News and Miscellany

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 16, 1868

News and Miscellany.

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

There is a difference between happiness and wisdom—he that thinks himself the happiest man, really is so; but he that thinks himself the wisest man is most generally found to be the biggest fool.

When Professor Webster was awaiting his trial for murder, he is said to have complained of his fellow-prisoners for insulting him through the walls of his cell, and screaming to him: “You are a bloody man.” On examination, the charge was found wholly groundless. The accusing voices were imaginary—merely the echoes of a guilty conscience. But it is a fearful thought that the soul can be made to ring with such echoes. Surely it is “fearfully and wonderfully made.” It is so constituted as to register its own crimes, conduct its own trial, and pronounce condemnation against itself.

—Twenty-one divorces were granted by the Supreme Court of Vermont, at its February term in Windsor County. In delivering the judgment of the Court in one case, Judge Barrett remarked: “My associates think from the evidence, a divorce ought to be granted, and I think so too, from what I know of the parties. I don’t think those parties ought to be yoked up together any longer, any more than any other cattle.”

—The agricultural press of America is equal in ability, circulation, and capital, to what the newspaper press in the whole world was at the commencement of the century.

—East Saginaw has 11,000 inhabitants, and church accommodations for only 2,400 people. There is a bar for every 100 persons, and a minister for every 1,100. The amount paid for church expenses last year was $16,500, for amusements $28,000, and for liquor $125,000. Of 2,600 children, only 1,000 are members of Sabbath Schools, and of the 11,000 inhabitants, only 785 are church members. Of lager beer, 3,900 barrels are consumed yearly, or 175 glasses for every man, woman and child in the city.