The Evidence that the Times of the Gentiles have nearly run their Course

(Continued from page 212.)

This spirit of unrest to which we have referred, is particularly manifested in the strained relations between capital and labor. Despite the evident desire of many modern captains of industry to better the conditions of their employees, and to practice what a recent writer has called "the golden rule in business," capital and labor still maintain a distinctly hostile attitude the one to the other; and the economic questions involved seem no nearer a peaceful and satisfactory solution than in the days when the apostle James wrote his intensely practical epistle.

In that letter there is a passage which, while it unquestionably applied directly to conditions then existing, was so worded by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit as to graphically depict industrial conditions at the end of the age. This is not so manifest on the page of the authorized version as in the Revision, or any critical translation. An evidently mistaken rendering of one preposition is responsible for this in the King James' version. This preposition correctly rendered in later versions throws a flood of light on the whole passage. It is the word rendered "for" in the earlier translation and "in" in the later ones, occurring in the last sentence of James 5:3. Note the passage in its entirety:

"Come now, ye rich, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your wealth has become corruption, and your garments moth-eaten. Your gold and silver are rusted; and their rust shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as fire. Ye have heaped up treasure together in the last days." Note the corrected preposition, and observe where, in the course of time, it locates the complete fulfilment of that concerning which the Holy Spirit speaks so solemnly. The passage continues:"Behold, the wages of the laborers who have reaped your fields, which is of you kept back unjustly, crieth; and the cries of those that have reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of hosts. Ye have lived in luxury upon the earth, and have been wanton; ye have pampered your hearts [as] in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned, ye have killed the righteous; he doth not resist you. Be patient therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until it receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh" (chap. 5:1-8, 1911 Version).

As by a master hand, the apostle with a few bold strokes, pictures the times in which we live. On the one hand, haughty wealth, on the other, grinding poverty; on the one hand, scornful indifference; on the other, angry dissatisfaction. On the one hand, wanton waste; on the other, bitter need. Such contrasts have ever been common in this world's sad history, but never were they so accentuated as at the present time when the rich are growing richer and the poor are growing poorer, and the great gulf between the two classes is steadily widening. Ours has been called, and not without reason, the millionaire age. If our grandfathers were worth a few thousands, they were counted well-to-do. Now men hold securities mounting into the millions, while even a billion of money may be heaped together by one man. Statistics show that the great bulk of the world's wealth is held subject to the order of a little coterie of arrogant plutocrats, who conniving together can control the resources of the nations, and make or prevent financial panics at their will. It is a condition of affairs never before known, and tells us with absolute certainty that we are in the last days.

Nor should I be misunderstood in writing as I have done. It is no sin to be rich, nor is a man necessarily a malefactor because he possesses the ability to amass great wealth. But wealth is a stewardship, and "it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful." He to whom riches are entrusted is accountable to God for the use to which he puts them. Their selfish conservation He will judge unsparingly. James arraigns the rich for their greed and self-indulgence. They had forgotten the word, "He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance with increase:this is also vanity" (Eccl. 5:10). They were living as though accountable to no higher power, and were eagerly seeking to gratify every lust. Their hoarded treasure, corrupting, moth-eaten, and rusting, witnessed to their sordid selfishness. And this mass of wealth would soon have been largely dissipated had they but dealt in fairness with the laborers on the fruits of whose toil they were fattening. Those thus downtrodden have often felt as though God had forgotten, and in their despair have often denied His very existence. But "when He maketh inquisition for blood He forgetteth not the cry of the humble." He has been a silent but not unfeeling spectator of the injustice, the heartlessness, and the haughty arrogance of the godless rich. He has noted every tear, heeded every sigh, heard every cry of oppression from the anguished hearts of the downtrodden whose rights have been ruthlessly disregarded by those who should have been to them the instruments of Providence for their protection and blessing. The same spirit that has thus ill-used the poor and needy is the spirit that condemned and slew the Righteous One. It comes to its full fruition in the last days. It will be judged unsparingly when the Lord arises to plead the cause of the afflicted.

But what is to be the Christian's attitude in such conditions as are here described ? Is he to link himself with labor unions and industrial associations of various kinds, generally composed of Christ-less men, guilty of violence and even murder, in order to curb the greed and check the tyranny of soulless corporations and capitalists preying on the laboring classes ? Is he to oppose force to tyranny, the boycott to oppression, and the strike to employers' arrogance ? By no means. His path is indicated clearly and unequivocally in verses 7 to 12. The coming of the Lord draweth nigh. Till then the believer is exhorted to patience and to trust in the living God. He is not to be carried away by the spirit of the age. Complaints, grudges, harsh invectives, are not to come from him who sides with a rejected Christ and waits for His return from heaven. Of old, the prophets had to learn this lesson of patience, suffering for righteousness' sake, committing their cause to the Lord; ever proving His faithfulness in spite of all man's unfaithfulness. And they who so endured we count happy, even as was Job the servant of the Lord whose patience has become proverbial, and in whose later history we see "the end of the Lord" and are assured that He is very pitiful and of tender mercy.

Till He comes the Christian can well afford to stand aside from the restless, surging movements of the day; and, committing his cause to the Lord with quietness of heart, he is to let the potsherds of the earth strive with the potsherds of the earth, knowing that God has said, " I will overturn, overturn, OVERTURN it until HE shall come, whose right it is to reign." That glad day has now drawn very near the conditions we have been considering would be sufficient to clearly prove. But there is another line of evidence, having to do particularly with the nation of Israel, at which we must now look, and with which the next chapter will occupy us. H. A. I.
(To be continued.)