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The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, December 31, 1867

News and Miscellany.

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

Hear not ill of a friend, nor speak evil of an enemy. Believe not all you hear, nor report all you believe.

Mr. Jay once remarked to John Newton, in relation to the conversion of a very wicked man: “If this man is a true penitent, I shall never despair of the conversion of any one again.” “Oh, I never did!” rejoined Mr. Newton, “since God saved me.”

A suburban resident proposes as a subject for discussion in country-debating societies, “The killing of hogs in the front-yards of dwellings or on the public streets, as a means of educating young children into a healthy sentiment, and of accustoming them to the brutalities of civilized society.”

God tells you, if you repent, you shall find mercy; and will you not believe him? Because thou hast been a sinner, wilt thou make God a liar!

—A Mississippian writes to a Kentucky paper: “The state of things is appalling. Distress, want and misery are even now stalking abroad. What it may come to in the dead of winter and spring, God only knows. Every kind of business here is prostrated. Planters are bankrupts by the failure of the crops, and involve the merchants who advanced for them on the strength of the growing crop. The distress here will be equal, I am afraid, to the Irish famine of 1847 and 1848. I assure you, you never saw such a distressed and ruined people as the people of Mississippi, and I presume the citizens of other cotton States are in the same condition, and I see no remedy except within the fold of the Union.” There is said also to be great want and suffering in Louisiana.

—A formidable revolution has broken out in Yucatan, Mexico. It is a rebellion against president Juarez’s government. The revolutionists have pronounced for Santa Anna as dictator, and that personage was expected there, but at last accounts he was in Havana. Affairs throughout the republic of Mexico appear to be rapidly relapsing into that confusion and disorder for which that unfortunate country is notorious.

—The inhabitants of Lee county, Virginia, were recently thrown into great panic by the wonderful spectacle of three suns rising at the same time. The central orb was encircled by a beautiful rainbow, and surmounted by another iris which extended on either hand above the attendant suns. The two surplus suns were, of course, but reflections of the bona fide sun on the clouds, and after a brief space these suddenly dissolved and vanished, leaving the real sol solum.

Great Britain.—LONDON, Dec. 27. Another of those fiendish outrages which characterized the operations of the Fenian Brotherhood has just been perpetrated at Dublin. Telegrams from there were received to-day, giving the following particulars: An unusually large number of letters have recently been received at the post office, at Dublin, directed to prominent officials. Each one of these letters was loaded with explosive materials, designed to kill the person addressed. Several exploded before their real nature was ascertained, but up to this time no person has been killed. A policeman who received one of these letters, was horribly mangled by the explosion. It is not known how many of those dangerous missiles have been despatched. Considerable excitement prevails, both in Dublin and elsewhere throughout the country, on the discovery of this, the latest Fenian outrage. The authorities are actively investigating, and will no doubt probe the matter to the bottom.

The Times has an editorial article on the Fenian question. It shows that no less than three thousand special constables have been sworn in and are now serving in London. The writer calls attention to the grave public danger, and calls on the provincial cities and towns to emulate the precautionary measures of the metropolis.

The Eruption of Mount Vesuvius.—Despatches received from Naples mention that the eruption of mount Vesuvius is continually increasing in power and splendor. Immense sheets of white, yellow, and crimson flame rise hundreds of feet above the crater, and at night the Bay of Naples is lighted up for miles. Lava is pouring down the mountain side in immense quantities, and large stones are occasionally thrown out from the mouth of the volcano. A deep rumble, like reverberating thunder, is heard from time to time, as in the bowels of the earth, and many of the people in the vicinity have left their homes, fearing an earthquake, or other calamity. No such eruption has probably occurred in Vesuvius for centuries, and the spectacle is regarded as one of the most magnificent and sublime ever witnessed in nature.