Earlier text: The Faith of JesusA Thank-Offering.
By MARY J. M. SAWYER
I FIND it in my heart to pay a tribute of thanks to my Heavenly Father. It is just two years this present time, when, to all appearances, my days were numbered, that the Lord added years to my life, that I might have the opportunity to make it a success, and be an overcomer at last. I can say to the praise of his name, that these years have been very precious to me. I have been enabled to gain greater victories than before, and I now feel strength of body and mind to go forward in the work. To the Lord be all the praise. I earnestly desire to see all my wrongs, and gain victory over the same. And when my probation shall close, may it truthfully be said that through the intercession of Jesus, my life has proved a success. Inclosed please find five dollars as a thank-offering. In hope of everlasting life.
MARY J. M. SAWYER.
Greenville, Mich. The Test of Free Discussion
WHOSOEVER is afraid of submitting any question, civil or religious, to the test of free discussion, is more in love with his own opinion than with truth. The Review and Reformer.
By G. S. Honeywell
I WOULD like to have the three new subscribers to the Health Reformer in my order, receive the advantage offered to the readers of the REVIEW. I think the Reformer is now the best health journal printed. It advocates living principles, such as will commend themselves to every honest, independent thinker. Its platform is far enough from either extreme, and built upon a solid foundation. I have added ten new subscribers to its circulation the last year, and I hope to do better the coming one. I have been a reader of the REVIEW for six months, and have been keeping the Sabbath nine months. I was led to an examination of the truth by the Christian walk and upright conversation of Seventh-day Adventists at Battle Creek, Mich., while I was attending the Institute about a year ago. I now feel a great burden for my friends, that they may be brought to a knowledge of the truth, and know of no better way of getting the truth before them, than by sending them our excellent periodicals, asking the Lord to bless the effort to advance his cause. It is my chief joy to work for the Lord, and hold everything subject to his call. May the Lord bless those at the head of the work with health and strength and great freedom of spirit to perform the arduous work devolving upon them, with acceptance; and may the Lord help his people to walk in the light. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering (for He is faithful that promised); for yet a little while, and He that shall come, will come, and will not tarry. Heb. 10: 23, 37. In the truth, G. S. HONEYWELL. Limiting God's Knowledge.
By Albert Weeks
“MAN has power to prevent what God has said shall come to pass, else predestination is true.” This is the position a preacher took after listening to a discourse by the writer, in which the condition of things in the last days was shown to be the reverse of a world converted to Christianity. See 2 Tim. 3 : 1–5. Now I cannot see that the above preacher's conclusion is the most reasonable one that can be drawn. I would ask, Has not God power to give us the history of this world in advance, and still let man remain a free moral agent? Surely none that have a very exalted idea of the divine nature would thus limit God's foreknowledge. We prefer to accept the prophetic portion of the word of God, as part of that Scripture which is profitable for doctrine, 2 Tim. 3 : 16, and gives us information that we could not gain in any other way. 2 Pet. 1 : 19. Let us accept of what God has been pleased to reveal, and shape our lives accordingly. PASSION will master you if you do not master passion. Quiet Consciences and Conversation
Quiet consciences never produce unquiet conversation. Soon after the camp-meeting in this State, I was requested to hold a few meetings in the city of Fremont on the east side of the river. A number became interested in the truth. Three commenced keeping the Sabbath. A number more are convinced of the truth, but do not see how they can live it out on account of their situation in business. May they be wise, and decide to keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. Dec. 25, 1870, commenced meetings in Wood Co., in a school-house known as the Kiser school-house. This place is eighteen miles west of Fremont, and twelve miles east of Portage. The people seemed very desirous of hearing the truth, and nearly filled the house each evening. I continued meetings two weeks, spoke each evening, and visited during the daytime. Some commenced keeping the Sabbath. I established Sabbath meetings in this place, promising, when I left, to return soon. I was prevented on account of sickness, and did not return until March 10. Then I found the brethren and sisters had kept up their Sabbath meetings, and the interest remained good. I spoke four times during Sabbath and first-day, making fourteen public discourses in all. There was a large attendance the last evening, although it was very dark and the roads were very muddy. I stayed four days, and visited in the neighborhood. Found the people much interested, and reading and investigating the subjects of present truth. There are seven that have manifested a desire to live out the whole truth. Two of these that are keeping the Sabbath are heads of families. Both of these have subscribed for the REVIEW. Much more good might have been done if I could have had books, but I had none of any account. Sister Gardiner sent one dollar for tracts the first week I was there, and now they send $3.00 for books and tracts for themselves and neighbors. May the Lord bless them for the interest they manifest in trying to present the truth before the people. The enemy tried to raise some dust by sending a man who professed to be an Advent teacher, but said he agreed with none of the Adventists. His ideas were so confused the people were disgusted with his talk. If this man, together with some others who profess to be Adventists, would pray more and teach less, it might be better for themselves and quite as instructive to those they attempt to teach. I had freedom in endeavoring to present the truth before the people, and I trust the Lord blessed my feeble efforts so that much good has been done in this place. May they live out the truth faithfully until the end, and finally be gathered with the redeemed of the Lord, is my prayer. H. HODGSON. Every tear that is shed; every groan that is heaved; every loss that is sustained; every moment of suffering that is endured; every disappointment that is borne by the Christian with patience and resignation, will not only be followed by ineffable felicity, but will prepare the soul for its enjoyment, and add something to its weight and its lustre. To believe this, to live in hope of it, and by this hope to be sustained under present sufferings, is the work of faith.—J. A. James. HAVING survived the perils of internal war, and promising to pass safely through the trials and agitations resultant from it, our country is endangered by the constant menace of a class of restless agitators, a portion of whom are sincere in their desire to accomplish good results, and the remainder hypocritical and wholly selfish, while all are fanatical. The leaders of this class sometimes appear in one guise, and then in another—sometimes under the political, and then under the religious, banner, but always under the flag of fanaticism. Their grasp is upon the pillars of the temple, and should it fall, theirs will have been the responsibility. Whatever form their irrepressibility may take, its object is always inimical to the spirit of our free institutions. The most noteworthy movement of this class that has recently been made, is the attempt to secure an amendment to the Constitution of the United States that would require all who acknowledged its supremacy to believe in the Christian religion. Aside from most unjustly expatriating our large and respectable number of Jewish citizens, there would be little objectionable in this, save the principle of its incorporation into the fundamental law of the land. However slight, it is the entering wedge of church and State. If we may cut off ever so few persons from the right of citizenship on account of difference of religious belief, then with equal justice and propriety may a majority at any time dictate the adoption of still further articles of belief, until our Constitution is but the text-book of a sect beneath whose tyrannical sway all liberty of religious opinion will be crushed. “Honor the Lord,” is the rallying cry of these crusaders. That has been the cry of all perpetrators of acts of cruelty, injustice, and oppression, from time immemorial. It was the cry of the Spanish Inquisitors, and the English and German torturers of reformers. It brought Cranmer to the stake, incited the massacre of St. Bartholomew’s eve, and caused witches to be burned by the Puritans. The people of enlightened America, we believe, have learned to know that a nation stands most honored in the sight of Heaven, when all of its children are left free to exercise the full right of conscience, and to worship God as they shall see fit, silently in their own hearts, or with impressive form.—Champlain Journal. JOHN MATTESON
By John Matteson
“GODLINESS with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment let us therewith be content.” 1 Tim. 6: 6–8. Most Christians think this is a beautiful idea, but few put it to a practical use. Few will acknowledge that they want to get rich. They only want daily bread. And this simple want is varied and stretched until it is made to cover almost everything: Houses and lands, horses and carriages, costly garments and luxurious furniture, comfort and ease, silver and gold. “Well, I have no such thoughts. I only want to get 120 acres of land—a little home well improved—then I am content.” If you are not content now, neither will you be then. For possessions cannot produce contentment. Contentment is a condition of mind which will always be strongest where the affections are most severed from this world, and placed “on things above.” But have you well considered our text? Are you really content with food and raiment? Indeed, we should not only be content therewith; but how thankful should we be to our Heavenly Father for these blessings! and how willing to divide our small portion with those who have less! May the Lord help us to eagerly seek for heavenly treasures; enable us to put a truer estimate on those brilliant adornings: patience, goodness, contentment, and heavenly, unselfish love, cool down our interest in the vain glories, sinful allurements, and perishing treasures, of the earth, and may he inspire us with more vehement desires for that far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Over the river the streets are of gold;
There are enjoyments and pleasures untold;
Over the river Time never grows old
Bearing his burden of years.
There all our sorrow and sighing shall cease,
Hushed by the chorus of heavenly peace;
Over the river, thrice happy release,
We shall be free from our fears. There every tear shall be wiped from our eyes,
There where the sunlight of glory ne’er dies,
Lighting forever those fair upper skies,
Eden’s glad plains to adorn.
Over the river, fair kingdom of light!
There Heaven’s mansions forever are bright;
Over the river there cometh no night—
Long is eternity’s morn. Over the river, oh, blessed retreat!
Angels shall welcome our earth-weary feet;
There shall our rest be eternal and sweet,
Up in that kingdom of love.
There is a crown for each conqueror’s brow,
All who are traveling “the narrow way” now—
Ever so lofty, or ever so low—
All share a kind Father’s love. Over the river! while journeying here,
Grant us, O Father, thy presence to cheer
Earth’s winding pathway so lonely and drear
Only as thou guide the oar.
Over the river, oh! take us, we pray,
When comes the evening of life’s fleeting day;
Over the river our barks steer away,
Anchor on Canaan’s fair shore. Over the river! we’ve crossed it at last;
Over the river! our dangers are past;
Safe in the harbor our barks are moored fast,
Ne’er from their haven to roam.
Then will we sing with the glorified throng
Loud hallelujahs, in one happy song,
Praising the Power that hath brought us along
Over the river—at home. An Alteration that Is no Alteration.
By R. F. COTTRELL
The following extracts are taken from the same writer, only two pages apart: “The Saviour appears, and reverences, honors, distinguishes, the Sabbath by his doctrine and his miracles. The ten commandments he recognizes without omission or alteration.” “Every change is a fresh blessing. Every new dispensation is a new grace. Every alteration is an advance in the development of redemption on the one hand, and in the uses and importance of the institution on the other.” To prove that the Sabbath has been altered, and has not been altered, is a difficult task. Is the writer insane or intoxicated? or does he presume that his readers are? The same writer says, “The particular day not being of the essence of the law, it is silently introduced.” Who told him that the particular day was not of the essence of the law? Sabbath day means rest day. Hence the Sabbath day of God can be no other day than the one on which God rested. It was silently introduced. This is a strange way to introduce a law or institution. But the writer well knew that the Bible was silent in regard to the change. Many other changes have been silently introduced. Is this a good reason for adopting them? If so, let our Baptist friends adopt sprinkling for baptism, which was introduced in the same way. The writer’s object was to persuade all to keep a definite day—the day of the resurrection of Christ. But since the particular day is not of the essence of the law, will it not answer just as well if we choose to keep the day that was not silently introduced? But he thinks we ought to “catch the intimations” of the Lord’s will “with more alacrity,” though “he re-enacts not in direct terms his day of rest,” but “leaves it to be inferred from his own example and doctrine, and that of his apostles.” There are many doctrines and practices of a corrupt church which the revelation which God has given “leaves to be inferred.” Is this a reason that we should adopt them “with more alacrity”? “God created man in his own image.”—Gen. 1 : 27. God said, “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”—Gen. 2 : 17. “In this original state man was, indeed, subject to the possibility, but not to the necessity, of dying.”—Prof. J. A. Reubelt. “Adam forfeited the blessing of immortality.”—Thomas Scott. Man abideth not: he is like the beasts that perish.—Ps. 49 : 12. “The immortality of the soul is neither argued nor affirmed in the Old Testament.”—Perowne. “The doctrine of the immortality of the soul, and the name, are alike unknown to the entire Bible.”—Dr. Olshausen. “In fact, no such doctrine is revealed to us.”—Abp. Whately. “The Bible is silent on the point of an absolute and unconditional immortality for all men.”—Rev. H. H. Dobney. “Search the Bible from beginning to end, and you will nowhere find sinners addressed as immortal beings.”—Rev. Thomas Davis. “My sheep hear my voice; and I give unto them eternal life: and they shall never perish.”—John 10 : 27, 28. “I am come that they might have life.”—John 10 : 10. To them who seek for immortality God will render eternal life.—Rom. 2 : 6, 7. “If there be one blessing more than another, which the Scriptures agree in ascribing to Christ as its author, and for which the believer is taught that he is wholly indebted to redemption, it is immortality.”—Rev. Dr. De Burgh. “Whatever has been created, can certainly be annihilated by the power which created it. The continuance of the soul must therefore depend absolutely on the will of God.”—T. Dwight. “We are candidates for immortality.”—Prof. Perowne. “Christianity treats man not as immortal, but as a candidate for immortality.”—Rev. Dr. Parker. “Let man’s union to God be lasting, and his immortality will be lasting.”—Henry Warleigh. “Eternal life without the resurrection body, being neither possible nor desirable.”—Reubelt. There are certain tools which are made by welding thin layers of steel and iron together. The iron being softer wears away as the instrument is used, leaving the cutting edge of steel always sharp; so that use that dulls other tools, makes these sharper and sharper. The human tongue resembles these tools. The more it is used, the sharper it grows. Cutting and wounding and tormenting all within its reach, it pierces like sharp arrows; it burns like coals of juniper. “His words” says the psalmist, “were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart. They were softer than oil; yet were they drawn swords.” Again he asks, “What shall be given unto thee? or what shall be done unto thee, thou false tongue?” No art of man can tame the tongue. It never becomes reformed and trustworthy. Treat fire as you will, it will burn when it gets a chance. The only safe way to deal with it is to shut it up, and fence it in with earth, and iron, and stone. So the human tongue must be kept under constant constraint. It needs no whip or spur. But he who would not have his Christian life a failure must bridle his tongue, lest deceiving his own heart, his religion proves vain. “He that would love life, and see good days, must refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile.” “In the multitude of words, there wanteth not sin,” and the wounds of the tongue pierce to the depths of the heart. Only God's grace can bridle and control the tongue. It begins with the heart, renewing, changing, converting the inner man; and when the word of Christ dwells richly within, when love and joy take up their abode in the soul, when Christ, the great guest, comes in to sup with us, and we with him, then the tongue shall talk of God's righteousness, and proclaim his praise, and declare his gospel, and speak words in season to those that are weary in heart, and thus prove itself the glory of the saint, as well as it has been the curse and bane of the sinner. The tongue is an index of the soul. Men are known by their words, as well as by their works; and in the great day, Christ has said, “By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.”—The Christian. Pride in Dictating to God.
The petty sovereign of an insignificant tribe in North America every morning stalks out of his hovel, bids the sun good-morrow, and points out to him with his finger the course he is to take for the day. Is this arrogance more contemptible than ours when we would dictate to God the course of his providence, and summon him to our bar for his dealings with us? How ridiculous does man appear when he attempts to argue with his God! We have read a story of a little boy who, when he wanted a new suit of clothes, begged his mother to ask his father if he might have it. The mother suggested that the boy might ask for himself. “I would,” said the boy, “but I don't feel well enough acquainted with him.” There is a sharp reproof to the father in the reply of his son. Many a father keeps his children so at a distance from him, that they never feel confidentially acquainted with him. They feel that he is a sort of monarch in the family. They feel no familiarity with him. They fear and respect him, and even love him some, for children cannot help loving somebody about them; but they seldom get near enough to him to feel intimate with him. They seldom go to him with their little wants and trials. They approach him through the mother. They tell her everything. They have a highway to her heart on which they go in and out with perfect freedom. In this keeping-off plan, fathers are to blame. Children should not be held off. Let them come near. Let them be as intimate with the father as mother. Let their little hearts be freely opened. It is wicked to freeze up the love-fountains of little ones' hearts. Fathers do them an injury by living with them as strangers. This drives many a child away from home for the sympathy his heart craves, and often into improper society. It nurses discontent and distrust, which many a child does not outgrow in his lifetime. Open your hearts and your arms, fathers; be free with your children; ask for their wants and trials; play with them; be fathers to them truly, and then they will not need a mediator between themselves and you.—Sel. How much the brightness of Christian honor is dimmed by inattention to “trifles,” has by contrast an illustration in the following bit of history: Sir William Napier was one day taking a long walk near Freshford, when he met a little girl about five years old sobbing over a broken bowl. She had fallen while bringing it from the field to which she had taken her father’s dinner in it, and she said she would be beaten for having broken it; then with a sudden gleam of hope, she innocently looked into his face, and said, “But ye can mend it, can’t ye?” Sir William explained that he could not mend the bowl, but the trouble he could mend by the gift of a sixpence to buy another. However, on opening his purse, it was empty of silver, and he had to make amends to meet his little friend the same hour next day, and to bring the sixpence with him, bidding her, meanwhile, tell her mother she had seen a gentleman who would bring her the money for the bowl next day. The child, entirely trusting him, went on her way comforted. On his return home, he found an invitation awaiting him to dine in Bath the following evening, to meet some one whom he especially wished to see. He hesitated for some little time, trying to calculate the possibility of giving the meeting to his little friend of broken bowl, and of still being in time for the dinner party in Bath; but, finding that this could not be, he wrote to decline accepting the invitation, on the plea of a “pre-engagement,” saying to one of his family as he did so, “I cannot disappoint her, she trusted me so implicitly.” Every observer of children must, I think, have noticed that much cruelty is committed by them from the merest thoughtlessness. It would be, perhaps, not easy to define very philosophically, or with anything like psychological accuracy, how it is that children so often act with cruelty to the world of life around them. The poor crushed fly, the wretched, pelted kitten, the tortured cockchafer—all rise familiarly enough to our memories as instances of the unthinking wantonness, this early and miserable misuse of our mysteriously-given lordship over the creatures around us. These things, however (account for them as we may), most certainly exist, and most certainly lead onward to cruelty more or less deliberate in after life. Wantonness in the child, if unchecked, is sure to deepen into cruelty, or, at any rate, indifference to it, in the youth and in the man. If this is true, however, on the one hand, it is as certainly true on the other that few things can be taught more easily or learned more readily than tenderness and mercy to the animal world, if the teaching begins early enough and is conducted in the right way. Give a child a little insight into the characteristics of some of the members of that varied though lowly domain of creation which is most immediately at the mercy of childish cruelty, bring out the conception of each poor fluttering or crawling thing being an individual, and having its own individual sufferings, and often showing its own pity moving apprehensions, and children, even at a very early age, will show in return an interested tenderness, and consistently maintain it as they grow up. If there is any environment which can degrade a human being, or harden a young heart, it is the atmosphere of merely fashionable life. You may take the tenderest and most beautiful and lovely girl, the one that is kindest at home, and loves her father and mother best, and put her into the highest circle of fashionable life, with plenty of money, and plenty of scope to do as she pleases; let her dress herself as she will; cover herself with diamonds and pearls, costly silks and laces; let the love of admiration become the controlling passion; and by-and-by all the tenderness of that young nature passes away; her thoughts concentrate upon herself, what figure she is cutting, who her admirers are, what conquests she can make; and by-and-by the youthful, beautiful modesty is gone, and the way is open for vice that in the beginning would not have been dreamed of, or if thought of, put away as utterly impossible.—Dr. McClintock. Erratum for Thoughts on the Revelation
An erratum occurs on page 123 of Thoughts on the Revelation, which those who have the book may wish to correct. If so, they can cut out and paste in the following: ERRATUM. On p. 123, 18th line from top, after the word “precepts” insert, “except the fifth.” Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth. DIED, in Hadley, Lapeer Co., Mich., Jan. 3, 1871, my little brother, Dearborn A. Sanborn, infant son of D. H. and S. D. Sanborn, aged 14 months and 9 days. Services by elder Owen, Freewill Baptist minister. Remarks from 2 Kings 4:26. A. W. SANBORN. DIED, in Howard Co., Ind., March 15, 1871, of typhoid fever, sister M. Coy, wife of Alexander Coy, and daughter of Alexander and Sarah Jute, aged 37 years, 10 months, and 22 days. She leaves a husband and four children. She embraced the truth last summer under E. B. Lane's lectures, and from that time lived in obedience to the commandments, and in the firm belief of the soon-coming of the Lord. JOHN FOSTER. THE ultimate end of man is the enjoyment of God, beyond which he cannot form a wish. RELIGION is not a duty, it is a necessity. You might as well talk of the duty of breathing, or the duty of having the pulse beat, as to talk of the duty of being religious. It is a duty to breathe, to be sure, and it is a duty to have the pulse beat; but we do not talk of those things as being duties. It is one of the indispensable necessities that we should breathe, and that our pulse should beat. And I regard religious life as not only a duty, but a necessity. You cannot be a man and not be a Christian. And yet everything that makes you relatively better than your fellow-men is an indication that you are so far on the way toward a Christian manhood. No man can complain that his calling takes him off from religion; his calling itself and his very worldly employment in honest trades and offices are a serving of God; and if it be moderately pursued, will have void spaces enough for prayers and retirements of a more spiritual religion. God has given every man work enough to do, and there shall be no room for idleness; and yet has so ordered the world that there shall be space for devotion. He that has the fewest businesses of the world is called upon to spend more time in the dressing of his soul; and he that has the most affairs, may so order them that they shall be a service of God; while at certain periods they are blessed with prayers and actions of religion, and all day long are hallowed by a holy intention. Impressions are often made, but how is any practical effect to be gained? When Daguerre was working at his sun pictures, the great difficulty was to fix them. The light came and imprinted the image, but when the table was drawn from the camera, the image had vanished. Our lamentation is like his—our want, the same—a fixing solution that shall arrest and detain the fugitive impressions. He discovered the chemical powder which turned the evanescent into the durable. There is divine agency at hand which can fix the truth upon the heart of man.—Sel. The Lesson of Resolute Self-Help
He who has not learned the lesson of resolute self-help has made little progress toward real manhood. LABOR is the very life-blood of society, stirring in all its veins, and diffusing vigor and enjoyment through the whole system. Without our labor, all life, except that of the rudest and most savage kind, must perish. Arts, civilization, refinement, and religion must perish. Labor is the grand pedestal of God's blessings upon earth; it is more—like man and the world itself—it is the offspring and the work of God. All honor, then, to labor—the offspring of the Deity—the most ancient of ancients, sent forth by the Almighty into this mother world—the most noble of nobles! Honor to that divine principle which has filled the earth with all comforts and joys. Whatever we see or perceive—in Heaven or on the earth—is the product of labor. The sky above us, the ground beneath us, the air we breathe, the sun, the moon, the stars—what are they? The product of labor. They are the labors of the Omnipotent, and all our labors are but a continuance of his. Our work is a divine work. We carry on what God began.—William Hewitt. Report on Southern Outrages.
By Editor
Our readers, before whom we have laid from time to time the facts of the outrages in the Southern States, derived from the action of State Executives, and the narratives in our exchanges, will be prepared for the report of the Senate Committee upon the Ku-Klux outrages at the South. The report pertains almost exclusively to intimidation, violence, robbery, and murder, in North Carolina, from whence the 52 witnesses examined have been principally drawn, although the committee say that complaints of like outrages have come from South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Virginia, Kentucky, Texas, and Tennessee. The witnesses named have been drawn, it must be remembered, from both political parties, 29 being Radicals, and 21 Democrats, and one, a minister who had no political relations. These witnesses were in four instances members of the Ku-Klux organization. The general facts of the investigation are important. They show beyond question that there is a secret oath-bound organization known as the Ku-Klux, but whose various self-imposed titles are, “The White Brotherhood,” “The Constitutional Union Guard,” “The Invisible Empire,” etc. The members of this organization are exclusively derived from the Democratic party, and its operations are made to enure to the advantage of that party. It includes a large number of ex-Confederate soldiers among its numbers. There is also the clearest testimony as to its acts of violence, robbery, and murder, of Union men with the view of frightening them so they dare not vote, driving them out of the country, or getting permanently rid of them by taking their lives. The report shows that in Alamance Co., North Carolina, between Dec. 1, 1868, and Dec. 22, 1870, there were 38 cases of violence, embracing two murders, one mutilation, and many whippings, of negroes. In 11 counties in North Carolina, the Committee have the names of 90 blacks and 44 whites, nearly all of whom were whipped, and the remainder shot, robbed, hanged, or driven from their homes. In general, no disposition has been shown to punish, or it has been impossible to punish the perpetrators of these crimes. In view of these startling facts, Congress would be shamefully recreant in duty if it should refuse to act. We trust that the Joint Committee of the Senate and House, to whom the preparation of a bill upon the subject has been committed, may, while keeping in safe constitutional limits, be able to present an effective measure.—Detroit Tribune. The tone of the Southern press and the Southern orators increases in violence and bitterness. The key note was struck by Linton Stephens, the brother of ALEXANDER STEPHENS, in a speech which he made a few weeks ago. In concluding his speech, Mr. Stephens said: “We still say that these governments in the South are revolutionary usurpations, we still say that the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments are null and void.” The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle commended the following “plain talk” from one of its correspondents: “There is but little doubt that the Democratic party will come into power at the next Presidential election. After that, how easy it will be to call a convention of the States. And how easy it will be for such a Constitutional Convention to undo every ‘result of the war’ that touches the future sovereignty of the States? Such a convention can easily get rid of the present status of the Senate, and the Supreme Court as now organized, if it pleases. It can do all that is needed to wipe out the usurpations of the party now in power. Nothing is irreversible which the mongrels have done to our Federal system, unless the South gives up. The dead cannot be brought back, but all the sovereignty which has been stolen from the States can be regained or will be, if the South is not whipped in its manhood.” The Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser does not wish its readers to accept or submit to these measures, but advises that resistance to them be not too outspoken until after election. The Montgomery (Ala.) Mail calls loudly for the restoration of a white man’s government; declares that the South will not “wait awhile;” that the Northern Democrats are powerless without the help of their “Southern brethren;” and that the latter will stand manfully by their position till the point will be conceded and the victory won. The Galveston News says it is a waste of time to discuss the constitutionality of the constitutional amendments. The people of the South propose to go at the business in a practical way, and cut up root and branch the whole matter, and undo all that has been done. We call attention to the doings of the REVIEW AND HERALD LITERARY ASSOCIATION on this page. The society is in earnest. It will do all in its power to improve the REVIEW AND HERALD, the Health Reformer, and the Youth's Instructor, and to extend their circulation. This society calls for co-operative, energetic action. God has committed to us truths of vast importance, and we go too drowsily at the work of defending and disseminating them. Let all our ministers be encouraged to take hold of the work with fresh courage, and actively render the efficient aid in this work which is in their power to give. We plead that our periodicals may be filled with stirring articles, urging home upon the minds and consciences of thousands who are now ignorant of our positions, the great facts upon which they rest. Special Meeting.
By John W. Bacheller
The Review and Herald Literary Society was called April 2, at 3 P. M., by the president. He stated that the object of the meeting was to consider the question of making an appeal through the Review, to our people, to take hold of the work of obtaining subscribers for the Reformer. Three thousand subscribers can easily be obtained, if all will interest themselves in the work. After briefly stating the matter, the following resolutions were presented, and unanimously adopted: Whereas, About three thousand copies of the Health Reformer have been sent, post paid, to as many subscribers of the Review and Herald who do not take the Reformer, with an appeal to them to become subscribers to the Reformer, with the liberal offer of the last four numbers of the current volume, and the next volume complete, for the small sum of $1.00, Resolved, That we consider it the duty of our ministers, and the officers and leading members of our churches, and our brethren and sisters generally, to make a special effort at this time to secure all our people as permanent subscribers to the Health Reformer. Whereas, the Health Reformer is being raised in interest and importance to meet the wants and the feelings of the people generally, and, Whereas, There seems to be a readiness on the part of many to become subscribers to this journal; therefore, Resolved, That we earnestly invite all true health reformers to cherish a free-will missionary spirit, and labor to gather up subscribers for the Reformer wherever they may find men and women whom they can interest in this important subject. Since the report in last week's Review, the Corresponding Secretaries of the Society have written a number of letters, in behalf especially of the Reformer. John W. Bacheller, Sec., pro tem. Plants and Roots.
By James White
ALL orders for plants and roots should be received in season to ship them to points on and below latitude forty-two, which is not far from Battle Creek, as early as April 15. They may be shipped north not later than the 25th. We offer 500 of the Raspberry and 500 of the Strawberry, in one order, for the small sum of $8.00, to be paid within six months. Be in season. JAMES WHITE. The general inclination manifested by the opponents of the Sabbath, to skulk behind Sabbaton, as the most convenient method of shielding themselves from a damaging fire from the batteries of truth, makes it necessary that they be routed from their dishonest hiding place. For this purpose the articles that have recently appeared in the REVIEW are prepared in tract form for general circulation. This tract gives the true grammatical construction of Matt. 28 : 1, and parallel passages, and exposes the sophistry of those who try to make it favor a first-day Sabbath. Brethren everywhere would do well to supply themselves with a quantity of this tract against a time of need; for this dodge in the Sabbath controversy is becoming more and more common. 16 pp., price $2.00 per hundred. Address REVIEW & HERALD, Battle Creek, Mich.