“AT a time when it was universally confessed, that almost every man in the empire was superior in personal merit to the princes whom the accident of their birth had seated on the throne, a rapid succession of usurpers [A.D. 411-416], regardless of the fate of their predecessors, still continued to arise. This mischief was peculiarly felt in the provinces of Spain and Gaul, where the principles of order and obedience had been extinguished by war and rebellion.Before Constantine resigned the purple [A.D. 411], and in the fourth month of the siege of Arles, intelligence was received in the Imperial camp, that Jovinus has assumed the diadem at Mentz, in the Upper Germany, at the instigation of Goar, king of the Alani, and of Guntiarius, king of the Burgundians; and that the candidate, on whom they had bestowed the empire, advanced with a formidable host of barbarians, from the banks of the Rhine to those of the Rhone. Every circumstance is dark and extraordinary in the short history of the reign of Jovinus. It was natural to expect, that a brave and skilful general, at the head of a victorious army, would have asserted, in a field of battle, the justice of the cause of Honorius. The hasty retreat of Constantius [a general of the empire] might be justified by weighty reasons; but he resigned, without a struggle, the possession of Gaul; and Dardanus, the Praetorian praefect, is recorded as the only magistrate who refused to yield obedience to the usurper.SITI May 27, 1886, page 308.1

“When the Goths, two years after the siege of Rome, established their quarters in Gaul [A.D. 412], it was natural to suppose that their inclinations could be divided only between the emperor Honorius, with whom they had formed a recent alliance, and the degraded Attalus, whom they reserved in their camp for the occasional purpose of acting the part of a musician or a monarch. Yet in a moment of disgust, (for which it is not easy to assign a cause, or a date), Adolphus connected himself with the usurper of Gaul; and imposed on Attalus the ignominious task of negotiating the treaty, which ratified his own disgrace. We are again surprised to read, that, instead of considering the Gothic alliance as the firmest support of his throne, Jovinus upbraided, in dark and ambiguous language, the officious importunity of Attalus; that, scorning the advice of his great ally, he invested with the purple his brother Sebastian; and that he most imprudently accepted the service of Sarus, when that gallant chief, the soldier of Honorius, was provoked to desert the court of a prince, who knew not how to reward or punish.SITI May 27, 1886, page 308.2

“Adolphus, educated among a race of warriors, who esteemed the duty of revenge as the most precious and sacred portion of their inheritance, advanced with a body of ten thousand Goths to encounter the hereditary enemy of the house of Balti. He attacked Sarus at an unguarded moment, when he was accompanied only by eighteen or twenty of his valiant followers. United by friendship, animated by despair, but at length oppressed by multitudes, this band of heroes deserved the esteem, without exciting the compassion, of their enemies; and the lion was no sooner taken in the toils, than he was instantly dispatched. The death of Sarus dissolved the loose alliance which Adolphus still maintained with the usurpers of Gaul. He again listened to the dictates of love and prudence; and soon satisfied the brother of Placidia, by the assurance that he would immediately transmit to the palace of Ravenna the heads of the two tyrants, Jovinus and Sebastian. The king of the Goths executed his promise without difficulty or delay; the helpless brothers, unsupported by any personal merit, were abandoned by their barbarian auxiliaries; and the short opposition of Valentia was expiated by the ruin of one of the noblest cities of Gaul.”SITI May 27, 1886, page 308.3

“The important present of the heads of Jovinus and Sebastian had approved the friendship of Adolphus, and restored Gaul to the obedience of his brother Honorius. Peace was incompatible with the situation and temper of the king of the Goths. He readily accepted the proposal [A.D. 414] of turning his victorious arms against the barbarians of Spain; the troops of Constantius intercepted his communication with the seaports of Gaul, and gently pressed his march towards the Pyrenees; he passed the mountains, and surprised, in the name of the emperor, the city of Barcelona. The fondness of Adolphus for his Roman bride, was not abated by time or possession: and the birth of a son, surnamed, from his illustrious grandsire, Theodosius, appeared to fix him forever in the interest of the republic. The loss of that infant, whose remains were deposited in a silver coffin in one of the churches near Barcelona, afflicted his parents; but the grief of the Gothic king was suspended by the labors of the field; and the course of his victories was soon interrupted by domestic treason.SITI May 27, 1886, page 308.4

“He had imprudently received into his service one of the followers of Sarus; a barbarian of a daring spirit, but of a diminutive stature; whose secret desire of revenging the death of his beloved patron was continually irritated by the sarcasms of his insolent master. Adolphus was assassinated [A.D. 415] in the palace of Barcelona; the laws of the succession were violated by a tumultuous faction; and a stranger to the royal race, Singeric, the brother of Sarus himself, was seated on the Gothic throne. The first act of his reign was the inhuman murder of the six children of Adolphus, the issue of a former marriage, whom he tore, without pity, from the feeble arms of a venerable bishop. The unfortunate Placidia, instead of the respectful compassion, which she might have excited in the most savage breasts, was treated with cruel and wanton insult. The daughter of the emperor Theodosius, confounded among a crowd of vulgar captives, was compelled to march on foot above twelve miles, before the horse of a barbarian, the assassin of a husband whom Placidia loved and lamented.SITI May 27, 1886, page 308.5

“But Placidia soon obtained the pleasure of revenge, and the view of her ignominious sufferings might rouse an indignant people against the tyrant, who was assassinated on the seventh day of his usurpation. After the death of Singeric, the free choice of the nation bestowed the Gothic scepter on Wallia [A.D. 415-418], whose warlike and ambitious temper appeared, in the beginning of his reign, extremely hostile to the republic. He marched in arms from Barcelona to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, which the ancients revered and dreaded as the boundary of the world. But when he reached the southern promontory of Spain, and, from the rock now covered by the fortress of Gibraltar, contemplated the neighboring and fertile coast of Africa, Wallia resumed the designs of conquest, which had been interrupted by the death of Alaric. The winds and waves again disappointed the enterprise of the Goths; and the minds of a superstitious people were deeply affected by the repeated disasters of storms and shipwrecks.SITI May 27, 1886, page 308.6

“In this disposition the successor of Adolphus no longer refused to listen to a Roman ambassador, whose proposals were enforced by the real, or supposed, approach of a numerous army, under the conduct of the brave Constantius. A solemn treaty was stipulated and observed; Placidia was honorably restored to her brother; six hundred thousand measures of wheat were delivered to the hungry Goths; and Wallia engaged to draw his sword in the service of the empire. A bloody war was instantly excited among the barbarians of Spain; and the contending princes are said to have addressed their letters, their ambassadors, and their hostages, to the throne of the Western emperor, exhorting him to remain a tranquil spectator of their contest; the events of which must be favorable to the Romans, by the mutual slaughter of their common enemies. The Spanish war was obstinately supported, during three campaigns, with desperate valor, and various success; and the martial achievements of Wallia diffused through the empire the superior renown of the Gothic hero. He exterminated the Silingi, who had irretrievably ruined the elegant plenty of the province of Btica. He slew, in battle, the king of the Alani; and the remains of those Scythian wanderers, who escaped from the field, instead of choosing a new leader, humbly sought a refuge under the standard of the Vandals, with whom they were ever afterwards confounded.SITI May 27, 1886, page 308.7

“The Vandals themselves, and the Suevi, yielded to the efforts of the invincible Goths. The promiscuous multitude of barbarians, whose retreat had been intercepted, were driven into the mountains of Gallicia; where they still continued, in a narrow compass and on a barren soil, to exercise their domestic and implacable hostilities. In the pride of victory, Wallia was faithful to his engagements: he restored his Spanish conquests to the obedience of Honorius; and the tyranny of the Imperial officers soon reduced an oppressed people to regret the time of their barbarian servitude. While the event of the war was still doubtful, the first advantages obtained by the arms of Wallia had encouraged the court of Ravenna to decree the honors of a triumph to their feeble sovereign. He entered Rome like the ancient conquerors of nations; and if the monuments of servile corruption had not long since met with the fate which they deserved, we should probably find that a crowd of poets and orators, of magistrates and bishops, applauded the fortune, the wisdom, and the invincible courage, of the emperor Honorius.SITI May 27, 1886, page 308.8

“Such a triumph might have been justly claimed by the ally of Rome, if Wallia, before he repassed the Pyrenees, had extirpated the seeds of the Spanish war. His victorious Goths, forty-three years after they had passed the Danube, were established [A.D. 419], according to the faith of treaties, in the possession of the second Aquitain; a maritime province between the Garonne and the Loire, under the civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Bourdeaux. That metropolis, advantageously situated for the trade of the ocean, was built in a regular and elegant form; and its numerous inhabitants were distinguished among the Gauls by their wealth, their learning, and the politeness of their manners. The adjacent province, which has been fondly compared to the garden of Eden, is blessed with a fruitful soil, and a temperate climate; the face of the country displayed the arts and the rewards of industry; and the Goths, after their martial toils, luxuriously exhausted the rich vineyards of Aquitain. The Gothic limits were enlarged by the additional gift of some neighboring dioceses; and the successors of Alaric fixed their royal residence at Toulous which included five populous quarters, or cities, within the spacious circuit of its walls.”—Decline and Fall, chap. 31, par. 35, 37-39. J.SITI May 27, 1886, page 308.9

“We Would See Jesus” The Signs of the Times 12, 20, p. 311.

“AND there were certain Greeks among them that came up to worship at the feast; the same came therefore to Philip, which was of Bethsaida of Galilee, and desire him, saying, Sir, we would see Jesus.”SITI May 27, 1886, page 311.1

The desire of these Greeks was certainly a very natural one. They had come up to Jerusalem to worship, and had found the name of Jesus upon everybody’s lips. From the highest to the lowest, from the proud and courted Pharisee to the outcast leper, from the high priest and the chief priests, supposed to be the purest in the nation, to the abandoned sinner, all, all were talking about Jesus. Of course not all praising him, not all glorifying him; the chief priests and the Pharisees were most bitterly opposed to him, and were only waiting impatiently for an opportunity to kill him, while the common people were anxious to make him, while the common people were anxious to make him a king. But whether it was to praise or to condemn; whether it was to kill or to make a king, the sole subject of it all was Jesus, and it was the most natural thing in the world that these Greeks should want to see the Person about whom so much was made.SITI May 27, 1886, page 311.2

From that day to this, the name that has been used most in this world is the name of Jesus. The one Person about whom more has been said, and of whom more has been made than of any other person this world ever saw, is the Man Christ Jesus. True, as at the first, some have praised him, and some have cursed him; some have worshiped him, while others have sought to kill him, crying, “Crush the wretch,” and often he has been wounded in the house of his friends; still the name more than all others that is used in the wide world to-day, is the name of Jesus. And with those Greeks of old, we now say, “We would see Jesus.”SITI May 27, 1886, page 311.3

Not, however, as they, simply because much is said of him, either for or against him; not because there are even now those, as Ingersoll, who would kill at least his name out of the earth; nor yet because there are those, as the National Reformers, who would take him by force and make him king of the United States. Not because of any of these things would we see him. But we would see him as he is, for what he is. For even as saith the Scripture, Having not seen him we love him (1 Peter 1:8); and because we love him we would see him. Having not seen him we love him because he first loved us. We love him because he loved us and gave himself for us. We love him for his gentle pity for sinners such as we. We love him for his cheerful mercy to men so fearfully undeserving as are we. We love him because in “the great love wherewith he loved us” he, “his own self, bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness.” We love him for his lofty humanity. We love him for his “profound reverence for infinite goodness and truth.” We love him for the moral force and the benign influence of his mighty character. We love him for his perfect goodness. For this cause would we see him. We would see him because ofSITI May 27, 1886, page 311.4

—“the character he bears. And all the forms of love he wears.”SITI May 27, 1886, page 311.5

Yet we would not now see him as he was. We would not now see his visage so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men. We would not now see him a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. We would not now see him oppressed and afflicted. We would not now see him taken as a lamb to the slaughter. We would not now see him in his travail of soul. We would not now see him in his dreadful agony on the cruel tree. No; we would see him as he is. We would see him “that liveth,” though once dead, yet now “alive for evermore, Amen;” and who has “the keys of hell and of death.” We would see him as the disciples saw him—“his face did shine as the sun,” “and his raiment became shining,” “white as the light,” “exceeding white as snow, so as no fuller on earth can white them.” We would see him as Stephen saw him—in glory, “standing on the right hand of God.” We would see him as Paul saw him—shining in light “above the brightness of the sun.” We would see him as John saw him—his head and his hairs white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes as a flame of fire; and his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters;” “and his countenance as the sun shineth in his strength.” We would see him as Isaiah saw him—“sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up,” and the train of his glory filling the heavenly temple; about him standing the bright seraphim shading their glorious faces from his ineffable glory, and crying one unto another, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory” (Isaiah 6:1-4 with John 12:41). We would see him coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory, and would hear his mighty voice saying to his angels,” Gather my saints together unto me, those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.” And then and there, in the midst of the church, would we see him and hear his glorious voice singing that song of promised praise to the Father (Hebrews 2:12). Oh, ‘tis thus that “we would see Jesus.”SITI May 27, 1886, page 311.6

And we thank God, not only for the hope that we shall see him as he is, but also that the signs are abundant all about us that soon this “blessed hope” shall be fulfilled. And the blessed promise is that we shall not only “see him as he is,” but “we shall be like him.” “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” We would see Jesus. In this hope we live. For its fruition we wait. But while so living and waiting, we would never for a moment forget that he “that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as He is pure.” 1 John 3:2, 3. And, even so, we would indeed see Jesus.SITI May 27, 1886, page 311.7

“Some One-Thousand-Dollar Reasons for Keeping Sunday” The Signs of the Times 12, 20, pp. 312, 313.

OUR readers have seen Mr. Waffle’s and the American Sunday-school Union’s, one-thousand-dollar reasons for disregarding and abandoning the plain precept to observe the seventh day, the Sabbath of the Lord. There yet remains to be noticed the reason why the first day of the week is kept. Mr. Waffle tells us that the apostles “were led to observe the first day of the week as the Sabbath, and gradually to abandon the seventh, by a variety of occurrences which seemed to them to warrant the change, and which, when carefully studied, leave no doubt in our minds that they acted in accordance with the divine intention.” But how Mr. Waffle knows that these things seemed to the apostles to warrant the change, he nowhere tells us. And, as the apostles themselves have nowhere said a word on the subject, we have no confidence in Mr. Waffle’s imagination of motives which he attributes to them.SITI May 27, 1886, page 312.1

Of these “occurrences” he says:—SITI May 27, 1886, page 312.2

“The first of them was the resurrection of our Lord. Each of the evangelists mentions very particularly the fact that this took place upon the first day of the week, showing that they felt it important to mark the day.... But they might not have given the day the prominence they did if Christ had not distinguished it, by choosing it for most of his appearances to them and other disciples. On the same day on which he arose, he appeared no less than five times.... But the fact that Christ rose on that day and manifested himself so often to the disciples, would not necessarily imply a purpose on his part to honor it, had it not been for subsequent occurrences.”—Pp. 192-194.SITI May 27, 1886, page 312.3

Here it is admitted that our knowledge of the purpose of Christ to honor the first day of the week depends upon occurrences other than his resurrection, and upon occurrences after those of that same day. Therefore, if these “subsequent occurrences” should not be what Mr. Waffle claims, then the fact stands confessed that we have nothing that implies a purpose of Christ to put honor on the first day of the week. Now the first of these subsequent occurrences he relates as follows:—SITI May 27, 1886, page 312.4

“For six days he did not appear to them at all, so far as the record shows; but ‘on the eighth day, or as we should say, on the seventh day afterwards,’ he appeared to the eleven as they were gathered in a closed room.”—P. 194.SITI May 27, 1886, page 312.5

But there is no such record as that he appeared to his disciples “on the eighth day.” The reference here is, of course, to John 20:26, which reads: “And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them; then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you.” And when Inspiration has written “after eight days,” we should like to know by what right, or rule, it is that Mr. Waffle reads “on the eighth day,” and then, not satisfied with that, gives it another turn and reads, “as we should say on the seventh day afterward.” “On what meat doth this our Cesar feed that he is grown so great” that he can thus boldly manipulate the words of Inspiration? And what can a cause be worth that can be sustained only by resort to such unworthy shifts? It is true that Mr. Waffle quotes the clause from Canon Farrar, but we deny the right of Canon Farrar, or any other man, just as much as we deny the right of Mr. Waffle, to so manipulate the word of God. And it is one of the strongest evidences of the utter weakness of the Sunday cause that, to sustain it, such a consummate scholar as Canon Farrar is obliged to change the plain word of God. But someone may ask: Will not the Greek bear the construction that is thus given to the text? We say, emphatically, No. The words exactly as John wrote them, using English letters in place of Greek letters, are these, “Kai meth hemeras okto,” and is, word for word, in English, “And after days eight.” These are the very words that were penned by the beloved disciple, exactly as he penned them, by the Spirit of God; and when any man, we care not who he may be, changes them so as to make them read “on the eighth day,” or “on the seventh day afterward,” he is guilty of deliberately changing the word of God, as it was written by his own inspired apostle. And no cause can be the cause of God that is dependent for its support upon a change of the truth of God.SITI May 27, 1886, page 312.6

The next occurrence is the claim that Pentecost was on the first day of the week. But even though it were admissible that Pentecost was on Sunday, the word of God is still silent about the first day of the week being thereby set apart and made the Sabbath. And so long as we have only the opinions of men, and these opinions only the fruit of their own wishes, and these wishes supported only by their own imaginations, that Sunday is the Sabbath, or the Lord’s day, so long we have the right to deny the truth of it, and to stand upon the “plain precept” of God, which, as Mr. Waffle says, “directs” that “the seventh day of the week” shall be kept holy.SITI May 27, 1886, page 312.7

Again Mr. Waffle says:—SITI May 27, 1886, page 312.8

“The Christians, at a very early date, were accustomed to hold their religious meetings on that day. The custom seems to have been begun a week from the day of the resurrection (John 20:26), though a single instance of the kind would not make this certain. But there can be no doubt concerning their habit at a later date. We read in Acts, ‘Upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them.’ The plain implication of these words is that it was the custom of Christians to meet on that day for the Lord’s Supper.”—Pp. 197, 198.SITI May 27, 1886, page 312.9

Notice that he says of this “custom” that “a single instance of the kind would not make this certain.” Now it is a fact as clear as need be that the instance in John 20:26 was not on the first day of the week. It is likewise a fact that, so far as the word of God tells, the meeting recorded in Acts 20:7 is the only religious meeting ever held on the first day of the week. This, then, being the one single instance of the kind, and as “a single instance of the kind” would not make it certain that it was the custom, therefore it is plainly proved that there is nothing that would make it certain that it was the custom for the apostles to hold meetings on the first day of the week. Well, then, it seems to us that service having for its authority only a custom about which there is nothing certain, is most certainly an unsafe foundation upon which to rest the reason for disregarding the plain precept of Jehovah. Reader, we want something more substantial than that to stand upon when every work shall be brought into the Judgment.SITI May 27, 1886, page 312.10

Next Mr. Waffle quotes 1 Corinthians 16:2: “Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store,” etc., and says:—SITI May 27, 1886, page 312.11

“It is evident that Paul desires them to bring in their offerings week by week and leave them in the hands of the proper church officers.”SITI May 27, 1886, page 312.12

It is certainly evident that if that is what Paul desires he took the poorest kind of a way to tell it. Just think of it, Paul desires that Christians shall “bring in their offerings week by week and leave them in the hands of the proper church officers.” And so that his desires may be fulfilled, he tells them, “Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store.” That is, each one is to lay by him his offerings, by leaving them in the hands of somebody else! And such are these one-thousand-dollar reasons for keeping Sunday.SITI May 27, 1886, page 312.13

There is one more; he says:—SITI May 27, 1886, page 312.14

“John speaks of this as ‘the Lord’s day.’ He says, ‘I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day.’ If he had meant the Sabbath, he would have called it by that name. His expression is analogous to ‘the Sabbath of the Lord,’ which we find in the Old Testament; but it cannot mean the same day.”—P. 199.SITI May 27, 1886, page 312.15

And why not, pray? “Analogous” means “correspondent; similar; like.” Now if the expression “the Lord’s day” is correspondent to; if it is similar to; if it is like the expression “the Sabbath of the Lord,” then why is it that it cannot mean the same day? Oh, Mr. Waffle’s one-thousand-dollar fleet that it cannot. Christ said, “The Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath day.” The day of which Christ is Lord, and that day alone, is the Lord’s day. But the day of which he was speaking when he said those words is the seventh day. He had not the slightest reference to any other day. He was speaking of the day which the Pharisees regarded as the Sabbath, which everybody knows was the seventh day of the week. Therefore, when “he said unto them,” “The Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath day,” it was with sole reference to the seventh day. God had said, “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord,” and now when, with sole reference to the seventh day, Christ says, “The Son of man is Lord of the Sabbath,” it shows that the seventh day, and that alone, is the Lord’s day.SITI May 27, 1886, page 312.16

Here we shall present a series of syllogisms, and anybody in this wide world is at full liberty to find any flaw in them.SITI May 27, 1886, page 312.17

FIRST SYLLOGISM

MAJOR PREMISE: “The Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath.” Mark 2:28.SITI May 27, 1886, page 312.18

MINOR PREMISE: “The seventh day is the Sabbath.” Exodus 20:10.SITI May 27, 1886, page 312.19

CONCLUSION: Therefore, the Son of man is Lord of the seventh day.SITI May 27, 1886, page 312.20

Just as surely as the Scripture is true so surely is this conclusion true. Then using this conclusion as a major, we form aSITI May 27, 1886, page 312.21

SECOND SYLLOGISM

MAJOR PREMISE: The Son of man is Lord of the seventh day.SITI May 27, 1886, page 312.22

MINOR PREMISE: The day of which he is Lord is the Lord’s day.SITI May 27, 1886, page 312.23

CONCLUSION: Therefore, the seventh day is the Lord’s day.SITI May 27, 1886, page 312.24

Now with this conclusion as a major, we form ourSITI May 27, 1886, page 312.25

THIRD SYLLOGISM

MAJOR PREMISE: The seventh day is the Lord’s day.SITI May 27, 1886, page 312.26

MINOR PREMISE: John says, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day.” Revelation 1:10.SITI May 27, 1886, page 312.27

CONCLUSION: John was in the spirit on the seventh day.SITI May 27, 1886, page 312.28

There, if there is any flaw anywhere in that, we shall be glad to have some one point it out. We shall not, however, offer a prize of one thousand dollars to have it pointed out, because we haven’t a thousand dollars; but we will, and by these presents we now do, offer a one-thousand-dollar-prize----essay, to the Committee of Publication, or to the Board of the American Sunday-school Union, or to Mr. A. E. Waffle, if they, or either of them, will point out a flaw in the above series of syllogisms. We promise to give their manuscripts “a painstaking and protracted examination,” and to send the grand prize----essay by return mail. We can assure them that the essay which we offer is worth $1,000, especially to the Union, for the Union paid $1,000 for it.SITI May 27, 1886, page 313.1

“Dodson” The Signs of the Times 14, 14, p. 319.

DODSON.—Died of consumption in San Francisco, Cal., May 15, 1886, Clarence T. Dodson, aged 25 years, 6 months, and 2 days. Brother Dodson was sick six months, and as far as human estimate can measure, he died, I believe, in perfect peace with God through out Lord Jesus Christ; and so, we believe, he rests in the Christian’s hope. The day before his death, he asked two of our brethren to come to him at 6 o’clock, P.M., for he expected to die at 7; and at that hour the pall of death seemed to fasten upon him, and signs of life became fainter and fainter until it vanished. He left a wife, and a child two and one-half years old. Services by the writer.SITI May 27, 1886, page 319.1

A. T. J.

May 20, 1886

June 3, 1886