Notes on the Current Issue
By Editor
Since our last, the calamity rehearsal has had few rests in its sad minor chords. We shall have more to say of these fearful happenings in future numbers. Please notice our advertisement of future articles on page 2 of this issue. Notice also two other periodicals there mentioned, Our Little Friend and Pacific Health Journal. We call attention to the first of an important series of articles for mothers, begun in this issue, by Mrs. Mary Wood-Allen, M.D. Mothers and all who have the care of children will find them of special help. Much, very much, will be said by periodicals in all fields concerning the great earthly coronation, which affects so few; yet how few are the publications which discuss the far more gloriously transcendent coronation of earth's universal King, which will affect every soul. Which is the more important? Omissions in This Issue.—We regret to omit in this number the article in the series, “Restoration from Babylon.” The title of the article is “Backsliding to Confirmed Apostasy.” It is of both interest and importance in the essential principles it sets forth. It will be printed next week. We omit also three departments, the Outlook, Missions, and Question Corner. With our Outlook department omitted, go our news items and notes on current events. These will be resumed next week. Among the most hopeful items, and germane to this paper, is the news of assured peace in South Africa. We hope it is permanent. The Boers would have been much better off if they had wiser sympathizers. They have been urged to wage destructive and profitless conflict, till they are well-nigh destroyed. Electrical Disturbances.—In the first volume of a supplement to the Encyclopedia Britannica, which has just appeared, under the head of “Atmosphere,” it is shown that thunderstorms are increasing in a decided way over all civilized Europe. The years 1820 to 1830 they averaged twelve a year. The decade from 1880 to 1890 the average was twenty-two a year. The old earth is waxed old, and these disturbances are incidental to her sore sickness of sin. Sometime her struggle will be over, and from her ruins, God, by His creative power, will bring new heavens and new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. And then “there shall be no more curse,” for the former things will forever have passed away. Surely every lover of Christian missions will wish England well in her new ruler, whose coronation takes place June 26. Every lover of Christian missions, we say, because there has been no government of earth which has advanced the cause of missions more than that of Great Britain. Wherever the union jack floats, there the missionary is free. And Britain has done this, not by interference, not by gift and promotion, but by non-interference, by letting alone, by giving the Christian minister equal footing with all other men and teachers. Christianity asks no more, a free government could grant no less. Britain has her imperfections, so have her people, so have all the governments and people of earth; but we praise God that British rule has been so wide, its influence so far-reaching, in the great field of liberty. And therefore we wish King Edward VII. a wise and prosperous reign,—a blessing to his people and a blessing to the world,—that the Gospel of Christ may run, have free course, and be glorified. We are glad that at his coronation peace is effected with the Boers. We hope that it may be lasting, and, the war being over, that the everlasting Gospel may be freely preached all through South Africa.