News and Miscellany

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 9, 1872

News and Miscellany.

“Can ye not discern the signs of the times?”

LONDON, Jan. 4. Official advices from Ispahan show that the famine in Persia continues without diminution. Entire districts have been depopulated, and the efforts of the government to afford relief are unavailing.

Although the arrest and imprisonment of Brigham Young on the charge of murder has been expected for a short time back, and is not, therefore, entirely a surprise, still it is an event of startling importance; and one that shows how great a revolution has already been wrought in Utah, where now the law lays its hand unresisted upon the Mormon prophet, and hauls him off to jail, under peril of his life, even though the jail be one of his own houses, in lieu of a better. The refusal of the court to accept bail was proper, as the offense charged is one not usually bailable; and the law ought to be no respecter of persons, so that the court ought not to show any more leniency to Brigham Young than it would to the most obscure roving miner, or hunter. Five years ago, the bare attempt to arrest Brigham Young would have caused an instant revolt on the part of the Mormons. But times have changed wonderfully. The “prophet” may be guarded, as the Mormons once supposed, by legions of angels; but they are powerless to dispute the authority of the marshal, armed with a writ from the United States courts; and even superstition must lose its faith in the sacredness of a “prophet” whose person has been desecrated by the clutch of the constable and the confinement of a jail.—Det. Post.

The stars in their courses seem to have fought against the poor Pope, as they did against Sisera of old times; at least, one of them. On the 27th of November, the very day when the Italian Parliament was opened in Rome by Victor Emanuel, thus completing the downfall of the temporal power, a star was seen with the naked eye at high noon by all the citizens, who accepted it as an omen favorable to the new regime. It was the star of the excommunicated King that was in the ascendant in the heavens, as well as on earth; while that of the Holy Father hid its head in darkness. This melancholy fact is well known His Holiness acknowledges, while protesting against it, by shutting himself up in the Vatican, and declaring himself a prisoner, though free to go whither he will. A sad proof of this he gave just a month before the apparition of this star, on the occasion of the official recognition, or preconization, of the newly appointed Italian bishops. This ceremony was performed with the usual ceremonies, and in the usual place—the Consistorial Chamber. But it was not a consistory, because the Pope, you see, was not free. He did not wear the white cassock with a train, nor the rochet, nor the camail, “nor the majestic falda,” whatever this may be; the cardinals did not use their painted and gilded coaches, with three laced footmen behind and two on the box; the prelates of the pontifical household wore the black cassock, instead of the violet one; and the officers of the noble guard and the Swiss guard were in undress, instead of full-dress uniform. Zion was in distress and in mourning. And yet that star appeared at mid-day on the day of the triumph of the infidel! His Holiness should have fulminated a bull against it, as his predecessor did against the comet.—N. Y. Independent.

The Rev. Athanase Coquerel, the distinguished Unitarian clergyman from Paris, lectured in Boston, last week, on the rise and decline of Romanism. He argued that when one religion passes away and another succeeds, those who come from the old into the new never come empty-handed. They bring with them many ideas, wants, and habits they have been accustomed to; and you often see the old religion reappearing in the new, as the old name on a repainted sign-board sometimes shows itself under the new owner’s name. In this way the Roman Catholic Church, though a Christian church, has absorbed a great deal of the Roman paganism, even to the signs and symbols. One striking illustration of this truth was cited by Mr. Coquerel in the origin of the pontifical title. On one side of a Roman obelisk it is inscribed that Caesar Augustus (Pontifex Maximus) ordered it brought to Rome. On the other side it reads that Pontiff Sextus ordered its erection. They were both pontiffs, but one was a Pagan Emperor, and the other a Christian priest. There is no such word as pontiff in the New Testament. It means “bridge-builder.” When Rome was a little town, twenty-five hundred years ago, the bridge over the Tiber was necessary to the defense of the city. They had an order of men called “bridge-makers” to keep these bridges in order. One of them was called chief pontiff, and it was made a crime to quarrel with or strike him, so important were his official duties. So “pontiff” became the most sacred of titles. The kings, consuls and emperors assumed it in succession. The Catholic Church, preserving much of the traditional lore of Rome, preserved this also; and Pius the Ninth, heir to those “who kept the bridge” (in repair) “in those brave days of old,” now proclaims himself the Supreme Ruler of this world; the builder of a bridge, forsooth, between this world and the next.