MOUNTAIN VIEW, CAL., JULY 3, 1907
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MOUNTAIN VIEW, CAL., JULY 3, 1907
By Editor
We send no papers from this office to individuals without pay in advance. 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 to pay for them. Please read the papers you may receive, and hand them to your friends to read. Our authority is the Bible, the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. When the Common ("King James" or "Authorized") Version, or the American Standard Revised Version is used, quotations will not be designated in reference. Any Bible quotation in this paper, therefore, differing from the Common Version, unless otherwise indicated, will be almost invariably from the American Standard edition of the Revised Bible, copyright 1901, by Thomas Nelson & Sons. We call attention to a little article by one of our appreciated correspondents, A. M. H., on "Summer Hygiene," attention to which will save in many homes doctor's bills. We are sure that the readers of this issue will get a fairly good idea of religious liberty from the American and Biblical view-point. Very much more might be said on both aspects, but the great foundation principles are found in this paper. We have reproduced what ought to be a familiar old document to every intelligent American, the Declaration of Independence, on page ten; and yet we are persuaded that there are very many who have never read it; many, we presume, have never even heard it read. If to such this paper comes we beg them to read it carefully, not so much the particular instances of British oppression that are referred to, but the great underlying principles which moved the fathers of this country to separate from Great Britain. In passing we would note one mistake that is very frequently made—just recently we have noted two instances, one by a minister and one by a lawyer—in quoting the expression, "All men are created equal." It is many times quoted, "All men are created free and equal." That is not the meaning of the authors of the Declaration. All men are created equal before God in point of rights, but all do not come into this world in that condition. On page ten are two insignificant illustrations which are worthy of passing notice. One is an old-fashioned, two-story house where Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence; the other the old-fashioned hand press, called the "Ephrata Press" from the town where it was last owned, Ephrata, Pa. It is now in the possession of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. It belongs to a more remote era than the Ramage Press, and is wholly of wood, except where the use of iron is necessary. It will take a sheet about as large as a seven-column newspaper. It varies but slightly, if at all, from the press described by Moxon in 1683, and used by the first printers of Philadelphia, Bradford, Keimer, and Franklin. But one of the most interesting things connected with this particular press is that upon it was printed the Declaration of Independence, not only in English, but in five other languages into which it was translated by Elder Peter Miller. During this time it was owned by the Seventh-day Baptists who settled in Germantown. It was purchased by Mr. Miller, who was a graduate of Heidelberg University, about the year 1745. In 1876 the old press was again brought forth and the Declaration of Independence was again printed upon it. It is also interesting to note that the Sabbath truth has always been connected with the principles of religious liberty, or vice versa; not that the adherents of the Sabbath have always enjoyed liberty, for they have frequently, in different ages, been persecuted; but he who espouses the Sabbath truth as it is in Christ Jesus, also espouses the principles of religious liberty, for they are both one.