Topics of the Day by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Oct 17, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 41.

Topics of the Day

By Editor

It is stated that Dr. August F. Schaefer, of Bakersfield, California, has a serum which will cure consumption. He claims that many cures have resulted from it. Some doctors have faith in it; but he is not yet ready to make it public. We shall be glad if it is true.

It is said that there are now twenty-four vacant cardinalates, and the pope has the privilege of bestowing twenty-four red hats upon as many aspirants. Pressure, it is said, is being brought to bear upon the pope to fill the vacancies. Mr. Edward C. Trutt, correspondent of the Hearst papers, says that the present pontiff has created fewer cardinals during the eight years of his pontificate, than any of his predecessors during a like period of time. He is distinctly averse to the bestowal of the coveted red hats, chiefly, it is said, for economic reasons. But we are told that the prelates are growing impatient. Rumor is that no fewer than ten new cardinals will soon be created, among whom will be the archbishop of San Francisco.

Elbert Hubbard, in the San Francisco "Examiner" of September 6, makes this prophecy: "In America conscription will never again be attempted." This is like a lot of other prophecies; but notwithstanding all the attempts at arbitration and peace, war will come, and conscription will be demanded. We do not make this as a prophecy. We simply say that it is the logic of conditions.

The new treaty between Japan and England does not demand that England shall help Japan against America. This article covers it: "Should either high contracting party conclude a treaty of general arbitration with a third power, it is agreed that nothing in this agreement shall entail upon such contracting party an obligation to go to war with a power with whom such treaty of arbitration is in force." Under the old treaty England would have had to assist Japan against America.

The Socialists of Germany cast twenty-seven per cent of the entire vote, and elect less than eleven per cent of the deputies of the Reichstag. Sometimes Socialists will devise a way of making their influence felt, if not by votes, in some other way. The strongest party in the Reichstag now is the center, or Roman Catholic, party, numbering 105. If Socialists had their own, they would probably have 125 or 130.

In 1800, 79,216 souls were living on the territory now occupied by New York City; now the health board of that city estimate it at 5,000,407. New York is already more populous than London proper; and it is thought that in two years, with its suburbs it will exceed greater London. In fifteen months, since the federal census was taken, its growth has been 233,524. It is the most rapidly growing city in the world.

Dr. Benjamin W. Bacon, of Yale University, declared recently in the First Congregational Church of Berkeley, California, that what Dr. Charles N. Eliot meant by the "religion of the future" was a religion based on the Sermon on the Mount. But that is not the religion of Christ. The ethics of the Sermon on the Mount are Christian — there is no question as to that; but ethics without faith in Christ as the way, the truth, the life, are disappointing and hopeless. What are ethics without power?