Note and Comment

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Sep 10, 1903

SPEAKING of the development of the idea that Sunday observance rests on the fourth commandment and other Sabbath precepts of the Old Testament, which is a feature of the religious history of the reigns of the English sovereigns Elizabeth and James the First, the Church Standard says it is an interesting problem to account for the rapid growth and predominance of this sentiment at that time, since “certainly the English reformers did not claim that the Sabbatical observance of the first day of the week was divinely required by the fourth commandment. Indeed, the appearance of a tendency of opinion in that direction called forth from William Tyndale and others some extravagant remonstrances.”

What was afterward known as the “Puritan Sunday” was not a doctrine of the Reformation at all, but arose from another quarter where faith was not distinguished from fanaticism. The Reformation was right so far as it carried into effect the doctrine of salvation by faith, but it did not go far enough to apply this all-important doctrine to the matter of Sabbath observance; otherwise the sabbath of Rome would have been rejected along with other anti-Biblical institutions of the apostate church. The reviving Sabbath sentiment which followed the Reformation was based upon tradition rather than faith, with the result that a new institution, the Puritan Sunday, was adopted into the church in the place of a return to the Sabbath of the decalogue, the seventh day.

A NEW plague of an alarming character is menacing Cuba, according to reports from the province of Santiago. It is described as a disease which combines the worst symptoms of all the dreaded tropical and coast fevers, and is considered far worse than the bubonic plague. Very few of those attacked survive, and then only when the treatment is prompt and thorough. The only treatment known to be of any avail is to administer frequent large doses of quinine. So virulent is the nature of the disease that those stricken survive only a few hours, during which time the victim suffers extremely. The disease appeared first in Daiquiri, in the province of Santiago, where much American money is invested in iron mines. It has hitherto been unknown to the physicians there, and the people are panic-stricken, and have appealed to the United States for help. By its spread and contagious character the disease now menaces the entire island, and the mainland of America as well. The United States and Cuban governments will, it is said, act together in attempting to cope with this new and unknown peril.

According to the Church Standard, the reign of the late Pope Leo, which the American press has called so brilliant, is not considered so by the Italian church, because “every year of Leo’s pontificate was characterized by the loss of thousands to the church in Italy.” According to this authority the Italian church is becoming more and more opposed to the enforcement of the rule of celibacy; besides which there is “an increasing opinion that confession ought to be made voluntary,” since “one of the least evils” of the confessional “is where a bad or foolish priest endeavors to learn all family affairs, and then uses such knowledge to further his own comfort or schemes.”

In Italy and other Catholic lands the people have a view of the papacy at close range, with the result that in those countries that church is steadily losing ground. In America “distance lends enchantment to the view,” and the result is otherwise. But what the papacy has been in those lands which are now ridding themselves of its yoke, it will prove to be in this country when its hold upon the nation has been made sufficiently secure.

A RAILWAY project has been set on foot in this country, which, if realized, will more than parallel the British project of a “Cape to Cairo” railway. It is proposed to build a line extending from Port Nelson, Hudson’s Bay, south to Galveston, Tex., thence through Mexico, the Isthmus, the United States of Colombia, Ecuador, and through Peru and Argentina to Buenos Ayres, branch lines being contemplated to Rio de Janeiro and Valparaiso. The estimated length of the line is 10,000 miles, and its estimated cost $250,000,000.

J. HUDSON TAYLOR, who has been compelled to retire from the work of general director of the China Inland Mission, on account of failing health, pays this tribute to God’s faithfulness: “If spared to see the autumn of the present year, I shall look back on fifty years since I sailed from Liverpool to China, with grateful acknowledgment for all the way God has led me and for his sustaining and providing bounty, and be able to testify that in no good thing that he has ever led me from his Word to expect has he failed me.”