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The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · July 23, 1867

Richer than Gold

Though the settlement of California was expedited by the wonderful gold discoveries, it now appears that gold is by no means the most valuable of its productions. A recent lecture in New York, by Dr. E. S. Holden of Stockton, presented facts showing the rapid increase of its wealth, and its capabilities, if rightly developed, for becoming the richest state in the Union. It has 70,000,000 acres, suitable for agricultural and grazing purposes, of which 6,000,000 are now under cultivation. Instead of importing her breadstuffs, it sent to New York in the six months ending March 1, 1867, 48,000 barrels of flour and 5,500 bushels of wheat, besides freighting 23 ships with wheat for Liverpool. The estimated value of its agricultural crop for 1866 was $54,000,000, exceeding its gold crop by several million. The product of its manufactures for that year was $30,000,000. Its agricultural and horticultural capacities are said to be unparalleled on the globe. Over 300 varieties of grapes have been successfully cultivated, and fruits of every variety, those peculiar to northern and southern climates, are raised within its borders. Cotton is grown and manufactured there, and woolen and silk culture will be among the most profitable of its industrial arts. Besides the inexhaustible gold mines, which embrace 44,000 square miles, almost every kind of valuable minerals and metals is found. The state has every variety of climate, and is everywhere salubrious and healthy.

Former Annexations

The recent purchase of Russian America is the sixth acquisition of territory since the formation of our Union. Louisiana and the Mississippi Valley were purchased from France in 1803 for $15,000,000; Florida from Spain in 1819, for $3,000,000; Texas was annexed in 1845; California, New Mexico, and Utah were purchased from Mexico in 1848, for $15,000,000; and Arizona in 1854, for $10,000,000.

The Intolerant Spirit

The New York Tablet, a Catholic paper, in defending the action of the church in excluding Protestant churches from the city of Rome, makes use of strange language for a public journal of a free country, where every one is allowed to worship God according to the dictates of his conscience. It says: “As Protestants have no divine authority to teach or govern, they have no right to send missionaries or to open places of worship where the national authority forbids it. They have from God no right of propagandism, and religious liberty is in no sense violated when the national authority, whether Catholic or Pagan, closes their mouths and their places of holding forth. They are of those of whom our Lord says, and will say, ‘I never knew you.’”

A Terrible Revelation

Not long since a young girl of fifteen was brought before a Police court in London for insubordination in a workhouse, where she had been for several weeks in the “casual ward.” The report of the case brought letters from “a host of persons” in all parts of the kingdom, whose daughters of the same age were missing, each hoping that the prisoner was their lost daughter. A London paper referring to this sorrowful fact, says, “The publication of a single case brings to light the fact that there are at this moment numerous persons—‘a host’ of mothers in this country, mourning the loss of daughters of the age of fifteen who have been kidnapped or enticed from home.”

An Iron-clad for Prussia

The King of Prussia is having an iron-clad built in England which is expected to be the finest thing afloat. She is to be 365 feet in length, with a width of 60 feet, and will measure about 5,000 tons. She will be cased in iron eight inches thick; will have two iron turrets, each to carry two heavy guns, and will mount twenty guns on deck, of the heaviest calibre, protected by shields.