EASTER NUMBER, 1919
Bible Institute ofLosAngeles (INCORPORATED ) LO S A N G E L E S , C A L I F O R N IA , U . S. A . Free Training School for Christian Workers
DIRECTORS
Lym an Stewart, president J. M. Irvine, secretary T. C. H orton, superintendent H . A. Getz
R. A. Torrey, vice-president Leon V. Shaw, treasurer W illiam Evans J. O. Smith
N athan Newby
DOCTRINAL STATEMENT
W e hold to the H istoric Faith of the of Evangelical Christendom and including: The T rinity of the Godhead. The D eity of the Christ. The Personality of the H oly Ghost. The Supernatural and Plenary authority of the H oly Scriptures. The U nity in D iversity of the Church, the Body and Bride of Christ. The Substitutionary Atonement.
Church as expressed in the Common Creed The N ecessity of the New B irth. The M aintenance of Good Works. The Second Coming of Christ. The Im m ortality of the Spirit. The R esurrection of the Body. The Life Everlasting of Believers. The Endless Punishm ent of the Im penitent. The Reality and Personality of Satan.
SCOPE OF THE WORK
PURPOSE:
The In stitu te trains, free of cost, accredited men and women, in the knowledge and use of the Bible. DEPARTMENTS: (1) The Institute Classes held daily except on Saturdays and Sundays. (2) Extension work. Classes and conferences held in neighboring cities and towns. (3) Evangelistic. M eetings conducted by our evangelists. (4) Spanish W ork. Personal w ork among Spanish speaking people. (5) Shop W ork. Regular services in shops and factories. (6) Jewish Evangelism . Personal work among the H ebrews and mission for Jews. (7) Bible W omen. House-to-house visitation and neighborhood classes. (8) Oil Fields. A mission to men on the oil fields. (9) Books and T racts. Sale and distribution of selected books and tracts. (10) H arbor W ork. F o r seamen at San Francisco harbor. (11) The Biola H all. Daily noon m eetings for men in the down-town district, with free reading-room privileges. Evangelistic service every evening. (12) P rin t Shop. F or printing^ Testam ents, books, tracts, etc. A complete establish ment, profits going to free distribution of religious literature.
T H E K IN G ’S B U S IN E S S MO TTO: “1. the Lord, do keen it. I will water it everu moment, lest any hurt it, / will keep it night and day. ■ , ■ ' ......- ■ " Isa. 27:3 - ................................................................................... .....................= P U B L IS H E D M O N T H L Y BY T H E BIBLE I N S T I T U T E O F LO S A N G E L E S Entered as Second-Class Matter November 17, 1910, at tHe Post Office at Los Angeles, California under the Act of Marck 3, 1879 Acceptance for mailing at special rate of postage provided for in Section 1103, Act of October 3, 1917 authorized October 1, 1918. Volume X April, içug Number 4 Editorials: Resurrection (291) The Solid Cornerstone of Christianity (292) Hold Fast to the Bible (293) Democracy and the Human Heart (294) The Yellow Peril of America (295) Remarkable Remarks: Short Helpful sayings (297) “He Is Risen” : An exposition by Dr. Joseph Parker (298) Resurrection Articles: Resurrection Attested, Alexander Maclaren (302) Resurrection Identity, C. H. Spurgeon (303) Easter (304) Did Christ Ever Die? D. L. Moody (305) Jesus Risen, C. H. Mc Intosh (306) Resurrection Objectors, T. DeWitt Talmage (307) Splendor of the Risen Saints, Nathaniel West (307) Denial of the Resurrection, Canon Liddon (309) Evidence of Resurrection, Edward L. Pell ((319) Resurrection’s Importance, F. E. Marsh (373) Resurrection, A. T. Pierson (374) Who Raised Jesus? D. M. Panton (321) Bible Institute Happenings (310) Evangelistic Stories from Experience (313) The Visible and Glorious Return of Christ, the Final Answer to Present Day Errors, Dr. R. A. Torrey (322) International Sunday School Lessons (329) Daily Devotional Readings, Dr. Frederic W. Farr (365) Homiletical Helps (373) Missionary Department (375) Do you use the “Daily Devotional Readings” in this magazine? If not, begin now. Don’t fail to see the chart, Page 313. Evangelistic Stories of special interest this month. Y E A R SUBSCRIPTION PRICE— In the United States and Its Possessions and Mexico, and points in the Central American Postal Union, $ 1.00 per year. In all other foreign countries, including Canada, $ 1 . 24 , ( 5 c. 2 d.) Single copies 10 cents. See expiration date on the -wrapper. BIBLE I N S T I T U T E OF LOS ANG E L E S 536-558 South Hope Street - - - - - Los Angeles, California O N L Y O N E D O L L A R A L E A D IN G A R T IC L E S IN TH IS ISSUE
EASTER JOYOU S 2 Tim. 1 :10 By DR. J. H. SAMMIS ASTER joyous! Easter bright! Birth of day and death of night;- Hail! thy glorious prophecy; Hail! the Easter yet to be. Christ avenged our ancient wrong, Death! to death and all its throng. Man is deathless! Raise the song,
“ Life and immortality!” Easter joyous! Easter bright! Birth of day and death of night; Man is risen from the dead; Death and Hell are captive led; Death and Hell, ye twain accurst; Death and Hell, your bands are burst; Christ is risen, Christ the first Life and immortality! Ho! ye mourners; Oh, ye tears; Faith and Hope; it nears, it nears— Watch and wait, ye hearts that weep; Rest in peace; ye loved that sleep; Soon the Lord of life shall doom Death and darkness and the tomb; Then, on all His saints shall bloom Life and immortality!
(Copyright, T. C. Horton.)
THE KING ’ S BUSINESS T . C . H O R TO N , Editor KEITH L. BROOKS, Managing Editor R. A.TORREY, D. D. FREDERIC W . FARR, D.D. J. H. HUNTER W . H . PIKE Contributing Editors
EDITORIAL
R e s u r r e c t i o n Said Calvin, “ Christ is our head, whose kingdom and glory have not yet appeared. If the members were to go before their head, the order of things would be inverted and preposterous; but we shall follow our Prince then, when He shall come in the glory of His Father, and sit upon the throne of His majesty. The Scripture uniformly commands us to look forward with eager expectation to the coming of Christ, and defers the crown of glory that awaits till that period.” Said Tyndale, the translator of the Bible, to More, the Roman Catholic, “ Ye, in putting departed souls in heaven, hell or purgatory, destroy the arguments wherewith Christ and Paul prove the resurrection. What Hod doth with them, that shall we know, when we come to them. The true faith putteth the resurrection, which we be warned to look for every hour. The heathen philosophers, denying that, did put that the souls ever live; and the Pope joineth the spiritual doctrines of Christ and the fleshly doctrine of the philosophers together—things so con trary that they cannot agree. . . . Again, if the souls he in heaven, tell me why they be not in as good a case as the angels be? and then what cause is there of a resurrection?” Said John Wesley in a sermon on Luke 16:31: “ It is indeed very generally supposed that the souls of good men, as soon as they are dis-. lodged from the body, go directly to heaven, but this opinion has not the least foundation in the oracles of God.” Dr. Macnight says, “ The apostles’ doctrine that believers are all rewarded together, and at the same time, is agreeable to Christ’s declaration, who told Has disciples that they were not to come to the place He was going away to prepare for them till He returned from heaven.” Says Dr. A. J. Gordon in Ecce Venit, “How deplorably, therefore, do they lower the standard of redemption who fix our anticipations upon our departures through the gates of the grave, instead of lifting them to Christ’s return through the gates of glory. If we make Death our hope, let us not be surprised, if others learn to make him their hero. . . . Pagan phil osophy infused its own notions of a future life into ecclesiastical theology. It deftly substituted the Platonic doctrine of th e .immortality of the soul for the Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the body. In.harmony with this change came the notion of judgment being administered immediately after death, in the disembodied state, instead of being reserved till the coming of the Lord and the raising of the dead—a conception as character-
292 THE K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S istic of all heathen religions as it is foreign to the testimony of both the Old Testament and the New. . . . With such a vision before our eyes (the translation of Enoch, Elijah and Christ), we should cease talking of the immortality of the soul, as though we knew not that 'God had provided some better things for us. It is a lamentable apostasy from Paulism to Platonism to substitute the hope of being unclothed for that of being clothed upon. Let philosophers dream of a naked immortality as man’s highest state in the life to come, but we will be content with nothing less than God’s full provision of this mortal putting on immortality. Therefore the conception of the body as the spirit’s clay and prison-house should find no place in a Christian eschatology. . . . That unseemly snatching for a crown of life, which characterizes the latest improved eschatology—Ahe theory that every man rises from the dead as soon as the breath is out of the body— has no foundation in Scripture.” Says Adam Clarke on 1 Cor. 15: “ One remark I cannot help making. The doctrine of the resurrection appears to have been thought of much more consequence among the primitive Christians than it is now. How is this? The apostles were continually insisting on it, and exciting the followers of Christ to diligence and obedience and cheerfulness through i t ! There is not a doctrine in the gospel on which more stress is laid, and there is not a doctrine in the present system of preaching, which is treated with more neglect.”—T. C. H. T*HE R E SU R R E C T IO N , tke Solid Cornerstone of Christianity There are many ministers, who if they preach a resurrection sermon at all at Easter time, will agree with the position taken by Dr. Carl S. Patton, the popular Congregational preacher of Los Angeles. Dr. Patton was quoted some time ago by the American Journal of Theology, as saying: “No matter who told me that a man of my own town had been raised from the dead; no matter how many apparently competent witnesses agreed in the statement; no matter if I saw it or thought Xsaw it myself, I should not believe it. . . . The reason we do not believe in the biblical miracles is, the testimony for them is not good enough.” “I do not believe that anybody in the time of Jesus thought he raised the dead or did these other miraculous things. It was forty years at the least between the death of Jesus and the writing of our earliest Gospel. Forty years is long enough for these stories to have grown up. During that period they did grow up —not consciously invented by any one man, but growing unconsciously as they passed from mouth to mouth and got farther from the time and the immediate associates of Jesus. . . . Xbelieve that in a miracle-loving and myth-making age the story that four hundred people would be just as easy as the story that one man had seen him. So it has often been asked, ‘Without the physical resur rection, what do you do with the empty tomb?’ I do not do anything with it, nor with the body of Jesus. It is merely an item in the whole story, and the whole story is the growth of a later time.” It seems strange that a man of Dr. Patton’s reasoning powers should fail to see the absolute necessity of the literal resurrection of our Lord in its vital bearing on all Christian doctrine. Look, for instance, at Paul’s reasoning in 1 Cor. 15: ‘‘If Christ is not risen our preaching is vain.” (Empty). According to the Apostle Paul, Dr. Patton’s preaching is but a blown bladder, a bag of wind, because he has nothing but a ghost Christ, a disembodied spirit.
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What can that type of Christianity do to lift men from sin and degradation? According to Paul—nothing—no more- than so^much wind. “ If Christ is not risen your faith is vain.” (A different word for vain - lit. “ Of no effect, powerless.” ) Without a risen Christ, what reason have’we to believe that His death had any more bearing on men’s sin than the death of hundreds of people martyred in a good cause? Dr. Patton, of course, thinks it doesn’t, and that is the result of throwing out the corner stone of Christian doctrine. The whole structure falls. We can not trust a dead Christ for eternal life. . . “ We are found false witnesses.” Dr. Patton, by his denial practically says to Paul and all the disciples who gave their lives for their witness to the resurrection, “ You are liars and all Christian doctrine is a fraud. If Christ did not rise, we are at a total loss to explain that sudden change that came over the dejected disciples and the zeal with which they went everywhere proclaiming the resurrection. The church never would have been born at the tomb. . “ Ye are yet in your sins.” He died for our offences; He was raised for our justification. How should we know that His work was accepted of the Father for us? “ It is Christ that died; yea rather, is risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who maketh intercession for us. ” “ The dead are perished.” Have we any ground for believing in im mortality? Not unless Christ literally arose from the dead. If He remains under the power of death, we have not the least assurance that He can deliver us from the power of death. “ We are of all men most miserable.” What does Dr. Patton’s resur rection message do for your heart? Does it give you the Easter heart? It leaves you nothing but a gloomy foreboding of death and a feeling that, after all, Christianity from start to finish, is but a guess. But Christ IS risen and no soul need be in any doubt concerning the truth of Christian faith. The resurrection is the solid rock on which alone salvation could ever be built.—-K. L. B. a» H o l d f a s t t o t h e b i b l e “ My advice to Sunday Schools, no matter what their denomination, is, hold fast to the Bible as the sheet anchor of your liberties; write its precepts in your hearts; and practice them in your lives. To the influence of this book are we indebted for all the progress made in true civilization; and to this we must look as our guide in the future.’’—General U. S. Grant. How little General Grant knew when he uttered these words how much they would mean when quoted today. It is a message to the Church needed more' today than ever in its history. The department of the Church having the most hopeful prospect is the Sunday Bible School. There has been great development in the methods of the Sunday School, some for the better, some for the worse. What is the real test, the acid test, which must be applied in the first analysis? Has the Word of God been given the first place? Have teachers and scholars been brought to recognize it as the supernatural message of God, true from cover to cover? Has the faith of the teacher and scholar been fixed upon it as the power of God, made manifest in the i'mpor-
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THE K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S tation of Divine life, evidenced by holy living? Of what advantage are men’s methods, of the multiplication of wheels within the wheels if there be no real grist for God ? Is there a danger that teachers will be occupied with the methods, be they ever so good, rather than with faith in the quick and pow erful Word of God? Is there a subtle fear in the heart of the teacher that the Word is not sufficient, that changed conditions demand something more attractive than the Word itself? Is there a growing tendency to believe that substitutes are more effective than the sword of the Spirit ? What is the test? What have we a right to see if the methods are better, more conducive to best results? Have we a right to expect boys and girls, young men and women, more deeply engrossed in Bible study, more holy in daily life, more concerned in the saving of other souls and if not, It is not the dress parade, be it ever so perfect in its manual of arms or beautiful in its maneuvers, that proves the value of the army, but it is the drive through storms,-through sleet and mud and water and shot and shell in the face of the oncoming-enemy. If we apply the acid test to our Sunday Bible School, to its officers, teachers and scholars, in the daily drive, during the days of the week, with the conflict of home and school and business life, what will it be? If methods hinder the devotional period, if they hinder them from the Word and prayer, if they rob the teacher of the needed time, if they hinder the hand to hand work for deeper spiritual lives, if they hinder the testimony of scholars concerning the experiences during the week—then let us dispense with some of the methods that adorn the dress parade and get down to brass tacks and give the needed time to the one great essential in the training of our scholars—“ The Bible.”— What? The war has wrought changes for the good and changes for the worse. But gradually people are going to forget those eloquent war sermons in which they were told of the glorified earth that was to be made possible by victory over the Hun. We are beginning to find that even though Germany is out of the game, the Hun in human nature is anything but dead. Those weaknesses of human nature are once more asserting themselves with a vigor that is positively alarming. A returned army chaplain recently said in a large men’s meeting in Los Angeles: “ If I have been able to read conditions as they are in Europe, and as I have found them to an alarming degree since my return to this country, within a few years there will be a war that will make this last war look like a Sunday School class in comparison. Almighty God has sent me back to this country as a prophet to warn men that their only hope is Jesus Christ.” Discontented, war-worn, hungry millions are being inspired by an unscrupulous propaganda from the pit, to fierce hatred against the rich and the educated. The luring promises made to the downtrodden poor are being answered since the war by shoving living expenses higher and wages down. Washington authorities estimate that 20,000,000 will have died of starvation the first four months of 1919. As many as were killed or died of wounds T. C. H. D E M O C R A C Y and tke Human Heart
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THE K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S in four years will die each month. These conditions do not tend to godli ness Destitute, hungry people cannot be reasoned with. The Philadelphia North American says 1 “ Bolshevism, a force as ambitious, as tyrannical and as menacing as Prussianism, has set out to conquer and enslave the world. World peace is not in sight except as we see it coming in the soon commg of the Prince of Peace. . . . , Must God by another demonstration, prove to the world that the human heart untouched by the Spirit of God through Jesus Christ is a helpless thing? In spite of democracy and peace councils, it remains the same in its deep need of Christ. No inward resources can change or satisfy it. Its need is spiritual rather than material and physical. Men are still conceived in sin (Psa. 51:5) sold under sin (Rom. 7 :14) the servants of sm (Jno. 8 :34) beset by sin (Heb. 12:1) dead in sin (Eph. 2 :1) and dying eternally because of sin (Rom. 5:12). Perfumed oratory and pink teas will not save the day. There is no other hope and no other work to be done until Jesus conies, but to tell them of One who was without sin (Heb. 4 ¡15) who came to put away sin (Heb. 9:26) to cleanse us from all sin (1 Jno. 1:7) to make us victorious over sin (Rom. 8 :2) and who at length is coming to take us out of the very world of sin (1 Jno. 3:2).—K. L. B. T h e Y E L LOW PER IL of America Look at his fingers. What is that yellow streak? That is the yellow peril of the youth of the United States. It is the cigarette streak; the hand writing on the wall, sealing the doom of tens of thousands of soldiers who are coming back thoroughly inoculated with the virus, slaves to a habit repellent to every sane, sensible, practical student of the moral and physical requirements for our youth. , , , , , , There are some facts in this connection not pleasant to contemplate, and which will become more and more obvious as the days go by. A recent Washington dispatch says : “Tobacco ‘seems to be established as a necessity in the soldier s life, 95 per cent of the members of the American Expeditionary Forces using it m some form according to the report of the War Department, wliich goes on to say: It is a, part of the regular daily ration, but the quantity allowed is not sufficient for the However, every soldier may buy at the canteens cigars, cigarettes and smoking tobacco in unlimited quantities and at prices considerably lower than they are sold for in the United States. . . . . . . . Smoking has increased in our army overseas since the signing of the armis tice. The average monthly purchases by the subsistence division now amount to 425 000,000 cigarettes and 20,000,000 cigars for overseas shipment. About 2,000,000,000 cigarettes were sent to France prior to the signing of the armistice, and the present rate of shipment is much increased.” Drawing conclusions from this statement, we are informed that cigar ettes are a necessity for the soldier’s life. If this is time, and the Boy Scouts are to be trained with a view to their becoming soldiers, it is a logical con clusion that they must soon be initiated into the habit. It will not be easy to preach against it or argue against it. There is the seal of the govern ment of the United States; there is the testimony of so-called preachers, and there is the seal of the organiation supposed to be in the business of making men.
296 THE KING- ' S B U S I N E S S Now, for over twenty-five years the medical fraternity, the leading educators, the Anti-Cigarette League, the W. C. T. II., the Y. M. C. A., the churches, and moral forces of all kinds have put forth strenuous efforts to stop the cigarette habit. The use of cigarettes was prohibited in many states; many business men refused to employ a man addicted to the habit; thousands of men were unfit for service in the Spanish War, and thousands rejected in the last war, because they had the cigarette heart. What of the days to come, when our young men begin the awful fight to overcome this habit? What will be their attitude towards those under whose auspices they learned it, and whom they were led to believe repre sented the moral forces of America? What about the mothers and wives and sisters of the young fellows into whose hearts will come a hatred, bitter and strong, for these who caused their downfall? It will take more than twenty-five years to undo the damage to human life and character wrought in this devilish, subtle business in one year, and eternity alone will measure the harvest which must be reaped from the mind and muscle, soul and spirit destroying habit; and those who are responsible for this great sin will never be able to overcome the stigma which will be attached to them. What we sow we must reap. What has been sown in the lives of these men will bring a harvest of woe. We must pray and labor to stem the tide the best we can, for this is a real “ yellow peril!”—T. C. H.
Suggestive Scriptures for Special Meditation 2 Tim. 4:1-5. E 3 1 charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; 2 Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, re buke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. 3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine ; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; 4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. 5 But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.
THE LATE DR. J. WILBUR CHAPMAN
1 R e a l ly R emarkable R em a rk s 1 É SENTENCE SERMONS FOR BUSY READERS m Faith is not asking the Lord for bushels and setting out a pint measure to catch them. No one ever wanders where a prom ise of God’s Word does not follow him. To be contented with what we have is about the same as to own the earth. Nothing is so utterly, hopelessly lost as “lost time.”
Faith carries present loads,, meets present assaults, feeds on present prom ises, and commits the future to a faith ful God. Perhaps you would not have so much trouble with your tongue in company, if you would talk more with God when alone. The lives of those who truly love God are sure to produce a hungering and thirsting after righteousness in others. Keeping ourselves ignorant of human needs will never excuse us for not reliev ing them. Do not keep the alabaster boxes of your love and tenderness sealed up until your friends are dead. Making the Bible a centre-table orna ment is an altogether different thing from making it a lamp of life. The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well and doing well whatever you do, without a thought of fame. There is only one real failure in life possible; and that is, not to be true to the best one knows. To do good to men is the great work of life; to make them true Chris- tions is the greatest good we can do them. The man who is willing to have only a little religion will never have any. Every day, as it rises out of eternity, keeps putting to each of us this ques tion afresh: “What will you do before this day has sunk into eternity and nothingness again?” True humility consists not so much in thinking meanly of ourselves, as in not thinking of ourselves at all.
The greatest reward God ever bestows upon a man in this world is greater opportunity for service. Trust in Christ to keep you trusting. Look to him so to abide in you as to keep you abiding. It is the man who tries to make the best of both worlds who make nothing of either. If Bible-reading be like getting your friend’s letter, then prayer is like a visit from your friend. Avoid diligently those false and de ceptive thoughts which say, “Wait a little, and I will pray an hour hence.” Every-day work requires every-day grace, and every-day grace requires every-day asking. Every to-morrow has two handles; we can take hold of the handle of anx iety or the handle of faith. The devil is close by when the Chris tian worries about things he can’t help. You keep the Sabbath in imitation of God’s rest. Do, by all manner of means, and keep also the rest of the week in imitation of God’s work. If you are afraid in the dark, do more praying when the sun is shining. Opportunity is often like a pin in the sweepings; you catch sight of it just as it flies away from you and gets buried again. He who passes by an opportunity to do good in order to find a better one will search in vain. A Christian, when he makes a good profession, should be sure to make his profession good.
A n Exposition of Matthew 28:1-10, by the late Dr. Joseph Parker, former pastor of the Gity Temple, London. Taken from Parker’s Peoples’ Bible
N the end of the Sabbath.” No! In the end of the Jewish Sabbath mayhap, but not in the end of the Sabbath. Literally in the end of “Sabbaths,” as if they had a ll, come to a point of termination. The
more than half over way down in the eastern lands—in the far-away western places, men are just beginning to rise now, and when we have concluded our service they will begin to sing “This is the day the Lord hath made.” In the highest sense that can chal lenge the imagination' and satisfy all the religious vision that is in us, Chris tianity is a continual dawning. When Christ comes the light comes; when Christ shines upon the life the darkness flees away; when the mind gets its first true conception of Christ, it is as if a shaft of light were shot from a great firmament of gloom, and as if all heaven shone. It began in the beginning. God created the heavens that dawn every day. Believe me, we live in beginnings. There is a joyousness about the dawn and the beginning, the stirring tune, the hour of activity, when every energy leaps to the front, and every power says, “Baptize me for thy service, and may I be crowned as a blessing in the world’s commonwealth.” “As it began to dawn towaras the first day.” That also is just what it did! Now the primacy of time is cov-. ered with the higher primacy of grace. The “first day” it had always been since time was broken up into weeks and months and years. For many a long century it had been the first day of the week as it were by nativity—but now it is born again. It was sown in cor ruption, it is raised in incorruption; it was sown a little glint of time, it rises big with eternal splendor. So may we be born again. You áre first
Sabbath is only about to begin; there are .no endings in God’s blessings— what we call the end is only the little rest which the blessing takes, to come up again in the fuller bloom and tend erer color and larger fruitfulness. Why have you this word “end” in your speech as Christians? There is an end to nothing but sin. “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” No beauty is lost, no light, no speech of tenderness, no comfort of benediction, no inspiration of truth. The Sabbath can never end: man would take it back again if it were to be withdrawn. Forms may undergo changes, but the sabbatic spirit, the genius of rest, the elder brother of the days, the queen of the week, the shining star amid all the galaxy of time—the world would not willingly let die, the great religious heart of man can never allow to expire. “As it began to dawn.” Yes, that is just what it did. That is the very poetry of the occasion; the word writ ten with apparent accident is the very expression of heaven. It began to dawn,—a new tender light .shot up in the eastern sky, the orient trembled with a new presence, and glowed as with an infinite surprise. Christianity is always dawning: The Sabbath dawns over all the world; the Sabbath day is
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at the door of the sepulchre they would have remembered no such words--but Sight now helped Faith. The grave was empty, the stone rolled away, celes tial visitants were the attendants of that gloomy place, and out of the depths of death they heard the voice of Resur rection;—“then they remembered his words.” That remembrance is all but fatal. There is a time when our reli gious remembrances will rather be aggravations of our sin than mitigations of our mistakes. What was it to remem ber the words when the grave was empty, when the angels were filling it with morning light, when the stone, fastened, sealed, watched, was hurled, back? It was nothing to remember then. That is true faith which sees in the darkness as well as in the light, which goes to the grave bearing no spices but the spices of the immovable certainty of the resurrection and the life. You take your spices to your graves in the form of flowers and im mortelles. It is pardonable, because the bones of the dead body are still hid den under the sod; it would be'better if we could look straight up into the blue morning and breathe upward the spice of a concentrated life and a hope ful and all-conquering spirit. For what purpose did the women come? According to Matthew they came to “see the sepulchre.” An athe ist might have done that, any man might have done it—but when Mary Magdalene and the other Mary do it, it seems as if the Heavens were closed up and the earth were a place that had no sky. We trust to the womanly heart to keep up our noblest hopes, we give ourselves over into the custody, of that higher love and trust. When Mary Magdalene and the other Mary cease to pray, no man will have audacity enough to lift his face heavenward. The mother must save us, the housewife must make the house a sanctuary, the womanly" heart must keep the altar-fire ablaze.
in intellect,—would that you were also first in goodness. And you are first in energy,—would that you were also first in prayer. You in the third place are first in wealth—would God every golden piece you have were made more golden still by being transformed into the gold of the sanctuary. Be not satisfied with natural or hereditary primacies; over those you have next to no control, it may be; but in this primacy of good ness, where may elevation cease? There is no terminal point on that heaven ascending line. The women came to the sepulchre, and Luke gives us some additional and illustrative particulars about them and their coming. According to Luke’s account, the women came, “bringing the spices which they had prepared.” Not withstanding they had been distinctly told that Jesus Christ would rise again on the third day, with that singular obstinacy which distinguishes the pre judices of the human mind, those blessed and affectionate women came with their spices to embalm their Lord! How can you account for the stubborn ness of this view of death? The women had been told, and told by Jesus Christ himself, that on the third day he would rise again, and yet so treacherous is the memory, or so irreligious the heart, that Sight staggers Faith. The women saw him die; any recollection of a promise of “rising again” must have died in that death. So forgetting the predic tion, or regarding it as a sentiment that had perished, or otherwise viewing it as a hope rather than as a fact which lay within the possibility of accom plishment, they came “bringing their spices which they had prepared.” The angel chided them. Said the angel to them, “Remember how he spake,” and “they remembered his words,” but the remembrance of his words would have been of no avail to them two hours before they saw the angel. If they had found the stone
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They came “to see the sepulchre,” and they did see it: they saw more of it than they expected to see—they saw it turned inside out. So may all our expectancy be fulfilled! We came to the sanctuary to see—what? One another? an individual? an occasion? a service? a sepulchre? May we all be disappointed in this same happy way: may those who come to see the outside, the mechanical, and the transi
tory, see the Lord’s own face, aglow with the light which fills all heaven with its splendor. Many have gone with aching hearts to see some religious sight, who have returned with great joy. “And behold the angel of the Lord had rolled back the stone from the door.” Mark describes this angel beau tifully; Mark took more notice of cer-, tain particulars than any of the other
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301 kindly meant: no other construction could possibly be put upon Joseph’s act in that matter. It was sealed, it was watched, it was guarded—and yet it was rolled away. God sends a great wind upon the earth and throws down your towers and temples and towns and for tresses—ran invisible wind—you cannot tell whence it comes or whither it goes, but it comes in great shocks and tries the foundations of your structures, breaks the ships to Tarshish, and troubles the sea as with great agony, and yet it is only a wind, without shape, without colour, without measure, almost without name, invisible—but when you see the ships hurried before it, and all i their proud mast-work torn to rags and thrown into the foaming deep, and see great structures bulge out and fall flat down on the astonished earth, we feel how, in some aspects, we are truly little and weak. Now the angel speaks, and I would hear every word he says. “Fear not ye, for I know that ye seek Jesus which was crucified. He is not here, for He is risen as He said: come, see the place where the Lord lay, and go quickly and tell His disciples that He is risen from the dead, and behold He goeth before you into Galilee, there shall ye see Him: lo, I have told you.” You could not have put more matter into so short a compass. The angels speak concisely, they have specific messages to deliver, and with miserliness of language they crush into every syllable all the mean ing which it will hold. The speech was sympathetic—“Fear not ye.” The speech was heart-reading—“For I know that ye seek Jesus.” The speech was explanatory—“He is not here, He is risen, as He said.” The speech was comforting—“Come, see the place where the Lord lay.” The speech was inspir ing—“Go ye.” The angel was the first to preach Jesus and the Resurrection; all other preachers follow the “young man” who announced the Resurrection and sent the women to proclaim it.
THE K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S evangelists; for the detail of the pic ture, always consult the evangelist Mark. According to Mark the angel was a young man. Are there any old men in heaven? None. There are really no old men on earth, if we take the ‘*4ght view of the case. How old are y%u, trembling pilgrim? Do you say eighty? I can show you a tree three hundred years old. Do you say you have passed the four-score years, and now there remains but a little more light, and you will soon be gone? You are an old man, but you are a young being: the age is an accident, the exist ence is a fact. Do not give way to old age, it is only a mockery, it is not really old age: you are, if in Christ, always young. How else could the nar rative read than that a young man came, and did this? For God could have sent no old man, having none in his great household. “Who are these, arrayed in white robes? and knowest thou whence they came?'’ “These are they who have washed then/ robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne night and day, and serve God in His temple. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun light on them nor any heat.” A youth that has no necessities, a youth on which time can write no wrinkle. We shall all be young some day, when we are clothed upon, with our house from heaven! God is always sending young men down into the world to roll its stones away, to break up its rocks, to liberate its captives, and to give new dawning. Encourage the youngi be large-minded and pitiful toward their mistakes, and see in the outputting of their energy the possibil ity of a noble and beneficent manhood. He rolled away the stone. The stone was turned to new uses, for the angel “sat upon it.” What thought the stone had occasioned by Joseph’s rolling it to the door of the sepulchre! It was
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What was the effect of the preaching? The women departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy, and did run to bring His disciples word. Haste, joy, energy, this' is the mission ary way, this is the true ministerial way, this is the great lecture upon the method of preaching. They departed quickly with fear and great joy, rever ence and infinite rapture, and did run to bring his disciples word. We have fallen into a mean amble, we have slunk off and let every racer beat us; the gospel messenger lags somewhere in the rear, he is outrun by many a man. We want more quickness, more energy, more running power in the church. We are indifferent, we are respectable, we are reluctant, we are calculating, we are selfish. Rather would I belong to a Christianity that is censurable from a worldly point of view by reason of its vehemence and energy, than belong to some perversion of Christianity which regards its religion and its slumber as coequal and synonymous terms. And as they went—it always so hap pens! A thing is never complete in itself; incident runs into incident, and the whole work is carried on with infin ite skill to perfectness, to symmetry and life. “And as they went,” Jesus met them! Jesus Christ always meets His messengers or joins them or over takes them: He is always with His angels to the end of the world. And Jesus said, “Go.” Some day we shall collect the incidents in which that word Go is used, and we shall see how wonderfully God’s Spirit always points in the direction of movement, aggres sion, energy. “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every crea ture.” With such a “GO” ringing in our ears, with the resonance of a thun der-trumpet, who will sit down or stand still or forget his errand?
THE RESURRECTION ATTESTED OULD not the testimony which can be alleged for Christ’s resurrection be enough to guarantee any event but this? And if so, why is it not enough to guarantee this too? If (as nobody denies) the early church within ten years of Christ’s resurrection believed in His resurrection, and were ready to go, and did, many of them, go to their death in assertion of their veracity in declaring it, then one of two things,—Either they were right or they were wrong; and if the latter, one of two things—If the resurrection be not a fact then that belief was either a delusion or deceit. Not a delusion, for such an illusion is altogether unexampled; and it is absurd to think of it as being shared by a multitude, like the early church. Nations have said, “Our King is not dead—He is gone away and He will come back.” Loving disciples have said, “Our teacher lives in solitude, and will return to us.” But this is no parallel to these. This is not fond imagination giving an apparent sub stance to its own creation, but sense recognizing first the fact, “He is dead,” and then, in opposition to expectation, and when hope had sickened to despair, recognizing the astounding fact, “He liveth that was dead.” And to suppose that that should have been the rooted conviction of hundreds of men who were not idiots finds no parallel in the history of human illusions, and no analogy in such legends as those to which I have referred. Not a myth, for a myth does not grow in ten years. And there was no motive to frame it if Christ was dead and all was over. Not a deceit, for the character of the men, and the character of the associate morality, and the obvious absence of all self-interest, and the persecutions
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and sorrows which they endured, make it inconceivable that the fairest build ing that had ever been reared in the world, and which is cemented by men’s blood, should be built upon the mud and slime of a conscious deceit! And all this we are asked to put aside at the bidding of a glaring beg ging of the whole question, and an out rageous assertion which no man that believes in a God at all can logically maintain, namely: that no testimony can reach to the miraculous, or that miracles are impossible.—Alexander MacLaren. SUPERHUMAN FIRES CRACKLING We are living in a time of growing intensity. The undertakings of the world today are not only immense, but also intense. Great undertakings, great accomplishments done in a feverish heat of pursuit and progress. The spirit of the age is aglow with super-human fires—the crackling of faggots set on fire from the pit. This will be more and more evident as we near the time when the super-man, the Antichrist, assumes control of the affairs of this worldly world. It is said that prairie fires are stopped by starting opposing fires to meet the on-rushing flames. Agonizing prayer alone will counteract the devil-destroy ing sin-scourging world wickedness of these last days.—Frederick H. Senft. THE EASTER DISPLAY “John,” announced Mrs. Stylover, “I’m going to town tomorrow to see the new hats.” “You forget,” her husband reminded her, “that tomorrow is Sunday. The shops will be closed.” “Who said anything about shops? I’m going to church.”
E do really int very truth believe that the very body which is put into the grave will rise again, and we mean this literally, and as we utter it. We are not using the lan
guage of metaphor, or talking of a myth: we believe that, in actual fact, the bodies of the dead will rise again from the tomb. We admit, and rejoice in the fact, that there will be a change in the body of the righteous man; that its materialism will have lost all the grossness and tendency to corruption which now surrounds it; that it will be adapted for higher purposes; for, whereas, it is now only a tenement fit for the soul or the lower intellectual faculties, it will then be adapted for the spirit or the higher part of our nature. We rejoice that though sown in weak ness, it will be raised in power; though sown in dishonor, it will be raised in glory; but we nevertheless know that it will be the same body. The self-same body which is put into the grave shall rise again: there shall be an absolute identity between the body in which we die, and the body in which we shall rise again from the dust. But let it be remembered that ident ity is not the same thing as absolute sameness of substance and continuance of atoms. We do not mention this quali fication at all by way of taking off the edge from our statement, but simply because it is true. We are conscious, as a matter of fact, that we are living in the same bodies which we possessed twenty years ago; yet we are told, and we have no reason to doubt it, that per haps not one single particle of the mat ter which constitutes our body now was in it twenty years ago. The changes our physical forms have undergone from infancy to manhood are very great, yet have we the same bodies. Admit the like identity in the resurrection, and
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it is all we ask. The body in which we die will be the same body in which we were born,—everybody admits that, though it is certainly not the same as in all its particles; nay, every particle may have been exchanged, and yet it will remain the same. So the body in which we rise will be the same body in which we die; it will be greatly changed, but these changes will not be such as to affect its identity. . Now, instead of mentioning this statement in order to make the doc trine appear more easy of belief, I assure you that if I saw it taught in Scripture that every fragment of bone, flesh, muscle, and sinew which we put into the ground would rise again, I should believ^ it with the same ease as I now accept the doctrine of the ident ity of the body in the manner just stated.-—C. H. Spurgeon. WOMEN AND CIGARETTES The London Tit-Bits says: “Before the outbreak of war, hundreds of women in England who found consolation in the weed smoked from fifteen to twenty cigarettes a week. But not so now, for the smoking craze has made such headway that there are thousands or women at the present time who think nothing of smoking one hundred to one hundred and fifty cigarettes a week.” RIGHT WAN TO FALL “One of the saints of a past genera tion remarked that the important thing about a fall was whether you fell for ward or backward. He said that if a Christian gained his length every time he fell, he would win his race in the end. But the man who allows himself to become discouraged by his falls is losing his race.”
EASTER HY do people celebrate the Easter season with eggs and rabbits and Easter lilies and new clothes? What connection have eggs or rabbits or lilies or new clothes with the
resurrection of Christ? And why do we, call the day Easter; what has the east to do with it? And why do we observe Easter, or the day of Christ’s rising, on a movable date when we observe Christmas, the day of his birth, on a fixed date? Why in one year do we celebrate Christ’s resurrection 88 days after his birth day, and in another year celebrate it 125 days after the same date? The answer to all these things is that we are obeying custom; we do these things because that is the accepted and ap proved practice and we don’t stop to analyze the reasons. The origin of Easter was oriental, and we really have no Christian name for the day. “Easter” is pagan—-a tri bute to the goddess of the east or of spring, and “paas” and “paschal” refer to the Hebrew passover. The association of eggs with Easter comes from the ancient Persians, who regarded the egg as sacred because it contained the germ of life and was therefore a symbol of re-creation. The rabbit was also worshipped in the orient because of its fecundity. In short anything connected with procrea tion or the re-birth or reproduction of life was held sacred. The lily was sacred because it did not grow as ordin ary plants do but it came from a bulb, in which the elements of life were stored up. The sun was also worshipped, as the agency which brought things into life, and its rising in the east, marking the birth of a new day, was correlated with the re-birth of the soul into the future life. The early church leaders found
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it natural and expedient to transfer all this ready-made symbolism to the resur rection of Christ, and thus Easter came to he observed as it is. It is absurd of course to have Easter movable and dependent on the lunar calendar when Christmas is fixed and is dependent on the solar year. The early Christians did observe Easter on a fixed day, namely March 21 or the vernal equinox, for over three centuries, up to the time when the council of Nice decreed that it should be movable. “Easter” is mentioned in the Bible—- in Acts—hut it there refers to the Jew ish Passover. The breach between the Gentile Christians and the Jewish Chris tians widened, and at the council of Nice the church fathers adopted the present plan of determining Easter so that it should never fall on the same day as the PaSsover, which it did once in 19 years under the old system. By the rule of the council of Nice, Easter comes on the first Sunday after the full moon which occurs on or next after the vernal equinox. Though this action established a perfectly arbitrary and inconsistent date for Easter, it did avoid having it fall on the same day that the Jews observed.—Pathfinder. SEA SICK CHRISTIANS Weak faith will as surely land the Christian in heaven as strong faith; but the weak Christian will not have so pleasant a voyage thither as the strong one. Though all in the ship come safe to shore, yet he that is sea-sick through out the whole voyage hath not so much comfortable sailing as he that is in per fect health.
ANY theories have been advanced to explain away the resurrection of Christ. Those who seek for a natural explanation of every miracle recorded in Scripture, c l a i m that
Christ never really died at all; that He fell into an unconscious state which was mistaken for death; and that later He recovered and was rescued by His friends. A surface examination of Scripture suflices to brush away this objection. The writers of the four gospels give different accounts of the death and resurrection of Christ, as would natur ally be expected of four men writing independently of each other; but they agree in saying that Jesus gave up the ghost. Think of the tremendous physical and mental strain of the night preced ing the crucifixion—the agony in the garden—the arrest—the hurrying back and forth for the five trials to which He was subjected—the scourging by the Roman soldiers—the mocking in the Praetorium—the crown of thorns; then His sinking from sheer exhaustion under the weight of the cross, and the crucifixion. Ask yourself if the wonder is not rather that Jesus survived so long as He did. But it does not end here, for when the Jews came to Pilate and asked that the legs of the three men should be broken, so that death would be hastened and the bodies removed before the Sabbath, the sol diers, seeing that Jesus was “dead already, broke not His legs: howbeit,
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