CHINESE PUBLICATIONS by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Aug 2, 1905

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 31.

CHINESE PUBLICATIONS

By Editor

Child Slavery.—A writer in the National Daily Review tells us that there is child slavery in Chicago, and mentions the names of three children who have been rescued by the compulsory school law, while others are beyond its reach, because of age. These children were actually bought, and turned out to service by their purchasers. This, we are also told, is not confined to foreigners alone, but to Americans as well.

Our church in this place has been greatly favored of late in having two of our leading men from foreign fields with us for a time. Brother G. A. Irwin, now vice-president of the General Conference, has given us some graphic and appealing descriptions of the great Oceanic and Australasian field; and Sabbath, July 22, Brother F. W. Field gave us an interesting talk on experiences in Korea and Japan. God has greatly blessed, especially in the former country. Brother Field sails August 7, from Vancouver for Japan. May God abundantly bless him and his coworkers.

A country newspaper published in this state presents on one page a short, pointed temperance lecture, in the form of an incident, while on another page are two saloon advertisements. The scripture says that "a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways," and the publisher of such a paper must be double-minded. The same apostle writes: "He that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord." It is the treating of the liquor traffic as a legitimate business by licensing it and giving it favorable notice in the family papers, that gives it such a fatal grasp on the people.

Better a "man of God" in a wilderness than the mightiest institution in a great city. The latter may attract to destructive shelter (Amos 5:19); the former brings life and power to men and points to the sheltering refuge of the Rock of Ages (John 1:29).

CHINESE PUBLICATIONS.

WE take pleasure in noting the receipt of four tracts from Mrs. J. N. Anderson, one of our Chinese missionaries. These tracts are as follows:

No. 1. "Know Ye Thy Creator?" an original publication prepared by J. N. Anderson. It is an appeal to God's manifest works as an evidence of His existence, wisdom, power, and authority. The price is $1.50 per 100.

No. 2. "The Sinner's Need of Christ." This is the translation into Chinese of a chapter in "Steps to Christ." Price $1.00 per 100.

No. 3. "The True Sabbath," a tract written by Keh Nga Pit, the Chinese minister who accepted the truth in Amoy about a year ago; it is a fresh, strong presentation of the Sabbath by one who knows how to present it in truly native style. $2.50 per 100.

The three tracts above are published in "easy Man-li," or the universal book language of Chinese characters, and may be understood by any Chinese or Japanese of ordinary education.

No. 4. "Questions and Answers on the First Sixteen Chapters of Genesis," by E. Pilquist, of Honan. It is intended as an introduction to the study of the Scriptures in the Mandarin dialect, which will be understood especially by Chinese in the northern part of China, and by any one well versed in Chinese characters.

We are glad that these publications have been issued, and we believe they will be of great help in winning souls from the false God to the only God.

Now are there not many of our readers who are living near Chinese, and who desire to help them? Why not order some of these tracts? If you can not do this, why not pay for 100 or more of each for our missionaries to distribute? All money sent for this purpose to the Signs of the Times, Mountain View, Cal., will be forwarded to J. N. Anderson, in charge of the Chinese Mission. It is a great, needy field; if you can not give much, give little.

A Misstatement of Facts.—It is to be hoped that the National Daily Review, the woman's paper of Chicago, is more correct in its news than in the theology which the Rev. John Vinton Potts furnishes for its readers on the Sabbath question. Without a shadow of fact, he states that God's seventh day of Genesis 1 was man's first day, thus giving the lie to the record; that "to the Jews in the wilderness, the Sabbath was set back one day;" and that all other nations kept the true seventh day in keeping the Sunday. All this is worse than pure assumption; it is not so, whether Mr. Potts knows it or not. Adam's first day was the sixth day, during which he did much work, as naming all the animals, etc. The languages of many nations, so far as their language shows anything, indicate the same week as the Jew held, with the last day the sacred rest day. Lucifer, taking advantage of the fact that light came on the world's dark void in connection with the first day of time, induced the nations which forgot God to dedicate that day to the sun. It was a rival day to the Sabbath and not a perversion of the Sabbath. Jesus Christ by precept, example, and death, honored the Decalogue in its every part and the Sabbath also; but never honored, in any way, the first day of the week. God's law and Christ's example still stand, and will stand forever. The arguments of Mr. Potts are based upon one of a half dozen mutually-devouring theories, like the Kilkenny cats. These theories which error has invented against the Sabbath of the Lord can not exist together; each, if truth, would destroy all the others. The truth destroys them all.

Atheism in Jewish Sunday-Schools.

One of the greatest Jews in the country, Dr. Emil Hirsch, of the Union College of Chicago, spent a recent week in San Francisco, and, in one of his sermons, stated some truth, which it is not only well for Jews to hear, but Christians also. He tells us that when men "achieve success, they feel independent of the Creator. The man whose fortune came easy is the last one to acknowledge that God was with him. His son and his daughter will not say that God is with them. . . . They think of Deity with profanity, because God is not on the bill of fare; He is not on the visiting-list, nor on the visiting card; He is not in the Blue-book." How true that is, and how many times it would bring a chilliness into the social atmosphere, if men spoke even in the most hopeful terms of the religion of Jesus Christ; that is, of the Biblical Christ. It would be said to be out of place. He stated again: "Our Sunday-schools have done more to spread Atheism than anything I know of;" and that, if he were an Atheist, he would "certainly urge on the present system of Sunday-schools." And then he tells us the reason: That "commercial ideas prevail. Religion is merely a scheme of getting something." He pleads for an ethical religion. And yet, more than an ethical religion is needed, not in Judaism alone, but in Christianity. Power is needed as well as ethics. Just as long as any religion is considered from its ethical standpoint alone, it will fail. True Biblical Christianity is the one religion which offers, not ethics, but life, and out of the life grows the ethics. Ethics are merely general forms which the life takes, and are guides as to whether the true energy is working within or not; but ethics without life is only a dead form.

A Lesson.

Japan has given some splendid illustrations of loyalty and devotion which Christians would do well to keep in their sphere. There are many young men to-day who are living worldly lives, who would have been out in the great mission field saving souls, if it had not been that some fond parents had kept them at home—some mother, who felt that she could not spare her boy, has seen him lost to the world and to God. It is said that a Japanese mother, on hearing that her son was exempted from military service, on the ground that she was dependent upon his earnings, took a dagger, plunged it into her own heart, and, giving the dagger to her son, told him now he was free to fight for the father-land. He immediately entered the service. She felt that no Nippon mother could stand between her son and his duty. So no Christian mother ought to stand between her child and the call God makes to that child.

Even an infidel can hardly think of a worse thing to say to one whom he dislikes than to speak of him as being God-forsaken. Yet it is a condition to which the majority of human beings is fast hardening. The sure Word of the Lord says: "Jehovah is with you, while ye are with Him; and if ye seek Him, He will be found of you; but if ye forsake Him, He will forsake you." How much wiser it would be to take advantage of His gracious offer, "Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you!" And this admonition is timely: "Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon."

Not Always Matter, but Manner.

Error, falsehood, is always bad. It can not in its very nature develop strong, truthful souls. It will ever lead to the "father of lies." But the truth is not always effective, especially if given in an indifferent manner, or in a purely intellectual way, as it often is at the present day. Effectual preaching is not of this character. Here is an example: "And it came to pass in Iconium that they entered together into the synagog of the Jews, and so spoke that a great multitude both of Jews and of Greeks believed." Acts 14:1. The message had become a part of the men, the men living exponents of the message, and voices of God. So now ought the heralds of the Gospel to speak.