tians, to say nothing of the world, or are thought of as the vagaries of wild fanatics or mystical enthusiasts. The Sabbath rightly observed, used as a day of worship and religious meditation and prayer, will be a means of cultivating man's religious nature. Thus observed it will be an antidote to doubt and the promoter of faith. Man needs the Sabbath as a cure for lawlessness. One day in seven he needs to be reminded that he has obligations and duties as well as rights and privileges. Remember, says the law, that the Sabbath is to be kept by "not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words." Such restraints are certainly good for men in an age of self-conceit, arrogance, and headlong disregard of any law higher than one's own inclinations. It may be objected that in basing the claims of the Sabbath upon man's needs it is placed upon a low foundation. But this was the method followed by our Lord when he said "The Sabbath was made for man; not man for the Sabbath." Moreover, it is the claim most likely to be heeded. If men can be convinced that strict observance of the Sabbath is for their own good, they will regard it. It is argued that in our day man needs a modified Sabbath. There is a certain amount of truth in the contention. Undoubtedly the Christian Sabbath is, in important respects, different from the Jewish. Contingencies arise out of the methods of modern life in which it may be difficult or quite impossible to observe the Sabbath as our forefathers did, or even according to an ideal standard. But plainly it is not for man to modify the Sabbath to suit his own desires or conveniences. That is the tendency of our times even with those who have some regard for the Sabbath. It is a dangerous tendency. It is our business rather to adjust ourselves to the law of God. There may be questions of interpretation and application which cannot be settled off-hand. But those who have teachable and obedient spirits need not experience serious difficulty in learning the mind of Christ. He has claims which must be re spected. If we disregard them, the result will be our own undoing. The obvious conclusion of this brief discussion is that there is in our times an imperative demand for strict Sabbath observance. Christian people should give special heed to its requirements. Instead of relaxing their observance of it in deference to the spirit of the times, they should be more than usually careful. The Sabbath was never in such danger; the Sabbath was never so much needed. Who shall rescue it from the danger, who shall conserve and foster this institution so fraught with blessings to humanity, if not the people of God? Revivals in the Light of the Present T Day BY The Reverend GEORGE A. HILTON HROUGH over-wrought imagination, and defective conception, the actual meaning of a Revival has almost disappeared. "The thought of foolishness is sin," and sin means death to right thought as it does to all else it touches. The wages of sin is death"-death to all righteousness, including righteous thought. The subject of revivals is in no sense exempt from foolish thought. A man supposedly drowned is frequently resuscitated if heroic remedies are applied early enough. Thus a man, insensible to and apparently dead in sin, if brought within the reviving range of God's power, through the preaching of the word and the quickening influence of the Spirit's presence, is awakened from the sleep of death; the deadly opiate of sin finds its antidote—" old things are passed away" and "all things are become new ". As there is joy in the home when the new babe is born, so there is joy, not only upon earth, but "among the angels of heaven", when a soul is born. Sometimes joy is excessive, and exciting, and if there is anything on earth that ought to produce excitement, it is the bringing to life of a dead soul. In many minds the great exhilaration accompanying some conversions is mistaken for the conversion itself, and hence a revival season has by many thoughtless ones been regarded as a time of fanatical excitement and emotional excess-and consequently shunned. The history of the Church is a history of revival. From the beginning the wandering mind of sin has been drawn by revival from its spiritual paralysis to the Church and the objects for which it was established. The history of revival seasons has been too ably and exhaustively recounted to need any repeti |