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The Divine Magnificence of the Date 2000.

modulated by the year of jubilee into the decimal chronology that dominates the whole sacred history of the world.

Undeniably, this mathematical symmetry is peculiar to the specific works of God, both in Nature and in grace or sacred history. We observe no mathematical order in the times and works of men. There is no rhythm to their cadences. They rise and fall in periods of jagged and discordant irregularity. Not so the times of the Kingdom of Heaven. Their metre and melody crown the very music of the spheres with transcendent measures which the stars in their courses humbly follow and the leaves pattern upon the stem and the petals in the flower.

These references are repeated in the first of SALVATION for the Twentieth Century, for the purpose of showing the Divine eminence of a date of 2000, above all the arbitrary periods and anniversaries which mankind celebrate with imaginative fervor. A real epoch is now in sight, and one of tremendous significance. This century is the last on the calendar of the old order. It must therefore be pregnant with great results. Of the wars and famines and pestilences foregoing his Second Advent, the Lord said that "these are the beginnings of travail." Thus this century must labor in the birth of whatever grand cataclysm awaits the evil systems in Church and State which "the Lord will consume with the breath of his mouth, and will destroy with the brightness of his coming" (2 Thes. ii:8).

Because it marks a new century, a date that comes but once if at all for any man, we are making much of the present artificial anniversary. The Church is awaking to a new departure in Christian life and enterprise, to mark this New Century Day as the most memorable of dates. The whole Evangelical World has gathered together with one accord in the prayer, Thy Kingdom come now, and make this a Pentecostal Century!

But how many may we presume to be aware that this number 2000 is no mark on merely human calendars, but a sacred date writ large in the calendar of Eternity, and revealed from on high as the first stroke of the last hour of Satan's empire? Not that we can know the times and seasons, or what, precisely, they may bring forth. But that we are at the threshold of one of God's great dates, is clear from the dates of God that have gone before and the dis

Outlook on a Final Century.

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closures in prophecy of dates to come. (SALVATION, July and August, 1900.)

We may indeed not presume on such a century as we would like to see, but we can and must pray for a "pentecostal century," and labor for it in hope, yet prepared for the will of the Lord in the great winding up, with perhaps greater sorrows as well as greater joys; "the morning cometh-and also the night"—but the morning again cometh,

When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound,

And Time shall be no more,

And the morning breaks eternal, bright and fair.

BUT, SEEING THAT WE LOOK FOR SUCH THINGS,

What manner of persons ought we to be, in all holy conversation and godliness? (2 Peter iii:11.) Shall we be found watching, this century, with loins girded and lights burning, like men that are waiting for their Lord's return, that they may open unto Him immediately? Will this great injunction be revived out of its sleep of 2000 years, and made a watchword of the Church of God at last, by the great ecumenical Twentieth-century Week of Prayer? Perhaps we will still say, "Our Lord delayeth His Coming" until we shall have completed the conversion of the world, and have it all ready to be presented to Him as His Kingdom.

Certainly, the evangelization of all the world, at least as a testimony unto every nation (Matthew xxiv:14), must be accomplished in this period. To that the Christian world will once more be called, with the united voice of all her praying and consecrated ones, from earth to heaven and from heaven to earth, this century.

**

But is this all? It is now a question, clouded with anxiety and doubt, What manner of Church shall the Lord find on the earth at His Coming? "When the Son of Man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?" (Luke xviii:8.). The visible clouding of this question, now, is deepened by the doubt thrown upon it by the Lord himself, so long before. The signs so near the crisis are not propitious. The World is within our walls; horse, foot and artillery: Pleasure mounted on Riches and Pride, with a host of panting followers, and 'great guns' everywhere playing on the Bible from pulpits and theological towers. The Church is in Babylon; courted, flattered, and féted, as the savior of society, the curator of morals,

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Outlook on a Final Century.

and the angel of charity-but hated with the hate of hell' (unless flouted as an outgrown rag of superstition) wherever she dares to 'hold forth the Word of Truth,' the doctrines and commandments of Jesus Christ that offend the pride of man "as a god knowing good and evil.” And Babylon is in the Church, too, with all this; and God alone can tell whether Christ or Antichrist be the stronger in the actual trend of the mass.

One thing is certain: the mass of Church members in this generation have not been so grounded in intelligent all-round biblical convictions as to withstand the prevailing drift away from supernatural truth, faith, and authority; and their children are growing up, and even drifting into the Church, more ignorant and undisciplined spiritually than themselves.

When we look for the source of all this evil, we find first a pulpit dumb before a silent or obstreperous protest from the pews against the humiliating, the formidable, and the self-denying, doctrines of Christ; a pulpit more or less subservient to popularity and conformable to the world; a hireling professional ministry, subject to the will of the laity as employer and paymaster. Next, between the employing congregation and the hired pastor, we find ourselves perplexed to fix the responsible initiative, and still more perplexed to suggest a remedy for the situation.

THE APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION' AND 'HOLY ORDER OF TENT-MAKERS suggests itself as the only logical alternative to the helpless salaried servant of the Congregation. The recent retirement of a successful pastor in this city, from the paid service of a wealthy Church, in order to devote himself, at his own charges, to the 'work of an evangelist' and ultimately of a pastor, untrammelled by dependence on human suffrages and subscriptions, has deeply interested the writer as a step in the direction of reform. The minister must become a layman, and the layman a minister; finding support from the labor of their own hands; gathering true converts to Christ, and holding them, under the example, influence, and discipline, of an accepted and unreserved consecration.

So might the inspired young men of the Twentieth Century, whether in the ministry, in the theological seminary, or in the professions and trades, go forth in apostolic disinterestedness and faith, ‘taking nothing of the Gentiles' by way of dependence, expecting to labor, working with their own hands,' and fearless 'to declare

Outlook on a Final Century.

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the whole counsel of God,' whether men will hear or forbear, whether they will pay and praise, or reject and reproach. If this be agreeable to Divine Wisdom, for this century, the Great Head of the Church, from whom flows forth the miracle-doing Spirit, can bring it to pass. Would it perhaps be another of those suitable objects of prayer which the Evangelical Alliance has omitted to suggest? Or a qualification appendable to the usual prayer to the Lord of the harvest that He would send forth laborers into his harvest; suggesting that He send forth no more hirelings, but laborers all for love.

But after all, granted even this, we are not out of the difficulty. There will be two fatal things in this body of independent volunteers, and already they are there, though the body be no body, but a member here and there. The 'enthusiasm of humanity' which was and is in Christ, for God's sake, and in which the Church is nearly as deficient as in godliness, is evidently to become a large element in the activity of the reformed Church of the Twentieth Century. But, as ever, the pendulum will swing, and the old extreme will give place to another as bad. Christ's Man for God and God for Man, will be repeated with the prime thing forgotten, and 'God for Man and AH for man' will be, and is too often, the cryin the Institutional Church: making it another of the selfish works of Man as a Union,' or Brotherhood, under the name of God, but without God. Say that this should not be and shall not be, yet it will be, and it is. What, then, can be done?

Now the condition for this evil is in the second evil before counted, which thus belongs in the prior order. It is that the doctrine of Christ is but half taught and half known. The untutored convert is caught by the brotherly sympathy of Christ, but never enters into the doctrine and obedience of Christ and the enthusiasm of filial devotion that in the Son of Man could embrace the darkest will of the Father. Hence the godless humanitarianism, or else rebound from godliness, which threatens the Church under the lead of enthusiastic reformers with slight doctrinal basis or equipment and large sentimental or ethical development. If duly serious, devout and humble, not forgetting a grain of common sense, they will guard against swerving to their tempting extreme, by much studying and building of themselves up on their most holy faith in the spiritual and supernatural truths of the Gospel, as developed

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The Problem of a Sound Theology.

in the Gospels of John and Paul. Their church should thus be in fact a theological seminary for every convert and every child within it, none the less for being also and afterwards a school of practice in the works of Christlike compassion.

With every church a theological seminary and a missionary band of love, those foundations of capital and masonry and scholastic lore which have violated the covenants by which they exist, and their vows to the truth, need no longer be depended on to turn out ministers to order. The old method of study under the direction and inspiration of godly pastors—such as our ardent young 'tentmakers' should be making of themselves by deep study of the Word and all its true accessories-this together with a rule of sturdy independence and self-support, might go far to abolish 'the bondage of the pulpit,' and to meet the danger of shallow evangelists and teachers, and of earthly humanitarianism. Otherwise, as matters are, so it seems they must continue. The dependent minister and nothing but minister, will still be fixed much like the unjust steward in the parable: unable to dig, and ashamed (perhaps) to beg; and will feel himself forced to make friends of the mammon of unrighteousness by more or less compromising of the claims of his Lord.

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As a scheme this would not interfere with the selection by the churches from time to time, of some spiritual leader in learning and ability, to be supported in study and teaching. It would be far from chilling to the love and bounty of Christians towards their spiritual fathers, or unfavorable to the sustentation of proved ministers in exclusively spiritual service. It would not prevent churches or individuals marking any gifted, godly and manly youth for encouragement and aid in pursuing the studies requisite for an educated miniştry, while serving in the local missionary work of the church. But it would tend to do away the pernicious system found indispensable under existing conditions, of keeping up theological nurseries and 'education societies' for dependent ministers, tempting young men to take up the ministry as a 'profession' and to profane that holy altar of self-sacrifice by making it a berth.

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Meanwhile, what shall a faithful man do, who finds himself a pastor where it is probable that to preach all the doctrines of Christ