p. 16 | Signs of the Times, Vol. 21, No. 35. (9/5/1895)

Church Spread Hindered Only by Civil Power

Burr, in his “Ad Fidem, or Evidences of the Bible,” truly remarks: “The primitive church, as long as it continued itself, went on spreading. So did the church of the Reformation save where the civil power interfered.” And the only way the civil power can hinder the work of the church of God is to become related to it by the consent of the church.

Defense of St. Vincent Monastery's Beer Brewing

A WRITER in the Pittsburg (Pa.) Despatch seeks to defend the St. Vincent Monastery, in Westmoreland County of that state, in its manufacture of beer, about which so much has been said in religious and temperance papers, by saying that the brewery is small, that only about eighty barrels a month are sold, and that but little is used on the premises, the sum of which is that if we sin but little it isn't very bad. And then the beer is very good beer, made in an "unpretentious structure"!

Reported Healing and Discerning True Faith Cures

A CORRESPONDENT sends us a Bradford (Pa.) Sunday Herald in which is the reported healing of a woman who was thought to be near death’s door. It may all be true. It is not a remarkable thing that Christ should heal the body, when he is healing and re-creating souls every day. If healing of the sick will glorify him, it is just like him to do it if faith be there. However, Satan will also manifest himself in healing the sick. While we are not to judge others, we are to decide these things for ourselves by the law and the testimony. Isa. 8: 20.

OUR FIRST SYMPOSIUM NUMBER.

By Editor

Our first symposium number will bear date September 26. The special subject considered in the space now devoted to Editorial and General Articles will be The Holy Scriptures, or the word of God. Some of the more important subdivisions of this topic, treated by able writers, are as follows:—

The Scripture Canon.

The Institution of the Scriptures.

The Word Incarnate.

The Word, and all else through Christ.

How Understood.

The Power of the Word.

The Word in Us.

This number will be illustrated, and will contain precious truth for the millions who are famishing for the bread of life.

On Trial

By Editor

“On Trial.”—Last February the manager of the International Tract Society of London, Eng., was fined under the Factory Act for employing women on Sunday. The fines, amounting to $30, were recovered by distress or levy. The work was continued, as it was a question of obedience to the Lord and not to man. It was admitted by the authorities that the spirit of the Factory Act was not violated, as every one employed observed the day previous as the Sabbath. Since that the manager has been called to answer to five charges more, the whole fine amounting to $80. Inasmuch as these persecutions involve great and far-reaching principles applicable everywhere, the matter has been treated at length by one of the editors of this paper—E. J. W.—in the Present Truth, of London. We know our readers will be interested in it, and therefore we have decided to print it next week. It will be entitled “On Trial.”

The Bicycle and the Sabbath

“The Bicycle and the Sabbath.”—The Bicycle and the New Woman are among the absorbing topics of the newspapers, the religious press, and the pulpits that have nothing better. The Christian Work points out two great dangers, the first of which is nervousness, deformity, and general breaking down on the part of those who aim to be “scorchers,” or speedy; and the second danger is the use of the wheel as a pleasure or pastime on “the sabbath.” The above journal, in an article titled with the heading of this note, says:—

“Public opinion should set itself hard against this practice, and the church may rightly concern itself over the matter; especially does it become the pulpit to take the matter in hand; it is every way a proper and indeed necessary theme for pulpit treatment.”

O, that Christianity were taught in the pulpits and practiced by the church! How its spirit of self-denial would place the bicycle where it would minister to usefulness, not to men’s selfish pleasure! Let Christ be preached. If he is accepted, we need not trouble so much about the bicycle.

Lack of Apprehension

There is a great lack of apprehension of what the plan of salvation includes in the following from the August Arena, written by Dr. W. E. Manley; and yet it seems to be sound to many persons:—

“The only way Jesus can be the Saviour of the world is to save it. An unsuccessful attempt to save it would not entitle him to be called its Saviour. Nor would his saving one-half, or even nine-tenths, entitle him to this honorable appellation. The title can be earned only by his saving every soul of the world’s population.”

The fact is that Jesus does not propose to save the world in the sense of saving “every soul,” whether the soul is willing or not. He will save the material world, purged from sin, filled with a people who will do him willing service. He proposes to do no more. Those who willfully place themselves outside of this purpose are counted as what they have chosen, sin, destruction, negation.

Methodist Sermon on the Virgin Mary Noted

The Catholic Mirror of the 24th ultimo says: “One realizes how times have changed when a Methodist minister is found delivering a sermon in the nature of a panegyric of the Blessed Virgin. Such a sermon was preached in Philadelphia two weeks ago, by the Rev. A. I. Collom, pastor of the Sarah D. Cooper Memorial Church. . . . A great deal that Mr. Collom said might have come from the lips of a Catholic priest.” And truly the times have changed. Protestantism has changed, but the Papacy has not. Truly the mother of our Lord was greatly blessed, but it was through him, and it is through him alone that we also may be blessed.

A Coincidence: Lightning Strikes Quakertown Methodist Church

A Coincidence.—At the very moment last Sunday when a Cleveland Methodist pastor was illustrating a point in his sermon by referring to the advance of science in certain ways, and particularly in the latest use of lightning rods as protectors of buildings, saying that people in churches in cities had no reason to fear, the Methodist Church at Quakertown, Pa., was struck by a bolt of electricity. Twenty persons were injured by the shock, several seriously. The walls of the church were badly shattered, and a six-hundred-pound bell nearly dislodged from its hangings.—Methodist Times, August 9.