Significant Items by F. A. Buzzell

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 4, 1871

Significant Items.

By F. A. Buzzell

The ESSEX (Mass.) South Conference at Danvers Center, May 18, 1870, passed a special protest against the desecration of the Sabbath, (Sunday) by railroad and steamboat corporations, in running special trains and boats on that day, as a grief and disturbance to all (?) Christian people, and a glaring offense to the law of the Sabbath day.” (?)

The “N. E. Sabbath Association,” for the purpose of maintaining the observance of Sunday, we presume, has struck out on the “war path,” ready for action, with a list of officers, who can boast in possessing “Gov.,” “Hon.,” “Rev.,” and “D. D.,” as affixes and prefixes. So far as our knowledge extends, these are men who do business when they attempt it.

Of their doings, more anon.

“Father Hecker,” in a recent lecture at Detroit, said, “Catholicism rules New York by 50,000 majority, and the question is not now will the Catholics ever rule America? but how soon?”

THE SACRED INSTITUTION OF MARRIAGE BECOMING A FARCE.

Five hundred couples divorced in Connecticut in 1870; and for the same year there were one hundred and sixty-two cases in Rhode Island, one to every marriage.

The poor old pope has no prop in Spain. “It is worthy of note, says the Independent, “that the letter of the king Amadeus of Spain, to the pope, contains no word of fealty or temporal submission. It does not even recognize the pope as a sovereign.”

A PROTESTANT CHURCH ON ROMAN SOIL.

“A Presbyterian church was opened in Rome, Jan. 8, said to be the first Protestant church ever built on Roman soil. The church is occupied by the Free Church of Scotland.”—Independent.

A negro minstrel performance has been given in a Kansas town, to procure a communion service for a church.—Boston Herald.

There are many churches of the present period that seem only anxious to meet their dues at the bank of Heaven, and to raise the necessary funds, who are borrowing largely at the bank of the devil. We deem the above extract, if true, a good illustration of this kind of borrowing; and also the many “fairs,” “levees,” &c., in which gambling is carried on; where the “children of the wicked one” are enticed by promises of “sweet-meats,” or a “splendid chance” to give to the Lord, who by the practical appearance of the thing, has but few friends, and little money. We think the devil is a shrewd “financier,” and if he loans money to pay the debts of stingy professors, he will have it back with greater interest than ever was exacted by a Chatham street Jew broker.

But more than this, we very much doubt if the bank of Heaven endorses any such paper as that presented with the signature of his satanic majesty. If not wholly repudiated, we think it will suffer a terrible discount.

BLASPHEMY.    AN INSCRIPTION AT THE FETES IN ROME, APRIL, 1870.

“People, prostrate yourselves in the Vatican, to my Vicar on earth. Whom I have preserved in danger. He is the corner stone of my church. The refuge of the oppressed (?). The support of the poor. The shield of civilization and the faith.”—N. Y. Tribune.

BONDAGE OF THE PULPIT.

Mr. Wilkinson, in the February Scribner, says of city pastors, “Rich churches do not want a really independent ministry—they will not abide it. They are fond of majestic figure-heads in the pulpits. They love to see decorous lay-figures in their drawing-rooms. They find it convenient to have some one at call who can intone an unexceptionable grace at a public dinner, and they are all the better pleased if he can wind a short flight of religio-convivial eloquence after the cloth is removed. They will do everything in their power to make such a convention imposing. But he must consent to remain a convenience. Bold, uncompromising rebuke of their sins which they have decided upon the whole to practice, or to indulge—they will have none of it.”

In further alluding to the bondage of the pulpit, Mr. Wilkinson says, “The Christian man that will not bear rebuke, and be better for rebuke, is no Christian man.” Truthful words indeed—in perfect harmony with the words of Jesus. Rev. 3:19.

A SPIRITUAL MARRIAGE.

“At a recent ‘spiritual circle’ in Tremont, Me., a young woman had her dead lover ‘called up,’ who said he must be married, and a justice being near, the ceremony was performed. ‘The spiritual, or spirited bride,’ now claims the property of the deceased.”—Boston Herald.

If litigation in this case ensues, where will it end?      F. A. BUZZELL.