Articles from Valparaiso
By Editor
Are you reading the articles on the "Papacy in Prophecy."? They are dealing with a subject which you can not afford not to understand. Articles from Valparaiso.—No discrimination is designed by the type or order of the letters from Valparaiso, found in our Missions department. Brother Thomann's was written a day earlier than Brother Steele's, and reached us several days first. We designed to publish it last week, and so set it in 8-point hoping that we could get it in; but we could not, and therefore it was left over for this week. In the meantime the article from Brother Steele came, and we concluded that we would make the two the feature of our Missions department. August 22 the dead were estimated at 2,000; August 23, a day later, at 3,000. One referred to Valparaiso, and the other, perhaps to a larger territory; tho a day later may have increased the knowledge of the death-list. Our hearts beat in sympathy with them in their great loss. A Sabbath Command in Gen. 2:2, 3.—In another column will be found an article on "Two Sabbath Questions." To the evidence there given it may be said that the record of fact that God sanctified the seventh day in the beginning implies a definite command concerning it. "Sanctify" means to set apart, to separate. The seventh day was set apart for God's worship and so separated from "the six working days." The Sabbath was made for man. Man therefore must have been given command concerning it. When God sanctified Sinai, He gave command concerning it. Ex. 19:23, 12, 13. To "sanctify a fast" was to proclaim a fast, give command concerning it. Joel 2:15; 1:14; 2 Chron. 20:3, 4. The very record of Gen. 2:2, 3 clearly shows that the Sabbath was commanded when it was made. More than this: When Moses went down into Egypt and revived the people, the first thing they did was to begin to observe God's Sabbath. This is clear from Pharaoh's complaint: "Wherefore do ye, Moses and Aaron, let [loose, hinder] the people from their works? . . . Ye make them rest [Heb. sabbatize] from their burdens. . . . They be idle." Ex. 5:4, 5, 8. Every true reform carries God's people back to obedience. A Sad Calamity.—The sad, sad word comes to us this morning (October 18) that the main building of the Oakwood Industrial School was burned to the ground the evening of October 11. The fire was first noticed about 7 o'clock, and in less than five minutes the building was wrapped in devouring flames. One of the boys, who had gone to his room against the earnest entreaties of his companion, was burned. His name was Will Willingham. Others had narrow escapes. The upper part contained the sleeping rooms, consequently the belongings of all were burned. "Prof. F. W. Halladay and family and all of our boys have absolutely nothing left but the clothes on their backs." One typewriter and one chair were saved. The building was insured for $2,000, probably all collectable. But what was within the building amounts to much more than this. Help is needed in clothing, new and secondhand, for the boys, in bedding, and in cash. Let the conductors of the school be assured that God cares, that He has in it a lesson for them, that they may know and learn that lesson. Let all our readers also know that affliction to any of God's institutions is a call from Him for sympathy and help. Let all who can help send supplies or remittances to Oakwood Training School, O. R. Staines, business manager, Huntsville, Ala. A good sanitarium is always a blessing, and we wish they were many more. They are not alone valuable for the treatment of the sick and the rest they give to the weary; but their educational value on the simple life and the way of right living is better still. We are glad to note that in the beautiful city of Watertown, N. Y., which we once knew as a place of sojourn for a year, a sanitarium has been established by an old fellow-worker, and a physician of large experience in the city of Chicago, Isadore L. Green, M. D. It is a restful home, based upon rational medicine and physiological therapeutics. It has all the up-to-date methods of treatments. Its terms are reasonable. For particulars address, I. L. Green, M. D., Black River Valley Sanitarium, 19 State Street, Watertown, N. Y. May it ever be blessed and be a blessing. "Illogical Geology."—Whether our readers believe in the hypotheses, the deductions, or the conclusions of geologists or not, they ought to read the book with the above title noticed in another column. This is what a professor of Church History and Homiletics in Chicago University has to say to the author: "I have read your book, 'Illogical Geology.' It is a remarkable piece of logical reasoning. I am not sufficiently acquainted with geology to know whether or not a valid reply could be made; but it does not seem possible. I shall be keenly interested to see what the geologists will have to say about it. You are a cogent writer, and I am glad that we have you on the side of 'primal orthodoxy.' It seems to me that you reduce geology to its lowest terms, and perhaps destroy it altogether, except as it may consist of series of facts. This may be a good service." This is what an M. S., an ex-president of the Minnesota Normal Training School, Minneapolis, writes: "Previous to reading some of your writings a year or more ago, I had no idea of the facts and arguments capable of being brought forth against the commonly accepted teachings of geology. This last book, 'Illogical Geology,' is the best of all. You certainly have put forward a most tremendous argument; and I can not see how any one capable of appreciating scientific evidence can longer think that there has been a succession of life on the globe in the way geology has taught for nearly a century. Scientists can not ignore your facts and arguments; they must either be completely refuted, or your main conclusions must be acknowledged. And I don't think your facts will be easily refuted, for they are engraved by Nature herself in the very framework of the globe." This is from the Assistant Professor of Zoology, Harvard University: "I have read your pamphlet on 'Illogical Geology,' with much interest, and I think you have brought out with great clearness the difficulties of supporting the evolution theory from the geological side. In my opinion there would have been no evolution theory, had science had only what geology up to the present has unearthed for us. It seems to me that a fair test of the evolution theory ought to be made rather from its strongest side than from its weakest. The theory is not a geological one, but a biological one, and almost all the evidence in support of it has come from biology. But even if all the evidence humanly possible were within reach and favorable, it would still leave the evolutionary explanation a theory, and I know of no way by which it could be dealt with as an observable fact." The work may be obtained from this office. Price, post-paid, 25 cents. Loskutoff, a Russian, is terrifying people by preaching more earthquakes and the end of the world. He predicts three more earthquakes, each destroying a prosperous city, after that a convulsion which will rend the world asunder. The bishop of Tomsk condemned "earthquaking!" as a heresy, but since then Valparaiso has been destroyed. It is a question which is the greater heretic. The first tunnel under the Hudson River, between Weehawken, N. J., and New York City, has been completed, as far as the digging is concerned. A party passed through it September 12. It is said to be completely water-tight, but it is to be lined with two feet of concrete, and then the rails will be laid. It is being constructed by the Pennsylvania Railroad, and will be used for passenger trains. A second tunnel is under way, and almost completed. This means to the Pennsylvania road a direct land connection with the great city, and a saving of time. The shortening of time schedules is the chief concern of rival freight and passenger carriers, both by land and water. Millions and millions of dollars are spent, and many human lives are sacrificed, in the various features of speed contest. If those who are engaged in giving the Gospel to the world could only be imbued with such a sense of the value of time; if it could be fully realized that the King's business requires haste; if there were a greater concern for the lost souls that are dropping into the grave at the rate of one every second; if we could appreciate the fact that when this Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world then shall the end come, and the rewards be given,—then would the value of time in the Gospel work become a matter of deeper concern. Money and zeal and labor and faith would be put into it to an extent commensurate with its importance. The Master says, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." And all the angels of heaven are engaged in the same work. It is meet that the human servants on earth be like minded, "redeeming the time, because the days are evil." Changed conditions in Germany since the days of William I. and Chancellor Bismarck are notably indicated in the following despatch, dated Berlin, September 8: "Emperor William has decorated Cardinal Kopp with the Order of the Black Eagle, the highest Prussian decoration. This is the first time the order has ever been conferred on a Catholic prelate. It is remarked that the relations between the German Government and the Vatican have grown closer since the church and state situation in France became acute. The headquarters of Cardinal Kopp are at Breslau, where he has steadily used his influence in bettering the relations between the pope and the Prussian authorities." And Germany is the land of Luther, with the Lutheran Church as the state church! With Lutheranism as the state religion, and Catholicism as the state politics, what will the harvest be? A few years ago the first reports of calamity were nearly always exaggerated. That has not been the case in this year. In San Francisco and vicinity, in Valparaiso, in the awful typhoon in China, in the storms in the Southern States, the after, more accurate reports told a sadder story of the loss of property and life. Some of these awful things it is hard to exaggerate. There is another coming event, the coming of Jesus Christ which all the world is foretokening. That coming will bring to the righteous, blessings great and manifold which no language of earth can express. It will take the mind of the Infinite to comprehend and the time of eternity to experience the blessings which God has in store for them that love Him. The steamer Empress of Japan, one of the few vessels that escaped destruction or damage by the recent typhoon in the vicinity of Hongkong, arrived at Victoria, B. C., on the 16th inst. It brings additional news of the disaster at September 18, which was more extensive than at first reported. There were in all, at different points, ten thousand lives lost. Seventeen steamers and sailing vessels were wrecked or badly damaged; over a thousand junks were turned over or swamped or battered to pieces. Four-fifths of all the lighters, yachts, launches, house-boats, and other light craft were entirely destroyed. Do not be worried, dear soul, over men's attacks on the Word of God. That will still outlive all the systems and theories and devices of men to overthrow it. In it is the life of God.