We forward this week the last received in 1911 on the Famine Fund to China. The total for the year was almost one thousand dollars — $947.79.
Calendars. — We acknowledge with sincere thanks the neat little calendar from the sanitarium and hospital at Chamberlain, South Dakota. It bears a message of cheer, and the institution it represents is doing a noble work for the sick and suffering. Also a neat calendar from W. W. Browne, Esq., of Mountain View, giving not only the current month on its face, but the one before and after. We wish also to express our appreciation of the package of "Motto Calendars" by which we have been privileged to make some hearts glad.
We acknowledge receipt, from the American Bible Society, of a card souvenir of the tercentenary year, 1911, containing a reproduction, with marginal notes omitted, of a page of Tyndale's New Testament, printed on the continent in 1525. Of the original only a fragment remains. In its 95th year the American Bible Society put into circulation 1,028,357 English Scriptures, besides 2,203,865 in other languages. A Bible can now be got for seventeen cents, a Testament for five cents, a Gospel for two cents. Do you want to help in their distribution? Send money to William Foulke, Treasurer, Bible House, New York City.
The War Spirit, and Why? — Our London Times Weekly of December 1 contains the full text of Sir Edward Grey's speech on the relations between Great Britain and Germany. The speech reveals the tremendous tension which existed for a time, and during which an unadvised word might have meant war. Referring to the fact that many people wanted war, Sir Edward said: "I do not say we are peculiar in this respect at this moment. It is really as if in the atmosphere of the world there was some mischievous influence at work which troubles and excites every part of it. We are passing this year through a period of great excitement; it is so still." There is more which we will give our readers. Would they know the source of the mischievous influence? Let them read it in Rev. 16:13, 14.
A Lawless Nation. — That is what Senator Borah called the United States at a recent dinner given by the Young Republican Club in New York. Here are his words: "We are even now, in our youth, the most lawless of any of the great civilized nations. There is no country of first importance where there is so little respect for law because it is the law." The reason is that men have forgotten God and His eternal law.
There is doubtless more or less exaggeration in the reports of the Italian cruelty in Tripoli and Russian cruelty in Persia; but if reports are half true, such things should be reprobated. War is a horrible thing, always cruel; but it would seem that women and children might be spared. What examples these are, performed by professed Christian nations! As world civilizers of the worst elements, we believe that Bibles are better than bayonets, and holy, beneficent lives better than shot and shell.
The Russian oppression — you can call it by no milder name — of little Persia, her hatred and persecution of the Jews, her intolerance of Christian denominations, the cruelties of Italian soldiers upon the Moors, the occasional Sunday prosecutions and persecutions in our own "land of the free," the ever-increasing crimes, show clearly that the old spirit of intolerance is not dead; it does not even slumber; it is temporarily suppressed; but it is like a hungry caged tiger waiting the opportunity to spring upon its prey and glut its appetite for blood. The spirit of liberty — freedom for the other man — the world as yet knows little about. Particular freedom is demanded, the freedom of the set, the class; but that is not freedom, it is the veriest tyranny. It would place a class on high and subjugate all the opponents of its theories.
True freedom is the freedom of the man, the individual. It matters not whether that man be a rich man or a poor man, of "noble" birth or "plebeian" origin, burned by tropic sun or whitened by arctic snows, engaged in manual labor or a petted dude of society, professing the Roman Catholic religion or a devout Protestant, shut up in the superstitions of Oriental philosophies or bound in the fetters of Occidental skepticism, he is entitled to freedom not because of any one or more of these things, but because he is a man, an individual. He is entitled to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," entitled to the opportunity to work out his own destiny in his own way, providing only that he does not infringe the equal rights of his fellows. A true man — a true lover of liberty — will ask no more for himself, and he will demand no less for his fellow, even his opponent.
It is not difficult to find men who have demanded liberty, civil and religious, for themselves. The Puritans demanded freedom of worship for the Puritans. They ought to have demanded it for Roger Williams and the Quakers, and granted it. Roman Catholics have demanded, do demand, freedom of worship, religious liberty, for Roman Catholics. They ought equally to demand it for the most bigoted Protestant. But this ought not to be demanded because a man is a Catholic or because he is a Protestant, but because he is a man. Preeminently the One who has stood for such liberty is Jesus Christ. He said: "If any man hear My words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. He that rejecteth Me, and receiveth not My words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day." John 12:47, 48. And when His ardent disciples wanted to visit vengeance upon those who slighted the Master, He rebuked them, saying: "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of Man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. And they went to another village." Luke 9:55, 56.
Why can not our "Christian" reformers-by-law see that law, statute, decree, the fine, the prison, the stake, are not the means of reforming men? By the agencies of the Gospel, the Word, the Spirit and power of God, through faithful, loving hearts are men reformed. Our Lord, in speaking of His disciples, declares again: "They shall put you out of the synagogs: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service. And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor Me." John 16:2, 3. This indicates the secret of all religious persecution, of all intolerance. Men who indulge it in principle or follow it in practise, whatever their profession, are but following the selfishness of the carnal; they are putting man in the place of God. He who has truly tasted of God's salvation will not, can not, be intolerant toward his fellows.
In the Heart of Africa. — Duke Adolphus Frederick of Mecklenburg, one of the rulers of the German Empire, has just come back from a two year's trip through the heart of Africa, from one ocean to the other. He tells of two wonderful peoples. The Watusi are a race of dark men with Caucasian features, some of whom are as tall as seven feet and two and one half inches, and men six feet six inches are not uncommon. Their athletic young men can without a pole vault a line nine feet high, and young boys can jump as high as five feet and two inches. This tribe is east of Lake Tanganyika. He also became better acquainted with the Batwa, or pygmy people, who tame chimpanzee apes for servants and watch-dogs. The duke tells us that "the Batwa pygmies assert that a cross between their race and the apes is not infrequent, and they pointed out a tribe who were said to be the result of such a commingling. The Batwa despise these people very much." The duke tells us that it was impossible to tell whether they were apes or men. (San Francisco Examiner of November 26, 1911.) And may not the whole simian species be the result of degenerate humans mating with lower animals?
The Bible carries with it and in it its own best evidences. It was a profound truth that Jesus uttered when He said: "If any man willeth to do His [God's] will, he shall know." We must come into harmony with God to receive His power. We must be in submission to His great law of righteousness if we would live in the channel of His life. We never learn to know those with whom we are at enmity.
We have been having a remarkable autumn and winter in this section thus far, but we have not had it all. For instance, the New York World of December 15 tells us that the warm week in December is such as has rarely if ever been known before, and one not explainable on any theory of sunspots, planetary influences, or Gulf Stream vagaries. But we have had cold nights. December 25 recorded 21 degrees Fahrenheit.
There is a bill before Congress for a change of form in the oath administered under United States jurisdiction. It proposes to eliminate the introductory clause, "I do solemnly swear," etc., and the final clause, "so help me God," and substitute, "In the presence of Almighty God I do solemnly promise!" or "declare."
There is evil in this world in its present age. There always will be. Jesus prayed, not that God should take disciples out of this world, but that He should keep them from the evil. The child of God who trusts in Christ is an "impregnable fortress" in the midst of innumerable foes.
The moving of the British government headquarters in India from Calcutta to Delhi, the old Mogul seat of empire, is a decidedly progressive step. It is more central and of better climate. The new British policy promises decided reforms.
A venerable man and prominent citizen, Mr. John Bigelow, died December 19 last in his 95th year. He was diplomat, author, editor, publicist, had filled many public offices, among which was United States minister to France 1864-67.