The Watch Tower | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 28, 1878

The Watch Tower.

“Can ye not discern the Signs of the Times?” Matt. 16:3.

THE financial crisis still continues. One of the most discouraging features connected with the failures is the disclosures of new methods of fraud. One of the oldest bankers of New England says he never knew so distrustful a time; that while the number of failures is large, the worst feature is that almost every one brings to light some new form of deception, or fraud, and that it is more difficult than he ever knew to use the money of a bank to get anything like a fair interest without endangering the principal of the loan.

THE Nashville Christian Advocate is not an alarmist. It speaks as follows about the spread of Romanism among our colored population: It seems to be generally understood that the Romish Church will in future devote special attention to the spiritual welfare of the colored people in the South, regarding them as eligible subjects for missionary work. In Alabama and Georgia the priests have already established churches, and the colored communicants can be counted by thousands.

PERSECUTION is not at an end yet in Mexico, as the missionaries have daily cause to know. A gentleman connected with the American Board in the State of Jalisco describes some of the outrages committed on converts. Recently one of them was assassinated on the streets. Many lose their employment, are driven from their houses, and are looked upon as the filth of the world by their own families. In the Pueblas one had his house burned down because he spoke of Jesus, instead of Mary; another was stoned in the plaza for not taking off his hat when the bell struck twelve o’clock; a third was followed with the cry of “Death to the Protestant,” because he read the Bible to his family and others who would listen to him. Four persons, because they possessed a Bible, had to leave their homes at midnight, under cover of darkness, to save their lives, the priest having said that the inhabitants of the place had proved themselves cowards for allowing such books in their midst, and tolerating the persons who had them. It is this church, good reader, that has undertaken, for us, to educate and religiously instruct the Freedmen of the South.

DEALERS in fire-arms report a large increase in the demand for deadly weapons during the past three years. The purchasers are from every class of society, from the rough or “knuck” to the quiet Christian traveler, and from the boy of twelve years old to the patriarch in his second childhood.