not my pen to betray me, Or the soul's secret longing to trace, For I have seen visions of angels That never on earth shall find place! And I have seen visions of beauty Too glowing for language to reach; There are songs in the soul of the singer That never shall float into speech.
Or how can I tell of the glories I shall see in the kingdom of God, Or tell of the rapture when loved ones, Now sleeping, shall rise from the sod? Or how shall I tell of the beauties That Christ to the saints shall impart? The song is too grand for expression, But I treasure it deep in my heart.
When I list to the song of my spirit, Ah me, how my feelings are stirred! 'Tis too bright to on earth find expression, Too pure for the touch of a word. I took up my pen for your pleasure, But I cease from my writing ere long, For you know not the thing you are asking, When you ask for the unwritten song.

Prayer for Separation from the World

By Christian Scriver

—O my God! close my eyes, that I may see thee; separate me from the world, that I may enjoy thy company.—Christian Scriver.

The Advantages of a Place for Doing Good

—To an honest mind, the best perquisites of a place are the advantages it gives a man of doing good.—Addison.
Continue reading: THOUGHTS ON THE HOLINESS QUESTION