STUDY IV

BABYLON ARRAIGNED BEFORE THE
GREAT COURT

The Civil, Social and Ecclesiastical Powers of Babylon, Christendom, Now Being Weighed in the Balances--The Arraignment of the Civil Powers--The Arraignment of the Present Social System--The Arraignment of the Ecclesiastical Powers--Even Now, in the Midst of Her Festivities the Handwriting of Her Doom is Traced and May Be Distinctly Read, Though the Trial is Not Yet Completed.

"THE mighty God, even the Lord, hath spoken, and called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof. He shall call to the heavens from above [the high or ruling powers], and to the earth [the masses of the people], that he may judge his [professed] people [Christendom].

"Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel [nominal spiritual Israel--Babylon, Christendom], and I will testify against thee. ...Unto the wicked God saith, What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth, seeing thou hatest instruction and castest my words behind thee? When thou sawest a thief, then thou consentedst with him, and hast been partaker with adulterers. Thou givest thy mouth to evil and thy tongue frameth deceit. Thou sittest and speakest against thy brother [the true saints, the wheat class]; thou slanderest thine own mother's son. These things hast thou done, and I kept silence; thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself; but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes.

The object of this trial is not to convince the great Judge of the actual standing of these powers; for already we are forewarned of their doom by his "sure word of prophecy"; and already men can read upon the walls of their banqueting halls the writing of the mysterious, but fateful, hand -- "MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN!" The present trial, involving the discussion of rights and wrongs, of doctrines, authorities, etc., is to manifest to all men the real character of Babylon, so that, though men have long been deceived by her vain pretensions, they may eventually, through this process of judgment, fully realize the justice of God in her final overthrow. In this trial, her claims of superior sanctity and of divine authority and appointment to rule the world, as well as her many monstrous and contradictory doctrinal claims, are all being called in question.

Babylon Weighed in the Balances

Now the great public is the reading public, the traveling public, the thinking public; and it is fast becoming the discontented and clamorous public, with little reverence left for the kings and potentates that have held together the old order of things under which they now so restlessly chafe. It is only about three hundred and fifty years since a statute of the English Parliament made provision for the illiterates among its members, in these words--"any Lord and Lords of the Parliament, and Peer and Peers of the Realm having place or voice in Parliament, upon his request or prayer, claiming the benefit of this act, though he cannot read." Of the twenty-six Barons who signed the Magna Charta, it is said that three only wrote their names, while twenty-three made their marks.

But it is too late in the day for such a policy as this to succeed, even in Russia. It is the policy which the Papacy pursued in the days of its power, but which that crafty institution now realizes would be a failure, and sure to react upon the power attempting it. Light has dawned upon the minds of the masses, and they cannot be relegated to their former darkness. With the gradual increase of knowledge republican forms of government have been demanded, and the monarchical have been of necessity greatly modified by force of their example and the demands of the people.

In the dawning light of the new day men begin to see that under the protection of false claims, supported by the people in their former ignorance, the ruling classes have been selfishly making merchandise of the natural rights and privileges of the rest of mankind. And, looking on and weighing the claims of those in authority, they are rapidly reaching their own conclusions, notwithstanding the poor apologies offered. But being themselves actuated by no higher principles of righteousness and truth than the ruling classes, the judgment of the masses is as far from right on the other side of the question, their growing disposition being hastily to ignore all law and order rather than to consider coolly and dispassionately the claims of justice on all sides in the light of God's Word.

Her representatives call upon the world to note the glory of their kingdoms, the triumphs of their arms, the splendor of their cities and palaces, the value and strength of their institutions, political and religious. They strive to reawaken the old-time spirit of clannish partriotism and superstition, which formerly bowed in submissive and worshipful reverence to those in authority and power; which lustily shouted, "Long live the king!" and reverently regarded the persons of those who claimed to be the representatives of God.

The ecclesiastical powers, particularly, feel it incumbent upon them to render up their accounts in order to make the best possible showing; thus, if possible, to restrain the revolutionary current of public sentiment against them. But as they attempt to apologize for the meager good results of the past centuries of their power, they only add to their own confusion and perplexity, and arouse the attention of others to the true condition of affairs. These apologies are constantly appearing in the columns of the secular and religious press. And in marked contrast with these are the fearless criticisms from the world at large of both the civil and ecclesiastical powers of Christendom. Of these the following extracts from floating press reports are samples.

The World's Arraignment of the Civil Powers

"Among all the strange beliefs of the race, there is none stranger than that which made Almighty God select with care some of the most ordinary members of the species, often sickly, stupid and vicious, to reign over great communities under his special protection, as his representatives on earth." New York Evening Post.

Another journal some years ago had the following, under the caption--"A Poor Lot of Kings:"

"It is stated with some appearance of truth that King Milan of Servia is insane. The king of Wurttemberg is a partial lunatic. The last king of Bavaria committed suicide while mad, and the present ruler of that country is an idiot. The Czar of Russia fills that office because his brother, the natural heir, was adjudged mentally incapable; and the present Czar is afflicted with melancholia since the time of his coronation, and has called to his aid the mental specialists of Germany and France. The king of Spain is a victim of scrofula and will probably not reach manhood. The Emperor of Germany has an incurable abcess in his ear which will eventually affect his brain. The king of Denmark has bequeathed poisoned blood to half a dozen dynasties. The Sultan of Turkey is afflicted with melancholia. There is not a throne in Europe where the sins of the fathers have not visibly descended upon the children, and in a generation or two more there will be neither Bourbon, Hapsburg, Romanoff nor Guelph to vex and rule the world. Blue blood of this kind will not be at a premium in the 1900's. It is taking itself out of the problem of the future."

Another writer for the daily press figured up the cost of royalty as follows:

"Now for the younger sons and daughters. Princess Alice received #30,000 on her marriage in 1862, and an annuity of #6,000 until her death in 1878. The Duke of Edinburgh was granted #15,000 a year on coming of age in 1866, and an additional #10,000 a year on his marriage in 1874, besides #6,883 for wedding expenses and repairs to his house. This is what he gets for doing nothing but being a Prince. By work as a captain, and lately as an admiral in the navy, he has earned #15,000. Princess Helena, on her marriage to Prince Christian, of Schleswig-Holstein, in 1866, received a dowry of #30,000 and a grant of #7,000 a year for life, while her husband receives #500 a year as Ranger of Windsor Home Park. The Princess Louisa received the same favors as her sister Helena. The Duke of Connaught began life in 1871 with #15,000 a year from the nation and this was increased to #25,000 on his marriage, in 1879. He now holds the command of the Bombay army, with #6,600 a year and valuable perquisites. The Duke of Albany was granted #15,000 a year in 1874, the amount being increased to #25,000 on his marriage in 1882, and his widow receives #6,000 a year. The ill-fated Duke was the genius of the family; and, if he had been an ordinary citizen with average opportunities, could have earned a comfortable living as a barrister, for he was an orator. The Princess Beatrice on her marriage received the usual dowry of #30,000 and an annuity of #6,000. Thus the nation, from the Queen's accession up to the end of 1886, had paid #4,766,083 for the luxury of a Prince Consort, five Princesses, and four Princes, leaving out of account special pocket fares, rent-free residences and exemption from taxes.

"The Duke of Cambridge, as Commander-in-chief of the British army, with pensions, salary as Commander-in-chief, colonelcies of several regiments and rangership of several parks, large parts of which he has transformed into private game preserves, has received #625,000 of public money. His sister the Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, has received #132,000, and his second sister, "Fat Mary," Duchess of Teck, has taken #153,000. This makes a grand total of #4,357,124 which the nation has paid for the support of the Queen's uncles, aunts and cousins during her reign.

"To sum up, the Queen's numerous uncles, aunts and cousins have cost #4,357,124; her husband, her sons and her daughters, #4,766,083; herself and her household, #19,838,679; and her yachts #622,088. This makes a total of #29,583,974 [nearly one hundred and fifty million dollars] which the British nation has spent on monarchy during the present reign. [To the year 1888.] Is the game worth the candle? This is a pretty steep price to pay for stability, for it means that the people are taxed to the limit of their powers to keep in idleness a number of persons who would do more good to the country if they were earning an honest living."

The spectacular coronation of the Czar of Russia was a marked illustration of royal extravagance, designed, as are all the flaunting plumes of royalty, to impress the masses of the people with the idea that their rulers are so far above them in glory and dignity as to be worthy of their worship as superior beings, and their most abject and servile obedience. It is said that the great display of royalty on this occasion cost $25,000,000.

Upon this extravagance, so in contrast with the wretched conditions of its peasant millions, with whose miseries the whole world became so well acquainted during the famine of 1893, we extract from the comments of an English journal, The Spectator, as follows:

But the fact that these rulers of so-called Christian Kingdoms are as a whole devoid of true Christian sentiments and lacking in even human sympathy is abundantly proved by the fact that, while wealth is squandered like water in the support of royalty and its vain pomp and show, and while millions of soldiers and sailors, and a most marvelous military armament are at their command, they heard unmoved the cries of the poor Armenian Christians, whom the Turks were torturing and killing by the tens of thousands. The wonderful armies evidently are not organized for humanity's sake, but for the merely selfish purposes of the political and financial rulers of the world; viz., to grasp territory, to protect interests of bondholders, and to fly at each other's throats, inflamed with murderous spite, whenever a good opportunity is seen to enlarge their empires or to increase their wealth.

In marked contrast with this royal extravagance which prevails, to some extent in every country where a royal family is maintained, is The Enormous Indebtedness of European Countries.

"The Economiste Francais published an elaborate article, by M. Rene Stourm, on the Public Debt of France. The most usual estimate of the capital of the debt is said to be $6,400,000,000. The most moderate estimates place it a few millions lower. M. Paul Leroy-Beaulieu figures it at $6,343,573,630. The result of M. Stourm's computation is a total of $5,900,800,000 with the qualification, however, that he has omitted $432,000,000 of life annuities, which other economists have treated as part of the capital of the debt. The annual charge for interest and sinking fund, on the entire debt, including the life annuities, is $258,167,083. Of the funded debt $2,900,000,000 are perpetual 3 per cents, $1,357,600,000 perpetual four and a half per cents, and $967,906,200 redeemable bonds of various descriptions. Annuities to divers companies and corporations of $477,400,000, and $200,000,000 of floating debt, make up the balance of M. Stourm's total. This is by far the heaviest burden borne by any nation on the globe. The nearest approach to it is the debt of Russia, which is stated at $3,605,600,000. England is next, with $3,565,800,000, and Italy next, with $2,226,200,000. The debt of Austria is $1,857,600,000, and of Hungary $635,600,000. Spain owes $1,208,400,000, and Prussia $962,800,000. These are the figures of M. Stourm. None of these nations, excepting England and Prussia, raise sufficient revenue to guarantee a permanent equilibrium of the budget, but France is the most heavily burdened of them all, and the increase of her debt has been the most rapid in the recent past and is the most threatening of the future.

"In conclusion M. Stourm says: 'We refrain from dwelling upon the afflicting reflections which the result of our labor awakens. Under whatever aspect we regard these 29 1/2 milliards, whether in comparison with the debts of other countries or with our own debt of ten or twenty years ago, they appear like a summit of unknown height, surpassing the limit which any people of the world, at any epoch, have supposed attainable. The Eiffel Tower will be their veritable counterpart; we dominate our neighbors' and our own history with the height of our debt,...in the presence of which it is time that our country felt patriotic fright.'"

The London Telegraph once published the following resume of the national financial outlook:

"Impecuniosity hangs like a dark and almost universal cloud over the nations of Europe. Times are very bad for the Powers all round, but worst of all for the small ones. There is hardly a nation on the Continent whose balance-sheet for the departed year does not present a gloomy outlook; while many of them are mere confessions of bankruptcy. Careful reports upon the financial conditions of the various States exhibit a struggle in the several exchequers to make two ends meet which has never been so general. The state of things is indeed almost world-wide; for, if we look outside our own Continent, the United States on one hand, and India and Japan, with their neighbors, on the other, have felt the prevalent pinch....

"The Great Republic is too vast and resourceful to die of her financial maladies; though even she is very sick. Great Britain, too, has a deficit to face in the coming Budget, and has sustained costly, perhaps irreparable, losses by the mad business of the coal strike. France, like ourselves and America, is one of the countries which cannot well be imagined insolvent, so rich is her soil and so industrious are her people. Her revenue, however, manifests frequent deficits; her national debt has assumed stupendous proportions, and the burden of her Army and Navy well-nigh crushes the industry of the land. Germany must also be written in the category of Powers too solid and too strong to suffer more than temporary eclipse. Yet during the past year it is computed that she has lost #25,000,000 sterling, which represents about half the national savings. Much of this loss has been due to German investments in the stocks of Portugal, Greece, South America, Mexico, Italy and Servia; while Germany has also sharply felt the confusion in the silver market. The burden of her armed peace weighs upon her people with a crushing load. Among the Powers which we are grouping together as naturally solvent, it is striking to find that Austria-Hungary has the best and happiest account to give....

"As for Russia, her financial statements are shrouded in such mystery that none can speak of them with confidence; but there is little reason to doubt that only the bigness of the Czar's empire keeps it from becoming bankrupt. The population has been squeezed until almost the last drop of the life-blood of industry is extracted. The most reckless and remorseless Financial Minister scarcely dares to give the screw of taxation another half-turn.

"A moderate and accurate native authority writes about the situation in Russia in the following words:

"Looking the Continent all round, therefore, it cannot be denied that the state of things as regards the welfare of the people and the national balance-sheets is sorely unsatisfactory. Of course one chief and obvious reason for this is that armed peace which weighs upon Europe like a nightmare, and has turned the whole Continent into a standing camp. Look at Germany alone! That serious and sober Empire! The Army Budget rose there from #17,500,000 sterling in 1880 to #28,500,000 in 1893. The increase under the new Army Defense Act adds #3,000,000 sterling a year to the colossal mass of Germany's defensive armor.

"France has strained her strength to the same point of proximate collapse to match her mighty rival. It is needless to point out the terrible part which these war insurances bear in the present popular distress of Europe. Not merely do they abstract from profits and earnings the vast sums which buy powder and shot and build barracks, but they take from the ranks of industry at the commencement of their manly force millions of young workmen, who are also lost for the same periods to the family and the reinforcement of populations. The world has not yet invented a better clearing-house for the international cheques than the ghastly and costly Temple of war."

"We talk exultingly, and with a certain fire, of 'a magnificent charge!' of 'a splendid charge!' yet very few will think of the hideous particulars these two airy words stand for. The 'splendid charge' is a headlong rush of men on strong horses, urged to their fullest speed, riding down and overwhelming an opposing mass of men on foot. The reader's mind goes no further; being content with the information that the enemy's line was 'broken' and 'gave way.' It does not fill in the picture. When the 'splendid charge' has done its work and passed by, there will be found a sight very much like the scene of a frightful railway accident. There will be the full complement of backs broken in two, of arms twisted wholly off, of men impaled upon their own bayonets, of legs smashed up like bits of firewood, of heads sliced open like apples, of other heads crunched into soft jelly by iron hoofs of horses, of faces trampled out of all likeness to anything human. That is what skulks behind a 'splendid charge.' This is what follows, as a matter of course, when 'our fellows rode at them in style,' and 'cut them up famously.'"

The following from the Harrisburg Telegram is also to the point:

"It costs the 'Christian' nations of Europe something to illustrate their notion of 'peace on earth and good will to men.' That is, it costs them something to keep themselves all ready to blow one another into small fragments. Statistics published in Berlin show the amount of military expenditures of the great powers during the three years 1888, 1889, 1890. The following expenditures in round figures are given: France, $1,270,000,000; Russia, $813,000,000; Great Britain, $613,000,000; Germany, $607,000,000; Austria-Hungary, $338,000,000; Italy, $313,500,000. These six powers have expended altogether $3,954,500,000 for military purposes in three years, or at the rate of more than $1,318,100,000 a year. The total for the three years considerably exceeds the national debt of Great Britain, and is nearly large enough to pay the interest-bearing debt of the United States three times over. The corresponding expenditure in the United States has been about $145,000,000, exclusive of pensions. If we should add these our total expenditure would be swelled to about $390,000,000."

"According to the estimates of French and German statisticians, there have perished in the wars of the last thirty years 2,500,000 men, while there has been expended to carry on those wars no less than $13,000,000,000. Dr. Engel, a German statistician, gives the following as the approximate cost of the principal wars of the last thirty years: Crimean war, $2,000,000,000; Italian war of 1859, $300,000,000; Prusso-Danish war of 1864, $35,000,000; War of the Rebellion (North), $5,100,000,000; South, $2,300,000,000; Prusso-Austrian war of 1866, $330,600,000; Franco-German war of 1870, $2,600,000,000; Russo-Turkish war, $125,000,000; South African wars, $8,770,000; African war, $13,250,000; Servo-Bulgarian war, $176,000,000.

In a letter to Deputy Passy of Paris, the late Hon. John Bright, member of the English Parliament, said:

"At present all European resources are swallowed up in military exigencies. The people's interests are sacrificed to the most miserable and culpable fantasies of foreign politics. The real interests of the masses are trodden under foot in deference to false notions of glory and national honor. I cannot help thinking that Europe is marching toward some great catastrophe of crushing weight. The military system cannot indefinitely be supported with patience, and the populations, driven to despair, may possibly before long sweep away the royalties and pretended statesmen who govern in their names."

Thus the judgment of the civil powers is going against them. Not only is the press thus outspoken, but the people everywhere are loudly talking and clamoring against the powers that be. The unrest is universal, and is becoming more and more dangerous every year.

The World's Arraignment of the Present Social System

It is indeed a notable fact that in the judgment of Christendom, even by the world at large, the standard of judgment is the Word of God. The heathen hold up the Bible, and boldly declare, "You are not as good as your book." They point to its blessed Christ, and say, "You do not follow your pattern." And both the heathen and the masses of Christendom take up the golden rule and the law of love, wherewith to measure the doctrines, institutions, policy and general course of Christendom; and all alike testify to the truth of the strange handwriting on her festive walls--"Thou art weighed in the balances, and found wanting."

The world's testimony against the present social system is heard everywhere in every land. All men declare it to be a failure; the opposition is increasingly active, and is spreading alarm all over the world, "terribly shaking" all confidence in existing institutions, and ever and anon paralyzing industry with panics, strikes, etc. There is not a nation in Christendom where the opposition to the present social arrangements is not pronounced, obstinate and increasingly threatening.

Says Mr. Carlyle, "British industrial existence seems fast becoming one huge prison-swamp of reeking pestilence, physical and moral, a hideous living Golgotha of souls and bodies buried alive. Thirty thousand needle-women working themselves swiftly to death. Three million paupers rotting in forced idleness, helping said needle-women to die. These are but items in the sad ledger of despair."

From another paper called The Young Man, we clip the following article, headed, "Is the World Growing Better?" It says:

"Strong men, eager for honest toil, are enduring the agonies of hunger and exposure, and in many cases the additional sorrow of beholding the sufferings of their families. On the other hand, overwhelming wealth is often allied with avarice and immorality; and while the poor starve by inches, the rich, to a large extent, ignore the needs of their brethren, and are only solicitous that Lazarus should not become inconveniently prominent. Thousands of young men are forced to slave in stuffy shops and cheerless warehouses for seventy and eighty hours a week, with never an interval for physical or mental recreation. At the East End women sew shirts or make matchboxes all day for a wage which is insufficient for the rent of a bed--not to speak of a separate room--and are often compelled to choose between starvation and vice. At the West End whole thoroughfares are in the possession of the rouged and painted sirens of sensuality and sin--every one a standing rebuke to the weakness and wickedness of man. As for the young men, thousands are gambling themselves into jail or drinking themselves into early graves; and yet every respectable newspaper is occupied with long reports of horse races, and Christian (?) Government permits a public house to be planted at the corner of every street. Sin is made easy, vice is made cheap, trickery prevails in trade, bitterness in politics and apathy in religion."

The Philadelphia Press some time ago published the following:

"Come with me in a Madison avenue car any day, rain or shine, between the hours of ten o'clock in the morning and 5 or 6 in the afternoon, and I will find you car after car closely packed with ladies in whose ears are diamonds worth from $500 to $5,000 each, on whose ungloved hands, red and fluffy, sparkle fortunes. Walk with me from Stewart's old store, at the corner of Ninth street and Broadway to Thirtieth street and Broadway any day. I do not mean Sundays, holidays, or special occasions, but all times, and I will show you on block after block women in sealskin circulars down to their heels, worth from $500 to $1,000 each, with diamond earrings and with diamond finger rings, and other precious stones as well, carrying in their hands dainty pocket books stuffed with money. They represent the new rich with which New York is filling up.

"On that same street, at that same time, I can show you men to whom a dollar would be a fortune, whose trousers, torn and disgraceful in their tatters, are held about their pinched waists by ropes or twine or pins, whose stockingless feet shuffle along the pavement in shoes so ragged that they dare not lift them from the pavement, whose faces are freckled, whose beards are long and straggling, as is their hair, while their reddening hands taper at the nails like claws. How long before those claws will fasten on the newly rich? Make no mistake about it, the feeling is born, the feeling is growing, and the feeling, sooner or later, will break forth.

The world is contrasting with the horrid conditions of the Sweater System of human slavery and with the miseries of the vast army of people out of work, and another vast army of underpaid workers, the luxury and extravagance of immense wealth, as did a London journal some time ago -- thus:

"A Millionaire's Modest Home. We learn from New York that Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt, the New York millionaire and railway king, has just opened his new palace with a grand ball. This modest home, which is to shelter about ten people during six months of the year, and to remain closed during the other six, stands at the corner of Fifty-seventh street and Fifth Avenue, and has cost its owner #1,000,000. It is of Spanish design outside, built of grey stone, with red facings, turrets and battlements. It is three stories high with a lofty attic. The ball room is the largest private ball room in New York, being 75 ft. long by 50 ft. wide, decorated in white and gold, Louis xiv. style. The ceiling cost a fortune, and is made in the form of a double cone, covered with painted nymphs and cupids. Round the cornice are delicately modeled flowers, each with an electric light in its heart, while an immense crystal chandelier hangs from the centre. The walls on the night of the opening ball were covered from floor to ceiling with natural flowers, at a cost of #1,000; and the entertainment is said to have cost the host #5,000. Adjoining the mansion is the most expensive garden for its size in the world, for although it is only the size of an ordinary city lot, the sum of #70,000 was paid for it, and a house which had cost #25,000 to build was torn down to make room for the few flower beds."

A San Francisco, Calif., journal, Industry, published the following comment on the extravagance of two wealthy men of this country:

"The Wanamaker dinner in Paris, and the Vanderbilt dinner at Newport, costing together at least $40,000, perhaps a good deal more, are among the signs of the times. Such things presage a change in this country. This, which is only typical of a hundred more cases of like ostentatious money show, may well be likened to a feast in Rome before the end came, and the luxury in France that a century ago was the precursor of a revolution. The money spent annually by Americans abroad, mostly for luxury and worse, is estimated at a third as much as our National revenue."

The following very interesting bit of information, quoted in the National View, is from Ward McAllister, once a great New York Society leader:

"The average annual living expenses of a family of average respectability, consisting of husband and wife and three children, amounts to $146,945, itemized as follows: Rent of city house, $29,000; of country house, $14,000; expenses of country house, $6,000; indoor servants' wages, $8,016; household expenses, inclusive of servants' wages, $18,954; his wife's dressing, $10,000; his own wardrobe, $2,000; children's clothing and pocket money, $4,500; three children's schooling, $3,600; entertaining by giving balls and dances, $7,000; entertaining at dinner, $6,600; opera box, $4,500; theater and supper parties after theater, $1,200; papers and magazines, $100; jeweler's running account, $1,000; stationery, $300; books, $500; wedding presents and holiday gifts, $1,400; pew in church, $300; club dues, $425; physician's bill, $800; dentist's bill, $500; transportation of household to country and return, $250; traveling in Europe, $9,000; cost of stables, $17,000."

Chauncey M. Depew is quoted as having said:

The World's Judgment of the Ecclesiastical Powers

The criticism of Ecclesiasticism is fully as severe as that of Monarchy and Aristocracy; for they are recognized as one in interest. Of these sentiments the following will serve as illustrations.

The North American Review some years ago contained a brief article by John Edgerton Raymond, on "The Decline of Ecclesiasticism." Describing the forces which are opposed to the church, and which will eventually accomplish its overthrow, he said:

"The Christian Church is in the midst of a great conflict. Never since the organization of Christianity have so many forces been arrayed against her. What certain theologians are pleased to call the 'world power' was never stronger than it is today. No longer is the church opposed by barbaric races, by superstitious philosophers, by priests of mythical religions, but by the highest culture, the deepest learning and the profoundest wisdom of enlightened nations. All along the line of her progress she is resisted by the 'world power,' which represents the highest attainments and the best ideals of the human mind.

He says the demand is not for a new gospel, but for an old gospel with a new meaning:

"Everywhere the demand is made for a more literal and faithful proclamation of the precepts of the founder of Christianity. 'The Sermon on the Mount' is to many the epitome of divine philosophy. 'Preach it! preach it!' cry reformers of every school everywhere; 'not only preach it, but exemplify it!' 'Show us,' they say, 'that your practices conform to these precepts, and we will believe you! Follow Christ, and we will follow you!'

"But just here lies the controversy. The church professes to teach the precepts of Christ, to preach his gospel. The world listens, and replies: 'You have perverted the truth!' And behold the spectacle of an unbelieving world teaching a believing church the true principles of her religion! This is one of the most striking and significant signs of the age. And it is altogether new. The world has been familiar from the beginning with the retort: 'Physician, heal thyself.' But only in modern times have men ventured to say: 'Physician, let us prescribe the medicine!'

"When the poor and needy, the oppressed and sorrowing, who are taught to look to heaven for future recompense, saw holy priests and favored princes robed in purple and fine linen and faring sumptuously every day; saw them laying up treasures on earth in defiance of moth and rust and thieves; saw them, with easy consciences, serving God and mammon, they began to doubt their sincerity.

"The church denounces her accusers as unbelievers, and goes on her way amassing treasure, building temples and palaces, making compacts with kings and covenants with mighty men, while the forces arrayed against her are increasing in numbers and power. She has lost her supremacy, her authority has passed away. She is but a sign, a shadow. And it is impossible for her to regain her lost ascendancy, or to return to her throne. Dreams of her universal dominion are a delusion. Her scepter has been broken forever. Already we are in a transition period. The revolutionary movement of the age is universal and irresistible. Thrones are beginning to totter. A volcano smoulders beneath the palaces of kings, and when thrones topple over, pulpits will fall.

"There have been revivals of religion in the past, more or less local and temporary. There is yet to be a revival of religion which is to be world-wide--a restoration of faith in God and love for man--when the brightest dreams of universal brotherhood shall be realized. But it will come in spite of, rather than through, the church. It will come as a reaction against ecclesiastical tyranny; as a protest against mere forms and ceremonials."

In an article in The Forum of October, 1890, on "Social Problems and the Church," by Bishop Huntington, we have his comment on a very notable and significant fact, as follows:

Other significant expressions through the press, of the popular judgment, are as follows:

"The Catholic Review and some other papers insist that there should be 'religious instruction in the prisons.' That's right. We go further than that. There should be religious instruction in other places besides the prisons--in the homes, for instance, and in the Sunday schools. Yes, we will not be outdone in liberality, we favor religious instruction in some churches. You can't have too much of a good thing if you take it in moderation."

"The Chaplain of a certain penitentiary said that twenty years ago only about five percent of prisoners had previously been Sunday school pupils, but that now seventy-five percent of actual and suspected criminals have been such. A certain pastor also gives an account of an inebriate asylum where the percent is eighty, and another of fallen women where all have been in Sunday schools. The press comment on these facts was that the term formerly applied to the school, 'the nursery of the church,' is getting to be a ghastly satire. What shall be done?"

In the discussions with reference to the opening of the World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago, on Sundays, the following was elicited:

In the general commotion of these times, many in the church as well as in the world are greatly perplexed and bewildered by the great confusion. The sentiments of such were clearly voiced some time ago in the New York Sun, which said:

"The question, 'Where are we?' 'Where are we?' is becoming a pregnant religious one. Professors sit in the chairs of seminaries teaching doctrines far enough removed from the originals to make the ancient benefactors turn in their graves; clergymen sign pledges on ordination which they probably know the administrator does not believe himself; the standards are in many cases only the buoys which show how far the ships of the churches have gotten away from the mapped out channels. It is the age of 'go as you please,' of 'every man for himself,' and all that. Nobody knows where it is all to end, and those who are interested most seem to care the least."

Not only are the conduct and influence of the churches thus severely criticised, but their most prominent doctrines also. Note, for instance, how the blasphemous doctrine of eternal torment for the great majority of our race, by which men have long been held in control through fear, is similarly slurred by the thinking public. On this subject the clergy begin to see a very urgent necessity for emphasis, in order to counteract the growing sentiments of liberalism.

The Rev. Dr. Henson of Chicago some time ago ventilated his views of this subject; and as reporters interviewed other clergymen with reference to it, their flippant, heartless, jesting way of dealing with a subject about which they evidently know nothing, but which they claim to believe involves the eternal interests of millions of their fellowmen, was indeed worthy of the persecuting spirit of Romanism.

Rev. Dr. Henson said, "The hades of the New Version is only hell in disguise; death is death though we call it sleep, and hell is hell though we call it hades; hell is a reality, and is infernally horrible. In hell we shall have bodies. The resurrection of the body implies place and implies physical torment. But physical is not the worst. Mental pain, remorse, anticipation, that makes the soul writhe as the worm writhes on glowing embers, is the worst; and this sinners will have to suffer. Thirst with no water to quench; hunger with no food to satisfy; a knife thrust into the heart, but to be thrust there again--endless, awful. This is the hell we have to meet. Death offers a release from life's treadmill, but there is no relief in hell."

What impression did the "Doctor's" sermon make? Perhaps one may judge from the following interviews of reporters and ministers next morning:

"'What do you think of hell, and are we all going to be baptized in a lake of molten brimstone and pig-iron if we do not mend our ways?' said a reporter to Prof. Swing, one of Chicago's famous preachers. Then it was that Prof. Swing laughed a hearty side-splitting laugh, until his rugged cheeks became as rosy as a school girl's. The eminent preacher drums a tattoo on the edge of an inlaid table, and the chimney on his little study lamp rattles and seems to laugh too. 'In the first place,' said he, 'I suppose you realize that this subject of hell and future punishment is something about which we actually know very little. Now, my method for making everything harmonize in the Bible is to spiritualize it. My idea is that the punishment will be graded according to the sins; but as the next world is to be spiritual, so must the rewards and punishments be spiritualized.'

"The Rev. M. V. B. Van Ausdale laughed when he read a report of Dr. Henson's sermon, and said: 'Why, he must be right. I have known Dr. Henson for some time, and would vote for him with my eyes closed. We admit, all of us, that there is a hell or a place of retribution, and it combines all the properties assigned to it by Dr. Henson.'

"The Congregational ministers, assembled at the Grand Pacific in regular session, with doors closed and securely sentried, admitted an Evening News reporter who, after the meeting ended, propounded the query: 'Have you read or heard about Dr. P. S. Henson's sermon on hell, preached last night?'

"An interested spectator during the meeting was Dr. H. D. Porter, of Peking, China. He arose early this morning, and read in the papers Dr. Henson's sermon in brief. He said, "I do not know Dr. Henson, but I think the sentiments attributed to him are about right. Over in China I shall not preach the brimstone and real physical torture, nor shall I say hell will be a place where all sufferings of a real nature will give place to intense mental suffering and anguish of mind alone, but I will take the medium view, which portrays hell as a place of retribution, combining the physical and mental suffering and embodying the principles generally accepted by modern ministers.'

"Another stranger, the Rev. Spencer Bonnell, of Cleveland, O., agreed with Dr. Henson in every detail. 'There is coming a time,' he said, 'when some universal idea of hell should be advanced, so as to bring all minds into a state of equilibrium.' The Rev. H. S. Wilson had little to say, but admitted that he agreed with Dr. Henson. The Rev. W. A. Moore expressed the same sentiments.

"The Rev. W. H. Holmes wrote: 'Dr. Henson is a brilliant preacher who understands well his own positions and is able to express them clearly and pointedly. This abstract indicates that he gave the people, as usual, a very interesting sermon. His positions therein were generally well taken. About the body of flesh I do not know--'

"'You do not know?'

"'No. A man might die and find out for certain.'

"The Rev. Mr. Ambrose, an old-time minister, was greatly pleased with the sermon. He believed every word of what Dr. Henson had said about future torment for poor sinners. 'Hell is what most Baptist preachers believe in,' he said, 'and they preach it, too.'

"The Rev. Mr. Wolfenden said he had not seen the report of the sermon, but if there was anything in it about a hell of future punishment he agreed with the Doctor, and he thought most Baptist ministers held the same views, although there were a few who did not believe in hell in the strict orthodox sense.

"From what the reporter gathered it is safe to say that, should the question come to an issue, the Baptist ministers would not be at all backward in supporting every argument for Dr. Henson's real, old-fashioned, orthodox hell."

The clergy thus express their views, as if the eternal torture of their fellowmen were a matter of only trivial consequence, to be discussed with flippant jest and laughter, and declared as truth without a particle of evidence or Bible investigation.* The world marks this presumptive arrogance, and draws its own conclusions in the matter.

*A pamphlet of 80 pages, entitled, "What Say the Scriptures About Hell?" will be found very helpful on this subject, to Bible students. It examines every text of Scripture in which the word hell is found, in the light of the Greek and Hebrew text; and all the parables, etc., supposed to favor "eternal torment." Address, INTERNATIONAL BIBLE STUDENTS ASSOCIATION, Brooklyn, N. Y. Price ten cents, including postage.

The Globe Democrat says: "Good news comes from New York that the American Tract Society proposes to call in the pabulum it has offered for the last fifty years, and revise its religion altogether. The fact is the world has outgrown the redhot and peppery dishes that suited the last generation, and it is quite beyond the power of a very few solemn gentlemen to produce a reaction. The churches also are ambling along pleasantly with the rest of the world, preaching toleration, humanity, forgiveness, charity and mercy. It may be all wrong, and that these prophecies of a blue-black sort are just the proper thing for us to continue to believe and read, but then the people don't, and won't."

Another journal states:

"Dr. Rossiter W. Raymond, in opposing sending contributions to the American Board of Foreign Missions, said pretty energetically: 'I am sick and tired of going to the American Board in sufferance to aid in supporting missionaries who believe out and out in the damnation of all the heathen and that damnable heresy that God doesn't love the heathen. I am tired of the whole miserable humbug, and I won't give a cent to spread the news of damnation. I won't let the doctrine be disseminated by my money. That God is love is good news, but it is made stale old stuff by these men who drag a Juggernaut car over the heathen and want us to feed the beasts that haul it. It is my Christian duty not to give to any concern that will teach the heathen that their fathers went to hell."

While we thus see Babylon arraigned to answer for herself in the presence of an assembled world, with what force does the Psalmist's prophecy of this event, quoted at the beginning of this chapter, recur to the mind! Though God has kept silence during all the centuries wherein evil triumphed in his name and his true saints suffered persecution in multiplied forms, he has not been oblivious to those things; and now the time has come whereof he spoke by the prophet, saying, "But I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes." Let all who would be awake and on the right side in these times of tremendous import mark well these things and see how perfectly prophecy and fulfilment correspond.