News and Miscellany

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 26, 1868

News and Miscellany.

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

Professor Palmieri, of Naples, who is making a rigid scientific investigation into the phenomena accompanying the eruption of Vesuvius, states that he has never seen the magnetic needle so frequently and so seriously disturbed as it is at present, and that the seismograph records at least ten distinct earthquake shocks daily.

—The N. Y. Methodist, of May 2, 1868, places the total number of communicants in the Methodist church, in all its branches, at 3,000,000.

—The Republican Convention just held in Chicago, have nominated, unanimously, U. S. Grant for the next President of the United States, and Schuyler Colfax for Vice-president.

—In the Insane Hospital of Indiana there are forty-seven women crazed by the brutal conduct of drunken husbands.

—Accounts from the south and southeast of France complain of the long-continued drought in that part of France. No rain to speak of has fallen during the last two months.

—The crime of child-murder is on the increase to such a shocking extent in Liverpool that the attention of the government has been directed to the subject, and the Home Secretary has authorized the borough coroner to offer rewards for the detection of the guilty persons.

—A correspondent asks if the Bible is allowed by the government to be circulated in Spain. It is not. It is strictly prohibited. In Madrid, when we were there in February, 1867, a large quantity of Bibles, sent there from England, were under government protection while they were waiting the order for their return whence they came. No one may propagate any other religion than that of Romanism, and the Bible is the worst enemy that Romanism has.—New York Observer.

—A new explosive is announced called “Dynamid,” or “Giant Powder.” It is said that all ordinary blows and the most violent agitation do not affect it; but when a fired fuse, ending in a percussion cap of fulminating mercury, is put into a loose mass, its explosion is immensely powerful. A table-spoonful of it, on a stone covered with a brick, blew the brick into dust, and shattered the stone into kernels. The same amount thus exploded blew a hole through one end of a balanced two-inch plank, on which it had been poured, without disturbing the balance. And its greatest power is seen when used in the toughest kind of rocks.

—The Pope has outraged all morality and decency, by sending to the Queen of Spain—the infamy of whose life is notorious—the Golden Rose, which is the name of a jeweled gift annually bestowed on the royal lady who, during the preceding year, has manifested the greatest zeal for the interests of the Romish Church. Well does a foreign paper declare that, in this case, the Golden Rose crowns the Encyclical, and offers a challenge to the intelligence, morality, and culture, of the age. It is absolutely shocking that the professed Vicar of Christ should send such a testimonial to a woman whose impurity is a world-wide scandal, with these words: “Receive, O beloved daughter in Jesus Christ, this evidence and lasting monument which we wish to give thee of the earnest love we bear thee, as much for thy signal services toward this Apostolic See, as for the high virtues by which thou shinest among women.”

Palestine.—The famous—or rather infamous—colony at Jaffa, under President Adams, still lives, although reduced to about twenty-five persons. It is not so small, however, but that it is still divided by intestine feuds. Adams and wife are about to proceed to England to find recruits and funds. No doubt they will succeed. They have already some English members of the colony, and the English are far more insane on the subject of the Holy Land than Americans. You meet here at every turn some half-cracked man or woman from England, who has come out here to help fulfill the prophecies of Scripture, as he or she understands them. These deluded, and often wealthy, enthusiasts are legitimate game for such rogues as Adams. As far as one can see, the colony now depends for existence upon such game, for no crops have been sown, and there are no apparent means of subsistence. The few travelers who have been fortunate enough to land at Jaffa this year seem to have all taken time to see the colony, and judge for themselves of Adam’s claims. The long-promised road from Jaffa to Jerusalem is now actually making good progress under the pressure of an intimation from Paris that the Empress was about to make a pilgrimage to the Holy City.—Cor. N. Y. Tribune.