Review and Herald, Vol. 81, No. 26. (6/30/1904)

Review and Herald

Jun 30, 1904

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Jun 30, 1904

Life and Health

By Editor

THESE are the two greatest blessings conferred on humanity; without them other blessings are valueless. They are given us in trust. Do we realize their value?

What may not be accomplished by a man in vigorous health, mental and physical?

Men are falling over one another in their scramble for the “almighty dollar;” but what is it good for without health?

How much health can you buy for money? Rockefeller is said to have offered a million dollars for a new stomach.

You can’t exchange! Health once lost is gone!

A fortune lost may be recovered.

Health lost, is lost forever.

Yet men risk life and health in the endeavor to secure a few more dollars.

The expenditure of time and means in studying your own body and its needs is the best investment you can possibly make.

The Christian especially, desiring to render the best possible service to the Master, needs good health.

Satan tempted Christ to jump from the pinnacle of the temple, quoting the promise, “He shall give his angels charge concerning thee, to keep thee. . . . And in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.” To have yielded would have been presumption. It is just as much presumption to eat injurious foods on the strength of the Saviour’s promise to his disciples that if they should take any deadly thing, it would not hurt them.

Missionaries die. Many of them die young, often just as they have begun to wield a strong influence in the missionary field. They yield their lives, not so much to climate as to ignorance or carelessness regarding the laws of health.

Many people in home lands limit their period of activity and their efficiency by disobeying the laws written in their own body by the Creator.

The fact that one is a Christian worker is no guarantee that Providence will protect him in the violation of the laws of health. Do you know that there are such laws?

“Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”

Ignorance of the law excuses no one.

The purpose of the magazine Life and Health (continuation of Pacific Health Journal) is to furnish its readers with a continuous mine of information on health topics, as:—

1. Seasonable hints on diet, clothing, exercise.

2. The healthful preparation of food.

3. Suggestions for the care of the sick.

4. Answers to questions pertaining to the care of the body and the treatment of disease.

We have been told that the health reform is an entering wedge to prepare the way for the reception of the message.

Many persons reading our health literature will be led thereby to become interested in other matter pertaining to the truth for this time.

Thousands of papers could be sold where now there is none.

People everywhere are becoming interested in health topics.

Health periodicals with various fads are springing up like mushrooms.

Now is the time to push the real, live health principles that have been given to us.

A live worker can dispose of a hundred or more copies of Life and Health in a day, which would afford a good living while doing much toward the promulgation of the gospel of health.

Life and Health should have a circulation of FIFTY THOUSAND COPIES AT ONCE.

Special terms to agents and tract societies.

Orders may now be placed for the July number.

Will You Help?

By Editor

SOME people are interested in one enterprise and some in another; some have their “fads” and some their “hobbies,” but all of these and all the others are interested in the question of their own life and health.

The journal, Life and Health (continuing the Pacific Health Journal), will treat these topics of vital importance in such a way as to interest the classes as well as the masses.

Life and Health is not a medical journal filled with Latin phrases or technical terms, but one which will be helpful to every one in understanding the functions of the various organs of the body, and how to keep them in health and activity.

While it is true that Life and Health will not be a technical medical journal, it will have on its editorial staff thoroughly competent, progressive physicians, who will treat all these topics in harmony with the latest discoveries in medical science.

Life and Health has no “hobbies,” is the organ of no medical institution, the advertising medium of no food factory.

Life and Health will proclaim the gospel of health—glad tidings of deliverance to those who are chained and hopeless because of wrong habits of eating and living.

Is there a field for such a journal? Is there need of such information? Do you need it? Do your friends need it?

Will you not secure the magazine for yourself? Will you not show it to your friends and neighbors?

Send orders for July number. Price, 5 cents a copy; 50 cents a year.

For $2.50 you can have the journal Life and Health sent for a year to five of your friends, and a copy sent to your own address for one year FREE.

We want 25,000 new subscribers in the next sixty days, and we want to keep on growing at that rate for several months to come. Is it too much to expect? What a powerful aid in uplifting suffering humanity the journal would become if it had a circulation of 100,000 copies monthly. If every one will do his part, this result can be attained.

WILL YOU HELP?

Address your State Tract Society, or Review and Herald Publishing Association, 222 North Capitol St., Washington, D. C., U. S. A.

Editorial

By Editor

Religion and Science

SOME writers are now claiming that the conflict between religion and science is practically settled in favor of religion, and that the leading scientists have at last arrived at the same conclusions from their investigations as are taught in the Bible. Thus we are told that “the latest word of science agrees with the inspired Word of God that there is but one Source of energy; that all the forces of nature flow from one Fountainhead of power.” There is, however, a vast difference between the “Infinite Power,” or the one Source of energy, which scientists have been compelled to recognize, and the personal God of revelation. The true God will never be found, and the true conception of God will never be reached, by scientific research. If there appears to be but little conflict now between religion and the science of to-day, it is because religion has surrendered to science, and has become the religion of human reason with only human power back of it, instead of maintaining its place above reason as the religion of revelation with divine power back of it. The claim that Herbert Spencer and other scientists of the same class really believed in God, almost without knowing it, simply because they have been forced to acknowledge a Power controlling matter, requires a different conception of God than that which is revealed in the Scripture. It is true that “power belongeth unto God,” but power is not God. True science accepts the God of revelation, and forms its conception of God wholly from the Bible, and it then opens to our minds the whole realm of nature, and enables us to see a fuller meaning in the words of the psalmist, “O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all.” The god of science does not save from sin. The religion of science does not comfort us in “the valley of the shadow of death.” The God of the Bible “is our God forever and ever; he himself will lead us over death.”

“I Never Disappoint”

THIS is the motto of a man who hopes to establish permanent and profitable business relations with his customers by rendering satisfactory service to every one who places an order with him. It is a good motto. The man who never disappoints is a man with whom other men like to do business. There is a satisfaction in paying a good price for such service as this. But why should not the same principle be carried into the Christian life? Is it not true that many professed Christians do disappoint their Master? Year after year he comes looking for the good fruit of a consecrated life, but he does not find it. And then is repeated the same inquiry as of old: “What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?” He will not disappoint his Master whose unswerving devotion to duty leads him to say with the apostle Paul, “Neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.” And the Christian who never disappoints his Master will not be disappointed in that day when faithful service will be recognized in the presence of the whole heavenly host. To him it will be said, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” The servant who in his dealing with his Master will adopt the motto, “I never disappoint,” will find that his Master will deal with him upon the same basis, but he who habitually disappoints his Master may one day meet with the greatest disappointment. “The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, and shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites.” Do not disappoint your Master.

Practical Experience

A DESPERATE effort is being made to envelop the Christian pathway in the thick fog of philosophical discussion, so that the followers of Christ may become confused and lose their way. We should remember this, and guided by that Word which is a lamp unto the feet and a light to the path, we should press steadily forward. It is not necessary to consider all the speculative reasoning concerning prayer, and to answer all skeptical objections before we can pray. The fruits of prayer in the life of a praying Christian are the best possible answer to those who question whether prayer will accomplish anything. It is happily not necessary to wait for the conclusions of those who are seeking for a scientific basis for faith before we can believe. We can accept the provision which has been made for our salvation without attempting to solve all the problems which are involved in the plan of salvation. God’s ways are not our ways, and the attempt to analyze all his methods and to explain to human reason the mysteries of his working will end in belittling him and confusing the mind. “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways are past tracing out.” The words of the Lord to Job are surely applicable to many to-day: “Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?” The simple faith of the child which takes God at his word without trying to reason out his methods of fulfilling his promises will bring better results in practical experience than a knowledge of the efforts of all the learned critics and scientists who are seeking to weigh and measure the things of the Spirit by human standards. Let us hold fast to the simplicity of the gospel. Let us believe for the forgiveness of our sins, and let us accept the fulness of grace provided for those who will receive it by simple faith. This will bring peace of mind and rest of soul. This will make us “workers together with him.”

Studies in the Prophecies

“This Generation”

In our study last week we considered the first part of our Lord’s great prophecy, as recorded in the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew, and pointed out its fulfilment in the history of the generation in which it was uttered. We also noted the fact of a marked parallel between the experience of that generation which rejected the message of the first advent of Christ and of this generation which rejected the message of the second advent of Christ. Because of this similarity of experience Jesus blended the prophecy of the last generation with the prophecy of the first generation, but having replied to the inquiry, “When shall these things be?” he then described in few words the time of “great tribulation” through which the church would pass, and with the briefest reference to “false Christs and false prophets” he carried the minds of his disciples forward to “the coming of the Son of man.”

Having thus connected the first and the last generation, Jesus foretold the signs which would mark the nearness of his coming and of the end of the world: “But immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: and then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.” The record given by Mark furnishes such specifications as enable us to determine definitely the period when we may expect these signs to begin to appear. It will be “in those days, after that tribulation.” The time included in “those days” is that period of the acknowledged supremacy of the papacy over the nations [A. D. 538 to A. D. 1798], repeatedly mentioned in the books of Daniel and Revelation, during which millions of martyrs sealed their testimony with their blood. “For the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened,” said Jesus, and history shows that the persecution came to an end about a quarter of a century before the close of “those days.” In that quarter of a century the period of these special signs must begin in order to fulfil the prophecy. The time is located very definitely. And in exact fulfilment of the prophecy the sun was darkened on May 19, 1780, and on the following night the moon did not give her light. This was followed in November, 1833, by a remarkable falling of the stars, such as can best be described in the very words of another prophecy which refers to the same event: “The stars of the heaven fell unto the earth, as a fig tree casteth her unripe figs when she is shaken of a great wind.”

In the record as given by Luke it is stated that “there shall be signs in sun and moon and stars.” The supernatural darkening of the sun and the moon and the remarkable falling of the stars constituted heaven’s notification to the inhabitants of the world that the period of time allotted to the last generation had begun, and that the great day of the Lord was nigh at hand. The falling of the stars, the last of these signs, took place in 1833. In that very year William Miller was licensed by the Baptists as a public preacher, and for the next decade he led the advent movement in this country. The work rapidly spread to other countries until the message of the Saviour’s soon coming was proclaimed in all parts of the world. The attention of the people everywhere was directed to the words of Jesus, “The sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven,” and these remarkable occurrences were interpreted to the world as signs of the Lord’s coming. Some were then living who witnessed the darkening of the sun and moon, and who could therefore hear personal testimony concerning these things, but to all the people of that time, young and old, these supernatural phenomena were presented as signs, and looked at in the light of the predictions of Christ, they were all seen as signs by the people of that generation. To them the parable of the fig tree was spoken: “Now from the fig tree learn her parable: When her branch is now become tender, and putteth forth its leaves, ye know that the summer is nigh; even so ye also, when ye see all these things, know ye that he is nigh, even at the doors. Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all these things be accomplished.” Some of those who were living at the time of the falling of the stars in 1833, and who heard the preaching of the advent message in the decade which followed, would “remain unto the coming of the Lord.” “This generation shall not pass away, till all these things be accomplished.”

We must now return to a consideration of the very striking parallel between the generation to whom John the Baptist preached the message of the time fulfilled and the Messiah at hand and the generation who saw the “signs in sun and moon and stars,” and who heard the preaching of the message of the second advent. The work of John the Baptist attracted much attention from all classes of people, and even some of the religious leaders “were willing to rejoice for a season in his light,” but later they turned away from his message, and thus were prepared to reject Jesus when he entered upon his work. Step by step they went forward in this wicked course until under their leadership Jesus was brought before Pilate the governor. And when he inquired, “What then shall I do unto Jesus who is called Christ?” they answered, “Let him be crucified.” So Pilate “took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this righteous man; see ye to it. And all the people answered and said, His blood be on us, and on our children.”

But the Lord is very merciful, and before he permitted the results of their evil ways to be visited upon them and their children, he sent a message of forgiveness to all who would accept the good news of a crucified and risen Saviour. “And this gospel of the kingdom,” said Jesus, “shall be preached in the whole world for a testimony unto all the nations; and then shall the end come.” But the end came in that generation, and upon them, according to the Saviour’s prediction, came “all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of Abel the righteous unto the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah.” All these things came upon that generation. But the children grew to years of understanding, and were given an opportunity to accept or reject for themselves the message of salvation through faith in Jesus the Messiah. After witness had been borne to Jesus and the resurrection throughout the whole world, then before that generation had passed away came the end of the Jewish nation. But those who believed in Jesus and obeyed his word were saved by fleeing to the mountains as he had instructed them.

Let us now compare the experience of this generation with the experience of that generation. As a message was borne in that time, based upon the prophecies, to prepare the way of the Lord, so it has been in this time. As the message in that time was rejected by a large part of the religious leaders, so it has been in this time. As it was prophesied in that time that the generation which rejected the evidences of the coming Messiah should not pass away before the results of their course would be visited upon them in the downfall of Jerusalem and the overthrow of the Jewish nation, so it is also prophesied that the generation which rejected the signs of the second advent should not pass away before there would come the terrible results of disregarding the final message of warning,—the utter downfall of Babylon and the end of the world. As in that time, after the resurrection of Christ, the message was again sent forth, with the accumulated evidence of fulfilled prophecy, to all the world for a testimony, so after the disappointment of 1844 the command came, “Thou must prophesy again before many peoples, and

nations, and tongues, and kings,” and so with the clearer light of fulfilled prophecy the threefold message of Revelation 14 must be proclaimed “unto every nation and tribe and tongue and people” in this generation. And as in that time the children of those who rejected the light did not suffer the consequences of the wicked unbelief of their fathers until they had come to the years of understanding and had had the opportunity to choose for themselves, so in this time the children of those who first heard and scorned the evidences of the Lord’s second coming have been permitted to come to the years of understanding, and to hear the message for themselves before the end comes. And as the end of the Jewish nation came in A. D. 70, before that generation had passed away, so the end of the world will come before this generation passes away. And the same sign marks the end in each generation: “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a testimony unto all the nations; and then shall the end come.”

When we consider the fact that almost exactly threescore years have passed away since the disappointment of 1844, we are assured that the end must be very near. The children of that time are the white-headed men and women of this time. We do not know how many of those who heard the first preaching of the advent message will live until the Lord comes. We recall that of the generation which went out of Egypt only Caleb and Joshua lived to enter the promised land. But we do know that we are in the time of the promise, and that the glorious day can not be far off.

“Not many years their round shall run, Not many mornings rise, Ere all its glories stand revealed To our admiring eyes.”

Such is the teaching of our Lord’s great prophecy concerning “this generation.” And in the light of this teaching there need be no difficulty in making a definite and clear application of the Saviour’s words, “This generation shall not pass away, till all these things be accomplished.”

The Message Making a Stir in Russia

By W. A. S.

THE effort of the Russian clergy to secure compulsory uniformity of religious belief has resulted in making that country a field of wild and extravagant religious movements. Amid the repression on the one side and fanaticism on the other, the third angel’s message steadily makes its way. Testimony to the leavening influence of the Sabbath truth in Russia is borne by a correspondent of the Christliche Orient, who has been making an investigation of the “vagaries” of the evangelical movement in Russia. He says:—

The question whether Saturday or Sunday should be observed has caused a great deal of controversy among the evangelicals, especially in Southern Russia, and has drawn not a few back into the orthodox church.

Very likely he means that this question has brought people face to face with the fact that the Bible teaches the seventh-day Sabbath, and some who rejected this truth have sought refuge in a return to the position that the church rather than the Bible is the authority in religion. However the agitation is kept up, whether by the efforts of our faithful brethren or by the oppositions and criticisms of their antagonists, the cause of truth goes marching on, winning victories continually. The Lord has blessed the planting of the seed of truth in Russia so abundantly as to furnish us all evidence that this work can make headway amid the most adverse conditions. Nothing can stop the progress of the message through the earth. When, some years ago, the Russian church authorities published a book warning against heretical sects and giving a brief notice to our work, that very book brought the light of the Sabbath truth to some souls. No weapon that is formed against this truth can prosper. The time has come for this message to challenge the attention of men in all the world, and in lands where we can do little by ordinary organized effort, the Lord is showing how he is able to raise up witnesses and bring forth fruit just the same as in fields easily operated. W. A. S.

The Catholic National Federation

By L. A. S.

MUCH space was devoted in New York papers recently to a great meeting in that city in the interests of the Catholic National Federation. Archbishop Farley presided, and many prominent Catholics were on the platform. There was “great enthusiasm,” etc.

The orators of the meeting, of whom W. Bourke Cockran was most prominent, took particular pains to affirm that the federation had no connection with politics. At the same time certain objects of the federation were set forth which can not possibly be attained through other than political channels.

A report of the meeting states:—

The objects of the federation, according to its president, T. B. Minahan, are to agitate the question of sectarian schools, and to receive proper recognition for Catholics along many lines. Under the head of religious objects the federation groups the questions of education through Catholic schools and universities, literature and emigration, homes for Catholic sailors, etc. Among social questions, the labor problem and the question of divorce are made the most prominent, while under civil questions the religious rights of Catholics, taxation of church property, and protection of Catholic civic rights are made prominent.

All of the speakers dwelt upon the fact that opposition to the federation had been made on the ground that it might be projected into politics. This was vehemently denied, and on this question Archbishop Farley said:—

“The moment that occurs, the federation sounds its own death knell. That moment my approbation will be immediately withdrawn.”

In his speech W. Bourke Cockran said:—

“The objects of the federation can be gathered under three great heads. Briefly these are, first, questions which only Catholics realize; second, questions which only Catholics can remedy; and, finally, questions which neither Catholic nor Protestant has solved.

“The first question comes in the form of hostility to Christian instruction, and yet the state says it is necessary for its own safety to instruct its youth in questions of morality.

“The cry is for non-sectarian education. There is no such thing. The school must be either Christian or anti-christian, and if it is non-sectarian, it is anti-christian.

“It has been said by eminent ecclesiastics and thinkers that divorce must be regulated. The Catholic goes further. He says it must be stopped.

“How wise, most opportune, and worthy of this federation it would be if in the name of the purity and sanctity of the American home, all classes and all creeds might be brought to crystallize into law some statute that would wipe out forever the blighting, corroding curse of the institution of divorce.”

Mr. Cockran violently combated the political idea in conjunction with the federation. Politics and the church, he said, had nothing in common. Politics deals with multitudes, while the church deals with souls and individuals.

All this means that the power of this federation is to be used to secure legislation. The papal policy in this country aims at having the laws and institutions of the nation patterned after the ideals of the church. This will mean the appropriation of public funds for Catholic schools and the exemption of all Catholic church property from taxation. The church aims also to control the great industrial problem of the relations between capital and labor, and would be pleased to see her tenets on the subject of divorce embodied in a general law of the land. All this would give the Catholic Church great prestige.

Any connection with politics, in the sense of constituting a new political party or of an alliance with some one party against others, is to be carefully avoided; but not in the sense of influencing all parties through the political power which the federation represents. As a special party or as allied with a special party, the federation would be comparatively harmless. But as a quiet dictator to both the leading political parties of the country, while apparently standing aloof from the political arena, this great religious combine will be able to have things very largely its own way. And the leaders of the federation have just this in view. L. A. S.

A Most Encouraging Token

By A. G. Daniells

If there is anything in the results of our labor, sacrifice, and expenditure in the cause of the third angel's message that should encourage us to greater endeavor, it is found in what may be called our difficult mission fields, more than anywhere else. It is not always the easiest and most promising field that yields the largest and most encouraging results; nor is it the field containing the largest number of believers, and the greatest array of facilities, that produces the largest average or per cent of returns.

There is something remarkable and truly encouraging about the working of gospel truths and influences in the hearts of men. It is certainly contrary to nature. It is altogether different from man's calculations. This working is expressed by the scripture truths, which teach that joy comes from sorrow, riches from poverty, exaltation from humility, life from death. “There is that scattereth and yet increaseth.”

This is the law of the kingdom, and the working of this law in gospel work is surely designed to encourage God's people to enter and push forward the cause of God. From all parts of the world we are continually receiving encouraging news from our missionary workers. From the reports that come to us we find that, in the hardest and most difficult fields, where the least investment is made, and where we would naturally expect to see the smallest results, the best progress is being made.

A report for 1903, just completed by the statistical secretary, contains some very interesting items. It records the membership, net increase, per cent of gain in membership, and the average tithes of all the union conferences and mission fields of the denomination. As far as comparisons are of any value, this report speaks well for our mission fields. The highest per cent of gain in union conferences in the United States was 12.67, and that was in the Southern Union, which all concede to be the most difficult field in the home land. The largest per cent of gain in any foreign union conference was 37.52. That was in the British Union. The German Union comes next, with 26.15, and the Australasian with 25.95. The Latin Union, as forbidding as it appears, had 14.01 per cent of gain. The Lake Union, with more than sixteen thousand Sabbath-keepers, and $136,387 tithe, and with many facilities, reports an increase of only one hundred and six members—a gain of less than one per cent. The Central Union, one of the finest fields in the world, shows a gain of only two hundred and eight members, which is one and one-half per cent.

A glance at the average tithes paid per member will show that our brethren in foreign fields are well to the front. It is well known that wages and wealth among our people in all foreign lands are much less than in the United States. Yet the average tithe in the organized fields in other lands is almost as large as in America. In Great Britain it is $12.71 per member. This is the highest average of any union conference. In Australasia the average tithe is exceeded by only one union conference in America, namely, the Pacific Union.

It is not to put any home conference in a bad light that attention is called to these figures. It is to show the encouraging results of our efforts in mission fields, where the believers are few, receipts small, and where there are very few facilities. How shall we account for this remarkable showing? It is the Lord's doings, and it is marvelous in our eyes.

And now, dear reader, does this stir your heart to sow more bountifully in the difficult mission fields? Does it not stimulate you to give more cheerfully and liberally? Your gifts are not thrown away. Your endeavor is not in vain. A splendid work is being done in the destitute, difficult mission fields by our faithful, hard-working, self-sacrificing comrades. The Lord is blessing their labors. New doors are continually being opened for them to enter, and this leads them to send back to us earnest calls for more workers and means. There are workers who are willing to go. Some have been waiting with great anxiety for months to go to distant fields, where they know that they will meet difficulties not experienced in the home land. How many times have our hearts been made to rejoice by the prompt, courageous request of a worker in the home land to take the place left vacant by the death of a comrade at the front. But often we are obliged to delay sending recruits for lack of funds.

The situation calls for a large offering Sabbath, July 2, for missions. Once more we earnestly entreat our people to give their money to the cause of missions, rather than to the Fourth-of-July celebrations. We are exceedingly anxious that this offering shall be large, that we may be able to send out a large number of new recruits.

A. G. DANIELLS.

A Text Often Misapplied

WE reprint the following paragraph from a recent issue of The Signs of the Times, and commend it to the attention of those who so persistently misread and misapply the text upon which the comment is made:—

Those who quote the passage, 1 Tim. 4:1-5, as having particular application to the last days, pervert the text. It is true that our common version reads “the latter times,” but this does not necessarily mean more than in the Christian dispensation. See the expression “these last days,” in Heb. 1:2. The Revised Version renders both correctly, “in later times,” “these days.” The Greek term husteros means “later,” “afterward.” Rotherham’s Emphatic Translation renders “in later seasons.” The word kairos, rendered “times,” does not mean measured duration, but special times, opportunities. Heb. 1:1. The thought is that there will be just such manifestations as predicted all along at times, but all the result of apostasy. The term koluo, rendered “forbidding,” does not mean, as in that travesty of a translation, the “Twentieth Century New Testament,” “discouraging marriage.” It means to “estop,” or “prevent,” by word or act. It is translated elsewhere “forbid,” “not suffer,” “keep from,” “withstand.” See 1 Thess. 2:16. The word broma, translated “meats,” means food of any kind, something to eat. See its use in Matt. 15:37; Mark 9:8; John 4:32; 1 Cor. 10:3. “Them that believe and know the truth” will apply to true Christians in any age. Some have applied the text to Seventh-day Adventists. Let us say once for all that the people known by that name never forbade marriage, never commanded to abstain from meats. The people should not be held responsible for overzealous, uninstructed, or unbalanced individual members. This note and the article on the same text in our issue of April 6 must suffice for a time. It is a good scripture when properly used; but it is generally used either as an excuse for self-indulgence or as a bludgeon to strike some one or some class, who may seem too radical, or both. The true, advancing child of God will seek deeper, more spiritual things.

A Wider Field

UNDER this heading the Pacific Union Recorder prints the following paragraph concerning the transfer of the Pacific Health Journal to Washington, D. C.:—

For more than eighteen years our able exponent of correct principles of living, the Pacific Health Journal, has been published on the Pacific Coast. It has brought light and knowledge into many homes as its visits have been repeated from month to month. Heretofore its field has been limited to the Pacific Coast, but at the session of the union conference held at Healdsburg last March, it was recommended that a health journal be published at some central point in the East, and it was offered to the Review and Herald, with the privilege of changing its make-up as thought best. The invitation has been accepted, and it is announced that, beginning with the July number, the Pacific Health Journal will be published in Washington, under a new title, which will indicate that it is for the entire field. Dr. G. H. Heald, who has been connected with the Journal for a number of years, will continue as the editor. The subscription price will remain the same, fifty cents a year. It will be enlarged to thirty-two pages. Subscriptions for this magazine should be placed with your church librarian, or sent to the Review and Herald, 222 North Capitol St., Washington, D. C.

Protestant Pontifical Mass

“PROTESTANT pontifical mass” is a strange-sounding phrase, joining as it does ideas that are contradictory to each other; but it seems to be a fitting one to express the Romeward trend of so-called Protestant bodies at this time. The New York Sun makes use of it as a heading to a description of a recent Episcopal ordination service in that city. A part of the description is as follows: —

Yesterday’s service in St. Edward’s was one of the most advanced in point of ritual ever witnessed in an Episcopal church in New York. The full Sarum ritual, in so far as Anglican usage will permit, was employed. There were innumerable altar candles and lights, and a special musical program. . . .

A procession from the adjoining parish house began the service. Ahead came a crucifer, and after him censer bearers, acolytes, and the vested choir. Then followed another crucifer, students from the General Seminary, visiting clergymen, and the two whom Bishop Grafton was to ordain. Each of the latter was now robed in a white cassock and black biretta, and each bore a lighted taper. They were accompanied by their presenters, clothed in full vestments of the mass.

Then came a third crucifer, followed by the master of ceremonies, the preacher, in his white habit as the superior of the Order of Holy Cross, and other priests in sacrificial vestments. Bishop Grafton came last, preceded by the Revs. Peter Macfarlane and J. G. Hutton, sub-deacon and deacon of the mass respectively. The bishop, over his other vestments, wore a richly embroidered cope, and on his head rested a much jeweled miter.

As he was ordained, a rich tunic was thrown over the shoulders of the Rev. Mr. Dawson. A chasuble of heavy material, indicating the priestly office, was placed outside the robes of the Rev. Mr. Fay as he knelt before the bishop. The services ended with the pontifical mass.

All such “Protestantism” is plainly to be reckoned in when any estimate is made of the strength of the papacy in this country.

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