Items for the Times

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 28, 1866

Items for the Times.

“LOVERS OF PLEASURES.” etc.,—2 Tim. iii, 4.

The Portland Advertiser says, “Put this and that together;” then quotes from the N. Y. Express,—“Pews in Rev. H. W. Beecher’s church.—The sale of choice pews this year amounted to $29,436, nearly $3,000 more than last; this, with the rental—$12,158, makes the pew income $41,594, $400 being paid for choice of the pews.” Simultaneously with the above announcement, there appeared in “The Boudoir,” the ladies’ illustrated paper of fashions, the following notice: “The readers of the Boudoir should not fail to peruse every one of the pages this week. Each is filled to its limit with the liveliest reading and gossip of life, the news of fashion, the affairs of the beau monde, and all matters of general interest to ladies. We gave last week the current fashions as displayed at Beecher’s church, and in this issue we notice them as displayed at St. Stephen’s.” Perhaps, by putting this and that together, some idea may be obtained of the reason why high prices are paid for pews, and what some people go to church for.

VALUE OF CHRISTIANITY.

The Independent of a late issue gave editorial prominence to what the editor seemed to think a good joke; which was, that a Sunday School child being asked “who died for her,” replied, “Abraham Lincoln.” The Journal of Commerce, commenting on it, regards that as a very strange Christian mind, which can see a joke in such a story. We quote: “The Sabbath, the Bible, the church, all the most sacred scenes and associations, have been very much mixed up with the wild passions of human strife; and the world is not any better for it. We have emerged from fierce war into political contests, scarcely less fierce; and now, if ever, is the time to rescue the churches, and the religion of the land, from absolute subjection to the world and its interests. The most fearful illustration possible is given in Missouri, where the law now requires a political oath as the privilege of teaching and preaching the gospel.”

WORLD AT WAR.

The Portland Advertiser of a late issue, quoting from another paper an article on “The world at war,” says:—“The actual condition of Christendom to-day, affords a striking commentary upon Stuart Mills’s observation, that the remark of the early enemies of the gospel, ‘See how these Christians love one another,’ is not likely to be made by anybody now. While the Mohammedan and Pagan nations of the world are getting on peacefully and quietly enough, the Christian powers in both continents are in a ferment of war and war’s worst passions. The Crescent just now sheds a milder and less baleful light on mankind than the cross. To keep the peace of the world in the midst of such chances of strife, is probably a task beyond the reach of diplomacy, and all signs conspire to indicate that Europe is entering upon another ‘battle summer,’ not less terrible than the memorable season which earned that dread name, on fields drenched with blood, from the Rhine to the Vistula, and from Naples to the Northern sea.”

Says the Post of June 18, 1866, speaking on War, “It is a grave crisis in every point of view; and its end no man can determine.”