Office Notes and Announcements
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. Are you an Israelite or a Gentile? Read the article bearing on this subject next week. We have a second linotype in, and we have two sets of hands busy, running the machines from eighteen to twenty hours a day. We print in this issue another instalment of donations. If the name of any one is wrongly credited, kindly inform us. Next week we will begin a prophetic study of the Papacy. This will be of special interest in connection with present developments. God is greatly blessing in our work. Nearly all are working overtime freely, and donating the overtime work. We have months and months of work in sight. Many other expressions of sympathy have come to us. We can not publish them all, and we are sure that they were not sent for publication, but to hearten the workers in the trouble. And we thank them for the words of good cheer. They are evidence of the oneness of God's work. A riot in the city of Tokyo, Japan, occurred on the night of the 5th inst., caused by the agitation against the fares charged on the street-cars, which, it is claimed, are too high. Excitement spread throughout the city and several street-car stations were destroyed. Many policemen and passengers were injured, and ninety-two persons were arrested. Thus Japan is becoming "civilized," "Westernized," and some people say "Christianized." Various Versions.—The SIGNS OF THE TIMES uses the common, or King James, Version, but it uses also the American Standard Revised Version, published by Thomas Nelson & Sons, New York. The editor frankly confesses and gladly proclaims that he prefers it to any other English version. The older versions were translated from inaccurate texts. That is, the Hebrew and Greek texts of the Old and New Testaments were not original copies, nor copies of the original copies. There are, so far as men are aware, no original copies of the writers of the Sacred Record extant. But in the last century especially there have been copies discovered in various places very much earlier, very much nearer the fountainhead, than any possessed by the translators of our Common Version. As skeptics within and without the church were casting doubt upon the Bible, God's providence has brought to light through earnest students, sometimes seemingly by accident, many manuscripts, and much earlier manuscripts. These earlier manuscripts are not copies of one earlier copy, but have come down to us through entirely independent channels, each one confirming and making clearer the others. The American Standard Revised Version is translated from and revised by these earlier, better copies of the Sacred Scriptures. The men who have translated it were not authorized to do so by a tradition-bound king. The American Committee was composed of the greatest scholars of the nation, representing great educational institutions and many denominations. These scholars, that they might give to the world the very best translation of God's story to men, spent nearly thirty years of devout study and research that the very best might be given. The King James Version was completed in one-fifth of that time. These learned men have given their scholarship, their experience, their time, without compensation. Their work is acknowledged by other scholars to be of the best. For the reasons above we greatly respect the American Standard Revised Version. Other reasons will be given in our next. Capital Punishment.—There is quite an agitation throughout the East, and especially in Massachusetts, over the matter of capital punishment. The Secretary of the Civic Committee in Boston, Mr. Eben Bumstead, has sent out to the press of the country an article on capital punishment, answering objections. This seems to have the support of the President of the Civic Committee, who accompanies the address with a letter. The article makes comparison between those states which have abolished the death penalty and those which make life imprisonment the penalty for the crime of murder. Michigan, for instance, has had two generations of life imprisonment, but her proportion of criminals is greater than that where capital punishment has prevailed. For instance, Pennsylvania has never repealed capital punishment, and her proportion of murderers is one to 186,212. The proportion of murderers in Michigan is one to 25,183. The argument is made that where mere imprisonment is the penalty it does not make the distinction between the lesser and the greater crime as it should, that in justice to those who commit the lesser crimes, murder should be punished with death. Doubtless there are many good people who believe that capital punishment should be abolished, and yet Mr. Bumstead declares that the theory has always received the adherence of revolutionary demagogues, and he quotes a historian as saying of the very worst period of the French Revolution: "This very government that had shed such an ocean of human blood signalizes its memorable career by bringing in an edict for the abolition of capital punishment after a certain period." Mr. Bumstead feels that it has a Bible basis, and therefore can not be said to be an incentive to murder, "without leading to the gross conclusion that God gave an incentive to murder to the Hebrew people." The law of capital punishment has come down to us through the most civilized nations of the world, and where justly administered has had the strongest deterrent effect of any punishment upon those criminally inclined. If any one desires to obtain Mr. Bumstead's address, send to the Massachusetts Civic Committee, 161 Milk St., Boston. After the Assyrians had conquered Israel and taken all the people away as captives, the land was settled by people sent in from the countries of the East. These people, in time, were greatly troubled by lions, and thought it was because they were not acquainted with the God of the country. So they appealed to their king, who sent one of the captive priests of Israel to live in Samaria and teach the people "how they should fear the Lord." The teaching was evidently very superficial, for the people continued to worship their own gods also. "So they feared the Lord, and served their own gods." The same principle is in vogue in our own day, as is indicated by the following bit of news taken from the New York Press: On week days the fashionable woman in Newport must have her hand-bag and all little accessories match her costume, and now fashion decrees that on Sunday her prayer-book must likewise be a match. In Trinity Church recently many lovely ones were seen, Mrs. William Watts Sherman carrying one with covers of lavender leather, which matched her hat, dress, and parasol. Her daughter, Miss Irene Sherman, carried one of pale pink leather, which matched her costume of pink, while the other Miss Sherman, who was all in white, carried a beautiful one of white. An elderly woman dressed in the deepest mourning had the covers of her prayer-book covered with heavy black crape and the edges bound with gun metal. Thus the popular fad is to fear the Lord and worship the god of fashion. Pledging candidates for office to the support of special measures is deplored by one of our religious exchanges. Stress is laid upon the evil of this custom as practised by friends of the liquor traffic, and of other sinister enterprises in quest of official favor. We concede the point as far as our contemporary goes, and are of the opinion that the candidate who makes unqualified pledges is no better than those who exact them. But we would also submit that the practise of pledging men to vote for a Sunday law, with its penalties, is of the same ilk. Any human law exacting religious practise is a compulsion of conscience to those who have conscience in the matter, and compels hypocritical action on the part of the millions who have no conscientious regard for the doctrine which the law prescribes. "The Sick Man of the East."—Referring to the condition around the Bosporus, the Catholic World of August says: "Christians are, as usual, their own worst enemy. Were it not for their culpable selfishness that stronghold of lust and enmity, the Turkish Empire, would long ago have been destroyed. But so far from being destroyed, there seems reason to think that its power is growing. . . . The attitude of Europe to the hosts of Mohammed has too often been a pitiful spectacle, and is no less so in our own days than in the past." Of course no Christian power or powers have the right to destroy any power. If the people of professed Christian powers would live their Christianity, its indirect influence might have changed Turkey. Evidently the Turkish power is hardly a "sick man." Russia just now seems to be the troubled one. A request comes to us from a lady in the far East asking for two things with which we can not possibly comply. The first is to "stop the SIGNS OF THE TIMES," and we can not do it. This office was established to publish the SIGNS OF THE TIMES and the paper is still going on. Of course if she means by it to stop her copy, we will do that when her time is out, but we can not stop the paper. Until its work is done the SIGNS OF THE TIMES will be published. Her second request is that she doesn't want it longer, and we can not make it longer if we wanted to, because the press can only take it the size that it is. But we expect to continue to publish it in the same proportionate size as at present, and continue until the last great message shall close. Books Wanted.—There may be some of our readers who have an Encyclopedia Britannica for which they do not especially care, and which they would be willing to donate to our office, or to sell for a small sum. We would be glad to hear of such. Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography is another work which would help us, as would also histories of various countries. Please give edition, binding, condition, and price. Both the Republican and Democratic parties of Arizona have put this plank in their platforms: "We are unalterably opposed to joint statehood between Arizona and New Mexico, and would prefer to remain a territory forever than to have a joint state with New Mexico." Our weak places of character may become our strong ones if we will but let the repair be thorough and deep. Christ must heal, but He can only heal and strengthen as we co-operate with Divine Power. He will make the healing complete. Do not forget to read the report, on pages 14, 15, of the American Federation of Catholic Societies. This is of tremendous interest.