Died, in the vicinity of La Porte City, Iowa, after a short illness of three weeks, Maria Nichols, daughter of George Nichols, in the sixteenth year of her age.
The subject of this notice was born near Perry's Mills, Clinton Co., N. Y., Feb. 1, 1844, where she remained until the spring of 1858, when she removed to Iowa with her friends; where she fell asleep Sept. 18, 1861, no more to awake till the morning of the resurrection, when those who sleep in Jesus will be clothed with immortality and life.
“Dearest sister, she has left us,
Here her loss we deeply feel;
But 'tis God that hath bereft us,
He can all our sorrows heal.
“Yet again we hope to meet her,
When mortality is fled;
Then in heaven with joy to greet her,
Where no farewell tear is shed.”
JOSEPH NICHOLS.
Resignation to God’s Will
Resignation to God's sovereign will in trying times, displays wisdom and secures comfort.
The Lord often crosses our wills for the benefit of our souls.
Church Organization and Christian Unity
By Hiram Edson
From Bro. Edson.
DEAR BRO. AND SR. WHITE: I have been thinking for some time of writing to you a few lines to let you know how we are getting along. We still hold in very grateful remembrance your friendly visit with us, the precious seasons we enjoyed with you around the family altar, and also in the public congregation. We know your prayers availed much in our behalf. My physical strength has improved considerably since you were here, though I have had some slight relapses, one rather serious of late; but from this I am now mostly recovered. I am trying to lean upon the arm of the Lord, and to believe that he will lift me up. I believe the Lord will yet visit us in mercy. The manifestation given through the gift of the Spirit, while you were here, has been a source of comfort and encouragement to us. We hope to profit by it. I am looking for, and expect, my strength to increase, though it be but slow. If we come into mind in your seasons of prayer, still pray for us.
I was glad to learn from the Review that union existed on the subject of organization in your general conference. The manner of organizing churches as proposed and adopted seems to me unobjectionable. I am rejoiced to see this work begin to move forward. It looks a little more like coming into the unity of the faith. There must be order in the church or house of God; and how can order be established or exist independent of organization. Have we not tried anti-organization, until we have confusion, Babel, Babylon, enough? And shall we still refuse to be shown the more excellent way? I have felt no risings against organization from its first suggestion among us, but have ever spoken in favor of it. Perhaps I ought to have spoken more publicly, but I have looked for others of more leading influence to move out, considering mine to be of little service; yet I suppose our mite should be cast into the right scale. If I have erred here, pardon.
Yours as ever, in hope, though wading through deep waters.
HIRAM EDSON.
Palermo, N. Y.
HISTORY OF THE SABBATH.
By John Nevins Andrews
"HISTORY of the Sabbath and First Day of the Week, Showing the Bible Record of the Sabbath, also the Manner in Which It Has Been Supplicated by the Heathen Festival of the Sun," is the title of a work of 340 pp. just issued by the Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association.
This work is the result of Elder J. N. Andrews' studious and arduous researches upon the subject, as he has had opportunity, for the last ten years. The work is in two parts. The first gives the Bible history of the institution. It shows the Sabbath instituted in Eden, answers the popular objections, and refutes the claims of Sunday-keeping to Divine authority. Part second is a thorough and candid presentation of secular history bearing on the subject, showing up the fallacy and deception of the popular quotations from the fathers and some warped historians to sustain the first day of the week as the Christian Sabbath. As a more minute description of the work we give the preface, as follows:
"When the claims of the Bible Sabbath are brought to bear upon the consciences of men, various excuses are framed with which to evade their force. Some affirm that the Sabbath of the Lord is a Jewish institution with which Christians have no concern; others affirm that Sunday is the true seventh day; others that one day in seven is all that is essential to the proper observance of the commandment; another class affirm that no one can tell what day is the true seventh day; and a still more numerous class profess to believe that Sunday has, by Divine authority, obtained the place of the ancient Sabbath. And it is not unfrequently that persons are met with, who, in one conversation, attempt to maintain all these positions.
"It is believed that nothing can present so direct a refutation of these discordant and unscriptural positions as a plain narrative of facts relative to the Sabbath of the Lord and the heathen festival of the sun.
"To correct these errors is one object of the present work; a more important object in view is to set forth in a clear light the character and the claims of the ancient Sabbath. The institution of the Sabbath for the human family while the race was yet unfallen attests alike the sacredness of the institution and the unfounded nature of that theory which represents it as designed only for the Hebrew people. The complete apostasy of the human race with the single exception of the family of Abraham, fully explains the Law-giver's choice of that people as the depositaries for ages of his Sabbath and his law. At the close of the Mosaic dispensation, the action of the Lord of the Sabbath is scrutinized with peculiar care. It is there shown that while he vindicated the Sabbath as a merciful institution, he did not weaken, abrogate, or change it. The question of the obligation of the Gentiles to observe the Sabbath and the whole moral law is carefully considered; and the claims of the first day of the week as a Divine institution are shown to be without any foundation. The means by which that festival obtained a foothold in the church, and the nature of the testimonies by which it is now defended are carefully examined.
"Whoever will trace the persistent efforts for ages, of kings, emperors, popes and councils, to establish Sunday in place of the day Divinely sanctified, may find ample proof that these two days are not identical; that Sunday is not the true seventh day; and that the reckoning of the days of the week has never been a matter of doubt.
"It will also be seen that the seventh-part-of-time theory was invented soon after the Reformation of the sixteenth century, by men who professed to follow the Bible, in order to justify themselves in retaining the venerable day of the sun, instead of returning to the observance of the ancient Sabbath.
"It is shown also that the Sabbath was observed by the primitive church, and that the people of God when they fled into the wilderness before the papal power, did there sacredly preserve that ancient institution; and that in all ages of our world's history a remnant at least have retained the Sabbath of the Lord.
"The only seventh-day historians quoted in this work are Mr. Maxon and Mr. Utter; and these are quoted near the conclusion of the work, and on matters that are not in dispute. The reader has therefore the best possible guaranty that the testimonies quoted in this work were not written in the interest of the Bible Sabbath.
"To the fear, so often expressed, that the discussion of this subject will do hurt, and that it would be better to induce men to keep Sunday well than to show them that they are not observing the true Sabbath, we have only to cite in reply the words of inspiration: 'In vain do ye worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.'
J. N. A."
BREVITIES.
By J. Clarke
POPULARITY. How the desire of popularity creeps in at every avenue of the heart. One is honest, and his neighbors applaud, and he is fed by it; he is exemplary, and hears of it from the world, and it pleases him; he is talented, and it is wafted to his ears, and his bosom is warmed at the compliment; he is kind to the unfortunate and distressed, and benevolent in his designs and acts, and all give him credit for the noble trait, and he takes pleasure in this, too. The thanks of the grateful orphan and fatherless come like cordial to the heart; he loves to be thought well of by his fellows; and unless God keep him, unless he keep his own heart, this desire of praise will outgrow his desire to please the good and kind Creator.
God is good, and all good comes directly from him. Let us do all as to him, and for him, and as in his veritable presence. O, how kind and liberal he has been with us all! and now in the distribution of what he has committed to us, let us remember whence we derive all we possess; and bear in mind, too, that all mere popularity will disappear, as letters written in the sand; while deeds arising from pure and holy motives are engraved in heaven.
LEANING UPON THE ARM OF FLESH. One is not always sensible of how much he leans upon his fellows, until tried. When the enemy cuts down one of our friends, or comes into the family circle, and carries away a companion or near relative in whom our hearts were bound up, then we realize, in some degree, how much we rested upon the arm of flesh.
How natural it is, when one is wrong, to try to find some one or more to think as we do; and when one or another declares off, to try to find some one else who will be a safe depository for our wrongs (as we imagine). Thus we run from prop to prop, seeking as one fails to rest upon some other.
Thus do the world. As the pleasures of youth fade, they rest upon those pursuits and pleasures suitable (as they suppose) to their age and sphere, until life is spent in the vain pursuits of pleasure and profit.
This will not do for the Christian. He must get into such a position that he can lie as submissively in the care of God as the infant in its mother's arms.
ANTIQUITY. The Gibeonites [see Josh. ix] deceived the Israelites in regard to their distance from them as neighbors by showing their old and mouldy bread, their worn shoes and clothing, their patched garments, &c. But soon after the league was formed, it was discovered that the wily Gibeonites were near neighbors, their mouldy provisions and worn out garments to the contrary notwithstanding.
So now, the traditional doctrines of Sunday-keeping, natural immortality, endless misery, infant baptism, &c., are upheld by a show of antiquity which will finally prove like the mouldy bread of the Gibeonites, not so old after all.
AN ILLUSTRATION. A kind father settles upon his son an income of seven thousand dollars a year, with this condition, to test his honesty: he says to his son, You may draw upon my stock in bank $7000 per year; but one thousand you must pay back to me.
The son draws his money, but pays back always a little less than the stipulated $1000. Some years $10 less, some years $7 less, sometimes a little smaller, sometimes a little larger sum. Now would he not be a miserable, ungrateful son? Not less the professed commandment-keeper who is so fearful of losing a part of the six working days, that he encroaches upon the seventh. O, how low and mean, when God has given us six-sevenths, to filch a trifle from his fraction of one-seventh.
J. CLARKE.
Business Department.
By Editor
Business Notes.
M. M. Hall: Your account is correct. We had overlooked a part of your credit.
T. Draper: Your credit in No. 1 of present volume agrees with your account on our books.
RECEIPTS.
For Review and Herald.
Annexed to each receipt in the following list, is the Volume and Number of the REVIEW AND HERALD to which the money receipted pays. If money for the paper is not in due time acknowledged, immediate notice of the omission should then be given.
P. Amidon 1,00,xix,14. S Sellers 1,00,xix,13. E. F. Deboard 3,00,xviii,22. Mrs. A. Marr 1,00,xx,1. J. C. Adlon 1,00,xix,18. A. J. Stover 1,00,xix,1. B. Auten 1,00,xix,18. A. Shepard 1,00,xviii,1. P. Luke 1,00,xviii,13. Capt. Robert O'Brien 2,00,xxii,4. A. O. Thompson 2,00,xx,1. A. C. Hudson 5,00,xxi,1. Sophia Brigham 1,00,xx,1. E. S. Faxon 2,00,xx,1. Isaac Carpenter 2,00,xx,21. E. P. Cram 1,00,xx,1. Joel Hersey 10,00,xxii,21. S. Buzzell 0,50,xix,21. Mrs. A. Grimes 0,50,xix,1. Martin M. Hall 2,00,xix,7.
For Shares in Publishing Association.
A. M. Brigham $10. N. S. Brigham $10. Wm. Kerr $50.
Donations to Publishing Association.
Sister P. Wringsdolph $1. — $1. Ch. at St. Charles Mich. (s. B.) $10.
Books Sent by Mail.
L. J. Richmond 15c. G. S. Shepard 25c. W. A. McIntosh 12c. T. Draper 20c.
Cash Received on Account.
J. H. Waggoner $1. A. S. Hutchins $3,25.
THE DEVIL IS ALIVE.
By G. W. A.
How strange it is that we can sit down in the evening and talk about war and worldly matters, or read books and newspapers, and keep up a good interest till a late hour at night; when if we take the Bible and read for family worship ten to one we shall gape and grow sleepy before we get half through a chapter. I have noticed this strange phenomena at my own altar, and also where others pray whose godly walk is a safe pattern for others to follow.
I attribute this spiritual supineness to two causes. 1. It is often the result of putting off family worship till a late evening hour, when exhausted nature is incapable of enjoying the occasion; and 2. It is directly chargeable to the Devil, the author and sum-total of all spiritual darkness. I believe it is our privilege to "have light in our dwellings," victory in our souls, and when we bow our knees evening and morning, feel that "the Lord Omnipotent reigneth."
G. W. A.
CHEERING.
Bro. Isaac Sanborn writes, Oct. 10: "I wish to say for the encouragement of the brethren that our last tent-meeting, which was at Davis, Ills., is having good results. I have been there twice since the tent left. The last time, I found about twenty keeping the Sabbath, and still a good interest to hear the truth. I go back there to-morrow, the Lord willing.
"My Post Office address is Monroe, Green Co., Wis."
APPOINTMENTS.
By James White
Ohio Conference.
By the urgent request of many friends, and the advice of the Committee on the wants of the cause in Ohio, we, accompanied by Mrs. W., will, providence permitting, visit Ohio, and hold a conference at Green Springs, Oct. 26 and 27. We will hold meetings at Lovett's Grove the 30th, and at Gilboa Nov. 2 and 3, if that church request it through the REVIEW.
JAMES WHITE.
WE fear that we shall not be able to fill our appointments in Ohio. Mrs. W. and self are much worn and dispirited in consequence of laboring for some of whom we can say in the words of Paul, "I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain." Bro. Cornell will probably visit Ohio, if we cannot.
J. W.
History of the Sabbath Pricing
By Editor
The price of the History of the Sabbath, well bound, is 60 cents, one fourth off by the quantity. We shall put up a few copies in paper covers for 30 cents; but in consequence of the number of pages, and thickness of the paper, it will make a very clumsy pamphlet; therefore we recommend the brethren to order the bound volume.