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Signs of the Times, Vol. 5, No. 26.

General Articles

Signs of the Times

Jul 3, 1879

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Jul 3, 1879

General Articles.

By Ellen G. White

The Imprisonment of Paul and Silas.

BY MRS. E. G. WHITE.
AFTER a time Paul again visited Lystra, where he had been greeted as a god by the heathen; where the opposing Jews had followed on his track, and by falsehood and misrepresentation had turned the reverence of the people into insult, abuse, and a determination to kill him. Yet we find him again on the scene of his former danger, looking after the fruit of his labors there.
He found that the converts to Christ had not been intimidated by the violent persecution of the apostles; but, on the contrary, were confirmed in the faith, believing that through trial and suffering, the kingdom of Christ would be reached. Paul found that Timothy was closely bound to him by the ties of Christian union. This man had been instructed in the Holy Scriptures from his childhood, and educated for a strictly religious life. He had witnessed the sufferings of Paul upon his former visit to Lystra, and the bonds of Christian sympathy had knit his heart firmly to that of the apostle. Paul accordingly thought best to take Timothy with him to assist in his labors.
The extreme caution of Paul is manifested in this act. He had refused the companionship of Mark, because he dared not trust him in an emergency. But in Timothy he saw one who fully appreciated the ministerial work, who respected his position, and was not appalled at the prospect of suffering and persecution. Yet he did not venture to accept Timothy, an untried youth, without diligent inquiry with regard to his life and character. After fully satisfying himself on those points, Paul received Timothy as his fellow-laborer and son in the gospel.
Paul, with his usual good judgment, caused Timothy to be circumcised; not that God required it, but in order to remove from the minds of the Jews an obstacle to Timothy's ministration. Paul was to labor from place to place in the synagogues, and there to preach Christ. If his companion should be known as an uncircumcised heathen, the work of both would be greatly hindered by the prejudice and bigotry of the people. The apostle everywhere met a storm of persecution. He desired to bring the Jews to Christianity, and sought, as far as was consistent with the faith, to remove every pretext for opposition. Yet while he conceded this much to Jewish prejudice, his faith and teachings declared that circumcision or uncircumcision was nothing, but the gospel of Christ was everything.
At Philippi, Lydia, of the city of Thyatira, heard the apostles, and her heart was open to receive the truth. She and her household were converted and baptized, and she entreated the apostles to make her house their home.
Day after day as they went to their devotions a woman with the spirit of divination followed them, crying, "These men are the servants of the most high God, which show unto us the way of salvation." This woman was a special agent of Satan; and, as the devils were troubled by the presence of Christ, so the evil spirit which possessed her was ill at ease in the presence of the apostles. Satan knew that his kingdom was invaded, and took this way of opposing the work of the ministers of God. The words of recommendation uttered by this woman were an injury to the cause, distracting the minds of the people from the truths presented to them, and throwing disrepute upon the work by causing people to believe that the men who spoke with the Spirit and power of God were actuated by the same spirit as this emissary of Satan.
The apostles endured this opposition for several days; then Paul, under inspiration of the Spirit of God, commanded the evil spirit to leave the woman. Satan was thus met and rebuked. The immediate and continued silence of the woman testified that the apostles were the servants of God, and that the demon had acknowledged them to be such, and had obeyed their command. When the woman was dispossessed of the spirit of the devil, and restored to herself, her masters were alarmed for their craft. They saw that all hope of receiving money from her divinations and soothsayings was at an end, and perceived that, if the apostles were allowed to continue their work, their own source of income would soon be entirely cut off.
A mighty cry was therefore raised against the servants of God, for many were interested in gaining money by Satanic delusions. They brought the apostles before the magistrates with the charge that "these men, being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city, and teach customs which are not lawful for us to receive, being Romans."
Satan stirred up a frenzy among the people. Mob spirit prevailed, and was sanctioned by the authorities, who, with their official hands, tore the clothes from the apostles, and commanded them to be scourged. "And when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailer to keep them safely; who, having received such a charge, thrust them into the inner prison, and made their feet fast in the stocks."
The apostles were left in a very painful condition. Their lacerated and bleeding backs were in contact with the rough stone floor, while their feet were elevated and bound fast in the stocks. In this unnatural position they suffered extreme torture; yet they did not groan nor complain, but conversed with and encouraged each other, and praised God with grateful hearts that they were found worthy to suffer shame for his dear name. Paul was reminded of the persecution he had been instrumental in heaping upon the disciples of Christ, and he was devoutly thankful that his eyes had been opened to see, and his heart to feel, the glorious truths of the gospel of the Son of God, and that he had been privileged to preach the doctrine which he had once despised.
There, in the pitchy darkness and desolation of the dungeon, Paul and Silas prayed, and sung songs of praise to God. The other prisoners heard with astonishment the voice of prayer and praise issuing from the inner prison. They had been accustomed to hear shrieks and moans, cursing and swearing, breaking at night upon the silence of the prison; but they had never before heard the words of prayer and praise ascending from that gloomy cell. The guards and prisoners marveled who these men, who, cold, hungry, and tortured, could still rejoice and converse cheerfully with each other.
Meanwhile the magistrates had returned to their homes congratulating themselves upon having quelled a tumult, by their prompt and decisive measures. But upon their way home they heard more fully concerning the character and work of the men whom they had sentenced to scourging and imprisonment. They also saw the woman who had been freed from Satanic influence, and who had been a very troublesome subject to them. They were sensibly struck by the change in her countenance and demeanor. She had become quiet, peaceful, and possessed of her right mind. They were indignant with themselves when they discovered that, in all probability, they had visited upon two innocent men the rigorous penalty of the Roman law against the worst criminals. They decided that in the morning they would command them to be privately released, and escorted in safety from the city beyond the danger of violence from the mob.
But while men were cruel and vindictive, or criminally negligent of the solemn responsibilities devolving upon them, God had not forgotten to be gracious to his suffering servants. An angel was sent from Heaven to release the apostles. As he neared the Roman prison, the earth trembled beneath his feet, the whole city was shaken by the earthquake, and the prison walls reeled like a reed in the wind. The heavily bolted doors flew open; the chains and fetters fell from the hands and feet of every prisoner.
The keeper of the jail had heard with amazement the prayers and singing of the imprisoned apostles. When they were led in, he had seen their swollen and bleeding wounds, and he had himself caused their feet to be fastened in the instrument of torture. He had expected to hear bitter wailing, groans, and imprecations; but lo! his ears were greeted with joyful praise. He fell asleep with these sounds in his ears; but was awakened by the earthquake, and the shaking of the prison walls.
Upon awakening he saw all the prison doors open, and his first thought was that the prisoners had escaped. He remembered with what an explicit charge the prisoners of the night before had been intrusted to his care, and he felt sure that death would be the penalty of his apparent unfaithfulness. He cried out in the bitterness of his spirit that it was better for him to die by his own hand than to submit to a disgraceful execution. He was about to kill himself, when Paul cried out in a loud voice, "Do thyself no harm; for we are all here."
The severity with which the jailer had treated the apostles had not roused their resentment, or they would have allowed him commit suicide. But their hearts were filled with the love of Christ, and they held no malice against their persecutors. The jailer dropped his sword, and called for a light. He hastened into the inner dungeon, and fell down before Paul and Silas, begging their forgiveness. He then brought them up into the open court, and inquired of them, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"
He had trembled because of the wrath of God expressed in the earthquake; he had been ready to die by his own hand for fear of the penalty of the Roman law, when he thought the prisoners had escaped; but now all these things were of little consequence to him compared with the new and strange dread that agitated his mind, and his desire to possess that tranquility and cheerfulness manifested by the apostles under their extreme suffering and abuse. He saw the light of Heaven mirrored in their countenances; and he knew that God had interposed in a miraculous manner to save their lives; and the words of the woman possessed by the power of divination came to his mind with peculiar force: "These men are the servants of the most high God, which show unto us the way of salvation."
He saw his own deplorable condition in contrast with that of the disciples, and with deep humility and reverence asked them to show him the way of life. "And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house." The jailer then washed the wounds of the apostles, and ministered unto them; and was baptized by them. A sanctifying influence spread among the inmates of the prison, and the hearts of all were opened to receive the truths uttered by the apostles. They were convinced also that the living God, whom these men served, had miraculously released them from bondage.The citizens had been greatly terrified by the earthquake. When the officers informed the magistrates in the morning of what had occurred at the prison, they were alarmed, and sent the sergeants to liberate the apostles from prison. "But Paul said unto them, They have beaten us openly, uncondemned, being Romans, and have cast us into prison; and now do they thrust us out privily? nay, verily; but let them come themselves and fetch us out." Paul and Silas felt that to maintain the dignity of Christ's church, they must not submit to the illegal course proposed by the Roman magistrates. The apostles were Roman citizens, and it was unlawful to scourge a Roman, save for the most flagrant crime, or to deprive him of his liberty without a fair trial and condemnation. They had been publicly thrust into prison, and now refused to be privately released, without proper acknowledgments on the part of the magistrates.
When this word was brought to the authorities they were alarmed for fear the apostles would make complaint of their unlawful treatment to the emperor, and cause the magistrates to lose their positions. They accordingly visited the prison, apologized to the apostles for their injustice and cruelty, and themselves conducted them out of the prison, and entreated them to depart out of the city. Thus the Lord wrought for his servants in their extremity.
The magistrates entreated them to depart because they feared their influence over the people, and the power of Heaven that had interposed in behalf of those innocent men who had been unlawfully scourged and imprisoned. Acting upon the principle given them by Christ, the apostles would not urge their presence where it was not desired. They complied with the request of the magistrates, but did not hasten their departure precipitously. They went rejoicing from prison to the house of Lydia, where they met the new converts to the faith of Christ, and related all the wonderful dealings of God with them. They related their night's experience, and the conversion of the keeper of the prison, and of the prisoners.
The apostles viewed their labors in Philippi as not in vain. They there met much opposition and persecution; but the intervention of Providence in their behalf, the conversion of the jailer and all his house, more than atoned for the disgrace and suffering they had endured. The Philippians saw represented in the deportment and presence of mind of the apostles the spirit of the religion of Jesus Christ. The apostles might have fled when the earthquake opened their prison doors, and loosened their fetters; but that would have been an acknowledgment that they were criminals, which would have been a disgrace to the gospel of Christ; the jailer would have been exposed to the penalty of death, and the general influence would have been bad. As it was, Paul controlled the liberated prisoners so perfectly that not one attempted to escape.
The Philippians could but acknowledge the nobility and generosity of the apostles in their course of action, especially in forbearing to appeal to a higher power against the magistrates who had persecuted them. The news of their unjust imprisonment, and miraculous deliverance, was noised about through all that region, and brought the apostles and their ministry before the notice of a large number who would not otherwise have been reached. Christianity was placed upon a high plane, and the converts to the faith were greatly strengthened.
Thus we have the establishment of the church at Philippi under peculiar circumstances, and its numbers steadily increased. Among them were men of wealth and influence, whose noble generosity and ready sympathy were ever on the side of right. They often came to the aid of the apostles in their affliction and pecuniary necessity. Paul said of these brethren, "Now ye Philippians, know also that in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no church communicated with me as concerning giving and receiving, but ye only. For even in Thessalonica ye sent once and again unto my necessity."
He sends also salutations from the brethren to Cæsar's household; for officers in the employment of the emperor had been converted under the labors of the apostles, and through the wonderful manifestation of God in their deliverance from prison.

THE MOURNER'S PRAYER.

By Paul Gerhardt

O THOU who diedst to give us life, Full well to thee is known The cross, and all the inner strife, Of those who weep alone. And neath their burden well-nigh faint ; The aching heart's unspoken plaint Finds echo in thine own.
Ah Christ, do thou within me speak, For thou canst comfort best; The tower and stronghold of the weak, The weary wanderer's rest, Our shadow in the noonday hours, And when the tempest round us lowers, Our shelter safe and blest.
O Holy Spirit, sent of God, In whom all gladness lies, Refresh my soul, lift off her load, From thee all sadness flies ; Thou know'st the glories yet to come, The joy, the solace, of that home Where we shall one day rise.
There in thy presence we shall see Glories beyond our ken ; The cross known here to none but thee Shall turn to gladness then ; There smiles for all our tears are given, And for our woes the joys of heaven. Lord, I believe! Amen !
—Paul Gerhardt.

Can God Organize Matter To Think? (Continued.)

By Dudley Marvin Canright

How different species of plants and animals are perpetuated. Inorganic matter has not the power of producing a living animal, or even a plant; but at creation God made the first specimen of all vegetables and animals, and gave each the power to reproduce its kind, some one way, some another. Plant a thousand different seeds in the same soil, and out of these same material elements each will construct a plant like itself; so each animal begets another after its own kind. How this can be we cannot possibly say, yet there is the fact.
I hold in my hand six little seeds. They do not seem to differ much in size, weight, or color. They are nothing but matter, at the best. I place them all side by side in the same soil. They are moistened by the same dew, warmed by the same sun, and they grow up together. But how marvelous! Each little seed has produced a plant every way different from all the rest. Then look at the various shapes and colors of the flowers as they open their leaves and blossoms. One is red, one is white, another is pink, another violet. Who can explain this mystery? Nobody. Yet this is all the work of mere matter vitalized by the power of God six thousand years ago. Look at that apple tree. It bears sour apples. I take a twig from a sweet apple tree, and graft it into one of the limbs. On that little twig grow sweet apples, while all around it on the same tree the apples are sour. The same sap rises up from the root, and feeds all the limbs alike; but when it comes to that limb, the same sap is made into sweet apples instead of sour. What does this? Is there a mysterious intelligence in that little limb? Oh! no. It is nothing but matter at work, and gross matter at that. The God who can make matter work such marvels as these, can make it think.
Our pleaders for immateriality seek such a difference between matter in its higher forms, as when organized into an angel or the higher classes of men, and the grosser forms of matter as seen in the lower animals, plants, and minerals, that they conclude these cannot both be material. But we fully believe that the whole difference lies in the superior organization which the Creator has given one over the other.
Take another simple illustration. Here sits a skillful painter. Before him are his canvas, his brushes, and several kinds of paint,—all nothing but gross matter. They do not look very beautiful in that shape. But now he commences his work. He puts on a little of this paint, a little of that, and some of the other. In due time, lo and behold! there is the figure of an angel. The innocence and loveliness of Heaven sits upon it. We cannot admire it too much. Again he takes up the same brushes, with the same paint, and on the same canvas soon is represented the hideous form of a horrid devil. What a contrast in the two pictures! Can they be of the same material? Oh! yes: the only difference is in the way they are put together, or at most a little tinting of some other paint is added. With the same material he can paint a plant, a beast, or a man. Then cannot God do as much? Yes: we know he does, for we see it every day. Gather up promiscuously a hundred pounds of vegetable matter, a hundred pounds of brute flesh, and then take some human flesh, and analyze them all. They will be found to consist largely of the same materials.
Then, reader, it is the organization that makes the plant, the beast, or the man; and it is the organization that makes the mind, which neither the stone nor the plant possesses.
God has organized matter in certain forms so that it does think. If a false theology had not utterly blinded our eyes to reason and the plainest facts of every-day observation, it would require no argument to prove this proposition. There sits a fly. Is he not material? Is he anything but matter? Will any be foolish enough to claim an immortal soul for him? No: all one claims is that he has animal life, but no spiritual nature. Well, I carefully reach out my hand to put my finger on him. He sees the motion, and knows he will be killed if he remains there; so he flies away. Man in danger acts the same as that fly: we know he reasons in doing so; so does the fly, or else it would not move. I raise my hand to strike that chair; but it does not try to move. Why not, as well as the fly? Because it knows nothing, while the fly sees its danger.
Here is my dog. He thinks. I know he thinks, for I see the evidence of it. I speak to him, and he moves his head, wags his tail, and comes to me. Could unthinking matter do that? No. I tell him to do this or that, and he obeys me. This shows that he knows, that he understands what I say. But our opponents say this is nothing but instinct: there is no thought, reason, or intelligence about it. This is only a dodge; but be it so, it only helps our case. For according to their own position they must admit that matter can be organized so as to hear, see, feel, and act. I run a pin into my dog, or I strike him. See how quickly and keenly he feels it. He cries out for pain. See his flesh quiver. There is feeling there: none can deny this. So our opponents must now admit that matter can be made to feel; but all matter cannot feel. Indeed, no matter can feel unless first properly organized.
But further. My dog can see. Look at his twinkling eyes. He has as good sight as man has. Doesn't he hear also? How acute his sense of smelling! You may deny him a mind and reason, but you cannot deny that he sees, hears, smells, and feels. Well, he is wholly material, as we both agree. Then here we have proof which cannot be evaded in any possible manner that matter can be organized so as to see, hear, smell, and feel. This gives us the whole question; for if God can organize matter to see, to hear, and to feel, he can as easily organize it to think. Unless they admit that the dog has an immortal soul, which they will by no means do, they cannot resort to the favorite dodge which is employed when we argue that the human eye does see. They reply that it is not the eye that sees, but the immaterial spirit behind it, which sees through the eye as we see through a telescope. But the dog has no such immaterial entity back of his eye; yet he sees; so it must be the material eye that sees after all.
Take another familiar illustration: Here are a dozen hen's eggs. I open one, and find nothing but common matter, largely water with a little phosphorus, lime, &c. I can see no signs of thought or even animal life here, nothing which can see, or hear, or move itself. I put another under a sitting hen. In a few days I behold a living animal breaking out of those shells. It now has eyes, ears, and can run around, and feed itself. It can see, hear, and feel. What has wrought this great difference in the matter which was in that egg? Has God sent an immortal soul down to animate it? Oh! no. Simply the latent animal life in that egg has been developed. It is just the same matter that it was before, only it is differently organized. Now that matter can see and feel.
Let us carry this further. A man is asleep. Prick his foot with a pin. His foot feels it, and the nerve immediately carries the impression to the mind, and the man awakes. In this case it is the material flesh which feels the pin and informs the mind of it. Is it claimed that the immaterial soul is of the same size and shape as the body, and hence it is present in all parts of the body; and that it is after all the soul that feels, and not the flesh? But this theory won't work well for our opponents. According to this view, the immaterial soul of a child can only be the size of a child. Hence it must grow larger as the child grows to man's size. But how can an immaterial thing grow? That which can grow larger must be composed of parts. Hence it can be divided, separated, and thus destroyed, and hence is not immortal any more than the material body. But to return to that foot. We can positively demonstrate, beyond any contradiction, that in this case it is the material flesh, not the soul at all, which feels the prick of the pin. Here is the proof: Cut off the leg of the spirit body which they claim is inside of the material body? Of course they dare not admit that; for if you can cut off the leg of the immaterial body, you could also cut off its head and cut it all up! No, that won't do; so the leg of the spirit body must be there still, hanging out after the material leg, of flesh has been amputated! What a predicament that must be for the unfortunate spirit leg!
But the point is; Which feels, the material fleshly leg, or the immaterial spirit leg? We will try it. When the flesh was there, the prick of a pin, the blow of a cane, could be felt. But now that the flesh is gone, thrust in the pin, strike at it and through it with a cane: is there any feeling? Not a particle, as any man will tell you who has lost a limb. So one told me yesterday, when I asked him, and tried the experiment. Then it is not the immaterial body, but the fleshly body, which feels. Take another case. A man's limb is paralyzed. The nerves no longer act. The leg or arm is still alive, but it has no feeling. You may prick it, freeze it, or burn it; but the man feels nothing. I know a brother in this condition. He has frozen all his fingers off because he could not feel when they were cold. What the difficulty in this case? The material nerve of flesh, the one which feels, is paralyzed and inactive; hence there is no feeling in that limb, though the limb is alive. Now if it were the spirit which feels, and this is present in all the body, why does it not feel, as well as before? What can our opponents say to this? Nothing; for it utterly demolishes their immaterial spirit theory.
But further: we positively know that their pretended spirit-man inside can neither see, hear, smell, taste, nor feel. How do we know this? Put out a man's material eyes, and can he see anything now? No, nothing at all, as any blind man will tell you. So of all the five senses. Destroy the material, physical organs of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, or feeling, and the soul can neither see, hear, smell, taste, nor feel. This demonstrates that it is the material man which sees, hears, &c. If the spirit does not do so, why does not the soul of the blind man see? Why does not the soul of the deaf man hear? Oh! you say, it is cumbered with the flesh. Then it cannot see through matter, can it? But it has always been asserted that the immaterial spirit is so superior to matter, that it can go through the most solid matter, as through a wall, through a board, through glass or iron. But now this has to be given up, and it is admitted that it cannot even see, nor hear, nor smell through something as thin as a material substance as the human skull! Poor, weak thing! The material ear can do better than that. Reader, that boasted immaterial spirit-man inside is all a fable. There is no such useless tenant there.
God has organized the material physical man to see, hear and think; and we see him in the exercise of this power every day.
It is a favorite argument with our opponents that matter cannot possibly be organized so as to think, feel, &c. Take as a specimen of all this reasoning the following from Rev. D. W. Clark, D. D., Bishop of the M. E. Church, in his book, "Man All Immortal." He has here stated their side as forcibly as it can be done. He says:
"We are accustomed to say the eye sees, the ear hears, the finger feels, and so forth; but such language is used only in accommodation to our ignorance or from the force of habit. It is incorrect. The eye itself no more sees than the telescope which we hold before it to assist our vision; the ear hears not any more than the trumpet of tin which the man directs toward the speaker to convey the sound of his voice; and so with regard to all the organs of sense. They are but instruments which become the media of intelligence to the absolute mind, which uses them whenever it is inclined or obliged to do so." —P. 75.
This is the doctrine of the immaterialist. It will do very well for them to reason that way in the case of men; but they cannot do it in the case of the dumb beast, because, as does Bishop Clark in this very book, they claim that brutes have no mind, no soul; hence in these cases they are compelled to admit that the eye does see, and the ear does hear. They have never answered this argument: they never will. They must either admit that every flea, every musquito, every little gnat, has an immortal soul, or else they must admit that a material eye does see. But if the Almighty can organize matter so as to see, to hear, feel, then he can organize it to reason. But they squarely deny that it is possible for the Almighty to do this. D. M. CANRIGHT.

The Sweetness of Divine Knowledge

THOSE that do but superficially taste of divine knowledge, find little sweetness in it, and are apt to become indifferent for the want of a higher relish.

Ministers in the Theatre.

By Editor

THE editor of the Sacramento Bee was at the theatre in that city on the evening of the 14th, and saw Christian ministers, and "honored them for being there." Whereupon The People's Cause, of Colusa, says with as much truth as pertinence and force:—
"There has been, and there will continue to be, as long as time lasts, a positive and deadly conflict between vice and virtue, right and wrong, the world on the one side and a pure religion on the other; infidelity and deism, as against the teachings of the humble Nazarine. We deny the purity of the drama. The fountain is corrupt and you cannot get pure water from a corrupt fountain. The drama is the product of immoral and irreligious men, in fact no pure minded Christian has ever undertaken the task of writing dramas. There is but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous, and a minister of the gospel who fills the sacred desk on the Sabbath, teaching the grand and sublime truths of the Bible, and on a week-day night seats himself in the theatre to listen to the coinings of imaginative brains, studying character in the delineation of 'Richlieu' or any other picture, has taken that step, and in the eyes of the world has let himself down below the veriest buffoon of modern theatricals. There is not, there cannot be in the very nature of things, a soul-saving clause in any human production. There is no religion in the drama, nothing that will lead man to make that preparation, that will fit and prepare him for Heaven and all that Heaven means. The command given to the apostles over 1800 years ago, is in full force now; 'go preach my gospel to every creature.' Either turn theatres into churches or churches into theatres; let there be one common temple in which to worship."

The Secret of Happiness.

ONE of my neighbors, in town and church, is an old lady whose dress is of a style belonging to no period of fashion. I wonder, sometimes, if for forty years the cost has exceeded as many dollars. Her step is as light as a girl’s, her manner bright and cheery, and over her otherwise homely face spreads the glow of a heart at peace with God. Her youth was spent in a struggle for daily bread, and scarcely was this pressure removed before she was called upon to mourn the loss of first one and then another of her family, until she has out-lived every relative. Her home is plain, almost bare of the luxuries considered as indispensable to comfort, yet there is not one to whom I so much enjoy a visit as to this solitary woman, even so warm a greeting, so cheerfully companionable.
“There is so much heartease about you,” I said once to her, “that it refreshes me to meet you. Why, you are the youngest and happiest person I have seen to-day!”
“Oh, yes,” she replied, smilingly, “I have stopped growing old, for each day brings me nearer the possession of endless youth, in my better home. And how can I be unhappy in this beautiful world where my heavenly Father has placed me?”
“Still you have your full share of trials and sorrows.”
“Yes, I have surely passed through the valley of Baca, but by the grace of God I have been able to make it a well. But, my friend,” she continued, “I have been happy only since I ceased to strain after what was beyond my reach, and resolved no longer to hug to my bosom my griefs and disappointments, but to take them all to God, and leave them with him, content to be what he wishes, and only that.”—Christian Weekly.

The Big Trees of California.

PROF. BREWER points out two errors that are current about them, one relating to their hight, and the other to their age. The “Father of the Forest” is generally said to have been 450 feet high when in his glory. The fact is, no one knows how high it was. When the grove was first seen by white men, the prostrate tree was already part rotten, and the whole top burned away. The highest tree in the Calaveras grove is 225 feet, and the highest in the Mariposa 272 feet. The highest in the Kings River grove is 300 feet. As to their age, there is no reason to believe that even the eldest began its growth “long before David reigned in Israel,” as people are fond of asserting. One of these trees was felled in 1853, and found to be sound to the core. Its age is known to within a few years, and it began its growth more than 2,500 years after David died. It is possible that some of the oldest trees of this species may have begun its growth 2,000 years ago, but not at all probable that any reached back to within a thousand years of the time of the Jewish king.—Silver State.
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