Allegheny Carnegie hall was crowded to the doors yesterday afternoon to listen to Pastor C T Russell's second "chart-talk." The speaker was powerful in his presentations and held his audience for two hours while he discoursed upon the subject of "Salvation From What and to What?"

The regular subject was preceded by a short resume of the topic of last Sunday, in which the speaker pointed out upon his chart three great periods of time into which the history of the world is divided the first, from creation to the flood; the second from the flood to the second coming of Christ, and the third an unending condition. These periods the Scriptures were declared to refer to under the cognomen "worlds," referring, not to the physical earth, but to dispensations or orders or arrangements successively placed upon the earth. In these three periods, and in the smaller periods, called ages, into which some of the worlds are subdivided, God is carrying out His plan of salvation, the various periods illustrating some special feature of the one entire work of restoring mankind to harmony with God.

The speaker dwelt especially upon the period or dispensation in which the world is at present called "the present evil world," which was declared to be of an evil character because under the domination of Satan, who has been permitted to have as much control in the affairs of mankind as would not interfere with God's purposes, and this in order to the experiencing by the world of the exceeding sinfulness of sin and the desirability of righteousness. In this period evil, of course, predominates, and righteousness is a matter of greater difficulty, Satan, the usurper of control in the present time, exercising his influence against those who would live godly.

The speaker pointed forward to the future period, "the world to come," which he pointed out would be upon the same physical earth (the word world merely signifying the change of dispensation to another arrangement), and in which righteousness would rule, Christ would be the king instead of Satan; Satan would be bound for 1,000 years, and the principles of truth and equity would be applied to the affairs of mankind.

The text for the afternoon was announced to be, "The Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost," and the speaker proceeded to elucidate it as it related to his topic of salvation. He declared that there were various conceptions of salvation in the present time; old ideas are being challenged, and today, more general than any other view, is that expressed by those who are termed higher critics and evolutionists, that the real salvation is a social uplift, a release of the race as a whole from conditions of poverty, ignorance, superstition and degradation. Theological seminaries, colleges and pulpits were declared to be the fathers of this theory, which, while it should be sympathized with, and everything connected with the moral and social advancement of the people should be encouraged, was not the kind of salvation which the Scriptures held forth. The theory was the result of a desire to get rid of the hitherto accepted view that man fell from a condition if innocence and virtue, and that sin is the result of an original direct disobedience of God's commands; therefore that such a view is antagonistic to the word of God and a species of infidelity, more deadly than the open kind, because the latter was preached outside the pulpits, while the new theory is advocated within them. Such a social-uplift theory could not recognize any force in the text of the discourse.

According to evolution nothing was lost; according to that theory man was made a little higher than the monkey, while, according to the Scriptures, he was made "a little lower than the angels." If the gentlemen upholding such wrong views spent as much time looking for the truth as they did for the missing link they would know more of God's plan as it really is.

The speaker applied the apostle's words, "As by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, in that all are sinners." (Rom. 5:12) Man was declared to have been originally in a state of innocence, perfection and harmony with God, and that wilful sin resulted in a condemnation to death, which not only affected Adam, the original sinner, but fell upon every member of his race, by heredity, in a natural way. The speaker quoted extracts from the first chapter of Romans [HGL84] to elucidate his point, and to substantiate the claim that the present degradation was the result of sin and a lack of submission and acknowledgment of God in a spirit of desire to do His will. Thus it is that today the Scriptural declaration is applicable. "Darkness covers the earth, and gross darkness the people."

God has been allowing this condition of degradation, evil, sin and death to continue upon all, ever since Adam's time, although He has been manifesting His favor toward individuals in the different periods of the world's history since that time, as illustrated by His dealings with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the Jewish nation. These exceptions to the race in general were chosen by God for special purposes in connection with His future favors to the world as a whole. Even today, in a time of great enlightenment in the world in general, the speaker declared that out of a population of 1, 600,000,000 there are but 300,000,000 who profess to know the Lord in any sense of the word, the other 1, 300,000,000 being in gross darkness. But why? Does not God care for them? Oh, yes; because He sent Jesus Christ into the world to die for the members of the race- "Jesus Christ, by the grace of God, tasted death for every man." Has then God something of salvation for every man in His plan? Yes; it was for this reason Jesus Christ came into the world, that He might die on its behalf.

The speaker laid special emphasis on the statement of the Scriptures, "Christ was a propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the world." The word "our" he applied to the church of the present time, the first subjects of divine grace, and pointed out the significance of the balance of the statement, as intimating that the whole world would ultimately share similar blessings at God's hands.

To speak of salvation would be to imply that a great catastrophe had occurred from which those involved needed to be saved, otherwise no Redeemer would be needed. When God placed man in the garden of Eden, and gave him His favor and blessing, He placed a test upon him of obedience; the promise of obedience was everlasting life, and the promise of disobedience was everlasting death. The expression stating this was: "In the day that thou eatest, thereof thou shalt surely die." Satan, the liar from the beginning, in tempting our first parents, controverted this expression of the divine purpose, and declared: "Ye shall not surely die." The speaker dilated upon this point, to prove death as the wages of willful sin, and attacked with vehemence the representations of theologians of the old school that the sentence was to eternal torture.

The words to Adam in pronouncing the sentence were: "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return," God, in effect, saying: "I will take from you the life which you were not willing to use in accord with My just and wise directions, and you shall return to the dust as you were." He had no being before; he was simply dust; was made of it, and when he would return to the dust it would mean the utter loss of his being. The fulfillment of this is noted in the dying condition of the whole race today, and the greater degradation of mankind now, as contrasted with the generations immediately following Adam was shown in the latter, although all eventually dying, were able to survive the curse for several hundred years, while today the average of human life is not more than 35.

The speaker argued, therefore, that life was the great need of mankind, but that until some remedy had been found which would remove the great curse of death, no life would come to the world. This remedy was declared to be in Jesus Christ, who satisfied the claims of God's justice by dying on behalf of the race, and is to fulfill the purpose of God's love by giving to mankind the life, which it lost through its first parents. The significance of the word "Savior" in the Syriac was dwelt upon as literally meaning "life-giver," to enforce the thought suggested, that only through Christ was a return of the life lost in Adam possible to any. But such a blessing can only come to those who come into accord with the requirements of God's laws, and until these laws are made applicable to the whole world, there can yet be no release from the condition of death, which still exists.

"The wages of sin is death," according to the Scriptures, "but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ." "There is none other name given under heaven or amongst men whereby we may be saved but the name of Jesus," hence until those for whom Christ died shall have learned to believe on Jesus as the Redeemer, the life-giver, there is no rescue from death for them. "He that hath the Son hath life; he that hath not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth in him."

Death was the wrath of God God's sentence, which began at the fall and continues to rest on all who know not God and believe not the gospel of Christ. The speaker refuted the theologians who claim that the Scriptural declaration that death was the penalty must have been an error, because the soul cannot die. He quoted the prophet: "The soul that sinneth, it shall die;" "He poured out his soul unto death," etc., and in answer to supposed objections that death would be a very small penalty dwelt at length upon the blessing of life, happiness, perfection and favor with God enjoyed by Adam in the beginning, which were all taken from him as a fulfillment of the death penalty upon the race. He attributed to the dark ages of the past, when intellectual attainments were limited, and spiritual instruction was confined to a priest-ridden church, the promulgation of the theory of eternal torture as the wages of sin, and offered to supply to all his hearers, without charge, a pamphlet considering every passage in the Scriptures which seemed to support any theory of torture as a portion for the sinners. He argued that had God intended such an awful penalty to be the result of sin, it was a gross injustice to our first parents to have kept them in darkness of the real character of it, while expressing the sentence under the terms "thou shalt surely die," and "unto dust shalt thou return." [HGL85]

Pastor Russell denied the charge that in showing the true character of the penalty of death and the fact that Jesus Christ therefore "tasted for every man," in order to release them from death, he was presenting a theory of universalism. He declared that he found in the Scriptures a plan of God broad enough to grant an opportunity of salvation to all the world which received a sentence of death through Adam, and a plan narrow enough to limit such a salvation to those who would believe on Jesus Christ, who paid the penalty. This involved a declaration of the message of salvation, not merely to all members of the race living, but to every member of it in the tomb. He showed that the gospel had not been preached in Noah's time, or in that of Abraham, Isaac or Jacob, because in their day the satisfaction for sins had not been made through the blood of Jesus Christ, and no ransom having been offered, no announcement of it would be logical. On the contrary, Paul was stating the fact when he declared that salvation "began to be preached by the Lord," and has only been proper of announcement since the death and resurrection of the life-giver. This great Redeemer is declared in the Scriptures to have the keys of death and of hell (hades, the condition of oblivion), and that in God's due time he will open the great prison house of death, release the captives and give them the opportunities of life and blessing. According to the Scriptures, he will "say to the prisoners, Come forth, and to them that sit in the darkness, Show yourselves."

In the Lord's own words, "The hour is coming when all that are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of Man and come forth, they that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have not done good unto the resurrection of judgment" (revised version).

The good were declared to be those of the church, who in the present time have heard the gospel message and, having brought themselves into harmony with it, have been given the opportunity of suffering with Christ, that they might reign with him in his Kingdom. They are declared in the Scriptures to be "the little flock, to whom it is the Father's good pleasure to give the Kingdom." This class is to "live and reign with Christ a thousand years." All the rest of mankind is of the evil class in the sense that they have not believed on Christ, and are not therefore acceptable to God. They are to have a resurrection of raising up through the judgments of the thousand-year period during which Christ shall reign, if, upon having the gospel preached to them, they shall heed the message of salvation and conform themselves to the righteous rules of Christ's Kingdom. The speaker quoted the Lord's words, "The hour is coming when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live." He quoted the apostle Paul's words, "God hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained, Jesus Christ the righteous."

He pointed out that if this judgment is to be of a righteous character, it must deal toward all mankind for whom Christ died with equal fairness, that all may benefit by the atonement which he made for all else the redemptive work was partially in vain.

The speaker compared his view with the Roman Catholic idea of purgatory, and while rejecting the claim that masses and penances would release souls from a spiritual condition of suffering, he pointed out that the trial time for the world during the next age would consist of disciplinings, training, punishments and instruction, in order to give all mankind a full, fair and impartial opportunity to attain life, salvation in full. He quoted the expressions of the prophet, "When the judgments of the Lord are abroad in the earth the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness." "He that knew the Master's will and did it not shall be beaten with many stripes; but he that knew not the Master's will shall be beaten with few stripes."

The speaker pointed his hearers to the second coming of Christ as the time for the fulfillment of these gracious blessings for the world, the time when Satan's power should be taken away, and Christ, as the rightful king, should take his throne.

Then the righteous should flourish, and there should be abundance of peace. Then the knowledge of the Lord should fill the whole earth as the waters cover the great deep; then none would need to say to his neighbor, know thou the Lord, for all should know him, from the least to the greatest. He described Christ and his church as the reigning powers of the time, and intimated that when then "the Sun of Righteousness should arise, with healing in its beams," there would be no further need for the Bible as an instructor, which the Scriptures themselves term "the lamp," which is to lighten the Christian's pathway while the nighttime of sin is in full force. To Christ's advent all must look who would wish to see the great and true social uplift, and at the culmination of which, at the close of the thousand years of trial and judgment, would witness the everlasting destruction in the second death of all those who failed to profit by the experience then given and to become amenable to the will of the Most High.

The subject for next Sunday will be "Election and Free Grace: How Harmonized." A song service at 2:30 o'clock precedes the regular service at 3 o'clock.