Review and Herald, Vol. 26, No. 21. (10/24/1885)

Review and Herald

Oct 24, 1885

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 24, 1885

The Blunders of Geologists.

ThE following article, from the Evangelical Repository, is worthy of a careful perusal. It is a well-known fact that most of the geological theories extant impinge against the plain teachings of God's word. Geologists would have us to know that their theory is correct, no matter what prophets and apostles may say to the contrary; thus divine truth must be sacrificed on the altar of geological speculations. And it is a gratifying thought that while the masses of Christian professors are being led astray by this snare of Satan, there are some, in the churches, men of culture and thought, who take a bold stand against such soul-destroying sentiments. (See Jacobus' Notes, and the writings of Mr. Lord.) There is a vein of sarcasm in the article below, which, considering the subject, is pardonable. Without forestalling the piece, we would say to all, read and be profited. G.

"How does a man become a freemason?" we asked, after gazing with amazement on the prodigious beard of the patriarch, listening to the conversation of men familiar with Hiram, King of Tyre, capable of discussing the details of Solomon's temple, and learned in the pyramids. If such mysteries might be hinted at in fireside discourse, what incomprehensibilities must be included within the mystic triangle! what untold ancient lore locked up in the chest of their sanctum! And again we asked with wonderment, "How does a man become a freemason?" Unhappily, the process was performed in the town. Several of our good, honest acquaintances were duly initiated; and after a brief probation, were advanced to the degree of Masters of that ancient craft. From which we learned that a man might lawfully display a white sheepskin apron covered with all manner of hieroglyphics, without any midnight perusal of the Rabbins, or any profound acquaintance with grammar, arithmetic, or history, sacred or profane. The Grand Master, of course, knew all these, and all other sciences.

A similar state of incredulity is produced in the minds of readers of geological works, by the discovery of the incongruity between the lofty pretensions of the science and its slender performances; and still more, by the discrepancy between its very proper demands on its students for universal knowledge, and the very moderate amount of second-hand information possible for men engaged in the common businesses of life, (as most geologists are,) on any subject beyond the range of their own profession. The impression is still further deepened by an extending acquaintance with the works of professed geologists, in which the reader inevitably discovers their ignorance of matters of grave importance, their mutual contradictions, and the folly of accepting either the facts or theories of geology upon such unreliable testimony. We were once greatly impressed with admiration of the discourses of geologists concerning the subsidence of continents, the elevation of mountains, the plication of rocks, and the interior nucleus of our fire-bowelled globe. Desiring a knowledge of such mysteries, we procured the authorized text-books and began to study the demands of the science.

"Geology," said they, "is the science which treats of the materials of the earth's crust, their mode of arrangement, and the causes which seem to have produced that arrangement." Rather an extensive investigation, we thought. But the next was worse: "The science which treats of the structure and universal constitution of the globe,"—that was going a good deal deeper than the crust,—"and of the causes of its physical features." That demands positive knowledge of the laying of the foundations of the earth. Lyell is said to be modest; let us see what he proposes: "Geology is the science which investigates the successive changes that have taken place in the organic and inorganic kingdoms of nature; it inquires into the causes of these changes, and the influence they have exerted in modifying the external structure

of our planet." It is getting worse and worse, said we; the organic kingdoms are now to be got into the ark, and who knows but the stars may next be found to have some influence on the shape of our spheroid? Better stop here, lest the nebular theory down us before we set foot on our solid science rocks. But professional men are wont to magnify their office; perhaps the mountain may not be so utterly inaccessible; let us advance a few paces, and ascertain the demands of science: "To solve the numerous problems which geology thus embraces, a vast amount of research and knowledge is necessary. To account for the aggregation and positions of many rock masses, the geologist requires to be acquainted with the principles of mechanics; to treat of their composition and formation, the aid of chemistry must be called in; to describe and classify the remains of plants and animals, he must have recourse to botany and zoology; while generally speaking, there are many of his problems, for the successful solution of which the assistance of almost every branch of natural science is necessary." "It would be no less desirable that a geologist should be well versed in chemistry, natural philosophy, mineralogy, zoology, comparative anatomy, botany, in every science relating to organic or inorganic nature." We began to make inquiries about the merits of cyclopædias, and calculations of the time necessary for the study of some four hundred and seventy volumes, containing an abridgment of the natural sciences by approved authors; constituting, we are assured, a very meagre scientific library. Meagre it must have been, for the Catalogue Committee of the British Association report that since A. D. 1800, memoirs on the mathematical and physical sciences, excluding natural history, chemistry, and geology, published in Europe, amount to one hundred and twenty-five thousand. The catalogue alone makes ten quarto volumes. The leisure hours of three months would be required to master a volume, we were informed by a hard-working student. There are some which would demand six months; and mathematical works, which would well repay the labor of a year. There were works in French and German, indispensable to the geologists; and four or five years would be well employed in obtaining a mastery of those languages. The names of the fossils would be unintelligible without a knowledge of Greek and Latin; and one must be able to sketch landscapes, and draw fossils accurately from nature, to make his acquisitions valuable. Thus, in about two hundred years, we might obtain a second-hand knowledge of what other people know about the science of geology. Or, by devoting one's whole time to the task, in eighty years we might master the literature of this gigantic science. A personal acquaintance with the rocks would demand an examination of the strata in situ; involving a visit to the Silurian system in Wales, the Old Red Sandstone in Scotland, the Laurentian system in Canada, the lavas of Etna and Vesuvius in the land of Antichrist, the extinct volcanoes of Auvergne, in the arsenal of his eldest son, the metalliferous deposits of the Ural range, the active volcanoes of the South American Republics, the coral tombstones of the submerged mountains and races of the Pacific. It would give great zest to such little excursions, could we bring home some trophies, and give reality and form to old existences, by inviting the British Association to breakfast on an omelette of moa eggs from New Zealand, and lunching the Zoological Section on a frozen mammoth steak from the Siberian ice cliffs. Such excursions, though somewhat expensive, would be doubly invigorating to mind and body; but with all the advantages of steam navigation, we found they would demand not less than thirty years. In that period, we were advised, it was probable, judging from the past, other fields of equal interest would be opened, demanding ten or twenty years for their exploration, which would result in new theories, leaving our existing theories as high and dry as Burnet's Theory. Geology is now producing about a hundred thousand pages yearly of books, reports, magazines, reviews, and the like; of which the geologist must keep himself informed, or fall behind the age—a fate more deplorable than that of an unsuccessful candidate. By reading a dozen magazines monthly, however, we were told one could keep tolerably posted, and even be able to make speeches at the American Association for the Promotion of Science. But then this reading twelve hundred pages monthly of contemporary literature would use up half one's time, and double the period required for obtaining a competent knowledge of the great business of world-making. About five or six hundred years, then, would be indispensably necessary for the life of a geologist. We dismissed the subject till the millennium, when philosophers living ten centuries can compare the value of as many conflicting systems at their leisure. We pronounced a knowledge of geology, as a science deserving of the name, impossible for mortal man in this short-lived world; and resolved henceforth to place the "Principles of Geology" and "Paradise Lost" on the same shelf, as magnificent creations of the human mind, visions, epics of the highest order. We indulged in a day-dream of megatheria, ammonites, coal formations, and flying crocodiles, occasionally, as men take to fast horses, or women to dancing, as a moderate insanity to quicken the pulse of life.

Just then, unhappily, we met with some geologists; and—must we confess it?—the lofty cliffs, seen gilt and glowing in the inaccessible distance, were ascertained to consist of common clay, which sundry little investigating streamlets dissolved into an all-enveloping mud. They were college boys, just graduated, who had learned everything at the university, including geology. But, alas for the prophet in his own country! We had known them well in their school days, when passing through the great tribulation of long division and the third declension, when the only geological phenomena with which they were familiar were the upheaval of the smaller boulders, in search of angling worms. In the brief period of four years they stood before us versed in Greek, Latin, logic, metaphysics, history, astronomy, mathematics, chemistry, physiology, ethnology, zoology, geology, and if there be any other ology, with a competent knowledge of the constitution of the United States, a full understanding of the errors of the Pentateuch, and a delicate taste in meerschaums and mint-julips.

A little judicious inquiry unveiled the mystery. The source of their profound and accurate knowledge of geology was a single text-book. Thus they had no doubts, having no knowledge of conflicting systems. They had gone through the course without having handled a single specimen of the minerals, save those contained in the coal scuttle: some of them could not tell granite from limestone. This was not, however, their fault. We have inquired in vain, at four of the principal colleges of the United States, for a view of a complete set of minerals illustrative of the modern geological system, or even of the geology of our own country. But though ignorant of the facts described, and of the conflicting opinion of geologists regarding them, no Papist ever asserted the veracity of his mass-book, no Mohammedan the truth of his Koran, nor follower of Joe Smith the inspiration of the book of Mormon, more firmly than they did the accuracy of their Manual of Geology. Their Biblical knowledge and faith not being equally profound, they, like Bishop Colenso, "knew for certain, on geological grounds," the unhistorical character of Genesis.

Thousands in our land are now going through a similar process. Credulous youths swallow everything presented to them for science in college; having neither the desire nor the ability to separate facts from fictions. It is easier, and pleasanter, to accept the lecture, than to examine the theory. And no great harm comes of scientific speculation, provided it be not allowed to interfere with morals and religion; which the common sense of mankind, in most cases, sufficiently prevents. But when geological theories are advanced against the authority of the Ten Commandments, and the sanctity of the Sabbath and of marriage is denied upon the strength of notions about the fusion of granite, and the ancient existence of elephants and hyenas, it becomes necessary to show the utter uncertainty, not only of those, but of any other geological theories. The first step to this is a discovery of the errors and blunders of the accepted prophets of science. It is of no importance to our purpose to show how much truth may be in the system, while the facts and fictions are, for all practical purposes, lying in chaos; but the assurance with which notions are presented as facts, demands exposure.

"How Goes the Battle?"

By S. R. Chaplin

"How goes the battle?" O watchman tell! Look from your hights where the pilgrims dwell! Are they walking humbly where Jesus trod, And faithfully keeping the truths of God? Is the heavy cross on their shoulders borne, And "the world's proud scorn" as a chaplet worn? Do their lamps gleam bright o'er the darkened plain, Are they trusting still in the Saviour's name?

"How goes the battle?" O watchman tell! Look again where the pilgrims dwell! From the thorny ways of woe and sin, Do they lead the erring wanderers in? Do they visit the sick and the fatherless With a mystic power in their words to bless? Do they clothe the needy and feed the poor, Do they freely give from their earthly store?

"How goes the battle?" Do any fall, Forgetting that Christ is their all in all? Has the light grown dim to their weary eye, And the pearly gates from their view gone by? Has the artful world with its busy cares, Its tempting sweets, and its blinding snares, Turned them away from the narrow road, That leads to Immanuel's blest abode?

"How goes the battle?" Has love grown cold, Or faith been bartered for worthless gold? Or hate crept in, or guilty pride Borne some away on its rushing tide? Does the song of praise and the heartfelt prayer No longer rise in the grateful air? Have they found on earth their rest and home, That they seek no longer for joys to come?

"How goes the battle?" Oh! list the strains! "We are almost over these dreary plains! We have waited long for our Lord's return, But brightly now do our trimmed lamps burn! The weary battle is almost o'er, We can catch the gleam of the new-earth shore! The mists of time from our sight are gone, The morning breaks, we are ALMOST HOME! [S. R. CHAPLIN in Voice of the West.

Passing Events in the Light of Prophecy.

Gal. v, 20, 21, "Hatred, . . . strife, . . . murders, drunkenness, and such like." 2 Tim. 3, 1-4. "This know also, that in the last days men shall be lovers of their own selves, . . . proud, . . . without natural affection, . . . incontinent, . . . traitors, . . . lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God." 1 John v, 19. "The whole world lieth in wickedness." Never before has the world been called upon to witness a deluge of crime such as we are now passing. Instance the following cullings from the press of a few days ago. Says The Morning Star of Aug. 30th, 1865, in a leading article:—

"The Theory of Crime," etc., "Passing Events." "Few subjects at the present time call more loudly for the candid attention of the people at large, than the alarming prevalence of crime. It is scarcely possible to open a daily journal without having our feelings shocked by murder, etc., or something of the sort. We are told it is hardly safe to walk at mid-day. . . . In what this state of things will end, unless some means be devised to remedy the existing evils, no one can tell."

Streets and Smith's New York Weekly, of Aug. 31st, 1865, in a leading article, "An Epidemic of Crime," says:—"We are dreadfully reminded of Dahoman customs just now, in reading the record of criminality of our own country during a single month. It is hideous and revolting. As if unsatisfied with our Aceldemas, our fields of blood so lavishly fed with sacrifices during four years of war; we were now inaugurating a 'Saturnalia' of crime, worse than that which degraded Rome under bloodiest tyrants." The fearfulness of wickedness appals us by its increase. It is sufficient, if we recognize it, to fill us with horror. It shows a state of morals that almost threatens to plunge us into anarchy, frightful to contemplate. . . . What a catalogue of atrocities horrifies the public during one month. It would seem as if stragglers from hostile armies were roaming through our villages, with vindictive purpose, marking their path by murders and outrages, simultaneously in a score of localities. Citizens are slain in their beds, robbed in the highways; females are assaulted in their walks, ruined and slaughtered within sight almost of their homes. * Both sexes, and young as well as old, are infused as it were with the contagion, infection, or whatever it may be.

"Two hundred years ago, such multiplicity of offences against life would have been attributed to Satanic influence, or witchcraft. That the malefactors of our day are instigated by the Devil, we have no doubt. * The last drops, black and bitter, of man's red vials seem now to be sprinkling the land."

The Boston Journal of Aug. 25th, 1865, in an article on "The Path of Crime," says:—"The statistics of unusual events, such as tornadoes and murders, have certainly been enlarged to an uncommon degree within six months. Nature, animate and inanimate, seems to be somewhat disturbed in her realm."

The Portland Advertiser, of the 11th of Aug., says: "Crimes of all kinds seem to be on the increase throughout the length and breadth of the land. Rarely do we pick up an exchange, but what some heinous crime is chronicled therein."

When speaking of the New York World of the 9th Aug., the Criminal Era says:—"The columns of the daily World for the past week have teemed with cases of crime, which, should we attempt to transfer them to the Weekly, would require more than our entire space, and surfeit our readers." Again, in its issue of Aug. 23d, in an article headed, "The Second Deluge," it says:—"The war which we have just closed seems to have been only the first act in a grand tragedy of horrors, which is still in course of representation. At this moment the Muse of tragedy presides over the columns of all the journals, and fills them with tales of rape, robberies, suicides, murders, and crimes of every sort and every degree."

The Boston Journal of Aug. 25th, quoting from Wilmer and Smith's European Times, says:—"Great crimes are the painful characteristic feature of our day. One man was taken up for killing his wife and daughter. He stated that the day before he had killed three children. A professed murderer, of the name of Windsor, murdered children at $25 per head."

Says another paper, "If the present state of things continues without modification, we shall have to record murders as regular productions; as we do those of the generous summer and teeming autumn."

One paper contains twenty-nine murders, in its issue. In the Nation, of Aug. 24th, 1865, when quoting from English statistics for 1864, it says, "Coroner's inquests were passed upon 1,337 suicides," and that drunkenness was fearfully on the increase.

Another paper states that the number of convictions for crime had increased in England in ten years from 48,908 to 70,057; in Ireland, in the same period, from 17,669 to 37,637; in Scotland, from 5,289 to 27,643.

In view of the terrific fulfillment of prophecy, who can longer doubt but that the last generation is fast closing, when the sinner will cry for rocks and mountains to fall upon him, to hide him from the Lamb. But the voice of the Christian will be, "Lo, this is our God, we have waited for him."—John Taylor, in World's Crisis.

President Lincoln in Richmond.

I was standing upon the bank of the river, viewing the scene of desolation, when a boat, pulled by twelve sailors, came up stream. It contained President Lincoln and his son, Admiral Porter, Capt. Penrose of the army, Capt. A. H. Adams of the navy, Lieut. W. W. Clemens of the signal corps. Somehow the negroes on the bank of the river ascertained that the tall man wearing a black hat was President Lincoln. There was a sudden shout. An officer who had just picked up fifty negroes to do work on the dock found himself alone. They left work, and crowded around the President. As he approached, I said to a colored woman,—

“There is the man who made you free.”

“What, massa?”

“That is President Lincoln.”

“Dat President Linkum?”

“Yes.”

She gazed at him a moment, clapped her hands, and jumped straight up and down, shouting, “Glory, glory, glory!” till her voice was lost in the universal cheer.

There was no carriage near; so the President, leading his son, walked three-quarters of a mile up to Gen. Weitzel's headquarters,—Jeff Davis's mansion. What a spectacle it was! Such a hurdy-burly, such wild, indescribable, ecstatic joy, I never witnessed. A colored man acted as guide. Six sailors, wearing their round blue caps, and short jackets and bagging pants, with navy carbines, were the advance guard. Then came the President and Admiral Porter, flanked by the officers that accompany him, and the correspondent of the “Journal;” then six more sailors with carbines,—twenty of us all told,—amid a surging mass of men, women, and children, black, white, and yellow, running, shouting, dancing, swinging their caps, bonnets, and handkerchiefs. The soldiers saw him,

and swelled the crowd, cheering in wild enthusiasm. All could see him, he was so tall, so conspicuous. One colored woman, standing in a doorway, as the President passed along the sidewalk, shouted, “Thank you, dear Jesus for this, thank you, Jesus!” Another standing by her side was clapping her hands, and shouting, “Bless de Lord!”

A colored woman snatched her bonnet from her head, whirled it in the air, screaming with all her might, “God bless you, Massa Linkum!” A few white women looking out from the houses waved their handkerchiefs.

President Lincoln walked in silence, acknowledging the salutes of officers and soldiers, and of the citizens, black and white. It was the man of the people among the people. It was the great deliverer meeting the delivered. Yesterday morning the majority of the thousands who crowded the streets, and hindered our advance, were slaves. Now they were free, and beheld him who had given them their liberty.—Boston Journal.

How Horrible!

Jonathan Edwards, D. D., of the Presbyterian church, in his works represents hell as seven times hotter than a limekiln, or an oven, or furnace heated seven times hotter than usual. And he says after the soul has been there millions of years, and heated through and through, like a red hot iron wedge, the punishment will then only just have commenced; so says this eminent divine. He further says, that "parents will look down from the battlements of Heaven, and smile at the damnation of their own children."

In relation to the damnation of infants, he says: "God Almighty will take the little vipers up in the tongs of his wrath, and hold them over the fire of hell until they spit venom in the face of Jehovah." But let us pause! We sicken and turn from such theology with loathing! and yet it is orthodoxy in all its purity. We get the same now, only they do it up in a little heavenly sugar, or "good religion," to make it more palatable; or in other words, they are more dishonest now than they were then; for if they were honest, they would come out like men and tell what they believe to be the truth, and the whole truth. The entire Orthodox Protestant world believe in a hell of endless duration; and in torment most excruciating; that they dare not deny. But now it is not much talked of, for fear that it will frighten away the flock from which these dishonest priests get their "golden fleece." The Bible teaches no such horrible doctrine as this. It says, "All the wicked shall be destroyed." Psalms cxlv, 20. "They shall be as though they had not been." Obad. xvi.

How long will the people run after these strange priests, and their dogmas, and disregard "the word of the Lord?" Alas! "Ephraim is joined to his idols, let him alone." The people "love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil.">—Ex.

Ruins of Babylon.

We select the following facts: that whereas the soil of the country around Babylon was so fertile, and cultivation brought to so high a pitch, that two hundred fold was the ordinary produce,—now all is a barren waste, "and the sower and reaper are cut off from the land." Where the palm trees grew a hundred feet high, and the captive Israelites hung their harps on the willows, now not a tree is to be seen, but "a desert, a dry land and a wilderness." Ctesiphon, its rival city on the opposite bank of the Tigris, is in the same condition. Mr. Buckingham says of its site, that the smallest insect under heaven would not find a single blade of grass wherein to hide itself. Where vast treasures of gold and silver were heaped together, now there is nothing but heaps of rubbish, or according to the prediction, "Babylon has become heaps." Immense tumuli (says Sir R. K. Porter,) of temples, palaces, and human habitations of every description are everywhere seen, and form long and varied lines of ruins. And though it was foretold of Ammon and Philistia that they should be stables for camels, and a crouching place for flocks, which is fulfilled by the Arabs pasturing their sheep there, yet, though the same nation infests the country of Babylon, yet a contrary prediction is literally verified in them. "The Arabian shall not pitch tent there, neither shall the shepherds make their folds there." Instead of the shepherd and his flocks, "wild beasts of the deserts" were to lie there, and the houses were to be "full of doleful creatures." And thus Sir R. K. Porter describes, that two or three lions were seen by him on the ruinous mound which marks the site of the ancient temple of Belus. Their broad footmarks were everywhere seen; and Major Keppel describes it to be the unmolested retreat of jackals, hyenas, and other noxious animals. Finally, Keith notices that of Babylon generally it was said, "it shall be taken from thence," which he considers fulfilled in the circumstance of the Arabs coming and taking away its bricks, which form the chief building materials far and near. Yet of the temple of Belus, although it was a part of Babylon, it was foretold that it should become as a "burnt mountain,"—and, "They shall not take of thee a stone for a corner, nor a stone for a foundation." And thus it has actually come to pass, through the action of lightning or fire, that its ruins are so firmly cemented together, that Captain Mignan states it to be utterly impossible to detach any of them! —Investigator of Prophecy.

God's Lightning-Rods.

PROF. Cooke shows how God had made lightning-rods ages before Franklin thought of them:

To guard his roof from the destructive action of electricity, man erects the lightning-rod, whose bristling points quietly drain the clouds, or, failing to do this, receive the charge and bear it harmlessly to the earth. But ages before Franklin pointed the first rod to the storms, the merciful Parent of mankind had surrounded the dwellings of his children with a protection far more effectual than this; for since the creation of organic life, every pointed leaf, every twig and every blade of grass have been silently disarming the clouds of their destructive weapon. It is difficult to improve upon nature, and man constantly finds that in his best inventions he has been anticipated from eternity by a greater inventor than he. So, not long after Franklin had discovered the efficacy of metallic points in dissipating a charge of electricity, and had applied the principle in constructing the lightning-rod, it was found that a common blade of grass, pointed with nature's exquisite workmanship, was three times as effective as the finest cambric needle, and a single twig far more efficient than the metallic points of the best constructed rod.

When, now, you reflect how many thousand of these vegetable points every large tree directs to the sky, and consider what must be the agency of a forest with its innumerable twigs, or of a single meadow with its countless blades of grass, and then when you remember that these are only subsidiary to those vast lightning-conductors, the mountain-chains, whose craggy summits pierce the clouds themselves, and still further, when you learn that the rain-drops and snowflakes have been made good conductors, so that during the storms a bridge for the lightning is thrown across from the clouds to the earth, you will see how abundant the protection is, and with what care Providence has guarded us from the destructive agent. It is only under unusual circumstances, when electricity is developed more rapidly than it can be dissipated through these numberless channels, that a violent discharge takes place, and if then it tears, burns or kills, it also reveals the Merciful Hand which constantly spares.

The California Earthquake.

Heavy Damages—Public Buildings Injured—Great Loss at Santa Cruz—A General Smash Up—Eleven Shocks Felt.

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 9.—The damage by the earthquake yesterday amounts to considerable in the aggregate, many houses needing patches or new plastering, and broken windows repairs. The City Hall is damaged to such an extent that a portion must be rebuilt at the cost of several thousand dollars. The old Merchants' Exchange building, opposite the Custom House, will probably require rebuilding. No really substantial, well constructed building was seriously damaged.

Santa Cruz felt the shock more severely than any other town of the State. Several brick houses were so badly damaged that partial reconstruction is necessary. A despatch from there says there was a general tumble down of chimneys. Those left standing were turned partially around by the motion apparently from east to west. The ground along the river opened in fissures and spouted water like geysers. People are unable to use some of the wells, which are either dry or filled with sand. The chimney at the powder mill was thrown down and other injury done to the works. A portion of the wall of the new hotel was thrown down, but the foundation is all right. The smash in drug stores was great, and also in other stores. Some very narrow escapes from falling chimneys are mentioned. The tide rose very high at the time of the shock and fell very low immediately afterward. There have been eleven distinct shocks felt since the first shock up to five o'clock this morning; also, a number of smaller visitations. The losses are estimated at about ten thousand dollars, but may exceed that amount.—Chicago Tribune.

Our Mission.

If you can not on the ocean Sail among the swiftest fleet, Rocking on the highest billows, Laughing at the storms you meet: You can stand among the sailors, Anchored yet within the bay, You can lend a hand to help them, As they launch their boats away.

If you are too weak to journey Up the mountain, steep and high; You can stand within the valley While the multitudes go by; You can chant in happy measure, As they slowly pass along. Though they may forget the singer, They will not forget the song.

If you have not gold and silver, Ever ready to command; If you cannot toward the needy Reach an ever-open hand! You can visit the afflicted, O'er the erring you can weep; You can be a true disciple, Sitting at the Saviour's feet.

Do not then stand idly waiting For some greater work to do! Fortune is a lazy goddess, She will never come to you. Go and toil in any vineyard, Do not fear to do or dare, If you want a field of labor: You can find it anywhere.

Deception.

By J. S. Jennings

Or all the besetting sins of which fallen man is guilty, perhaps deception is the most common and abominable. This is the tempter which leads to plain, outspoken falsehood. This leads to theft, robbery, treason, and all the high-handed villainy which is perpetrated throughout our land. First commences the game of deception.

“*Oh, what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive.*”

If I have one word of advice which I regard more than another, it is this: Beware of deception. Don't put a false construction on sentences; don't intimate what you do not mean; don't assert what you do not know to be true; don't make people believe you are honest when you are not; if you are led into an error, own it like a man. It is much better to confess our faults openly, than to create false impressions. We are liable to be deceived, but let us be careful not to deceive others. We cannot deceive the Almighty, nor create false impressions to confuse his understanding. Though we cannot be entirely free from the influence of sin, and though we may often be tempted, yet we can always strive to be free from the sin of deception.

[J. S. Jennings, in Gospel Herald.

U. S

By Uriah Smith

Notes by the Way. No. 3.

TUESDAY, Oct. 17, closed our short sojourn at Dansville, N. Y. The regular and quiet life led at "Our Home," calling for no immediate resumption of Notes by the Way, we concluded to wait till the close of our experience in that direction before reporting. The amount we have furnished for the paper may seem meagre to those who would think our present relaxation from the Office and its cares, a favorable time for lengthy reports. But we have only to reply that we did not leave for the purpose of acting the correspondent especially; that is, not so much for the purpose of writing, as of resting.

Horace Greeley once said, at a particular season of the year when the public was calling loudly for the completion of his "History of the Great Rebellion," that the weather was very good for corn and turnips, but very bad for history! So we can say of "Our Home" at Dansville: while it is an excellent place for health, promoted by good air, pleasant scenery, social company, and an abundance of food, which is plain and healthful, and withal most relishable to an unperverted taste; yet it is a very poor place for editorials—very. Indeed, one of the prime things which the hygienic faculty of that Institution profess to be able to accomplish, is to take a person worn and wearied with unremitted mental effort, and teach him to put a stop to that exhausting process; in other words, to live without thought; and this, the reader will at once perceive, is death to an editor—no, not that—life to an editor, but death to his editorship.

Our stay at Dansville has been most pleasant and agreeable. We know not how any person could find it otherwise; since from the "Physician-in-chief," down to the humblest employee, all are constantly laboring to that end. In all that is there practiced as amusements, though in itself, perhaps, innocent enough, our readers are doubtless well aware that we cannot join. Yet no person need come into contact with these things further than he chooses. They exist as recommendations simply, not as rules. The largest liberty is allowed, and to none of the regulations of "Our Home" which take the form of requirements, can any one, however fine may be his conscientious scruples, take any exception. We leave, feeling refreshed and invigorated by our stay, though short, and persuaded from what we have seen, heard, and experienced, that whoever is within the reach of hygienic influences can receive the full benefit of such influences at that place.

Sabbath, the 14th inst., the day of fasting and prayer, was recognized and observed by the few Sabbath-keepers there as best our facilities would permit. Very different from former occasions of this kind, which we have enjoyed with all the privileges of the house of prayer, and a large congregation of those of like faith, yet it was not without its blessings and its benefits. At the commencement of the Sabbath, a season of prayer was held by a few of us in our room, and another Sabbath forenoon in a beautiful grove. These were good seasons. The blessing of the Lord seemed abundantly present, and both seasons were especial times of enjoyment to Bro. White. For a week previous to this time, he had not seemed to be gaining. His nervous condition was growing quite unfavorable, resulting in a loss of sleep. He is now improving in that respect. We believe he will come up rapidly. He is of good hope, courage and faith, and still wishes to be remembered by the brethren and sisters in their prayers.

Of Brn. Loughborough and Bourdeau, we can report favorably. They are gaining, with every prospect of continuing to do so more and more. Let us hope that all these worn servants of the cause of truth, will regain their health and strength sooner than can now be anticipated, and, above all, that whenever in the good providence of God, it shall please him to prepare them to enter the field again, they may be raised to a degree of strength and vigor that will enable them to accomplish the great work yet to be done. Could we look upon it that they are now resting and recruiting preparatory to some important movement in this work, would it not be as comforting a view as could be taken of this matter? And may not this be correct?

U. S

Rochester, N. Y., Oct. 17, 1865.

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