Review and Herald, Vol. 39, No. 24. (5/28/1872)

Review and Herald

May 28, 1872

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 28, 1872

The Weather of 1871.

By D. T. Taylor

The weather since our last report in The Journal of December 17, 1870, has fully maintained its reputation for inconstancy. We have summer in winter and winter in summer, and frequently, spring, summer, autumn and winter, all in a single day. Weather-wise people assert that the seasons are becoming gradually changed, owing to the earth’s falling behind in the race of the planets around the zodiac. Perhaps so. At any rate, November, usually bleak and dismal, was in 1870 transformed into September, and astonished everybody by its mildness. It was noted for sunny days and even temperature; of thirty-nine previous Novembers, only eight were generally warmer. In the Western States, it was the pleasantest in the memory of men. Since 1849, the month had not been so mild, and to its last day not a snow-flake had fallen at Chicago. December came, a real winter month. But what weather! It was superb. In Eastern Massachusetts the mercury fell to 30° only two nights down to the 12th of the month. On the 2d, cotton stalks were in bloom in Tennessee, a phenomenon declared unknown before for half a century. The same day, farmers plowed their lands in cold Minnesota. On to the second week, Illinois and all the West was balmy as May in atmospheric splendor. No snow had fallen. At the 13th day, the thermometer ranged from 32° to 63° above in Massachusetts, and from Pennsylvania to the Canada line could be seen lilacs and soft maples in bud or bloom, with millions of blades of grass as green as June. A Northampton editor wrote: “No man remembers an autumn with so little freezing as this.” But while everybody from Chicago to Boston was in admiration, not to say ecstasy, over blooming flowers and a glorious succession of cloudless days, and wondering whether it was “last summer or next spring,” suddenly the Polar King appeared on the scene, and with frosty fingers and snow-white beard breathed over the broad land. The 16th saw the continent locked tight in his grasp. It was never done quicker. Lake Champlain froze over, and remained so. Snow fell everywhere. Augusta, Ga., had a snow-storm on the 22d. Two days later, Virginia had ice four inches thick, and the mercury 6° below. On the 23d, in Northern Illinois, the thermometer showed 16°, 20° and 22° below zero. The Mississippi was crossed on the ice at St. Louis the 25th, while in New Mexico the mercury ran down to 28° below. The 24th was the coldest day in Washington since 1867, and the 30th the coldest day in New York known for ten years. The month that had come in like a lamb went out as a lion; winter had inaugurated his reign, and the cold snap was now all the talk. Meanwhile, at Naples it snowed heavily on the 4th, with cold north-east winds, and the islands and mountains were clad in white. But why a bitter winter term in sunny Italy and no such high temperature in New England in November and December for forty-six years previous, when it should naturally have been vice versa?

The icy monarch marched on. A dry summer and a rainless autumn brought a drought that was felt from New England to Nebraska. The Merrimac had not run so low since 1807 as on New Year’s day. Farming and mill interests everywhere suffered, and the aqueous famine gave birth to a mortal fear of fires. The 23d of January saw cold down to 31° below in Clinton County, N. Y., and snow on the Sierra Nevadas sixteen feet deep on a level.

To go back a little: On the 14th, while Portsmouth, N. H., was enjoying the mercury at 80° degrees above zero in the sun, and all New England was mild and warm, Northern Illinois had a snow-fall of three feet in depth, lasting two days. The next day an Episcopal bishop ordered prayers for rain, and the day following it fell over various portions of the Eastern and Middle States—a welcome thing where springs never before failing for forty years had utterly dried up. “A remarkable winter,” wrote the editor of the New York World, and on that very day (18th) a four days’ fog lifted from the great metropolis. Sioux City, Iowa, had mild weather, rain, sleet, bitter cold, furious wind, thunder and lightning in horrible order; water ran from the streams on Mount Washington; and Petaluma Valley, Cal., had a freeze that formed ice half an inch thick—a phenomenon never before heard of in that locality.

Still it was dry and snowless, generally. By the 23d, to clean the track of the Boston and Albany Railroad for a distance of 200 miles it had cost $90,000, while to the same date in 1866 it had cost $90,000, so drifted was the snow. “Such a winter as this for horse or steam railway was never known before,” said a journalist. Down to this time, the season on all the Atlantic had been so mild that the consumption of coal for weeks previously had fallen off thirty per cent. Then came an Arctic blast. The 23d was the coldest morning of the winter. In Canada, Maine, and Northern New York, the instrument exhibited 24° and 31° below zero. At New York the mercury was depressed 26° in a few hours, and reached 10° below. At Portsmouth, where on the 14th it had risen to 80°, it now fell to 12° below. Ice was more obstructing in the harbors of our great cities than for many years; a storm of unparalleled severity raged from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic, turning even the Gulf Stream into a “marine hell.” On Mount Washington the thermometer showed 45° below, and the wind 90 and 100 miles an hour. It was, said Prof. Hitchcock, a combination of wind and cold “unknown in meteorological records, even within the Arctic circle.” “It is doubtful,” he adds, “if a civilized being ever witnessed such a terrific gale.” And so winter came in spasms and streaks. It was “condensed winter,” said one.

South, January was so unusually cold as that in Florida, below lat. 30, the banana, lemon and orange crop was greatly injured by a general frost, a calamity known there previously only three times in a hundred years. In all Great Britain, both December and January were unusually cold, the coldest known for ten years. Blackbirds and other birds died of hunger and cold by thousands. In France, January was intensely cold, and thousands of people were frozen to death or frost-bitten. The contending armies suffered terribly. In Germany, the winter had not been so severe for many years. In Russia, snow lay twelve feet deep on a level over the railway lines, all traffic was stopped, and St. Petersburg was shut up four days without mail-bag, letter, or paper, from the outer world.

From the last week in December to February, extraordinary weather prevailed in Australia, and Christmas, which should there be of summer temperature, was, to the wonder of all, cold as winter.

February 2 witnessed thunder, lightnings, and snow-squalls in Southern Vermont; while violets purpled the borders in New Orleans, with hot weather in Georgia and Florida, and warm and dry in California. Then on the 4th and 5th a cold wave swept from the center of the continent to the Atlantic; the mercury at Norfolk, Va., went to 7° below; at Cheyenne it was 58° below; on Mount Washington, on the 4th, it was 40° below, and the next day 59° below, and the wind over a 100 miles an hour! Canada and New England had their coldest winter blasts, and Somerset River, in Massachusetts, froze over for the first time in many years. How can human nature endure such violent climatic changes? Then, while on the 12th and 14th a great snow fell all over the North, East River at New York was bridged with ice; Gothamites protested that it was the sixth snow-storm of the winter, and roundly declared that no such weather had been experienced in that metropolis for twenty-five years, fierce gales filling the air, and cold chilling the bones. At the same time, Wyoming Territory was having a most delightful winter, no snow, days bright and warm, sheep unfed in the fields, and Jacksonville, Flor., reveled in orange, plum and peach blossoms, with the mercury at 80° above—too high for a natural season. The 20th brought the most terrific thunder and lightning storm in California ever known in twenty years, and skating on ice at Huntsville, Ala. Two most unusual and astounding events were these. On that day, the Categat was free of ice. Two days later, there was frost in San Francisco, and robins singing in Massachusetts. On the 23d, there was thunder and lightning at Baxter Springs, Kansas, and three days later, butterflies flew about in New Hampshire. The month was mild in England. In Blackheath, it froze but five nights—a most remarkable fact.

If the weather had been freaky and spasmodic in other months, March, usually cold and boisterous, now became frantic with fever. All features of the weather were unseasonable. Violent electrical disturbance, with thunder and lightning in Chicago and Cincinnati on the 2d, the Hudson River free of ice on the 3d, wild geese and robins migrating northward on the 6th opened the ball for the St. Louis tornado on the 8th that seemed to utterly break the winter’s back; for the next day the peach trees put forth blossoms near Boston, and frogs came out and sang at Blue Hill, Massachusetts, the season being warm as April. At Lat. 45°, the ice failed for crossing Lake Champlain during the first week, and on the 9th a large butterfly flitted through the sunny air across the door-yard of the writer, a phenomenon never witnessed there before. The mercury was 60° above—an extraordinary day. On the 11th, ice left the Kennebec, in Maine, and its navigation was resumed, this being the earliest on record since the settlement of the State. The 12th was actually a hot day in Boston, and windows and doors were opened freely as in May. The whole of the rivers of the Eastern States were clear of ice to-day, and farmers plowed their fields.

Ice left the Mississippi at Winona the 13th, and the next day was a spring day in the Atlantic States, with green grass and swelling buds all about. On the 14th, the great lakes and Canada and New England rivers were navigated, and peach trees were in full bloom at Little Rock, Ark., with the thermometer exhibiting 78°, the willows budded in Connecticut, boys chased the butterflies through Central Park, New York, and, as if nature had reversed all its order, a grasshopper’s nest, with young ones, was picked up in the field in Maine! On the 16th, ice all left Champlain at its north end, and two days later, sloops sailed on the lake, and the North River steamers began their summer trips between New York and Albany. All along the parallel of Connecticut to the West, willows, poplars, hazel and maple were in bursting bud, and on the 21st, “May-flowers” were plucked over the fields of Maine. Even as far north as Jacksonville, N. B., butterflies were flying about out-doors. The whole first half of March was the warmest first half known for a period of 47 years. At the middle of the month, roads were dry and dusty, and in the cities, water-carts were used. The Baltic was open for navigation on the 25th; they had dandelions, spring flowers, and a spice of snow at New York on the 26th; tree-toads sang in Connecticut on the 27th, and fruit-trees bloomed in South Illinois on the 29th. Was it March? The almanac said so, but people shook their heads and wondered. What did it mean? In both Great Britain and the United States, the temperature all the month was of singular mildness. With butterflies born in the open air and sailing about the fields in December, February, and March, what would April bring?

It brought open water and free navigation at Buffalo, and Champlain free of ice from end to end at its opening, frogs on the 1st, and swallows on the 7th, with lilacs on the 10th, at latitude 45°, the season being a month earlier than usual. A burst of heat of unparalleled intensity fell on the land on the 8th. The mercury soared to heights before unheard of in all this latitude in April. Cherry and pear trees, whose blooming is allotted to May, burst into full blossom. It was “August in April,” said a writer. At New York, the thermometer recorded 81°. At Albany, it went up to 100° in the shade! New York had a fatal case of sun-stroke, “the earliest case ever recorded in this city.” The electricity could not preserve its equanimity. It thundered and lightened all over the country. The 9th brought no respite to the heat—70° in Canada, 81° at Philadelphia, 84° in New York, 86° at Poughkeepsie, 88° at Springfield, Mass., was the thermometrical record. Omaha had it 90° for several days in succession. Buffalo reported 100° in the shade. We seemed to have passed into midsummer at a single bound. The inhabitants of the Atlantic States sweltered and broiled under a torrid sun. Then the lightnings flashed again, rainbursts poured, tornadoes swept the earth, and vivid auroras illuminated the midnight sky. All was convulsion.

Presto! what a change! Suddenly a wave of cold nipped every green thing. A furious norther moved down the California coast. Frost invaded all the valley of the Mississippi clear down to Memphis. At Albany, the mercury in the glass sunk 20° in one hour. At Portsmouth, N. H., “such changes in temperature never were known.” The thermometer, which on Friday said 29° at sunrise and 78° at noon, and on Saturday, 40° at sunrise and 88° at noon (a rise of 50° in a few hours), now fell to the freezing point, as it did everywhere else. So cold was it at Omaha, where it had stood

among the nineties, that on the 10th two persons in the vicinity were reported frozen to death! These extraordinary thermometrical ranges in America are a subject of wonder and inquiry to the people of England. Are they not also a mystery to us? Who can explain them? We have known the mercury to fall sixty degrees in ten hours in Northern New York. There was on those memorable April days some general elemental disturbance which men do not understand. It was phenomenal. In Scotland, the first half of April was cold and frosty, and on the 19th, snow fell all over that country. Thus passed the month. The guesses of some who predicted it would freeze all summer were not wide of the mark.

The unusual features of May are quickly sketched. Ripe cherries, with heat and drought in California, with snow drifts on Mount Washington, New Hampshire, twenty feet in depth on the 1st; a sudden cold in Maine, forming icicles on the fences during a shower on the 10th; six inches of snow fell at Randolph, N. H., on the 11th; ice formed on the north shores of Lake Champlain on the 15th; cold in England and Scotland, with snow on the 17th; and a remarkably cold day at Paris on the 18th. Then came intense heat on Sunday, the 21st, the last week bringing terrible rain-pours, after weeks and months of drought, with fearful convulsions of the elements, and a temperature of from 95° to 99° in the shade.

The month of roses came—not all roses. The 3d, 4th, and 5th, very hot, with thunder all around the skies. Is the contagion of crime in the air? Crime and violence increased with the heat. The weekly arrests in the city of New York, averaging 1300 or 1400 in mid-winter, now ran up to over 2000, and the mortality bill of London, June 4-11 showed 58 deaths by violence in a single week. On the 17th, there was seen the remarkable phenomenon of snow in Valparaiso, S. A., while on the 22d, snow, to a depth of six or eight inches fell in the Jura: “Such an event,” said Galignani, “hardly a fortnight before the summer solstice, has only happened once before since the commencement of the present century.” The same week California suffered with intense heat. On the 26th, Shields, in Scotland, had a smart snow storm, while the 30th brought a killing frost in Northern Vermont! June 3 (as also May 18) was a remarkably cold day at Paris, so much so as to call the attention of the secretary of the Academy of Science, who invited communications respecting the extraordinary degree of coldness, and its cause. But in Iceland, June was warmer, and the thermometer 12° higher than the mean, for the four preceding Junes. The average temperature ran up to 59°, and with winds that blew continually from the south-west, the heat of the valleys was termed “insupportable.” Variety enough for June.

July was freaky, in horrible heat and exceeding cold. The middle of the month, Paris boiled under a tropical sun. It was little less hot in the United States. At Denver City, the thermometer went up to 105° in the shade, “the hottest ever known,” said the telegraph. During the week, between the 9th and 16th, the heat killed, by the diseases it engendered, 310 under two years of age out of the 857 souls that died in New York city, while so full of electricity was the air that a thunder-bolt from a clear sky struck dead an Ohio farmer in his field. This was followed by a cold streak, the thermometer falling marvelously. On the 20th, it showed 16° above the freezing point, in West Virginia. The next day, snow fell in Chautauqua County, N. Y., to a depth of six inches, so that at Forestville, the boys in the streets vigorously snow-balled each other for a quarter of an hour! The same day, South New York and North Pennsylvania had hail so deep that sleighs were run upon it through the streets. On the 22d, a white frost fell at White Sulphur Spa, Va., while the two following nights witnessed a hard frost at Royalston, Mass., and in Northern Ohio, with a corresponding coolness, everywhere on the same line of latitude. July actually went out with sleighing on hail stones, that fell deep and destructive at Albion, Wis.

Equally remarkable was the following month for sudden changes of temperature, with unwonted cold. The whole month was so cold in Yorkshire and other parts of England that good coal fires were needed for comfort, while, at the same time, there was thunder and lightning, almost continually, sometimes there occurring three thunder storms a day. The 16th, in this country, was the hottest day of the season; but, while on the 19th, at San Bernardino, Cal., the mercury went up to the frightful figure of 112° in the shade, a cold wave of air streamed over the Eastern United States, frost appeared, the mercury on Mount Washington fell to 37° above, with frost, and Salem, N. H., had its regular monthly freeze, having experienced frost in every summer month during the season. Of thunder and lightning, the month brought an alarming outburst. More storms of this kind fell upon New York city, and its environs, from the 20th to the 27th, than for many years past. The lightning this summer exploded powder magazines, exploded nitro-glycerine, drove asunder the hills of Asia, and fired off loaded cannon in Scotland, while we record no less than four instances where the subtle fluid struck whole masses of people assembled in crowds, destroying or prostrating hundreds. “Some derangement has crept into the forces of nature,” exclaimed a thoughtful writer, who contemplated these and similar convulsions of the elements. It was the driest, hottest summer ever known in Arizona since its settlement by the whites, and droughts of unexampled severity prevailed in both hemispheres, in some cases, as exemplified in China, Bengal, Hungary, Peru, etc., followed by torrents of rain, that covered the parched regions as with a second deluge.

Two words describe the fall season, viz: Cold and dry. The 8th and 14th of September brought killing frosts in Maine and New Hampshire; on the 20th, the cold settled to 17° above zero on Mount Washington, the next day winter seemed to begin in East Prussia, where a severe snow storm raged, to the astonishment of all good Germans. This was the hottest month of the season in California; the Sacramento river ran a foot lower than ever known before. In the Atlantic States, the weather was unusually cold, and during the last week, frosts, snows, and ice, lay over the Grampian Hills of Scotland. Lake Cochituate was never so low, the valley of Champlain had but one third of its usual rainfall, while in all the valley of the Upper Mississippi and its tributaries, the drought exceeded anything ever known for a quarter of a century. Italy complained of droughts. “Water! water!” was the cry of the burning West. Then when rain came it would pour down like a cataract. This phenomenon of sudden rain-bursts was witnessed in an extraordinary degree in Yorkshire, England, on the 6th, where rain equal to a ton and a half of water to each square rod of surface, fell in a single thunder storm of short duration. We put on record another similar instance: At Rouse’s Point, N. Y., June 21, 1871, during an electrical manifestation—of such extraordinary quantity and violence as was never previously seen in the present century, rain fell to the depth of six inches in forty-five minutes, which is equal to sixteen feet in twenty-four hours!

While all the month of October continued hot and dry in California, and the Western World surged with heated air and devouring flames, New Mexico and Wyoming had, on the 16th, four feet of snow. The same date, the first snow fell in Canada. But raspberries were plucked at Arlington, Mass., on the 18th, and violets bloomed on the hillsides at Woodford, Vt., on the 26th, while the month in England was warmer than September. Nevertheless, winter was early on hand and vengeful with rigor.

And thus we have experienced summer weather in winter, and winter weather in summer, with the four seasons turned topsy-turvy and end for end, mixed up in inextricable confusion, and ofttimes the distinctive features of each and all crowded into a day. As usual, the astronomers said the cold spring and summer were owing to the spots on the sun. Very likely old Sol is to blame. A very convenient pack-horse is this mysterious luminary, on which to load the fidgety, freakish, inexplicable weather of our planet, so unexplainable to the world of science.

It cannot be denied that 1871 had many striking, alarming, and unaccountable features in its meteorological aspect. There were storms of rain, storms of sleet, storms of snow, storms of hail, and sometimes all these in an hour. And there were storms of meat, storms of sand, storms of stones, siroccos, and storms of electrical fire. Tornadoes took on strange shapes and colors and odors. Meteors flashed and burned with blue, purple, and red flames, the latter color being strikingly prominent in the auroras, which at times have flamed out on the midnight sky with an appearance of an immense conflagration. The scientist witnessed a new thing—a mighty explosion in the sun Sept. 7th, a phenomenon of wide and unbounded interest. In our records, as gleaned from two first class American dailies and an excellent British weekly, we have counted up four terrific typhoons, eight furious cyclones, forty horrible hurricanes, thirty-four terrible tornadoes, with eleven great and destructive volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, all occurring during the memorable year of our Lord 1871.—D. T. TAYLOR, in Boston Journal.

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?

O what are you going to do, brother? Say, what are you going to do? You have thought of some useful labor, But what is the end in view? You are fresh from the home of your boyhood, And just in the bloom of youth! Have you tasted the sparkling water That flows from the fountain of truth? Is your heart in the Saviour's keeping? Remember he died for you! Then what are you going to do, brother? Say, what are you going to do?

O what are you going to do, brother? The morning of youth is past; The vigor and strength of manhood, My brother, are yours at last. You are rising in worldly prospects, And prospered in worldly things— A duty to those less favored The smile of your fortune brings: Go, prove that your heart is grateful— The Lord has a work for you! Then what are you going to do, brother? Say, what are you going to do?

O what are you going to do, brother? Your sun at its noon is high; It shines in meridian splendor, And rides through the cloudless sky. You are holding a high position Of honor, of trust and fame— Are you willing to give the glory And praise to your Saviour's name? The regions that sit in darkness Are stretching their hands to you; Then what are you going to do, brother? Say, what are you going to do?

O what are you going to do, brother? The twilight approaches now— Already your locks are silvered, And winter is on your brow. Your talent, your time, your riches, To Jesus, your Master, give; Then ask if the world around you, Is the better because you live. You are nearing the brink of Jordan, But still there is work for you; Then what are you going to do, brother? Say, what are you going to do?

Obedience.

By E. R. Dewey

“God’s first command is obedience; man’s first duty is to obey.”

That God required strict obedience from his chosen people to all his commands, must be apparent to every student of the Bible. He required this, not only as his right as Maker and Ruler of all things, but for their own good, and to keep them in remembrance of their dependence upon a superior being.

In the history given us of the children of Israel, we can see his love and care for them when they obeyed him, and the fearful punishments which he sent upon them when they disregarded his voice. He did not leave them in ignorance of his will, but, through their leaders, communicated with them, reminded them of his goodness and care of them in the past, renewing his promise of blessings in the future, if they would walk in the path commanded, and also presenting before them the consequences of disobedience.

In the record we have of his dealings with the children of men, we see how faithfully he kept his promises to those who were obedient, and how long-suffering he was with those who were slow to obey; and though they provoked him to anger by turning from his precepts, yet when they were humbled by affliction, and returned, earnestly seeking his face again, how ready he was to pardon, and grant them the blessings promised the obedient. And is not God the same to-day that he always has been? Does he not still require obedience from those who profess to be his children? He answers this in Mal. 3: 6: “I am the Lord; I change not.”

Christian obedience is willing. “If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land.” Isa. 1: 19. We should not only obey because we feel it to be duty, but we should delight to do his will. We know, from our own experience, how much more pleasing it is to us to have those over whom we have control for a season render cheerful, willing obedience, than to oblige them, through fear of punishment, to obey our just requirements; to have them obey through love, rather than fear. It seems to me that God must love those who obey him heartily and willingly, and because they love him and wish to show their gratitude to him, more than he does those who obey reluctantly and because they fear the consequences of disobedience; perhaps he may accept such obedience, but shall we receive the blessing for it that we should for willing obedience? How can we refuse to render cheerful submission to all his requirements when he is continually showing his love to us by bestowing upon us every blessing we need? Perhaps we sometimes think that we would be willing to sacrifice all that we have, if, by so doing, we could obtain the blessing of the Lord. But “to obey is better than sacrifice;” the same as to say that obedience is the beginning of all acceptable worship.

Christian obedience is progressive. “The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” Prov. 4: 18. We cannot in a moment break up old habits of sin, and walk firmly in the path of truth and righteousness. For an illustration, look at the infant when first learning to walk. His first steps are tremblingly taken. He may stumble and fall. Does he give up for that? No; he keeps trying. His failures make him more cautious. He makes it his every-day business to learn to walk till at last he can walk firmly, without support; and then he feels himself almost a man.

Just so must the Christian make it his first and every-day business to learn to walk in the path of obedience; and though he may stumble and be well nigh discouraged, yet he must keep trying, relying firmly upon One who is mighty to save, until he can walk uprightly a new man in Christ Jesus.

Obedience is also a test of discipleship. “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” Love is the great incentive to obedience. We are to keep every command, not obey a part and throw away a part. His statutes are like a hedge about our path; if we will but keep in the path, we shall be kept from harm.

Obedience may not always be easy; but we can make it easier by contemplation of Christ. He is our example of perfect obedience; for “being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” Phil. 2: 8, 9. Yes; he learned “obedience by the things which he suffered;” and being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him. We shall be purified by obeying the truth: “The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul;” “the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.” Let our prayer be that of the psalmist, “Teach me, O Lord, the way of thy statutes. Make me to go in the path of thy commandments.”

E. R. DEWEY.

Is the Prophecy Fulfilled?

By J. W. Horne

PROPHECY.

In the second chapter of Paul's second epistle to the Thessalonians, from the first to the fourth verse, inclusive, is recorded the following startling prophecy: “Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means; for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped, so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.”

FULFILLMENT.

Walking slowly and meditatively up the grand nave of St. Peter's at Rome, through marvelous groups of statuary on the right hand and on the left, and passing, after a lingering delay, the celebrated bronze canopy, ninety-two feet in height, and supporting a golden cross ninety-five feet higher—the whole upborne by four richly gilded spiral columns, under the great dome and over the high altar of white marble, and the tomb of St. Peter, surrounded by eighty-nine ever-burning lamps—you come at length to the Tribune, containing the Cathedra Petri of Bernini, enclosing, as it is said, the veritable episcopal chair of St. Peter.

The conception of the artist which is embodied in this Tribune is, to my mind, at once one of the boldest and most blasphemous of human inventions. A foundation of polished marble—partly black, partly red—sweeps round with the curve of the chancel. On this platform, at suitable distances from each other, stand four colossal figures in bronze, heavily gilt, and flowing robes. These figures represent the Church on earth. The right hand of each is extended to receive a foot of the Cathedra Petri, or Throne of St. Peter—which is itself shining with golden tapestry—and to help support it on high. Then, from above, descending as it were from the bending heavens, volumes of golden clouds roll down, and touching the throne from behind assist to sustain it lifted up between heaven and earth.

Beside the throne there stand guardian figures, and over it are angels holding “the keys of the church,” and the Pope's tiara. Meanwhile, among the volumes of clouds, are cherubim and seraphim, and all the host of Heaven, exulting at the elevation of the papal power over every other power of the universe; and the Holy Spirit, the Heavenly Dove, gives the sanction of the divine presence; while the beams of his glory stream out in every direction, and away beyond the sphere of the angels!

While you stand gazing with awe and admiration, which you cannot, if you would, hinder from arising, you catch the grand conception of the idolatrous artist's work: it is that of the church militant and the church triumphant uniting and vieing with each other to lift up and sustain the throne of the vicegerent of Christ above every other “throne, and dominion, and principality, and power” in the world.

Now, it is known long to have been decreed in the papal church that if any one of the popes should be so favored of Heaven as to continue twenty-five years in the Pontificate

, to him should be granted the special honor of a grand jubilee; and that, arrayed in his garments of purple and gold, with a golden chain about his neck, and a ring of authority on his finger, he should have the opportunity, as Vicar-General of Christ, of ascending the throne of St. Peter, in St. Peter's at Rome; and there, “sitting in the temple of God,” with cross and crown, crook and crosier, miter and scepter, of giving his blessing, as Holy Father, to the thousands upon thousands who might be gathered to do him homage, amid the peal of organs, and blare of trumpets, and shoutings of multitudes, and pomp and pageantry of church and State.

It seems too bad, in this connection, to mention that right there, under the very shadows of the gorgeous Tribune, I was told that the so-called “ancient, wooden, episcopal chair of St. Peter,” enclosed in the Cathedra Petri, is believed to be nothing better than an old wooden chair of Mohammedanism brought from Constantinople, in one of the many forages made by the church.

At any rate, the thing would be only in keeping with the bronze statue of Jupiter near the transept on the right—mended toward the head so as to make a statue of St. Peter, whose brazen toe has been well nigh kissed away by the lips of the faithful.

Did any of them ever hear of Madame de Staël's excuse for this and other deceptions of the holy Mother Church? “We shame not,” says that profound critic in Corinne, “in pagan trophies which art has hallowed. The wonders of genius always awaken holy feelings in the soul, and we pay homage to Christianity in tribute to all the best works that other faiths have inspired.” Well might “Oswald smile at this explanation.” So do we.

Descending from the Tribune, appears on the left the chapel in which sat the late Ecumenical Council, bearing on its front the inscription: “Docete omnes gentes ecce ego vobiscum, omnibus diebus, usque et consummationem sæculi.”

The chapel does not look large in the surrounding magnitude of the mighty church, but it easily accommodated, with its full quota of paintings and marbles, and altars and organs, the most august body of gorgeously robed divinity that could be assembled in Christendom. It is a most remarkable and memorable fact, chronicled by the reporters, for the public press at the time, that when the great Council came to vote on the question of Papal Infallibility, at the very hour of the day, clouds and darkness unprecedented overspread the city, out of which shot fierce lightnings and burst roaring thunders, completely drowning the voices of the voters; and that when the record of the result reached was to be read, so greatly the darkness deepened that torches had to be introduced to illuminate the fearful scene and render the reading possible.

But the bull of infallibility was issued, and in a day or two the Emperor of the French—“the eldest son of the Church”—declared war against Prussia. We know the sequel. The Italian army breached the walls of the Eternal City, and took possession of the capital of the Papacy; the Prussian army forced its way to Paris and took possession of the French Empire. Did not the hand of God smite the one and the other—the blaspheming Papacy and the empire which supported it—at the same moment, and did not the two Babylons—the city and the temporal power—fall together?—J. W. HORNE, in Methodist.

Right Is Might.

By Archdeacon Hare

As sure as God liveth, as sure as the Holy One of Israel is the Lord of Hosts, the Almighty, right is might, and ever was, and ever shall be.

Holiness is might; meekness is might; patience is might; humility is might; self-denial and self-sacrifice are might; faith is might; love is might; every gift of the Spirit is might. The cross was two pieces of dead wood, and a helpless, unresisting man was nailed to it; yet, it was mightier than the world, and triumphed, and will ever triumph over it.

Heaven and earth shall pass away, but no pure, holy deed, or word, or thought. On the other hand, might, that which the children of earth call so, the strong wind, the earthquake, the fire, perishes through its own violence, self-exhausted and self-consumed, as our age of the world has been allowed to witness in the most signal examples.

For many of us remember, and those who do not have heard from their fathers, how the mightiest man on earth, he who had girt himself with all might except that of the right, burst like a tempest cloud, burnt himself out like a conflagration, and only left the scars of his ravages to mark where he had been.

Who of you can look into an infant’s face and not see a power mightier than all the armies of Napoleon?—Archdeacon Hare.

On Listening to Evil Reports.—

The longer I live, the more I feel the importance of adhering to the rules which I have laid down for myself in relation to such matters: viz.,

To hear as little as possible of whatever is to the prejudice of others.
To believe nothing of the kind until I am absolutely forced to it.
Never to drink into the spirit of one who circulates an ill report.
Always to moderate, as far as I can, the unkindness which is expressed toward others.
Always to believe that if the other side were heard, a very different account would be given of the matter.—Sel.

“I Will Never Leave Thee.”

By Sol.

In these words the English language fails to give the full meaning of Greek. It implies, Never, no, never; no, nor ever! This world, is a world of leaving, parting, separation, failure, and disappointment. Think of finding something that will never leave nor fail.

Grasp the promise, “I will never leave thee,” and store it in your heart; you will want it one day. The hour will come when you will find nothing so comforting, or cheering, as a sense of God’s companionship.

Stick to that word “never.” It is worth its weight in gold. Cling to it as a drowning man clings to a rope. Grasp it firmly as a soldier attacked on all sides grasps his sword. “Never.” Though your heart faints, and you are sick of self-failures and infirmities, even then the promise will not fail. “Never.” When the cold chill of death creeps on, and friends can do no more, and you are starting on that journey from which there is no return, even then Christ will not forsake you. “Never.”

When the day of Judgment comes, and the books are opened, and eternity is beginning, even then the promises will bear all your weight; Christ will not let go his hold on your soul.”—Sol.

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