p. 688 | News and Comment by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 4, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 43.

News and Comment

By Editor

MR. ALBERT A. POPE, of Boston, suggests a good measure for giving relief to the unemployed throughout the country. His plan is for county and municipal authorities to inaugurate good road enterprises within their respective jurisdictions. It is a fact that this country is notoriously deficient in the matter of good roads, and, without doubt, this is an opportune moment to procure abundant laborers at reasonable wages, and the good to be done in relieving want and allaying the “tramp” evil would be incalculable.

THE underlying motive for settling a permanent papal delegate in the United States is thus stated (and it is probably correct) by the Evening Tribune of this city:—

The past year has been remarkable in more ways than one in Catholic America. No one knows how nearly there came to being an American Catholic Church with Archbishop Corrigan at his head, had not the opportune arrival of Monsignor Satolli nipped the scheme in the bud. No man ever will know, perhaps, the extent and depth of this conspiracy. The Catholic Church keeps its own secrets, as it keeps many secrets not its own. But it is a safe prophecy that Archbishop Corrigan will find his sphere of influence greatly lessened hereafter, and that he will never now reach the red hat for which his soul has longed for many years.

A DOCTOR of this city has had a peculiar experience through his belief in Spiritualism. An intimate friend of his explains that he has been for about five years under the influence of a lot of mediums in San Francisco who have worked all manner of schemes to get money out of him. Although having a material wife, he was induced to marry a “spirit bride,” one who materialized at the seances which he attended; however, she had to obtain a divorce from another material husband before uniting with the doctor. Then came demands from the spirit lands for a variety of finery, such as silk dresses, diamonds, etc., which were theoretically dematerialized and sent to Jupiter to be worn by the spirit bride. But it has transpired that these articles were in some peculiar manner sent back and were subsequently worn by some very earthy women. But his real wife avers that she never received any of them. She further avers that he had “spirit brides” to the number of five. A man who was connected with the mediums went East and by some means became an inmate of a prison, where he made a confession exposing the conspiracy against the doctor. When a

man becomes enamored of Spiritualism he might as well be swindled in one way as in another, for the whole Satanic doctrine is a delusion and a snare that will eventually rob its votaries not only of their material means but also of eternal life.

WE have before made mention of the Retail Clerks’ Union of this city celebrating their victory in securing the Sunday closing of the stores of their employers. But a “Delegate to Federated Trades,” in a communication to a local paper, announces it as a “Sunday victory.” All these local episodes of the Sunday-closing class are quickly seized upon to swell the Sunday wave that is sweeping the liberties of the people into the vortex of Church and State union. We have reached that point in the progress of popular religious domination where civil and religious liberty is construed to apply only to those who believe in Sunday sacredness. And the Federated Trades having fallen into the current so far as this county is concerned, the abovementioned “delegate” calls down the boycott of the people upon the merchant who “has the temerity to defy the Federated Trades of Alameda County.” It is remarkable how promptly the spirit of persecution seizes upon men when they espouse the cause of enforced Sunday observance. This one fact should be enough to open the eyes of thinking people to the innate iniquity of the cause.