The design of this work is to undeceive the honest, and remove the prejudice that everywhere exists against such truths as the “Second Advent near,” “Man’s Mortality,” “Perpetuity of the true Sabbath,” &c. Those who will examine these pages will find that we have in favor of these great truths, not only the testimony of Scripture, but also that of great and good men, both of the past and present, who have testified in favor of that which the world and nominal churches now term “Infidelity,” “Heresy,” “New Things,” “Novelties,” “Winds of Doctrine,” &c. But notwithstanding this false alarm which is designed to frighten the timid, and keep them in the beaten track of popular tradition, there are those who will, like the noble Bereans, search the scriptures, that they may know for themselves whether these things are so; and we hope the scripture references in this work may assist them in arriving at the truth.

The Bible testimony on any point of doctrine is sufficient for any unbiased mind; but there are many who have so long drank at the fountain of Tradition, that even a plain “thus saith the Lord” will not wholly satisfy them, when it is opposed to some favorite and long-cherished theory. Such will find ample scope for their predilections in the copious extracts we make from the saying of some of the most noted and pious of the past, as well as the most popular of the present.

There is in the religious world a gross departure from first principles—“departing from the faith.” Pride and popularity have not only prevented advancement, but have gradually led to a neglecting, if not to an open rejection, of truths before generally received. In proof of this, and for illustration, take the following, spoken in 1842 in relation to the soon coming of Christ.

The Boston Recorder (Orthodox Congregationalist) said:

“It must needs to acknowledged that our faith is greatly shaken in the interpretations on which, in common with most of our own brethren, we have heretofore relied, &c.”

The Christian Advocate and Journal says,

“If his [Prof. Chase’s] views in regard to the prophecies of Daniel be correct, the long-established opinion, that the Roman empire is the fourth kingdom of the prophet, must give way to the more successful researches of Dr. Chase. Some other opinions which have been thought to be settled beyond a doubt, are terribly shaken.”

The testimonies in these pages concerning the fallen condition of the churches, and the iniquity that generally abounds, speak in thunder tones to all who read them, to awake and prepare for the great and terrible day of the Lord.

We have prepared this work with an earnest desire that it might prove beneficial to many, and be the means of leading them to a careful and prayerful investigation of the solemn and important truths of the Bible relating to the present time.

M. E. C.

Battle Creek, May 12^th, 1858.

THE TEMPORAL MILLENNIUM OR THE WORLD’S CONVERSION A FABLE

BIBLE PROOF

Evil men and seducers shall wax WORSE AND WORSE.” 2 Tim. 3:13; Matt. 13:30, 39-47; 24:11-14;1 Thess. 5:2, 3; 2 Thess. 2:3-12; 1 Tim. 4:1; 2 Tim. 3:1-5, 12; 2 Pet. 3:3; Rev. 12:17.

TESTIMONY OF MEN

CALVIN, on Matt. 24:30, says:

“There is no reason why any person should expect the conversion of the world.”

LUTHER, on John 10:11, 16 says:

“Some in explaining this passage say, that before the latter days all the world shall become Christians. This is a FALSEHOOD FORGED BY SATAN, that he might darken sound doctrine, that we might not rightly understand it. Beware, therefore, of this delusion.”

DAVID PAREUS, 1590, says:

“It is a thing never to be looked for that the whole earth shall become Christian; since the enemies of the church, together with anti-christ, shall not cease but at the last coming of Christ.”

DR. A. CLARKE, says:

“Probably no such time shall ever appear, in which evil shall be wholly banished from the earth, till after the day of judgment, when the earth having been burned up, a new heaven and a new earth shall be produced out of the ruins of the old, by the mighty power of God, and righteousness alone shall dwell in them.”—Notes on Rev. 20:2.

MATTHEW HENRY, on Luke 18:8, says:

“Even to the end of time will be occasion for the same complaint; the world will grow no better, no, not when it is drawing towards its period. Bad it is, and bad it will be, and worst of all just before Christ’s coming.”

DR. WILLIAM AMES of Norfolk, England A.D. 1640, says:

“The last days by reason of that depravedness and corruption which hath ever prevailed among men, are as it were the SINK of all ages that went before to receive the dregs!”

INCREASE MATHER says:

“And when we pray, ‘Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, we pray for the day of judgment; for then and not till then, will the will of God be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

COTTON MATHER says:

“They indulge themselves in a vain dream, not to say insane, who think, pray and hope, contrary to the whole sacred Scriptures and sound reason, that the promised happiness of the church on earth will be before the Lord Jesus shall appear in his kingdom. They who expect the rest promised for the church of God, to be found anywhere but in the new earth, and they who expect any happy times for the church in a world that hath death and sin in it—these do err not knowing the Scriptures nor the kingdom of God.”

WHITFIELD says:

“As it was formerly, so it is now, and so it will be to the end of time; he that is born after the flesh, the natural man, does and will persecute him that is born after the Spirit, the regenerate man. Notwithstanding some may live in more peaceful times than others, yet all christians in all ages WILL SUFFER PERSECUTION.”—Memoirs and Sermons.

RICHARD BAXTER, in his prayer for Christ’s return, says:

“Stay not till faith have left the earth; and infidelity, and impiety and tyranny have conquered the rest of thine inheritance! Stay not till selfish, uncharitable pride hath vanquished love and self-denial, and planted its colonies of heresy, cruelty, and confusion in thy dominions; and earth and hell be turned into one! Alas ! fellow christians, what should we do if our Lord should not return?”—Works, Vol. 4, p. 164.

Notwithstanding all the above testimonies from the Bible and from good men, thousands have taught that before Christ’s coming the nations would “learn war no more;” and all become holy and happy; and that “swords should be beaten into ploughshares,” &c.

The following will show how the matter stands with Protestant England:

“COMPARATIVE COST OF SWORDS AND PLOUGH-SHARES.—It is estimated that all the agricultural labor done in England in 1847, cost? 18,200,000; and official returns show that the cost of their naval and military establishments for the same year was?? 18,500,000; that is 300,000 more than for all their golden harvests and to the 700,000 laborers who produce them. Grave considerations must arise from such a state of things.”

“WHAT A CITY!—A ragged-school association, in a public appeal, states that there are in London 1,400,000 who never attend public worship, 150,000 habitual drunkards, 150,000 open profligates, 20,000 professed beggars, 10,000 gamblers, 30,000 destitute children, 3,000 receivers of stolen goods. More than ten thousand young men under eighteen years of age are annually committed for theft in Great Britain.”

The Morning Star says:

“The Christian nations of Europe, ‘in time of peace’ are expending $1,000,000,000 annually in preparing for war with each other; while all the Christians of the world, in the largest munificence of their philanthropy, have never given more than $3,000,000 a year in preparing to preach the gospel of peace to the benighted regions of the earth.”

The National Police Gazette says:

“The principal among our leading contemporaries of the daily press, including the Herald, Tribune, Courier and Inquirer and Sun, have lately directed their attention to the subject of the increase of crime in our midst. . . . Crime they all agree has increased, is increasing, and should be diminished.”

The Christian Sun, Va., says:

“Alas! what are we hastening to. Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed for their wickedness. Let us tremble when we think on the wickedness of our own land, and pray that God, in his infinite mercy, may pity us.”

The New York Chronicle says:

“Never was crime more rampant than now. Garroting, burglary, stabbing, fraud, lewdness, forgery, embezzlement, and every imaginable form of wrong, cruelty, and murder meet us at every turn.”

Says the Christian Herald:

“It is a fact that about in the same ratio that the cause of experimental religion declines, immorality and vice increases.”

The Philadelphia Times says:

“Honesty has fled from the world, and sincerity has fallen asleep. Piety has hidden herself, and justice cannot find the way. The helper is not at home, and charity lies sick. Benevolence is under arrest, and faith is nearly extinguished. The virtues go a begging, and truth has long since been buried. Credit is turned lazy, and conscience is pinned to the wall.”

Says the Hornelsville Times:

“The records of the past have never presented a more fearful and corrupt state of society than now exists throughout most parts of the United States. The newspapers from every quarter are becoming more and more loaded with the records of crime, and it would seem as though Satan had actually been let loose for a little season, and was improving his liberty.”

The N. Y. Tribune, speaking of that Christian city says:

“On every hand we have vice and crime, and splendor; crime, vice, rum and beggary.

“And this is the metropolis of the western world to-day, full of uncleanness within and without; the disgrace and sorrow of all good citizens; the very Mecca of political and moral rascals throughout the world.”

An exchange of the Review and Herald speaking of these days, calls them

“Times of moral debasement, political excitement, wars, convulsions and general prostration of the spiritual power of the churches.”

Says DR. GIFFORD:

“The world! the world! the world! This is the object which engrosses every care; this is the supreme deity that is adored. Buy and sell, and get gain—out with the thoughts of death—away with the judgment and heaven—my farms, my merchandise; I will have them, though the earth trembles under my feet, and heaven weeps blood upon my head!”

The Michigan Christian Herald (Baptist) says;

“The home circle is almost an obsolete term, and the lack of a holy home influence is apparent everywhere. The increase of lawlessness and crime among the young has excited the painful remark of hundreds who have not paused to inquire ‘what enemy hath done it.’”

The North American says:

“From the terrible evidences of human depravity which develop themselves from day to day, we begin to think that our cities are rapidly descending to the level of Sodom and Gomorrah.”

WILL THEY CONVERT THE WORLD?

“In Philadelphia and Boston, it is believed at least three-fourths of the people habitually absent themselves from church, and the same may be said of New Bedford, Fall River, Lowell and Worcester. The religious denominations, too, have greatly decreased within ten years. The membership in the Baptist churches in New York city has decreased three hundred and sixty-two since 1845, although the population has increased 261,966. The Presbyterians in ten years, from 1843 to 1853, had decreased in numbers six hundred and sixty. The Methodist, in the same time had lost four hundred and sixty-one, and there has been but one self-supporting Reformed Dutch Church planted in New York during fifteen years. Such are some of the statistics of spiritual declension, while, as a contrast to this picture, we have six thousand grog shops, and twenty-five hundred brothers!”

The Golden Rule says:

“Our Sabbaths in New York are more like holidays, days of pleasure-seeking, feasting, gossiping, rowdyism and riot, than days of holy rest. O, what an infinite mercy that God has not, ere this, sent his hottest thunderbolts, his fiercest wrath, on this guilty city and guilty nation! Wo, wo, wo, to the bloody city—Wo, wo, wo to him that striveth with his Maker—Wo, wo!”

The N. Y. Herald says:

“Crimes of all descriptions are on the increase, especially those of the blackest dye, the increase being much greater than the proportionate increase of population.”

Says the Expositor, a political paper:

“Crimes, unprecedented in number, and unequaled in atrocity, fill every section of our country with horrors, exhibiting a hardened barbarity, in their details, only to be exceeded in the bosom of demons,” &c.

Says the Scientific American:

“It is admitted, by all parties, that crimes of the most outrageous and unprecedented character abound through the country, and probably throughout the world, to a degree wholly unparalleled.”

Says the Boston Recorder:

“Within the last forty years commitments for crimes have increased in England from five to thirty-one thousand, more than six-fold, and four times faster than the increase of population. In Scotland, the increase of crime in the same period has arisen from eighty-nine to three thousand eight hundred and eighty-four—forty-three fold, and has advanced twenty-five time faster than the population. That this prodigious increase has occurred during a period of almost unbroken peace, amid great improvements in criminal legislation and prison discipline, too, and notwithstanding unparalleled efforts to diffuse education and religion, creates a problem of no easy solution.”

The N. Y. Herald, speaking of France, says:

“Of separations between husband and wives, the number has arisen from six hundred and forty-three in A. D. 1837, to eleven hundred and eight in A.D. 1844. [Since then up to the present time, the records show an alarming increase.—M. E. C.] If we turn to criminal records, we shall find the same painful facts. It is estimated that there are annually, in the United States, five hundred thousand cases of assault and battery, one hundred thousand thefts, eight hundred suicides, eight hundred murders.”

Mr. MACAULAY, of England, says:

“We often hear it said that the world is constantly becoming more and more enlightened, and that this enlightening must be favorable to Protestantism, &c. We wish we could think so. But we see great reason to doubt whether this be a well-founded expectation. We see that, during the last two hundred and fifty years, the human mind has been to the highest degree active; that it has made great advances in every branch of natural philosophy, &c. . . . . Yet we see that, during these two hundred and fifty years, Protestantism has made no conquests worth speaking of. Nay, we believe that, as far as there has been a change, that change has been in favor of the church of Rome.”

Tract No. 470, of the American Tract Society, on the world’s conversion, says:

“As yet there is no evidence that these expectations are about to be realized. The present generation of Christians exhibit no evidence that they are about to rise to higher piety, and to discharge their hitherto neglected duty to the perishing world. We discover no such cheering indications in those who are coming upon the stage. The young are not converted. . . . And the young who do experience religion are not rising to any higher piety, or putting forth more strenuous efforts, than their predecessors. What then is the ground to expect that the church will be better qualified to evangelize the world thirty years hence, than at the present, or will do more to accomplish it? Facts, so far as the present condition of the young is concerned, compel the answer, NONE.”

The Apostle, speaking of the last days, declares that men shall be “LOVERS OF PLEASURES more than lovers of God.” 2 Tim. 3:4.

This has literally come to pass before our eyes; and is manifest by the peculiar bails thrown out by the captains of “vanity fairs” to draw in the multitude. We have seen on their show-bills, in blazing capitals, “LOVERS OF PLEASURE. ATTENTION!!!” and the following:

“A GOOD TIME COMING, BOYS!”

“JIM MYERS, Emperor of all the clowns! High Priest of Fun! Prince of Jesters! Grand Duke of Nonsense! And the soul and embodiment of Wit.”

These exciting announcements call together an indiscriminate mass of all classes of society, (church members not excepted,) where they listen to the “Grand Duke of Nonsense” until after ten o’clock at night; occasionally making the whole village ring with their united shouts of HURRAH! and laughter at the witticism of one of the most hardened rebels against God. With what fearful certainty do the above facts mark the present as “the last days” of “perilous times!”

The following items from the papers will give some idea of the state of things in New York city:

“MURDERS.—Three hundred murders committed in New York city within the last three years! All these murderers escaped the halter, save one, a man of color. The colored man, having ‘no rights which white men are bound to respect,’ and no fortune to expend on attorneys and judges, of course had to hang.”

“A DARK PICTURE.—In the city department of one of the daily papers last week, we read the following heads: ‘Elopement from Saratoga,’ ‘The late Bank Defalcation,’ ‘Barnum Arrested,’ ‘A Pitiful Case,’—man found dying of consumption on the ground, ‘Highway Robbery, and Attempted Murder,’ ‘Arrest of Coiners,’ ‘Little Girl found in the Water,’ ‘Theft of Valuable Diamonds,’ ‘A Man Accidentally Killed,’ ‘River Thieves at Work,’—one shot, ‘Accidentally Drowned,’ ‘Forgery,’ ‘Swindling Operation,’ ‘Alleged Swindle by the Keeper of a Loan Office,’ ‘Supposed Infanticide,’ ‘Petty Theft,’ ‘Attempt to take Life,’ ‘Attempt at Suicide,’ and so on. This is a pretty good one day’s catalogue; but it would swell out an ordinary sized newspaper to record all the crimes and casualties that occur in this city during a day and night. Criminals are as thick as musquitoes in Jersey meadows, and a majority of them escape the vigilance of the police, while a countless gang of swindlers infest and curse the community whom the law does not pretend to interfere with, such as Peter Funks, Ticket swindlers, Tombs lawyers, and Wall-street brokers. We often wonder what sort of places Sodom and Gomorrah were, to be destroyed for their sins, when New York is still above ground.”

The New Orleans Del says:

“Although the murders in New Orleans will average one in every twelve hours, this (the conviction of Frank Smith for the murder of his wife) is the second conviction without qualification for eight years! There is a fault somewhere, and should be remedied. So many murders, assassinations, fights, drownings, and ‘found dead,’ should lead to some endeavors for their stoppage. As it is, no one is ever found guilty of murder here. We wish the wrong could be remedied, but have no reason to hope it will. A jury cannot be empanneled in New Orleans who will find any man guilty of murder if they can help it.”

WHAT IS BABYLON?

Jer. 51:6-9. Rev. 14:8; 17:5; 18:2-4.—The word Babylon comes from Babel and signifies “mixture, confusion.” We read of Babylon the great, the mother of harlots, &c. Protestant commentators agree that this “mother” is the Catholic church, and if so, who are the “harlot daughters,” but the various Protestant sects? If “the woman” singular [Rev. 17:4] be a symbol of one church, (Catholic) then, “women” plural, [Rev. 14:4,] are symbols of CHURCHES. The Catholic church is a unit the world over. But when we consider the hundreds of Protestant sects, with all their discordant theories, their spirit of oppression, and their connection with the civil power, we cannot avoid the conclusion that they belong to the Babylon of the Apocalypse.

On this subject J. N. ANDREWS says:

“The United States disclaim a national religion, and yet nearly all her religious bodies are incorporated by the State. Babylon has made all the nations drunken with her wine; it can therefore symbolize nothing less than the universal worldly church. War, slavery, conformity to the world, pride, intemperance, politics and the like, identify with sad and faithful accuracy, the great body of the Protestant churches, as an important constituent part of this great Babylon.”—Three Angels pp. 46, 47.

“This confusion,” says J. H. WAGGONER,

“Was aptly noticed in an anniversary sermon in New York by Dr. Riddle of Pittsburgh, who thus speaks of the danger of the country from Catholic influence and the want of union and energy on the part of Protestants.

“A village in the West, for one half its population, which is Catholic, has one church and pastor, one Lord, one faith, one baptism; the other half which is Protestant, has five or six pastors and churches, and each has his separate ‘psalm, doctrine, tongue, revelation, and interpretation!’ Yet, ‘God is not the author of confusion,’ but of peace, in all the churches of the saints.”

This frank statement of a Protestant doctor shows clearly that the confusion is not alone in the ‘Catholic, but in the Protestant churches.

The Tennessee Baptist says:

“This woman [Popery] is called the mother of harlots and abominations. Who are the daughters? The Lutheran, the Presbyterian and the Episcopalian churches are all branches of the [Roman] Catholic. Are not these demonstrated ‘harlots and abominations’ in the above passage. I so decide. I could not with the stake before me decide otherwise. Presbyterians and Episcopalians compose a part of Babylon. They hold the distinctive principles of Papacy in common with Papists.”

ALEXANDER CAMPBELL says;

“The worshipping establishments now in operation throughout christendom, increased and cemented by their respective voluminous confessions of faith, and their ecclesiastical constitutions, are not churches of Jesus Christ; but the legitimate daughters of that mother of harlots—the church of Rome.”

LORENZO DOW says:

“We read not only of Babylon, but of the where of Babylon, styled the mother of harlots, which is supposed to mean the Romish church. If she be a mother, who are her daughters? It must be the corrupt national established churches that came out of her; if so, what of those governments that support them? But oh! the cry of national sins! are not Connecticut and Massachusetts in possession of a quaternion, or some of the tincture? Behold the conduct of the clergy!”—Dow’s Life, p. 542.

The Religious Encyclopedia, (Art. Anti-christ,) says:

“Is Anti-christ confined to the church of Rome? The answer is readily returned in the affirmative by Protestants in general; and happy had it been for the world were that the case. But although we are fully warranted to consider that church as “the mother of harlots,” the truth is that by whatever arguments we succeed in fixing that odious charge upon her, we shall by parity of reasoning be obliged to allow all other national churches to be her unchaste daughters; and for this very plain reason among others, because, in their very constitution and tendency, they are hostile to the nature of the kingdom of Christ.” “Such national churches therefore, though they may be purged from many of the grosser evils of the Romish church, yet being constituted upon similar principles, . . . can only be allowed to differ from the Romish church, as a grain of arsenic differs from an ounce.

“The writer of the book of Revelation tells us he heard a voice from heaven saying, ‘Come out of her my people, that ye partake not of her sins, and receive not of her plagues.’ If such persons are to be found in the ‘Mother of Harlots,’ with much less hesitation may it be inferred that they are connected with her unchaste daughters, those national churches which are founded upon what are called PROTESTANT PRINCIPLES.”

DR. JOHN CUMMINGS, of England, says:

“If all visible ecclesiastical organizations—church of England, church of Scotland, church Independent, Wesleyan, and Baptist—are to be broken up in order to give place to a nobler that man cannot make, &c., . . . let us think less of being Churchmen, or of being Dissenters, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, or Baptists; and be more anxious to be what was first at Antioch, and shall be last on earth—Christians, or followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have seen that great Babylon is to be broken up and destroyed. If this be the case, and it is to be consumed, what should it teach us? What course of conduct should we pursue? First, surely it is not our duty to support it. This is neither our duty, nor will it lengthen the existence of Babylon a single day. Nor, secondly, is it our duty to persecute it; that would be to take weapons from her armory as unchristian as her own. Then what is our duty? To call to all that are at this moment in the church of Rome, whether sprinkled by her baptismal waters, or imitating within ANOTHER CHURCH her forms, her ceremonies, her pomp, and her grandeur, to come out of her, lest partaking of her sins they receive also of her plagues.”—The End, p. 241.

The prophetic Word describes Babylon after her fall, as the “HABITATION OF DEVILS,” and it is a fact that thousands in the various Protestant churches are becoming Spiritualists.

The Spiritual Age says:

“Many prominent clergymen of this city [N.Y.] are much interested, and hold private circles together to investigate it, where many convincing tests have been given.”

The Spiritual Telegraph says:

“The churches are beginning to make up their minds that a Spiritualist may even be a Christian.”

Again a writer in the same paper says:

“Thus Spiritualism has advanced, and thus has fallen the opposition, until in Vermont alone seventy churches [built by, or embracing nearly all our sects] have been opened for the use of Spiritualists.” But to return to the general fact, the writer humbly admits that he can hardly explain why seventy churches have been opened; he can only cite the power of the spirit; he will not be deemed assuming or excited when he claims that his knowledge of these things is certain. After traveling in nearly all parts of the State, and meeting with thousands of intelligent men and women, and occupying [by invitation] more than sixty of the seventy desks, he must know something of the condition of his State.”

A clergyman, a Spiritualist of Phillipston, Mass., writing to the Spiritual Telegraph, says:

“For five years I have preached these same views as fast and as far as they have been communicated to my mind; and although the wolves have sometimes howled, still the people have heard me gladly. There is a power exercised over me in the pulpit [or through me] of which I am unconscious elsewhere, and as yet no voice has been raised within or without the church to silence me.”

“VOICE FROM THE FIFTH CENTURY”

Chrysostom, on false teachers, says,

“When thou seest the holy Scriptures regarded as an abomination by men that outwardly profess to be Christians, and those that teach God’s word, hated; when the people rush to hear fable-mongers and genealogies and teachings of DEMONS, then bethink thee of the saying, ‘In the last days there shall be an apostasy from the faith.’” 1 Tim. 4:1.—Voice of the Church, p. 208.

PROTESTANT CHURCHES RESPONSIBLE FOR THE SIN OF AMERICAN SLAVERY

A work lately published in Battle Creek, Mich., contains the following:

“Protestants also are slave-holders. It appears from the late census report that ‘660,563 slaves are owned in this country (United States) by ministers of the gospel and members of the different Protestant churches; viz., 217,563 Methodists, 77,000 Presbyterians, 125,000 Baptists, 87,000 Episcopalians, 101,000 Campbellites, and 53,000 other denominations.’ If the church of the North does not hold slaves, she fellowships those of the South who do. It is true that in one of the churches above named, (the M. E. Church,) an attempt was made to free the northern branch from slavery, but as admitted by one of their ministers not long since, there are still many slave-holders in the northern branch of that church.”

The celebrated ALBERT BARNES, whose Notes are used extensively in Sunday Schools, says:

“Let the time come, when in all the mighty denominations, it can be announced that the evil is ceased with them forever, with no mealy words, with no effort to throw the shield of religion over it, and the work is done. THERE IS NO POWER OUT OF THE CHURCH THAT COULD SUSTAIN SLAVERY AN HOUR, IF IT WERE NOT SUSTAINED IN IT.”

Again, he says:

“The churches are the bulwark of American Slavery.”

PATRICK HENRY, in a letter dated Jan. 18^th, 1773, says:

“Is it not a little surprising that the professors of christianity, whose chief excellence consists in softening the human heart, in cherishing and improving its finest feelings, should encourage a practice so totally repugnant to the first impressions of right and wrong? What adds to the wonder, is, that this abominable practice has been introduced in the most enlightened ages. Times that seem to have pretensions to boast of high improvements in the arts and sciences, and refined morality, have brought into general use, and guarded by many laws, a species of violence and tyranny which our more rude and barbarous, but more honest ancestors detested.”

JOHN FAY, Esq., of the City of New York—a most exemplary Episcopalian—in a pamphlet entitled, “Thoughts on the Duty of the Episcopal Church, in Relation to Slavery,” says:

“Alas! for the expectation that she would conform to the spirit of her ancient mother! She has not merely remained a mute and careless spectator of this great conflict of truth and justice with hypocrisy and cruelty, but her very priests and deacons may be seen ministering at the altar of slavery, offering their talents and influence at its unholy shrine, and openly repeating the awful blasphemy, that the precepts of our Saviour sanction the system of American slavery. Her Northern clergy, with rare exceptions, whatever they may feel on the subject, rebuke it neither in public nor in private, and her periodicals, far from advancing the progress of abolition, at times oppose our societies, impliedly defending slavery, as not incompatible with Christianity, and occasionally withholding information useful to the cause of freedom.”

Mr. JOSEPH P. THOMPSON, pastor of the Broadway Tabernacle church, New York, speaking of the pro-slavery principles of professed Christians in that city says:

“I know what I say, when I affirm that there were men of standing in the churches, who, in private conversation, thus placed their worldly interests above the admitted claims of humanity and of the law of Christ. Christian men did say, ‘We abhor slavery as much as you; but we must not agitate the subject, for we should then lose our Southern trade.”

JAMES SMYLIE, Presbyterian clergyman of Mississippi, says:

“If slavery be a sin, and advertising and apprehending slaves, with a view to restore them to their masters, is a direct violation of the divine law, and if the buying, selling, or holding a slave, for the sake of gain, is a heinous sin and scandal, then, verily, three-fourths of all the Episcopalians, Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians, in eleven States of the Union, are of the devil. They ‘hold,’ if they do not buy and sell slaves, and, with few exceptions, they hesitate not ‘to apprehend and restore’ runaway slaves when in their power.”

Mr. WILLIAM WINANS, of Mississippi, in the Methodist Episcopal General Conference, in 1836, said:

“Yes, sir, Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, should be slaveholders:—yes, he repeated it boldly—there should be members, and deacons, and ELDERS, and BISHOPS, too, who are slaveholders.”

Dr. W. B. JOHNSON, of South Carolina, President of the Baptist General Convention, in 1843, said:

“When in any country, slavery has become a part of its settled policy, the inhabitants, even Christians, may hold slaves without crime.”

J. C. POSTELL, in a sermon delivered in July, 1836, at Orangeburgh, S. C., remarked:

“So far from slavery’s being a moral evil, it is a merciful visitation. And why does it now exist amidst all the power of legislation in the State and Church, and the clamour of abolitionists: ‘It is the Lord’s (Devil’s) doings, and marvelous in our eyes.’”

A Missionary of the Baptist board writes:

“MERGUI, Oct. 27, 1846.

MESSRS. EDITORS:—Will you, or some of your valuable correspondents, tell me how to meet the following objection, which I have to meet wherever I go among the wild Karens! ‘If we become disciples, when you get a large number of us, you intend to entice us away and make slaves of us in your own country.’ This objection is often urged with as much seriousness and confidence, as though they were actually acquainted with the system of American slavery. Did these ignorant, but slave-hating heathens, but know the SLAVEHOLDING CHARACTER OF THE AMERICAN CHURCHES—would they not say to our faces, ‘Go back, thou hypocrite—Go back, and teach the heathen of your own country, and give them the Bible, before you come here to impose upon us.’ Sometime since, I noticed in a public paper the following remark, as coming from Bro. Kincaid: ‘If the heathen were aware of the slaveholding character of our churches, by whom the missionaries are sent out, the usefulness of the missionaries would be at an end.

D. S. BRAYTON.”

ROBERT J. BRECKENRIDGE, of Baltimore, one of the greatest ministers in the Presbyterian church, says:

“Its (slavery’s) political aspect, we grant, is bad enough, and fairly belies our high sounding professions of republicanism, but its evils, in a moral point of view, may truly be termed LEGION. The church has cherished it in her bosom, and sustained it by her example, until it has reared its head so high in the sanctuary as almost to BID DEFIANCE TO HER AUTHORITY. This is evidently one of the worst signs of the times. But if we must wait for the civil authorities to take the lead in opposing this sin, what is it but an acknowledgment that politics are purer than religion.”

JOHN ANGELL JAMES, an English Divine, whose praise is in all the American churches, says:

“Men do not see the sin of slavery and war, however clearly they perceive, and willingly acknowledge, their evils. And why do they not see it? Because their spiritual vision is weakened by the feebleness of their piety. The sense of the spiritual eye is in the heart; and if that be dull and obtuse, moral truth is not, and cannot be, clearly discerned.”

The celebrated Dr. BARNES, on Temperance Reform, says:

“The work was arduous and long. The church stood in the way of the progress of the cause, and still stands in the way. Mortifying and sad as it is, I hesitate not to say that, taking the country at large, in my judgment there is not so serious an obstacle to the entire success of the temperance reformation, as the habits and opinions of ministers and members of the CHURCHES.”

The Mercer Luminary contains a letter which was read at a late general assembly, from which we take the following:

“What shocked me more than anything else was, the church engaged in this jobbing of slaves. The college church which I attended, and which was attended by all the students of Hamden Sydney Sydney College and Union Theological Seminary, held slaves enough to pay their pastor, Mr. Stanton, ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS a year.”

A Minister’s letter to the Presbyterian congregations of West Hanover Presbytery, has the following:

“Now, dear Christian brethren, I humbly express it as my earnest wish, that you quit yourselves like men. If there be any stray goat of a minister among you, tainted with the blood-hound principles of abolitionism, let him be ferreted out, silenced, excommunicated, and left to the public to dispose of him in other respects.

Your affectionate brother in the Lord,

ROBERT N. ANDERSON.”

BISHOP MEDE, in a book of sermons for masters and slaves, thus addresses the latter:

“Almighty God has been pleased to make you slaves here, and to give you nothing but labor and poverty in this world, which you are obliged to submit to, as it is his will that it should be so. If, therefore, you would be God’s freemen in heaven, you must strive to be good and serve him here on earth. Your bodies, you know, are not your own; they are at the disposal of those you belong to, &c.”

Rev. Dr. DEWEY (Unitarian) says:

“It is a duty to return fugitives, and that he would return his own brother or child into slavery, rather than that the Union between the free and slave States should be dissolved.”

And Dr. TAYLOR, of Yale College, at the head of the Theological department, said:

“If Jesus Christ were now on earth, he would, under certain circumstances, become a slaveholder.”

Says GARDNER SPRING, D.D., an old and very prominent man in the O. S. Pres., of New York:

“If by one prayer I could free every slave in the world, I would not dare to offer it.”

The awful condition of the Protestant churches in their connection with American slavery, will be manifest by the following testimony from the Bible, and from good and learned men:

BIBLE PROTEST AGAINST SLAVERY

“Is not this the fast that I have chosen, to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to LET THE OPPRESSED GO FREE, and that ye break every yoke?” Isa. lviii, 6.

Ex. 2:23; 3:7; 21:16; 22:21-24; Lev. 29:33, 34; 25:10, 30, 40; Deut. 23:15, 16; 24:14, 15; Prov. 3:31; 14:31; 23:22, 23; Jer. 17:11; 22:13; 34:17; Ezek. 45:9.—Mal. 3:5; Matt. 7:12; Luke 11:45, 46; Heb. 13:3; James 5:4-6; Rev. 18:13.

This last quotation represents Babylon (Apostate churches,) at the time of her fall, as dealing in “SLAVES AND SOULS OF MEN.

TESTIMONY OF STATESMEN, PHILOSOPHERS, AND CHRISTIANS

WASHINGTON in a letter to LAFAYETTE, says:

“Your late purchase of an estate in the Colony of Cayenne, with the view of emancipating the slaves on it, is a generous and noble proof of your humanity. Would to God a like spirit might diffuse itself generally into the minds of the people of this country.”

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, the principles of which were held so sacred by fifty-four men, that they vowed to lay down their honor, fortunes and lives, for its support; and which is now acknowledged (theoretically) by both the civil and ecclesiastical powers of this great nation, says:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL; and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, LIBERTY, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Mr. MADISON, author of the Constitution, says:

“It is wrong to admit into the Constitution the idea that there can be property in man.”

“Where slavery exists, the republican theory becomes still more fallacious.”

Mr. MONROE, in the Virginia Convention, said:

“We have found that this evil has preyed upon the very vitals of the Union, and has been prejudicial to all the States, in which it has existed.”

JOHN RANDOLPH, while in Congress, said:

“Sir, I envy neither the heart nor the head of that man from the North, who rises here to defend slavery on principle.”

HENRY CLAY, in the United States Senate, in 1850, said:

“So long as God allows the vital current to flow through my veins, I will never, never, never, by word or thought, by mind or will, aid in admitting one rood of free territory to the everlasting curse of human bondage.”

Mr. LEIGH, in the Legislature of Virginia, in 1832, said:

“I thought, till very lately, that it was known to everybody that, during the Revolution, and for many years after, the abolition of slavery was a favorite topic with many of our ablest statesmen, &c.”

Mr. CHANDLER, in the Virginia Legislature, in 1832, said:

“It is admitted by all who have addressed this House, that slavery is a curse, and an increasing one. That its future increase will create commotion, cannot be doubted.”

Mr. SUMMERS, at the same time and place, said:

“The evils of this system cannot be enumerated. They glare upon us at every step.”

J. C. FREMONT, says:

“I am opposed to slavery in the abstract, and upon principles sustained and made habitual by long settled convictions.”

FRANCIS P. BLAIR, in an address to the republicans of Maryland, in 1856, said:

“In every aspect in which slavery among us can be considered, it is pregnant with difficulty.”

JAMES G. BIRNEY, says:

“We have so long practiced injustice, adding to it hypocrisy, in the treatment of the colored race, both negroes and Indians, that we begin to regard injustice as an element—the chief element of our Government.”

Hon. WILLIAM PINKNEY. This eminent lawyer and statesman about seventy years ago, said:

“By the eternal principles of natural justice, no master in the State has a right to hold his slave in bondage a single hour.”

LUTHER MARTIN, of Carolina, in 1787, said:

“Slavery is inconsistent with the genius of republicanism, and has a tendency to destroy those principles on which it is supported, as it lessens the sense of the equal rights of mankind, and habituates us to tyranny and oppression.”

JOHN JAY, first Chief Justice of the U. S., in a letter dated Nov. 17, 1819, on the abolition of slavery, says:

“Till America comes into this measure, her prayers to Heaven will be impious. This is a strong expression, but it is just. I believe that God governs the world, and I believe it to be a maxim in His, as in our courts, that those who ask for equity, ought to do it.”

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, says:

“It is among the evils of slavery, that it taints the very sources of moral principle. It establishes false estimates of virtue and vice; for what can be more false and more heartless than this doctrine, which makes the first and holiest rights of humanity to depend upon the color of the skin?”

DANIEL WEBSTER, in a letter dated February 15, 1850, said:

“From my earliest youth, I have regarded slavery as a great moral and political evil.”

NOAH WEBSTER, the great American vocabulist, says:

“That freedom is the sacred right of every man, whatever be his color, who has not forfeited it by some violation of municipal law, is a truth established by God himself, in the very creation of human beings. No time, no circumstance, no human power or policy can change the nature of this truth, nor repeal the fundamental laws of society, by which every man’s right to liberty is guaranteed.”

PITT says:

“It is injustice to permit slavery to remain a single hour.”

COWPER, says:

“Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs receive our air, that moment they are free. They touch our country and their shackles fall. That’s noble, and bespeaks a nation proud and jealous of the blessing.”

Dr. JOHNSON, says:

“No man is by nature the property of another. The rights of nature must be some way forfeited before they can be justly taken away.”

LAFAYETTE says:

“I would never have drawn my sword in the cause of America, if I could have conceived that thereby I was founding a land of slavery.”

CICERO says:

“By the grand laws of nature, all men are born free, and this law is universally binding upon all men.”

SOCRATES, says:

“Slavery is a system of outrage and robbery.”

PLATO, says:

“Slavery is a system of the most complete injustice.”

ALBERT BARNES, (Presbyterian Commentator,) says:

“There is a deep and growing conviction in the minds of the mass of mankind, that slavery violates the great laws of our nature; that it is contrary to the dictates of humanity; that it is essentially unjust, oppressive and cruel.”

THOMAS SCOTT, (Presbyterian Commentator,) says:

“To number the persons of men with beasts, sheep, and horses, as the stock of a farm, or with bales of goods, as the cargo of a ship, is, no doubt, a most detestable and anti-christian practice.”

BISHOP HORSELY, (Episcopal,) says:

“Slavery is injustice, which no consideration of policy can extenuate.”

BISHOP PORTEUS, (Episcopal,) says:

“The Bible classes men-stealers, or slave-traders among the murderers of fathers and mothers, and the most profane criminals on earth.”

Dr. FRANCIS WAYLAND, one of the most learned and distinguished Baptists now living, says:

“Slavery violates the personal liberty of man as a physical, intellectual, and moral being.”

JOHN WESLEY, says:

“Men-buyers are exactly on a level with men-stealers. American slavery is the vilest that ever saw the sun; it constitutes the sum of all villainies.”

Dr. A. CLARKE, says:

“Slave-dealers, whether those who carry on the traffic in human flesh and blood; or those who steal a person in order to sell him into bondage; or those who buy such stolen men and women, no matter of what color, or what country; or the nations who legalize or connive at such traffic; all these are men-stealers, and God classes them with the most flagitious of mortals.”

BABYLON FALLEN

The present fallen condition of the religious world noted in the scriptures. Hosea 5:5-7; Matt. 24:12; 1 Tim. 4:1; 2 Tim. 3:1-5.

When one of MARTIN LUTHER’S guests remarked that the world might continue fifty years, he replied:

“Pray God it may not exist so long; matters would be even worse than they have been. There would rise up infinite sects and schisms, which are at present hidden in men’s hearts not mature. No; may the Lord come at once, for there is no amendment to be expected.”

MATTHEW HENRY, on Luke 18:8, remarks:

“Now when he comes will he find faith on the earth? The question implies a strong negative; no, he shall not, he himself foresees it. In general he will find but few good people, few that are really and truly good; many that have the form and fashion of godliness, but few that have faith.”

Dr. COTTON MATHER, says:

“A little before the burning day the nominal church will be like a dead, putrid, carcass, having no faith in the Lord’s coming.”

Dr. GILL, on the signs of Christ’s coming, says:

“Which yet will be observed by a few, such a general sleepiness will have seized all professors of religion, &c.” On Rev, 3:20.

The above testimonies show what is to be looked for in the last days, and the following will show that the same has come to pass.

Dr. CUMMING, of England, says:

“I believe that one-half of the professors of the gospel are nothing better than practical infidels.”—Time of the end, p. 183.

Prof. FINNEY, of Oberlin College, in 1844, said:

“Spiritual apathy is almost all-pervading, and is fearfully deep; so the religious press of the whole land testifies. It comes to our ears and to our eyes, also through the religious prints, that very extensively church members are becoming devotees of fashion—join hands with the ungodly in parties of pleasure, in dancing, in festivities, &c. But we need not expand this painful subject. Suffice it that the evidence thickens and rolls heavily upon us, to show that the churches are becoming sadly degenerate. They have gone very far from the Lord and he has withdrawn himself from them.”

The Christian Palladium of the same year, said:

“In every direction we hear the dolorous sound, wafting upon every breeze of heaven, chilling as the blasts from the icebergs of the North—settling like an incubus on the breasts of the timid, and drinking up the energies of the weak; that lukewarmness, division, anarchy, and desolation are distressing the borders of Zion.”

The Congregational Journal, for the same year, said:

“At a recent meeting of the Presbytery of Philadelphia, Rev. Mr. Barnes, pastor of the 1^st Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, whose notes are so extensively used in our families and Sabbath-schools, stated that he had been in the ministry for twenty years, and never till the last communion had he administered the ordinance without receiving more or less to the church. But now there are no awakenings, no conversions, not much apparent growth in grace in professors, and none come to his study to converse about the salvation of their souls. With the increase of business, and the brightening prospects of commerce and manufactures, there is an increase of worldly-mindedness. Thus it is with all denominations.”

The Religious Telescope, of Circleville, Ohio, in 1844, contained the following:

“Great Spiritual Dearth.—It is a lamentable fact, from which we cannot shut our eyes, that the churches of this country are now suffering severely on account of the great dearth, almost universally complained of. We have never witnessed such a general declension of religion as at the present.—Truly the church should awake and search into the cause of this affliction; for an affliction every one that loves Zion must view it. When we call to mind how ‘few and far between,’ cases of true conversion are, and the almost unparalleled impertinence and hardness of sinners, we almost involuntarily exclaim, ‘Has God forgotten to be gracious?’ Or, is the door of mercy closed?”

The Michigan Christian Herald, (Baptist,) says:

“In asking you to review with us the present aspect of the Christian cause, it is not our purpose to stir you to a new burst of grief over a languishing church, or to retail again with a useless sorrow, the story of the declensions of modern piety. Too well, already do we all know how the foul tides of fashion and folly have swept to the very altar-places of our faith, and too surely and strongly do we all feel, in our own hearts, the awful power of an over-active age which hurries us so remorselessly away from the places of holy contemplation and prayer, and plunges us into the whirling vortices of worldly care. It is rather to the fruits of this long night of declension—this sleep of the churches—that our thoughts now return.”

JOHN GULLIVER, President of the American Systematic Beneficence Society, at Philadelphia, says:

“It is presumed that no one will deny that covetousness is the crying sin of our American churches, that it is eating out their spirituality, and ripening them for the doom of the seven churches in Asia. It is well known that the process of accumulation among our church members, is advancing at a fearful rate, amounting as is estimated, to more than two hundred and fifty millions of dollars annually; annually; and while the expenditures for amusements and luxuries are almost fabulously great, the contributions for benevolent purposes are shamefully small.”

ROBERT ATKINS, in a sermon preached in London, says:

“The truly righteous are diminished from the earth, and no man layeth it to heart. The professors of religion of the present day, in every church are lovers of creature-comfort, and aspirers after respectability. They are called to suffer with Christ, but they shrink from even approach.

“Apostasy, apostasy, apostasy, is engraven on the very front of every church; and did they know it, and did they feel it, there might be hope; but, alas! they cry, ‘We are rich, and increased in goods, and stand in need of nothing.’”

Mr. O. SCOTT, (Wesleyan Methodist,) says:

“The church is as deeply infected with a desire for worldly gain, as the world.

“The churches are making a god of this world.

“Most of the denominations of the present day might be called churches of the world, with more propriety than churches of Christ.

“The churches are so far gone from primitive christianity that they need a fresh regeneration—a new kind of religion.”

Says the Golden Rule:

“The Protestants are out-doing the Popes in splendid, extravagant folly in church building.—Thousands on thousands are expended in gay and costly ornaments to gratify pride, and a wicked ambition, that might and should go to redeem the perishing millions! Does the evil, the folly, and the madness of these proud, formal, fashionable worshipers stop here?

“These splendid monuments of popish pride, upon which millions are squandered in our cities, virtually exclude the poor, for which Christ died, and for whom he came especially to preach.”

The report of the Michigan Yearly Conference, published in the True Wesleyan of Nov. 15, 1851, says:

“The world, commercial, political and ecclesiastical, are alike, and are together going in the broad way that leads to death. Politics, commerce, and nominal religion all connive at sin, reciprocally aid each other, and unite to crush the poor. Falsehood is unblushingly uttered in the forum and in the pulpit; and sins that would shock the moral sensibilities of the heathen, go unrebuked in all great denominations of our land. These churches are like Jewish church when the Saviour exclaimed, ‘Wo unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.’”

The Christian Advocate & Journal, says:

“We want preachers. Our church is suffering for the want of them. We want members. Our church is crippled in her energies, and impeded in her progress, and chilled in her soul, and faint in her spirit, because the word is not successful as it ought to be—as it used to be.”

The Genesee Evangelist, says:

“Our Zion is in a state of mourning. The Holy Spirit has not visited us as in former years, and we have great cause for deep humiliation in view of the sins and worldliness and spiritual indifference of most of our churches.”

A writer in the American Baptist, speaking of the tendency of that denomination, says:

“I read some days since the report of proceedings in the recent Board meeting of the Missionary Union, and a splendid thing that it is. Rev. so and so, D.D., Rev. so and so, D.D., nearly thirty times in the preliminary proceedings of the first day; and so on, to such a dizzy height of D.D.’s, that I gave up the count—profoundly penetrated with the thought that we are a great denomination. * * Such things look well enough on the brow of the Mother of Harlots-but in the church of Christ—the Baptist church—O shade of Roger Williams—where are we drifting.”

The Litchfield Republican, says:

“It is painful to see the extent of external religion in the world. Everything appears to be for mere show and effect, without there being any heart or genuine feeling in it.”

Mr. SPURGEON, says:

“Reflecting the other day upon the sad state of the churches at the present moment, I was led to look back to apostolic times, and to consider wherein the preaching of the present day differed from the apostles. I remarked the vast difference in their style from the set and formal oratory of the present age. I remarked that the apostles did not take a text when they preached, nor did they confine themselves to one subject, much less to any place of worship, but I find they stood up in any place and declared what they knew of Jesus Christ. Surprised I was I discovered that the very staple of the apostle’s preaching was the resurrection of the dead.” Sermons, p. 262.

A. CAMPBELL, says:

“A reformation of popery was attempted in Europe full three centuries ago. It ended in a protestant hierarchy, and swarms of dissenters.—Protestantism has been reformed into Presbyterianism—that into Congregationalism—and that into Baptistism, &c., &c. Methodism has attempted to reform all, but has reformed itself into many forms of Wesleyanism. All of them retain in their bosom, in their ecclesiastic organizations, worship, doctrines, and observances, various relics of popery.—They are at best a reformation of popery, and only in part reformations. The doctrines and traditions of men yet impair the power and progress of the gospel in their hands.” On Baptism, p. 15.

The New York Chronicle, says:

“Most of the denominations that have sprung up since the year 1500, have governments, usages, ceremonies, and constitutions appended by human beings to the Christian system, and persevered in and sustained also by the ‘will of man.’”

R. W. EMERSON, says:

“I think no man can go with his thoughts about him into one of our churches, without feeling that what hold the public worship had on men is gone or going. It has lost its grasp on the affections of the good, and the fear of the bad. It is already beginning to indicate character and religion to withdraw from religious meetings. I have heard a devout person, who prized the Sabbath, say in bitterness of heart, ‘On Sundays it seems wicked to go church.’ And the motive that holds the best there is now only a hope, and a waiting.”—Address before the Theological School, Cambridge, Mass.

The Golden Rule, says:

“What must an eagle-eyed world of sinners think and say to see such men as Rev. N. ADAMS, an advocate of the ‘the sum of all villainies,’ placed on the Executive Committee of the American Tract Society! And such men as Judge O’NEIL, a wicked, cruel, inveterate slave-holder, chosen as vice-President of the American Bible Society!

The Zion’s Herald, alluding to these facts says:

“This discussion is of a grave import. Much of the christianity in this country is weakened and crippled. A religion that dares not rebuke stealing, adultery, and blasphemy, under the general name of slavery, is a whited sepulchre, and is in alliance with the bitterest foes of Christ.”

The New York Weekly Day Book, says:

“It is no wonder that clergymen are losing all their influence, when the public see the most selfish and abandoned men sailing under the name of Reverend. It is no wonder that the churches of all denominations in this city, except the Catholic, have decreased in membership during the past ten years, although the population has increased over 250,000, when the clergymen are forsaking the gospel for politics, and when it is considered much more important to pass laws for the suppression of vice than to convince men to be pure and honest.”

The Louisville Recorder, thus speaks:

“Though we have (at least among Protestants,) no human priest or sacrificial altar, yet among us the social element, and power of the Church has become cramped, ice-bound, or entirely destroyed. We have become an assembly, not of living actors, but of silent, passive hearers. The church has become mere listeners to preachers—a roll of names baptized, permitted to take the Lord’s Supper, and expected to enjoy good preaching. Like the door on the hinges, they come and they go. They are prayed for, and sung to, and preached to; and often sung and preached to sleep, if not to death.”

The Advocate, Methodist paper published at Charlestown, Mass says:

“Notwithstanding the prohibition of the Methodist principle, it is a serious fact, and one generally to be deplored, that there is more jewelry and superfluous dress worn by the Methodists of this day than there is by any other class of religious professors in our land.”

Mr. L. FOSTER, in the Oberlin Evangelist, says:

“There is nothing more alarming, as indicating that God’s signal judgments in moving forward his kingdom, are to center in this land, than the present state of the American church, taken as a body.

“Alas, what object, may what bauble of earth has not been made a rival to her Lord, even in the church herself? ‘Upon every hill she has wandered, playing the harlot.’ ‘Scattered her ways under every green tree.’ There has she made her bed and her home, instead of dwelling with her covenant Lord! This the American church has done far more flagrantly than did Israel of old, and yet God threatened to ‘pour upon them his fury and his jealousy for it’, and did do it.

“And again, where does all this necessarily place the church—in what connection, what service, what fellowship? Our Lord himself has decided that question. ‘He that is not with me, is against me.’ But to be against Christ is to be with Satan. It leaves the church, then, in a virtual alliance with Satan—married to the Devil! This language may seem harsh, and I utter it with pain and grief; but the dreadful truth it declares is forced upon us, and it is of no use to conceal it. God sees it, yea the world sees it, and the church herself must see it.”

HENRY WARD BEECHER attended a Methodist Church in New York recently, expecting to hear some good old fashioned Congregational singing. His disappointment was great. He says:

“I had expected a treat of good, hearty singing. There were Charles Wesley’s hymns, and there were the good old Methodist tunes, that ancient piety loved, and modern conceit laughs at! Imagine my chagrin when, after reading the hymn, up rose a choir from the shelf at the other end of the church, and began to sing a monotonous tune of the modern music-book style. The patient congregation stood up meekly to be sung to, as men stand under rain when there is no shelter. No one seemed to hear the hymn, or care for the music.—How I longed for the good old Methodist thunder! One good burst of old-fashioned music would have blown this modern singing out of the windows like wadding from a gun! Men may call this an improvement, genteel! GENTILITY HAS NEARLY KILLED OUR CHURCHES.”

The editor of the Presbyterian, at Philadelphia, has been looking over the records of the Congregational Association in Connecticut for the last year. He remarks:

“But what is still more surprising, the whole number of church members reported in 1849, was 41,070; and the whole number in 1857, only 37,929, or an actual decrease for the eight years, of 3,041, and this, notwithstanding the fact, that within that time, 6,606 had been added by letter—thus seeming to show a decrease, so far as additions by profession are concerned, of 9,647, or no less than 1,205 per year, for the eight years!”

A correspondent of the North Western Christian Advocate, says:

“For three years past, a female friend of mine has been wasting slowly away with consumption.—She left the world on the 13^th day of November. I strove to recommend religion to her in the best way and manner that I could. She had been reading her Bible for some time, desiring to find peace in believing, still she found none. She saw so much pride in professors of religion, so many artificials, gold and costly apparel, that she was afraid they would cause her soul to be lost forever.”

E. COBB.

Warren, Dec. 26, 1857.

The New York Evangelist, says:

“To the shame of the church it must be confessed that the foremost men in all our philanthropic movements, in the vindication of the right of man; and in practically redeeming his wrongs, in the moral and intellectual regeneration of the race, are the so called infidels (?) in our land. The church has pusillanimously left not only the working oar, but the very reins of salutary reform, in the hands of men she denounces inimical to christianity, and who are practically doing with all their might for humanity’s sake, that which the church ought to be doing for Christ’s sake. Woe, woe, woe to christianity, when INFIDELS (?) by the force of nature or the tendency of the age, get ahead of the church in morals, and in the practical work of christianity, in some instances, they are already far in advance, in the vindication of truth, righteousness, and liberty, they are the pioneers, beckoning to a sluggish church to follow.”

A correspondent of one of the New York Journals writing from St. Louis, and in attendance on the anniversary Meeting of the Presbyterian General Assembly there, makes the following suggestive remarks:

“It is getting to be, an immense job for a sojourner in our large towns to find his way to a house of God—and as to poor residents, (Heaven take care of and save them!) if the doctrine be true that there is no salvation out of the church, the poor people are inevitably lost, for they can neither hire nor buy a pew in those hundred thousand dollar churches. Gentility is fast getting to be the only passport to heaven—as the depths of a man’s purse, so are his chances for future glory.

“What are we respectable Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Episcopalians, and others, doing for the poor, whom we have always with us?

“When will our city ministers believe the word they preach, that the poor are God’s chosen people? When will they have the moral courage to take the hand of a poor man in the street, and say as Moses to Hobab, ‘Come with us and we will do thee good.’”

CHARLES BEECHER, says:

“The creed system is now exerting upon the clergy of the Protestant churches a secret, unsuspected, but tremendous power against the Bible—a power of fear. Yes, while it professes to venerate and defend the Bible, it is virtually undermining it.”

The Yew York correspondent of the Woonsocket (R., I.) Patriot, says:

“But Trinity Church with all its architectural beauty—its tall gothic spire—its graceful turrets—its stained windows—its monstrous organ—its gorgeously decorated altar and gilded architrave—is nevertheless but a splendid monument of religious mockery and monopoly! How, sir, in this nineteenth century—in a land whose fabric of government is a Republic—whose national characteristic is simplicity, and whose religion should be Christian equality, seemeth this temple of Oriental splendor? Are the dark alleys of the city, and still darker by-ways in men’s hearts, illuminated by yon cross of Episcopal gorgeousness? Resurrectionize those sixty thousand skeletons in Trinity Church-yard—shake the dust from their feet—direct their bewildered optics to that vast pile, and they will tell you it is the sanctuary of Mammon, where the monopolists of the earth congregate—where a pew rents for a thousand dollars—where the price of salvation is affluence, and where poor sinners ‘can’t come in.’”

LUTHER, just before his death, speaking of the state of things near the end, while writing on the prophetic periods of Daniel, in his German Bible, says:

“About the consummation of these periods, this gospel will be shut out of all the churches and confined to private houses.”

CHARLES BEECHER, says:

“O, woful day! O, unhappy church of Christ! Fast rushing round and round the fatal circle of absorbing ruin! Thou sayest, ‘I am rich, and increased in goods, and have need of nothing;’ and knowest not that thou art poor, and miserable, and blind, and naked!”

The Lockport Telegraph, says:

“Costly palaces and magnificent temples are the great fountains from which the gospel at the present day is proclaimed to the people. Sermons carefully prepared according to the strict rules of rhetoric, and better calculated to captivate the tastes than to convince the reason, are delivered weekly from sacred desks. The congregation recline on cushioned seats and criticize the sermon.—The man of wealth has his pew fitted up with all the modern improvements to make attendance easy. Select music opens the service and the rich peals rolling in soft music burst from the organ at its close. Worldly splendor paves the ‘narrow path’ to heaven, and dresses the christianity of the church in inviting robes.

“Whether such a state of things indicates true christianity, might perhaps be doubted. The founder of christianity was born in poverty while on earth.”

EDWARD BEECHER, says:

“So, too, the dogmatic despotism that has sometimes disgraced and enfeebled Protestantism, was but a lesson learned in her (Babylon’s) school, and not yet unlearned.

“The extent to which she debased the conceptions of christendom concerning God, Heaven, hell, and all the doctrines of theology, is not yet fully understood.” Papal conspiracy exposed, p. 396.

Dr. CHEEVER’S opinion:

“God never put into any nation’s frame-work better machinery than he put into this nation, but when the fires of prayer, and truth, and honesty have gone out, the machinery ceases to work, and there is no hope left.

“Their only hope is in prayer. Wealth cannot save them; the constitution cannot save them, especially when misinterpreted and tortured. Nothing can save them but God. God saves by obedience to his word—not by adding his word to the shelves of a Bible Society, but by obedience to his word. This is what God desires to see; and he will see it, or this people will go to destruction.”

THE TWO-HORNED BEAST OF REV. 13—A SYMBOL OF THE UNITED STATES

That this wonderful beast is a symbol of the United States is certain, from the following facts:

1. The manner in which it is introduced. “And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth.” Verse 2. All other symbolic beasts came up out of the sea, amidst the dashing waves of aggressive wars and political strife. Their territory is the eastern continent, and of course, the “earth” territory must be the western continent.”

The prophet saw the papal beast go into “captivity,” and at the same time saw the two-horned beast “coming up.”

J. LITCH, says:

“The two-horned beast is represented as a power existing and performing his part after the death and revival of the first beast.” Restitution, p. 131.

J. WESLEY, in 1750, speaking of the two-horned beast, says:

“He has not yet come, though he cannot be far off; for he is to appear at the end of the forty-two months of the first beast.” Notes on Rev. 13.

When did the first beast go into captivity?

ANS. “On the 10^th of Feb., 1798, the French army under Berthier, entered Rome, took the Pope and the cardinal prisoners. Within a week Pius VI, was deposed. Pius VI, died in captivity.—The papal independence was abolished by France, and the son of Napoleon was declared King of Rome. Their’s French Revolution, Vol. 4, p. 256.

That the United States were in their infancy, only just “coming up” in 1798 the following testimonies amply prove.

A writer in the Dublin Nation, says:

“In the west an opposing and still more wonderful American empire is EMERGING. We Islanders have no conception of the extraordinary events which, amid the silence of the earth, are daily adding to the power and pride of this gigantic nation. Within three years territory more extensive than these three kingdoms, France and Italy put together, have been quietly and in almost ‘matter of course’ fashion annexed to the Union.

“Within seventy years, seventeen new sovereignties, the smallest of them larger than Great Britain, have peaceably united themselves to the Federation.”

Compare the census report of

1792 & 1855

Pop. of U.S., 3,000,000 27,114,287

Pop. of Boston, 18,000 162,629

Pop. of Philadelphia, 42,000 487,500

Pop. of N.Y. City, 30,000 689,810

U. S. Imports, ^$31,000,000 ^$261,468,520

U. S. Exports, ^$26,000,000 ^$275,156,846

Sq. miles territory, 800,000 3,300,000

Miles of Railroad, ------------- 19,834

Miles of Telegraph, ------------- 35,000

Num. of Post Offices, 200 24,410

Amount of Postage, ^$100,000 ^$7,335,177

MITCHELL, on the United States, says:

“When it is considered that one hundred years ago the inhabitants numbered but 1,000,000, it presents the most striking instance of national growth to be found in the history of mankind.”—School Geography, p 101, Fourth Revised Edition.

The American minister to England, at a dinner on the 4^th of July, said:

“The American republic at the time of its birth was a puny creature, sickly, feeble, and diminutive. It then contained 2,500,000 souls. The population is now 27,000,000. The territory was then a margin of the Atlantic. It is now an immense continent. Our wealth was then comparative poverty, while our resources are now actually exhaustless.”

It is stated that:

“About a century ago, Benjamin Franklin, the Post Master General of the American colonies by appointment of the crown, made his official inspection of the principal routes in his gig; and when holding the same office under the authority of Congress, a small folio containing three quires of paper, lasted as his account book for two years. Now it would require six years of incessant railroad traveling, at the rate of one hundred and twenty-five miles daily, to pass over the routes; while the post office accounts consume every two years 3,000 of largest sized ledgers, keeping one hundred clerks constantly employed in recording transactions with 30,000 contractors, and others.”

The Boston Transcript, says:

“The superficial area of the Union amounts to two millions nine hundred and thirty-six thousand one hundred and sixty-six square miles. At the close of the Revolutionary war in 1783, the limits of the United States did not exceed 820,680 square miles. Louisiana, purchased in 1803, had an extent of 899,579 square miles, or more territory than was included in the original States. By the addition of Florida, Texas and New Mexico, more territory was secured than the whole original extent of the United States, so that since the peace of 1783 the country has increased in size more than three fold. The American Republic has a territorial extent nearly ten times as large as that of Great Britain and France combined.”

THE TWO HORNS

Denote two great branches of power and principles, commonly designated as follows: “Ecclesiastical and civil,” “religious and political,” “Protestantism and Republicanism,” or “Church and State.”

When our Pilgrim fathers founded this government, these two were the only great leading ideas that prompted them to action on this point.

Hon. J. A. BINGHAM, says:

“I can tell you that they (the Puritans) had another and a sublimer object in view; it was to found what the world had not seen for ages, viz:—A Church without a pope, and a State without a king.”

“And he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.” Verse 2.

The profession of this Government in both its civil and ecclesiastical branches is LAMB-LIKE, but many of its laws are DRAGON-LIKE. Protestants profess to take “the Bible and the Bible alone” as the standard of their faith; and yet they have several hundred creeds, and many of them are but little better than the Roman Catholic. Republicans profess to be governed by the Constitution, and to carry out the principles of the Declaration of Independence; but whether or not, they maintain this high profession, let the following facts testify:

LAMB-LIKE PROFESSION

Declaration of Independence.—“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Constitution, Art. 9, Sec. 2.—“This Constitution, and the laws of the U. S. which shall be made in pursuance thereof, . . shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.”

Constitution, Art. 4, Sec. 4.—“The United States shall guarranty to every State in this Union, a republican form of government, &c.”

Guarranty 1.—“To warrant; to make true; to undertake to engage that another person shall perform what he has stipulated.—2. To undertake to secure to another at all events.—Webster’s Dictionary.

“The true foundation of republican government is the equal rights of every citizen, in his person and property, and in their management.” Thomas Jefferson’s Definition.

At the Congressional banquet given in honor of Kossuth, Judge Wayne, of the Supreme Court, is reported to have given the following sentiment:

“Constitutional liberty to all nations of the earth supported by christian faith and the morality of the Bible.”

“No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” Amendments Constitution, Art. v.

Says Lord Blackstone, in his commentaries on the common law:

“Those rights which God and nature have established, and are therefore called natural rights—such as life and liberty—need not the aid of human laws to be more effectually invested in every man than they are; neither do they receive any additional strength when declared by the municipal laws inviolable. On the contrary, no human legislature has power to abridge or destroy them, unless the owner himself shall commit some act which amounts to a forfeiture.”

The New York Tribune, of Feb. 18, 1854, says:

“The whole world has been steadily advancing toward the overthrow of African slavery for more than a century. Nations have abolished it. England has emancipated her black population. France has done the same. Even Russia herself has abolished serfdom in every territory, she has added to her empire since the beginning of the present century. The trade in slaves has been denounced as piracy by all nations. The remains of the barbarism of slave-holding now linger in the world under the protection of the decaying kingdom of Spain and a portion of the States of this Union.”

Amendment of the Constitution, Art. 1.—“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

The Congressional Committee of 1830, on the intent of the Constitution, report:

“We look in vain to that instrument for authority to say whether the first day, or seventh day, or whether any day has been made holy by the Almighty.

“The constitution regards the conscience of the Jew as sacred as that of the Christian, and gives no more authority to adopt a measure affecting the conscience of a solitary individual, than of a whole community.—That representative who would violate this principle, would lose his delegated character, and forfeit the confidence of his constituents. If Congress should declare the first day of week holy, it would not convince the Jew nor the Sabbatarian. It would dissatisfy both, and consequently convert neither.

“If a solemn act of the legislature shall in one point define the law of God, or point out to the citizen one religious duty, it may with equal propriety define every part of revelation, and enforce every religious obligation, even to the forms and ceremonies of worship, the endowments of the church, and support of the clergy.”

The following letter of GEO. WASHINGTON’S, written to the committee of a Baptist society in Virginia, in reply to questions as to the design of the Constitution, says:

“If I had the least idea of any difficulty resulting from the Constitution adopted by the Convention, of which I had the honor to be President when it was formed, so as to endanger the rights of any religious denomination, then I never should have attached my name to that instrument.—If I had any idea that the general government was so administered that liberty of conscience was endangered,

“I pray you be assured that no man would be more willing than myself to revise and altar that part of it, so as to avoid all religious persecutions. You can, without doubt, remember that I have often expressed my opinion, that every man who conducts himself as a good citizen is accountable alone to God for his religious faith, and should be protected in worshiping God according to the dictates of his own conscience.”

GEO. WASHINGTON.

Aug. 4, 1789.

Hon. A. H. CRAGIN, of New Hampshire, in the House of Representatives, says:

“When our forefathers reared the magnificent structure of a free republic in this western land, they laid its foundations broad and deep in the eternal principles of right. Its materials were all quarried from the mountain of truth; and, as it rose majestically before an astonished world, it rejoiced the hearts and hopes of mankind. Tyrants only cursed the workmen and their workmanship. Its architecture was new. It had no model in Grecian or Roman history. It seemed a paragon, let down from heaven to inspire the hopes of men and to demonstrate God’s favor to the people of the new world. The builders recognized the rights of human nature as universal. Liberty, the great first right of man, they claimed for ‘all men,’ and claimed it from ‘God himself’ Upon this foundation they erected the temple, and dedicated it to Liberty, Humanity, Justice and Equality. Washington was crowned its patron saint.

“Liberty was then the national goddess, worshiped by all the people. They sang of liberty, they harangued for liberty, they prayed for liberty. Slavery was then hateful. It was denounced by all. The British king was condemned for foisting it upon the colonies. Southern men were foremost in entering their protest against it. It was then everywhere regarded as an evil, and a crime against humanity.”

DRAGON-LIKE ACTION

“Slaves shall be deemed sold, taken, reputed, and adjudged in law, to be CHATTELS PERSONAL, in the hands of their owners and possessors, and their executors, administrators and assigns, to all intents and purposes whatever.” Law of South Carolina, 2 Brev. Dig. 229.

Judge McLEAN of the Supreme Court of the United States, says:

“While the State statutes treat the slaves as chattels, the Constitution can only treat and act on them as persons”

“All negroes, Indians, (free Indians in amity with this government, and negroes, mulattoes and mestizoes, who are now free, excepted,) mulattoes or mestizoes, who now are or shall hereafter be in this province, and all their issue and offspring born or to be born, shall be, and they are hereby declared to be and remain for ever hereafter, absolute slaves, and shall follow the condition of the mother.”—Act of 1740, 2 Brevard’s Digest, ??

“With the consent of their masters, slaves may marry, and their moral power to agree to such a contract or connection as that of marriage, cannot be doubted; but whilst in a state of slavery, it cannot produce any civil effect, because slaves are deprived of all civil rights”---Judge Matthews of Louisiana; Martin’s Rep. VI, 550.

The following will illustrate the action of both Republicans and Protestants:

“A Slave burned to Death.—A mob was collected together, and a lynch court was held to determine what was best to be done with a negro who had the impudence to raise his hand against a white man. The lynch court decided that he should be burned at the stake.

“Nearly four thousand slaves were collected from the plantations in the neighborhood to witness this scene. Numerous speeches were made by the magistrates, and ministers of religion, to the large concourse of slaves, warning them, and telling them that the same fate awaited them if they should prove rebellious to their owners.” N. Y. Tribune, of February, 1854.

A Boston paper speaking of the return of BURNS into slavery, says:

“We have seen our Court House in chains, two battalions of dragoons, eight companies of artillery, twelve companies of infantry, the whole constabulary force of the city police, the entire disposable marine of the United States, with its artillery loaded for action, all marching in support of a Praetorian band, consisting of one hundred and twenty friends and associates of the

“United States Marshal, with loaded pistols and drawn swords, and in military costume and array—for what purpose? To escort and conduct a poor trembling slave from a Boston Court House to the fetters and lash of his master! This display of military force the Mayor of the city officially declared to be necessary on the occasion. Nay, more, at a public festival he openly took to himself the glory of this display, declaring that by it life and liberty had been saved, and the honor of Boston vindicated.”

Mr. ROBERT McLEAN, Presbyterian minister of Mississippi, says:

“We have men in our church who buy slaves and work them, because they can make more money by it than in any other way.—And the more we have of such men the better. All who can, own slaves; and those who cannot, want to.”

LAW OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.—“There shall be no shooting, hunting, fishing, sporting, playing, horse racing, gaming, frequenting of tippling-houses, or any other unlawful exercises or pastimes, on the first day of the week, called Sunday; nor shall any person travel on that day, unless in cases of charity or necessity, or in going to or returning from some church or place of worship; nor shall there be any servile laboring or working on that day, excepting works of necessity and charity.”

Most, if not all the States in the Union have laws essentially agreeing with the above.

“The legislature of Texas, has passed a bill to establish the ‘christian Sabbath,’ which provides for the punishment, by fine, or imprisonment of such persons as may perform any labor or procure any to be done on Sunday.”—Watchman and Reflector.

The following “Notice” was published in the Northern Republic, of Wisconsin:

“NOTICE.—Whereas by the 21^st section of chapter 139, of the revised statutes of the State of Wisconsin, it is enacted among other things, that ‘No person shall open his shop, warehouse or work-house on the Lord’s day, commonly called Sunday,’ and whereas Justices of the peace have jurisdiction of offences mentioned in said section, now, therefore, we the undersigned,

“Justice of the peace, in and for the town of Fort Winnebago, Columbia Co., give notice that we shall take judicial notice of all offences against the provisions of said section 21, as specified above, without respect to persons, from and after the date of the publication of this notice.

H. R. PETTIBONE.

A. DUNN.

L. VANSLYK.

W. E. WAITE.

Fort Winnebago, July 21, 1852.”

A late writer acquainted with the circumstances, says:

“Eight seventh-day Baptists, at one time, in Ephrata, Pennsylvania, were fined each four dollars, and if they refused to pay the same, were subject to imprisonment. The great crime alleged to them, was working on Sunday—obeying their own consciences. How shall we explain the acts of Pennsylvania, and other States of this Union, unless it be a fulfillment of the text, ‘and he spake as a dragon.’”

DRED SCOTT CASE.—The Independent of the 11^th publishes the following letter from the well known English preacher and author, John Angel James, dated Binghampton, May 9, 1857, to his friend, W. Patton, D.D., of New York City:

“The decision of your Supreme Court fills us with astonishment, horror, and indignation. It is, indeed, the most terrible outrage upon humanity that has been perpetrated for ages, and will do more to lower the moral character of your country than even the present system of slavery. All Europe and the whole civilized world will blush for you. It is the first time that I know of, when a whole race was put without the pale of social life on account of the color of their skin. Will your country submit to it? Can it be perceived that the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers will bow to so horrible a rebellion against the precepts of Christianity and the dictates of reason?

“Are you republicans?--away!

‘Tis blasphemy the word to say.

You talk of freedom? Out for shame!

Your lips contaminate the name.

How dare you prate of public good,

Your hands besmear’d with human blood?

How dare you lift those hands to heaven,

And ask, or hope to be forgiven?

How dare you breathe the wounded air,

That wafts to heaven the negroe’s prayer?

How dare you tread the conscious earth,

That gave mankind an equal birth?

And while you thus inflict the rod,

How dare you say there is a God

That will, in justice, from the skies,

Hear and avenge his creatures’ cries?

“Slaves to be sold!” hark, what a sound!

Ye give America a wound,

A sear, a stigma of disgrace,

Which you nor time can e’er efface.--[Ray.

WONDERS

“And he doeth great wonders,” &c., verse 13.

It cannot be denied that the United States’ inventions are more wonderful than those of any other nation. It is stated that, “At the World’s Fair in London, the United States were brought into a position among the nations and obtained a name which far excels all her former reputation.”

The Dublin Nation speaking of the United States, says:

“In the west an opposing and still more WONDERFUL American empire is emerging. We Islanders have no conception of the extraordinary events, which, amid the silence of earth, are daily adding to the power and pride of this gigantic nation.”

“MEN OF AMERICA—MEN OF THE AGE.—The greatest man, ‘take him all in all,’ of the last hundred years was George Washington—an American. The greatest philosopher was Benj. Franklin—an American. The greatest living sculptor is Hiram Powers—an American. The greatest living historian is William H. Prescott—an American. The greatest ornithologist was J. J. Audubon—an American. The greatest lexicographer since the time of Johnson was Noah Webster—an American. The greatest inventors of modern times were Fulton, Fitch, Whitney, and Morse—all Americans.”

A scientific gentleman, on improvements says:

“There has been no period since the commencement of the world, in which so many important discoveries, tending to the benefit of mankind, were made, as in the last half century. Some of the most wonderful results of human intellect have been witnessed in the last fifty years. Some of the grandest conceptions of genius have been perfected.”

A late speaker said:

“If Benjamin Franklin tamed the lightning, Prof. Morse taught it the English language.”

Dr. JOHN PIERPOINT, writing upon the telegraph, concludes thus:

“A hero chieftain laying down his pen,

Closes his eyes in Washington at ten;

The lightning courier leaps along the line,

And at St. Louis tells the tale at nine;

Halting a thousand miles whence he departed,

And getting there an hour before he started.

“The longest railroad in the world is the Illinois Central, which is 731 miles long, and cost fifteen millions of dollars.

“The greatest number of clocks in the world are turned out by Connecticut. The greatest aqueduct is ‘Croton,’ forty and one-half miles long, and cost twelve millions of dollars.

“We ascertain by the census of 1850 that the entire number of periodicals of all classes, in the United States, were 2,615, with an aggregate yearly circulation of 425,553,200.”

Mr. H. R. HELPER, Sir:--

“In answer to your inquiry, we inform you that we employ in our building one hundred and seventy-six persons regularly; this does not include our carriers and cartmen, nor does it include the men employed in the Job Office in our building. During the past year we have used in printing the Tribune 44,979 reams of paper, weighing 2,310, 130 pounds. We publish one hundred and seventy-six thousands copies of our weekly edition, which goes to press, the second form, at 7 ½ o’clock, A. M., and is finished at 2 A. M., the next morning.—Our mailers require eighteen to nineteen hours to mail our weekly, which makes from thirty to thirty-two cart loads.” GREELEY & McELRATH.

PAPER MILLS

“Books have multiplied to such an extent in our country, that it now takes 750 paper mills, with 2,000 engines in constant operation, to supply the printers, who work day and night, endeavoring to keep their engagements with publishers. These tireless mills produced 270,000,000 pounds of paper the past year, which immense supply has sold for about $27,000,000. A pound and a quarter of rags are required for a pound of paper, and 400,000,000 pounds were therefore consumed in this way last year. The cost of manufacturing a twelve months’ supply of paper for the United States, aside from labor and rags, is computed at $4,000,000.”

The fabulous edifice proposed by a Yankee from Vermont, no longer seems an impossibility:

“Build the establishment according to my plan,” said he; “drive a sheep in at one end, and he shall immediately come out at the other, four quarters of lamb, a felt hat, a leather apron, and a quarto Bible.”

An “English Journalist,” (in 1853) speaking of the unexampled growth of the United States, says:

“In an interval of little more than half a century it appears that this extraordinary people have increased above 500 per cent. in numbers; their national revenue has augmented nearly 700 per cent., while their public expenditure has increased little more than 400 per cent. The prodigious extension of their commerce is indicated by an increase of nearly 500 per cent, in their imports and exports, and 600 per cent in their shipping. The increased activity of their internal communication is expounded by the number of post offices, which has increased more than a hundred fold, the extent of their post roads which has been increased thirty-six fold, and the cost of their post office, which has been augmented in a seventy-two fold ratio. The augmentation of their machinery of public instruction is indicated by the extent of their public libraries, which have increased in a thirty-two fold ratio, and by the creation of school libraries, amounting to 2,000,000 volumes. They have completed a system of canal navigation, which, placed in a continuous line, would extend from London to Calcutta, and a system of railways which, continuously extended, would reach from London to Van Dieman’s Land, (14,350 miles,) and have provided locomotive machinery by which that distance could be traveled over in three weeks, at the cost of 1 ½ d. per mile. They have created a system of inland navigation, the aggregate tonnage of which is probably not inferior in amount to the collective inland tonnage of all the other countries in the world, and they possess many hundreds of river steamers, which impart to the roads of water the marvelous celerity of roads of iron. They have in fine, constructed lines of electric telegraph which, laid continuously, would extend over a space longer by 3000 miles, than the distance from the North to the South pole, and have provided apparatus of transmission by which a message of 300 words dispatched under such circumstances from the North pole, might be delivered in writing at the South pole in one minute, and by which, consequently an answer of equal length might be sent back to the North pole in an equal interval. These are social and commercial phenomena for which it would be vain to seek a parallel in the past history of the human race.”

The “wonders” of modern spiritual commenced in the United States, and from here have gone to the “kings of the earth and the whole world.” Rev. 16:14.

The announcement of what could be done by the power of Magnetism, Psychology, Clairvoyance, &c., &c., have been truly wonderful. Millions in the United States within the last few years have witnessed these mysterious mysterious phenomena, and pronounced them realities; all the while ignorant of the fact that these are a fulfillment of prophecy, and an unmistakable sign of the end near.

The following is taken from one of Mr. SUNDERLAND’S advertisements:

“Patheism, demonstrating the new theory of mind by the power of Fascination, exercised over his auditors, whom he will cause to manifest a succession of mental hallucinations, exceeding the WONDERS of Witchcraft. He will charm them into the frenzy of rage, the horror of fear, and the transports of joy; with numerous ASTONISHING FEATS, performed in a state of Trance, Mysterious, Mirthful, Musical, combining a series of ecstatic phenomena, illustrating the laws of intellectual progression, and man’s final destiny, and far surpassing, in the brilliancy of their development, the magic creations of enchantment, as nothing in the Hindoo miracles, nor in the tales of the Arabian Nights, nor the marvels produced by Mesmerism, can equal Mr. Sunderland’s Pathematic entertainments under whatever names, new or old, his theory, or manner of operating, may be imitated; as his Psychological experiments are UNPARALLELED IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD, and exceed even the power of the unassisted imagination to conceive.”

The apostle PAUL, speaking of the last days, and Christ’s coming, says:

“Whose coming is after the working of Satan, with ALL POWER, and SIGNS, and LYING WONDERS.” 2 Thess. 2:9.

The various “signs” and manifestations of these latter-day mysteries, are named by Mr. SUNDERLAND, as follows:

“Amulets, Charms, Enchantments, Spells, Fascination, Incantation, Magic, Mesmerism, Philters, Talismans, Relies, Witchcraft, Ecstasy, Hallucination, Spectres, Trance, Illusions, Apparitions, Clairvoyance, Somnambulism, Miracles, Sympathy, &c., &c.”

THE IMAGE

“Saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword and did live.” Verse 14.

The wounded beast, nearly all agree, was the Roman combination of civil and ecclesiastical power, or Church and State, hence to “make an image” in this country, there must be a union of Protestantism and Republicanism.

That there is such a tendency now manifested is certain from the following facts:

1. Protestant churches look to the civil arm for protection and are incorporated by the State.

2. Republicans have, and do still legislate upon religious subjects.

3. Politicians and religious men are united on both sides of the slavery controversy.

4. They are united in measures and action in their anti-slavery, temperance, and Sunday-keeping reform movements.

5. Both political and religious men have publicly advocated the necessity of a union of Church and State.

A New York paper gives the following brief summary of a speech delivered on the anniversary of Washington’s birth-day:

“Daniel Ullman, Esq., delivered an eloquent and highly instructive address. His argument was, that continuity of territory, unity of race, a common language and religion are essential to the perpetuity of empire. He recited with precision and clearness, the fortunes of the Roman empire of Philip II, of Spain, Louis XIV, of France, to sustain his position. Passing these in review, he adverted to Russia, as possessing every element of greatness, but free institutions. The people, he said, are nearly all of one race, and one section of that race—its territory is compact, and communication between its different parts easily effected. The people are attached to their country, their Sovereign, and their religion. They are imbued with confidence in their destiny. And who shall say, if our own Union is dissolved, that their dreams of universal dominion will not be realized? He then adverted to the rise and progress of the American Union, and added THAT WE NEED A COMMON RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT.

“The mass of our people is essentially Anglo-Saxon, and it must absorb all other races before we can have a consistent NATIONAL SENTIMENT. He held to an American race.”

Mr. HAVENS, an American, in a speech delivered in Erc county, N. Y., says:

“For my own part, I wait to see the day when a Luther shall spring up in this country who shall found a great AMERICAN CATHOLIC CHURCH instead of a great Roman Catholic church; and who shall teach men that they can be good Catholics without professing allegiance to a pontiff on the other side of the Atlantic.”

Mr. JAMES L. SMITH, in his renunciation of the American party, published in the Washington Union, says:

“My objections are that a union are that a union of politics and religion or Church and State never worked well.”

Dr. DURBIN, in the Christian Advocate and journal, speaks of a time coming when the civil power will enforce the sentiments of the church by law. He says:

“I infer, therefore, that the civil magistrate may not be called upon to enforce the observance of the Sabbath (Sunday) as required in the spiritual kingdom of Christ; but, when christianity becomes the moral and spiritual life of the State, the State is bound through her magistrates to prevent the open violation of the holy Sabbath, as a measure of self-preservation. She cannot without injuring her own vitality, and incurring the divine displeasure, be recreant to her duty in this matter.”

“A sermon for the times,” preached in Jackson, Mich. by a popular Methodist minister, was published agreeably to the following request: REV. J. S. SMART:--

“DEAR SIR:--The undersigned having listened to your sermon on the ‘Political Duties of Christian Men and Ministers,’ and believing its sentiments to be such as should be disseminated at the present time, do respectfully solicit a copy of the same for publication.” Signed by sixteen principle men; several of them irreligious.

On page four of religion and politics, we read the following:

“And is not the man who attempts to put assunder what God hath so evidently joined together, and enemy to all good government.”

Again on page six, speaking of the rights of ministers he says:

“I claim that we have, and ought to have just as much concern in the government of this country, as any other men. We are profoundly interested in the prosperity and permanency of this government.

“There is no such thing as banishing conscience from politics. It is just as much a ‘moral act’ to vote as it is to pray.

“But thank God, we are not alone. We are the mass of the people. Virtue in this country is not weak; her ranks are strong in numbers, and invincible from the righteousness of her cause. Invincible if united! Let not her ranks be broken by party names.”

The effect of this unhallowed connection of politics with religion, is thus graphically sketched by the Presbyterian Herald:

“There seems never to have been a time in the history of our country, when questions of religious and political science were so mingle together as at the present. When we open a paper, it is often hard to tell at the first glance whether it is a political or religious journal. In all parts of our land, but especially in the northern portions, the platform and the stump give excited utterance to theological dogmas; while the pulpit thunders forth political harangues.”

It then gives a description of true religion and the place it should occupy, and continues:

“Such is the position of religion, and such her relation to politics and all other earthly things.—But of late we have seen her descend into the heated arena; lose herself in the surging and tossing crowd, and when next she emerges, or rather, when her position is again occupied, ‘tis no longer herself, but a drunken drab, wild with excitement, raves and retches and belches forth words of strife and scorn, bloodshed and bitterness, adding fuel to the flames of hatred and envy, and mocking heaven heaven with daring blasphemy—essaying even to wield the thunders of Jehovah. When such a scene meets our troubled vision, we cry, ‘Surely religion has been trodden in the streets, truth and righteousness lie bleeding in the dust. Alas! alas! has she perished forever? Shall we never more behold her beauty and feel her sweet attractions?”

Dr. GEO. BECKER on the right to discuss political questions in the pulpit, says:

“It is the result of a long conflict that this point has been reached; but it has been reached.”—Speech in Yale College, Jan. 17, 1857.

Dr. LYMAN BEECHER, as quoted by Dow, says:

“There is a state of society to be formed by an EXTENDED COMBINATION of INSTITUTIONS, Religious, CIVIL and literary, which never exist without the CO-OPERATION of an EDUCATED MINISTRY.”

The following extract is from a sermon delivered at the dedication of the Second Presbyterian Church, Fort Wayne, Ind., Feb. 22d 1846.

Mr. CHARLES BEECHER says:

“Thus are the ministry of the evangelical Protestant denominations, not only formed all the way up, under a tremendous pressure of merely human fear, but they live, and move, and breathe, in a state of things radically corrupt, and appealing every hour to every baser element of their nature to hush up the truth, and bow the knee to the power of apostasy. Was not this the way things went with Rome? Are we not living her life over again? And what do we see just ahead? Another General Council! A WORLD’S CONVENTION! EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE AND UNIVERSAL CREED!”

A correspondent of the Baltimore Sun gives the following account of a visit of more than 100 Methodist ministers to the President, while they were in attendance at Conference in Washington:

“Rev. Mr. Slicer then introduced ‘the Rev. Dr. Levings, and ministers of the Baltimore annual conference, consisting of a part of Pennsylvania, a portion of Virginia, and the western shore of Maryland.’ Maryland.’ The President replied, ‘I am happy to see the gentlemen.’ Dr. Levings then addressed the President in a very neat and appropriate manner, congratulating him on the general prosperity of the country, and amongst other good things, remarked, in substance, that as ministers of the gospel of peace, they indulged a hope that the existing war would be speedily terminated on conditions honorable and satisfactory to both countries. As Republicans, however, they were determined to sustain their country until a more favorable state of things should ensue.

“President Polk replied, in a brief, but handsome manner, expressed his high gratification at their visit; his long conviction of their patriotism and readiness to serve their country under ALL circumstances, in peace OR IN WAR.”

The following extract is from the Annual Report of the Vermont Missionary Society, for 1841:

“The ministers are the heads of the churches—the leaders of the sacramental host of God’s elect. NO MEASURE CAN BE CARRIED WITHOUT THEM, much less in opposition to them.”

The following spirited lines were dedicated to the Mounted Volunteers of Kentucky, by Rev. Eliphalet Case, of the Cincinnati Enquirer:

“Ho! Pioneer, your cabin leave; ho! farmer, leave your field;

“Ho! work man with the iron arm, that never yet did yield; Take down the deadly rifle now, and whet the bowie knife, And like a tropic tempest, come ye, gathering to the strife.”

The Dixon Transcript, referring to the Pittsburgh Convention, says:

“After prayer by Rev. Mr. Lovejoy, the Rev. Mr. Brewer of Conn., said, he was in favor of using firearms, and fighting for freedom in Kansas.

“Rev. Mr. Chandler said he believed that Sharp’s rifles were the best peacemakers, there was no danger too many of them would be introduced into Kansas.

“Rev. Mr. Lovejoy was willing to go either as a captain or private. He would use Sharp’s rifles, and fire with good aim!

“In the North Church, soon after, Rev. Henry Ward Beecher said, I hold it to be an everlasting disgrace to shoot at a man and not hit him.”

TO BE IN ALLIANCE WITH THE CIVIL POWER IS TO BE AGAINST THE DOCTRINE OF CHRIST

“Whosoever transgresseth and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God.” 2 John ix.

“And the SOLDIERS likewise demanded of him, saying, And what shall we do? And he said unto them, DO VIOLENCE TO NO MAN.” Luke iii, 14.

“Then said Jesus unto him, PUT UP AGAIN THY SWORD into his place; for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.” Matt. xxvi, 52.

“For the weapons of our warfare are NOT CARNAL, but mighty through God,” &c. 2 Cor. x, 4.

“But I say unto you that ye RESIST NOT EVIL,” &c.

Also Prov. xx, 22; xxiv, 29; Luke vi, 27-29; xii, 14; Rom. xii, 17, 19; 1 Cor. vi, 7; 1 Thess. v, 15; 1 Pet. iii, 9.

The Reformers, LUTHER, MELANCHTON, and others, in their confession at Augsburg, have the following:

“For this reason we must take particular care not to mingle the power of the Church with the power of the State. The power of the Church ought never to invade an office that is foreign to it, for Christ himself said, My kingdom is not of this world,” &c.—D’Aubigne’s Hist., p. 565.

On the above the historian remarks:

“With what wisdom, in particular, the confessors of Augsburg protest against that confusion of religion and politics which, since the deplorable epoch of Constantine had changed the kingdom of God into an earthly and carnal institution.”—Ib., p. 566.

DR. CLARKE says:

“When political matters are brought into the church of Christ, both are ruined. The church has more than once ruined the state: the state has often corrupted the church.” “No secular arm, no human prudence, no earthly policy, no suits at law, shall ever be used for the founding, extension, and preservation of my church.” “Woe to the inhabiters inhabiters of earth,” “when the church takes the civil government of the world into its hands.”—Christian Theology, pp. 251-2.

Protestants and Catholics are so nearly united in sentiment, that it is not difficult to conceive how Protestants may make an image to the Beast. The mass of Protestants believe with Catholics in the Trinity, immortality of the soul, consciousness of the dead, rewards and punishments at death, the endless torture of the wicked, inheritance of the saints beyond the skies, sprinkling for baptism, and the PAGAN SUNDAY for the Sabbath; all of which is contrary to the spirit and letter of the new testament. Surely there is between the mother and daughters, a striking family resemblance.

DUTY TO OBEY ONLY RIGHTEOUS LAWS

Disobedience to the laws of men, becomes duty when they require anything contrary to the Laws of God.

BIBLE TESTIMONY

“We ought to obey God rather than men.” Acts 5:29; Ex. 1 :15-20; 1 Sam. 14:44, 45; 22:17; Esth. 3:1-3; 5:9; Dan. 3:15-18; 6:7-10; Acts 4:18-20. Obedience to civil rulers in such cases is sinful. Proof. 2 Kings 17:7, 8, 19; 1 Kings 12:28-30.

TESTIMONY OF MEN

MILTON says:

“Since, therefore the law is chiefly right reason if we are bound to obey a magistrate as a minister of God, by the very same reason and the very same law, we ought to resist a tyrant, and minister of the Devil.”

BLACKSTONE says:

“If any human law shall allow or require to commit crime, we are bound to transgress that human law, or else we must offend both the natural and divine.”

COKE says:

“What the Parliament doth shall be holden for naught, whenever it shall enact that which is contrary to the rights of nature.”

LUTHER says:

“Unjust violence is, by no means the ordinance of God, and therefore can bind no one in conscience and right, to obey, whether the command comes from Pope, Emperor, king or master.”

HAMPDEN says:

“The essence of all law is justice. What is not justice is not law; and what is not law, ought not to be obeyed.”

CICERO says:

“Those who have made pernicious and unjust decrees, decrees, have made anything rather than laws.”

When the Waldenses were commanded to obey the church of Rome, they replied that:

“In what regarded their religious worship they could obey no commands which interfered with the Laws of God.”

The Congressional Committee of 1830 Report:

“The framers of the constitution recognized the eternal principle, that man’s relation to his God is above human legislation, and his right of conscience inalienable. Reasoning was not necessary to establish this truth: we are conscious of it in our own bosoms. It is this consciousness which, in defiance of human laws, has sustained so many martyrs in tortures and flames. They felt that their duty to God was superior to human enactments, and that man could exercise no authority over their consciences. It is an inborn principle which nothing can eradicate.”

The Constitution of Pennsylvania is equally explicit; it says:

“No human authority can, in any case whatever, control or interfere with the rights of conscience.”

LORENZO DOW says:

“Human governments, have no right to interfere by assuming a power to tolerate man to pay his devotion to his God. For before any human government existed in the world, there was a compact between man and his Maker, which cannot be altered by any human laws. Therefore, all laws ought to be made in conformity to this preexisting compact; otherwise they do mischief by making encroachments upon the rights of conscience, and cause confusion in society by creating broils and animosities, consequently all denominations of religion should be protected in the peaceable enjoyment of their rights. And universal rights of conscience ought to be established in every land, agreeable to the Creator’s Law, primarily established by Him. Moral duties are the result of ‘moral Law,’ which is the divine prerogative alone; and man hath no right to invade the moral duty of another, for this is the right of the divine government. No man, therefore nor set of men, have a right to infringe upon or bind the conscience of another.”—Dow’s Journal, pp. 423, 467.

DR. ADAM CLARKE says:

“Render to Caesar the things which are Caesar’s’ is a maxim of Jesus Christ; but when Caesar arrogates to himself the things that are the Lord’s, then, and in such cases, his authority is to be resisted.”—Comment on Dan. iii, 17.

THE MORAL LAW OF GOD OR TEN COMMANDMENTS, ETERNAL & UNCHANGEABLE

BIBLE PROOF

“All his commandments are sure. They stand fast for ever and ever, and are done in truth and uprightness.” Ps. 111:7, 8.

Deut. 4:13; Ps. 101:8; Ps. 19:7-11; Eccl. 12:13, 14; Isa. 51:6, 7; Matt. 5:17-19; Rom. 3:31; James 2:8-12; Rev. 12:17; 14:12; 22:14.

FAITH OF THE CHURCH

DR. CHALMER, says:

“For the permanency of the Sabbath, however, we might argue its place in the decalogue, where it stands enshrined among the moralities of a rectitude that is immutable and everlasting.” Sermons vol. 1, p. 51.

JOHN WESLEY, says:

“It was not the design of Christ to revoke any part of the law. It cannot be broken. Every part of it remains in force upon all men in all ages. Neither time, place, nor circumstances make it liable to change.” Notes on Matt. v.

DR. ADAM CLARKE, on Rom. vii, 13. says:

“Thus it appears that a man cannot have a true notion of sin, but by means of the law of God.—And it was one design of the law, to show the abominable and destructive nature of sin; as well as to be a rule of life. It would be almost impossible for a man to have that just notion of the demerit of sin, so as to produce repentance, or to see the nature and necessity of the death of Christ, if the law were not applied to his conscience by the Holy Spirit; it is then alone, that he sees himself carnal, and sold under sin, and that the law and commandment are holy, just and good. And let it be observed that the law did not answer this end merely among the Jews, in the days of the apostles; it is just as necessary to the Gentiles, to the present hour. Nor do we find that true repentance takes place where the moral law is not preached and enforced. Those who preach only the gospel to sinners, at best only heal the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly.”

THOMAS SCOTT, says:

“This law, which is so extensive that we cannot measure it, so spiritual that we cannot evade it, and so reasonable that we cannot find fault with it, will be the rule of the future judgment of God, as it is of the present conduct of man. Nor would it consist with the glory of the Lord’s perfections, the honor of his government, the interests of his universal and everlasting kingdom, or even with the felicity of his rational creatures, to reverse, repeal or relax one precept of it, for it is all perfectly ‘holy, just, and good.’ Again he says:—‘To imagine that any redeemed sinner should be allowed to disobey it, is absurdity, impossibility, blasphemy.” See commentary.

DR. BARNES, says:

“We learn hence, 1. That all the law of God is binding on Christians. 2. That all the commands of God should be preached in their proper place, by christian ministers. 3. That they who pretend that there are any laws of God so small that they need not obey them, are unworthy of his kingdom. And, 4. That true piety has respect to all the commands of God, and keeps them.” Note on Matt. v, 19.

Bishop HOPKINS on the ten commandments, published by the American Tract Society, pp. 19, 29, says:

“Far be it from any christian to indulge himself in any licentiousness, from such a corrupt and rotten notion of the law’s abrogation; for, so far is it from being abolished by the coming of Christ, that he expressly tells us, he came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it. Matt. v, 17. There is no duty required nor sin forbidden by God, but it falls under one at least, of these ten words.”

A book on entire holiness, by JOHN W. WALLACE, recommended by Methodist Conferences, on pp. 43, 45, says:

“This law which we understand to be still in force, and by which it may be presumed God governs all rational and intelligent beings, is embraced in the moral code delivered on Mount Sinai.

“This is the moral law; the law that admits of no repeal, and needs no amendment; nor does it require any modifications in its application to any and all the unnumbered hosts that stretch along the line of moral agents, &c.”

The Methodist Discipline, says:

“No christian, whatsoever, is free from the obedience of the commandments which are called moral.”

ALEXANDER CAMPBELL, says:

“It is a poor apology for this expurgation of the decalogue, that it is so done in the Douay Bible.—What myriads, then, through this fraud, must have lived and died in the belief that the second commandment was no part of God’s law. It is clearly proved, that the pastors of the church have struck out one of God’s ten words! which not only in the Old Testament, but in all revelation are the most emphatically regarded as the synopsis of all religion and morality.” Debate with Purcell, p 214.

DAVID E. THOMAS, (Baptist,) says:

“The duties of the decalogue did not originate when the law was given on Sinai. The obligations always existed: they grow out of the very nature and relations of man. Every command given, relates either to moral beings, or things of a moral nature already existing. No new moral obligations were then originated. ‘Remember the Sabbath day,’ implies its previous existence. This is no new enactment, but the observance of an old one.-- ‘The Sabbath was made for man.’ Both his physical and moral natures absolutely require it.

“Christ came to explain, magnify and fulfill the law; it becomes the christian’s rule of life, and is established by faith. Saints are made free from its curse. It is to be the rule of the judgment day.” Christian Manual, p 231, 369.

The Genesee Evangelist, says:

“No reform can be successful and complete which is not founded on the great fundamental principles contained in the Ten Commandments.”

H. H. DOBNEY, (Baptist minister,) of England, says:

“The excellency of the law is seen in its very nature. Generally, we mean by the law that which is commonly called ‘the moral law,’ presented to us in the shape of distinct commandments, ten in number; prescribing to each one of us concerning God in the first place, and then concerning our deportment to all our fellow creatures. These are illustrated, and their extensive bearing shown, by many other precepts which are scattered through the scriptures. But there is not a single injunction or prohibition (of a moral kind we mean, of course, not referring now to the ceremonial law given to the Israelites, which has another explanation) which is not referable to one or the other of these commandments, and included in it.” Future Punishment, p 42, 43.

DR. CUMMING, of England, says:

“The Law of Ten Commandments, is in its nature unchangeable, and permanent. It was ordained by the supreme law-giver, as the infallible rule of life, to all men, in every age of the world; in all places; under all circumstances, in every nation, and generation of men on the earth. Not one jot or title of it, was ever abolished, nor diminished, nor altered in the least degree, by the change of dispensation from Jewish too Christian.” Signs of the Times, pp. 23, 39.

MR. SPURGEON, says:

“The law of God is a divine law, holy, heavenly, and perfect. Those who find fault with the law, or in the least degree deprecate it, do not understand its design.

“There is not a command too many; there is not one too few; but it is so incomparable, that its perfection is a proof of its divinity.

“No human law-giver could have given forth such a law as that which we find in the decalogue.” Sermons, p. 280.

The Encyclopedia, of Biblical literature, (recommended by twenty-six D.D.’s and six LL.D.’s,) on the fourth commandment, says:

“It is unnecessary to dwell on the fact that its position in the midst of the moral law distinctly points to its perpetual and universal obligation.”

The Religious Encyclopedia, (Art. Sabbath,) says:

“It is wholly a mistake, that the Sabbath, because not reenacted with the formality of the decalogue, is not explicitly enjoined upon christians.

“The Sabbath was appointed at the creation of the world, and sanctified or set apart for holy purposes, ‘for man,’ for all men, and therefore for christians; since there was never any repeal of the original institution. Whoever, therefore, denies the obligation of the Sabbath on christians, denies the obligation of the whole decalogue.”

From the resolutions and address of a Sabbath (Sunday) Convention held in Chicago, Ill., May 17, 1855, we extract the following:

“Resolved, That this Convention regard the holy rest of the Sabbath as a divine and perpetual obligation binding on us, and on all men as truly as any other commandment in the decalogue.

“As each of God’s commandments rests upon all his authority, those who dispense with the Sabbath, set aside all the authority of God on which the whole decalogue rests. Henceforth such men do not obey God at all. Their religion thenceforth becomes a mere expedient to get to heaven by—mercenary in its motives, various in its morality, and the very fear of God is with them taught by the precepts of men!”

Dr. THOMAS DICK, on the fourth commandment, says:

“This is a command which never was abrogated, and which never can be abrogated, in relation to any intelligent beings, so long as the creation exists, and so long as the universe remains as a memorial of his power and intelligence.” Works, vol. 1, p. 74.

The Wisconsin Home, on “Religion,” says:

“The ten commandments form its true basis.—They form a foundation broad and strong enough for all creation to rest upon with perfect safety.—Yet how few do we find thereon.”

HUMPHREY, President of Amherst College, on the ten commandments, says:

“The law has no limitations, and therefore can never expire. It has never been repealed; and as the sacred canon is full and complete, we are certain it never will be. It is, therefore, binding on every one of us at this moment; and will be upon all future generation. No human authority may expunge a single word from the statutes of Jehovah.” Essay on the Sabbath, p. 24.

On the perpetuity of the Sabbath, President HUMPHREY, says:

“The chapter and verse must be pointed out in which the law is expressly repealed.” ibid. p. 19.

In an earnest appeal to ministers, President HUMPHREY, says:

“To you it belongs to expound the fourth commandment, and in the most solemn manner, to urge its divine and perpetual obligations upon all your hearers. Present these obligations in all their strictures, and in their full extent. Listen to no compromise. Heed no railing. Shrink from no discussion. Take counsel of no time-serving policy. Let your grand and ultimate appeal be to the scriptures. One, ‘thus saith the Lord,’ is worth a thousand arguments drawn from any other source.”—ibid. p. 100.

American Sunday School Union, says:

“The commandment which stands fourth in the order of the decalogue is founded on the fact that the seventh day was blessed and hallowed by God himself, and that he requires his creatures to keep it holy to him. The command is of universal and perpetual obligation.” Bible Dictionary

THE TRUE SABBATH

The Seventh Day is the only true weekly Sabbath.

BIBLE TESTIMONY

“The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” Gen. xx, 10.

Gen. 2:1-3; Ex. 16:23, 26-30; xxxi, 13, 16; Neh. ix, 13, 14; Isa. lviii, 13; Mark ii, 27, 28; Luke xxiii, 56; Acts xvii, 2; xviii, 4.

TESTIMONY OF MEN

Dr. NEANDER says,

“Opposition to Judaism introduced the particular festival of Sunday, very early, indeed, into the place of the Sabbath. . . . The festival Sunday like all of their festivals, was always only a human ordinance; and it was far from the intention of the apostles to establish a divine command in this respect—far from them, and from the early apostolic church, to transfer the laws of the Sabbath to Sunday. Perhaps at the end of the second century a, false application of this kind had begun to take place; for men appear by that time to have considered laboring on Sunday as a sin.” Church Hist. p. 168.

ATHANASIUS, Bishop of Alexandria, in the fourth century, said:

“We assemble on Saturday, not that we are infected with Judaism, but only two worship Christ the Lord of the Sabbath.”—Dr. Case’s Work, p. 175.

“The American Presbyterian Board of Publication, in tract No. 118, states that the observance of the Seventh-day Sabbath did not cease till it was abolished after the Empire became Christian: that is after the State came under Papal rule.”

The learned GROTIUS said:

“Therefore the christians also, who believed Christ would restore all things to their primitive practice, as Tertullian teacheth in Monogamia, kept holy the Sabbath, and had their assemblies on that day, in which the law was read to them, as appears in Acts xv, 21, which custom remained till the time of the council of Laodicea, about A.D. 365, who then though meet that the gospels also should be read on that day.”

EDWARD BREREWOOD, professor in Gresham College, London, in a Treatise on the Sabbath, 1630, says:

“It is commonly believed that the Jewish Sabbath was changed into the Lord’s day by Christian emperors, and they know little who do not know that the ancient Sabbath did remain and was observed by the eastern churches three hundred years after our Saviour’s passion.”

SOCRATES, A.D. 440, says:

“There are various customs concerning assembling; for though all the churches throughout the whole world celebrate the sacred mysteries on the Sabbath day, yet the Alexandrians and the Romans, from an ancient tradition, refuse to do this.” Eccl. Hist., p. 289.

SOZOMEN, of the Sabbath in the fifth century, says:

“At Constantinople, and almost among all, the Christians assembled upon the Sabbath, and also upon the first day of the week, except at Rome and Alexandria; the ecclesiastical assemblies at Rome were not upon the Sabbath, as in almost all other churches of the rest of the world.” Eccl. Hist. b. 7, c. 9.

EUSEBIUS, A.D. 325, as quoted by Dr Chambers, states that in his time,

“The Sabbath was observed no less than Sunday.”

M. DE LA Roque, a French Protestant says:

“It evidently appears, that before any change was introduced, the church religiously observed the Sabbath for many ages; we of consequence are obliged to keep it.”

EUSEBIUS in the early part of the fourth century, said:

“All things whatsoever it was the duty to do on the Sabbath, these we have transferred to the Lord’s day, [meaning thereby Sunday,] as more appropriately belonging to it, because it had a precedence, and is first in rank, and is more honorable than the Jewish Sabbath.”

The Waldenses kept the Sabbath. ROBINSON in his History of Baptism says:

“They were called Sabbati, and Sabbatati, so named from the Hebrew word Sabbath, because they kept the Saturday for the Lord’s day.”

“King Charles I, in a query propounded by him to the Parliament’s Commissioners at Holmby, 1647, says, ‘I conceive the celebration of the feast of Easter was instituted by the same authority which changed the Sabbath into the Lord’s day on Sunday; for it will not be found in Scripture where Saturday is discharged to be kept, or turned into the Sunday. Wherefore it must be the Church’s authority that changed the one, and instituted the other. Therefore my opinion is, that those who will not keep this feast, may as well return to the observation of Saturday, and refuse the weekly Sunday. When any body can show me that herein I am in error, I shall not be ashamed to confess and amend it; till when, you know my mind. C. R.” Bampfield on the Sabbath, p. 24.

“SABBATARIAN. One who regards the seventh day of the week as holy, agreeably to the letter of the fourth commandment in the dialogue. There were christians in the early church who held this opinion.”

“SABBATH. This was the originally the seventh day of the week, the day on which God rested from the work of creation; and this day is still observed by the Jews and some christians as the Sabbath.” Webster’s Dictionary.

THE SABBATH CHANGED BY HUMAN AUTHORITY

“Think to change times and laws.”

DR. STONE in his work on the change of the Sabbath, p. 15, says:

“No precept enjoining the change was given, for the very reason, evidently, that Divine Wisdom saw it was not best to issue such a precept.”

Very true, Mr. Stone; and we may add that Divine Wisdom saw it was not best to issue such a precept for the very reason, evidently, that no such change was intended.

DR. NEANDER says:

“Opposition to Judaism introduced the particular festival of Sunday very early.”

DR. CHAMBERS says:

“It was Constantine the Great who first made a law for the observance of Sunday, and who, according to Eusebius, appointed that it should be regularly celebrated throughout the Roman Empire.”

He adds,

“Indeed, some are of the opinion that the Lord’s day mentioned in the Apocalypse, is our Sunday; which they will have to have been so early instituted.”

“By Constatine’s laws made in 321, it was decreed that for the future the Sunday should be kept a day of rest in all cities and towns; but he allowed the country people to follow their work. In 538, the Council of Orleans prohibited this country labor.

“To give the more solemnity to the first day of the week, (as we learn from Lucius’ Ecclesiastical History,) Sylvester who was bishop of Rome while Constantine was Emperor, changed the name of Sunday, giving it the more imposing title of Lord’s day.” Ency., Art. Sunday.

Constantine’s Decree says:

“Let all the Judges and town-people, and the occupations of all trades, rest on the venerable day of the sun.”

The Council of Laodicea, held A.D. 668, says:

“Christians must not Judaize and remain Idle on the Sabbath, but apply to work: let them prefer the Sunday, and show their respect for that day as Christians by abstaining from work on that day, if they choose. If they be found Judaizing, let them be anathema.”

The Historian says:

“‘Constantine styles the Lord’s day, dies solis, (day of the sun,) a name which could not offend the ears of his Pagan subjects.’ He artfully balanced the hopes and fears of his subjects, by publishing in the same year two edicts; the first of which enjoined the solemn observance of Sunday, &c.” Gibson’s Rome, Chap. 20.

BARONIUS in his Councils, says:

“This year [903] at Rome, St. Gregory, the Pope, corrected that error which some preached, by Jewish superstition, or the Grecian custom, that it was duty to workship on the Sabbath.”

MELANCTHON says:

“Those who judge that by the authority of the church the observance of the Lord’s day has been substituted for that of the Sabbath, as if necessary, greatly err.”

THOMAS ARNOLD, D. D., Professor in the University of Oxford, so late as 1840, writes as follows:

“It is true no doubt, that the Lord’s day was kept from time immemorial in the church as a day of festival, and connected with the notion of festival, the abstinence from worldly business naturally followed. A weekly religious festival, in which worldly business was suspended, bore such a resemblance to the Sabbath, that the analogy of the Jewish Law was often urged as a reason for its observance.” Arnold’s Life, pp. 204-6.

Bishop CRANMER’S Catechism, A.D. 1548, says:

“The Jews were commanded in the Old Testament to keep the Sabbath day, and they observed it every seventh day, called the Sabbath, or Saturday; but we Christian men are not bound to such commandments in Moses’ law, and therefore we now keep no more the Sabbath, or Saturday, as the Jews did, but we observe the Sunday, and some other days, as the magistrates do judge convenient.”

WM. TYNDALE says:

“Neither was there any cause to change it from the Saturday, other than to put a difference between us and the Jews, and lest we should become servants to the day after their superstition.”

BINIUS relates that Eustachius, Abbot of Flay, a popish Monk, in A.D. 1201 introduced Sunday-keeping into England, by virtue of a letter which he pretended came from Heavens to Jerusalem, and was found on St. Simeon’s tomb in Golgotha. The forged letter begins thus:

“I, the Lord, who commanded you that ye should observe the Dominical day, (Sunday) and ye have not kept it,” &c.

“The miraculous things which the Monk related in regard to this letter, gradually turned the people to the observance of the first day, so that by A.D. 1470, it was observed by Parliament.”

The first forgery not being sufficient to awe the whole people into the observance of Sunday, in A.D. 1783 another comes from the same source as follows:

“A LETTER WRITTEN BY GOD HIMSELF,

“And which was handed down at Magdeburg. “It was written in golden letters, and sent from God himself, by an angel; whoever wishes to copy it, to him it shall be given; whoever despises it, from him will the Lord depart.

“Whosoever labors on Sunday is cursed.—Therefore I command you that you labor not on Sunday, but devoutly go to church; but not to decorate your faces; ye shall not wear false hair, nor be proud of your riches; ye shall give to the poor; give liberally, and believe that this letter is written by my own hand, sent down by Christ himself; and that ye do not as the irrational beasts. Ye have six days in the week: but the seventh (namely, Sunday,) ye shall sanctify; if ye will not do this, I will send war, famine, pestilence and scarcity among you, and punish you with many plagues.

“I Jesus, have written this with my own hand; whoever contradicts and blasphemes it, shall have no help to expect from me; whoever has the letter and does not reveal it, he is cursed from the CHRISTIAN CHURCH; and if your sins be ever so great, they shall be forgiven if ye exercise repentance and sorrow.

“Whoever does not believe it, shall die, and be tormented in hell, and I too shall inquire at the last day after your sins, when ye must answer me.”

“And that person who carries the letter with him, or keeps it in his house, shall not be injured by any thunder-gust; he shall be secure from fire and water; and whoever shall reveal it before the children of men, shall have his reward, and obtain a blessed departure from this world.

“Keep my commandment which I have sent to you through my angel. I, true God of the Throne of Heaven, Son of God and of Mary. Amen.”

Sunday-keeping has been introduced and defended on the principle of the following

RULE OF CUSTOM

“Custom is defined the unwritten law. In order the custom should obtain the force and obligation of law, three things are required. 1^st, That it be introduced not by any particular person, but by a whole community. In the beginning all those persons who introduce custom contrary to law, sin. In process of time, those who follow a custom that has already been introduced by their ancestors, do not commit a sin in following the custom. In order that custom should obtain the force and obligation of law, it is required that it should continue a long time with repeated acts. In regard to the length of time sufficient to render a custom lawful, one opinion is, that it is to be left to the judgement of the prudent, according to the repetition of the acts, and the quality of the matter. The second opinion is, that ten years are required, and are sufficient.”

“Merchandizing, and selling of goods at auction on the Sundays, on account of its being the general custom, altogether lawful. Buying and selling goods on the Lord’s day and on other festival days, is certainly forbidden by the canonical law, but where the contrary custom prevails, it is excusable.” St. Ligori id. ib. N. 107.

SUNDAY-KEEPING OF HEATHEN ORIGIN

The American Sabbath School UNION says:

“Sunday was a name given by the heathen to the first day of the week, because it was the day on which they worshipped the sun.” Bible Dictionary.

DR. TUBERVILLE says:

“It is also called Sunday from the old Roman denomination of Dies Solis, the day of the sun, to which it was sacred.” Douay Catechism.

“To call it Sunday, is to set our wisdom before the wisdom of God, and to give that glory to a pagan idol which is due to him alone. The ancient Saxons called it by this name, because upon it they worshipped the sun.” Religious Ency. Art. Sunday.

“The heathen nations in the north of Europe dedicated this day to the sun, and hence their Christians descendants continue to call the day Sunday.” Webster Dictionary.

MILMAN says:

“The earlier laws of Constantine, though in their efforts favorable to Christianity, claimed some deference, as it were, to the ancient religion in the ambiguity of their language, and cautions terms in which they interfered with the liberty of Paganism. The rescript commanding the celebration of the Christian Sabbath, bears no allusion to its peculiar sanctity as a Christian institution. It is the day of the sun, &c... But the believer in the new Paganism, of which the solar worship was the characteristic, might acquiesce without scruple in the sanctity of the first day of the week.” Hist. of Christianity, p. 289.

“Our Sunday takes its name from the bright sun,

By heathens called the God of light and day;

At this approach the morning has begun,

Rejoicing nature, glories in his ray.”

SABBATH

“The Sabbath takes its name from God’s own rest,

When he at first the earth’s foundation laid;

This day alone he sanctified and blessed;

And thus for man the Sabbath-day was made.”

IS THE SOUL IMMORTAL?

Bible Testimony

“The blessed and the only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of Lords; who ONLY HATH IMMORTALITY.” 1 Tim. 4:16.

“To them who by patient continuance in well-doing, SEEK for glory, honor and IMMORTALITY.” Rom. 2:7.

“And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man BECAME a living soul.” Gen. 2:7.

The soul can be cut off, die and go into the grave; hence it CANNOT BE IMMORTAL. Proof. Gen. 12:12, 13; 17:14; Num. 15:30, 31; Josh. 10:28-31; 11:11; Job 7:15; 33:18-22, 28, 30; Ps. 7:1, 2; 30:3; 33:19; 49:12-15; 78:50; 89:48; 116:8; 119:25; Isa. 10:17, 18; Jer. 18:20; Eze. 13:19; 18:4, 20, 27: Rev. 16:3.

From the Review & Herald we take the following:

“The word ‘soul’ or rather the Hebrew and Greek from which it is translated, occurs in the word of God eight hundred and seventy-three times—seven hundred and sixty-eight times in the Old Testament, and one hundred and five times in the New. Also the word rendered ‘spirit,’ occurs in both Testament eight hundred and twenty-seven times—four hundred and forty-two in the Old Testament and three-hundred and eighty-five in the New. Their aggregate use in seventeen hundred times. But notwithstanding the Bible speaks to us eight hundred and seventy-three times of the soul, it never once calls it an ‘immortal soul;’ and though it tells us eight hundred and seven times of the spirit, it never once tells us of a ‘deathless spirit.’”

TESTIMONY OF THE APOCRYPHA

“Now therefore, why disquietest thou thyself, seeing thou art but a corruptible man? and why art thou moved, whereas thou art but mortal?” 2 Esdras 7:15.

“For God created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of his own eternity; nevertheless through envy of the devil came death into the world; and they that do hold of his side do find it.” Wisdom of Solomon 2:23.

“Who shall praise the most high in the grave, instead of them that live and give thanks? Thanksgiving perisheth from the dead, as from one that is not; the living and sound in heart shall praise the Lord. For all things cannot be in men, because the son of man is not immortal.” Ecclesiasticus 17:27-30.

TESTIMONY OF MEN

The following extracts are made from what are supposed to be the only genuine writings of those termed “Apostolic Fathers.”

CLEMENT, A.D. 96.

“But what can mortal man do? Or what strength is there in him that is made out of dust?” Ep. chap. 17.

IGNATIUS, A.D. 107.

“Breaking one and the same bread, which is the medicine of immortality; our antidote that we should not die, but live forever in Christ Jesus.” Ep. to Ephesias, chap. 4.

POLYCARP, A.D. 108.

“I bless thee that thou hast thought me worthy of the present day and hour, to have a share in the number of the martyrs, and in the cup of Christ, unto the resurrection of eternal life, both of SOUL and BODY,” &c. See Eusebius’ History.

IRENIEUS.

“Life is not from ourselves, nor from our nature, but it is given or bestowed according to the grace of God; and therefore he who preserves this gift of life, and returns thanks to him who bestows it, he shall receive length of days forever and ever. But he who rejects it, and proves unthankful to his Maker for creating him, and will not know him who bestows it, he deprives himself of the gift of duration to all eternity.”

JUSTIN MARTYR, who was born A. D. 89, and suffered death for Christ A.D., 163, says:

“Should you happen upon some who are called Christians indeed, and yet are far from holding these sentiments, but even dare to assail the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob with blasphemy, and say, THERE IS NO RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD; BUT INSTANTLY WHEN THEY DIE, ARE RECEIVED UP INTO HEAVEN; DO NOT COUNT THESE AMONG CHRISTIANS.”

EUSEBIUS, in his Ecclesiastical History, speaks of a class of people existing in the third century, in Arabia, that denied the natural immortality of the soul.”

“These, writes Eusebius, ‘asserted that the human soul as long as the present state of the world existed, perished at death, and died with the body, but that it would be raised again with the body at the time of the resurrection.”

WILLIAM TYNDALE, the translator, writing to More says:

“In putting departed souls in heaven, hell and purgatory, you destroy the arguments wherewith Christ and Paul prove the resurrection. What God 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 did ever live. And the Pope joineth the spiritual doctrine of Christ, and the fleshly doctrine of philosophers, together—things so contrary that they cannot agree. . . . And because the fleshly-minded Pope consenteth unto heathen doctrine, therefore he corrupteth the scriptures to establish it. . . . If the souls be in heaven, tell me why they be not in as good case as the angels be? And then what cause is there of the resurrection?”

Sir THOMAS MORE asked:

“What shall he care, how long he live in sin that believeth Luther, that he shall after this life feel neither good nor evil in body nor soul, until the day of doom?”

To which TYNDALE replied:

“Christ and his apostle taught no other, but warned to look for Christ’s coming again every hour, which coming again, because ye believe will never be, therefore have ye feigned that other merchandize.”

PRIDEAUX states that Pythagoras went from Egypt to Babylon, where he remained twelve years, and learned many important things. Of his return Prideaux says:

“But the most important doctrine which he brought home from thence, was that of the immortality of the soul; for it is generally agreed among the ancients, that he was the first of all the Greeks that taught it. And this, I take it for certain, he had from Zoroastres; for, as I have before shown, it was his doctrine, and he is the ancientest of any whom we have upon record of all the heathen nations that taught it.” Prideaux’s Connection, Vol. 1, p. 205.

DR. CAMPBELL says:

“Before the Captivity, and the Macedonian and Roman conquests, the Jews observed the most profound silence upon the state of the dead, as to their happiness or misery. They spoke of it simply as a state of silence, darkness and inactivity. But after the Hebrews mingled with the Greeks and Romans, they insensibly slided into their use of terms, and adopted some of their ideas on such subjects as those on which their oracles were silent.”

MILMAN says:

“Even the religious Pausanias speaks of the immortality of the soul as a foreign doctrine, introduce by the Chaldeans and the Magi, and embraced by some of the Greeks, particularly by Plato,” and adds that Pliny in his Natural History “devotes a separate chapter to a contemptuous exposure of the idle notion of the immortality of the soul, as a vision of human pride, &c.” History of Christianity, p. 34.

NEANDER says:

“We must however, still mention that among Christians in Arabia at that time, a party had caused a controversy, by maintaining that the souls died with the body, and that they would be raised again only at the general resurrection, at the same time with the bodies. It was an old Jewish notion that immortality was not founded upon the nature of the soul, but a peculiar gift of Divine grace: a representation which had been transferred from Judaism to Christianity, traces of which we find in the theory of the Gnostics about the nature of the Psychichi, in the doctrine of the Clementine, and in the opinions of Justin and Tatian. Perhaps also in this district the position of which placed it in close connection with Jews, it was no new doctrine, but the predominant one from ancient times and perhaps the influence of Origen (in whose system the doctrine of the immortality of the soul necessarily obtained a place) first effected the change, that this latter should obtain universal acceptance among the church teachers of that district; and that the small party, which still maintained the old opinion, should appear heretical, although the predominant opinion had previously really pronounced itself against it, [the new opinion.] Hence we may understand how the convocation of a Great Synod was considered necessary in order to allay these controversies. When they were unable to agree, Origen was invited by the Synod, and his influence prevailed upon the opposers of the doctrine of the natural immortality of the soul, to acknowledge their error, and renounce it.” Neander’s Hist. p. 444.

Bishop LAW, speaking of Cicero, says:

“Notwithstanding all the fine things which he had said about the immortality of the soul, or, which to him amounted to the same thing, a future state, in which point he seemed the most sanguine and positive, yet in his epistles, where he speaks his real thoughts, we find Him giving it all up,” &c.

DR. GOOD says:

“If we turn from Persia, Egypt and Hindoostan to Arabia, to the fragrant groves and learned shades of Dedan and Teman, from which it is certain that Persia, and highly probable that Hindoostan, derived its first polite literature, we shall find the entire subject” (of the immortality of the soul,) “left in as blank and barren a silence, as the deserts by which they are surrounded; or if touched upon, only touched upon, to betray doubt, and sometimes disbelief.

“The tradition, indeed, of a future state of retributive justice seems to have reached the schools of this part of the world, and to have been generally, though perhaps not universally, accredited; BUT THE FUTURE EXISTENCE IT ALLUDES TO, IS THAT OF A RESURRECTION OF THE BODY, AND NOT OF A SURVIVAL OF THE SOUL AFTER THE BODY’S DISSOLUTION!”

LELAND says:

“What that great man Cicero says of the philosophers of his time is remarkable. In that celebrated treatise where he sets chars. If to prove the immortality of the soul, he represents the contrary as the prevailing opinion; that there were crowds of opponents not the Epicureans only, but, which he could not account for, those that were the most learned persons had that doctrine in contempt.”

ADVANTAGES OF REVELATION

DARBY in his “Hopes of the Church,” says:

“We would express our conviction, that the idea of the immortality of the soul has no source in the gospel; that it comes, on the contrary, from the Platonist, and that it was just when the coming of Christ was denied in the church, or at least began to be lost sight of, that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul came in to replace that of the resurrection. This was about the time of Origen.”

The following is from the Comprehensive Commentary. Note on Josh. viii, 29.

“The Talmudist say—The reason bodies were to be buried immediately was, lest the view of the carcass, should lead the common people into the idea that the soul was also dead; and thus weaken the OPINION, WHICH NEEDED A REVELATION FROM GOD TO MAKE IT BELIEVED, THAT THE SOUL IS IMMORTAL.”

MARTIN LUTHER says:

“But I permit the pope to make articles of faith for himself and his faithful, such as, the pope is emperor of the world, and the king of heaven, and God upon earth; THE SOUL IS IMMORTAL, with all those monstrous opinions to be found in the Roman dunghill of decretals, &c.” Defense prop. 27.

ARCHDEACON BLACKBURN A. D. 1772 said:

“Afterwards indeed Luther espoused the doctrine of the SLEEP OF THE SOUL, upon a Scripture foundation, and then he made use of it as a confutation of purgatory and saint-worship, and continued in that the belief to the last moment of his life.” Historical View, p. 15.

TIMOTHY DWIGHT, D. D., LL. D., late President of Yale College, in his sermons, Vol. 1, p.163, says:

“Among Christians I know of but one [S. Drew] who has regarded the immortality of the soul as susceptible of demonstration. Should we believe with this ingenious writer, that the soul, metaphysically considered, is so formed, as naturally to be immortal, we must still acknowledge, because it cannot be denied, that its existence may terminate at death, or any other supposable period. Whatever has been created, can certainly be annihilated by the power which created it.”

BISHOP TILLOTSON, in his Sermons, printed in 1774, Vol. 2, said:

“The immortality of the soul is rather supposed, or taken for granted, than expressly revealed in the Bible.”

MR. ISAAC TAYLOR said:

“As to the pretended demonstrations of immortality drawn from the assumed simplicity and INDESTRUCTIBILITY OF THE SOUL as an immaterial substance, they appear altogether inconclusive, or if conclusive, then such as must be admitted to apply with scarcely diminished force to all sentient orders; and it must be granted that whatever has felt, and has acted spontaneously, must live again and forever. We have the best reasons for the confident expectation of another life; nor are in any need to fortify our convictions by arguments which if valid prove immensely more than we can desire to see established, or could persuade ourselves to think in any degree probable.” Physical Theory p. 254.

The following concerning certain Italian reformers, is from Audlin’s Life of Luther.

“These were new lights, who came to announce that they had discovered an irresistible argument against the Mass, Purgatory, and Prayer to the saints. This was simply to deny the immortality of the soul, &c. They left Wittemburg and went to Geneva, where we find them in 1561, sustaining in a crowded school and in printed theses, that all which has been said about the Immortality of the soul was invented by antichrist for the purpose of making the pope’s pot boil.”

BISHOP JEREMY TAYLOR says:

“Whatsoever had a beginning can also have an ending, &c., . . . and therefore God had prepared a tree in Paradise to have supported Adam in his artificial immortality: IMMORTALITY WAS NOT IN HIS NATURE, but in the hands and arts in the favor and super-additions of God.”

PROF. STUART says:

“The light of nature can never scatter the darkness in question. This light has never yet sufficed to make even the question clear, to any portion of our benighted race, Whether the soul of man is immortal? Cicero, incomparably the most able defender of the soul’s immortality of which the heathen world can yet boast, very ingenuously confesses, that after all the arguments which he had adduced in order to confirm the doctrine in question, it so fell out, that his mind was satisfied of it only when directly employed in contemplating the arguments adduced in its favor. At all other times, he fell unconsciously into a state of doubt and darkness.

“It is notorious also that Socrates, the next most able advocate among the heathen for the same doctrine, has adduced arguments to establish the never-ceasing existence of the soul, which will not bear the test of examination.”

DR. ADAM CLARKE says:

“What do we know of the spiritual world? How do souls exist separate from their respective bodies? Of what are they capable, and what is their employment? Who can answer these questions? Perhaps nothing can be said much better of the state, than is said Job, x, 21: ‘A land of obscurity like darkness, and the shadow of death;’ a place where death rules over which he projects his shadow, intercepting every light of every kind of life.” Christian Theology, p. 370.

DR. PRIESTLEY says:

“If we search the scriptures for passages expressive of the state of man at death, we find such declarations as expressly exclude any trace of sense, thought, or enjoyment. See Ps. vi, 5; Job xiv, 7,” Reg. Ency., p. 784.

PROF. KNAPP says:

“This doctrine respecting the immortality of the soul, in the strict philosophical sense of the term, is of far less consequence to religion than is commonly supposed. The reason why so much importance has been supposed to attach to this doctrine, is that it was considered as essential to the metaphysical proof of the immortality of the soul. But since the immortality of the soul, in the strictest sense, can never be made fully and obviously certain, whatever philosophical arguments may be urged in its favor, the proof of immortality should never be built upon it.” Knapp’s Christian Theology.

The Advent Herald, published at Boston, Mass., by J. V. Himes, says:

“Living is a condition nowhere affirmed of souls disconnected from their bodies. For souls to live, is for them to be reunited to their bodies. As, when disconnected from the body, the SOUL IS UNDER THE DOMINION OF DEATH, AND HADES, it follows that for it to live, is to free it from that dominion.”

H. H DOBNEY, Baptist Minister of England, says:

“If in these days of multiplied infallibilities, it may be allowed us to prefer an apostolic and inspired exposition of the original record, we shall respectfully take leave to affirm that there is no expression on the opening page of a progressive revelation, which teaches the unutterably grand prerogative of an uncontingent immortality for all mankind.” Future Punishment, p. 120.

The following concerning the origin of the doctrine of the natural immortality of the soul, is from Bible vs. Tradition, p. 302.

“Let it be registered as the genuine genealogy of a fundamental doctrine of modern British Christendom, that the Pagan Plato was its father, and the profligate Pope Leo its foster-father. Born and bred by the Pagan philosophy and the protege of Popery, this notion of the soul’s immortality has become a pet dogma of popular Protestantism, which with a strange forgetfulness of its low lineage, openly declares it to be the honorable offspring of a true orthodoxy!”

Among the writers against the doctrine of the natural immortality of the soul, not quoted in the foregoing extracts, are the following: Dr. Whately, Archbishop of Dublin: Edward White, Congregational Minister in Hereford; W. Glen Monecrief, Congregational Minister in Edinburgh; J. Phantom Ham, Congregational Minister of Bristol; and Sir James Stephen, Professor of Modern History at Cambridge.

THE SECOND ADVENT

The doctrine of Christ’s soon coming back to earth literally, has been regarded by many as “Millerism,” “new things,” &c., but the following testimonies will show that it is not only a Bible doctrine, but that it has been the faith of many of the best and most learned men.

BIBLE TESTIMONY

“This same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manners as ye have seen him go into heaven.” Acts 1:1l

Matt. 24:29-34; Mark 14:62; Luke 12:36-40; John 14:3; 1 Cor. 1:7; Phil. 3:20; 1 Thess. 1:10; 4:16; 2 Thess. 1:7; 3:5; Titus 2:13; Heb. 9:28; 10:37; James 5:7, 8; 1 Pet. 1:13; Rev. 1:7.

TESTIMONY OF MEN

Said CLEMENT, A.D. 96:

“Wherefore let us every hour expect the kingdom of God in love and righteousness, because we know not the day of our Lord’s appearing.”

Said CYPRIAN, A.D. 220:

“It were a self-contradictory and incompatible thing for us, who pray that the kingdom of God may quickly come, to be looking for long life here below. . . . Let us ever in anxiety and cautiousness be awaiting the sudden advent of the Lord.”

Said CYRIL., A.D. 350:

“Do thou look for the true Christ, the Son of God, the only Begotten; who is henceforth to come not from earth, but from heaven, appearing to ail more bright than any lightning, or any other brilliance, with angels for his guards, that he may judge quick and dead, . . . it behooveth us to know the signs of the end,--and we are looking for Christ.”

Said AUGUSTINE:

“But men continually say to themselves, ‘Lo, the day of Judgment is coming now, so many evils are happening, so many tribulations thicken; behold all things which the prophets have spoken have well nigh fulfilled—the day of Judgment is already at hand.”

Said JOHN BRADFORD:

“Covet not the things that are in the world, but long for the coming of the Lord Jesus.”

The WALDENSES said:

“We ought always to watch and pray; for we see that the world is near its end. Daily we see the signs coming to their accomplishment, in the increase of evil,” &c. Horae Apoc., Vol. 2, p, 315.

HUGH LATIMER, A.D. 1535, said:

“Therefore all those excellent and learned men, which, without doubt, God hath sent into the world in these latter days, to give the world warning,... do gather out of the scriptures that the last day cannot be far off.” Third Sermon on Lord’s Prayer.

JOHN KNOX, Presbyterian Reformer, who was so mighty with God that Queen Mary said she feared his prayers more than an army of twenty thousand men, in 1554 of Christ’s Coming, said:

“We know that he shall return and that with expedition.”

JOHN CALVIN, A.D. 1535, said:

“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.” Institutes. b. 3, chap. 25.

MARTIN LUTHER, in A.D. 1515, said of passing events:

“I do most earnestly hope that these are the blessed signs of the immediate end of all things.” Mitchel’s Life of Luther, p. 255.

“Near the time of his death he said:

“I persuade myself verily that the day of Judgment will not be absent full three hundred years more. God will not, cannot, suffer this wicked world much longer.”

JOHN MILTON, author of “Paradise Lost,” in sentiment a Baptist, said:

“When thou, the eternal and shortly expected King, shall open the clouds to judge,” &c. Treatise on Christian Doctrine, Vol. 2, Chap. 33.

RICHARD BANTER says:

“Would it not rejoice your hearts if you were sure to live to see the coming of the Lord? . . . For my own part, I must confess to you that death as death, appeareth to me as an enemy, and my nature doth abhor and fear it. But the thoughts of the coming of the Lord are most sweet and joyful to me. . . . Oh that I might see his kingdom come!” Works, Vol. xvii, p. 555.

Again BAXTER says:

“If death be the last enemy to be destroyed at the resurrection, we may learn how earnestly believers should long and pray for the second coming of Christ, when this full and final conquest shall be made.” Works, Vol. xvii, p. 500.

ISAAC AMBROSE, a Presbyterian divine of England, on the Second Advent, said:

“This time is at hand. . . . See you not now many signs, as heralds and forerunners of his glorious coming?” Ambrose’s Works, p. 408.

THOMAS WATSON, a pious divine who died in A. D, 1673, says:

“The time of the general Judgment is a secret kept from the angels, but this is sure, it cannot be far off.” Body of Divinity, p. 208.

SAMUEL RUTHERFORD, professor of Divinity at St. Andrews in Scotland, who, with Bailee, were styled the “great, lights of their day,” says:

“We are in the last days, the day of the Lord is now near at hand.” Letters, p. 367.

MATTHEW HENRY, A. D. 1700. The superior excellence of his Commentary, says Dr. Alexander, are admitted by thousands of judicious Theologians, and Dr. Clarke affirms, “It is always orthodox.” On 2 Pet. iii, he says:

“How much more should they wait with expectation and earnestness for his second coming, which will be the day of their complete redemption.” “They, (the wicked,) will still attack us till the end of time; till our Lord is come; they will not believe that he will come; nay, they will laugh at the very notion of his second coming, and do all they can to put all out of countenance who seriously believe and wait for it.”

On Luke xviii, 8, Dr. HENRY remarks:

“In particular it intimates that he will delay his coming so long that wicked people will begin to defy it, and to say, ‘Where is the promise of his coming?’ They will challenge him to come; and his delay will harden them in their wickedness. Even his own people will begin to despair of it, and conclude he will never come, because he has passed their reckoning.”

ISAAC NEWTON says:

“About the time of the end, in all probability a body of men will be raised up, who will turn their attention to the prophecies, and insist upon their literal interpretation in the midst of much clamor and opposition.” Observations on Prophecy.

Dr. JOHN GILL, on Rev. iii, 20, writes:

“‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock,’ &c. The phrase, ‘standing at the door,’ may be expressive of the near approach of Christ to Judgment; and his knocking may signify the notice that will be given of it by some of the immediate forerunners and signs of his coming; which will yet be observed by a few, such a general sleepiness will have seized the professors of religion.”

PHILLIP DODDRIDGE SAYS:

“He comes quickly; and I trust you can answer with a glad amen, that the warning is not troublesome or unpleasant to your ears, but rather that his coming, his certain, his speedy coming, is the object of your delightful hope, and your longing expectation.” Rise and Progress, p. 419.

JOHN WESLEY expected the Millennium in 1836, remarking that,

“In a short time those who say they (the thousand years) are now at hand, will appear to have spoken the truth.”

On ‘adding to the Prophecy,’ he says:

“And doubtless this guilt is incurred by all those who lay hindrances in the way of the faithful, which prevents them from hearing the Lord’s I come! and answering, Come, Lord Jesus!” Wesley’s Notes.

COTTON MATHER, in his work entitled, Student and Preacher, says:

“The Ruler of the world, returning to us, will send forerunners, who will show his approach and the speediness of his coming. And before the very great and very greatly to be dreaded day of the Lord come, he will send Elias, or men endued with his spirit and his power, who with a loud voice shall show themselves sons of thunder, concerning the Lord’s hastening to us. It behooveth any servant of God, who would be named a vigilant and not a drowsy servant, to perform this office of Elias.” Life of Mather, p. 141.

GEORGE WHITFIELD, who died in Mass., A.D. 1770, often used the expression,

“In these last times,” “in these last days,” in a little while,” very shortly, Christ will come.” Memoirs and Sermons.

GEORGE BENSON says:

“We expect his Second Advent to restore all things, to judge the world, to condemn his enemies, and to begin his glorious reign.” Benson’s Notes.

ROBERT HALL, a Baptist preacher and author, of great talent, says:

“Everything in the condition of mankind, announces the approach of some great crisis.” Hale’s Works, Vol. iv, p. 404.

JOHN DE-LA FLETCHER, A.D. 1775, says:

“It is remarkable that more books have been written upon the prophecies these last hundred years, than were ever known before, and all—those at least, which I have read—agree that these things will, in all probability, soon come upon the earth. I know many have been mistaken as to years; but because they were rash, shall we be stupid? Because they said ‘to-day,’ shall we say ‘never,’ and cry ‘peace, peace,’ when we should look about us with eyes full of expectation.” “If these things happen not to us, but to our children, (as they most certainly will before the third generation passes away,) is it not our business to prepare ourselves for them, to meditate on them, and warn as many people as we can prudently, lest their blood be required at our hands.” See Fletcher’s Works, Vol. x.

WILLIAM ROMAINE, an eminent and learned Theologian and Divine, about A.D. 1790, said:

“The marks and signs of Christ’s Second Advent, are fulfilling daily. His coming cannot be far off. If you compare the uncommon events which the Lord said were to be forerunners of his coming to judgment, with what hath lately happened in the world, you must conclude that the time is at hand.”

WILLIAM COWPER, about A.D. 1789, said:

“The world appears

To tell the death-bell of its own decease;

And by the voice of all its elements,

To preach the general doom. When were winds

Let slip with such a warrant to destroy?

When did the waves so haughtily o’erleap

Their ancient barrier, deluging the dry?

Fires from beneath, and meteors from above,

Pertentous, unexampled, unexplained.

Have kindled beacons in the skies. The old

More frequent, and foregone her usual rest;

And nature seems with dim and sickly eye

To wait the close of all.” Cowper’s Task, B. 2.

THOMAS SCOTT, who died A.D. 1821, on Dan. 8:14, says:

“No doubt the end of the 2300 days or years, is not very distant.”

THOMAS CORE was associated with Wesley, and was very active, accomplishing nine missionary voyages to America! Of Christ’s coming he says:

“Near, even at the doors, is the day of Judgement. The period of time which yet remains we known is short; how short, who can tell? We ought to be in constant and hourly expectation of it. At the coming of Christ to avenge and deliver his faithful people, the faith of his coming will, in a great measure, be lost. Chronological calculation, and the general appearance of the world, all conspire to tell us that the events of the latter days are even come upon us, and that the time of God’s controversy with the earth is near at hand. It is already on the wing.” See Coke’s Commentary.

LORENZO DOW says:

“The ten toes of Nebuchadnezzar’s Image only remain; these times are eventful, and the signs are portentous; let all the Israel of God be in a state of readiness for the coming of the Lord.” Dow’s Journal, p. 355.

ALFRED BRYANT, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Niles, Mich., says:

“The chronological data which the prophecies give, furnish intimation that the time is short when all that is predicted shall come to pass.” “There can be no doubt that, according to prophecy, we are on the eve of vast political revolutions, in which probably blood will flow, as described in Apocalyptic vision.” “The very general expectation upon the minds of most persons, that we are approaching some great crisis, is an indication of a coming Saviour.” Views of Millennium, pp. 224, 225.

DR. CUMMING of England says:

“It seems as if every body moved by express and believed they should not be able to accomplish their mission before that night comes when no man can work. The omens and auguries of an approaching crisis, are so thick, and vivid, and so remarkable, that there is not a thinking distinguished statesman in Europe that does not feel afraid to look into that unsounded but opening future that is before Europe our country, and mankind.” Benedictions, pp. 181, 182.

SIR ROBERT PEEL says:

“Every aspect of the present times, viewed in the light of the past, warrants the belief that we are on the eve of a universal change.”

The learned DR. ELLIOT remarks:

“With regard to our present position, we have been led, as the result of our investigations, to fix it at but a short distance from the end of the now existing dispensation, and the expected Second Advent of Christ.”

Says JOHN COX, of England:

“So far as I can discern, no further signs are to be expected, as it seems to me we have entered into that last period of awful expectation, during which the church is likened unto virgins.”

DR. TWING, Episcopal minister in New York, says:

“The building fig-tree does not indicate the approach of Summer clearer than the signs of the times betoken the soon coming of the everlasting kingdom.”

DAVID LORD, editor of the Literary and Theological Journal, published in New York, remarks as follows:

“There are no future events more clearly revealed than that Christ is, within a brief period, to come from heaven in person, and visibly raise the sanctified who shall have died, and judge and accept those who are living, and destroy the civil and ecclesiastical powers who usurp his rights, and persecute his people.”

DR. LYMAN BEECHER, in a sermon preached in London, while attending the Evangelical Alliance, made use of the following striking language:

“The Lord is speedily to come! Christ is at the door! Behold, the Bridegroom cometh! go ye out to meet him! All are in expectation of the coming of the Son of man!”

And Prof. GEORGE BUSH, of New York, has admitted that,

“We are living in an age expressly foretold by prophecy, and just opening upon the crowning consummation of all prophetic declarations!”

The Edinburgh Presbyterian Review says;

“Never was there a time when events developed themselves with such rapidity. As the world moves on, it seems to accelerate its speed, and precipitate itself with headlong haste. Events seem to ripen before the time. The crisis comes on ere we are aware of the commencement. Speed, whirlwind speed, is the order of the day.”

CHARLES LANDGRAVE, father-in-law of the king of Denmark, in a speech at the annual meeting of the Holstein Bible Society, A. D. 1829, said:

“Is not the second coming, spoken of by our Lord to his disciples, now near, since the appointed sign by him has appeared?” Edinburgh Christ. Inst., June 1830.

EDWARD WINTHROP, Rector of St. Paul’s Church, Norwalk, Ohio, says:

“As we are rapidly approaching the grand crisis of this world’s history, it becomes us in a devout and prayerful spirit, carefully to note the signs of the times.” Winthrop’s Letters, p. 142.

WM. MILLER says:

“I beseech you, O sinner, do not hear to those who will deceive you. Look for yourselves: read, study, and consider for yourselves. You may depend upon it, every important movement of the nations, of the church, of the sects, and societies of the world, denote the end of all things at hand.” Memoirs, pp. 404-5.

Dr. George Duffield, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Detroit, Mich., says:

“Minds of the highest order, Christians of the most ardent and devoted piety, and scholars of the profoundest erudition, have embraced the Millennarian faith, as the true and genuine import of God’s promises and the scheme of prophecy.” Millennarianism Defended, pp. 182, 183.

The dying words of John King Lord, late pastor of the First Orthodox Congregational Church, Cincinnati, Ohio, were:

“Tell the Church to hold on till Christ comes.”

H. W. Fox, late missionary from England to the Teloogoo people, said:

“I have a strong anticipation that the time is not far distant.” Memoirs, p. 246.

Bishop Hopkins of Vermont, says:

“We would admonish you with still greater earnestness, to keep your souls in constant readiness for your Lord’s advent, and in a state of sacred desire to behold him in his glory.” Discourses on Advent, p. 29.

THOMAS WICKES, pastor of the First Congregational Church in Marietta, Ohio, says:

“If Christ comes at the termination of this period of reigning iniquity and delusion, he is coming quickly.”

J. W. BROOKS, vicar of Clareborough, England, says:

“I am most firmly persuaded that we are living in that awful period designated in scripture, as the last days, and the last time. Every succeeding year serves to increase the evidence on this head, and to give clearness, precision and intensity to those signs which already have been noticed by commentators. Even worldly men are so affected by the signs of our times, as to feel seriously persuaded that some tremendous crisis is at hand.” Elements of Prophetical Interpretation, p. 480.

FAITH OF THE BAPTISTS IN 1660

The following extract is from a confession of faith, signed by JOHN BUNYAN, and forty other elders, deacons, and brethren, and approved by more than 20,000 others, was presented to king Charles II, in London, 1660. They declared:

“We are not only resolved to suffer persecution to the loss of our goods, but also life itself, rather than decline from the same.”

“We believe that the same Lord Jesus who showed himself alive after his passion, by many infallible proofs, [Acts 1:3.] which was taken up into heaven, [Luke 24:51,] shall so come in like manner as he was seen to go into heaven. Acts 1:9-11. Though alas! now many men be scarce content that the saints should have so much as a being among them, but when Christ shall appear, then shall their day come, then shall be given unto them power over the nations,” &c. Crosby’s Hist. of Bap., Vol. 2, p. 85.

H. L. HASTINGS says:

“The present is an eventful hour in earth’s history. All things verge towards an awful crisis. Nations are in distress—wise men are perplexed—rulers grasp the sword, and sit uneasily on their thrones—deep thunders mutter in the distance—and the red blaze of battle flashes along the eastern skies. The premonitory shocks that herald the earthquake’s coming are felt, and war will soon roll its volcanic torrent along the earth. The crisis is at hand.”

DR. FRANCIS WAYLAND, in a sermon preached Oct. 11^th, 1857, says:

“Every countenance is furrowed with anxiety. Nothing in the daily papers is read but telegraphic despatches from every city in the Union, telling of unexampled distress, and announcing the failure of houses that were considered above the reach of vicissitudes, or banks whose circulation forms the earnings of multitudes. And if you go beyond this, and ask the signs of the times of those whose sagacity is rarely at fault, and whose means of knowledge is most to be relied on, they tell you that they see no light. Private accounts are even more distressing than public report. City after city succumbs, and the rest stand on the verge of suspension. Men’s hearts are failing them for fear, and for looking after those things that are coming. It seems like the deep, choking stillness which precedes the earth make, when the ground begins to tremble beneath our feet, and every one is looking in dismay for the catastrophe which is to overwhelm the labor of centuries in one indiscriminate ruin.”

The Christian Observer for 1815, speaking of Mr. Penn’s works on Prophecy, says:

“The admirable intent of both of Mr. Penn’s works on Prophecy is to prepare men’s minds for that great and terrible day, which, if the signs of the times (distinctly foretold by our Lord) may be trusted to, is not far from us. To my surprise, I have heard a sermon preached by a gentleman of zeal, powers, and reputation, objecting to this doctrine as dangerous. How so? Wherein can consist the danger of a Christian’s expecting the coming of his Saviour from day to day? of its occupying all his thoughts? of its influencing (which it may certainly do, without deranging them) his whole business, life, and conversation? Surely he is not likely to become the worse member of society for it, or to be the less prepared for the event of his own death.”

“Every expositor of the present day seems to agree that we live in the last times.”

Among the authors and editors that have written in favor of the personal and near coming of Christ, are the following:

Edward Irving, Charlotte Elizabeth, Matthew Habershon, John Hooper, J. A. Begg, Dr. Keith, H. M. Villiers, Henry Woodard, Dr. George Croley, Henry Drummond, Wm. Wogan Esq., Dr. Jos. Wolfe, Wm. Pym, J. H. Stewart, Mourant Brock, Ridley Herschell, J. W. Brooks, Wm. Ramsey II. Jones, Prof. A. Hopkins, Prof. J. F. Huber, Dr. Stephen Tyng, Bishop Henshaw, Nathan Lord, Elon Gallusha, Prof. N. Whiting, Alfred Bryant, Josiah Litch, J. V. Himes, Dr. J. Thomas, J. Merriam, &c.

Besides all these there are MORE THAN ONE HUNDRED Advent authors of note, [see Voice of the Church, by D. T. Taylor,] also many thousand believers. In view of all this, shall we pronounce the Second Advent doctrine, heresy, winds of doctrine, new things, Millerism, &c.? God forbid. But rather let all professed watchmen heed the following solemn charge of DR. HUGH MCNEILE:

“My brethren, Watch, preach the coming of Jesus—I charge you in the name of our common Master, preach the coming of Jesus—solemnly and affectionately in the name of God, I charge you, preach the coming of Jesus.”