Your ShelfYour Projects

Signs of the Times, Vol. 9, No. 9.

General Articles
Earlier text: The World's Correction Line

Temperance.

By Col. Jesse Harper

The Danger of the Liquor Traffic.

1. THE liquor traffic is dangerous, because it menaces civilization and is the mortal enemy of Christianity. The law protecting and giving legal existence to the liquor traffic is a devilish yahoo who takes all that is deformed in man and energizes it until every part becomes a genii. These demons go about strong in the support of law, dragging to death—not only temporal but eternal—all on whom they lay their infernal hand. The legalized liquor traffic is a danger, indeed.
“It is a strange, a woeful sprite As ever frightened human sight.”
2. The danger is infinite, because the liquor traffic destroys the physical, intellectual, and moral powers. Drunkenness is surely burning out the very germs of manhood, permeating the coming generations with the virus of death. The baleful effects are becoming hereditary. The fearful law of transmission is showing itself in the degeneracy of the race wherever intoxicants are used. A high medical authority says: “The vitality and the physical and mental organization of the infant proceed directly from the parent.” In regard to drunkenness the transmitted virus may show itself in the child, grandchild, or great-grandchild.
3. The liquor traffic is dangerous, because it is the greatest social evil that affects the human race. Sir James Greenwood says: “Whatever difference of opinion of other causes, no sane man will contest the fact that drunkenness has wrought more mischief than all other social evils put together.” Again: “There is not a form of human sin and sorrow in which it does not play a part.”
The celebrated Dr. Guthrie, of London, in a letter to a committee of the House of Commons, says: “Believe me, it is impossible to exaggerate, impossible truthfully to paint the effect of this evil either on those who are addicted to it or those who suffer from it. Crushed husbands, broken-hearted wives, and, most of all, those poor, innocent children, that are dying under cruelty and starvation, that walk unshod the winter snows, and with their matted hair and hollow cheeks and sunken eyes glare on us wild and savage-like from patched and filthy windows. Nor is the curse confined to the lowest stratum of society. It has cost many a servant her place, and yet greater loss, her virtue. It has ruined trades, despoiled the coronet of its luster, and damned without number.”
4. The liquor traffic is dangerous because of the poisonous adulterations of all intoxicants. The belief that there is now any such thing as pure liquors is a myth. But if there were, what of it? Nothing; for the consequences that flowed from the drinking of pure liquors in the day of their existence, were fearful indeed. And now, when we add to this dark picture this—the drinking of adulterated liquors—and they are all the kind we have—then the picture becomes a wide-spread ruin, a very valley of the shadow of death.
5. The liquor traffic is dangerous because it encourages the use of intoxicants as a medicine, thereby cultivating a taste for drinks, which may ultimate in the destruction of both soul and body.
6. The liquor traffic is dangerous, because it promotes drunkenness; drunkenness is aberration, and constant drinking ultimates in delirium, and finally insanity. Says a noted medical writer: “One of the most terrible results of drinking is the inducing of that kind of insanity which takes the name of delirium tremens.” He describes this insanity thus: “The casualties of the disease are convulsions, coma, which, if not immediately fatal, are apt to leave the sufferer a wreck for the remainder of his life.”
7. The liquor traffic is dangerous, because it creates an appetite that at last becomes irresistible. We would speak now briefly of the pathological, or, as it is called, the proximate cause of drunkenness. No impression from any source can affect the mind except through the brain. In drunkenness, therefore, it is the brain that is principally affected. It is only through a healthy brain that healthy manifestations can emanate. Intoxicants destroy the cerebral texture; and the act is now well established that habitual drunkards have always more or less cerebral disease. And so this voluntary habit, long indulged in, becomes master, and overpowers the will and forces the victim down to death. At the last not a sound tissue or particle of flesh can be found from the sole of the foot to the crown of the head.
8. The liquor traffic is dangerous, because it destroys our statesmen and the distinguished among us. We have witnessed the sad sight of a drunken President drivelling the silly vaporings of a drunkard in the presence of the titled representatives of the governments of the world. No class of officials, sacred or secular, has escaped the blight of drink; and since the legalization of the traffic the scourge in high places has increased.
Some of the brightest names of our history have fallen victims to strong drink. Vice-President Wilson says: “In this country, and in this age of light, we have an army of five hundred thousand drunkards; fifty thousand of this number annually sink into drunkard’s graves. An army of half a million in Christian America! How fearful the thought, how appalling the spectacle!”
9. The liquor traffic is dangerous, because it destroys our wealth. Much has been shown of its waste, so details will not be given here. Remember that the annual cost, as shown, is $2,550,000,000 in this country. In the city of New York, in the single year 1878, $60,000,000 were spent for intoxicating drinks. In 1877, a distinguished lord shows that for intoxicating drinks in the British Isles, more than $700,000,000 were expended in a year. This was more than $20 to every man, woman, and child in the kingdom; and this was for the liquor drank by the common people, and does not include that drunk by the aristocrats and upper classes, they drinking wine, etc., which cost a much larger sum during the year. Gerrit Smith, a few years ago, in Richmond, said to the colored people: “If you will not drink a drop of liquor for thirty years, I will guarantee that you will own half the land in Virginia.” Mr. Greeley, just before he died, said that during the forty years he had lived in New York, the poorer classes of the working people had spent enough for whisky to have given them half the property in the city.
10. The liquor traffic is dangerous, because it corrupts the ballot-box and demoralizes our politics. J. G. Gurney once said that “a pint of whisky in a politician’s hand on election day would control more votes than a pint of brains in a sober man’s head.” Daniel Webster, although addicted to the fearful vice, said in a speech in 1835, “Intoxicating liquors are a danger to the ballot-box, a menace to our institutions without an equal.” And yet we are told to keep temperance out of politics—that is a moral question. Well, we will consent to keep temperance out of politics if the other side will keep intemperance out. Dr. Dick says: “When intemperance prevails a barrier is interposed to every attempt to raise man from the moral and intellectual degradation into which he has sunk; and where it is so, no power can irradiate his mind with knowledge. With his passions stimulated, his moral powers enervated, he has no faculty for self-government, and is dangerous to society.”
The debauchery of our times, the corruption of our ballot-box, are proof beyond cavil of this truth. In large cities the elective franchise is no better than a farce. Drunkenness has turned this highest privilege of a freeman into a two-edged sword that is being used by bad men to cut down and destroy forever self-government. The scenes often occurring in the two houses of Congress are sickening to think of. In July, 1878, sixteen Senators, in a public place, were drunk at one time, and four times that number of Representatives were under the influence of strong drink. A noted writer for one of the largest journals in the country, says, “Drunkenness is proving the cause of death to many Congressmen.”
11. The liquor traffic is dangerous because it produces 87 per cent. of the crime in the whole country. And to punish legally-produced crime, 50 per cent. of the cost of maintaining the courts is expended.
12. The liquor traffic is dangerous because it produces more misery than all the other crimes combined. The suffering of women and children, brought on them by it, no pen can describe. The misery in the world to-day, by this dragon of death, drapes all Heaven in black, and stirs to wild outbreak the chambers of hell. This curse is insatiable. The soul is ruined by it, and death crowned a king. The grave is robbed of hope, and on the fretted arch of the celestial its endless work is written: “No drunkard shall inherit the kingdom of God.”
13. Finally, the liquor traffic is dangerous because it is in direct violation of the commands of God. This is its great, its infinite danger. That which violates moral law is wrong—is crime of the highest degree. But that which is allowed by custom and law of the creature, which is directly prohibited by the Creator, is sin—deep and deadly sin, and brings a ruin temporal and eternal. Such a sin is the legalized liquor traffic of modern civilization.
In the light of the foregoing, every consideration of humanity urges us to rise in our majesty and rescue the perishing. Every impulse of the heart, which beats in love for man, urges us to save the dying. The bodies of unnumbered multitudes are wasting away amid the slow fire of this consuming traffic. The best hopes of the race are imperiled—sorrow is surely settling down upon the weeping soul. The danger is infinite, the results eternal. The longing cry of the lost at this shrine appeals to us in agony to reach forth in the strength of God and snatch them from the very jaws of death and the gates of hell. Shall we falter; shall we sleep; shall we count the cost when both temporal and eternal life are in the balance? No, no, a thousand times no! But with leaning on Omnipotence, and hand strong in the Almighty, let us lift the fallen from the lazar-house of sin, and place them securely on the Everlasting Rock. And as the traffic goes down, down, down forever, let us thank God for his wondrous work. And as the saved come up, up, up from the squalor of death and the ruin of despair, singing the diapason of the Immortal King, let us thank God for his matchless love. Let joy supreme thrill our heart as the temperance banner shall crown the temple of our purified liberty; and as it rises to its holy place amid the perennial blue, fruited with Christian, temperance work, may an enfranchised nation ring out in anthem peal: “Grace, grace unto it.”—Col. Jesse Harper.

The Hidden Side.

It is one of the happiest things for man that nature is on the side of virtue, that those who live the most virtuous lives and who take the best care to preserve the purity of their bodies and their minds have the greatest happiness in life. If the young men and young women of to-day could only be taught fully to realize this great fact, we venture to think that nine out of every ten of them, who otherwise would go wrong, would be restrained.
This great truth ought to be dinned into their understandings with repeated emphasis, and illustrated by hard, practical facts from every-day life, and not merely left to the effect of a few moral maxims. They see no ill consequences flowing from vice and dissipation. These are carefully screened from view; and few quote these consequences as a warning. It is in our jails, our penitentiaries, our lock-hospitals, our lunatic-asylums, and our work-houses that the fruits of early dissipation are to be found.—Selected.

Intemperance in Bengál

A LETTER from India reports that one of the serious obstacles to the work of teaching the children of the poor is the increasing intemperance of the lower classes in Bengál.
Within a few years the price of intoxicating liquor has become so low, and the manufacture of it so general, that even the women and the children are forming intemperate habits.
Ten years ago, the writer says, an intoxicated woman or child was never seen, but now the sight is common.
Not unfrequently the schools are broken up by a drunken row, and the children are sometimes found too drunk to read.
The schools have to be moved in some instances in order to get the pupils away from the sight and stench of the public stills.

The Profit in Liquor-Selling

An angry liquor-dealer, prosecuted for breaking the law, bluntly revealed the secret of his law-defying business. "Judge," said he, "there's no use of your trying to stop liquor-selling. Just as long as there is eight cents profit on a ten-cent drink, rum will be sold, and no one can stop it."

Walking in Shadow or Sunlight.

By Hope Ledyard

I was walking along the street the other day, when I saw a young girl, whom I knew, and a little tot of three years, crawling along disconsolately on the shady side of the way. It was a side street, and no one was passing, so I called out, "Come over in the sun, Mollie."
The girl looked up, crossed over, and we walked on together, the child dancing along in the happiest manner.
"Why, how pleasant it is on this side!" exclaimed Mollie. "I had no idea it was so warm and cheerful. We were half frozen, and I was going to turn back."
How like that is so many a Christian life? How many find the "narrow way" cold and dreary, and are inclined to turn back and give it up entirely. And, yet, there is the Sun, and they might walk in his light; there is the bright, sunny path of entire and full consecration, of unwavering faith, of perfect submission to him who "knoweth the way that I take." Let us see if we can find the way out of the shadow into this sunlight.
The very darkest, coldest shadow comes from want of faith. You are wrapping yourself up in your feelings, your attainments, your understanding of God's word. No wonder you shine dismally, and that the way seems cold and dark. Look across; see such as Frances Ridley Havergal or Hannah Smith, and, I trust some among your own personal friends, walking in bright sunlight, never thinking whether they feel aright or have yet attained to anything, never questioning God's word. It is enough that Christ has been perfect for them, that he leads them.
"Ah! but," says one, "some lives are full of shadows—full of trouble."
Thank God, lives are not like houses—they can be brought into the sunlight; and we know that even this created sun has power to break away all shadow—how much more the Uncreated Sun who longs to shine full upon us! I do think we look upon trouble in a very unscriptural way nowadays. I am quite sure that in the apostles' time there were many in the church who were enduring great sorrow and affliction, apart from the fierce persecution which raged, for it may be that great persecution brings with it an exalted state of mind; so we will not consider that at all. But I am sure that many a mother, in the apostles' time, was mourning the loss of her darling, many a wife was dragging through years of devotion to one who was blind to all her self-sacrifice, many a man was beset by terrible business difficulties. Yet, did the apostles pity them, and wish it were in their power to take the load of sorrow, or sacrifice, or anxiety off? "Behold," says St. James, "we count them happy which endure."
Ah! there is the shadow, and beyond, looking at the unseen things, shines the clear light of that Sun which is risen with healing—healing for wounded, tired, discouraged hearts—in his wings. Is it not foolish,—no, is it not wicked,—to walk shivering in the shadow, when by one step, into full faith and acceptance of God's will, you may be in the warmth of his presence?—Hope Ledyard, in S. S. Times.

At the Prison Gate.

By Advocate and Guardian

"Passing the State's Prison in Wethersfield on foot, one spring morning, thirty years ago," said an old gentleman recently (one of the prison commissioners of the State of Connecticut), "I saw the gate open, a man come out, and the gate close again. The man looked pale and worn and sad. He stood by the gate, in the broad May sunshine, in a perplexed, undecided way, and I noticed that the tears were streaming down his cheeks. He looked up and down the road, up at the sky, then stood with bowed head."
"Where now, my friend?" I asked cheerfully.
"I don't know, good sir,' replied the man sadly. 'I was just thinking that I would throw my hat straight up into the air, and go the way the wind blew it. I would rather go back into the prison, but they won't have me now that I have worked out my sentence. They won't have me there, and I don't suppose they will have me anywhere,' he went on, in a broken voice, 'but I have got to be somewhere. I don't know what will become of me; foresight isn't as good as hindsight, sir.'"
"I am walking to Hartford; take passage with me?" I said.
"You won't care to be in such company,' he replied, looking at me incredulously. 'Perhaps you don't understand that I have just worked out a sentence in the State's Prison here.'"
"I understand,' I said. 'We are all wayfarers; come along, and we will talk the matter over, and decide as we go what can be done for you.'"
It was a lovely warm day. We walked slowly and talked a good deal, or rather my companion talked, and I encouraged him to do so. He answered my questions frankly, clutching hungrily at my ready sympathy. He was very free to talk of himself, and said at last as I smiled at some unimportant disclosure :—
"Reserve was never one of my failings, sir. If I tell anything I tell all. That is the way I came to get into prison. Had I kept silent, I should have gone free. But by this time my heart, full of pent-up sin, would have been a mass of corruption."
"I found that he had made shoes in the prison. 'I never had a trade before,' he said. 'I think if I had, I would not have fallen into errors. Had I had a legitimate way of getting a living, I would not have been tempted as I was. I have a good trade to begin on now, however. I have brought that away with me, as well as a bitter memory and a lasting disgrace.'"
"It is not the fact of your being in prison, but the crime that carried you there, wherein lies the sin,' I said.
"But those who are not found out escape the disgrace,' he replied bitterly, with a deep sigh, and I hastened to say :—
"I think I know a man here in the city who will hire you. He is a large shoe manufacturer, and I am sure he will make a place for you as a favor to me, even if he does not really need a man."
The more I thought about it, the more confident I felt that my friend would take him into his manufactory.
"If I were in your place,' as we entered the city, 'I would not lisp a word about having been in prison.'"
The poor fellow stopped short and looked at me. The hopeful look dropped out of his face, his eyes filled with tears, and he said in a broken voice :—
"You have been very kind, but I had better bid you good-by, sir. I can not live and lie. I promised my God last night in my cell that was so dark at first, but so light at last when Jesus came to me there, that I would be true whatever befell me, and I will keep my word."
"Forgive me for tempting you at the outset,' I said. 'Come on.'"
I saw my friend, and told him the whole story. He had a little talk with my man, and made a bargain with him. That night, just at the hour for the shop to close, we three went into the work room.
"Here is a poor fellow who was discharged this morning from the Connecticut State's Prison,' said the proprietor. 'I am going to give him a start in life by taking him into the shop; he will begin work to-morrow.'"
There were indignant glances among the men, and one spoke up, hastily :—
"I shall leave if he stays. I will not work with a jail-bird."
"Very well,' said the employer, 'any one who wishes to leave, can bring in a bill of his time in the morning.'"
Only one man, the man who had constituted himself spokesman, left.
Ten years later that discharged convict was the owner of that manufactory, and the man who would not work with a 'jail-bird,' was one of the journeymen. As I said to begin with, that was thirty years ago. The man whom I met at the prison door is now a Senator in the Legislature of our New England States. He said to me the other day :—
"I tremble when I think what the result might have been had an evil instead of a good friend met me outside of the prison door.'"—Advocate and Guardian.

The Home Circle.

By M. D.

Written for the Signs of the Times.

GATHER THE SUNLIGHT.

Oh, the sunbeam's magic power! It lightens all the earth, Filling all hearts with gladness, Giving all beauty birth.
Yet the same bright beams are falling Through the void without our air, Their golden gleams diffusing No warmth or brightness there.
And wherefore those outer regions So dreary and dark alway? No power to stay the sunbeams On its shining path have they.
Is it thus we are wrapped in shadow While the light of a Saviour's love Is falling freely, gladly, Our gloomy path above?
In vain are the rays from Heaven, The message of holy cheer, If the soul stays not the sunbeams That would scatter its doubt and fear.
The grasp of a living faith-- This must the promise claim, This gather the heavenly radiance In a risen Saviour's name.
Away with the doubts we cherish! Will He not faithful prove Who hath sealed with his precious life-blood The message of his love?
Who treasure the beams of blessing, Great shall be their reward,-- Life's desert wastes shall blossom, A garden of the Lord.
M. D.

Iron Shod.

By Dr. T. L. Cuyler

THE safety of the mountain climber depends upon being well shod; therefore the Swiss guides wear heavy shoes with sharp spikes in the soles. On a bright July morning, a famous man of science started with two gentlemen to ascend Pitz Morterasch, a steep and lofty snow mountain in Switzerland. Though experienced mountaineers, they took with them Senni, the boldest guide in that district. After reaching the summit of Morterasch they started back, and soon arrived at a steep slope covered with a thin snow. They were lashed together with a strong rope, which was tied to each man's waist.
"Keep carefully in my steps, gentlemen," said Senni, "for a false step here might start the snow, and send us down in an avalanche."
He had hardly spoken when the whole field of ice began to slide down the icy mountain side, carrying the unlucky climbers with it at a terrible pace. A steeper slope was before them and at the end of it was a precipice. The three foremost men were almost buried in the whirling snow. Below them were the jaws of death. Everything depended on getting a foothold. Senni shouted loudly, "Halt! halt!" and with desperate energy drove his iron-nailed boots into the firm ice beneath the snow. Within a few rods of the precipice Senni got hold with his feet, and was able to bring the party all up standing, when two seconds more would have swept them into the chasm.
The hair-breadth escape shows the value of being well shod when in dangerous places. The lesson is especially needed by the young. No boy is well prepared for rough climbing, unless he is well shod with Christian principles. Sometimes temptation ices the track under him, and then he must put his foot down with an iron heel, or he is gone. A poor boy of my acquaintance signed a pledge never to taste liquor. One day his rich employer invited him to dinner. There was wine on the table, but the lad was not ashamed to say,
"No, I thank you, sir; I never touch it."
Then came on a rich pudding, which the boy tasted and found there was brandy in it, so he quickly laid the tasted morsel back on his plate. The employer discovered that the boy had "pluck" enough to stand by his convictions, and he will never be afraid to trust him. He is a sure-footed boy.
God knows what steep places lie before us. He has provided the "shoes of iron and brass" for us to put on. They are truth and honesty and faith and courage and prayer. A clear conscience will keep the head cool. And up along the hard road there is a sign-board on which is written in large bright letters, "He that walketh uprightly, walketh surely."—Dr. T. L. Cuyler.

The Work at Hand

By Carlyle

OUR grand business is, not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand. —Carlyle.

Religious Notes

By Editor

-The Bible is wholly put into eight African tongues, and partly into thirty-four more, and the thirty-fifth is being prepared for.
-It is said that Mormonism is steadily spreading over Idaho, one-third of the population already belonging to that class of people.
-The Oakland branch of the Salvation Army announces that General Booth, head of the army in England, will soon visit this city.
-The Roman Catholics have been in China three hundred years, and they have not yet given the Bible, or any portion of it, to the Chinese.
-The Jewish Times speaks of a church that has a debt of $200,000, and forcibly says: "We do not believe in dedicating debts to the service of the Lord."
-Prof. Bernhard Weiss, of Berlin University, places the writing of the Book of Revelation at A. D. 70, and that of John’s Gospel about twenty or twenty-five years later.
-The first newspaper in India was published by Baptist missionaries in 1838. Now there are 240 papers published there, over 100 of them in their native languages.
-There are 120,000,000 women and girls in India, and at the most liberal estimate not more than one in every 1,200 has yet been placed under any kind of Christian instruction.
-The Advocate across the bay seems to think that the murder of Dr. Glenn was owing to the repeal of the Sunday Law. This gives us a clew to the cause of the Tehachepi disaster, and the floods along the Ohio.
-One of the Chickasaw Indians proposed to the American Bible Society to pay half the cost of supplying the school children of his tribe with New Testaments if the Society would pay the other half. The Bible Society accepted the offer and forwarded him a box of 500 New Testaments, which he is now distributing.
-The first instance of a priest of the Greek Church turning Presbyterian, occurred in New York a few days ago. At the last meeting of the New York Presbytery, Dr. Crosby stated that Rev. Bjerring, formerly rector of the Greek Church of that city, wished to become a member of the Presbytery. A committee was appointed to confer with him and report at the next meeting.
-Dr. Nevins, for ten years of the American Presbyterian Mission to China, has labored in a thickly-settled province where twenty years ago the name of Jesus had not been heard. His circuit extended over 1,000 miles, and he labored five years before he had a convert. He is now on his return to his field, where he expects a Christian welcome in over 200 villages. There are now sixty central stations where the gospel is regularly preached by native converts.
-The Sunday Law is being strictly enforced in Saxony. The Minister of the Interior has ordered that in the future workmen employed by the Government shall rest on Sunday; and the magistrates of towns and villages are prohibited from having work done on a Sunday which can be done on any other day. The police are instructed not to allow the peasants to work on Sunday in the fields, carpenters to ply their trade, sailors to load or unload ships. Hunting, and other amusements, by which divine service might be disturbed, are prohibited; and especially military shooting parties are no longer allowed to practice with music on Sunday morning during the time of service. Noisy amusements are interdicted, and all beer saloons and dance halls are put under police surveillance Saturday night and Sunday.—Chronicle.
-Hon. Wm. E. Dodge, who recently died in New York, will doubtless be remembered for his charities, more than for his success as a business man. It has been estimated that there have been years in which his benefactions averaged $1,000 a day throughout the year, while frequently the sum given away by him amounted to $250,000, and at no time within several years did it fall below $200,000. Mr. Dodge was also consistent in his religious life, always living strictly up to his convictions. He had much stock in railroads, and was a Director in several companies, but he invariably sold out, no matter what the sacrifice, and withdrew from the company, as soon as it began to run trains on Sunday. We cannot but admire such consistency, because of its scarcity, even though it was exercised toward the Sunday. Were all the advocates of Sunday observance so careful, the Sunday-law question would be quickly settled.
-In the last number of the North American Review, Bishop McQuaid (Catholic) had an article on the "Decay of Protestantism," which has called forth a great deal of comment. The Bishop argues that piety is dying out of the church; that ministers are worldly, caring more for wealth and a position than for the gospel; and that there is getting to be the greatest looseness in matters of doctrine. This last needs no argument; and granting that, the others must of necessity follow. The article sets forth the moral delinquencies of the Protestant denominations in a strong light, and many religious journals are seeking to refute it. Some are content to say that it is not true, but a writer in the Occident brings the strongest argument yet produced in rebuttal. He argues in substance that the Bishop’s assertions in regard to Protestantism cannot be true because the Catholic church is not increasing in numbers! But this is no more to the point than is the Bishop’s conclusion that because religion is dying out among Protestant denominations, therefore it is gaining among Catholics. We would suggest to those who come within the scope of the Bishop’s criticism, that there is a practical way of disproving the truth of his article, which they would do well to adopt.

News and Notes.

By Editor

  • Twenty-two persons were drowned on the 22d ult., by the wrecking of a steamer on the Bosporus.
  • A bill has been introduced into the Montana Legislature providing for the punishment of bigamy and polygamy.
  • A dispatch from Hongkong, dated Feb. 21, says that the United States steamer Ashuelot is lost. Eleven of the crew were drowned.
  • An explosion of giant powder occurred at the railroad works near East Portland, Or., on the 23d ult., by which ten Chinamen were killed.
  • Thirty-five packages of opium, valued at $15,000, were discovered by the San Francisco Custom-house officers, on board the City of Tokio.
  • Large quantities of mineral specimens from Utah, Idaho, and Montana Mines, have been shipped to the International Exposition at Amsterdam.
  • It is stated that letters have been received by the authorities, containing threats to blow up the Kremlin at Moscow, where the Czar is to be crowned.
  • A boat containing a funeral party of eight persons, who were crossing the Mississippi near Clinton, Ky., was capsized, and the whole party were drowned, last week.
  • The Erie road is building a locomotive to practically test an invention for at once consuming smoke, and heating air from the waste steam for use in warming cars.
  • Governor Butler proclaims April 5th as a fast day, and especially exhorts ministers to feed their flocks with the divine word, and not discourse upon political or other social topics.
  • Last year, the New York Exchange sold 32,700,000 bales of cotton, of which 600,000 were delivered. The 32,100,000 not delivered represents the gambling in cotton alone on "margins."
  • Six new names are added to the list of those killed in the Diamond Mine disaster, at Braidwood, Ill., making eighty in all. The water is yet so deep in the mine that no bodies can be found.
  • Thos. W. Palmer, of Detroit, has just received a letter from Sweden relative to lands in Michigan for a colony of 1,500 or more families of Swedes who desire to settle in that State.
  • Seventy persons were fatally poisoned in a lumber camp near Saginaw, Mich., last week. The cook was a new hand, and had mixed strychnine with the biscuits, thinking it was saleratus.
  • The president of the Empire Mining Company, of Summit County, U. T., having been given the agency of a large estate in New York, has proved to be a defaulter to the amount of $800,000.
  • A bill has been introduced into the Kansas Legislature making public drunkenness a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of $10.00 or imprisonment in the county jail for thirty days, or both.
  • The Ohio River is falling, and no more danger is apprehended, but the Mississippi is rising, and the outlook is anything but pleasant. The river at Cairo, Ill., is higher than was ever known before.
  • The frequency of the raids made upon the Chinese gambling dens of San Francisco, as reported by the daily papers, leads us to wonder if none but Chinese are engaged in the unlawful business of gambling in that city.
  • The daily papers are full to overflowing with the details of horrible crimes. Even if we were willing to publish such things, we could not do it, as we would have no room left for other news. The land is defiled with blood.
  • Forty students at St. Petersburg have been imprisoned for expressing doubts as to the administrative ability of the Minister of Public Instruction. It is hardly to be wondered at that nihilism flourishes under such treatment.
  • A dispatch from Denver, Col., Feb. 24, says: "At Leadville and surrounding towns the small-pox is raging. All efforts to retard the spread of the disease failed. The schools are closed, and the situation is becoming alarming."
  • Reredell, one of the defendants in the star-route case, has turned States' evidence. He pleaded "guilty as charged in the indictment," and threw himself on the mercy of the Court. His testimony makes the prospect look dark for his fellow conspirators. It is thought certain that his evidence will convict them all.
  • Eighteen children were crushed to death during a panic caused by an alarm of fire in a school attached to a Catholic Church in New York, Feb. 20. The fire was insignificant, but the children rushed out, and were precipitated to the floor below by the breaking of the stair railing. By a system of drill this might have been avoided. All the victims were girls.
  • Eight convicts in the Missouri Penitentiary at Jefferson City, rebelled on the 23d ult., and, setting fire to the buildings, attempted to escape. They were captured, but the fire damaged the State buildings to the amount of $300,000. As a consequence of this offense, the Governor has sent a message to the State Legislature, recommending the passage of a law making such offenses punishable with death.
  • Rumors of war with China still continue rife, and point to the possibility of a war at no distant date. Of the 7,000,000 yen which is expected to be realized by the recently imposed extra taxation, 3,000,000 is to be devoted to the navy, 1,500,000 to the army, and the remaining 2,500,000 is to be kept as a reserve. It is here stated that two iron-clads, originally commenced in Germany for the Chilean Government, are to be at once acquired. Native journals state that all the factories, etc., remaining in Government hands are to be disposed of to raise money for war-like purposes. The Jiji Shinpo, a native paper, referring to the apprehended hostility of China towards Japan, says that the patriots of the Celestial Empire are advocating war in order to punish the Japanese and prevent them from heaping any further insults upon China.

Obituary.

By Editor

GLENN.—George Albert, son of Wm. N. and Victoria E. Glenn, of Oakland, Cal., was born July 4, 1882, and died of pneumonia, Feb. 22, 1883.
Bro. Glenn has stood connected with us in the work in this office for several years. In this affliction he and his family have the sincere sympathy of a large circle of friends. We endeavored to impart comfort at the funeral from the words of Jesus in Mark 10 : 13-16. EDITOR.

A BOOK FOR THE TIMES.

By Editor

THE RELIGIOUS AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION;

OR,

THE SABBATH, THE SUNDAY, THE CHANGE, AND THE RESTITUTION.

THE object of the proposed Constitutional Amendment, together with the authority for it, is fully canvassed.
The views of the leaders of the parties both for and against the Amendment are fairly given in this book.
The present agitation of the SUNDAY LAW makes this book especially interesting and instructive at this time.
380 pp. Bound in cloth. Price, $1.00.
Address, SIGNS OF THE TIMES, Oakland, Cal.

THE SPIRIT OF GOD: ITS OFFICES AND MANIFESTATIONS TO THE END OF THE CHRISTIAN AGE.

By Joseph Harvey Waggoner

By Elder Joseph Harvey Waggoner.
This is a brief but comprehensive argument on the solemn and important subject of the Spirit of God. Its chapters embrace the following heads: The Holy Spirit of Promise; The Power from on High; Circumcision of the Heart; The Unity of the Faith; The Law and the Testimony; Try the Spirits; The Great Commission; Gifts in the Reformation; In the Present Century; Spirit of Prophecy Restored. These are subjects of vital importance to all, and especially to those who are looking for the return of their Lord. 144 pp. Price, 15 cents.
Address, SIGNS OF THE TIMES, Oakland, Cal.

BIBLE SANCTIFICATION:

By Editor

A CONTRAST OF TRUE AND FALSE THEORIES.

By Mrs. E. G. White.
This is a pamphlet of only 84 pages, but its value is not to be judged by its size. It is just what its title indicates: a faithful presentation of Bible truth on this important subject, and an exposure of the false theories prevailing in regard to it. Every believer in Bible truth should read it. Buy it, read it, and lend it to your neighbor. Price 10 cts.
Address, SIGNS OF THE TIMES, Oakland, Cal.
Continue reading: PACIFIC PRESS PUBLISHING HOUSE,