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“Thou hast given a banner to them that fear thee, that it may be displayed because of the truth.” Psalm 60:4

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Home » Publications » Free Presbyterian Magazine » 1912 » October 1912 » The Present Time

The Present Time

AS our present time is ominous, and dangers are ahead,
When plots by wily Papists in secrecy are made;
Then what should be done that such we may avert,
And preserve our present liberties in Church and State?

The Scriptures are challenged as they never were before;
Yea, men cast aside the Bible, and the Sabbath Day ignore.
Church meetings are like theatres, with amusements and fun;
The fear of God is gone, but a reckoning day shall come.

False teachers fill our pulpits in every corner of the land,
Who preach a spurious gospel with its structure on the sand.
It never came from God, and will never save a soul;
Thus preachers and people will find Hell to be their goal.

But Hell is not feared, and there is not such a place
Within the new theology, you will not find a trace.
Smooth things the people love, and in judgment they are given,
And such as those things follow shall ne’er enter Heaven.

Alas! the time is come when God’s people should consider,
As the floods of Infidelity and Popery together
Are swelling in among us, like to cover all the land,
Then, Rome will show her teeth, and may gain the upper hand.

When Israel of old departed from the Lord,
And were punished for their sin, they sought to be restored.
God’s wrath was then assuaged, and His judgments removed;
A time of joy and gladness and holiness ensued.

Why not proclaim a fast, as was done in former days,
That our sins we may confess, and turn from evil ways?
Yea, the Scriptures do command us to fast and to pray,
Which now would well become us, in this, an evil day.

The Solemn League and Covenant of Scotland’s Reformation
Was visibly acknowledged by the God of Salvation.
When afterwards renewed, then Livingstone declared
He never saw such motions as the Spirit then conferred.

On the King upon the throne, and on all his subjects too,
Those Covenants still are binding, but, alas! there be but few
Who think of them renewing, and why is it so?
O just because fidelity to Bible truth is low.

Our day indeed is dark, Church and nation are asleep,
When our foes are wide awake, who would kill us with a sweep;
But a wakening day will come, when God’s judgments will appear,
And the stake and the gibbet with dread tortures shall be near.

May England and Scotland awake yet in time,
And the people of the Lord right nobly combine,
To stand in the gap, and the mighty foes confront;
With the sword of the Lord their enemies they shall daunt.

A. M. M.

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Rev K D Macleod BSc
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G3 6LE, UK.
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