p. 16 | Signs of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 4. (1/27/1898)

FRUIT FARM FOR SALE.

By W. W. Giles

It pays ten times as much as a grain farm, and you may wonder when you learn my reason for selling. Picturesque and surpassing in beauty; mild climate, healthy. I also want a partner with $1,000, in a Gospel enterprise.

W. W. GILES, Occoquan, Va.

YOSEMITE VALLEY And Big Trees of California

Read All About Them in the Book

IN THE HEART OF THE SIERRAS

Nearly 500 Pages, with Many Illustrations. Limp Binding.

Price, 75 Cents.

Address . . PACIFIC PRESS PUB. CO., Oakland, Cal. Or 43 Bond St., N. Y. City.

SHELTER AND FOOD.

By B. F. Richards

For the Homeless and the Hungry.

Two BUILDINGS three stories high with basement have been secured at 641 to 647 Commercial Street, San Francisco, Cal., in which the HELPING HAND MISSION will begin its work for the Lord, by feeding the hungry, providing clothing for the naked, home for the homeless, rest for the weary, strength for the weak, and life for the dying.

During the next two weeks a large amount of work must be done in order to be ready to open our doors to the poor by the 1st of February. A large amount of money must be expended in repairing the buildings, and then will come the furnishing. We will need two hundred iron bedsteads, which will cost at least $4.00 each, and mattresses, sheets, pillows, pillow-slips, blankets, quilts, or comfortables. Each sheet and quilt should be made at least one and one-half yards wide and two and one-half yards long; the pillow-slips should be eighteen by thirty inches.

We need just now at least $3,000 to furnish and equip the house so that each soul whom the Lord will send to the mission for help can be taken care of.

Will you, dear reader, as soon as you read these lines, be the one to respond? Remember this is all for the Lord’s poor. The command to go out into the highways and hedges and streets and lanes and bring in the poor, the maimed, the halt, and the blind, is due to-day. The poor, the maimed, the halt, the blind are here, scores and hundreds of them. We have secured the building in the location where the above classes are found, so who will take a hand now, not next month, but now, in meeting the immediate wants?

Look at the promissory note of God given in Prov. 19:17. You can hold that note, reader, and you can make it out for any amount you please. The Lord will be the Borrower, and you will be the lender. Can you trust the Lord? I know He will pay it all back again.

B. F. RICHARDS.

Shipments of Materials.—We have already received word from friends of the poor that they are prepared to ship to us boxes of clothing, bedding, provisions, etc., to the Helping Hand Mission. Hold them, please, till the 25th of January, and then ship to B. F. Richards, Helping Hand Mission, 641 Commercial Street, San Francisco.

All cash donations, however, be sure to send to Helping Hand Mission, care Pacific Press, Twelfth and Castro Streets, Oakland, Cal. There are the best of reasons for both of these requests; be sure to heed them.

Want and Misery

Want and Misery stalk abroad everywhere. Almost every day one meets on the street or at his door some one in destitution asking for help—for work, food, or lodging. When asked where he came from, he will generally tell you from the East. The idea seems to be prevalent in the East that California is about such a land as “Dick” Whittington thought London to be, a city the streets of which were “paved with gold.” But, like Whittington, they find it a land like other lands, full of plenty and—want, luxury and—hardship. Both extremes are found here as in the colder climates; and while we have not the extreme cold of the interior, the atmosphere is humid and heavy, and the nights always cool and chilly. Scores and hundreds of men walk our streets hungry, homeless, shelterless. Many of these are not prepossessing. Their last lodging-place furnished neither soap, water, nor food; and if a bed, that bed possessed other occupants, many of whom the poor lodger unwillingly carried away with him, and perhaps left others. And yet for this poor tramp, who numbers thousands, longing for work, but finding none, Christ died. He died that through our co-operation these men might be redeemed, regenerated, and made to reflect His image. It is for this purpose that the Helping Hand Mission is started in San Francisco. Others have done good, for which we praise God. But there is a large field, and it is hoped that the Helping Hand Mission will reach not only the bodies but the souls of men. In this work of saving men it asks, Christian friend, your co-operation. “There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty. The liberal soul shall be made fat; and he that watereth shall be watered also himself.”

The Value of Missionaries.

As a rule the world does not set a very high value on missionaries while they are alive; but some of the “Christian nations” are beginning to regard dead missionaries as a good article in which to speculate. A little while ago a couple of German missionaries were killed in China. The Chinese Government expressed regret for the act of some of its misguided subjects, and offered to make reparation as far as possible. But the German Government made the incident a pretext for extraordinary demands. A cable despatch to the Chinese legation at Washington says that the matter has been adjusted. Kiao Chau Bay has been “leased” to Germany, together with thirty miles wide of territory around the bay. Two of the murderers are to be punished with death, and the others by imprisonment. Permission will be granted for the building of churches in the cities of Tsi Nung, Tsao Chow-Fu and Chu-Yeh, and dwelling-houses for the missionaries in the seven places in the districts of Tsao-Hien and Shan Hien will be erected, for which purpose a sum of 275,000 taels will be allowed. This amount is also to be taken as a compensation for the killing of the missionaries. The sanction of the throne to the above has been granted. This settlement of the difficulty may produce an awe of the power and vengeance of a “Christian nation,” but it will not be likely to inspire a very high regard for the Christian religion.

Notice About Unordered Papers

By Editor

We send no papers from this office to individuals without pay in advance.

When persons receive copies without ordering them, they are sent by other parties, and we can give no information in regard to them. Persons thus receiving copies of the “Signs” are not indebted to the office, and will not be called upon to pay for them. Please read the papers you may receive, and hand them to your friends to read.

Next Week

By Editor

Next Week we will give an illustration of the buildings secured for the Helping Hand Mission in San Francisco.

Helping Hand Mission

By Editor

Helping Hand Mission.—Elsewhere on this page will be found an appeal from Mr. B. F. Richards, the manager of the Helping Hand Mission of San Francisco. We earnestly hope that it may be read with care.

San Francisco Helping Hand Mission Board

The Board of Management of the San Francisco Helping Hand Mission is: C. H. Jones, president of the Pacific Press Publishing Company; W. T. Knox and E. E. Andross, of the California Conference Committee; J. A. Burden and F. B. Moran, M.D., of the Medical and Surgical Sanitarium, St. Helena, Cal.; B. F. Richards, former chaplain and manager of the Working Men’s Home, Chicago; and the editor of this paper. The chairman of this board is W. T. Knox; vice-chairman, C. H. Jones; secretary and treasurer, S. N. Curtiss; manager and chaplain of the mission, B. F. Richards.

How Many Times

How many times a few words make things plain! How many times a life-long alienation or misunderstanding might have been prevented by a few words of friendly explanation, a few simple inquiries, or a little waiting and suspension of judgment. Readers of the SIGNS may find many expressions worthy of criticism in the clear light of Heaven, for its editors and contributors are all fallible men; but many of these expressions would seem differently did we wait longer. We are glad that we have so many kind, forbearing readers, who have faith in God, who love His cause, and who will never make a man or a paper an offender for a word they do not understand.

A Lesson for the Inconsiderate and Rash.

In Joshua 3:4 is a lesson worthy of heed in these days of inconsiderate and inconclusive haste. When Israel passed over Jordan, the ark of God, the symbol of His presence, containing His holy law, entered the river before them. After this ark the Israelites were to go. “Yet there shall be a space between you and it, about two thousand cubits by measure; come not near unto it, that ye may know the way by which you must go; for ye have not passed this way heretofore.” That is, if the people had been allowed to rush on and gather around the ark, it would have been lost to view, and the people would have been left a confused mass without a guide. While God does want prompt obedience, He does not want in these days of peril, inconsiderate haste or rashness. Be sure that God leads, and follow as He commands.

THE KLONDIKE.

By W. N. G.

Mr. W. C. Gates, familiarly known as “Swift-water Bill,” went into the Klondike region as an ordinary adventurer and came out last fall a millionaire. He came to San Francisco, where he now resides temporarily, but is going north again soon. The Tribune of this city gives his reply to the question, “How large a percentage of the men going north will make a fortune?”

“O, about ten per cent of them will make anywhere from $10,000 up! Any man can make $2,000 or $3,000, and some of them will probably strike it very rich. Day laborers receive high wages. The men I employ working my claims get $1.50 an hour. I wouldn’t hire a man for anything less. I employ about fifty. I can’t work all my claims because I can’t get the men or the provisions for them. There is plenty of gold in Alaska.”

No doubt this is all true, yet in the midst of it all there will be an appalling extent of poverty, of sickness, and suffering. Drinking and gambling, and their long train of attendant and consequent evils and miseries, are always prominent where money is plenty among the masses; and it is a common saying that “a fool and his money are soon parted.” An old-time Californian once told the writer that three times he had made a snug fortune in the mines, and went to San Francisco to take passage for his home in an eastern State, and three times he lost all in the mazes of the city and went back to work again. He never went home, and died in poverty.

But it is not always drink or ordinary gambling that brings men of means to want. An inordinate desire to make more money leads them to make injudicious business ventures. Even in the richest mining regions some claims do not pay expenses. Often large sums are expended which bring little or nothing in return. The man who discovered gold in California was an object of charity in his old age.

In addition to all ordinary vicissitudes of a new country where easily-gotten wealth breeds all manner of extravagance, the rigors of the Klondike climate will soon produce a harvest of invalids. None but robust people, prepared to endure hardship and privation, should undertake such a journey, or essay a prolonged residence there. Already people are going north in considerable numbers. The steamer Excelsior left San Francisco on the 18th inst., with every state-room crowded with gold-seekers, and loaded to the guards with supplies. Her departure from Main Street wharf was witnessed by a large crowd of people, and the scene was a revival of last year’s excitement, when the same steamer carried away the first crowd of special writers and artists to the new El Dorado. And yet how few seek the gold of the kingdom of God!—A sure investment to every one who seeks with all his heart.

W. N. G.

A Voice in the Wilderness.

—John G. Woolley, the temperance reformer, says in the Voice: “The curse of God is no flaring up of vengeful passion in His dealing. But fruit—slow, sure, incorrigible, horrible—from root filament to groaning bough.”

“One need not plant a crime to reap a curse. The ‘plant’ may have been—as ours was—a seed or scion of the noblest stock. But ‘the nation that forgets God shall be turned into hell.’ Does our country ‘forget’ God?—No! it is worse than that! He is proclaimed daily, hourly, as the sovereign Lord, from sea to land’s end—until election day, when heaven and hell are set before us at the polls, and four years of proclamations issue into action. And the church votes—hell!”