Various Matters by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 6, 1883

Various Matters.

By Editor

MINNESOTA was the first State to send any considerable order for the tract, "Justification by Faith."

Two more numbers end the present volume of the SIGNS OF THE TIMES. We usually omit a number in December so as to publish the last number of the volume near the close of the year. But this year we expect to issue Dec. 13 and 20, as we need all the time we can have to make the changes contemplated at the end of the volume. Everything will be done that is possible to do to improve the paper, and make it acceptable to its patrons.

As a specimen of a rare combination of ignorance and prejudice, we refer to an article on the Seventh-day Adventists in the Baptist Flag, published in St. Louis. We were aware that the Flag did not stand very high in the estimation of some of its contemporaries of the Baptist press, but we were not aware that it was for such good reason. Its misrepresentations of us as a people are inexcusable.

From about Nov. 24 for more than a week the sky at the horizon has been of an unusually red hue, both before sunrise and after sunset. Some of the citizens of Oakland, when they first discovered it, thought San Francisco was burning up. We never saw the like before. The same appearance is reported as far east as Salt Lake. Several explanations have been offered for this, but they all seem to be open to objections.

The colored people have been much exercised over the recent decision of the Supreme Court, in regard to the Civil Rights Law, and are very fearful of the results. But most of the papers think no danger is to be apprehended, and that the decision was unavoidable. Whichever side may be technically correct, we think Justice Harlan took a rational view of the matter. It looks to us as if the colored people have reason for their fears; it is a step backward, and the end is not yet seen.

In the Life of Dr. Judson, by Dr. Wayland, is a description of Buddhism, the religion of Burmah, in which occur the following words: "The peculiarity of their belief is, that this life is not considered the state, but only a state of probation." This tenet of Buddhism is fast being incorporated into the theology of many "eminent divines" in the churches of the United States. The professed Christian churches have so long deferred to heathen philosophy, and false science, that it will not be a very wide departure to incorporate into their theology the peculiarity of Buddhism. But what a Christianity!