News and Miscellany by J. TAYLOR

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 19, 1867

News and Miscellany.

By J. TAYLOR

Can ye not discern the Signs of the Times? Matt. xvi, 3.

“Our World.”

The following items show that the world is not drifting into the Millennium as yet:

Amusements.—The New York Post of January 22, 1867, from Paris correspondence, says, “The total receipts of theaters and public dancing-rooms, for November, were $39,000 over the previous month.” The receipts of theatres from three to nine months past in New York city, were $2,500,000! At a Book auction in London, England, last December, a copyright of Beeton’s Illustrated Family Bible, brought near $1,000. Mrs. Beeton’s household management on Cooking, brought near $16,250; while Miss Evans’ new novel required at one period five of Adams’ presses, busy all the time, and then could not supply the demand. Another novel had a sale of 250,000 copies within a short time.

With the above facts before us, how can it be expected for people generally to be Bible students, when so much time and money is spent for novels and light reading? The above list could be extended, but I will give only an item more. Last Christmas, at Chicago, thirty-six book dealers sold $150,000,—fur dealers sold $50,000,—while jewellers sold $250,000 worth of goods. A foreign item has just come to hand, which states that Charles Dickens has sold 250,000 copies of his last novel. So much for novels and amusements.

As to crime, the several papers are teeming with the black and bloody catalogue of crime. Since the awful murders not far from here (West Auburn, Me.), people think it is hardly safe, anywhere, without being armed. The Post of January 18, says in a Paris letter,—“The French papers for the past week have recorded frightful murders almost every day, and in many instances the murderers are in respectable positions in society, persons above want, and moved to crime by the vilest and most sordid passions. In Paris, a young man thinking it was wrong for his father to marry a second time, took upon himself to condemn his parent to death, and executed the sentence with his own hand.”

Needle Guns.—It is said that the French government will have four hundred and fifty thousand needle guns ready by April, or the middle of May. This, with the preparations of other governments for war, does not look much like the Millennium at hand, except as ushered in by the King of kings.

Meteoric.—A vivid account of the showers of meteors, as observed by M. Guillemin near the Azores.—“The expedition was favored with a perfectly clear night, the only clouds in the sky consisting of a light belt around the horizon to the height of ten degrees; from behind this veil, and in a direction north, fifty-nine degrees east, emerged from the same point a series of luminous tracks, which surrounded the heavens. These began to be visible at ten o’clock in the evening, and shortly after the stars began to shoot up from the same part of the horizon. These stars were of a dark cherry red, and were accompanied by a crescent of blue phosphorescence, very luminous, and leaving after its disappearance a track of light. Many of the stars crossed the zenith and fell at the opposite horizon, occupying exactly six seconds in their transit. Others shot up and fell on the same side of the sky. The marvellous spectacle of an immense shower of such stars, continued for an hour, in full magnificence; then the number of the meteors began to diminish, and finally ceased altogether at half past three in the morning.”

The Richmond (Va.) Enquirer of October says, “There was a sudden illumination in Lynchburg, Saturday night, which startled the police and watchmen. As there were neither moon nor stars shining, and the clouds were thick and dark, they could not solve the mystery of the light, which was evidently too bright for an earthly one, probably a meteor.”

“About the middle of November, at Nashville, Tenn., about four o’clock in the morning, a meteor, lighting the whole heavens, was seen in a south-westerly direction, moving rapidly south-west. It appeared like a ball of fire as large as the sun. It exploded apparently, ten miles off with a tremendous report, like a forty-pound cannon, that shook the earth and made the windows rattle.”

Thus we have signs in the heavens, and distress in the land. The Dutch minister of international affairs in Holland, has presented his second report on the cattle plague to the king. It appears that since June, 1865, “two-thirds of the whole have perished in the province of South Holland, one-third in Utrecht, and the small remainder in North Holland. Number of cattle attacked was 90,469.” The cattle plague has been also very severe in Kentucky. “In many farms of Shelby county, every head of cattle has died.”

And as to the state of society in general, Mrs. M. T. Townsend, a celebrated spiritual medium, says, “Society is a living lie; it professes to be respectable; it is as immoral as the deepest depths of degradation. We all know it and feel it.”

May the time soon come when universal righteousness shall prevail.—J. TAYLOR, in World's Crisis.