such thing for our age." At a time when Great Britain was summoning her sons, not simply to repel a great danger, but to fight for a new world order, the English premillennialists issued their manifesto declaring that "all human schemes of reconstruction must be subsidiary to the second coming of our Lord." Social theories promise much, says Dr. Torrey, "but they all end in failure, and they all will end in failure until our Lord comes."9 Religion to-day is an individual affair. "To capture politics for God" the Christian Workers Magazine declares to be an impossible hope. "The uplift of society as a whole," it asserts, "is a perversion of gospel salvation, which is purely individualistic." There is such a thing as morale in the armies of reform and social service. What would there be left of it if the men in the ranks held these Adventist ideas? Take the prohibition movement for illustration. The march of events has discredited premillennial pessimism here (as, for example, in Munhall, The Lord's Return, pp. 59, 60), but what would the effect have been upon leaders and followers if they had held the doctrine that the world to-day belonged to Satan and the only progress possible was a progress in evil?10 The same situation appears when we turn to the present movement for world-peace through a league of nations. What is the use of our efforts if God has decided against this and if the Bible predicts not peace, but only greater wars? By their very position premillennialists are driven to belittle, if not oppose, all efforts looking to world-peace, for the success of such movements The Return of the Lord Jesus, p. 91. 10 See Blackstone, Jesus is Coming, p. 148. would be fatal to that position. With the success of peace plans "the Word of God would be proved untrue."11 So a generation ago, when an arbitration treaty between Great Britain and America was being discussed, Dr. N. West disparaged the idea and wrote that "only after the last great anti-Christian conflict is such a thing possible, and that the First High Court of Arbitration for National Differences will be set up in Jerusalem, bringing universal peace a consummation to be realized only at the 'End of the Days.' "12 Similarly Dr. Torrey declares to-day that our peace conferences "will prove utterly futile to accomplish all that is in the mind and heart of our greatest statesmen. . . . We talk of disarmament, but we all know that it is not coming. All our present peace plans will end in the most awful wars and conflicts this old world ever saw.' 13 PREMILLENNIALISM AND THE STATE The attitude of premillennialism toward the state deserves special attention. We know that the Christian state is as yet in the making, but that God's purpose includes the Christian state is clear, for the state is simply the life which men live together in certain special relations. We recognize, too, the growing importance of the state, how it expresses and molds human life on every side; that life must be so shaped that it will secure for men freedom and justice and peace. The state aims at the union of all for the welfare of each. It is thus in God's intent as truly sacred, as truly a part of his rule on earth, as is home or church. 11 Christian Workers Magazine, XVII, 372. 12 The Thousand Years, p. 446. 13 The Return of the Lord Jesus, p. 89. Premillennialism is committed to a very different position. For it only an individual salvation is possible. The state in this age lies outside God's plan of redemption. It is a pagan institution, evil to-day and with no possibility except that of growing worse. This characterization of Adventism is easily substantiated. The dualism which underlies premillennialism is especially clear here. All governments naturally belong to "this wicked world, which is so radically opposed to God, and under the present control of his arch enemy," that is, Satan.14 "There is not, and never has been, such a company of people as a Christian nation, and never will be until the Lord comes. The nations in God's sight are regarded as great antagonistic world powers, who act at the instigation of Satan, and whose authority will be terminated by the sure and certain coming of his Christ."'15 The fullest discussion of this point is given in the standard work of Nathanael West. He points out that the state is under the "law of deterioration"—an important Adventist conception-and can only grow worse. That is the significance of Daniel's image, which sets forth "the beastly and metallic character of Gentile government," that is, of the modern state. The idea of a Christian state, he declares, was gotten neither from the prophets nor from Christ nor from the apostles, but is one of the false lures of the age. Christian men who teach the idea of progress (the redemption of the state) are doing the devil's work. The state of to-day is worse than the pagan state of antiquity. Its Bible name is "great Babylon," and "great Babylon, bearing the 14 Blackstone, Jesus Is Coming, p. 148. Christian name, a church at every corner, a preacher on every street, is worse than the Chaldean city." The modern state is "the Beast," the "Mother-Harlot." We are to pray for the state, but that involves no hope for the state, but simply that we may be left alone "to lead a godly life... and wait for his Son from heaven." A Christian state is impossible because God has not included this in his plans. "What we are pleased to call the Christian state is simply the Christian Beast."16 Christian patriotism is not blind to national sins and failures; above the nation it sees the righteousness which is of God. But it believes that this nation was in God's plan, and that it is God's purpose to establish this land in liberty and righteousness and to make her a servant of the world. It sings, "Our fathers' God to thee, and thinks not of a hopelessly pagan state, but of "freedom's holy light." That is very different from resigning the state to the devil and simply seeking to save “the number of God's elect." It may, of course, be said in reply to this whole discussion that premillennialism does not rule out the hope of a new state and a new social order, but that it merely assigns this to the next age and expects this from the hand of God. Quite true, but that involves two points: First, it excludes all those appeals to men to invest their lives, that God may through them bring in his rule upon earth. In its place we have Dean Gray's scornful phrase about men "bringing in a kingdom by their puny efforts," and that hopeless dualism which assumes that where 16 West, The Thousand Years, pp. 439-47. God works, man is ruled out. Second, nineteen centuries have passed by during which, according to Adventism, this new age has been imminent. There is nothing in premillennial teaching to compel us to believe that the world may not need to wait nineteen or twice nineteen centuries more, since, according to men like Dr. Scofield and Dr. Pierson, "imminent" with premillennialists means simply "next on the docket," whether near or remote. For an indefinite period, then, Adventism has nothing to suggest to us but a passive pessimism over against a pagan state and a hopelessly evil social order. "Democracy," "social service," "the state,"-these words represent a field in which a constantly increasing number of men are working with deepening devotion and ever-enlarging ideals. Among these men the ideals of Jesus Christ are becoming more and more dominant: his reverence for humanity, his devotion to righteousness, his principle of brotherhood, his spirit of good will transcending every division of race and class and condition, his practice of unsefish service. Some of these men are preaching in Christian pulpits, some are leaders in the industrial world or in the state, some are prophets of the pen or teachers through the living voice. They are the men who are building the true civilization. It is easy to rail at that word as premillennialists do and to make civilization mean no more than material prosperity animated by a pagan spirit. But that is not civilization. There is a Christian ideal of civilization. Men of vision are seeing it and men of devotion are slowly and yet with steady progress bodying it forth. Lord Chief Justice Russell of England visited this country in 1896 and gave an address before the American |