Review and Herald, Vol. 26, No. 13. (8/29/1865)

Review and Herald

Aug 29, 1865

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Michigan · Aug 29, 1865

Medical Testimony in Favor of the Remedial Use of Water.

From the days of Hippocrates to Priessnitz, the most eminent physicians of all countries, have spoken almost as extravagantly in praise of the medical employment of water as do the hydropaths—the hydromaniacs, as they are sometimes called, of the present time. Yet directly in the face of this testimony its employment as a remedial agent had steadily declined, until recently revived by the wonders told of Graefenberg.

Hippocrates wrote much in favor of the good effects to be derived from water both in health and disease. He declared that the bath, in cases of pneumonia, soothes the pain in the side, chest, and back, concocts the sputa, promotes expectoration, improves the respiration, and allays lassitude. He advised pouring cold water on inflamed and swelled joints, in gout and rheumatism, and in spasms, luxations, and fractures.

Galen placed water in the highest rank of his materia medica. He regarded the bath, followed by exercise and friction, as one of the chief parts of a system of perfect cure. He has left the following record: "Cold water quickens the actions of the bowels, provided there be no constrictions from spasms, when warm water is to be used. Cold drink stops hemorrhages, and sometimes brings back heat. Cold drinks are good in continued and ardent fevers. They discharge the peccant and redundant humors by stool, or by vomiting, or by sweat." In biliousness, spasms, headache, fever of the stomach, hiccup, cholera morbus, obstinate ophthalmia, plethora, he recommended tepid and warm water-drinking, with the transition bathing—hot followed by tepid or cold.

Celsus, in treating affections of the head, directs a warm sweating bath, followed by the tepid and cold bath, with an additional quantity of cold water to the head. He recommends water in fullness of the stomach, headache, weak vision, deafness, tremors, sinking, pains in the joints, diarrhea, piles, and in hysterical and hypochondriacal affection; and praises the bath in low fevers, digestive disorders, and diseased kidneys. He also advises cold immersion in skin diseases and in hydrophobia.

Asclepiades, of Bithynia, though regarded as an empiric by the orthodox doctors of his day, advocated cold water internally and externally in hiccup, sour eructations, and nocturnal emissions.

Oribasius testified to the value of water-treatment in a manner similar to that of Galen.

Aetius directed baths in protracted fevers, convulsions, retention of urine, lassitude, and nervous pains, although he added to the water one-fifth part of heated oil.

Rhazes advocated bathing in nearly all diseases. His water-treatment of small-pox was far more successful than any drug practice has proven since.

Avicenna was also a strenuous advocate for the watery regimen in a multitude of diseases, especially asthma, colics, and dropsy. He recommended infants to be bathed daily in tepid water. It is a sad pity that Avicenna, the Arabian Galen, has not more imitators in this respect among modern physicians.

Hoffman pronounced water a universal remedy. His language is: "We assert that water is a remedy suited to all persons, at all times; that there is no better preservative from distempers; that it is assuredly serviceable both in acute and chronic diseases; and, lastly, that its use answers to all indications, both of preservation and cure."

Boerhaave has written: No remedy can more effectually secure health and prevent disease than pure water.

Haller, as a testimonial of its value, drank nothing but water; and the same is recorded of Demosthenes, Milton and Locke.

Floyer certifies: Water resists putrefaction and cools burning heat and thirst, and helps digestion. He recommended cold bathing in a variety of diseases.

Baynard supposed good water to possess healing and balsamic properties. He was a strong advocate for bathing as a remedy.

Gregory regarded water as a tonic to the digestive organs.

The celebrated Cheyne exclaimed: Without all peradventure, water was the primitive original beverage, and is the only simple fluid fitted for diluting, moistening, and cooling.

Macquart in an especial manner recommended men of science and letters to make water their favorite drink, assuring them that their ideas would be more precise, their judgment sounder, and their senses more delicate.

Londe, and Levy, French authors on hygiene, speak emphatically in favor of the utility of water in preserving health.

Sir John Ross, Miller, and other Northern navigators, have testified that exclusive water-drinkers endure the rigors and withstand the diseases of the frigid zone better than any other persons.

Dr. Jackson, and Mr. Marshall, of the British army, and Drs. Mosely, and James Johnson, of London, assure us that the dangers of living in tropical climates are the least for the pure water-drinkers, and that these are far less liable to the diseases of acclimation.

Haly Abbas, and Mesues, Arabian writers, prescribed bathing in most diseases, and their directions for conducting the processes were generally singularly judicious.

Alsaharavius, Arabian, recommends bathing to moisten the body, open the pores, dispel flatulence, remove repletion, procure sleep, relieve pain, fluxes of the bowels, and lassitude, restore lean bodies to plumpness, soften contracted limbs, etc.

Lanzani, Italian, commended large doses of cold water internally as the best remedy for fever, and wrote two elaborate books to explain the grounds of his practice.

Fra Bernardo, Sicilian, acquired, in the early part of the last century, the title of "cold-water doctor," and won a high reputation for curing affections of the chest, palpitations, convulsions, obstinate dyspepsia, diarrhea, dropsy, hemorrhages, gout, and rheumatism, by water-treatment. He used ice-water freely internally, and applied ice to hot and inflamed parts. All food was withheld during the first four days—a point in practice which our beef-tea, mutton-broth, chicken-soup slopping and stuffing doctors would do well, for their patients, to imitate.

Cirillo, Neapolitan, in 1729, treated a malignant fever, which prevailed at Naples, with what he called "the watery diet." He administered a pint or two of water, cooled by snow, every two hours for several days, permitting no kind of aliment whatever. When free perspiration took place the drink was omitted, and very light food allowed. He directed cold applications of snow to painful and inflamed parts, but did not prescribe general bathing.

Rovida, of Arragon, is said to have practiced the water-treatment extensively on the plan of Cirillo and Fra Bernardo.

Samoilowitz, Russian in 1771, experienced signal success in treating the plague at Moscow, by means of cold acidulated drinks, and frictions to the whole body, with pounded ice.

Sir John Hancock, an English clergyman, in 1722, published a tract in advocacy of water as the best remedy for fevers and the plague. He cured agues,

scarlet fever, small-pox, measles, jaundice, and coughs, by copious water-drinking.

John Smith, C. M., English, wrote a book about a century ago, which is full of testimonials to the curative powers of water in nearly all of the prevalent diseases of the day. Its title was, "The Curiosities of Common Water," and a large proportion of its pages is a compendium of the opinions of many celebrated physicians in favor of the employment of water as a general remedy. Among his authorities are Manwaring, Keill, Prat, Duncan, Elliot, Allen, Harris, Van Heyden, and Pitt, all eminent in the medical profession.

Geoffrey, French, more than a century ago, advocated the free use of water as a preventive of the plague.

Hecquel, French, about the same time, advocated the use of water as an almost universal specific.

Pomme, French, at a later period, wrote in favor of cold water-drinking and warm bathing for various remedial and hygienic purposes, and particularly for the treatment of hysterical and hypochondriacal disorders.

Rondeletius, French, published cases of gout cured by cold water as a beverage, as also did his countryman, Martinus.

Riverius, French, treated female complaints, particularly mismenstruation, successfully by the use of water alone.

De Hahn, German, directed free bathing and cold water-drinking during an epidemic fever at Breslau, in 1787, and his practice was far more successful than that of his competitors, who persisted in the employment of active drugs.

Theden, German, employed cold water and ice successfully in strangulated hernia, inflammations, malignant fevers, and small-pox.

Sturm, a Polish surgeon, testifies to the successful treatment of epidemic cholera, by means of as much warm water as the patients were able to drink, a glassful being administered every ten or fifteen minutes.

Those celebrated medical philosophers and physicians, Harvey, Louret, Cocchi, Sanctorius, Marziano and Barthes, advocated and practiced cold applications to gouty swellings, and inflammations.

Ambrose Pare declared that the true vulnerary, or dressing for wounds, was water alone.

Michael Angelo Blondi, Italian, wrote an essay, in 1542, on water as a remedy for gun-shot wounds.

Gabriel Fallopius, of Venice, Felix Palatius, of Trebia, and Joubert, Martel, and Lamarier, of France, strongly advocated water-dressings in surgical cases, instead of the more mystified and often miscellaneous plasters, balsams, liniments, lotions, or poultices.

Larrey, the most celebrated operative surgeon France ever produced, used water-dressings generally.

Kern, of Austria, praised the uses of water in the treatment of wounds, and even laid claim to the discovery of its superior merit.

M. Jose, of Amiens, recommended cold water in the treatment of wounds, burns, phlegmons, erysipelas, and gangrene.

Macartney, of Dublin, advises the free and methodical employment of water-dressings in wounds. With him irrigation was a favorite mode of application.

Lancassani, in 1768, Caldani, in 1767, Leanter, in 1780, and Percy in 1785, published conclusive evidences of the superiority of water alone to all the medicated fluids and compounds known, for surgical diseases.

Dr. Wright, of England, in 1777, employed cold ablutions extensively and successfully in the treatment of fevers.

Dr. Currie, of Liverpool, commenced the treatment of fevers by cold affusions in 1787. For several years he treated typhus and scarlet fevers, small-pox, and other diseases, principally by bathing, and with a success universally admitted to have been far greater than that of the drug-treatment. His work on the subject was published in 1797.

Dr. Robert Jackson, of the British army, had equal success in the same practice, the facts of which he published in 1791, at which time he had been in the habit of treating fevers by cold affusions for nearly twenty years.

Giannini, of Milan, strongly recommends cold immersion in typhus and petechial fevers.

Dr. Thaer, of Prussia, in 1825, treated measles by cold bathing, and with remarkable success, as compared with his drugging contemporaries.

Dr. N. Smith, of New Haven, Conn., was in the habit of dashing cold water on the bodies of patients in cases of typhoid fever, so as to drench both the body linen and bedding.

Dr. Forbes, present editor of the ablest medical journal of Europe, and one of the physicians to her Majesty, Queen Victoria, confesses that in a large proportion of the cases of gout and rheumatism, the Water-Cure seems to be extremely efficacious. He says, further, "In that very large class of cases of complex disease, usually known under the name of chronic dyspepsia, in which other modes ["other modes?"] of treatment have failed, or been only partially successful, the practice of Priessnitz is well deserving of trial. In many chronic nervous affections and general debility we should anticipate great benefit from this system. In chronic diarrhea, dysentery, and hemorrhoids the sitz bath appears to be frequently an effectual remedy."

Dr. John Bell, author of the ablest historical work on bathing, extant, has treated scarlatina in the Pennsylvania Hospital for many years by cold bathing, with the most satisfactory success. Although he does not entirely reject all other remedies, he admits that there is no other remedy than water which unites, to any thing like the same extent, efficacy with safety, and immediately pleasurable results. He says: "How often I have seen the little sufferer, with burning heat and delirium and unable to obtain sleep or repose of any kind, tranquilized immediately by the cold affusion, and fall into a sweet and refreshing sleep immediately afterward."

Such is a part of the testimony volunteered by the regular profession in favor of the system we advocate. The reader will bear in mind that nearly all the authorities thus far quoted are eminent authors, professors and practitioners of the allopathic school. After examining such a flood of evidence in favor of nearly all that is claimed by the hydropathists, the question naturally arises, Why is it, if regular physicians, in all ages, and of all countries, have found water-treatment so superior in the great mass of human maladies, that the medical faculty of the present day, as a body, employ it so little, in fact almost wholly neglect it, nay, bitterly and vehemently oppose it? This is indeed a strange problem, but it can be solved.—Trall's Hydropathic Encyclopedia.

Heaven Brighter than Earth.

THOSE skies no night that wear, Nor cloud nor tempest know, Those skies no blight that bear, Those streams that stainless flow, Are they not brighter far Than all that lure us here? Where storms may fright each ling'ring star From midnight's lonely sphere!

Here hope, of sorrow drinks, Here beauty yields to care, And virtue from temptation shrinks, And folly finds despair; But 'mid that world above, No baleful step may stray; The white-winged seraph's glance of love Would drive each ill away.

Friendship is there, the guest Of chilling doubt no more, And love, with thornless breast, Whose pains and fears are o'er; There is no farewell sigh Throughout that heavenly clime, No moaning voice, or severed tie, Or change of hoary time.

Why plant the cypress near The pillow of the just? Why dew with murmuring tear The calm and holy dust? Bear there the rose's pride, Bid the young myrtle bloom, Fit emblems of the joys that bide Beyond the insatiate tomb.

'Mid the celestial place Our thoughts would soaring glow, E'en while we run this pilgrim race Of weariness and woe. For who would shrink from death With brief and icy hand; Or heed the pang of shortening breath, To win that glorious land.

The Coming Danger.

By N. Y. Tribune

DEATH seems to be riding his Pale Horse over desert, plain, sea and city—and we trace his march from Asia and Africa to Constantinople, thence through the countries of the Danube, and over the mountains to Spain—until his advance, when last heard from, was encamped in Manchester, England. Whether he has time to cross the Atlantic or not before the frosts come we cannot say, but Manchester is not many days distant, and Death seems to travel with the swiftness of the morning. We should not be surprised to see his grim majesty any day, debarking at Castle Garden and riding up Broadway. We do not expect the frosts for six or eight weeks, and he might have a busy time during that period, with time to prepare for the coming summer. When we know that cholera is a controllable disease, and that the merest prudence on the part of citizen or State would stay its progress, it seems almost madness for us to hesitate. Measures should at once be taken to put the country in a condition of sanitary defense. It might be done by the regular authorities, but they never do the right thing at the right time. Somebody should do it. Every man in his own sphere can do much toward preventing this pestilence. All plagues, cholera, and yellow fever especially, assail the intemperate and unwary first. If a man lives a life of dissipation and recklessness, drinks vile liquors, allows his system to become vitiated and debilitated by disease, he will pass away before the contagion like a breath. We invite disease when we wrong the laws of nature. We be-come easy victims to pestilence when we allow the liver to become deranged, and the lungs to lose power, and the brain to become heated and oppressed by long hours of sloth and intemperance. Every man, therefore, should mount guard over himself and his home to resent the progress of the invader.

This, however, will not meet the great duty that lies before us. Everybody's case is nobody's case, and to drive back disease we must organize the proper effort. A correspondent suggests the Sanitary Commission as a proper organization. He thinks the city should be divided into small districts, and that benevolent and shrewd visitors should go into each district, advising and suggesting the proper hygienic measures. They should have it in their power to apply disinfectants of all kinds, and at all times, so as to destroy the unhealthy exhalations. Our tenement houses should receive special attention, and every effort made to secure pure ventilation, and induce proper dietary laws among the poor. In cases of extreme or helpless poverty, money might be distributed to aid in the purchase of clothing or bedding, or removing impurities in the furniture of the houses. While, of course, it would be impossible to remodel our sewerage, this correspondent thinks it might be greatly improved, so that the miasma that burdens the air with death should be prevented. Properly aided, the Sanitary Commission might do the whole work, and save thousands of lives.

Our correspondent's plan is perhaps as good as any. Voluntary organization may do something, but we hardly think it will reach the root of the danger. A number of good people may get together and pass resolutions against cholera and subscribe a hundred thousand dollars for sanitary purposes—and a number of needy people will spend it. When the money ends, the labor will end—and when the good people are called upon for more, they will probably invite you to call on somebody else. When the danger really comes—when 10,000 men and women are dead—we shall see noble evidences of courage and energy, self-sacrifice and self-denial—our people daring death himself in the effort to destroy his horrors. These sacrifices always come too late. We do not want devotion merely—romantic struggling with death in the hour of his highest triumphs. Let us take the housewife's maxim as she locks the cream away from the cats—"an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." What we want is systematic, authoritative action. We want Commission of wise and active men, who can go to those nests of disease and death "with power to act." Let New York be purified from palace to hovel—give disease no resting place—cleanse, drench, purge and sweeten; give us fresh air, water—and plenty of it. Do not exact exhausting labor. Aid the poor man to buy a house in the suburbs without paying fancy prices for land and lumber. It is a mighty task, with an endless variety of social reforms, and worthy the genius and devotion of our people. Let it be done, and done quickly.

The Cholera.

At this moment all Western Asia and Southern Europe are panic-stricken by the terror of sudden death. That strange curse, which, as the Red Death, the Black Plague, the Yellow Fever, has so often swept like a fire around the world, and in all its Protean forms is still one Pestilence, has again arisen as swift and as strong as of old. The Cholera has unexpectedly revealed itself in the East, and for the third time begins its terrible westward march.

Egypt, breeder of so many monsters, is the mother of this. Centuries of dirt and degradation have rooted the plague so firmly in Egypt, that its return every ten years is as certain as the daily rising of the sun. Nile, with his overflowing waters, cannot cleanse the land. Even the religion of Mohammed has become the protector of disease, and this year the Cholera first appeared among that immense throng of Pilgrims which annually journeys through Egypt to Mecca and Medina. These poor people live in dirt, for though the law of the Prophet requires frequent ablutions, they seem no cleaner for its observance than the Arabs in the desert, who, for want of water, perform the

sacred washings with sand.

In three days the Cholera slew four to six thousand Pilgrims in Mecca and Medina. It pursued the survivors on their homeward flight, and the stagnant canals, the crowded roads, were strewn with the dead. It caught the Egyptian Arabs in their huts of mud and straw; decimated the dirty towns and villages, and finally entered Alexandria and reigned there in triumph. In Cairo, upward of four hundred people perished in one day. Thus it ravaged Egypt till about the middle of July, when the mortality, though still great, seems to have decreased. Of its course since, we are not fully informed, but it seems to be spreading along the Mediterranean coast; it has penetrated Sicily, established itself in Constantinople, and is already so far west as Ancona, Italy.

Western Europe is alarmed, and on the defensive. But it is hard for the police of an Empire to arrest this invisible murderer, which has all the poverty, crime, filthiness and recklessness of the world for its accomplices. Eugene Sue, in his greatest novel, refers forcibly to the apparent progress of the Cholera, at the rate of a man's daily march. But it will travel faster in 1865 than it did in 1831. The Cholera is not blown about on the winds. It passes from man to man; the ship sails with it over the sea; the steam cars speed with it over the land; it crawls along the sewerage, and creeps from street to street with the beggar. It is this mode of transmission that makes its progress so difficult to stop, yet because of this it is not useless to try the effect of all sanitary precautions. If this pestilence were a poison in the air, we might abandon all hope of controlling it, and idly await, like the Mohammedan fatalist, the mysterious punishment of God. But we know, whatever be its primal cause, that it originates in countries which are the sewers of the world; that everywhere filth and foulness are its allies, and cleanliness its greatest enemy. Our duty is therefore plain. If Europe cannot stop the pestilence, and precedents give little reason to suppose it, the Cholera may be reasonably expected in America in the Autumn or Spring. New-York, with its immense foreign commerce, is not easily defended, and in its present condition cannot be. We dare not trust entirely to the quarantine; the outworks of a fort are useless, if the enemy has allies in the citadel, and the Five Points, the Shambles, and the Markets are even now ripe for the embraces of the plague. We sound no unnecessary alarm. No one can doubt that preparation is demanded, and that even if the Cholera should never come, all the elements of disease are exhaling from our gutters. The street-sweepers should not always be kept on Broadway, and the Fifth-ave.—let them go where they are imperatively needed, into Baxter-st., and Pearl-st., and all the crooked alleys of the Five Points. Make the city clean, and leave the rest to Providence. It may be well for our officials to remember that those who, from carelessness or greed, invite the Cholera, may be obliged to receive in their homes the fatal guest, as the first victim of the guillotine was—its inventor.—N. Y. Tribune.

The Prevalence of Crime.

THE unusual prevalence of crime in the country at this time is a subject of much comment. It is also remarked that the crimes perpetrated are of an atrocious character, rape leading the list, and murder following close on. There must be a sudden check to this condition of affairs; and the causes which have led to it demand examination. The violent scenes and lawless accompaniments of war have, it is probable, blunted the sensibilities of base men, who more readily lend themselves to high crimes. Many of these crimes are committed by a certain class of returned soldiers, who were villains before they entered the army, and who, under cover of war, committed many atrocities. The causes of crime at its various phases appear in the public record of events, stand in about this relation, viz: drunkenness, lust, avarice, the two former sustaining close relations to nine-tenths of the crime that has been committed recently.

Now what are the remedies that present themselves for consideration? First, the criminal must be made to feel that detection and punishment are certain. From some cause, principally a lack of public sense of the necessity of arrest, and a consequent failure to organize for that purpose, or to offer rewards suitably large, many of the great criminals of the day escape. The natural tendency of this remissness is to encourage other bad men to commit desperate crimes. In large cities, the venal character of officers of the law, elected through party machinery, in utter disregard of public order and safety, will account for many escapes of culprits. But even after arrest, punishment is by no means certain. The stupidity and corruption of juries, adroit counsel, the obstructions of technicalities, and the presence of a wrong public sentiment, all contribute to set bad men loose; or these failing, the application for executive clemency too often succeeds. It is not strange that public sentiment upon the subject is debauched, when a large number of influential men argue that armed treason against the Government should be met with full pardon, and when so many people look complacently upon the proceedings and verdict in the case of Miss Harris. What the public eminently needs now, for its own safety, is a number of wholesome examples of prompt arrest, trial, conviction, and speedy and relentless punishment of criminals. If the people do not see that the laws we have are enforced, there will ensue an era of Vigilance Committees and violent defense by individuals against crime. There is indeed, now, a class of crime prevalent at the East, where gangs of ruffians so large as to overawe an ordinary police force, commit all manner of wanton depredations, generally ending in serious crime, that we do not see can otherwise be reached than by promptly taking the lives of the ruffians, by that process most speedy and convenient. They are entitled to no more consideration than wild beasts.

But individuals have a duty to perform in this matter. There should be among all good men a general discouragement of drinking habits—the fruitful source of so much crime. There are many men whose example is far-reaching, who by simply abstaining upon principle from tippling, would have a most salutary influence. It is in vain to censure rowdies for intoxication, when men who ought to set an example for society, are habitual drinkers in public resorts. There never was so favorable a time as this, for effective temperance movements, based upon appeals to the moral sentiments and good citizenship of men. There is also, even among well-meaning men, who are themselves virtuous, a reckless habit of speaking, as though female virtue was accounted a slight thing, and of characterizing the various impurities of a depraved social state by terms that almost seem to excuse them. This very tone of conversation, falling upon the ear of a man of bad impulses, almost seems to justify him, or at most, give him a false idea of the opinion society will entertain of his crime, when it is committed. It is within the power of many individuals, who may never have given the subject thought, to contribute to public virtue by rectifying in themselves, and frowning upon in others, the habit of expression we allude to. There is also a responsibility resting upon men of wealth, that they do not set a standard of display and expenditure that seems to establish a criterion of respectability, and thus present serious temptations to those who naturally desire to maintain a defined position in society, but have not the legitimate income to enable them to conform to a false standard. These suggestions may seem of small moment, but the philosopher will always discern in the acts or tendencies of individuals, the destructive features which may characterize a city, a state, or a nation.—Detroit Trib.

Protestantism and Popery.

"On Friday evening," says the Daily Telegraph, "the Marquis of Westmeath, in the Lords, did the State the service of eliciting a remarkable declaration from the Bishop of London. The Marquis had witnessed a spectacle in the church of St. Matthias, at Stoke Newington, on Whit-Sunday last, which 'their lordships would hardly suppose possible of occurrence in the Church of England.' The sacred edifice was got up with the showy millinery and ornament of a Romanish 'function.' There were vases of flowers on the communion-table, with a crimson cloth, and a large brass cross. The priests, who were numerous, and strangely garbed in vestments for which Protestant congregations have neither a name nor a taste, formed a procession with the choristers, and carried the cross round the church; and when it was deposited on the altar, a youth swung a censer, and filled the building with incense. Then the priests made obeisances and genuflexions, with their backs to the congregation; and when the preacher's time was come to ascend the pulpit, he divested himself of a flame-red garment, and put on a surplice, explaining in the course of the sermon the fact, which would certainly not have been obvious without that explanation, that the fiery robes represented the tongues of flame which descended upon the apostles at Pentecost. At these vagaries the Marquis rubbed his eyes, and asked himself if he could really be in a Protestant place of worship. Lord Westmeath also drew the attention of the peers to the perfectly familiar truth that the same kind of parody upon Romish rituals goes on in several London churches, and in not a few among the provincial towns and country districts. There was, without doubt, a great deal in the discontent of this noble Churchman with which his countrymen can sympathise; and, in conclusion, turning to the bench of bishops, he claimed from the spiritual lords, if not a remedy for so startling a state of affairs, at least an explanation. The question certainly demanded an answer; and in meeting it, with the utmost gravity and sincerest Church-statesmanship, the Bishop of London declared that fresh legislation alone could deal with the matter. . . . Thus there is nothing for it but that the Legislature should take these dubious rubrics under consideration, and either define what they do mean, and shall mean, de novo, or, if necessary, alter and amend them. That is the only real remedy; and the Bishop of London pledges himself, and a good many of his right reverend brethren, to vote for a practical Act upon the subject with the greatest alacrity and accord."

Our Country's Greatness.

THE greatest cataract in the world is the Falls of Niagara, where the waters, accumulated from the great upper lakes, forming a river three-quarters of a mile in width, are suddenly contracted and plunged over the rocks in two columns, to the depth of one hundred and sixty feet.

The greatest cave in the world is the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, where one can make a voyage on the waves of a subterranean river, and catch fish without eyes.

The greatest river in the world is the Mississippi, four thousand one hundred miles in length. Its name is derived from an Indian word meaning "the Father of Waters."

The largest valley in the world is the valley of the Mississippi. It contains five hundred thousand square miles, and is one of the most prolific regions on the globe.

The largest lake in the world is Lake Superior, four hundred and thirty miles long.

The greatest natural bridge in the world is that over Cedar Creek, in Virginia. It extends over a chasm of eighty feet in width, and two hundred and fifty feet deep, at the bottom of which a creek flows.

The greatest solid mass of iron in the world is the iron mountain of Missouri. It is three hundred and fifty feet high, and two miles in circuit.

The longest railroad in the world is the Central Railroad of Illinois, which is seven hundred and thirty-one miles long—and cost fifteen millions of dollars.

The greatest number of miles of railroad, in proportion to its surface, of any country in the world, is in Massachusetts, which has over one mile to every square mile of its area.

The greatest number of clocks manufactured in the world, is turned out by the small State of Connecticut.

The largest number of whaleships in the world are sent out by Nantucket and New Bedford.

The greatest grain port in the world is Chicago.

The largest aqueduct in the world is the Croton aqueduct in New York. It is forty and a half miles long, and cost twelve and a half millions of dollars.

Our Light and Our Responsibility.

By John Nevins Andrews

THE Bible is full of references to the second advent of the Saviour, and the events of the great day of God. It represents that day as the great day of his wrath; as the time when destruction from the Almighty shall come upon the wicked, and when the land shall be made desolate, and the sinners thereof destroyed out of it. The language of the inspired writers expresses in the most vivid manner the awful and terrific scenes of that day in which God arises from his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth.

Shall mankind have no warning when this destruction is about to burst upon them? Shall there be no token of coming wrath to arrest the guilty in their downward career? Shall irretrievable ruin swallow up a sinful world, and God give them no intimation of its approach?

Such was not the case with the antediluvian world; nor has it ever been the manner of the just Judge of all the earth to visit mankind in judgment without giving them warning of the coming vengeance. The attentive reader of the prophets will find ample testimony in proof of this statement. The judgments of God upon Jerusalem, Samaria, Tyre, Nineveh and Babylon, are striking illustrations of this fact. Shall we conclude that the last and most dreadful judgment of God shall come upon our earth without previous warning to its inhabitants?

The people of God at the commencement of the great day of wrath shall be translated into his everlasting kingdom. That is, they shall be clothed upon with immortality, and shall never taste of death. What shall prepare the saints of the last generation for such a distinguished honor? Shall they be found at their Lord's return in a state of confusion and anarchy? Will this be their condition when their returning Lord shall take them in a body unto himself?

As the people of God, one by one, have fallen victims to the power of death, an individual work of preparation has been all that was requisite; but when the time comes that all the saints of God who are alive shall in one body be taken into glory, surely something further than an individual work is necessary. By what means shall the saints of God be gathered in one people and prepared for translation? What mighty truths has God in reserve for the last generation, with which to accomplish this great work? In answer to these questions, we cite the fourteenth chapter of Revelation.

The design of the three great proclamations of this chapter is, first, to give warning of coming judgment, second, to set the people of God upon their watch-tower; third, to gather in one body the scattered saints; and, fourth, to restore the commandments of God to his people, and to prepare them for deliverance in the time of trouble, and for translation into his kingdom.

Such is the great work presented in Rev. xiv. It gives the world warning, and leaves them without excuse; it lights up the pathway of the saints; and yet with its trial of patience, it shakes off the heartless, and gives the men of the world, notwithstanding its warning, a chance to lull themselves into security, when the wrath of God hangs over their heads.

Shall not these great truths arrest attention? Shall it be with us as with the antediluvians, who, though warned of the coming destruction, nevertheless knew not until it came and took them all away? When the Son of man cometh, who of us shall be able to say, Lo, this is our God, we have waited for him, and he will save us?

J. N. A.

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