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    February 19, 1897

    32ND SESSION. - LINCOLN, NEBRASKA, - VOL. 1. - NO. 6

    General Conference Daily Bulletin,

    No Authorcode

    PUBLISHED DAILY BY THE
    GENERAL CONFERENCE OF SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISTS.

    Terms, 35 Cents for the Session. JACOB NORTH & CO., PRINTERS, LINCOLN, NEB.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 81.1

    God In Man. - No. 1. J. H. KELLOGG, M. D. (Continued from page 80.)

    No Authorcode

    BUT we do not see in Jesus Christ everything of God. Christ shows the human side of God. We, perhaps, think of the miracles of Christ as the greatest things that he did upon the earth. We look at those miracles, and they inspire us with awe at the Majesty of heaven manifested in Christ. They are an evidence to us of Christ’s divinity. But there is a more wonderful thing about Jesus than his miracles, far more wonderful; and that is his perfect life - that he was able to resist all the temptations that surrounded him here on this earth, and though subject to all the temptations of the flesh, that still he lived an absolutely perfect life. And it was simply because he was in harmony with God, his will in harmony with God’s will. And so his life was a perfect life. The same God that was in Jesus Christ is in us, and it only needs a perfectly surrendered will to enable us to lead the same perfect life. But the surrender must be complete.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 81.2

    Now, let us look out upon the world, and see what we can see about us in nature of the manifestation of God. Let us look at the great side of nature if you please, and see the sun, and see what we have in the sun, the great source of light. We cannot even get any sort of a conception of the sun, for the earth itself that we live upon is so great that we cannot comprehend it. But it is a mere little atom in the great universe. Through the light of the sun all the forces of the earth are kept in operation. It is difficult to form any conception of the mighty power manifested in the operations of nature taking place silently around us. Take, for example, the snow-ball, weighing perhaps, half a pound, which a boy makes with his hands and can throw a few rods. The power wrapped up in that snow-ball, that is, the power exerted by the sunbeam in evaporating the water and raising it up into the air, and then bringing it back to the earth again, is sufficient to propel the ball nearly one hundred and fifty miles; while the power exerted in holding together the gases, the hydrogen and oxygen composing the water of which the snow-ball is made, used to propel the ball, would carry it a distance of fifteen hundred miles. Think of the power wrapped up in a whole snow-storm, a storm covering hundreds of square miles, several feet in depth. This power is all derived from the sun, is brought to us through the light from the sun.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 81.3

    We find another illustration in the light shining upon us through these electric lamps. Ages ago, sun-light, falling upon the green leaves of the trees of the mighty forests, decomposed the carbonic-acid gas in the air, retaining the carbon and sending the oxygen back into the air for the animals to breathe, and thus built up gigantic forests, which, buried into the earth, were converted into coal. This coal is simply the force of the sunbeam crystallized. When burned in the furnace, the force passes into steam. The steam drives the engine. The engine turns the dynamo. The dynamo produces electricity. The electricity produces the light, which is nothing more nor less than resuscitated or resurrected sun-light, which lay idle in buried coal-fields hundreds and hundreds of years. This same process is taking place in every green leaf upon the face of the earth. Think of the mighty power thus expended by the sun thus acting upon the leaves of all the trees on the face of the earth, which, if spread out, would cover a surface of more than twenty-five thousand square miles. The earth is a laboratory upon which the force of the sunlight works. The sun warms us, feeds us, clothes us. Without it, every living thing upon the face of the earth would soon become a frozen corpse.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 81.4

    Let us note the mighty power manifested in the movements of the earth. The earth turns upon its axis at the rate of seventeen miles a minute, while it moves in its orbit around the sun at the rate of nineteen miles a second. Think of this! Try to comprehend the meaning of this enormous speed - the earth revolving upon its axis at the rate of seventeen miles a minute - seventeen times as fast as the lightning express, and we clinging to its surface like flies revolving on a spinning top. But this is a slow rate compared with the rate at which it moves through its orbit, more than sixty times as great.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 82.1

    Let us see how much gun-powder would be required to send a cannon ball the size of the earth at the rate of nineteen miles a second, using the formula which gunners use in calculating the amount of powder to be employed. The earth weighs five thousand billion billion tons. The amount of gun-powder would be seven hundred times as much; that is, seven hundred tons of gun-powder for every ton of earth. This much gun-powder would be required to start the earth forward in its movement around the sun. But the earth’s movement is continuous; not only continuous, but regular. In the last two thousand years astronomers have made such exact measurements of the movements of the earth and the planets that they are able to tell us to-day, that the earth has not lost in all this enormous time one hundredth part of a second of time. The great astronomical clock keeps absolutely perfect time. Think of the force required to maintain the immense velocity of nineteen miles a second, and the minute tension necessary to maintain this movement with absolute regularity for thousands and thousands of years.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 82.2

    The sun travels faster that the earth. It travels at the rate of twenty-seven miles a second. And the earth and all the planets are traveling with it. So here is another still more rapid movement in addition to the earth’s movement on its axis and in its orbit. Not only the earth and the sun, but every sun in the universe (and all the stars are suns), with their planets revolving about them, are moving, doubtless, at equally rapid rates. The mind staggers at the thought of the immense expenditure of energy necessary to keep all these gigantic suns and worlds in orderly movement.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 82.3

    The sun, the center of our solar system, is so large that if it were hollow, our earth might be placed in the middle, and there would still be ample room for the moon to revolve around the earth, and several other moons outside of it. The sun is reckoned to be one million, four hundred thousand times as large as the earth. How much gun-powder would be required to start it off on its journey through space at the rate of twenty-seven miles a second? How much would be required to keep it in movement throughout all the ages of eternity? And yet this great sun is but a mere speck in our universe - only one of the countless number of suns, some of which are immensely larger.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 82.4

    Every star is a sun. The eye can count in the sky about six thousand of these glowing orbs, but Herschel’s great telescope revealed twenty millions and more; and the great telescopes constructed since, have shown the existence of countless millions more. All these stars are speeding on their way through space, each guided by an invisible hand, pushed by an invisible power; each the center of a system of worlds, perhaps vastly greater than our little system, and doubtless immensely more glorious. The eye alone can detect the fact that the stars are of different colors. Some are red, some blue, some green, and others of different hue. The telescope brings out these colors much more distinctly than the eye. If our eyes could appreciate the beauty of this blazing firmament of light, we should find it far outvying the loveliest flower garden in its wealth of colors. Some stars, when seen through the telescope, are found to be multiple, - consisting of systems of two, three, or more stars. Sometimes these stars of a system differ in color. The inhabitants of the planets traveling around such systems of suns, would see in the sky several suns glowing with different colors, as red, blue, yellow, and other colors.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 82.5

    How little we can comprehend of the beauty in the universe above, beneath, and all about us! Some stars are brighter than others. These are not necessarily larger. The dim stars are those farthest away. We can perhaps form the best conception of the immensity of space by undertaking to measure the distance to our nearest neighbors in the starry heavens. Let us take for our measuring-stick a ray of light, which travels at the rate of one hundred and eighty thousand miles, or seven times around the world, in a second of time. Traveling with this immense, almost immeasurable velocity, light requires three and one-half years to reach the nearest star. So for ought we know, this star may have disappeared and been blotted out of existence three years or more ago, though we are in ignorance of the fact, for the light last produced by it has not yet ceased to reach us. The brightest star in the heavens, Serus, is some hundreds of times as large as our sun. It is so far away that its light must travel fourteen years to reach us. There are stars so far away that light may have been traveling for twenty thousand years, and not yet have reached us. Now and then a new star shines out in the sky, not as a new creation, but as a light which has at last come to us after untold ages of flight through boundless space.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 82.6

    Now, try to conceive what is on the other side of the farthest star. It is another star. Suppose one could be planted on the remotest bounds of the imaginable universe - as far as the imagination could stretch; so far away that thousands and thousands of years would be required for the light of the shining sun to reach us. What would he find - a boundary? If so, what sort of a one? No; he would see stretching on beyond him another universe still greater. Space is infinite as infinity. Suppose that at this remote point in the universe a new star should be born. It might be thousands of years before the light of this new star would reach us. But the earth would feel the pull of the new star through the operation of gravitation the instant it was made. Gravitation acts instantaneously throughout all space. By this mysterious force of gravitation the whole universe is held together in a bond of unity. The whole universe pulsates at the movement of every shining orb. The Psalmist says: “Their melody extendeth through all the earth.” Psalm 19:6, Jewish Version. We have here the evidence of a universal presence, an intelligent presence, an all-wise presence, an all-powerful presence, a presence by the aid of which every atom of the universe is kept in touch with every other atom. This force that holds all things together, that is everywhere present, that thrills throughout the whole universe, that acts instantaneously through boundless space, can be nothing else than God himself. What a wonderful thought that this same God is in us and in everything.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 83.1

    Now, if we turn our eyes from the great things of the universe, and look down into the small things, the smallest things recognizable by the microscope, we find that the same infinity exists. Chemists tell us that the ultimate atoms of which the hardest rock is composed, are so far apart that a miniature man with a miniature telescope, upon one atom, might look away in space and see the neighboring atom as men now look at the stars and planets with celestial telescopes.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 83.2

    Scientists have been very much puzzled to know how light, which is a vibratory movement, can pass from one of these widely separated atoms to another. To meet this difficulty the hypothesis of ether has been proposed. But here the same difficulty exists; for the ether, being matter, must also be composed of atoms; and so with ether we have simply matter composed of finer atoms, and other ether composed of still finer atoms, and so on down to infinity. There is as great an infinity below us as above us. The mystery of being, even in its simplest forms, is an eternal mystery. They cannot solve it, for it is the mystery of God himself. Scientific men have almost unanimously arrived at the conclusion that this one great force in the universe, this which Mr. Spencer calls the unknowable intelligence, is nothing else than God himself; that matter in all its forms is simply a manifestation of God.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 83.3

    What a wonderful thought, that this mighty God that keeps the whole universe in order, is in us! And what an astonishing thing, that any man should dare to rebel against this mighty God, to assert his own will in opposition to God’s will! And what an amazing thing, that this almighty, all-powerful, and all-wise God should make himself a servant of man by giving man a free will - power to direct the energy within his body!GCDB February 19, 1897, page 83.4

    The first man, made in the image of God, was given power of independent willing in order that he might be godlike. God became in a sense his servant, that he might develop the highest qualities and attributes possible to be manifested in the human form. But Adam’s will before his sin, was in perfect harmony with God’s will; hence he made no unwise use of the divine powers entrusted to him. Man, in asserting his own will in opposition to God, has wandered away, and has become deteriorated, depraved, filled with perverse instincts and abnormal appetites, so that he abuses the divine faculties entrusted to him, and insults God by making a misuse of the divine power dwelling within him. And yet God bears with him, patiently strives with him, to win him back to obedience. If every one of us could accept of this thought, that God is in us and ever seeking to lead us in that way which is wisest and best for us, how eagerly would we seek to know God’s way for us - to understand all the laws which he has established for our well-being. Would we not cease to consider it a duty to obey God, and rather regard it as the highest privilege; since by submitting man’s will to God, and co-operating with the divine power at work within him, this power will ever lead him to always care for his will, protect it, and will make him the happiest, the truest, the noblest, the most godlike man?GCDB February 19, 1897, page 83.5

    Studies in the Book of Hebrews. - No. 7. E. J. WAGGONER. (Tuesday Afternoon, Feb. 16, 1897.)

    No Authorcode

    THIS question was handed to me as I came in: “In Romans 13:1 (‘There is no power but of God’), does the word ‘power’ have the same signification as in other places?” I do not know why it should mean anything different in one place than it does in another. Power is power, and power belongs to God, and there is no other source of power. It does not seem as though it ought to be difficult for people who believe in God to believe that. Power, without any qualification or limitation, belongs to God, that is, it pertains to him; it is his attribute. Suppose we take it that God has power, but he has not all the power there is. If that were so, there would be another God, would there not?GCDB February 19, 1897, page 84.1

    (A voice) That would make it necessary.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 84.2

    Suppose we say he has some power in the universe, and that there is another being in the universe who has some power. Then the question will be, Which is the greater? There will be a controversy in the universe. Now just such a controversy has arisen - Satan has claimed equality with God, and has presumed to dispute the possession of power. But I thank God there is no question about the outcome, or about the facts. Power belongs to God, and therefore we do not need to wait until the end to find out who is going to come out ahead, in order to arrange ourselves on his side. But we know from the Bible and from the Word of God in all nature, that power, absolute and universal, all the power there is, belongs to God. Don’t you see that if it were not so, there would be some part of the universe over which God did not have any right to control.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 84.3

    (A voice) Yes.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 84.4

    And if we could find out who those certain ones are that have power that does not belong to God, we would not have any ground whatever to stand on in preaching the gospel to them. They would say, I never received anything from the Lord, and I don’t owe him anything.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 84.5

    Do you not see that the question of division of power is simply the question, How many gods are there? There is one God, and only one.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 84.6

    Well it is wonderful to me, every day I live, and the longer I live the more wonderful it is to me, into how small a space, and how simple a truth, all the truth is resolved. Whoever comes to the recognition of this fact, and holds himself to it as all the truth there is in the universe, - God is, and there is no other; and when we see God is, he that cometh to God must believe that he is. That is his name. - I Am. What? - I Am, absolute. When we come face to face with that, it is a wonderful thought. God is. Where? - He is. Go where you will in the universe, and there it can be said, He is. You know it says in the one hundred and thirty-ninth Psalm:-GCDB February 19, 1897, page 84.7

    Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there [that is about the only space that some people believe that he has]; and if I make my bed in hell, [that is in the depths, the heart of the earth,] behold thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 84.8

    Why should any one try to minimize the power of God, or to claim that the power is divided between him and another being? Do you not see that in so doing a man is taking the foundation from under his own feet? What confidence can we have in God if he is not the only supreme, absolute, the only God, the only ruler in the universe? If any one can claim power aside or apart from God, we have no hope.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 84.9

    There is one being who has thought to divide divine honors with the Lord. He has said, “I will be like the Most High,” and he has instilled that spirit into mankind from the very beginning, saying, In the day ye eat thereof, ye shall be like God. I believe that was why our first parents cut loose from God. They thought that they could get along without him, therefore they did not need to obey him. It is all involved in that; Satan said, I have power outside of God, I am independent of him. Satan made them believe that God was arbitrary, and was trying to keep them from heaven, so that they would not know, and so he could arrogate all honors to himself. Then they ate so that they might get the power that God had been keeping back from them. But they failed, for power belongs only to God. When they put forth their hand to take that which was to give them power to make them like God, thinking that they could maintain their existence independent of him, in that very day came death. Then they found that there was no power but God, and that the devil had lied to them.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 84.10

    Now, God in his mercy and long-suffering allowed his power to be prostituted, allowed men to use his power, even against him. Why? - Because he is merciful and loving, sending his rain on the evil and the good; his sunshine on the just and the unjust, in order that the goodness of God might reveal the truth, the power that belongs to God.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 85.1

    That lesson that we came to study yesterday in the second chapter of Hebrews, is so important that we must spend time upon that, studying the Scriptures and showing how plainly it is revealed, that God is in Christ, in everything, because God is manifest only in Christ.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 85.2

    And so it makes no difference which term we use in speaking, God, or Christ, it is that power, because Christ is the power and the wisdom of God. Wherever Christ is, there is the power of God. Wherever the power of God is, there is Christ.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 85.3

    So that we may see that we are not wandering from this study in Hebrews, we will read, beginning with these verses:-GCDB February 19, 1897, page 85.4

    But now we see not yet all things put under him. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man. For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee. And again, I will put my trust in him. And again, Behold I and the children which God hath given me. For as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil: and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For verily he took not on him the nature of angels.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 85.5

    He goes right back to the beginning. Unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come; therefore, since Christ’s sacrifice has, so far as we are concerned, to do with this world, he took not on him the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham:-GCDB February 19, 1897, page 85.6

    Wherefore in all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest, in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 85.7

    What we read yesterday in the tenth chapter of Romans, we will look at again. “The righteousness which is of faith, speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down.)” That is, Christ came down voluntarily. He humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. “Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.)” Or, when the gospel is preached through Christ, the word can be said to every soul, Now you do not need to say, Where will I find him? This is just where perhaps nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths of the preaching of the gospel does not reach the people, - because it fails to make the connection between God and the people. Yes, believe on the Lord. But, what? Where is he? Where may I find the Lord? How can I know about Christ crucified and risen? It does not say that. The Word is Christ. Now do not say, Who came to bring the Word to us, or Christ to us, in order that we might be made righteous to keep the law. No; what saith it? - The Word is in them. It is in thy mouth. Or, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, literally.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 85.8

    What is the word of faith which we preach? - “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” Now, what is the great fact, the great truth, about the Lord Jesus that is to be confessed with the mouth? Why, that the Word was made flesh - that is the thing to be confessed, Confess the Lord Jesus. Why confess Christ? - Because to confess a thing is to say it is so. To confess the Lord Jesus in the flesh, is to confess that Christ is the power of God; and that is to confess that this is not of men at all. This life I have is not my life. It is God’s.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 85.9

    It is God’s in the most absolute sense. The breath of God, and the Word - these are even in thy mouth. It is the manifestation of God’s power. Then when a man confesses that, he simply gives up, he renounces all his assumptions to power, and of right to rule; all ownership of himself that he has claimed to have, he gives up, and he is the Lord’s because this life is the life that God has given. It is the breath that God has lent. I am living upon his bounty; not only so, but it is his life within.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 86.1

    Knowing that fact - that Christ, the Lord, the power of God, is in my flesh - now I will believe in my heart that God has raised him from the dead; that is, gives him the victory over the infirmity of the flesh, even over death. Then I have Christ crucified and risen again in the flesh, and when I believe in that Christ risen to the right hand of God, that lifts me up so long as I believe. With the heart man believeth unto righteousness.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 86.2

    Here is a message to God’s people; and when you read this you will see that it is not by chance that we are taking up these things to-day.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 86.3

    Let us turn to the fortieth chapter of Isaiah:-GCDB February 19, 1897, page 86.4

    The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. Verses 3-5.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 86.5

    Now, what is this voice crying in the wilderness, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord.” - The voice was that of John the Baptist. (See John 1:19-23.)GCDB February 19, 1897, page 86.6

    But did John the Baptist finish the message? - No. Read further:-GCDB February 19, 1897, page 86.7

    And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field: the grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the Word of our God shall stand forever. O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God! Behold, the Lord God will come with strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him: behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him. Verses 5-10.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 86.8

    In the last chapter of the Bible we read: “Behold, I come quickly, and my reward is with me.” But here it reads, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord.” Then the work of John the Baptist was to prepare for the second coming of Christ; as well as for the first. And that message is to be given to-day. He is to come and rule with a strong arm; “and his work [is] before him.” That is the last message. It must be. The last message is the Lord’s coming, and his coming is near. We often speak of the third angel’s message going with power, or with a loud voice, “the loud cry.” What have we here? - “Lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid.” Then this is the loud cry of the third angel’s message. This is what we have here in the fortieth chapter of Isaiah. It is the last message going with a loud cry, saying, “Say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God.” Where? says one. I cannot see him; where is he? Get your eyes open then. That is the last message, Behold your God. Where? - In the things which he has made. Now, this is an essential part of the message. We have seen where it points to - the end. That is the Lord’s coming with power, and it is the message proclaimed with a mighty voice. What shall I cry? What message shall I give? - “All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field: the grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the Word of our God shall stand forever.”GCDB February 19, 1897, page 86.9

    What is the message, then, - the last message to be given to the people? - Behold your God; the mighty one. All flesh is grass, but the Word of the Lord abides. In short, man himself is nothing; God is everything. Now take this simple statement: “All flesh is grass.” Is that true? We try sometimes to evade that, saying, All flesh is like grass. But “all flesh is grass.”GCDB February 19, 1897, page 86.10

    Take the first chapter in Genesis. We have not half begun to learn that chapter. If we knew the first chapter of Genesis thoroughly, there would not be much of the Bible that we could not see through clearly. Let us read in three different places here in this chapter. First, the eleventh verse:-GCDB February 19, 1897, page 86.11

    And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 86.12

    From where does the grass come then? - Out of the earth. He said, Let the earth bring it forth, and the earth obeyed. The earth had no power of itself to bring forth grass, but when he put his Word into it, then the grass came; and so it is that grass still grows. The Word abides forever; it still says, Bring forth grass, and the grass grows by the power of that Word. The twenty-fourth verse:-GCDB February 19, 1897, page 86.13

    And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 87.1

    The same thing, just the same thing that was said of the grass. Let the earth bring forth the grass, now let the earth bring forth the beast. Grass and beast came from the same place. “And the Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground.” Grass, beast, man, comes from the earth. Man, just like others, is grass. All flesh is grass; it grows out of the ground - by what power? - The power of God. By that power we live. All are of dust, and all return to dust again, Then there is not so much difference between the grass of the field and us. Christ said, “Consider the lilies of the field;” but, there is another lily, for “Israel shall grow as the lily.”GCDB February 19, 1897, page 87.2

    Where does man get his support? Where does his life come from? Where does man get his food? There is not anything that man eats that does not come from the ground. The beasts of the field eat the herbs. All flesh is grass. There are many forms of grass, not only the grass we tread upon, but the wheat is one form of grass; herbs are only different forms of grass, and God has given them to man to eat. The trees are of the same nature as grass, so we have creation all as grass; but the Word of God abides.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 87.3

    We may learn lessons from the grass. How often we have gone out just as the grass or the Indian corn was beginning to spring forth, and as we passed along we noticed a big clod of earth detached and rising up. It might weigh several pounds. And then we had the curiosity to look under it; and what did we see? - just a little blade of grass, perhaps a blade of wheat, so tiny and small it had no color to it yet; - just a little white mass of fiber and water; that is all, nothing to it. It was just standing upright, and not only standing upright under that clod of earth, but it was steadily pushing it out of the way, and was just keeping its place and going right along, regardless of this clod. It is safe to say that a blade of grass pushes away a weight ten thousand times its own weight. If a man had as much power according to his size and weight, he could lift a mountain: he could take up Pike’s Peak, and throw it off as a lad would a football.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 87.4

    But when you take it out of there, it will not hold itself up. It just yields - it is gone. If you even remove the clod, it cannot stand. That blade of grass is not such a little thing after all, but it is undeniable that there was a wonderful power manifested in that blade of grass. But what was that power? - God’s own life, his own personal presence there, doing in the grass just what he designed for the grass; it was God that was working in it, both to will and to do of his own good pleasure.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 87.5

    Not only his power, but his wisdom. How often we have seen a tree sending its roots all off to one side, no roots on the other side at all. Why did it do that? - O, because there was a stream of water over here; but on the other side it was dry and barren. How did that tree know that there was water over there? Not only so, but if a root of the tree in going along on its wonted course to find water, finds an obstruction in the way that it cannot pierce, it will go down under and come up, and go on there. Is that chance? There is no chance about it.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 87.6

    Botanists tells us, and we know it, that each different kind of plant requires a different kind of food. There are little fibers sent out from the roots; these fibers are the mouths by which it takes up its nourishment. These fibers gather around a portion of earth. But those who have observed closely will tell us that these roots will discriminate and go out to find the soil they need for their nourishment. How do they know how to do this? That is what the birds and beasts do. They go where they can find the proper food for their nourishment. Man does the same thing. We have seen the power that was in that blade of grass, and it was the power of God, and that is Christ, But Christ is not only the power of God, but he is the wisdom of God; and so both the power and the wisdom of God are in that blade of grass. The plant acknowledges its helplessness. The plant never assumed to be something it was not made to be. The plant never got out of its place. If we pull it out of its place it is good for nothing. When it was in the place where God put it, it was all right. It is utterly subject to God, and therefore the power of God is manifest in it to bring it to the perfection as grass of the field, with the life of God in it, and that same life of God in it gives it the power to get the water and the nourishment that it needs. When an animal does that thing, we call it instinct. What is it? It is the life which God gives. It is the measure of life which God gives for the beast according to his kind to direct it, and the beast in the perfect state of nature when connected with men, does those things which are necessary for his strength, and health; the wisdom which God has given, is for his perfection as a beast.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 87.7

    But when man does these things, it is not God any more, is it? No, it is because I am so wise, and I have such keen perception. No, no, it is the life of God. Whatever wisdom a man has, the strength he has, comes from Him. “Thus saith the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: but let him that glorieth, glory in this,” - that I am the Lord? - No; “that he understandeth and knoweth me that I am the Lord.” In pursuance of this thought, that all flesh is as grass. We are all plants together, with one life in us all. Now we noticed that plant that was in the ground with a clod of earth upon it. It had no power in itself whatever to lift off that clod, but there was a mighty power in it, and it is so that if any man in proportion to the grass had proportionate power in him, he could lift the Alps. Our Saviour said, “If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed,” ye could lift a mountain. Now was that guess work? - All that is faith, absolute dependence upon God. Instead of being frightened or discouraged or disgusted because we are only grass, that is our hope. What God can do with the grass of the field he can do with us if we will have the faith. God will do for us what he does for that.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 88.1

    What life therefore is manifested everywhere in the universe? - The life of Christ. Christ in the flesh crucified and risen, Christ in the flesh crucified in me, because if Christ is crucified some distance from me, even though it be close beside me, it is far away. I cannot make the connection. But when I know that that life which was offered, and which was powerful enough to gain the victory over sin and death, that very same life is in me, and confess it and believe it, everything that that life can do is mine. Take a verse that is familiar to us all: “Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me. I delight to do thy will, O my God, yea, thy law is within my heart.” That is to say, thy law is my life, and that is exactly what is in the last verse of the twelfth chapter of John: “And I know that his commandment [that is in man] is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak.” And this is life eternal, that we might know the only true God, and the Son whom he has sent. To know him and Christ is eternal life; therefore the law of God is simply life. It is the law of life - the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus - which has made us free from the law of sin and death. So the law of God is simply the life of God; it is his life. Then there cannot be anything arbitrary about it. People think of the laws of God as something that he made as an earthly ruler would make laws; that is, God made man, and then he thought, Now, what law would I better make for his guidance that is good for man? But God did not do that way. The law was his life. He put the life into the man as his law, and so long as that man would consent to be absolutely controlled by him, he would be a holy man, a godly man.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 88.2

    We speak of the laws of nature and the laws of God; or, of the natural law, and the moral law. What is the difference between them? Natural law, that is, we see a plant, and it grows in a certain way, and it always grows in the right way; it will grow in the way that God has made it. It lets God live his own life in it. Then what are called natural laws are simply the life of God manifested in the things we see, - the being that is perfect after its kind. It is the same life in the grass, in the vine, in the oak tree. But God made the grass after its kind, and the vine to be another thing after its kind, and the oak tree to be another thing after its kind; and the same life in all brings each to perfection after its kind. And he made man after his kind - to be grass, it is true, dust, but to have the supreme position on earth. And the life of God in the man, if you will yield to it as implicitly as the grass and the trees, will bring him to perfection after his kind, to the perfection that God has designed for him.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 88.3

    Now what would be the case if this grass should begin to assume that it would be an oak tree; it will not be grass, but it will grow into an oak tree, and claim to be something it is not? - Then God’s plan is not perfected in it. It resists God’s life. It says, I don’t want to be this way; I want to be that way, and I will make myself that. And the whole thing is frustrated. So we see that the law is one, and that it is God’s life, and it is not an arbitrary arrangement, but God is the author and source of life, and his life works in all his creatures so far as they let him. But now we see not all things put under him. We see a curse; and why? - Because the curse came upon the earth. But first the curse came upon man, and then upon the earth because of man’s sin. What was the curse that fell upon man? - Death.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 88.4

    Because of sin, came the curse and death. Death in the absence of life. So death fell upon man because he rejected the life of God. He said, I will be God; I will not be dependent upon him; I will take this thing, this fruit - and you know that was the only thing he could see in the garden. He thought God had deprived him of everything because this one thing was kept back. He thought that all the other was nothing; he thought he must have that in order to live. So he said I will take of this one tree, which will put me in my right, and give me my power, so that I can be independent of God, and I will cast him off. What did he get? - He got the absence of life. God in his mercy did not take man at his word, and let him be utterly separated from him, because, if he had, he would have continued in death. But he continues his life to man in his weak and fallen state. But now he is fallen. We do not see the perfection of life. We see the curse upon the earth, because of man’s sin.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 89.1

    Thorns and thistles are simply evidence of weakness, of the diminution of the life-power. The weakness of man, as well as of beasts, is evidence of the reduction of the life-power, that is the absence of Christ. Christ has taken all our weakness upon himself, so that when we accept him and know him, and have a knowledge of him, then we are made new creatures: “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.” Instead of bringing forth thorns and thistles and briers to be rejected, he brings forth fruit unto everlasting life, to the glory of God.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 89.2

    “Build a little fence of trust around to-day; Fill it in with living deeds and therein stay. Look not through the sheltering bars upon to-morrow; God will help thee bear what comes of joy or sorrow.”GCDB February 19, 1897, page 89.3

    God is Love. 1Abstract of discourse preached at Y. M. C. A. Hall, Lincoln, Neb.

    No Authorcode

    G. E. FIFIELD.

    (Wednesday Evening, Feb. 17, 1897.)

    ELDER FIFIELD spoke from the text, Jeremiah 17:5-8. The idea many have of Christianity is this: God wants us to deny ourselves of everything here and be miserable in this world, for the sake of being happy by and by. But Satan, on the contrary, wants us to have a good time here, but is not thinking of the future. Never was there a greater libel on my Father. God is the best friend of the human race. He seeks to give us the greatest possible amount of happiness now and evermore, ever wishing to lift us into greater possibilities of joy; while Satan is the greatest enemy of mankind, never lifting the crystal goblet of bliss to the human lips, without dashing it to the ground as soon as a single drop has been tasted. Satan lied about God in the beginning, saying he was arbitrary and unjust and unkind; and all mankind, it would seem, have believed that lie. So far is this from the truth that the inspired Word tells us, “God is love.” He is not love and justice, for justice is only an attribute of love. How can he who loves all men with an immortal love be unjust to any? Mercy and grace are only manifestations of love. Even the omniscience of God is the result of his love; because he is all-loving, he can be all-knowing. Hatred cannot know love.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 89.4

    Once infinite Love walked the earth in human form, and they crucified him, because they knew him not. But love seeth and comprehendeth all things. The power of God to make men righteous, is simply the power of his love to win men to love, which flows out in the acts of love. Even the wrath of God spoken of throughout the Bible, is his wrath not against the sinner, but against the sin. He hates the sin, because it is the enemy of the sinner whom he loves. The measure of his love for the sinner is the measure of his wrath against the sin. That wrath will never cease until sin shall be no more. His desire is, however, to save the sinner from his sin, so that he may not perish with it. When he does thus perish, the Lord says, “As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways.”GCDB February 19, 1897, page 89.5

    Thus every attribute of God is simply the attribute of love. And love includes the all in all of our Father. His laws are simply the laws of a kind Father, intended to promote the happiness of his children. They are not arbitrary. It is not that God, sitting up on some high throne, said to mankind, You do thus and so, and I will let you live; but you do otherwise, and I will kill you. God does not kill. He is the Fountain of life. His laws are not so simply because he said so, but even so because they were so. In infinite wisdom he foreknew the underlying principles of happiness and life, and in infinite love he foretold these principles, saying, This way, my child; here is the joy and peace and life forevermore. Don’t go that way. That way is misery and death. Every precept of the decalogue, which is the epitome of his law, directly speaks from this principle. He sought to lift man into the worship of one God and Father, that he might unite him into one loving family of brothers and sisters.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 90.1

    No human mind can comprehend God in his greatness, but should ever in humility hold itself in readiness to walk into a larger light. So God prohibits the imaging of him. For an image is but a creed in marble, seeking to make prominent the person, that which is at best but partial and incomplete. God would have all men regard his name with reverence, that that sacred name might have power to help lift men nearer him, and therefore nearer each other. In the Sabbath he established the fact that the only true God was the Creator. All false worship is a departure from the worship of the Creator to the worship of the created. He who worships the Creator only, sees an infinity of beauty which he cannot fathom, in each flower at his feet; and so masked in humility, ever holds himself ready to know more of the infinity, of him who created not only the flower, but all the countless worlds. The happiest family, other things being equal, is one that loves and honors father and mother most. “Thou shalt not kill,” guards the joy of living. “Thou shalt not steal,” guards the joy of property honestly earned. “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” guards the joy of family relation. “Thou shalt not bear false witness,” guards the joy of reputation, also of property and life. “Thou shalt not covet,” cuts off the tap-root of sin in the thought, which leads to all transgression. How solicitous our Father is of our utmost possible joy.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 90.2

    The obedience to these principles is happiness and life. It is unthinkable that there could be a time when, or a world where, the disobedience to these principles among intelligent beings, would not constitute misery and death. It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than for one precept of God’s law to change. For the law rests in the infinite love which never changes. This law, when given to man, was not designed to be a dead law, condemning the human heart; but it was a living law, to have the divine, creative power of the gospel in it, to uplift the life - so many divine, creative promises. “Thou shalt have no other God’s before me.” “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.” These are promises to the soul which sees them in the light of the gospel, and through faith in Christ rests on them; they will become the everlasting arms of love to uphold and support him forevermore. God requires us to form characters in harmony with his, not simply because he delights in such a character, but because it is the only possible basis of joy and peace. No soul, at last, will be shut out of the everlasting kingdom of joy, by any gate thrust in his face, but rather by his own incapacity to enter there. His life must be built in harmony with the principles of joy and happiness. He must be born again into these principles, and have them developed in his life; else to him the eternal life of the kingdom of joy is an impossibility.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 90.3

    God in Man. - No. 3. J. H. KELLOGG, M. D. (Tuesday Evening, Feb. 16, 1897.)

    No Authorcode

    I CALL your attention to the one hundred and thirty-ninth Psalm, one of the most beautiful passages in the Bible, and particularly applicable to our subject:-GCDB February 19, 1897, page 90.4

    O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. Thou has beset me behind and before, and laid thy hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it. Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? if I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 90.5

    We have had wonderful illustrations of that wonderful thought recently, illustrated in modern science; in what we have read about in the newspapers, and is generally known as the Roentgen, cathode, or X-ray. By taking this little purse which I hold in my hand, you can see the money through that purse. Hold up your hand, and by this ray you can count the bones. A bullet may be seen in the body and thus located. If Garfield were living to-day, that bullet could have been located and extracted, and thus he might have been saved. Only a short time ago, a needle, having been located by means of the X-ray, was extracted from the heel of a woman. It is actually possible to see through six inches of solid oak; an inch of brass becomes almost transparent. You can see through iron, or steel, or aluminum, or gold. Aluminum is almost as transparent as glass. This X-ray is different from light, in that it cannot be focused. Light may be focused with a burning glass or lens, but the lens has no effect whatever upon this ray. It passes right through it just as through any other piece of glass or wood. This is not light, but it is something by which you can see that which is invisible, occasioned by the intervention of an opaque substance. Thus we are enabled by this new discovery to see hidden things. It is no longer necessary to search a thief in order to know what he has in his pocket. So with a person in a pest house, it is not necessary to take his clothes off to see him. The blackest garment is just as transparent as gauze, or as glass, by means of this new ray. We find it of assistance in examining an abscess. By holding up the hand, it is possible to see just where to cut and to let out the pus. So that recent experiments by Edison show that it is possible to examine the heart, look into the brain, and thus see these organs at work. Go into a dark room, cover your head with the darkest cloth, and you can see by means of this ray.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 91.1

    Eld. Lane. - What is it?GCDB February 19, 1897, page 91.2

    The X-ray.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 91.3

    (A voice) Is there any electricity in it?GCDB February 19, 1897, page 91.4

    No.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 91.5

    (A voice) Is there any light about it?GCDB February 19, 1897, page 91.6

    No, there is no light about it. It accompanies the production of electricity, but it has none of the properties of electricity, and is without sensation. I only mention this as one of the illustrations of the power that is beyond our comprehension.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 91.7

    God just gives us a little insight now and then into some of these wonderful things in nature. A little discovery over in England shows us that the light of the glow-worm is produced in the same manner. The glow-worm, in order to look into a tree, has a light of its own, to help it to look in under the bark? I do not know whether subsequent investigations will establish this point or not. By means of the X-ray, we can see through a big rock, five or six feet thick. A photograph of a man was taken the other day, with an oak partition six inches thick between the man and the ray. A perfect photograph of the bones, ligaments, etc., of the foot, showed it to be out of joint. We have been getting all sorts of inventions for the purpose of looking inside of the eyes, into the ears, into the throat, into the abdominal cavity, etc. I was interested in examining a little girl one evening, and I desired to have her open her mouth; but when I approached her, she tightly closed it; and when her mother asked her why she would not let the doctor look into her throat, she whispered so that I could hear her answer her mother, “Mamma, I am afraid he will see what is down in my stomach.” Now here is an apparatus by which we can look into the stomach, and see what is there. You do not need those complicated machines to see it, but hold this simple apparatus before it, and look, and you can see everything in the body. As the apparatus becomes more and more perfected, it is possible to discover more and more of the minute structures in the body.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 91.8

    Now the X-ray is one of God’s agents. God has a sight vastly keener than any of these agencies. By these various agencies, God is able to see everything in the universe; and so we have abundant basis for what he says.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 91.9

    If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee. For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise thee: for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!GCDB February 19, 1897, page 91.10

    It seems to me the most precious that we can conceive, these thoughts of God; that God himself is in us, and right about us, in every living thing; for -GCDB February 19, 1897, page 92.1

    If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee. Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God: depart from me therefore, ye bloody men. For they speak against thee wickedly, and thine enemies take thy name in vain. Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee? I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies. Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 92.2

    Now, this is a most beautiful Psalm which I have read, and we find all through the Psalms such statements. I think the Psalms contain such beautiful thoughts, and they seem to open to us the character of God more perfectly than any other book in the Bible. We have his person there revealed so beautifully.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 92.3

    Now I want to give you to-night, if I can in a rapid way, something of an idea of what we have revealed of God in the human body. Let us begin with the skin. We do not take much note of it, because it is common. We think the eye is a more wonderful thing than that, but we find that the skin is one of the most wonderful things in all the body. In fact, the skin is a great eye. And it is something more. When we come to study the matter, we find some animals who have no eyes, and they can recognize light all over their bodies. Now with us, the work is divided a little. The eye recognizes what we call color. Color is made up of vibrations, and the eyes recognize these vibrations; but when you get down to vibrations less than three hundred and fifty trillion per second, then the eyes do not recognize these vibrations any longer, but the skin does, in what we call heat.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 92.4

    Now, heat and light are just the same thing, only the vibrations are a little more rapid for light, and not quite so rapid for heat. We always have it where there is light. But we have a recognition of heat all over the body, so that this skin which seems to us to be such a coarse, rough, simple structure, is really as delicate an organ as the eyes - it is more delicate than the eyes, because it has a great many other functions besides that of recognizing temperature. The eyes recognize only two or three different kinds of vibrations. They recognize vibrations between four hundred and fifty and seven hundred trillion vibrations per second; but the skin recognizes a far greater range of vibrations, because it recognizes all sorts of temperatures. It recognizes temperatures from down below freezing, to several degrees above that of the body. There are perhaps seventy-five or eighty different degrees of temperature that the skin is susceptible of recognizing; it recognizes the twentieth part of a degree of temperature. It is the greatest sense organ of the body. When we get into a room, for instance, and the temperature falls one degree, the skin has to be regulated to fit that fall of temperature. If the temperature rises, it has to be regulated for that; and not only that, but the whole inside of the body has to be regulated at the same time. The organs inside the body will have to relax if the temperature falls, and they will have to expand if the temperature rises. And if they relax, of course that takes a little more blood from the external organs; and so every organ in the body changes its size, every single organ in the body recognizing the thrill when there is a fall of one degree of temperature, every single fiber of the body responding to that change of temperature. So, when they are exposed to constant changes of temperature, as they are all the time, the whole body is a thrilling machine which responds to all impulses outside of it.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 92.5

    Some years ago I was sitting in my room, and I heard the telephone snapping and cracking, and I went to it, and took it up, and began talking, as I supposed some one was trying to talk to me; and I said, What do you want? But I heard nothing. And I called again, but heard nothing. Just then I noticed from the window a flash of light, a long way off, and soon I heard it thunder. A storm was coming some twenty miles away, and by and by it came nearer, and finally I could hear the thunder roll; and as the thunder-storm came on, the telephone kept snapping and cracking all the time. When the cloud began to pass away, the snapping became less and less; and by and by, as the storm passed on in the distance, the noise of the telephone kept diminishing.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 92.6

    Now, the body is vastly more sensitive than the telephone. Consequently these electrical changes in the air must be affecting our bodies a great deal more than this telephone was affected. And why do we not feel it? - Simply because there is compensation taking place. For some reason we do not feel these changes. It is just as when I lean over this way, and when I lean over here, an adjustment is taking place in my body. When one is walking, he keeps upright because there is a balancing taking place in his body. So we see that our bodies are most fearfully and wonderfully made.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 92.7

    Next, let us look within, and give a little more attention to our body. Look into the stomach for a moment. What is its duty? - It is to take the food that is eaten, dissolve it, so that it can be absorbed, and convert it into blood, and that blood will convert it into material for bones, brain, and muscle, so that it can go out in energy, and work, and usefulness. The stomach does that. It digests all sorts of things sometimes. Some people treat their stomach like a garbage box. I do not know how many people quote the text, Eat everything that is set before you, asking no questions for conscience’ sake. I say for stomach’s sake, ask a few questions sometimes.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 93.1

    Here is a wonderful thing. Why does not the stomach, which digests everything that is put into it (and it will digest cheese, horse-radish, lobsters, rare-bits, and all other things of that sort), - why does not the stomach digest itself? The stomach will dissolve anything alive. But why does it not digest itself? There is a living miracle right there. Nobody can explain why the stomach does not digest itself.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 93.2

    In the stomach we have a most beautiful illustration of industry in what is taking place there. You look at the mucous membrane of the stomach, and suppose we cut off the edge of it, and there are found little pockets which are lined with cells, and these cells are hard at work making pepsin, and gastric juice to dissolve the food. Now every one of these little cells is a living thing. It is just as much alive as a bird, a horse, a fish, or a cow. And every one of these little cells has its work to do, its life to live. It is at work. Each one has its duty to do, - so much gastric juice to make each day, - and it does it. Now, what does the gastric juice do? - It dissolves and disinfects the food.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 93.3

    A man once came to me, and said: If the stomach has to disinfect the food, why not eat cheese, if you have plenty of gastric juice to disinfect it with? But if the stomach makes gastric juice to render wholesome, ordinary food, it ought not to have the extra burden of unwholesome food; and if this be long continued, of course the stomach will thereby be weakened.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 93.4

    Now let us notice a little more closely the action of the gastric juice upon the food that we eat. There was once a patient at the Sanitarium at Battle Creek, who took a test meal. The stomach was examined an hour later, and it was found that every single germ had been killed by the gastric juice. Some time afterward she took another test meal, and she said, I will test that thing; I will see whether meat will increase the growth of germs. And so the day before she was to have the next test meal she ate some meat, and the next morning took the test meal; and it was found that in every ounce of stomach fluid, there were six hundred million germs! Just think of that! Well, she was not quite sure whether it was the meat or not. When we came to examine the fluid, I said, What is the matter with this patient? She is getting worse so very fast that we will have to do something very quickly, and the doctor attending her sent at once to see what was the matter. She confessed that she had eaten beefsteak. For a few weeks she was kept on a proper diet, after which her stomach was again examined, when not a single germ was found. But she insisted on again eating meat, and after doing so, the germs came back again in full force. Now, why was this? - Simply because the stomach is able to make gastric juice enough to render pure and wholesome natural food; that is, germs do not grow well in fruit.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 93.5

    I often keep in my office a lot of boiled potatoes. They are kept under a glass, so germs cannot get to them. They are covered with this glass, and the potatoes are cut open, and lie with the flat side up. One day a man with a coated tongue came in, and I said to him, You have germs on your tongue. He said, I don’t see how that can be. Do you really think those are germs on my tongue? So I simply scraped off a little from his tongue, and planted it on those potatoes. At the end of a week I had him come in, and I took off the cover, and there was the potato coated all over like his tongue; and it had the same odor as his breath. These germs were not only on his tongue, but they were all through his stomach. Now meat, and these unwholesome things encourage the growth of those germs. The gastric juice of young and strong persons can disinfect the germs; and in the case of the scavengers, as the turkey-buzzards, the hog, and the hyena, they are able to disinfect those things. But after a while a man’s stomach will break down - the human stomach is not made to be a scavenger.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 93.6

    Now let us take some of these germs from the tongue, and plant them in fruit juice, for example, and they will not grow. You cannot make them grow in fruit juice, because the acids of the fruit are disinfectants, and will prevent their growth. The fruit of a lemon will kill cholera germs. These fruit juices are nature’s disinfectants. And so when a man eats this kind of food, which is his natural diet, the germs cannot develop.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 94.1

    Let us go a little further, if you please, and look at the liver. The liver has for its duty the making of bile; and not only the making of bile, but it has another purpose, which is to purify the blood by taking impure things out of it. Its duty is to destroy poison. God has planted here in the liver little cells that have this as their duty. These are to destroy poisonous things in the blood, just as the gastric juice destroys poisonous germs in the food. That is the natural duty of the liver. These poisons accumulate from the body; they accumulate everywhere. Wherever a muscle contracts, poison is the result. This is what makes the muscles tired. Connect a smoke-pipe with this room, and in a little while the whole room would be filled with smoke, and we would all be suffocated if we did not leave it. Just so with the body; it becomes poisoned. The stomach, the liver, and the other organs become poisoned. But the liver, as well as some other organs, destroys poisons, and if it were not for this we would die. Some people continually put into their stomachs things that decay. If a person has boils, bilious headache, it may be the result of things that have been in the stomach for weeks. They decay there, make poisons, and these are carried to the liver; the liver becomes clogged, and does not work properly, and these poisons are distributed throughout the body, and we have to take drugs to stir up the liver. Notwithstanding this, we throw upon that liver enormous quantities of food that it ought not to have anything to do with.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 94.2

    Look at the heart, and see what it is doing - beating regularly seventy times a minute. Get up quickly and start off on a run, and the heart beats from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and sixty times a minute. Often the heart beats as high as three hundred times a minute. What was it doing? - It was running away, - running away because something was out of order. The heart beats incessantly, and yet it rests all the time. One part of the heart rests and then another part; it takes turns resting and beating all the time. The heart of the average man does work amounting to the lifting of one hundred and twenty-four tons every day. Where does it get this wonderful power, strength to do this work? There are in the heart little nerve cells that keep it continually at work.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 94.3

    One time I was down at Key West. Passing a butcher’s shop I saw a man carrying a tray of meat. I noticed that he kept pushing something back on the tray. I looked again, and I saw that the meat seemed to be wriggling off the tray. I said to myself, what does that mean? It was the most ghastly sight I ever saw. I went into the shop, and there I saw the meat moving and wriggling about. On one side there was a heart beating right along as it did in the animal’s body. I said, What kind of a place is this? The butcher said, You are in a turtle market, not a beef market. The turtles had been cut up alive, their muscles moving, the hearts beating right along. This is an illustration of a fact that there are nerves in the heart and muscles keeping them at work. How does the heart know enough to keep on contracting. It is an intelligent power that keeps it in action.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 94.4

    I will not stop to tell you in regard to the lungs, but I want to tell you a little about the brain. Examine it with a microscope, and you will see that it is made up of cells. Some look like spiders, some like tadpoles. Some cells have one tail, some two tails. Some have a number of extensions or legs or openings, and some are very long, and run their hands into the spinal cord, and out into the arms and legs, terminating in the skin and muscles and every part of the body. By means of these groups of cells in the brain, every muscular fiber is contracting, and every one of these fibers has one of these little nerves. When a muscle contracts, there is a little explosion that takes place, something like that which takes place at the pulling of the trigger of a gun. That is taking place all the time in the body.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 94.5

    How is it that we breathe when we are asleep? When we are awake we can take at pleasure a deep or shallow breath, but when we sleep the lungs keep on breathing. But every time the lungs act, every time the heart beats, there is a message sent down to these nerve cells which control these organs. Every time the lungs expand there is an order to inflate, and when they are inflated there is an order to empty. Now suppose here is a little bellows working all by itself. You would say that is a wonderful thing, and I suppose people would come from all parts of the world to see such a bellows; but that is just what the lungs are doing all the time. At the base of the brain there are some groups of cells that send down their branches to the internal organs to control them, and they have them under absolute control. There is one branch here that sends orders to the muscles, and they are all under general control there. Then there are cells in the upper portion of the brain, and these are connected with others in the spinal cord, and from that to the different parts of the body. Thus every organ of the body is performing its orders under order of the nerve cells. Here is a nerve cell of the brain. It does not touch any other nerve cell. There is a little space around it, filled with fluid. Here is another nerve cell, and it has a film running over here in the spinal cord; and here is another cell that comes down into that cell - it does not touch it, but it spreads out its arms around that cell. I want my arm to move. There are some cells up here in the upper portion of my brain. They send the order to the lower brain, and then to the spinal cord, and from the cells of the spinal cord to my arm, and cause it to move.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 95.1

    But how does that message get from that cell to this cell? They do not touch each other. We have no complete nerve connection. It is a marvelous thing that physiologists cannot explain. They cannot explain how nerve energy gets into the brain - cannot explain intelligence, the action of the will, or volition, or how the energy of the nerve cells originates, or how the message from the brain gets down into the muscle, for it does not cross that open space. No one can explain that; it is absolutely impossible for any one to make it clear except with the understanding that God does it. It is God in the cells that is thrilling over these nerves that leap over this distance from one cell to another.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 95.2

    Now these fluids of the brain are clear and transparent when active and healthy and full of energy. When a man has jaundice, he is jaundiced all over, and not merely in his skin. He is all yellow. He has been stuffed with food until he has jaundice. His system is all filled with poison. His muscles, his stomach, his brain, has jaundice. I do not say but that he thinks jaundiced thoughts, for his brain is yellow. This is also true when a person has a dingy skin or sallow complexion. It means a dirty skin; it cannot be washed clean, for it is more than skin deep. It is in the skin, muscles, brain, nerves, everywhere; the whole body is not full of light, but of dirt. Now the whole body when it is healthy is absolutely transparent, and that is why the X-ray is useful. When parts are diseased, the X-ray shows it up because it has lost its transparency. When it is absolutely healthy, you cannot see it any more than you can see water or air; but you can see the diseased portions, for it then becomes opaque to the ray.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 95.3

    Now I would like to give another illustration: The brain has a fluid surrounding it. The skin might be considered a sac full of water, and the various cells and organs of the body as submerged in the water. We think under water. Suppose we see a fish swimming along in the water, and the water becomes turbid, and we cannot see the fish any more. Now the same thing is true of the cells that live and act in the body. Suppose a person’s stomach is absorbing poisons, and these poisons are becoming absorbed in his blood, this fluid which surrounds these cells of the brain becomes contaminated, and the nerve cells are consequently submerged in an impure fluid that poisons them and paralyzes them so they cannot do their work properly. And these cells cannot communicate with others, because the nervous impulses cannot well travel across this impure medium. That is the reason why one feels as he does when he is bilious. He is bilious because he has something decaying in his stomach, and that poison in his stomach poisons the blood, and the blood poisons the brain cells, so they cannot properly perform their functions. It is only when we keep the body pure, clean, and wholesome, that it can do its work properly. The stomach must be treated properly, so that it will not take poisons in; the liver must not be overtaxed, but kept in a condition to do its work of destroying poisons; the heart must be treated reasonably, so it can do its work; and God has pledged himself that he will keep all these organs intact, and in proper order, if we will co-operate with him by obeying the laws of nature.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 95.4

    Now, my friends, when we look at the fact that man is the masterpiece of God; that when God made him, he pronounced him very good; that after he had made everything else - the earth, the world, the animals, everything - he said to his Son, Let us make man in our own image; - when we think of that, that God has taken clay and animated that clay, put into that clay his own self, put himself into it, so that he has made in the mass of clay a godlike man, absolutely put divinity in the earth, and has given man a will, and has made himself a servant of that will, we see that God is man’s servant. God has said, I will obey your will to a certain degree. He has put a certain amount of divine power under man’s control; so man can control his eating, and the condition of his stomach, and his liver, and the condition of his body, and can control his muscles.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 96.1

    And since God has trusted us in this way, has given us this good gift, the highest thing that he ever created, his own masterpiece, and put it in our charge, ought we not to care for it? A great many people are actually trampling their stomachs under their feet, and tearing their livers to shreds, and abusing their lungs.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 96.2

    If a friend should give you a beautiful house, you would keep that house in good repair, in good order. You would not think of doing otherwise, out of respect to that friend. Now, here is a house God has given us in which to live, and he wants us to take the best possible care of it; but we see a great many people who actually sit down, and complacently see themselves go to pieces day by day. How? - By neglecting exercise. Exercise is just as necessary to keep the body clean and pure, as it is to keep water pure. Here is a brook coming down the mountain-side. It is as pure as a crystal. The water is bright and sparkling and clean. It goes down the mountain-side, and there on the plains it becomes nothing but a stagnant pool, all covered with slime and filth, with the frogs croaking there. Foul odors arise from it.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 96.3

    Now, that rushing mountain stream represents the living, acting man, because the body is simply a form through which a stream of matter flows; and the rate at which this matter flows depends upon our activity. A man sits down and eats, and he is pouring a stream into his body; and unless he exercises, this matter is not properly cared for, and not properly worked off. There should be activity. The water is kept from being stagnant by its activity; and so it is with the body. If a person is inactive in his habits, this rubbish accumulates in his whole body.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 96.4

    (To be continued.)

    Editorial Notes

    No Authorcode

    marcusstop AMONG the recent arrivals we have noticed R. H. Brock, of Oklahoma; J. B. Fortner, Kansas City, Kan.; C. Santee, of the Iowa Conference; Dr. Paulson, Dr. A. B. Olsen, and M. E. Olsen, of Battle Creek, Mich. The California delegation is looked for soon.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 96.5

    * * * * *

    WE were much pleased to greet in our midst on Tuesday Mrs. A. S. Steele and daughter. Mrs. Steele is a lady prominent in philanthropic work. Along with other work, she has succeeded in establishing and building up an orphanage in Chattanooga, Tenn., in which a large number of helpless colored children have found refuge and a Christian home.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 96.6

    * * * * *

    IT is noticeable to all that there is at the present meeting a marked absence of the spirit of personal criticism, that so often mars similar public gatherings. On the contrary, the feeling of brotherly love and fellowship is expressed and manifested on all sides. The universal kindness on the part of those whose duty it is to help provide for and entertain this large company adds greatly to the comfort of the occasion.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 96.7

    * * * * *

    THE California delegation arrived Wednesday evening in good order, and was warmly welcomed. It consisted of N. C. McClure, M. H. Brown, M. C. Wilcox, C. H. Jones, Dr. W. H. Maxson, and Dr. G. A. Hare. At about the same time Allen Moon, from Washington, D. C., arrived. Since we last reported there have been numerous additions to the congregation, some from near and some from far; some whose faces are familiar, and some who have not been with us before. We welcome them all.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 96.8

    * * * * *

    IT is said that a strong impression of the heel when walking indicates firmness of character. There is a lot of firmness exhibited in the uncarpeted corridors of North Hall. Those who took up the carpets to save them knew what to expect from a company of such firmness, and they acted accordingly. But, brethren, can we not leave the sign of our firmness at the door? This suggestion is, perhaps, too public, but it is about the only means we have of making a general appeal, and nothing short of this will reach the case.GCDB February 19, 1897, page 96.9

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