C. E. RENTFRO by C. E. RENTFRO

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 11, 1906

C. E. RENTFRO

By C. E. RENTFRO

Portugal

CARCAVELLOS.— Some time ago I received a few copies of the special earthquake number of the Signs, second edition. I sold a few copies to English and Portuguese friends, turning the money over to our printing fund. One copy I sent to a daily paper of wide circulation. In the number of July came out engravings of the Stanford University, library, and arch, also city hall of Santa Rosa, accompanied by the statement by President Jordan, and comments upon the editor’s sermon preached in Oakland. It says:—

“The interesting American weekly, The Signs of the Times, printed in Mountain View, Cal., published a second edition of its number of May 23, entirely consecrated to the frightful earthquake of San Francisco. The four hundred thousand copies that constituted the first edition were exhausted promptly. It is a publication principally religious, and that consigns as signs of the times all the disasters that happen throughout this world, attributing them to celestial choler. In this special number, in an article entitled ‘There Is No Sure Refuge,’ it says that in this land of perdition, in this cursed world, there is nowhere to flee, and adds: ‘We can not flee to Oakland, neither to Chicago, nor New York, nor London. The first great convulsion of the earth may devour one or all of these cities; and the most solid towers, the proudest constructions of steel built by men, may be in a moment reduced to heaps of scraps.’”

“And after various convenient Bible quotations, it concludes, therefore, that in the earth there is no possible refuge, and ends inviting every afflicted soul to find the heavenly Jerusalem his only refuge.”

“The counsel will not be very consoling to humanity, evidently surrounded with perils, and to whom the classic terra firma is as solid as the revolving waves of the ocean; but nevertheless it is a counsel; and as a last recourse it is efficacious so far as possible, ‘given to the miserable life that man wastes upon earth.’”

“We record this curious and extensive article of The Signs of the Times to show the Puritanic disposition of the American periodical, published in this land of Quakers, of Positivists, of Puritanism, and of trusts, true Babel of modern times.”

In this experiment I see possibilities for the future in getting truth before the people. With the help of Elder Schwantes, I shall see if they will publish an outline of our faith, with something on religious liberty; for I see the people are earnestly seeking for liberty—of course it is civil liberty, right of free speech, free press, etc. There is on foot a Sunday-closing movement, with plans to formulate a law upon the meeting of Parliament. I am sure that some of the papers will publish something on liberty.