IT has given us unfeigned pleasure to observe by a recent announcement that President Wilson of the United States has proclaimed a “Day of Fasting, Humiliation, and Prayer,” in connection with the War. The day appointed is Thursday the 30th May. We believe that the announcement has been received with sincere joy and thankfulness by thousands of those who truly fear God in our own and other lands. It appears that President Wilson is determined to adhere to the best traditions of the United States in the matter of religion, and we earnestly pray that God may signally own this act of his presidency with outstanding tokens of His favour towards the great American people in their home activities, as well as in the part they are taking in the prosecution of the War. It is to be carefully noted that the President has had the Christian manliness and courage, in accordance with past practice, to appoint an ordinary week-day—not the Lord’s Day, which is already set apart by the King of kings as a regular and constant day of rest and worship, and in connection with which it is entirely superfluous to make any special appointment of religious exercises. We trust the “Day” will be well and becomingly observed (it is future as to the time of our writing this article) in all parts of the United States, and it ought not to be forgotten in this country. Of course, we must not expect that in the United States or anywhere else the exercises of such a Day of Fasting, Humiliation, and Prayer will be observed according to the full Christian standard, by any except those who have the true grace of God in their hearts. But at the same time we can learn from the history of God’s dealings with the world, as recorded in the Old Testament (which has many lessons for us to-day), that He accepts confession of sin and self-humbling by men whose natural consciences are sincere in the business, turns away His displeasure, and bestows outward blessing. Witness the cases of Ahab, King of Israel, and the King of Nineveh in the days of Jonah. We would hope that God has raised up President Wilson, like Phineas of old in Israel, as an instrument, by faithful, honest zeal, to remove His wrath from the nations, and to hasten the end of this terrible time of bloodshed and carnage.
Our readers will have forestalled us in expressing the thought that President Wilson’s action is in marked and favourable contrast to the action of our King and rulers in dealing with appeals for such a day of religious exercises. They set apart a Sabbath, and would not admit the necessity for “humiliation” at all—only prayer and thanksgiving. This showed a remarkably misguided and limited view of the situation. It is not “humiliation” before the Germans that is necessary or is sought for, but “humiliation” before the Most High God, the Maker and Lawgiver of heaven and earth, before whom the most upright of the sons of men must plead that he is less than nothing, and vanity, and that all his righteousnesses are as filthy rags. Granting that it was in the interests of justice and freedom that we entered upon this War, and that our countrymen have displayed the highest natural heroism and self-sacrifice in its prosecution, have we no sins to acknowledge apart from these things? Surely the man is full of blind and infatuated pride who shuts his eyes to the disregard of God, the materialism, selfishness, drunkenness, and immorality that have marked large sections of society throughout these kingdoms in recent years. Apart from distinctly religious evils—such as our truckling to Popery and the Vatican, our upholding Roman superstitions in Protestant Churches, and our favour for the infidel “Higher Criticism”—there were many moral evils that called for Fasting, Humiliation, and Prayer, and it was only a spiritually-ignorant pride that made those in authority among us to scout such exercises as if they implied a form of degradation. Let it be remembered that self-humiliation before God on account of sins is the first step upwards on the spiritual ladder, and that it is the accursed pride which refuses to humble itself that is the badge of degradation.
In conclusion, we cannot but express our joy that President Wilson, true to his religious faith as a Presbyterian, is not ashamed of the word or exercise of humiliation, and that he has made the present appointment in the manner he has done. May God prosper him in every good word and work, for the sake of the Son who is made King of Zion and King of nations!
OH, how sweet are sufferings for Christ! God forgive them that raise an ill report on the sweet cross of Christ! Our weak and dim eyes look only to the black side of the cross, and this occasions our mistakes concerning it. They that can take it cheerfully on their backs shall find it just such a burden as wings of a bird or sails to a ship.—Samuel Rutherford.