“Watchman, What of the Night?”

AS the prophet is announcing the Lord’s deliverance of the captives in Babylon he hears a voice from Seir calling to him, “Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night?” And he returns as an answer: “The morning cometh, and also the night, if ye will enquire, enquire ye; return, come” (Is. xxi. 11,12). The anxiety to know how much of the night remains has prompted many a cry, and that from Seir will not be the last as it was not the first. The prophet’s answer implies that the morning is dawning for the captives, while this is to be followed by the night for the enemies of God, or it may mean that the morning of their prosperity is to be surely followed by the night of their adversity. Which-ever interpretation we adopt, and both views have able and sound advocates, the prophet’s answer has a message that reaches far beyond his own age and the special circumstances existing when he delivered his message. As the watchmen of the New Testament Dispensation strain their eyes in the hope of catching the first streaks of the coming day they have too often to say: “Our eyes do fail in looking long for thy salvation.” That there are glorious days yet in store for the Church is one of the clearest truths of God’s revealed will, but at present it looks as if the Enemy was having his own way. Yet we must be careful, in view of our limited knowledge, and in view of the fact that our God is infinitely wise in the method He brings to pass His sovereign purpose as to the conclusions we come to. Our salvation may be nearer than we anticipate, and the Church’s emancipation from the enemies that led her captive may come unexpectedly. Still we cannot

honestly hide from ourselves the fact that the outlook for the true Church of Christ is anything but encouraging.

1. If we turn to the State how little place is given to Christ. Yet unto Him the Father has committed all power in heaven and in earth, and as the Administrator of the New Covenant, with its momentous bearing, not only on the destiny of the heirs of the Covenant, but also on the destinies of nations, it would be expected that the nations and their rulers would seek to have His favour and protection. Yet how little place is given Him in the legislative assemblies of the so-called Christian nations! How often is He consulted in the delicate negotiations of the chancelleries of the world? When the representatives of the nations meet around the council board to draw up treaties or to enter into agreements, what place is assigned Him in their deliberations? Take our own nation, for instance; what place are we giving to Christ, who in all things is to have the pre-eminence? Our Prime Minister recently met the American Ambassador and had conversations with him affecting matters of the highest importance to the two great English-speaking peoples, and to the world in general, but neither necessity nor mercy demanded such a meeting on the Lord’s Day, and if the Lord permits these negotiations to be carried through successfully it will be another proof that He does not deal with men according to their sins.

2. When we turn to the professing Church in this land the outlook is not such as to encourage God’s people to rejoice. In our own country negotiations which have been carried on for years are likely to bear fruit in the Union of the Established and United Free Churches. Great preparations are being made for staging the event with spectacular and arresting impressiveness. No doubt it is a great event in the history of Scotland, but whether it will further the cause of true religion and vital godliness in Scotland is another question. The canker of the Higher Criticism has been eating at the vitals of the great Presbyterian Churches in Scotland (particularly the United Free Church), and consequently as a witness to the truth it is in too emaciated and anæmic a condition spiritually to count for much in helping the armies of the living God against the common foe. Then again, the spirit of worldliness has to a great extent captured the Churches, so that their out-and-out witness for Christ is vitiated. There have been many

attempts to get up man-made revivals; this was particularly seen in the great hue and cry of the Re-dedication Movement after the War. One would have thought that the zealous apostles of this movement were to work miracles, but the whole movement, which had its beginning and being in man, ended in a miserable fiasco, and like the frantic efforts of a patient in the high delirium of fever, it left its victim weaker after the spasms of unnatural strength. Man-made revivals may cure surface troubles, but they are helpless to remove the deep-seated maladies that afflict fallen humanity. When we turn our eyes to our Southern neighbour things are far from promising there, as far as the Churches are concerned. Anglo-Catholicism, the step-sister of Romanism, has brought the Church of England into deep waters, and while the movement is not unknown in the what are termed the Free Churches of England, yet it is more particularly in the Established Church that this insidious foe of the Reformation is at work. The attempt to foist on that Church a new prayer-book that went a certain length to meet the Romanisers, though not so far as they desired, was emphatically vetoed on two occasions by the House of Commons. Still, the Bishops are determined to ignore the rebuffs thus administered to them, and are endeavouring to authorise the use of the Rejected Prayer-Book by hook or crook. They may be riding for their own downfall. Modernism, also, has made tremendous strides in the Church of England and the Non-conformist denominations. One has only to read the utterances of clergymen at the Modern Churchmen’s Conferences to get an idea how far men may go in denying the faith they are paid to teach, while they are undermining it with all their might.

1. When we turn to the people generally there is not much encouragement for the watchman to say that the night is passing and that the dawn is not far distant. Millions never darken a place of worship. Now, if it was owing to dissatisfaction with unscriptural teaching, such non-attendance would be an encouraging sign. But when one sees in it opposition to religion and an indifferentism to the obligations and duties which men and women owe to the God who made them, then these are portentous signs of evil. We live in an age when men have become lovers of their own selves, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. No one will grudge the toiling masses the relaxation they need from their strenuous labours, but when all is said and done it must be admitted that the pursuit of pleasure in our

day is a kind of mania; men have become infected with a spirit which they or themselves are helpless to control, and the fever is kept at a dangerous height by the organisations and companies that are fattening financially on the craze. Motor ‘bus, steamboat, and railway companies are vying with each other to tempt the public to drink the cup of pleasure to the full. They have organised excursions with tempting cheap fares for the Lord’s Day. Some of their officials have with brazen-faced boldness announced that they are out to make dividends for the shareholders. This unashamed worship of Mammon explains the forces against which the Church of God has to contend. Still, with all their efforts it is significant that while the keener brains in the railway world have been at work devising means of reducing expenditure and increasing income, that while they have been very successful in the former they have miserably failed in the latter. It is significant also that while receipts from traffic have increased that the receipts from passenger traffic have fallen considerably, and this in spite of all their much-advertised Sabbath excursions by train and steamer. We would respectfully direct the attention of Mr Follows, the Vice-Chairman of the L.M.S., to this, and also all his fellows who are out to break down, as far as they can, any respect still entertained for the Lord’s Day. These powerful organisations should remember that there is such a thing as putting wages in a bag with holes.

The craze for pleasure has a very unsettling effect on the mind of the pleasure-seeker. He cannot give attention to serious matters, these belong to another realm than that in which he has his being—serious thinking, serious reading are out of the question—light literature, fiction, and that too often of a very questionable kind, forms the mental fare while the high fever is at work. Is there any remedy for the condition of things we have been portraying? None of a lasting nature as far as man is concerned, but there is in God’s provision a remedy to meet the most desperate condition of men and nations. Let us look to that provision and pray that He who is God’s salvation to the ends of the earth may arise and plead the cause that is His own.

God had one Son on earth without Sin. But never one without Suffering.—Augustine,