Earlier text: A Great ChangeLeadings of the Spirit in Missionary Work.
By W. H. Ernst
THE missionary should be a man who is led by the divine Spirit. There is always danger that the work of reformation as conducted even by the ministers of the gospel, may be carried on too much from a human standpoint instead of the divine. We may mistake an outward reformation for an inward change of heart. It appears to me that if this age is retrograding in any respect it is with reference to this idea, that human agencies are too far supplanting the divine. The minister does not seem to have the faith in the power of the Spirit to convince of sin and to sanctify the heart, that his predecessors had. We depend more in training and moral reformation than they. The reformation that this age needs is to return to that pristine habit and doctrine of being directed by the Holy Spirit more than we are, and of depending upon that direction. Paul's life singularly illustrates this important thought. Perhaps no man in the Christian dispensation has been more favored in this respect than he. In his second letter to the Corinthians, he dwells on this thought to some length. According to the common interpretation, he even says, "he was caught up to the third heaven" and "into paradise, and heard unspeakable words which it is not lawful for a man to utter." While his writings are largely filled with thoughts of a similar import, we desire to speak of only one, familiar to all our Sabbath-school scholars. In his second missionary journey, Paul was especially directed in a very important matter. He had been working in the small villages around his home, Derbe, Lystra, and Iconium. He traveled through the neighboring provinces of Phrygia and Galatia and seemed inclined to continue that plan of work. He was intending to preach in Asia, but the Holy Spirit forbade his carrying out that intention. The same was repeated in regard to Bithynia. The Spirit afterwards told him plainly enough that he should go into Europe, which he immediately obeyed. Ever after that his ideas of his work were greatly enlarged. I do not think that we are told of his ever again going into a small place to introduce the gospel. He only visited the great centers of thought and government. This enlargement of plan was doubtless owing to the leadings of the Divine Spirit upon his mind. There is so much in his history and writings to confirm this thought that no one conversant with them will deny it. What therefore was so necessary and at the same time so important and beneficial to him, must be valuable to us. We cannot admit that all this directing power which so assisted him was purely apostolic and was withdrawn at the death of the apostles. I believe that God designs now to lead those who will place themselves in the proper relation to him as certainly as he ever did. Such a course would add great power to us and efficiency to our work.—W. H. Ernst, in Sabbath Recorder. FEW among those who listened to the eloquent words of the late Bishop Simpson would have dreamed that the master-speaker who stood before them was, in his early youth, marked out from his fellows by his lack of power to speak attractively. Yet so it was. And the Bishop's words, in telling of that period and of the way in which he acquired the gift which was in his subsequent life so markedly his, are so suggestive that they are worth repeating here. "At school," he said, "the one thing I could not do was to speak. It cost me unspeakable effort to bring myself to attempt, and I was invariably mortified by my failures. At length, having felt called to the ministry, I sought to forget myself as far as possible, and, banishing all thoughts of oratory, to give myself absolutely to the task of saying things so that people could really understand them." And that is the secret of all true eloquence,—speaking so that people can really understand.—Sunday School Times. God Chooses Humble Instruments
GOD often chooses the humblest instruments. He passes by the tempests, and waters the fields and gardens with his imperceptible dew. He passes by the great elephant, and bestows the hues of sapphire and amethyst upon the tiny humming bird. He passes by the lofty pine and the huge elm tree, and lavishes blossom and perfume on the violet. All history teaches the same truth. Moses was the son of a poor Levite; Gideon was a thresher; David was a shepherd boy; Amos was a herdsman; the apostles were ignorant and unlearned; Zwingle was a shepherd; Melancthon, the great theologian of the Reformation, was an armorer; Luther was the child of a poor miner; Fuller was a farm servant; Carey, the originator of the plan of translating the Bible into the language of the millions of Hindostan, was a shoemaker; Morrison, who translated the Bible into the Chinese language, was a lastmaker; Dr. Milne was a herdboy; Adam Clarke was the son of Irish cotters; John Foster was a weaver; Jay, of Bath, was a herdsman.—Christian at Work. Faithful in Prisons and Palaces
Good men will be as faithful to God in prisons as in palaces. THE idea of a free gospel, “without money and without price,” no doubt is a charming idea. And there is a great and glorious truth in it. But no idea ever was more miserably perverted. This gospel is the costliest thing that a man can receive to his heart and life. It demands the whole of him, and insists on a generous share of his goods. It is no kindness to converts, either at home or abroad, to hold back from them this possibly unwelcome truth. The missionary’s true aim is not merely to save souls, but to make them worth saving. It would be easier and in some sense more agreeable for him to nurse the churches through a perpetual babyhood. But he is sent to train Christian men and women with some strength in their fiber, some force in their lives. It will take Italy fifty years, apparently, to recover from the abject beggary which has been her perpetual curse. We want no Italian communities around our missionary stations. A Christian who attempts to find support rather in leaning than in standing, a human parasite, will come to no ripeness, and will bear no fruit. National, like individual dependence is fatal to all vigorous growth. No colony, while it continued such, ever in all history became a great people. Self-reliance with self-government are the prime, indispensable conditions of power. When Mr. Wheeler, of Harpoot, Turkey, as related by Dr. Clark, after three hours of argument finally persuaded a native deacon to buy, rather than receive in charity, three cents’ worth of slate pencils for his child at school, he led him an immense stride on toward Christian manhood. Three hours could hardly have been better spent.—Advance. Have Ye Carried the Living Water
HAVE ye carried the living water
To the parched and thirsty soul?
Have ye said to the sick and wounded,
"Christ Jesus makes thee whole"?
Have ye told my fainting children
Of the strength of the Father's hand?
Have ye guided the tottering footsteps
To the shores of the "golden land"? The Failure of Religious Syncretism
A missionary society has been formed in Germany that proposes to send missionaries to the more educated portions of the people of China, Japan, and India, not to displace their old religions, but to incorporate Christianity with Buddhism and other religions of those countries. It is spoken of as one of the novelties of modern thought, an outgrowth of broad-churchism, a putting new wine into old bottles. But this is nothing new; the world has always been at it, but always signally failed. From the necessities of the case it must ever prove a failure, yet it will probably continue to be tried.—Sel. Getting the Juice from Scripture
RUSKIN says: "Some people read their Bibles just as the old monks thought the hedgehogs ate grapes. They rolled themselves—it was said—over and over where the grapes lay on the ground; what stuck to their spines they carried off and ate. So your hedgehoggy readers roll themselves over and over their Bibles, and declare that whatever sticks to their spine is Scripture, and that nothing else is. But you can only get the skins of the texts in that way; if you want their juice you must press them in cluster." Schools for Girls in China
Rev. Mr. Henry, a missionary from China, says there are about 15,000,000 women and children in China ready for instruction. There have been started in Canton and vicinity twenty-five schools for girls, with from fifteen to forty pupils in each. They are taught for the most part by pupils instructed in the boarding-schools previously established. Nine-tenths of those educated have become Christians. A MORAL discord should awaken resentment in a well-educated conscience, as a musical discord meets resentment in a well-educated ear. It was a delightful day for indoor employment, from the fact that it had rained steadily for several hours, beginning early in the morning. I had been writing a long time. All was still in the house, save the low, monotonous hum of my faithful maid in her room, and the ticking of the clock. Suddenly the stillness was broken. The front door was thrown widely open. I heard quick footsteps in the hall below, and then coming up the stairs. "O, auntie! are you so very, very busy? I do wonder if you couldn't please stop writing for a few minutes?" cried my little ten-year-old nephew, running into the room. "Certainly, I can stop writing for a few or many minutes. What can I do for you, Georgie?" I asked, while laying down my pen. "Well, auntie, you see these, and this," he said, holding up two bits of white muslin in one hand, and a soiled bit—almost to blackness—in the other. "I want two new, clean sails made out of these two white pieces. This dingy sail is only for a pattern to go by. You won't mind if this pattern to go by is all so stained, will you? You see the boat upset. 'Tis just dry water and ground on it, so you needn't be afraid it will rub off on your hands, auntie." Of course I didn't "mind," nor wasn't "afraid." Georgie sat beside me, watching with intense interest every stitch I took in his all-important sails. "I don't s'pose I ought to have felt so badly when nobody would make them; and I don't s'pose I ought to trouble you either," he said, apologetically; "but now is the time for boats when there is so much water. Do please look out of this window, auntie. Isn't that a beautiful, beautiful brook? But we will have to hurry with our sails, for before we know it all the lovely brooks in the streets will have run down in the sewer. Then, farewell boat sailing." I looked out, but I saw no "beautiful, beautiful brook." I only saw a muddy, turbulent stream of water in the street gutter. "I wanted mamma to make them," he continued, "but she said she wouldn't be bothered with me, because I was forever wanting something fixed or made. She said she wouldn't touch my pattern to go by, anyway. Mamma is so very neat. Then I ran in the girls' room. They wouldn't make them neither. They said that brothers were continually asking sisters to make things that girls were not interested in. I do think Fannie might have made them. She was only reading a book. She wouldn't leave off, for she said she was just where the girl was to get married or buried, I forget which. I begged Anna to help me with them. She was knitting with some worsted work. She said she hadn't any time to spare. I think she could easily have stopped knitting the worsted work for a few minutes, don't you? She wouldn't. Well, then I ran down to Cousin Mary's. (You know she lives so near by, and I was in such a hurry.) She was stitching on the sewing-machine; and she said she couldn't stop to make me any 'sails, veils, pails, nor nails.' So I thought I would run way up here as fast as ever I could and see if you wouldn't make them. I was most sure you would." It was only twelve or fifteen minutes' work. When they were finished, Georgie grasped them and ran quickly down in the street. In a moment after, he rushed back into the house and, coming half-way up the stair, cried out:— "O, auntie! I forgot all about to thank you. If you should ever want any errands done, I'll do them for you. I'll do them willingly, because you are all alone." While sewing, with great rapidity, on Georgie's sails, it was all I could possibly do to appear cheerful and keep the tears back. He never mistrusted anything of the kind, however, for I was, seemingly, as interested in them as he. But the very moment he went out of the room, I laid my head on the writing-desk. Then, when he said, "because you are all alone," I wept bitterly; for I was thinking of a tall, manly form, of a bearded face in a distant city, and I could not but exclaim, "O! that my boy were a boy again!" I wonder so that mothers ever fret
At little children clinging to their gown;
Or that the footprints, when the days are wet,
Are ever black enough to make them frown.
If I could mend a broken cart to-day,
To-morrow make a kite to reach the sky,
There is no woman in God's world could say
She was more blissfully content than I. Mother, sister, those of you who have your little boys, your brothers with you, don't, I pray you, check the harmless impulses of their nature. Readily assist—and become interested in—all their innocent amusements and pleasures. An English writer once said: "When I was a boy, I wanted taffy, but had no money. Now I have money, but want no taffy." Mother, when your boy is a man—and, oh, how soon that will be!—he'll not ask you to make sails for his tiny boat. He'll not beg you to help him look for or re-cover his ball. Your closets, boxes, and bureau drawers will not be rummaged through and through for "a very stout kind of string." A new style of top you'll not be urged to buy; neither will you be urged to look for some gay stripe of calico or muslin for the tail of a kite. No demand on your purse for a slate or lead-pencil. Paper cockade hats you'll not be coaxed to make. Four in number it may be. One for himself, the others for his three playmates. No, no; you'll sit as I now sit, alone, undisturbed; and mayhap will tearfully say as I now say, "Oh, that my boy were a boy again!" And I bethink me of companions three that played with my boy. . . the beautiful summers, the summers of long ago. How dear were they to his heart, and how dear they grew to mine! They likewise have flown from the parent nest, and have built one for themselves here and elsewhere. Aye, even beyond the Rocky Mountains the sound of one of their voices is heard. Positions of trust and usefulness they are filling. Mothers, be careful to readily assist and become interested in all your boy's innocent amusements and pleasures. You will thereby not only minister to his present and future happiness, but in the coming years you will rejoice that you improved your opportunity. For if God spares your lives, the time is not far distant when he will be beyond not alone "childish things," but, alas! equally beyond your counsel, sympathy, and companionship. Then, your home, like mine to-day, will be painfully quiet. And when that time comes—as come it will—you'll wish you could hear your boy rushing in the house or up the stair asking for something to be "fixed or made." Gladly would you be "bothered" with him; and as gladly make his little sails, if not altogether immaculate his "pattern to go by." Let not your golden opportunity pass away unappreciated. Give it its due estimate and value. Ah! fail not in this: enjoy your boy while you may. And when he leaves the home-harbor and spreads his impelling sails, may he not only have the memory of a cherished and happy childhood, but through your watchful care and judicious training, with God's blessing, health to man the oars of his life-boat, a good education for a ballast, and purity of heart as a pilot or compass to guide him as he voyages out on the sea of life. Mother, be wise in time!—Christian at Work. The Home Circle.
By Louisa May Alcott
QUEEN of my tub, I merrily sing
While the white foam rises high,
And sturdily wash, and rinse, and wring,
And fasten the clothes to dry;
Then out in the free, fresh air they swing,
Under the summer sky. I wish we could wash from our hearts and souls
The stains of the week away;
And let water and air by their magic make
Ourselves as pure as they;
Then o'er all the earth there would be, indeed,
A glorious washing day. Along the path of a useful life
Will hearts' ease ever bloom;
The busy mind has no time to think
Of sorrow, or care, or gloom,
And anxious thoughts may be swept away
As we busily wield the broom. I am glad to me the task is given
To labor day by day,
For it brings me health, and strength, and hope,
And I cheerfully learn to say,
"Head, you may think, Heart, you may feel,
But Hand, you shall work alway."
—Miss Alcott, in Christian at Work. Cultivating Happiness at Home
SOME homes are full of love and sunshine for strangers, and all ugliness and gloom for the ones for whom they exist. To constitute a truly happy home there should be pretty little personal adornments on the part of the wife, who thereby shows a desire to please her husband and to add to the general attractions of her home. A pleasant word on her part, when the overworked man comes home, often eats away the raw edge of some trouble on his mind, and draws out a corresponding desire to be both agreeable and respectful, which characteristics are always accompanied by affection. If cheerfulness and amiability are not cultivated, rudeness, roughness, and impatience will soon be followed by insolence; and when sweet temper gives way to anger and discord, the home circle is no longer attractive, and is almost certain to be shunned.—Sel. Obeying Mother Pleasantly.
HARRY had seen some older boys fly their kites from the tops of the houses; and he thought it would be nice fun if he could do so too. So he came to his aunt and said, "Aunt Mary, may I go to the top of the house and fly my kite?" His aunt wished to do everything to please him; but she thought it very unsafe, so she said, "No, Harry, my boy. I think that is a very dangerous sort of play. I'd rather you wouldn't go." "All right. Then I'll go out on the bridge," said Harry. His aunt smiled, and said she hoped he would always be as obedient as that. "Harry, what are you doing?" said his mother one day. "Spinning my new top, mother." "Can't you take the baby out to ride? Get out the carriage, and I'll bring him down." "All right!" shouted the boy as he put his top in his pocket and hastened to obey his mother. "Uncle William, may I go over to your shop this morning?" said Harry one day at breakfast. "I want to see those baskets again that I was looking at yesterday." "Oh, yes, Harry," said his uncle; "I shall be very glad to have you." "But I can't spare you to-day, Harry," said his mother. "I want you to go out with me. You shall go to the shop another day." "All right," said Harry, and he went on with his breakfast. No matter what Harry was asked to do, or what refusal he met with when asking for anything, his constant answer was, "All right." He never stopped to worry or tease. He never asked, "Why can't I?" or, "Why mustn't I?" Harry had not only learned to obey, but he had learned to obey in good humor.—Sel. Unconscious Exhibition of Character.
By Sunday School Times
How, ALL unconsciously, men disclose their own characters, and their own standard of conduct, when they give their reasons for their action in little matters of every-day life. And it is often the case that men prove their lack of a quality or a trait which they are making a special claim to the possession of, when they attempt an explanation of the reasons which have influenced them in the exhibit or the non-exhibit of that trait or quality. It is when they tell us why, in this instance, they were careful to be honest, or were willing to be less strict in their dealings with another, that they show us that with them honesty is a conventional term, of comparative and varying force, rather than a principle of unfailing obligation. So again, when they tell us under what circumstances they would count lying justifiable, and just what provocation would induce them to a course of vindictive retaliation, they prove their measure of fidelity to truth, and their degree of magnanimity and charity. Take a single illustration of this truth, out of a common experience in city life. You will hear a man say that formerly he was very quick to rise and proffer his seat to a woman who entered a crowded street-car in which he was sitting; but that, when he found that many a woman would take the proffered seat without giving him the slightest recognition of his courtesy, he made up his mind that there was no fair call on him to render a service that wasn't worth a, "Thank you, sir;" so "now when he has a seat he keeps it, whether others are standing or not." That statement marks that man's standard of gallantry. He was ready to make a show of ordinary politeness, so long as he was reasonably sure of being paid for it; but when he found that no special notice was taken of his acting like a gentleman, he gave up all thought of trying to make others think that he was a gentleman. Even now he is in the market; and if you will convince him that he can have fair wages for a show of gallantry, he will try his hand once more at acting as if he were a gentleman. If gallantry be a part of a man's nature, however; if a man be a gentleman in his very grain, and by his every instinct, he will show his gallantry and his gentlemanliness in spite of the failure of others to recognize his high standard, or to approach to it themselves. "If ye salute your brethren only," your peers in courtesy, says our Lord, "what do ye more than others? do not even the Gentiles [or the genteels, if you will have it so] the same?" He who is the true gentleman, is the gentleman always; whether he is to be the gainer, or the seeming loser, by the exhibit of his inborn grace of character.—Sunday School Times. WE have the certain fact that bees at least, and probably other insects, do distinguish and remember colors. Not only so, but their tendency to follow color has been strong enough to produce all the beautiful blossoms of our fields and gardens. Moreover, we have seen that while bees, which are flower-hunters, are guided greatly by color, wasps, which are omnivorous, are guided to a less extent, and ants, which are very miscellaneous feeders, not at all. It may be objected that insects do not care for the color apart from the amount of honey; but Mr. Anderson noticed that, when the corollas of certain flowers had been cut away, the insects never discovered or visited the flowers; and Mr. Darwin lopped off the big lower petals of several lobelia blossoms, and found that the bees never noticed them, though they constantly visited the neighboring flowers. On the other hand, many bright colored bells have no honey, but merely a great show for nothing, and so deceive insects into paying them a call on the delusive expectation that they will be asked to stay to dinner. Some very unprincipled flowers, like the huge Sumatran rafflesia, thus take in the carrion flies, by resembling in smell and appearance a piece of decaying meat. Moreover, certain insects show a preference for special flowers over others. One may watch for hours the visits paid by a bee or a butterfly to several dozens of one flower, say a purple lamium, in succession, passing by unnoticed the white or yellow blossoms which intervene between them. Fritz Muller mentions an interesting case of a lantana, which is yellow on the first day, orange on the second, and purple on the third. "This plant," he says, "is visited by various butterflies. As far as I have seen, the purple blossoms are never touched. Some species inserted their probosces both into yellow flowers of the first day and the orange colors of the second." Mr. Thomas D. Lilly, an American naturalist, observed that the colored petunias and morning-glories in his garden were torn to pieces by bees and butterflies in getting at the honey, while the white or pale ones were never visited. These are only a few sample cases out of hundreds, in which various observers have noted the preference shown by insects for blossoms of a special color.—Popular Science Monthly. THE Providence Journal calls attention to some curiosities of misnomer. Black lead is not lead at all, but a compound of carbon and a small quantity of iron. Brazilian grass never grew in Brazil, and is not grass; it is nothing but strips of palm-leaf. Burgundy pitch is not pitch, and does not come from Burgundy; the greater part of it is resin and palm oil. Catgut is made from the entrails of sheep. Cuttle bone is not bone, but a kind of chalk once inclosed in the fossil remains of extinct specimens of cuttle-fish. German silver was not invented in Germany, and does not contain a particle of silver. Cleopatra's Needle was not erected by the Egyptian Queen, nor in her honor. Pompey's pillar has no historical connection with Pompey in any way. Sealing wax does not contain a particle of wax, but is composed of Venice of turpentine, shellac, and cinnabar. The tube-rose is no rose, but a species of polyanthus. The strawberry is no berry, but only a succulent receptacle. Turkish baths did not originate in Turkey, and are not baths, but heated chambers. Whale-bone is not bone, and is said not to possess a single property of bone. The Dangers of Exciting Reading
By New York Observer
It was the idea of the Greeks, in ancient times, that infants should be kept as free from excitement as possible, and therefore the greatest care was taken that all disturbing noises should be avoided, until they had become so far matured as to be able to bear them without injury. But there is very little care taken in our day, even in Christian families and communities, to preserve children and youth from excitement. On the contrary, the more they can get of it the better, in the opinion of parents and themselves. This is not favorable to health of body, or of soul. But worse than social excitement, is the effect of unwholesome reading which now floods the country. Papers and magazines are widely read which furnish the most frightful tales, incredible indeed, but ingeniously constructed, with a large amount of the supernatural to intensify the mystery, and excite the imagination. The dime novel that sends the small boy off to be a pirate, or a highwayman, is not worse than some of our society novels and sensational periodicals. A Religion That Possesses Me
It was an intelligent Christian who wrote: "I do not want to possess my religion, I want a religion which will possess me." THE YOUTH'S INSTRUCTOR.
By Editor
AN ILLUSTRATED WEEKLY PAPER FOR YOUTH AND CHILDREN, DEVOTED TO MORAL, MENTAL, AND RELIGIOUS CULTURE. This paper is not devoted to insipid stories and religious fiction, but is filled with a great variety of that kind of reading which tends to the healthful development of the youthful mind. Its pages are made bright by the choicest illustrative pictures, and its columns are always full of useful information. As a Sabbath-school and Lesson paper, it is suited to the wants of scholars and teachers, and is calculated to increase the interest of all who read it, in thorough Bible study. TERMS, ALWAYS IN ADVANCE.—Single copy, 75 cents a year; Five copies to one address, 60 cents each; Ten or more copies to one address, 50 cents each. SPECIAL PREMIUM OFFER—THE SUNSHINE SERIES.
For every new subscription, accompanied with 85 cents, we will give "The Sunshine Series," consisting of a package of ten beautiful pamphlets of 32 pages each. These comprise a choice collection of sketches, stories, poems, etc., adapted to the wants of children, and contain more reading matter than can be found in many dollar books. Remember, the whole series, 320 pages, and the INSTRUCTOR for a year, for 85 cents. Address, YOUTH'S INSTRUCTOR, Battle Creek, Mich. Or, PACIFIC PRESS, Oakland, Cal. SABBATH READINGS
By Editor
COMPILED BY MRS. E. G. WHITE. THESE are some of the few really good books. For twenty years Mrs. White has been selecting choice, interesting, and instructive stories, the best of which are presented in these four volumes of 400 pages each. It would be difficult to find a better collection. The selections have been carefully made, and none need fear to place them in the hands of the young. They are not, however, designed exclusively for the young, but are adapted for general home reading. All the members of the family circle will find something in them to entertain and instruct. They are just the thing for holiday or birthday gifts. Price per set, neatly put up in box, $2.50. Address, SIGNS OF THE TIMES, Oakland, Cal. THE EARLY LIFE, CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE, AND EXTENSIVE LABORS OF
ELDER JAMES WHITE,
AND HIS WIFE,
MRS. ELLEN G. WHITE. The production of this book was the last literary labor performed by Elder White. As nearly the whole of his active labor was performed in connection with the Seventh-day Adventist denomination, which he was largely instrumental in founding, the work is necessarily quite a complete history of that people. The book abounds in interesting incidents, personal sketches, and religious experiences, some of which are quite remarkable, and altogether it forms a volume at once instructive and interesting. Address SIGNS OF THE TIMES, Oakland, Cal. LIFE OF WILLIAM MILLER, WITH PORTRAIT.
By Editor
This book contains sketches of the Christian experience and public labors of this remarkable man. No other man in this century has been more widely spoken of, and more generally misunderstood. These sketches were prepared by those who were his co-laborers, and are a true presentation of the leading events of his life and labors. In addition to the life and character of the man, the character of the Great Advent Movement, in which he acted so prominent a part, is clearly set forth. It is shown that Mr. Miller was no mere enthusiast, but a man of calm judgment, and his interpretation of the prophecies was mainly correct, his only mistake being in regard to the nature of the event to take place at the close of the 2300 days, in 1844. No one can consider himself well versed in the history of the advent movement in this country who has not read this book. Address, SIGNS OF THE TIMES, Oakland, Cal. This volume contains the earliest writings of Mrs. White, first printed in 1851. It contains an account of her early religious experience, and a brief account of the wonderful dealings of God with her. Apart from its intrinsic value, it will be of interest as showing the harmony between the earlier writings of the Seventh-day Adventists and those published at a later date. Its publication is very timely. In paper covers, with Supplement, 25 cents. Address, SIGNS OF THE TIMES, Oakland, Cal. —The orange crop of Florida will this year amount to 1,000,000 boxes. —Stanley says that all the so-called free laborers in Africa are captured slaves. —Twelve thousand pupils are enrolled in the evening schools of New York City. —Some villains are making a business of poisoning cattle in Hamilton, Ontario. —A fire in Brooklyn, N. Y., Oct. 19, destroyed over $200,000 worth of property. —There is a boy eleven years of age in the Georgia penitentiary serving a term for murder. —London has twenty-eight daily journals, 524 weeklies, and over 600 monthly magazines. —It is stated that the Union Pacific has secured control of the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company. —The land of Holland is cultivated by 145,694 persons, of whom sixty per cent. are owners of their own holdings. —The Hill's Ferry (Cal.) stage was robbed by highwaymen near San Joaquin City, on the morning of the 23d. —By the shutting down of the mills at Fall River, Mass., on the 20th inst., 10,000 people were left without employment. —The Governor of Zacatecas, Mexico, has forbidden gambling in the State under pain of the severest penalties. —Prof. Sayce has just deciphered an Assyrian tablet which describes a transit of Venus 1,600 years before the Christian era. —The debt of New York City has steadily increased, until it is now $31.58 for every man, woman, and child in the city. —At a festival given by the Zion A. M. E. Church at Washington, Pa., on the 19th inst., a disturbance arose, in which two men were shot. —The New York Board of Health has discovered both arsenic and lead in raw coffee that had been put through a process to improve its color. —On the 20th inst., the German theater and seventy-six shops in St. Petersburg were destroyed by fire. The loss is estimated at 3,000,000 roubles. —The looms used in the State of New Jersey for the manufacture of home-made silk are almost facsimiles of those employed in China and India for the same purpose. —The cloak department of Chapman's mammoth dry goods establishment, at Milwaukee, was destroyed by fire on the night of the 23d. The loss amounts to about $500,000. —The Postmaster-General and Mexican Minister concluded a postal convention on the 20th, providing for an exchange of mail matter between the United States and Mexico at domestic rates of postage. —The French press is absorbed in the discussion of protective duties. The Republique Francaise says that the economic crisis through which France is now passing can only be cured by the sovereign remedy of an increase of customs duties. —The St. Petersburg police seized a secret printing press on the 19th inst. They discovered documents with the press, which showed that arrangements were being perfected to make an attempt on the Czar's life. Many arrests have been made. —The farmers of Earl, Caernarvon, and Ephrata, (Pa.) townships are in a state of terror on account of the exploits of a gang of robbers that infest the mountains in the vicinity. Robberies are occurring every night, and in some instances in the day-time. —Over a score of street-cars have been built in New York for use on a railway in Tokio, Japan. They were built and lettered on plans furnished by three Japanese capitalists, and are to run on a new railroad in Tokio, managed on the American plan. —A Chinese girl, eighteen years of age, is among the students recently admitted to the University at Delaware, Ohio. She came to this country to obtain a thorough English education, then to study medicine and go back to work among the women of her own land. —The two rough discs necessary for the large telescope for the Lick Observatory have been cast, and will soon be placed in the hands of the optician for finishing. When the work is accomplished and the telescope placed in position, this observatory will be the most perfect in the world, and its location in California the most favorable that could be655found. —There are fifty-four political journals published in Athens, Greece. —The village of Chlorydormi, a Canadian fishing village, was totally destroyed by fire on the night of the 20th. One family is reported missing, and the surviving ones must suffer, as their sole means of subsistence is fishing, and all their boats were destroyed. —A desperado on a train near Memphis, Tenn., Oct. 21, insulted an inoffensive passenger, and then stabbed him and threw him from the train. He then promenaded through the cars, daring any one to touch him. No one dared interfere with him, and he escaped arrest. —The city of Carthage, N. Y., was the scene of a most disastrous fire, on the 20th inst. Besides a great many factories, four churches, the town hall, and all the school buildings, one hundred and sixty dwellings were burned. Many people were badly burned, but none fatally. —The Central Pacific Railroad Company is about to erect semaphore signals in Oakland, at a cost of $75,000, to warn persons of approaching trains. Where trains pass through the streets every fifteen minutes during the day, as they do in Oakland, such precautions are very necessary. —Forest fires have been so extensive in Atlantic County, N. J., as to cause serious alarm to the inhabitants of the villages. At Weymouth, a town of fifty houses, although they worked diligently cutting down trees to turn the course of the flames, six houses and the M. E. church were burned to the ground on the 19th. —A vigorous prosecution of dealers in oleomargarine and butterine has been inaugurated in New York City, under a recent act of the Legislature, making the sale of these articles a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of not less than $100 or more than $500, or not less than six months or more than one year's imprisonment. —The project of constructing a ship canal across Ireland has been revived. Plans for the work have been submitted by Captain Eads, the American engineer. It is proposed to have a canal 127 miles long and 200 feet wide, with terminal ends at Galway Bay and Kingstown. The estimated cost of the undertaking is from $40,000,000 to $100,000,000. —The average annual production of canned goods in the United States is upwards of 500,000,000 cans, or about ten for every man, woman, and child. In view of the frequent reports of poisoning from canned fruit, meat, etc., the New York Mercantile Exchange has investigated the subject, and states that the danger has been greatly exaggerated. They request correspondence from any one who knows of such cases of poisoning. —The average weekly income of working girls in Boston, including earnings, assistance, and income, from extra work, is $5.17. The average yearly expense for all needs is $261.30. There are a large number of girls, according to the figures of the report, who earn less than $3.50 a week; and out of the 1032 there were only twenty-eight who pay less than $2 a week for board and lodging. Two hundred and twenty-four pay between $2 and $4 a week for board and lodging.—Exchange. —The International Meridian Conference, lately in session in Washington, D. C., adopted the following:—
"Resolved, That the universal day is to be a mean solar day; is to begin for all the world at the moment of mean midnight of the initial meridian, coinciding with the beginning of the civil day and date at that meridian, and is to be counted from zero up to twenty-four hours.
"Resolved, That this Conference express the hope that, as soon as may be practicable, astronomical and nautical days will be arranged everywhere to begin at mean midnight." —The Clawson polygamy trial at Salt Lake has resulted in a disagreement of the jury, and Judge Zane has ordered a new trial. It is conceded on all hands that the amount of false swearing done by the Mormons is unparalleled in the history of trials. Although the ceremonies of the Endowment House, where all their "celestial" marriages and other abominations are performed, are the most solemn of Mormon religious observances, the President of the church declared that he remembered the names of none of those whose marriages he had sanctioned, and Cannon, that no records were ever kept. But it is not to be wondered at that a people, the foundation of whose religion is the violation of the seventh commandment, should have no scruples against disregarding the ninth. Publishers' Department.
By Editor
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