p. 688 | The Signs of the Times by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 11, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 43.

The Signs of the Times.

By Editor

OAKLAND, CAL., SECOND-DAY, NOVEMBER 11, 1889.

We send no papers from this office without pay in advance unless by special arrangement. When persons receive copies, without ordering them, they are sent by other parties, and we can give no information in regard to them. Persons thus receiving copies of the Signs are not indebted to the office, and will not be called upon for pay. Please read the papers and hand them to your friends to read.

WE are requested to announce a ministerial and biblical institute for Portland, Oregon, from November 14 to December 7. Elders Loughborough, Waggoner, Fulton, and Decker will be present. It is hoped that there will be a full attendance at this important meeting.

NOTWITHSTANDING the late visit of the czar to Berlin and the peace talk indulged in upon that occasion, Germany evidently regards war as one of the likely things; the readiness of the Reichstag to vote large sums of money for the army indicate this. Actions speak louder than words.

THE General Conference Daily Bulletin brings us the sad intelligence that Elder J. E. Swift, of Cleveland, Ohio, is dead. He was president of the Ohio Tract and Missionary Society. This is all the more sad as we had just learned that he was recovering from a severe attack of typhoid fever. His bereaved companion has our sympathies in her affliction.

OUR Melbourne, Australia, contemporary of October 1 has the following item, which will be of interest to many of our readers, especially in California, where Brother Driver is known:—

"We are glad to chronicle the arrival of Brother Chas. B. Driver, from Oakland, Cal., who will take charge of the stereotyping and rubber-stamp work to be established in connection with our office."

REV. MR. BARBOUR, a Baptist minister of Chicago, has created a local sensation by presenting to his brother preachers some unusual views about the personality of the devil. Mr. Barbour, it is said, denies the existence of any such being as Satan. His position gives joy to the editor of New Thought (Spiritualist), but we do not know that it is any worse than a great many views now held by so-called ministers of the gospel. The fact is that the modern church is honey-combed with infidelity, and it is doubtful if it is comparatively any more common in the pews than in the pulpit.

WE are glad that there are some editors who are sufficiently intelligent to discriminate in religious matters. It has been stated over and over again, at various times and by many of the journals of the country, that Second Adventists, or Adventists, were looking for the world to come to an end at a certain date. Frequently it is the teaching of some single individual which gives rise to the rumor. But what we wish to say is that there is one class of Adventists, namely, Seventh-day Adventists, which has never set times; their very principles forbid it. The Detroit Commercial Advertiser, we are glad to note, recognizes this, as the following from their issue of the 24th ultimo will show:—

"The Second Adventists, not the Seventh-day Adventists, but a distinct combination of Scripture interpreters, some forty thousand in number, are expecting the world to come to an end before the close of this month."

But our contemporary should no more say that people have a show of reason for losing faith in the infallibility of the Bible because some have set times, than that men should lose faith in the infallibility of the Bible because of other erroneous predictions, the conversion of the world, for instance. The prophecies of the Bible are for man's enlightenment and good; but, like any other blessing, they can be perverted.

IT is stated that one William Morrison, a minister of the gospel recently married two couples before ten thousand people at the Portland, Oregon, exposition, for which service he sent the association a bill for $50, accompanied by a note in which he said:—

"You may think my bill extravagant, but you cannot expect a minister of God to make a holy show of himself for nothing."

Charity would suggest to anyone the thought that this minister married the couples under the circumstances seeing no impropriety in so doing, but his note to the association forbids the idea. If the matter is properly reported, he deliberately sold himself to do an improper thing to make an "unholy show of himself" for money.

CARDINAL MANNING makes the statement that if every church or chapel or place of worship of every sort and kind in the city of London were filled three times to the full on every Sunday, they could not contain more than about 1,500,000 out of a total population of 4,000,000 souls. "There must be, therefore," says the Cardinal, "2,500,000 who never can physically set their feet in any place of divine worship or any place where the name and existence of God are recognized." "The fact," remarks the San Francisco Post, "is proportionately true of most other large cities. It is the greatest of arguments for home missionary work, so sadly neglected in San Francisco. The total absence of missionary effort in the abandoned sections of this city is a discredit to its Christian churches."

THE New York Observer is about the most outspoken anti-Catholic paper which comes to our table, and, as might be expected, it says many good and true things about the Papacy. But sometimes the Observer allows its zeal to overcome its better judgment, and it says things not borne out by the facts. For instance, in commenting upon a recent utterance of Premier Crispi, it says:—

"The pope would do well to learn wisdom. He is losing spiritual influence while seeking so assiduously to secure temporal power. In some senses that may be all the better for humanity in general, as the less influence of any kind the pope possesses the better is it for the nations of the earth."

The latter part of this is true, but the first part is not. It seems to us that the spiritual influence and power of the pope are steadily increasing. Never since 1798 have all nations been so ready to show honor to the Papacy as now, and it is useless to disguise the fact.

THE Church Union publishes, with evident approbation, a short article by Doctor Lowrie, in which occur the following words:—

"In Hindustan, wherever there is an English court of justice, and Hindoos are to be sworn, they are sworn on water. In this country we swear witnesses on the Bible. But the Ganges is the sacred stream of the Hindoos, and the English, who live in India, conform to the religious prejudices of these ignorant people by using the water of their sacred river for this purpose. It is well to do this. Early Christians had to do it in heathen countries. The early church very wisely took certain heathen days and made holy days of them. The early Christian churches were often heathen temples put to a better use."

If this does not show a perfect confusion of ideas we are very much mistaken. There is a reason, and a good one too, for the custom of English courts in Hindustan, or rather there are two good reasons, namely, (1) that form of oath binds the conscience of the witness and thus aids in eliciting truthful testimony, and (2) to require a Hindoo to take a Christian oath would be doing as great violence to his conscience as would be done to a Christian's conscience by requiring him to be sworn on "sacred water." The principle of religious liberty requires that every man shall be free to take only such an oath as he can without doing violence to his religious convictions. And if courts are wise they will certainly administer to each witness such an oath as will bind his conscience, otherwise the oath is of no value except to make the witness liable for perjury if he testifies falsely.

But there is absolutely no reason why Christians should adopt heathen customs or heathen days. Indeed, the very principle which demands that Christians shall allow Hindoos to be sworn on the sacred water of the Ganges demands that they shall not adopt heathen oaths and heathen customs for themselves. Christians should at least be as consistent as are the heathen.