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Indian Senator and Other News

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Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Feb 6, 1907

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 33, No. 6.

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Indian Senator and Other News

By Editor

The first full-blooded Indian to sit in the Senate of the United States will take his place March 4. He is Charles Curtis, a member of the Kaw tribe, a self-made man, having worked his way up in Topeka, Kan., from which state he is elected.
A terrific wind-storm swept over Lake Erie January 20, resulting in the grounding of five Great Lake steamers, the destruction of property to the value of $2,000,000 on the Niagara River, and the loss of two lives. This winter has been unusually stormy.
Texas Affected by Earthquake.—The earthquake in Jamaica has had the effect of decreasing the oil flow from the Texas-Louisiana oil wells. In some places it is as much as forty-five per cent. less. In the older North Texas wells there has been an increase in the flow, and the product is fifty per cent. lighter in color.
Federating Together.—Will our readers note by our European Letter that, as in America, the Catholic societies and organizations are federating in Europe? The organized, drilled, and disciplined body wins; the disorganized mob goes down to defeat. Catholics are organizing, drilling, disciplining, for the conquest of the world. You can not blame them from their view-point; but it will be bad for the world.
A Good Way to Help Missions.—A lady in Missouri recently gave to the Methodist Board of Foreign Missions $1,000 in dimes, or 10,000 ten-cent pieces. She had been saving these for twelve years. She collected money for her husband, and he gave her all his dimes on the condition she would give him all she collected. In this way they both formed the habit of saving every dime. There may be a suggestion here for others who wish to give to missions.
Sometimes a good cause brings strange companions. Socialists and free-thinkers are with dissenters in Switzerland in working for the separation of Church and State. We presume that the State-church charges dissenters with friendship with infidels. So it has ever been. So Jesus was the Friend of "publicans and sinners," and Jesus Himself declared to those who arrogated to themselves the authority to direct religion, "The publicans and harlots go into the kingdom of God before you."
News from Kingston.—A telegram from the president, A. G. Daniells, of our General Conference at Washington, D. C., wired us in reply to a telegram of inquiry sent by us as to casualties among our people in Kingston, gives us this information: Our American brethren who were in Kingston are safe. Four Jamaican brethren were killed. The situation in the island is terrible. And this is not hard to believe in central California. April 18 to 20, 1906, is not yet too far away to recall the awful times on the coast. Photographs have been forwarded, and we hope to present them next week, with fuller information.
An Awful Death.—A young man in Los Angeles is dead as the result of drinking a quart of whisky. He bet a dollar he could drink that amount without leaving a table, and won the bet, tho he became unconscious and remained so until his death. As he died a martyr to whisky, whisky men ought to canonize him as one of their "holy ones."
Protestant Church May Be Strong.—There is a sentence from a speaker quoted in our European Letter worth second consideration: "Even deprived of State aid, the Protestant Church, if alive, may remain a church of the people and be strong." Not only this—she can be strong in no other way. State aid has ever proved a curse to the Church and a dead weight to the state. The Church is married to Christ. Union with the world is spiritual fornication.
Proportion of Kingston Burned.—According to the New York World, only about one-thirtieth of Kingston was burned; but the whole city practically was wrecked by the earthquake. One of the unaccountable freaks of the earthquake was to turn completely around, without injury, a large statue of Queen Victoria, which stood in the center of the city. When Kingston was shaking to the earth, the volcanoes Vesuvius and Etna vomited fiery torrents. The World further says: "The most violent shock ever recorded by the seismograph at Apia, Samoa, occurred in the South Pacific Ocean, December 21, 900 miles south of Apia, 2,300 miles east of Australia, and 5,000 miles west of Chile. The greatest known depth of ocean in the world, next to the spot near Guam, is in that region, and the convulsion of the earth there betrayed some tremendous commotion in the interior of the earth." How would our "fault" and "slip" theorists deal with this? Unless we are willing to take God's forecast of coming events, the old earth will give us many more surprises.

SOUTH CAROLINA'S BENEFICENT SUNDAY LAW.

A CORRESPONDENT in Spartanburg, S. C., under date of January 13, writes us that in the early part of December last the grand jury of Spartanburg County indicted three men for working on Sunday: R. T. Nash, a minister, and Messrs. Johnson and Loper. January 8, these Christian men were lodged in jail where they remained till next day, when they were released on bond to appear the following day for trial.
The officials were courteous. The jury went out a few minutes, and returned with the verdict of "guilty." The judge imposed a fine of one dollar each, the full penalty of the law, which was paid by one not of their faith, and they were immediately released. The editor of the Spartanburg Journal, of January 12, has several things to say, among which are the following:
"If everybody who performs labor on Sunday should pay the county one dollar for each offense, what a fine fund Spartanburg would have to build those new macadamized roads and extend the school system!"
The work for which Elder Nash was prosecuted was spading in his garden, making terraces and setting posts for his grapes. The editor further says:
"It seems a pity, in view of all the wickedness and law-breaking that is going on and all the bad people who are at large, to take up the time and energy of the courts in prosecuting people who work a little on Sunday, because their religious belief tells them that Saturday is the real Sabbath, and should be observed as such. . . . But think of how many people right here in Spartanburg do more work every Sunday than Mr. Nash ever does, and do not defend it on religious grounds. They are not prosecuted, and nobody wants them prosecuted. The street-cars run, the railroad trains run, both freight and passenger, the ice men, the liverymen, the refreshment men, the newsdealers, and many others work more or less every Sunday, and nobody objects to it, and properly so. Why then jump on Mr. Nash and his people for doing the same thing or less? The reason is, that Mr. Nash and the Seventh-day Adventists defend their acts on religious grounds, and the others do not. It is a curious situation, one of the strange inconsistencies of life." Then Mr. Nash is prosecuted for religion's sake, and that will always be the case where such laws exist which bigots and extremists can use. The law is wicked.
Missionary Activities.—It is good to know that while the enemy of all righteousness is so active in a thousand different ways, there is also a movement among God's people for a great activity in carrying out the great commission which the Master gave. Among the manifestations of this is the young people's missionary movement, which is becoming very strong indeed thruout the entire country. It was organized five years ago, yet it has developed so rapidly that it is stated that more than sixty thousand young people are now studying home and foreign missions. It is now working thru summer schools, and aiming to interest them in missionary work. It will hold several conventions in 1907 as follows: Lake Geneva, Wis., June 25 to July 3; Whitby, Ont., July 4 to 12; Silver Bay, Lake George, N. Y., special conference for Sunday-school workers, July 12 to 18; Silver Bay, young people's conference, July 19 to 28. One other conference will be held in the South, June 28 to July 7, but the location has not been decided. The secretary of the general association is C. C. Michener, 156 Fifth Ave., New York.

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