The Fleet and the City.
By Editor
THIS issue of our journal marks an event of note in the history of California and San Francisco. The gathering of the great armada will be one of the greatest displays of fighting-machines which this generation has seen. Its peaceful trip of the war fleet around "The Horn" without mishap will be hailed by ardent admirers as an epic in the military marine history of the nation. From the first intimation of its coming it has been a matter of interest, remark, conversation, and article. The commander of the fleet—Admiral Robley D. Evans—has been greeted in anticipation as a conquering hero many times, and all sympathize with the veteran officer because of his indisposition. No providence preventing, the coming of the fleet will be a great gala day for San Francisco. The city will also be of interest to the comers by land or sea. Three years ago San Francisco was the Queen of the West. One year later the city by the Golden Gate was lying literally in sackcloth and ashes. The mighty quake had shaken and broken her buildings and streets, and the consequent fires burned out her very heart. Never ancient ruin looked more desolate and hopeless. Only he who saw it then could know the vastness of the ruin, the heaps of desolation, the awful and tremendous loss of life and property. It was predicted she would never rise again. The restoration of the city has been marvelous. To one who has known the handicaps and hindrances and barriers in the shape of halting and grinding insurance companies, in exorbitant and prohibitive prices in all building commodities, labor included, in the greed and graft of corrupt city officials, and commercial companies, together with a threatened epidemic of plague, it is wonderful, the work which has been wrought. Ruins have been cleared away, basements and foundations settled deep and deeper in the earth, and from these great steel and concrete structures have arisen like temples in a night, till parts of the city are better builded than ever before; and the great wastes of desert are rapidly becoming small islands. These evidences of tremendous energy and determination will be appreciated only by those who have known the loss. One can but wonder at what might have been done if the spirit manifested for a few weeks after the fire had continued, if the saloons had been kept closed, and if greed and graft had been smothered in embryo. And yet, we would be neither a good friend to the city nor a faithful watchman of God if we did not say that a city shall not stand unless it is established in righteousness and equity. Men may build of steel and cement; they may sink the foundations to the virgin rock, yet the corroding power of sin in the hearts of men that rule will crumble the walls of steel and leave the foundations of rock. It is well to honor men, to "honor all men," for the work they have done, are doing, and will do, and for the possibilities of character within if the will is yielded to the grace of God, but it is better to "fear God, and give Him glory." Rev. 14:7. In His decisions, determined by the choice of each of us, lie our destinies. Weigh all things in the balances of His sanctuary. THE only true outlook of worldly things is from the watch-tower of God. He who looks from any of the towers erected by human wisdom sees but in part. His vision is absorbed in strong lights or deep shadows, and he loses even the outline of the important. The nearer objects of vision, often-times small and insignificant, obscure the great and essential. The near by-way seems larger than the more distant traveled road. The little, sluggish, artificial canal seems more than the mighty stream of time on which empires are drifting to destruction. A mere partisan measure of to-day hides the eternal moral principle. A name of some exalted human hero shuts from our view the great God and our duty to Him. "We see dimly in the present what is small and what is great." The temporal, worldly view is always a present view; it is the view of the sensuous, the covetous; it is the view of the brute. But the outlook from the watch-tower of God takes in time past, present, and future. The observer sees the great Stadium of Time, and the nations passing in review before him. Babylon, Egypt, Assyria, Judah, Persia, Greece, Rome, are fallen. The divided nations of earth are struggling for conquest, for enlargement, for power, wealth, and glory. Just on before lie the tremendous issues of the judgment of God and the coming of the King of Kings, in whose presence nations and kingdoms shrivel and perish. In human view Might often makes Right; de facto de jure; but in God's plan and outlook there is one eternal standard of Right; and the end demonstrates that it is eternal Might. O friend, turn thee to the true light, the "more sure word of prophecy"! Go up into the mount with God.