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Views From The Watch Tower.
Watch Tower Views Of Socialism.
SOME of the dear friends have quite mistaken our
recent publication of items on the progress of Socialism. In the volumes of the
MILLENNIAL DAWN series (especially in VOL. IV) we have endeavored to show that
we have great sympathy with every movement designed to benefit
mankind--including Socialism--but that from the Bible view-point the hope of
the world lies in none of these human devices, but only in the second coming of
Christ and in the Kingdom of the heavens then to be established. We do point
out, however, that God purposes to allow mankind to try various projects for
its own relief, only to learn their futility, and that the end of all these
failures will be discouragement and anarchy; but that the Lord's people, better
informed than others through the Scriptures, will not only not be led to
discouragement and anarchy, but can by faith rejoice in the troubles, knowing
of the glorious outcome of peace and blessing these will usher in--the
Millennium.
THE FRENCH DISESTABLISHMENT.
The Church and its supreme Pontiff are blamed by
Emile Combes, ex-Premier of France,
for the disruption of the Concordat. As Mr. Combes was the leading spirit in
the severance of this bond between Church and State, his utterance, which
appears in the Deutsche
Revue (Stuttgart), is probably
the most authoritative that has been given out on the Government's side of the
dispute. He says in a recent article:--
"It is time that in France an
administrative organization of clergy be suppressed, which transforms the
pulpit into a political tribune, where with unrestrained liberty all the
political and social reforms, all the measures taken in the interests of
liberty and progress are controverted and pointed out to the faithful as so
many crimes against religion. Separated from the State the Church can utter
what opinions it likes about statesmen and their acts, but this can not be
permitted in a Church allied to the State by a treaty which accords to
ecclesiastics a legally recognized authority and all the privileges of State
functionaries."
A GREAT
CONFERENCE FOR RELIGIOUS CO-OPERATION.
The Literary Digest says:--
More than seventeen million church members,
belonging to twenty-six different communions, we are told, will be represented
at the great gathering in New York
city, beginning November 15, to discuss and plan for
church federation. Cooperation in service is said to be the goal the conference
will have in view, and no organic union of denominations will be attempted. The
idea of federation, represented by this conference, believes the Chicago Tribune is
practicable "because it makes possible union without fusion" and the Rochester Democrat
and Chronicle surmises
that its resulting organization "may become one of the great moral social
and religious factors of the coming age." The coming conference has been
planned and promoted by the National Federation of Churches and Christian
Organizations, which came into being in 1900.
Dr. F. M. North, writing of the approaching
Inter-church Conference on Federation, says:--
"Should the present promise of its import
be realized, there should be an influence in its utterance and its action so
powerful as to create a new epoch in the progress of Christ's Kingdom....It is,
however, in the Evangelical Alliance of the United States of America that the
historian will find the organized influence which has most strongly emphasized
the principles underlying federation." --See MILLENNIAL DAWN, Vol. III.,
chap. 6.
THE POPE ON
THE BIBLE.
----------
It betokens a marked change in the attitude of
the Church of Rome toward the Bible for the laity, when the Pope gives his
blessing to an association engaged in sending it forth in the language of the
people. The St. Jerome Association is engaged in this for Italy, and when
requested to bestow his blessing on the new work and the spread of the Gospel,
the Pope answered:--
"Gladly do I give my blessing, and that
with both hands and with full heart, for I do not doubt that this [R3652 : page 324] work
will produce the richest fruit and is already blessed by God. The more we read
the Gospel the stronger our faith becomes. The Gospels are writings that are
valuable for everybody and under all circumstances. I have lived among the
common people and know what they want and what pleases them. Tell them the
simplest Bible stories and you will have attentive listeners and effect blessed
results.
"Your purpose is to spread the Gospels. You
are doing a noble work. Some people think that the peasants, with their plain,
everyday way of thinking, would not profit by the reading of the Scriptures.
This is incorrect. The average peasant is a shrewder thinker than we may
suspect, and knows how to draw the correct lessons from the Scriptures, often
even better than many of the preachers. But it is not only the common people
and the lower classes who will profit by the reading of the Scriptures.
"No matter how many prayer books and books
of devotion there may be for the priests, none is better than the Gospels. This
is an unsurpassed book of devotion, the true bread of life. I grant an especial
apostolic blessing on all those who preach the Gospel, who hear and read it,
whether on a Sunday or a week day. I bestow my blessing on all members of the
St. Jerome Society and all who cooperate in the sacred work of spreading the
Gospel."--Christian Intelligencer.
HIGH ENGLISH
CHURCHMEN FAVOR HIGHER CRITICISM.
----------
London.--A committee of 101 clergymen sent out a
request some time ago for petitions on the subject of Biblical criticism, or
the so-called "higher criticism." Over 1700 clergymen of the Church
of England having signed the declaration, the widespread and far-reaching
character of the petition has aroused comment and caused criticism. That 1700
clergymen should have signed a document of that kind is regarded as an amazing
thing. The document itself calls attention to the momentous intellectual
character of "higher criticism" or Biblical criticism.--Globe-Democrat.
FIFTEEN PER
CENT. OF NEBRASKA CHURCHES ARE
PASTORLESS.
----------
Lincoln,
Neb.--Fifteen
per cent. of the Protestant churches of Nebraska
are without pastors, and it is impossible to secure ministers to fill the
vacant pulpits. According to reports received at the headquarters of the
Congregational, Methodist and Lutheran churches here scarcely a week passes but
some minister breaks away from the calling to engage in another line of work.
The prosperity of the farming industry has called away the greater number, but
many have also gone into business and other professions.
DISPROOFS OF
THE EVOLUTION THEORY.
----------
"To the student of architecture it may be
surprising to learn that the arch, until recently supposed to have been unknown
to the ancients, was frequently employed by the pre-Babylonians. Such an arch,
in a poor state of preservation, was, a few years ago, discovered in the lowest
stratum, beneath the Babylonian city of Nippur.
More recently an arched drain was found beneath the old city of Fara, which the Germans have excavated in Central Babylonia. The city, although one of the earliest
known, was built upon an earlier ruin, and provided with an arched drain
constructed of small plano-convex bricks. It measures about one meter in height
and has an equal width.
"While delving among the ruined cities of
the world, we are thus finding that at the time when we supposed that man was
primitive and savage, he provided his home and city with 'improvements' which
we are inclined to call modern, but which we are only reinventing." --Prof.
E. J. Banks.
UNTIL HE
COME!
----------
When we celebrate the Lord's Memorial supper we
show forth his death, until he come--until at his coming he changes, glorifies
us, setting us up as his Kingdom. --1 Cor. 11:26.
We are using our talents, until he come. --Luke 19:13.
We are fighting the good fight of faith, until
he come.--1 Tim. 6:12-14.
We are enduring tribulation, until he come.-- 2 Thess. 1:7.
We are to be patient until he come.--James 5:8.
We wait for the crown of righteousness, until he
come.--2 Tim. 4:8.
We wait for the crown of glory, until he come.-- 1 Pet. 5:4.
We wait for re-union with departed friends,
until he come.--1 Thess. 4:13-18.
We wait for Satan to be bound until he come. --Rev. 20:3.
* * *
Until he come, then, does not point to a special
moment, hour or day, but to the period of his presence (parousia), during
which his "harvest" work will gather and glorify his saints and
establish his promised Kingdom.
W.T. R-3652a : page 323 -1905r
