Vou. XNTII NEW YEAR We extend to our list of subscribers, and to all friends of our cause (all of whom we hope to have on our lists soon, as per suggestions in our December 15th issue), most hearty greetings, wishing you all A Very Happy and Spiritually Prosperous New Year—1902. We trust that you were all greatly pleased with our report for last year. Its showing of a previous deficiency wiped out, and a snug sum on hand wherewith to begin this year’s operations, are good cause for joy and for thankfulness to God. The outlook for the present year, you will be glad to learn, seems to us very encouraging. We are expecting much, and believe the Lord’s providences and his Word justifv these expectations. We hope to prepare, shortly, an article dealing further with the Call of this Gospel Age: showing some of our reasons for surmising that the next four years should quite double the present numbers of the interested, and the present operations in the service of the “harvest” message. It will appear as soon as possible, and we believe will be convincing to all. We mention the matter now, in advance, because we think that some are slackening their efforts, through a mis ALLEGHENY, PA., JANUARY 1, 1902 GREETINGS taken supposition that little more is to be done. We hope to convince and revive them; that they may renew their efforts in the service, and thus increase their joy and their usefulness, We know not what is before us in the year, dear brethren— nor do we need to know. If we have committed our all. for time and eternity, to the Lord’s care, let us assure our hearts, afresh, of divine wisdom and power as well as love. Resting confidently in the everlasting arms, we may take whatever his providence may permit; not only willingly, but joyfully. If the year shall bring us blessings, prosperity and encouragement in spiritual matters, we can while rejoicing lay by a store of grace; for stormy times of trial later on. If the year brings us sorrows, physical or mental anguish, let us receive them with resignation: saying, with the Master, “The cup which my Father hath poured for me, shall I not drink it?” If, dear brethren, life’s experiences are accepted with faith, in the manner indicated, we may rest assured that this will be not only a happy but a blessed year for us. It is with each to determine this for himself under the Lord’s grace. Faithful is he who hath called us;—let us be faithful. VIEWS FROM THE WATCH TOWER THE TWENTIETH CENTURY CHURCH An The Rev. Haweis, of St. James Church, London, England, gives his views of this subject in the London Daily Chronicle, from which we extract the following interesting items :— “The only hope for the church of the Twentieth Century is that it should make a clean sweep of 1900 verrs of theology and get back to Christ. We now know what this theology can do for us. It has done a great deal, for its statements at different times have approved themselves to different ages, and been the vehicles of a certain amount of Christian truth; but as Dean Milman said in his wise History of Christianity, Theophilus of Antioch, who invented the doctrine of the Trinity or, at all events, coined that theological word—did not thereby very greatly benefit the church. The same mav be said of every other Christian dogma. It isn’t that we don’t believe the very important spiritual truths underlying every Christian dogma, but a form of expression of truth which is a living and a satisfactory one to an age immediately becrmes false and dangerous when a better and a more complete expression ig devised. THE NEED FOR KE-STATEMENT “The Twentieth Century church will insist upon re-statement on a large scale. Present theological text books are obsolete. They practically teach men and women infidelity. The Cimmerian darkness of Sunday-school teaching must be abandoned; the conscientious agonies of devout Sunday-school teachers must be relieved. They don’t believe in the old hell themselves, but they have to teach it; the children don’t believe it, but they have to put their hands behind their backs and tell the teachers these naughty lies every Sunday. The teacher does not believe in the Bible in the way in which he is supposed [2929} ‘“Orthodox’’ View to teach it. No one believes if unless he 1s a fool or a brainless idot. ... His creed, in the same way, as has been finely said, “merely stands sentinel over the heart to keep it empty.” “IT believe,” he says, “im the resurrection of the body” Tle doesn’t; nobody does; but he is not allowed to teach instead: “T believe in the survival of myself,” which was practically all those of old meant by the phrase, “the survival of the self,’ being to them inconceivable apart from the resurrection of the body, and so on ad infinitum. Our mistake is in pretending to believe obsolete statements which once expressed truth, but which are now seen to be defective. We should discard them openly and plead for proper re-statements. . . . “People now despise the clergy on account of the old rubbish they are not ashamed to teach. The twentieth century will not tolerate them unless they mend their ways. The twentieth century will go solid for fact in the shape of re-statement. ‘Dear me!’ people say, ‘the working man doesn’t go to church. How odd!’ Very much odder if he did. The twentieth century will insist upon a clear statement of what we may call exact knowledge of God or the moral nature of the Sovereign Will ruling the universe... . Then the twentieth century will have to entirely change its attitude to the religions of the world, and it, will have to admit that God has always been revealing himself, his will, his purpose, as fast as man could reccive it and that the different and imperfect faiths and creeds are the result of the obscured mediums of the intelligence and the undeveloped spiritual faculties of man. The sun that always shines is seen through many diverse and distorting media— smoked glass, clouds or mere tiny cracks in a darkened room, or again the prism, sunset clouds, or through folded lids of (SuprLEMENT—3)
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