BIBLE REVIEW

Vol. III.

OCTOBER 1904.

No. 1.

SIGNS OF THE TIMES.

Jesus said, "When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather: for the sky is red. And in the morning, It will be foul weather to-day: for the sky is red and lowring. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?" Matthew xvi. 2 and 3. These words of the Lord Christ are probably more applicable to our day than they were to his day, for the signs are many indicating great and mighty changes now at hand, and one of the strongest signs of a great upheaval and revolution, destruction. of life and property, is found in the fact that the people in general want to hear nothing from the Bible. The minds of the people have been surfeited and disgusted by the theories of men which have been tacked on to and made to appear as the meaning of the Scriptures; and, in place of reading and thinking for themselves, they have waited for the educated ministry to think for them. They are not aware of the fact that the ministers are not leaders but followers of the people. Before the ministry will take up any new thought, the people have to demand it, and even then but very few teachers are willing to think beyond the orthodox channels in which our fathers and

grandfathers have thought for centuries. It is because of this that they are necessitated to preach to almost empty pews throughout the country, for they themselves as a class have turned their backs upon the Scriptures. They do not believe its teachings, and in so far as they teach Christianity many do not believe what they themselves are teaching. The people in general have turned their faces toward materialism and their backs toward the spiritual; they say, "How can we know anything of cause? We can know only that which we see and feel, that which appeals to the five senses." And anyone who essays to know anything beyond the evidences of the five senses is called an eccentric, or a crank, and is looked upon as insane. They are fulfilling the word of the Lord by Ezekiel when he said, "Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? for they say, The Lord seeth us not; the Lord hath forsaken the earth." Ezekiel viii. 12. Not only is this the sentiment of many, but almost every man is following the imagination of his own heart and seeking personal gratification. The land is full of oppression and secret vices and at the foundation of it all lies the sin of the race against the fountains of its own life,sexual sin, for wherever disorder and perversion exist in the sexual life the whole life of the individual, as well as his thought and desire, is perverted.

Now, what does this perversion mean? If God is the creator of all things, the source of all life, then, to sin against the fountains of life is to sin against God. God is spirit, not a great man seated upon a throne somewhere away off in the heavens who cannot see and does not know what the people are doing; who does not care for the inhabitants of the earth. O no! for God created the world by the power of his word, his mind, and thought; and the very life that animates all vegetation, as well as all animals and man, is God's life, and when man forsakes God and turns his sympathies away, and there

begins to arise within the soul an antipathy, a repulsion, a repugnance, such as now exists in the world, to everything that pertains to God and spirit, we cannot but see in it the perversion, the repelling of the source of his own existence. This repulsion is so great that we have found that the name of our magazine, BIELE REVIEW, is enough to condemn it in the estimation of the masses. The book dealers tell us that they cannot sell BIBLE REVIEW, that the name is against it; as soon as they say anything about the Bible the people want nothing to do with it. If that were all it would not be so serious, for it is not fatal for a nation to turn against a book, but it is fatal for a nation or individuals to turn against and feel a repulsion to the spirit of life from which they subsist, for there can be no inspiration, drawing in, of life or thought or of anything else without a loving desire, and to whatever extent the people feel repulsion toward the idea of God and spirit, to that extent they are shutting themselves from their own vital source.

At the present time there is but one saving quality in the land, which was announced by the Lord Christ when he said to his disciples, "Ye are the salt (the saving power) of the earth." If the loving, devout souls who are pure and righteous, and in their inmost being love God, and inspire the fountains of his life. continually, were taken from among the people, the collapse of individuals and of the whole nation would come speedily; but as it is, the perverted are feeding upon the life qualities of the pure and the good, the few pure and good ones that still remain loyal to God and to the fountains of their own life. The time has come, however, when the power of the Spirit will make itself known so perfectly to these that they will realize the fact that they must separate themselves from this disorder and chaos, from the wicked and perverse, or God will withdraw his love and sympathy from them. Either the good will come out from the world and be separate from the people and let the wicked reap what they have sown, or the good themselves will go down with

the perverted. But God has a people; God and his angels are controlling the affairs of human life and, when the time is ripe, those who are the saviors of the world, who are holding the world together, as it were, and making it possible for the perverse to go on in their perversion, will find that they no longer can withstand the tide of perverted human thought and action.

All

Look around you and see the conditions that now exist. nations are standing in fear of each other. They are spending all their capital and, as all well know, many nations are millions and even billions of dollars in debt and they still are borrowing money to build war vessels and munitions of war generally, and these munitions they must continually increase to keep pace with all other nations, for every nation seems to be an enemy to every other nation. They keep up a semblance of friendship, but every nation knows that this friendship is no deeper than personal interests and their own love of gain. The desire of each nation to obtain the possessions of all other nations seems to be unlimited. Not only is this true of nations, but it is also true of the individuals making up these nations. How can a thing be true of a nation and not of the majority of individuals who are collectively the nation? You have only to look around you and see the antagonism that exists between the two classes, capital and labor, to see that we are in a time in which the house is divided against itself, and all nations, all people, wherever you go, are divided one against the other. Jesus said, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." You may say, O pshaw! he did not know; that does not amount to anything. But does it not amount to something? Why is it that the railroads and all great manufacturing interests are turning their workshops into fortifications? Is it not because they are afraid of their own employees? Are they not preparing for a great struggle with labor? and can they prepare for that struggle? Their only hope at the present time is to prevent labor from uniting, for it is well known that the working class con