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    March 8, 1898

    “Evangelistic Temperance. The Breath of Life” The Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 75, 10, p. 153.

    PLEASE read carefully the following sentence, and consider how much of you is involved in right breathing. See how certainly breath, by proper breathing, is “the breath of life:”ARSH March 8, 1898, page 153.1

    “He breathes only from the top of his lungs. It is seldom that he exercises the abdominal muscles in the act of breathing. Stomach, liver, lungs, and brain are suffering for the want of deep, full inspirations of air, which would electrify the blood and impart to it a bright, lively color, and which alone can keep it pure and give tone and vigor to every part of the living machinery.”ARSH March 8, 1898, page 153.2

    How much of a person suffers from failing to exercise the abdominal muscles in breathing! Think of it,—“stomach, liver, lungs, and brain”! Take these things away from a man, and how much is he worth? Put it in another way: Take away from man the proper and free use of these organs, and what is he in comparison to what God intended that he should be?—He is as nothing compared to what God made him to be. And yet the “stomach, liver, lungs, and brain” of thousands of people—some of them Seventh-day Adventists, too—are suffering because they do not now how to breathe correctly. Study up on these things. God has given us these organs to be kept in health, and to be used to glorify him. But it is not health to have the stomach, liver, lungs, and brain suffering.ARSH March 8, 1898, page 153.3

    Now to sum up:—ARSH March 8, 1898, page 153.4

    Question.—What is right breathing?ARSH March 8, 1898, page 153.5

    Answer.—“Exercising the abdominal muscles.”ARSH March 8, 1898, page 153.6

    Q.—What is wrong breathing?ARSH March 8, 1898, page 153.7

    A.—“The use of the top of the lungs.”ARSH March 8, 1898, page 153.8

    Q.—What is the right way and manner of speaking?ARSH March 8, 1898, page 153.9

    A.—“By using the abdominal muscles.”ARSH March 8, 1898, page 153.10

    Q.—What is the wrong way?ARSH March 8, 1898, page 153.11

    A.—“To use the top of the lungs and the throat.”ARSH March 8, 1898, page 153.12

    Q.—Where are the words to come from?ARSH March 8, 1898, page 153.13

    A.—“Let your words come from deep down.”ARSH March 8, 1898, page 153.14

    Q.—Where shall they not come from?ARSH March 8, 1898, page 153.15

    A.—“Not from high up. Not from the throat, nor from the upper extremity of the vocal organs.”ARSH March 8, 1898, page 153.16

    Q.—What is to do the work?ARSH March 8, 1898, page 153.17

    A.—“The abdominal muscles.”ARSH March 8, 1898, page 153.18

    Q.—What is not to do the work, not to be worn?ARSH March 8, 1898, page 153.19

    A.—“The lungs and throat, the vocal organs.”ARSH March 8, 1898, page 153.20

    That you may see yet more plainly how important this is, we quote a statement clipped from one of the leading papers of the United States—a Christian and temperance paper, too. Under the heading, Physical Culture for Children, it says: “I would begin when a child is two years old, and teach her [her, mark it. You will readily see that there is a point in so teaching her rather than him] to stand poised from the hips, and slightly forward, chest up, abdomen contracted, toes turned out at an angle of sixty degrees, and neck erect, so that the collar-bone should be horizontal.... Then I would teach her to breathe slowly, inflating the chest upward and outward, not downward, keeping the abdomen contracted.”ARSH March 8, 1898, page 153.21

    Think of it,—chest up, abdomen contracted, toes turned out, neck erect, breathe slowly, inflating the chest upward and outward, not downward! To take a grown person who is breathing rightly, and put him or her through that drill, would be torture to him or “her.” A child two years old breathes rightly just as she is; she breathes naturally, as God made her to breathe. But lo! this proposes to take her at that age, and train her into this absolute perversion and inversion of nature. Let not such speak any more against the Flathead Indians, nor against the Chinese binding the feet of their female children.ARSH March 8, 1898, page 153.22

    If a child, taken at that age and trained in that way, should chance to survive the dreadful ordeal, she will be shaped, when she gets her growth, directly opposite to what God made her to be,—she will be shaped like an inverted cone, like a common ink-bottle upside down,—and will be a living invitation to consumption. It is plain to see, however, why such directions are given as physical culture for children. Some devotee of fashion invented this plan so as to have the women wasp-waisted, as fashion dictates. People will take the girl at two years old, and train, or rather, torture, her into this shape, so she will have as small a waist as possible. These same people will praise the Venus of Milo, and then take their children and train them in exactly an opposite shape,—opposite, too, to the shape which God made them to bear.ARSH March 8, 1898, page 153.23

    Now, in the way the Lord made us, as we have already seen in these studies, the vital organs—the heart and lungs—are in the upper part of the body, and are fenced in strongly with the large, powerful upper ribs, which are further strengthened and braced by the breast-bone; but the breast-bone does not extend all the way down as far as the ribs number. The lower ribs are loose at the front ends. This makes them pliable, and therefore they are called “floating” ribs. Now which is it easier to move—the ribs that are so strongly braced as to be almost immovable, or the ribs that are left free and floating purposely to be moved?—There is only one possible answer. Therefore, does not nature itself, and common sense, too, teach that breathing should be downward instead of “upward and outward,” as this extract says? Nothing more than this simple consideration is needed to demonstrate that this method of physical culture for children, or anybody else, is contrary to nature. And by every passage which we have quoted, we know that it is contrary to revelation.ARSH March 8, 1898, page 153.24

    The general shape of the thorax, of the inside of the chest, and of the vital organs contained therein, is that of a cone right side up; that is, the small end up, and the large, broad part down. But the method given in the extract under consideration would develop just the reverse of that. This would put the broad part up and the point down. Do you not see that this reverses nature, and makes the shape just the opposite of what God made it?ARSH March 8, 1898, page 153.25

    Nothing more is needed to demonstrate that such a method of breathing is contrary to nature and revelation, to reason and common sense. And here we leave the subject for the present. Study these things carefully, consider them prayerfully, apply them conscientiously, and glorify God by having good health.ARSH March 8, 1898, page 153.26

    “Editorial” The Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 75, 10, p. 156.

    “IF any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.”ARSH March 8, 1898, page 156.1

    Have you the Spirit of Christ?—Do you answer that you “do not know”?ARSH March 8, 1898, page 156.2

    But if you do not know, then do you not certainly know? If you do not know that you have the Spirit of Christ, then you may certainly know that you have not.ARSH March 8, 1898, page 156.3

    Do you suppose that a matter of such vast importance as that, upon which turns your eternal destiny, is left so vague and indefinite that you need be in any uncertainty whatever in regard to it?ARSH March 8, 1898, page 156.4

    Such a supposition as that will never do. It is not true. You may know that you have the Spirit of Christ, as certainly as you know that you are alive. “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren.”ARSH March 8, 1898, page 156.5

    What is the Spirit of Christ?—It is the Spirit of God. It is the Spirit of the love of God. To have the Spirit of Christ is to have the disposition, the nature, the character of God imparted to you. And here it is: “Merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.”ARSH March 8, 1898, page 156.6

    “Merciful” is to be full of the disposition to treat offenders better than they deserve. Do you find this disposition in your experience? “Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.”ARSH March 8, 1898, page 156.7

    “Gracious” is extending favor to all people. Do you do so? or have you your likes and dislikes for people? Have you favorites?ARSH March 8, 1898, page 156.8

    “Long-suffering.” Do you find in your experience the disposition to bear injuries many and long-continued? or are you ready to resent everything that touches you? Are you ready to think that you are aimed at, that you are slighted, that you are hurt, and that you “will not stand it”?ARSH March 8, 1898, page 156.9

    “Forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.” Do you find in your experience this disposition toward others? Are you forgiving those who trespass against you? or are you only “willing to forgive if they will first make it all right, and promise not to do it again”?ARSH March 8, 1898, page 156.10

    All this is the Lord’s disposition toward you: he is nothing but merciful to you; he is nothing but gracious to you; he is nothing but long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth toward you; he is nothing but forgiving, now, just now, to you. This is his disposition toward you, and toward all people. What is your disposition toward others? Have you his Spirit or not?ARSH March 8, 1898, page 156.11

    To impart to you this disposition, this “divine nature,” is the object of the gift of the Holy Spirit? Have you the Spirit of Christ?ARSH March 8, 1898, page 156.12

    Mark, we have not asked whether you find this spirit in yourself; but, Do you find it in your experience? Do you find it in God, and from him imparted to your experience through the faith of Jesus Christ by his Spirit? Have you the Spirit of Christ? Are you his? “Receive ye the Holy Ghost.”ARSH March 8, 1898, page 156.13

    “The heart of every church-member must be as humnble as the heart of a little child. All overbearing, accusing speech must be overcome, else we can never unite with the family above.”ARSH March 8, 1898, page 156.14

    “The Law Without Christ, and with Christ” The Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 75, 10, p. 156.

    DID you notice that remarkable sentence in the REVIEW of February 8, in the middle of the middle column of the first page? It reads thus: “Were the law understood apart from Christ, it would have a crushing power upon sinful men, blotting them out of existence.”ARSH March 8, 1898, page 156.1

    Did that sentence strike you as remarkable when you read it in its place in the paper at first? If not, does it strike you as remarkable now that you have read it the second time? If not, then we beg of you to take that sentence, and read it, write it out if necessary, so that you can look at it as it stands alone, and then ponder it word by word until you catch what is really said in it.ARSH March 8, 1898, page 156.2

    “Were the law understood apart from Christ, it would have a crushing power upon sinful men, blotting them out of existence.” Then the man who, without Christ, attempts to understand the law of God, is simply bidding to be crushed out of existence. The Bible statement of this principle is, “The law worketh wrath.” And yet the Bible speaks of people who rest in the law, and make their boast of God. Romans 2:17. But the man who rests in the law is resting in wrath; he is like one resting on a volcano. That man cannot boast of God, nor of anything else but utter destruction.ARSH March 8, 1898, page 156.3

    Yet as a matter of fact, the law of God cannot be understood apart from Christ. “I have seen an end of all perfection: but thy commandment is exceeding broad.” That law is a transcript of the divine mind, of the infinite will. And for the finite to attempt, by its own efforts, to understand that which is infinite, is a fruitless task.ARSH March 8, 1898, page 156.4

    Only in Christ can the law be understood. Christ is God’s own exposition and explanation of his own law. Nobody but God can fathom or reveal the wide meaning of his law. In Christ, God has done this. Whoever, therefore, would understand the law of God, must study not the law, but Christ,—not the law as it is in the law, but the law as it is in Christ. To study the law as it is in the law is to court destruction. To study the law as it is in Christ is to court salvation.ARSH March 8, 1898, page 156.5

    “By understanding the law in connection with Christ, receiving him by faith as his substitute and surety, man sees himself a prisoner of hope. The truth as it is in Jesus is an acquaintance with the holy, just, and good law of God, as this law is elevated, and its immutability demonstrated, in Christ.”ARSH March 8, 1898, page 156.6

    Christ is God’s own explanation of all law—moral, ceremonial, natural, or what not. Then study Christ, and Christ alone. In studying him, and him alone, you are studying everything that can ever be known; for he is the truth, and “in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him.”ARSH March 8, 1898, page 156.7

    “Studies in the Book of Daniel” The Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 75, 10, pp. 156, 157.

    THE Lord brought Israel out of Egypt, to be his own people in the world. Before they entered the land of Canaan, the Lord said of them, “Lo, the people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations.” Numbers 23:9. Thus God never intended his people to form themselves into a kingdom or government, like the nations. They were first “the church in the wilderness” (Acts 7:38); and he intended them to be only the church—not a state—when they dwelt in the land.ARSH March 8, 1898, page 156.1

    The government of Israel was intended to be a theocracy pure and simple—God their only King, their only Ruler, their only Lawgiver. The system formed in the wilderness through Moses, and continued in Canaan through Joshua, was intended to be perpetual. But Israel desired a king, a state, “like all the nations.” They “did not realize that to be in this respect unlike other nations, was a special privilege and blessing. God had separated the Israelites from every other people, to make them his own peculiar treasure. But they, disregarding this high honor, eagerly desired to imitate the example of the heathen.”ARSH March 8, 1898, page 156.2

    Israel would be reckoned among the nations. They persisted in having a king. And though they must reject God in order to have a king and be like all the nations, they insisted on doing it. And in rejecting God that they might be like all the nations, they became like all the nations that rejected God. Their kingdom came to naught, their government perished, and the people themselves were scattered among the nations.ARSH March 8, 1898, page 156.3

    God had placed them in Palestine, at that time and for ages afterward the pivot of the known world. At this pivot he placed his people to be a light to all the nations, that those nations might know of the true God. By having God abiding with them, he intended them to influence all the nations for good. But they not only would be like all the nations; they became even “worse than the heathen.” The land could no longer bear them; it must spew them out, as it was obliged to do with the people before them.ARSH March 8, 1898, page 156.4

    As they had frustrated God’s purpose to enlighten all the nations by them in the land where he had planted them, he would fulfil his purpose, and enlighten all the nations by them in the lands where he had scattered them. As they had lost the power to arrest and command the attention of all the nations, that they might consider God and his wonderful ways and works with the children of men, he would now use them to enlighten those who had acquired the power to arrest and command the attention of all the nations, and thus cause all nations to consider the wonderful ways and works of God with the children of men. This is the whole philosophy of the captivity of Judah and of the position of Daniel in Babylon. This will be certainly seen as we now proceed to the study of the book of Daniel.ARSH March 8, 1898, page 156.5

    God had brought Nebuchadnezzar to the place of authority over all the nations. Two years before Daniel was carried captive to Babylon, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, saying:—ARSH March 8, 1898, page 156.6

    “Thus saith the Lord to me; Make thee bonds and yokes, and put them upon thy neck, and send them to the king of Edom, and to the king of Moab, and to the king of the Ammonites, and to the king of Tyrus, and to the king of Zidon, by the hand of the messengers which come to Jerusalem unto Zedekiah king of Judah; and command them to say unto their masters, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Thus shall ye say unto your masters; I have made the earth, the man and the beast that are upon the ground, by my great power and by my outstretched arm, and have given it unto whom it seemed meet unto me. And now have I given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant; and the beasts of the field have I given him also to serve him. And all nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son’s son, until the very time of his land come: and then many nations and great kings shall serve themselves of him. And it shall come to pass, that the nation and kingdom which will not serve the same Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, and that will not put their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, that nation will I punish, saith the Lord, with the sword, and with the famine, and with the pestilence, until I have consumed them by his hand.... But the nations that bring their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him, those will I let remain still in their own land, saith the Lord; and they shall till it, and dwell therein.” Jeremiah 27:2-8, 11.ARSH March 8, 1898, page 156.7

    But Nebuchadnezzar did not yet know the Lord. He must be given the opportunity to know him. And then if he would acknowledge God, he, being in the place of authority over all the nations, could call the attention of all the nations to the Lord whom he had come to know. And thus the knowledge of God, by means of his people in captivity in Babylon, would be brought to the attention of all the nations.ARSH March 8, 1898, page 157.1

    By the excellency of the learning and ability of the youthful Daniel and his three companions, they were brought into immediate connection with Nebuchadnezzar; “they stood before the king.” Thus the captive people of God were the means of divine enlightenment to those who ruled the world, that this divine enlightenment might be given to the world. But Israel might have done this themselves from the pivot of the world in their own land, if only they had always honored the Lord in their own land, as these young men honored him in their captivity.ARSH March 8, 1898, page 157.2

    “Joan of Arc” The Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 75, 10, p. 157.

    THE bishop of Orleans, France, has become very much concerned over the atheism of the French people, and longs to have the nation delivered from it. Accordingly, he lately made a special visit to the pope, to plead that Joan of Arc be made a saint without delay. He declared: “It is of the greatest importance that her case should be immediately considered and decided, inasmuch as France is suffering from an attack of atheism, which cannot be relieved by recourse to metaphysics. What France wants is to be shown a person who has loved and worked for her, and behind whose love and work, God necessarily appears. The country will rise again from belief in such a person, to belief in God.” There are the names of two hundred and seventy-one candidates for saintship on the docket ahead of Joan of Arc, yet the appeal of the bishop was strong enough to gain the assurance that “the Maid of Orleans should have precedence over all others.” The Independent very pertinently remarks that “it is an extraordinary strabismus which can see, in the canonization of a popular heroine, a cure for atheism.” In fact, the atheism of the proposed cure is scarcely less than that of the supposed disease.ARSH March 8, 1898, page 157.1

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