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F r THEIR minds, they reviewed the removal of the remains from the Cross, the washing away of the blood, the hasty preparation of the body be cause of the brevity of the hour, the wrapping of that form in linen with what spices could be quickly procured, the last touch of tenderness, the last kiss upon the forehead, bathed with their tears. Mary followed again the slow, heart-crushing retirai from the tomb, the rolling of the stone into its place, the sad watch beside the sepul cher until nightfall. Her Lord was dead. She knew the deepest, most crushing defeat T HE MORNING after the Sabbath had come, Mary had anticipated its dawn by hasting to the Garden to per form some act of appreciation and af fection for her deceased Lord. He was not there! The stone was rolled away, the sepulcher silent and empty. No one could tell her where they had taken Him. In anguish of spirit, she wandered alone in the Garden. The bright rays of the morning sun of the first day of the week brought no light to her darkened spirit. Her Lord was dead, and His body was gone. T HEN SHE was conscious that some one approached. He was no sol dier, for he carried neither implement of warfare nor insignia of authority. Who could he be but the keeper of the Garden, and who else would know better than he whither the body of her Lord had been transferred? “Tell me where thou hast laid him,” she cried, in tears, “and I will take him away” (John 20:15). F OR TEARS and tragedy there was a single word: “Mary.” Startled from her sorrow, terrified from her tears, Mary was stabbed awake in her spirit by a familiar intonation of her name. It could not be; it could not be; but it was, it was He! The Lord Jesus Himself, in person, in flesh, in reality: not a shadow, not a dream, not a vision. Himself! Her Lord and Master! The same eyes, the same voice, the same figure; the same ef fect upon her overflowing heart—yet all was different. Instinctively, intui tively, joyously, she stretched forth her hands to touch Him, to cast her self at His feet, to hold Him that He might never leave again. It was He! He was not dead, but alive! In the twinkling of an eye, death had disap peared, because it had been swallowed up in life. It was He! Alive! In Person! rpHUS WILL it be with all of God’s -*- people in that day when the trump of God shall sound, when the dead in Christ are raised first, and we who are alive and remain are caught up to gether with them to meet the Lord in the air. (1 Thess. 4:16-13), What a
DEMON-ENERG IZED CULTS
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IVORY PALACES For three and thirty years they stood. Empty and eloquent Of Him who laid His glory down And went, obedient, To die for sins of you and me. He must have turned His eyes At times in homesick longing toward His mansions in the skies. 1 think the doors were never sealed, But partly left ajar, And something of Him lin* gered there Though He had gone so far. Perhaps the angels peered within Each waiting, empty room, And whispered of strange things, the Cross, Gethsemane, the tomb. And sometimes God Himself went there To think about that One Who never had been far from Him, His well beloved Son. Now in His palaces the light Sh in e s out from eve ry room. And angels never cease their song, ‘‘The Son of God is home!”
TT WAS at the beginning of the pres- ent dispensation that the greatest teacher in the Christian Church, after its Founder, warned that in the latter times there would be departure from the faith occasioned by seducing spir its and doctrines of demons. Through out the history of the rise of religions from the first of time, such has been manifest; but in a peculiar way it has characterized the Christian era. One of the greatest of such move ments has been Mohammedanism. Concerning the founder, it has been stated by his biographers that he was subject to cataleptic seizures, in which “he fell to the ground like one intox icated or overcome by sleep,” and at times, under the control of some power which possessed him, he “roared like a bull.” Mrs. Eddy, the originator of so- called Christian Science, was subject to attacks, which “resembled convul sions; she fell headlong to the floor, writhing and screaming; at other times she became rigid like a cata leptic.” Said one psychical research er: “There seems no sufficient reason to doubt her explicit statement that she was inspired; it is only the source of the inspiration that we presume to question.” Mrs. White, the prophetess of Sev enth Day Adventism, claimed re peatedly to have been caught up into Heaven, where she saw visions which add to and contradict the Scriptures. Joseph Smith suffered when a lad from epileptoid seizures; later he be came a crystal-gazer, and by means of a “peep-stone” claimed to have dis covered the golden plates from which Mormonism was evolved. Spiritism still requires of its medi ums that they come under the power of the “control” which furnishes their inspiration and revelations. All of the foregoing, which are a few of the more prominent of the cults which (with the exception of Moham medanism) are doing business in this land, sprang from minds that were overpowered and instructed by some force outside of themselves. All de pend for their individuality of doc trine on something which is contrary to the teaching of the Word of God. How careful, in these days of per version of truth, should every child of God be lest he yield himself to some influence professing to be of God, but which he has failed to test according to the divine command (1 John 4:1, 2). From an editorial in the Alliance Weekly by Rev. John A. MacMillan. Used by permission.
rush of hallelujahs, what unspeakable joy at the unveiling of His face, what glad reunion with those whom we for a while laid away in some quiet, ob scure “God’s acre,” whom we commit ted with aching hearts, awaiting the resurrection morn when the shadows shall flee away. Like Mary of Mag- dala, we have sat over against their sepulcher, with saddened spirit and overflowing eyes. But here they are, alive, eager, strong, together with us seeing the face of Him who was crowned with thorns and who is now King of kings and Lord o f lords. “Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory” (1 Cor. 15:54),
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