Editorial Notes by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 10, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 49.

Editorial Notes

By Editor

SEE our prospectus on page 15.

READ the notices of our libraries on page 14. Here are valuable numbers for circulation.

OUR subscription list now numbers about 25,000. Shall we not, with the help of our friends, soon double this number? This is what some of our friends are saying. What do you say?

THERE will be two more issues of the SIGNS OF THE TIMES this year, namely, December 17 and 24. We have promised but fifty numbers to a volume, but the issue of December 24 will make fifty-one. We are sure our friends will appreciate this.

IN another column will be found an article, "Christ or Creed; Which?" This is not a mere theory which confronts us; it is a condition, vital to continued life and being. It comes home to the heart of every individual. Reader, in what is your trust—a cold, formal, dead creed? or in the living Christ?

To Our Correspondents.—We sincerely trust that our many correspondents will be patient with the editorial department over the matter of correspondence. We hope to answer all letters demanding reply in time; but of late letter-writing has seemed to be crowded out by other matters of moment which could not be neglected. That letters have not been answered has been a matter of necessity, not of choice.

It is a precious thought, beautifully expressed, in the article by Sister White on "Union with Christ," found on page 5: "As the husbandman prunes the branches of the fruit-bearing trees that they may bear more fruit, so the Lord prunes those who are endeavoring to serve him. Often by pruning away the unhealthy growth of temporal and secular interests which endanger heart and character, he causes pain. But he works with no wanton hand and indifferent heart. It is in love to his children that he cuts away the growth which threatens to destroy the health and life of the soul." Excellent indeed is the whole article. Who indeed would not have union with Christ?

HAVE you, dear reader, been interested in the SIGNS OF THE TIMES during the past year? Why not, then, interest your neighbor? Every family needs a good religious paper which is faithful to the Gospel of Christ in the presentation of present truth. Will you place before your neighbors, in a kindly way, the SIGNS? In that way we may be of mutual help to them and each other.

OUR article on United States History reveals to us some of the outward and political causes which separated the American colonies from the mother country. There was also another element involved which Professor Morris has not noted, and that was a desire on the part of many colonists, notably in Virginia, for religious freedom. They desired liberty of conscience, unfettered by civil statutes, an entire separation of church and state. This was developed more fully about the time of the adoption of the Constitution, altho its seed had been in existence from the first settlement in America.

WE MAY KNOW.

THE Catholic Mirror of October 10, in speaking of the coming of the new "apostolic delegate," Monsignor Martinelli, said:—

"There is no longer any serious dread among intelligent people, or, indeed, those of common sense, in the United States, of Rome. What the Catholic Church is, what she is doing for humanity, we see around us every day and every hour; and what the world would be without her we may in some degree imagine."

That we run the risk of placing ourselves among those who are not "intelligent," and who do not have "common sense," in what we have said and may say concerning the Roman Catholic Church we are aware; but we trust that in so doing "we are fools for Christ's sake." Against Roman Catholics as persons, as individuals, we bear no malice, ill will, or dislike. They are all the purchase of the blood of our blessed Lord, from the pope in the Vatican at Rome to the last and humblest nun just entered upon her novitiate. We condemn not one of them. That is a matter which belongs to God. But we are unalterably opposed to the principles of the Papacy, the principles on which the Roman Catholic Church is founded. We believe that they are contrary to the principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ,—antagonistic to the free grace of God, to personal faith and personal relation to Jesus Christ, and subversive of religious and civil liberty. That system, of which the Papacy is the wonderful masterpiece, separates God from man, puts God afar off, surrounds him with a cordon of hierarchs and lesser deities, through which it is almost impossible for the soul to break to gaze upon God's immutable love and infinite pity; and few indeed ever do. The glory of his measureless grace is bestowed upon innumerable saints, whose character is made more merciful, whose pity is made more responsive, than that of God's. We believe that God has abundantly warned us against this system from days of old in the "more sure word of prophecy;" that history furnishes abundant illustration from Babylon of old that its existence is ruinous to both church and state; that it is responsible for much of the evil of the Dark Ages; and that the world would be much better off without it. All this we believe we may know from the word of God.

At the same time we believe that there are many honest and sincere Roman Catholic Christians, not because of the system, but in spite of it. And we not only recognize, but we contend, that every Roman Catholic, so far as man is concerned, has the same right to his religion as has any one else on the face of the earth; no man or set of men has the right to compel or coerce him to believe otherwise. As to the right of the matter before God, no man or set of men is competent to judge, and all such judgment God has reserved to himself at the last day. Meanwhile we preach, as we understand it, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and beseech all, Catholic or Protestant, Jew or gentile, bond or free, to look and live, to make Jesus Christ their personal Saviour and friend.

Reason for a Sunday Law.

One of the reasons urged for a Sunday law by a writer in the Pacific Christian is the following:—

"We have laws to protect the public health. It can be shown that a day of rest promotes health."

And because a day of rest promotes health, therefore we should have a Sunday law. It can be shown that a certain number of hours' sleep promotes health; that the use of certain foods and drinks promotes health; that the wearing of woolen underclothing promotes health; therefore let the Legislature of California pass a law that all men shall retire at a certain hour, and shall remain in bed for a certain time. Let the Legislature prescribe the diet and clothing; in fact, everything else which pertains to man's health; and let the state be a great big father or mother to care for its imbecile children. So much for a health Sunday law. Here is another reason by the same writer, Mr. J. H. McCollough:—

"Good parents make their children keep still while their superiors talk; so the law ought to compel some people to keep still while good people worship."

And this gives the secret of the whole thing. Religious people are not willing to meet what they consider sinful and wrong in fair, honest, open competition. We want others compelled to silence while we talk. If Christianity can not meet men on the basis of the Golden Rule it has lost its savor. This writer—and he is not alone—would be willing to compel, if he could, some people to keep still while he worships; would he be willing that some people should compel him to keep still while they danced or played? If he is in favor of the first he should be of the second. There is no compulsion in Christianity except of love and righteousness and truth.

What Think Ye of Christ?

There are some that have very narrow views of him and his work. For instance, a "Christian" paper before us, in referring to that part of the Scriptures called the Old Testament, says, "It contained not a single command of Christ." Now the simple fact is that all the word of God came through Christ (1 Cor. 8:6; John 1:1-3); that he was the Angel, or Messenger, of God's presence in the wilderness (Ex. 23:20, 21; Isa. 63:9), and that he gave to Moses the living oracles from Mount Sinai (Acts 7:38). It was the Spirit of Christ that preached through Noah (1 Peter 3:18-20), and which testified through the prophets (1 Peter 1:10, 11). In fact, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, of all that pertains to man's salvation. What think ye of Christ? Is he merely the son of Joseph? or is he the Son of God?

THE true church (ekklesia), the called out ones, of Jesus Christ, are those who have accepted his call to separate themselves from sin and iniquity and be holy unto him. "If ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." It is not fleshly descent; it is not continuity of official ministration, that makes a child of God or the true church of Christ; it is constant living connection with the True Vine which makes the living branch, and that connection is made by simple faith in God's word.

THE price of the Bible Students' Library is now twenty-five cents a year; and the publishers propose to give the subscriber his money's worth in the year to come. May we not have many subscribers to this publication at this price? The regular numbers are four, and there will be extras