The Romish Church reserves to the clergy the right to interpret the Scriptures. On the ground that ecclesiastics alone are competent to explain God's Word, it is withheld from the common people. Though the Reformation gave the Scriptures to all, yet the selfsame principle which was maintained by Rome prevents multitudes in Protestant churches from searching the Bible for themselves. They are taught to accept its teachings as interpreted by the church; and there are thousands who dare receive nothing, however plainly revealed in Scripture, that is contrary to their creed, or the established teaching of their church.
Notwithstanding the Bible is full of warnings against false teachers, many are ready thus to commit the keeping of their souls to the clergy. There are to-day thousands of professors of religion who can give no other reason for points of faith which they hold than that they were so instructed by their religious leaders. They pass by the Saviour's teachings almost unnoticed, and place implicit confidence in the words of the ministers. But are ministers infallible? How can we trust our souls to their guidance unless we know from God's Word that they are light-bearers? A lack of moral courage to step aside from the beaten track of the world, leads many to follow in the steps of learned men; and by their reluctance to investigate for themselves, they are becoming hopelessly fastened in the chains of error. They see that the truth for this time is plainly brought to view in the Bible, and they feel the power of the Holy Spirit attending its proclamation; yet they allow the opposition of the clergy to turn them from the light. Though reason and conscience are convinced, these deluded souls dare not think differently from the minister; and their individual judgment, their eternal interests, are sacrificed to the unbelief, the pride and prejudice, of another.
Many are the ways by which Satan works through human influence to bind his captives. He secures multitudes to himself by attaching them by the silken cords of affection to those who are enemies of the cross of Christ. Whatever this attachment may be, parental, filial, conjugal, or social, the effect is the same; the opposers of truth exert their power to control the conscience, and the souls held under their sway have not sufficient courage or independence to obey their own convictions of duty.
The truth and the glory of God are inseparable; it is impossible for us, with the Bible within our reach, to honor God by erroneous opinions. Many claim that it matters not what one believes, if his life is only right. But the life is molded by the faith. If light and truth are within our reach, and we neglect to improve the privilege of hearing and seeing it, we virtually reject it; we are choosing darkness rather than light.
“There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” Ignorance is no excuse for error or sin, when there is every opportunity to know the will of God. A man is traveling, and comes to a place where there are several roads, and a guide-board indicating where each one leads. If he disregards the guide-board, and takes whichever road seems to him to be right, he may be ever so sincere, but will in all probability find himself on the wrong road.
God has given us his Word that we may become acquainted with its teachings, and know for ourselves what he requires of us. When the lawyer came to Jesus with the inquiry, “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” the Saviour referred him to the Scriptures, saying, “What is written in the law? how readest thou?” Ignorance will not excuse young or old, to release them from the punishment due for the transgression of God's law, because there is in their hands a faithful presentation of that law and of its principles and its claims. It is not enough to have good intentions; it is not enough to do what a man thinks is right, or what the minister tells him is right. His soul's salvation is at stake, and he should search the Scriptures for himself. However strong may be his convictions, however confident he may be that the minister knows what is truth, this is not his foundation. He has a chart pointing out every waymark on the heavenward journey, and he ought not to guess at anything.
It is the first and highest duty of every rational being to learn from the Scriptures what is truth, and then to walk in the light, and encourage others to follow his example. We should day by day study the Bible diligently, weighing every thought, and comparing scripture with scripture. With divine help, we are to form our opinions for ourselves, as we are to answer for ourselves before God.
The truths most plainly revealed in the Bible have been involved in doubt and darkness by learned men, who, with a pretense of great wisdom, teach that the Scriptures have a mystical, a secret, spiritual meaning not apparent in the language employed. These men are false teachers. It was to such a class that Jesus declared, “Ye know not the Scriptures, neither the power of God.” The language of the Bible should be explained according to its obvious meaning, unless a symbol or figure is employed. Christ has given the promise, “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine.” If men would but take the Bible as it reads, if there were no false teachers to mislead and confuse their minds, a work would be accomplished that would make angels glad, and that would bring into the fold of Christ thousands upon thousands who are now wandering in error.
We should exert all the powers of the mind in the study of the Scriptures, and should task the understanding to comprehend, as far as mortals can, the deep things of God; yet we must not forget that the docility and submission of a child is the true spirit of the learner. Scriptural difficulties can never be mastered by the same methods that are employed in grappling with philosophical problems. We should not engage in the study of the Bible with that self-reliance with which so many enter the domains of science, but with a prayerful dependence upon God, and a sincere desire to learn his will. We must come with a humble and teachable spirit to obtain knowledge from the great I AM. Otherwise evil angels will so blind our minds and harden our hearts that we shall not be impressed by the truth.
(To be concluded)
Earthquake Thoughts
By E. J. HIBBARD
E. J. HIBBARD
On Tuesday, April 17, for more than eight hours San Francisco's “select,” and others, stood in line for tickets to the grand opera; where Caruso, the world's grandest tenor soloist, was to sing. That night the building was packed to the roof.
Two or three days later most of these same people stood for hours, some ladies in sealskin sacques and calico skirts, waiting their turn for one yellow soda biscuit.
“Now therefore be ye not mockers, lest your hands be made strong: for I have heard from the Lord God of hosts: a consumption, even determined upon the whole earth.” Isa. 28: 22.
“And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and still cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon [The woman called “Babylon the Great” “is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.” Rev. 17: 4-6, 18. The same was “drunken with the blood of the saints.” This system now involves the whole earth,] be thrown down, and shall be found no more, at all. “And the voice of harpers, and musicians, and of pipers, and trumpeters, shall be heard no more at all in thee; and no craftsman, of whatsoever craft he be, shall be found any more in thee; and the sound of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee; and the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived. And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.” Rev. 18: 21-24.
To complete the parallel, please find your Bible and read the whole chapter.
Can we realize, dear brethren, that this, the destruction of the rollicking sport of the whole earth, is just at hand? Also its traffic and greed shall be suddenly checked. Sad day for Adventists, too, if any of us are seeking worldly gain or pleasure.
“Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast. For, behold, the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.” Isa. 26: 20, 21.
San Francisco, Cal.
A Protest
By L. D. SANTEE
L. D. SANTEE
“If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” Ps. 11:3. For half a century we have built on the foundation, “the commandments of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ” (Rev. 12:17), and claimed that we were the “remnant” here spoken of. As a natural result the testimony of Jesus (“the spirit of prophecy,” Rev. 19:10) has had an important place among us. On these foundations our work has spread, new conferences have been organized, and unbelief has given way. We have rejoiced to know that we “come behind in no gift, waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1 Cor. 1:7. We have received these gifts from God as tokens of his favor. But there have been wrecks all along our history. Generally, the first evidence of unsoundness was criticism or doubt in regard to the Testimonies. The spirit of prophecy itself gives the general history:—
“Now if those to whom these solemn warnings are addressed say, ‘It is only Sister White’s individual opinion, I shall still follow my own judgment,’ and if they continue to do the very things they were warned not to do, they show that they despise the counsel of God, and the result is just what the Spirit of God has shown me it would be,—injury to the cause of God, and ruin to themselves.”—“Testimonies for the Church,” Vol. V, page 687.
As these disaffected ones go, they involve others in their downfall. Perplexed ones ask, “Whither shall we go up? our brethren have discouraged our heart.” Deut. 1:28. A suitable answer is found in verse 29: “Then said I unto you, Dread not, neither be afraid of them.”
Recently a leaflet was placed in my hand, published at Battle Creek, and tending to show the unreliability of the writings of Sister White. Its reading called forth the thoughts contained in this article. The position taken by the writer of the brochure is so well stated in Volume V, page 683, that we can not do better than to copy it: “In some cases it has been represented that in giving a Testimony for churches or in- individuals, I have been influenced to write as I did by letters received from members of the church. There have been those who claimed that Testimonies purporting to be given by the Spirit of God were merely the expression of my own judgment, based upon information gathered from human sources. This statement is utterly false.” Here, then, if her words are worthy of credence, is an emphatic denial of the statements made in the leaflet. The idea that some of her writings are reliable, and that others are not, is not tenable. In that case, as Ingersoll said, “It would take more inspiration to read them than it did to write them.” We should have to discern between the inspired and the uninspired. It won’t do. “Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit.”
I was surprised when I read in the leaflet this statement: “Possibly some may say that what I have written does of itself repudiate the Testimonies. With me, it does not.” And again I say, It won’t do. When you impeach a witness, no court or jury will receive his testimony after that. It is thrown out, and is valueless; and if it is not so with the writer, it is simply because he does not believe that he has impeached the witness.
Only God knows how much the Testimonies have done for us as a people. They were set in the church “for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.” Eph. 4:12. They have certainly filled their office. They have enriched our literature. “Steps to Christ,” “Patriarchs and Prophets,” “Great Controversy,” and later on, “Desire of Ages,” have edified the body of Christ, and “Testimonies for the Church” have drawn the church nearer God. My success in the gospel ministry, lasting over thirty years, is due largely to the study of the Bible in connection with the Testimonies. I believe that this is the case with the large number of my brethren in the ministry. And further, what sublime assurance it would be for her to say to a leading physician, strong intellectually and having great influence, “You are unconverted,” or to a prominent minister, “You are in the dark,” and be backed only by her “opinion.” It is easier to believe that it was true, and that God told her to write it because it was true.
Again, it would be a strange thing and without precedent, for God to use a prophet for fifty years, and then allow her to become a catspaw for designing men; that the gift of prophecy that has helped the church so much, should now be prostituted to base ends. I don’t believe it.
I might go further. “By their fruits ye shall know them.” We know that the third angel’s message is preached only by Seventh-day Adventists, and that it is the truth that prepares a people for the coming of the Lord. Now is the influence of that leaflet a help or a hindrance9to the work? Remember the curse that is pronounced on him that “offends [discourages] one of those little ones that believe on me,” and be careful about causing a weak brother to stumble.
Christ is anxious to save his people, and he says to us through his prophet. “If you seek to turn aside the counsel of God to suit yourselves, if you lessen the confidence of God’s people in the Testimonies he has sent them, you are rebelling against God as certainly as were Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.”
It is easy to be brave against an outside foe, but an enemy in the camp creates alarm. Let me read my text again: “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” Find the answer in 2 Tim. 2:19: “The foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.”
Thank God the foundation stands, we still have the testimony of Jesus Christ, and may expect the wrath of the dragon. Let us heed the counsel of safety: “Believe in the Lord your God, so shall ye be established; believe his prophets, so shall ye prosper.” 2 Chron. 20:20.
Dixon, Ill.
The Judgments of God and Their Significance
By L. H. PROCTOR
L. H. PROCTOR
“For when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.” Isa. 26:9. A short time prior to the pouring out of the plagues and the coming of Christ, God will visit the earth with judgments, which are intended to cause the wicked to fear and tremble before him, and which will result in the salvation of some souls who would otherwise be lost.
These judgments will yet be so terrible and destructive as to lay cities low, even to the ground, as recorded in verse 2. A description of their severity is given in Isa. 27:17, 18, from which there will be no earthly deliverance. This will cause some in their distress to seek the Lord, for in verse 16 it is said of them, “Lord, in trouble have they visited thee, they poured out a prayer when thy chastening was upon them.” We see from the above texts that those who will not be saved in prosperity, God is now trying to save under adversity and chastisement, as stated in verse 10. “Let favor be showed the wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness.” In verse 9 we read, “For when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.” We are now living in the time of these judgments or calamities, for they are to take place in the last days, as signs of Christ’s coming, and they will be so terrible as to cause the people of the earth to be in great perplexity and distress, their hearts even failing them for fear, “for looking after those things which are coming on the earth.” Luke 21:25-27. The judgments God is especially sending on the earth at present are earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, fires, floods, and destructive storms. God has for the last thirty-five years, given his people warning and instruction with reference to these things. I quote from the “Spirit of Prophecy,” Vol. I, pages 81-85 (written in 1870), as follows:
“Before the flood there were immense forests. The trees were many times larger than any trees which we now see. . . .
At the time of the flood, these forests were torn up or broken down and buried in the earth. . . . They have since petrified and become coal, which accounts for the large coal beds which are now found. This coal has produced oil. God causes large quantities of coal and oil to ignite and burn. Rocks are intensely heated, limestone is burned, and iron ore melted. Water and fire under the surface of the earth meet. The action of water upon the limestone adds fury to the intense heat, and causes earthquakes, volcanoes, and fiery issues.
“The action of the fire and water upon the ledges of rocks and ore causes loud explosions which sound like muffled thunder. These wonderful exhibitions will be more numerous and terrible just before the second coming of Christ and the end of the world, as signs of its speedy destruction. . . . When fire and water under the surface of the earth meet, the fiery issues can not give sufficient vent to the heated elements beneath.
“The earth is convulsed, the ground heaves, and rises into swells or waves, and there are heavy sounds like thunder under ground. The air is heated and suffocating. The earth quickly opens, and I saw villages, cities, and burning mountains carried down together into the earth. . . . Greater wonders than have yet been seen will be witnessed by those upon the earth a short period previous to the coming of Christ. . . . Since the flood, God has used both water and fire in the earth as his agents to destroy wicked cities.”
How plainly we can see the predictions, made so long ago by the servant of God, fulfilled before our eyes. We will notice a few scriptures which have special reference to earthquakes and the volcanic disturbances. In Luke 21:11 and Isa. 29:6 special mention is made of the earthquakes, as being sent by the Lord, and in Num. 16:1-34 we find that the Lord has punished wicked persons in times past by earthquakes, for their rebellion and wickedness.
The earthquake was followed by fire (verse 35), the same as the San Francisco earthquake, a few days ago. The volcanoes, or molten hills or mountains, are described in the following texts: Ps. 144:5, 6; 104:31, 32; Isa. 64:1-3; Nahum 1:3-6. These calamities are sent as a punishment for the wickedness of the people as recorded by Micah 1:3-6, where he says, “For the transgression of Jacob and Israel is all this.” Isaiah tells us that these destructions will yet be so great as to cause all hands to faint and every man’s heart to melt. Isa. 13:6, 7. This work of destruction will continue until the Lord shall lay the whole land desolate. Verse 9.
These judgments are an indication that the “time of trouble, such as never was” (Dan. 12:1), is just upon us. What do they mean to the world?—They mean that God is soon to take his Spirit from the world, never to return. They mean that the world has nearly reached the limit of God’s forbearance, and that he is now trying to save under adversity those who would not be saved under prosperity, by showing them the uncertainty of the things of this world. God will, in their need, send them something better and more substantial, and yet he sends these things in love (Rev. 3:19), which will result in the salvation of souls; “for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.”
We have already found that the breaking of God’s law is the cause of these judgments and disasters. The people, of course, do not understand this. Will not God’s people, who do understand these things, who know that the world is reaping the result of breaking God’s law, be held responsible for the world’s not knowing it? Let us be faithful in giving the message.
Brooklyn, N. Y.
The Spirit of Prophecy
To be a prophet it is not necessary for one to proclaim himself a prophet. It is not essential that one go about declaring, “I am a prophet.” False prophets usually herald themselves, and aim to draw disciples to themselves. Christ has forewarned his people that “for down to the end of probation there will be false prophets.” This implies that there will be true prophets all the way through; for the false is always in imitation of the genuine. Satan always works by misrepresentation of the truth. The spirit of prophecy is necessary “for the perfecting of the saints,” etc., until the end. Eph. 4: 11-13.
John the Baptist was a man sent from God, but we have no record of his ever saying that he was a prophet. He could have made many people believe that he was the Prophet spoken of by Moses (Deut. 18:15; John 1:21-23), but he would not yield to the temptation. However, he did proclaim himself a messenger, and he had a decisive message: “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Esaias.”
Was John the Baptist a prophet?—Ask Him whose messenger he was. He testifies: “What went ye out for to see? A prophet? yea, I say unto you, and much more than a prophet.” So one need not say, “I am a prophet,” need not ostentatiously pose as a prophet, in order to be recognized of the Lord. Nor does the loudest heralding of one’s claims give evidence of the gift of prophecy. “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.”
—Signs of the Times.
A Cure for Gossip
If you are tempted to reveal
A tale to you some one has told
About another, make it pass,
Before you speak, three gates of gold:
These narrow gates, first, “Is it true?”
Then, “Is it needful?” In your mind
Give truthful answer. And the next
Is last and narrowest, “Is it kind?”
And if to reach your lips at last,
It passes through these gateways three,
Then you may tell the tale, nor fear
What the result of speech may be.
—Selected.
The Question of Tobacco
Is the use of tobacco one of the things that helps the cause of Christ? Or is it a common accompaniment of much that retards the cause of Christ? Is any Christian man in genuine doubt on this point? If not, what is our simple duty?
Tobacco is used, and used freely and by great numbers, because it is a deadener of sensibilities. It helps to take the raw edge off life and feelings. It reduces brutal facts to pleasant seemings. The cold, hard world is not half so cold and hard when seen through the blue haze of tobacco smoke. Tobacco is comforting and soothing, not by bringing fresh strength to the physical system, but by numbing nerve and brain activity and rendering nerves and brain somewhat less conscious. At its worst, it produces nervous depression and prostration. At its best, in ordinary, “moderate” use, it acts as a narcotic; and a narcotic is that which “allays morbid susceptibility, relieving pain and producing sleep. In poisonous doses it [a narcotic] produces stupor, coma, and convulsions, and in still larger doses death.”
There come crisis times in a man’s physical life when the administering of a narcotic is the only way to save life; times when, to avert death, pain must be relieved and sensibility deadened. But is it well to bring one’s system, deliberately and voluntarily, into the condition when once or several times in every twenty-four hours the system cries out for deadening, so that the regular use of a narcotic is necessary for peace of body and mind? Is it well that the facts and difficulties of every-day life should seldom be seen in their reality, but mostly through the softening unreality of pleasant seeming? Is it well to be normal only when we are abnormal? Is any creature on earth more miserable than the habitual tobacco user who can not get at his tobacco?
The missing of an ordinary meal is not to be compared, in resulting discomfort, with the nervous strain of the omitted smoke. Yet food strengthens the body; and no tobacco user will claim that his body is built up by his habit.
Are such statements as these only the exaggerated indictments of an enemy of mankind’s friend the “weed”? As the editor was working on this issue of the Sunday School Times, a letter was laid on his desk which proved to be an appeal from a North Carolina tobacco company to forswear all other tobacco in favor of his own. The letter opened with the inviting sentence, “Do you know what a pipe dream is? Let us tell you.” But in the course of its argument there occurred several statements that are suggestive in a line that the tobacco company probably did not intend. In extolling the merits of a patented pipe, the company asserts, “and a pipe is the LEAST INJURIOUS [the capitals are as quoted] method of smoking.” Why not “most beneficial”?—Because even tobacco and pipe merchants know that tobacco using is injurious; therefore the phrase that unconsciously springs from their lips even when they want to praise their own wares is “least injurious.” They do not claim to offer nourishment, but minimized injury.
The North Carolina tobacco company goes on with other unconsciously damaging claims, such as that certain makes of pipes are undesirable because they become “saturated with poisonous nicotin;” “if the smoke does not strike the end of the tongue (one of the most sensitive centers of the nervous system), it is impossible to burn it,”—therefore with this patent pipe “no nicotin can reach the mouth to poison the system.” And a strong plea of this tobacco company is for “the contented feeling that steals over a well-fed man with a lighted pipe.” Is that a condition that a Christian worker wants to attain to more or less often during his waking hours every day? Does it tend to build up and strengthen one in the service of Him who said, “I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work”? Yet the circulars of this tobacco company contain a signed testimonial from a Massachusetts clergyman, asserting that he has been a smoker for forty years, and closing with the words, “You may count me as a permanent customer.”
“Permanent”! there is one fact in the tobacco question that ought to be fairly faced by every boy and young man who thinks at all over the matter of his personal habits. A business man’s sensible discussion of the tobacco habit puts the truth in this frank way:—
“When it comes, it comes to stay. Men rarely ever abandon it after the twenty-first year. Therefore take it for life, or quit it short. If you begin it, count that your final decision. . . . Anyhow, let us not drop into it by accident, or because some other fellow invites it, and then admit, as many a friend of mine has done, that we are caught in a trap of unbreakable habit.”
“If reason and will and manhood are going to have anything to do with deciding the matter, there are some things that must be thought of. They are the disadvantages. All admit that the habit, once formed, is a master. What kind of master is it?
“It is an unclean master. A clean mouth, sweet breath, untainted clothes, apartments free from stale odor, are hard things for a habitual smoker to manage. This point needs no elaboration. But if a proof is wanted, I only ask a glance at the floor of the smokers’ side of a ferry or the smoking car of a train, and a sniff of the atmosphere after a few minutes of the crowd’s unrestrained enjoyment of the weed, and—which is quite as significant—a note of the contrast in appearance between the men who crowd these places and those who seek cleaner floors and purer air.
“It is an unhealthy master. It corrupts the sense of taste, injures the stomach, deadens the sensibilities, causes cancers and heart troubles. I can count half a dozen personal friends at this moment who know, on physicians’ authority, that further continuance of smoking means shortened days, perhaps sudden death. Only one or two, however, have been strong enough to give it up.
“It is an almost immoral master. Not in itself a necessary evil, it nevertheless promotes certain associations and leads in certain directions as to other habits which are unhealthy to the moral nature. Do you know a liquor soaker who is not fond of tobacco? Did you ever see a barroom or prize-fighting or gambling crowd or rough gang of any kind that was not smoking and chewing? To paraphrase a famous remark by Horace Greeley, ‘All tobacco users are not horse thieves, but all horse thieves are tobacco users.’ A lad who has learned to handle a cigar with grace has made a first-class start on a road that has more than one bad stopping-place. If you think that is not so, let me ask you whether, if you were an employer, and wanted a young man for a position of trust and growth, you would select the one with a cigar in his mouth, or the one who had decided not to use it.
“It is a hard master. It is more powerful than your judgment and will combined. The old fable, ‘I can stop any time I want to,’ is disproved by the earnest attempts of many a strong man you and I know.”
There is nothing new in all these facts, to smokers. Indeed, many a user of tobacco11will say that some of them are not facts; that he has not been hurt by his habit, but that he compares favorably in health with the best of non-smokers. He fails to recognize that that point has not been proved or even tested, until, as happens to so many men, the question of his reserve power is the question that will turn the balance for him between life and death. Then it is that doctors say of a man, “But for his smoking, he would have pulled through;” or of another man, “If he had been a smoker, he could never have made this winning fight.”
Yet the real question, after all, is not whether one is willing to take his chances, as most men are, against ever having to depend for life upon one’s unimpaired reserve; rather it is, Has any follower of Christ the right to deaden, by an abnormal habit from which nature at first revolts, the keenness of any of his God-given faculties and powers of sensitiveness? Can one think of Jesus the man and the minister, whose bodily needs were identical with ours, finding relief after an exhausting Sabbath at Capernaum in the soothing effects of tobacco? Is that suggestion irreverent and unthinkable? Why? Why more so than for one who is striving to make of his body a living sacrifice for that same Christ? What of Paul? Would it be possible to conceive of his parchments as being saturated with tobacco smoke, while on them were written the words: “I buffet my body, and bring it into bondage;” “be ye imitators of me, even as I also am of Christ”?
There is a vigorous effort being made by some of the earnest Christian women of our land to improve the opportunity of the temperance lesson of this second quarter of the year for anti-cigarette teaching in the Sunday-school. Thousands of mothers and fathers and teachers will welcome this crusade; but there is one great difficulty in its way. One who is responsible for much of the sanest, most effectively directed temperance (which includes anti-tobacco) work that is blessing our land to-day, says: “If we have thousands and thousands of little boys smoking cigarettes, there is a cause for their having begun the practise. Searching for the main cause, it seems to me that the example of smoking men is the seed, whose natural harvest is our present crop of cigarette-smoking boys.” A prominent young Philadelphia physician who is striking vigorous blows for purity in American manhood writes: “Even though I myself was reared in a cloud of tobacco smoke, I must say with all candor that the clergyman and the physician appear to me to have less right than any other human being to injure and depress the powers loaned to them by the Almighty by the use of stimulants and narcotics in even the smallest quantities. If these drugs cause harm to others, and if influence is an indispensable feature of our daily lives, as we know it to be, then you and I can not explain away our responsibility if we openly or secretly submit ourselves to these allies of immorality. I again speak strictly as a physician, not as an enthusiast in the crusade against tobacco and alcohol as such.” Another sentence of such sort from the North Carolina tobacco company’s circulars reads, “It’s just as good for cigarette as for pipe.” Of course it is; and “if it’s good enough for my father or my pastor, it’s good enough for me,” says Young America.—Sunday School Times.
A Great Calamity
WE are startled by a great calamity that comes suddenly, and are prone to forget that the greatest calamities of all are those which come gradually and quietly, without causing any sudden shock. The army of men which is marching to drunkards’ graves, two hundred thousand each year, does not attract public notice, but the calamity is no less real than it would be if enacted all at once. So with regard to the constant, silent inroads of disease. At a recent medical congress in Washington, a prominent physician said, after having spoken of such sudden disasters as the Chicago fire, the Johnstown flood, and the California earthquake:—
“All of these calamities combined are not so great as is the calamity of tuberculosis to our country every year. The loss of life in a single year by tuberculosis is fifty times greater than it was in all those calamities. The amount of suffering from tuberculosis for a single year is greater than was the total suffering in those calamities. There was not a form of human suffering or misery precipitated by those calamities which is not duplicated many times over every year by tuberculosis.”
This terrible scourge inflicts upon the country, said the same speaker, an annual money loss of fifty million dollars.
Reflections of a Meat Eater
By Charlotte Perkins Gilman
[The following lines are indicative of the feeling that has been awakened throughout the country by the revelations in the meat food industry.—Ed.]
THE American public is patient,
The American public is slow,
The American public will stand as much
As any public I know.
We submit to be killed by our railroads,
We submit to be fooled by our press,
We can stand as much government scandal
As any folk going, I guess.
We can bear bad air in the subway,
We can bear quick death in the street,
But we are a little particular
About the food we eat.
It is not so much that it kills us—
We are used to being killed;
But we like to know what fills us
When we pay for being filled.
When we pay the beef trust prices,—
As we must, or go without,—
It is not that we grudge the money,
But we grudge the horrid doubt.
Is it ham or trichinosis?
Can a label command belief?
Is it pork we have purchased, or poison?
Is it tuberculosis or beef?
There is really a choice of diseases
To any one, little or big;
And no man really pleases
To die of a long-dead pig.
We take our risks as we're able,
On elevator and train,
But to sit in peace at the table
And be seized with sudden pain
When we are at home and happy,
Is really against the grain.
And besides — admitting the poison —
Admitting we all must die —
Accepting the second-hand sickness
From a cholera-smitten sty;
Patiently bearing the murder,
Amiable, meek, inert —
We do rise up and remonstrate
Against the Packingtown dirt!
Let there be death in the dinner,
Subtle and unforeseen,
But O Mr. Packer, in packing our death,
Won't you please to pack it clean!
— Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
The Cigarette as a Mathematician
“I AM not much of a mathematician,” said a cigarette; “but I can add to a man’s nervous troubles, I can subtract from his physical energy, I can multiply his aches and pains, and I can divide his mental forces; I can take interest from his work, and discount his chances of success.”—Pluck.
The Alarming Use of Dangerous Drugs
DR. T. D. CROTHERS, of Hartford, states that a committee of the American Pharmaceutical Association appointed to inquire into the matter of drug habits has recently reported that in the last five years the increased demand for cocaine has been over four hundred per cent, while the sales of morphia and opium during this time have increased five hundred per cent. The normal increase of these drugs for legitimate purposes during this period would be less than twenty per cent; hence this enormous difference indicates a new and previously unknown use. The causes of this excessive use he thus sets forth: spirits may supply the demand for relief from the strains and drains of exhaustion for a time, but they disturb the brain and nervous system, and expose the users to the risk of reputation; while opium and morphin give steadiness and serenity and cover up the real condition.—The Christian Advocate.
The Moral Benefits of Nature’s Beauty
“SENSIBILITY to the beauties of nature should be cherished in young persons. It engages them to contemplate the Creator in his wonderful works; it purifies and harmonizes the soul, and prepares it for moral and intellectual discipline; it supplies a never-failing source of amusement; it contributes even to bodily health; and, as a strict analogy subsists between material and moral beauty, it leads the heart by an easy transition from the one to the other, and thus recommends virtue for its transcendent loveliness, and makes vice appear the object of contempt and abomination.”