Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Aug 18, 1904
Publishers' Page
Conducted by the Department of Circulation of the Review and Herald Publishing Company
An Omission
In giving the complete list of the Bible Student's Library in last week's REVIEW, notice was called to the fact that tracts are put up, a certain number in a package, and by purchasing one hundred or more tracts in packages, we give a special discount of forty per cent from retail price, plus two cents per package for postage.
Explanation was omitted from this list, stating that there are 50 of the half-cent tracts and 25 of the one-cent tracts in a package. Hence by purchasing two packages of the former, or four of the latter, or one of the former and two of the latter, the discount of forty per cent will apply.
It would be well to save this complete list of the Bible Student's Library for future reference. You will want to know what publications you can obtain on various subjects.
Modern Spiritualism
THIS world-pervading doctrine is given a comprehensive exposition from a Scriptural standpoint in a book titled “Modern Spiritualism.” Chapter I discusses its power, intelligence, and progress. Chapter II introduces the standard of authority, the Bible, and shows that the agency can not be what it is claimed to be. Chapter III presents the testimony of the Scriptures as to the state of the dead, showing that the spirits are not the disembodied spirits of dead men. Chapter IV gives the Bible proof that they are the spirits of devils, and refers to its many warnings against the evil. Chapter V shows by quotations from spiritualistic works what they teach, and points out the dangers of mediumship. Chapter VI shows how disastrously it has failed to fulfil its promises and pretensions. Chapter VII presents the prophecies which have foretold the rise and progress of this deception in the last days, and how it is a most startling sign of our times, and of the nearness of the end. No believer in the Bible can read this book without being thoroughly put on his guard against this crowning delusion.
This little work contains 156 pages. Bound in cloth, at 40 cents, or in paper binding at 20 cents, postpaid.
Here and Hereafter
UPON false views of what the Bible really teaches with reference to the condition of man after death, are based all the systems of heathenism,—from the lowest Hindu worshiper to highest types of twentieth-century teachings. By the perversion of God's Word on this subject, the enemy of all truth has established many organizations or religions. Once it is shown that the foundation of such doctrines is built upon the sands of error, the whole structure must fall.
“Here and Hereafter, or Man in Life and Death; the Reward of the Righteous and the Destiny of the Wicked;” by Uriah Smith, leaves no stone on this subject unturned. To be forewarned is to be forearmed, and those whose attention is called to the danger of building on such a foundation, will be saved from wasting their life and energies in erecting such a building, and from finally going down with the whole structure.
“Here and Hereafter” is a cloth-bound book of 357 pages. Price, postpaid, $1.
The Gospel Reader
This book is a nicely prepared reader for children, and is graded and adapted to the capabilities of children who have mastered such a book as “Gospel Primer.” Having been prepared by the late Prof. G. H. Bell, the author of the “Bible Lessons for the Sabbath-school,” and many works used in our educational institutions, this little book was especially prepared as a text-book for Christian homes and schools.
The principles of the gospel are taught in a clear, progressive, interesting manner, and the language is so clear, simple, and direct that small children have no difficulty in understanding the teaching of the text. The thirty-five chapters of the Reader are beautifully illustrated with twenty-two Bible pictures, and it is substantially bound in cloth, at 75 cents, and in board covers, at 50 cents, postpaid. The children will appreciate this book.
The Great Nations of To-day
By Editor
THIS publication has been brought to the attention of the public particularly at this time when war exists in the East. The demand has been quite large, but we have been able to meet it, and it is still an excellent means of calling the attention of friends and neighbors to the truths of God's Word with reference to the history and prophecy of nations.
The author, Elder A. T. Jones, has given attention to the great nations of to-day, their rise, relations, career, and destiny, in connection with a clear and concise treatise on the seven trumpets, the three woes, the third angel's message, the threefold messages, Babylon, the beast of Revelation 13, and its image in all its phases and workings, the commandments, the hour of the judgment is come, and the setting up of the everlasting kingdom of God.
An excellent volume to loan and place in general circulation; 257 pages, paper covers, postpaid, 25 cents.
Revised Science in the Kitchen
By Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
BY MRS. E. E. KELLOGG, A. M.
THIS well-known work has just been revised and greatly improved. It contains about 500 pages, and is gotten up in a style which is popular, attractive, and substantial. The subject-matter is from a scientific standpoint, and at the same time practical, presenting the best methods of preparing foods. The many new illustrations of the methods and different stages of progress in making the many dishes, is a particular feature of the new edition.
Over eight hundred tested recipes are given, and the whole is the embodied result of research and experiment by Mrs. Kellogg and her staff.
Bound in oilcloth cover—which can be washed—a neat and attractive book. Postpaid to any address for $1.90.
Christ’s Second Coming
MANY of our readers will remember the tract written by Brother J. Q. A. Haughey, under the title “Christ’s Second Coming.” The demand for this tract was enormous, and thousands of copies were circulated.
It can now be obtained as No. 42 of the Words of Truth Series. Its 32 pages are filled with Bible evidence of Christ’s second coming, and the interesting manner in which it is written is doubtless the cause for its general demand.
The price is now 2 cents a copy; $1.30 per 100, postpaid.
To Which Class Do You Belong?
By Editor
In one mail, recently, we received three letters in regard to subscriptions for the REVIEW. The first one said, “When my subscription to REVIEW AND HERALD has run out, please discontinue sending.”
The second letter said, “Please continue my subscription to REVIEW AND HERALD. I shall remit in a few days. I have not missed a number of the REVIEW for about seventeen years, and I do not wish to miss any now.”
In the third letter, the sister makes this confession: “Between eleven and twelve years ago we sent in our first subscription to the REVIEW. Since that time, we have never been without it until last February. I feel that I need it again. I can not afford to be without its teachings and warnings, in these perilous times, and although I can not send the money for it now, I promise to have it for you on or before October 1. If I may have it on these terms, please send it for one year.”
The last letter states the situation quite plainly. If there ever was a time when our people needed the instruction and the encouragement which the REVIEW contains from week to week, that time is now. Never has the struggle between the forces of good and evil been more severe, never before has there been a time when the very elect were so liable to be deceived, never before has there been such a temptation to say by word and act, “My Lord delayeth his coming.”
On the other hand, the warnings and encouragement from the Lord to his people have never been clearer or more definite than during the last few months. Never before since the REVIEW has been published has it contained so large a number of reports of the success of the message in all parts of the world.
To the believer who keeps in close touch with God’s providences all these things indicate that we are indeed amid the perils of the last days. In these times of perplexity we need just such messages of warning and instruction, and such reports of the triumphs of the cross at home and abroad, as are found in the REVIEW.
Please look at your wrapper this week, and if your subscription expires soon, renew without delay. Address Review and Herald Publishing Assn., 222 North Capitol St., Washington, D. C.
Where to Order the Review
Order of Review and Herald, Washington, D. C.; Review and Herald, Battle Creek, Mich.; Pacific Press, Oakland, Cal.; Kansas City, Mo.; Southern Publishing Assn., Nashville, Tenn.; or of your State Tract Society.
The Way of Salvation
IN the revelation which God has given to us the way of salvation has been made very clear. It is the unbelieving and rebellious heart which finds so many difficulties. Here are some simple facts to think of: “All have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God.” “The wages of sin is death.” “The sin, when it is full-grown, bringeth forth death.” “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life.” “Thou shalt call his name Jesus; for it is he that shall save his people from their sins.” “Wherefore also he is able to save to the uttermost them that draw near unto God through him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.” “There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” “By grace have ye been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not of works, that no man should glory.” “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved.” How plain is the way of salvation!
Pantheistic Christianity
IN the Bible the mystery of God is revealed, but not explained. Faith accepts the revelation of the mystery without attempting to explain it. Thus the Christian may enjoy the blessings of the mystery of godliness and share in the character of God, although he can not define to the human understanding his nature and being.
The attempt to be wise above what is written and to explain those things which are incomprehensible to a finite mind results in a mixture of divine revelation and human speculation. This is mysticism. It is that combination of good and evil which constitutes the most deceptive and dangerous form of error.
The minds of men who are not in subjection to the Spirit of God are now being stirred up in a remarkable degree to pry into the secret things which are beyond human comprehension, and to attempt to develop and to formulate into a system of philosophy the mysteries of the divine nature. And so we have the New Thought and the Newer Thought, modern adaptations of that speculative philosophy which has for many centuries been the bane of true religion. While crying out against pantheism and spiritualism in their grosser forms, these teachings are in themselves pantheistic and spiritualistic in their nature and tendency. In their methods of dealing with Bible truth they exhibit the very refinement of subtlety, and are well calculated to deceive those who are willing to follow into the field of speculative knowledge.
We have a fresh illustration of this mysticism in a leaflet with the appropriate title, “Vain Philosophy,” which has recently come to our attention. Although it is distinctly stated in this leaflet that “pantheism is a false and absurd system of philosophy,” and that “it is a weak and fictitious philosophy, inconsistent and monstrous,” facts which we have no disposition to deny, yet the whole tendency of the argument is to confuse the mind concerning the real difference between the Bible teaching of the omnipresence of God and the pantheistic teaching of an immanent God. It really sets up a man of straw as a pantheist, and then knocks him over, but in knocking him over it gives genuine aid and comfort to the real pantheist who is content with the principles of pantheism without the name. The Oriental pantheist does not worship the tree or the flower as such, but his conception of the nature and being of God is such that God is to him an essence pervading all nature, and God and nature can not be separated except in imagination, and therefore in the objects of nature he sees such a revelation of God as calls for worship. For this reason he prostrates himself before the flower or the tree. Is there any essential difference between his philosophy and the teaching of this leaflet when it says, “We may worship God wherever we discern the evidence of his presence [italics ours]; but certainly we are not to worship the place nor the object in which we find him”?
The fundamental error in all this teaching is that it perverts the essential truth of Christianity, namely, that in his Son Jesus Christ is the only sufficient revelation of God, and that only through the mediation of his Son Jesus Christ can acceptable worship be offered to God. “Neither doth any know the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal him.” “The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” “Ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” “Through him we both have our access in one Spirit unto the Father.” The Christian does not worship4God wherever he discerns the evidence of his presence. He recognizes the reality of the divine presence, but he has been taught to say in worship, “Our Father who art in heaven,” and he knows that there is a definite place, the heavenly sanctuary, to which his mind should be directed in worship. “As in that typical service the priest looked by faith to the mercy-seat which he could not see, so the people of God are now to direct their prayers to Christ, their great high priest, who, unseen by human vision, is pleading in their behalf in the sanctuary above.” The truth concerning the sanctuary and its services will save us from pantheistic delusions.
The Bible teaches the omnipresence of God. “Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?” The Bible also teaches that there is a place where God is, in a sense in which he is not in any other place. It was to this place that Enoch and Elijah were taken, and to which Jesus ascended. It is there that he is preparing mansions for the redeemed. “I go to prepare a place for you.” Through his faith in the Word of God the Christian accepts both of these truths without attempting to explain the mysteries of the divine Being, or to prove the divine presence by such evidence as the senses can recognize. He simply believes God’s word and enjoys fellowship with God and with his Son Jesus Christ. In the modern attempt to explain and prove the omnipresence of God by the appeal to science, this Bible truth is perverted into a teaching which is pantheistic in its tendency. This has been well expressed by an English writer who says: “For want of the restraining guidance of a true religion, men to whom these thoughts of the nearness of God to man and to all that is, have come home, . . . have thrown them, sometimes (not always), into a pantheistic, and so untrue and dangerous form and connection; when they have so dwelt on the universal, ever and everywhere, present immanence of God in nature and in man as to identify and confound God with creation.” The omnipresence of God thus becomes “the immanence of God,” in the modern meaning of this phrase, and the God of the Bible is exchanged for “the immanent God.” The true teaching of the omnipresence of God is perverted into the false teaching that God is a Universal Presence. Thus the door is opened for the whole train of pantheistic and spiritualistic teachings which will inevitably follow.
It is as true now as it ever was that “the world by wisdom” does not know God. And there is even greater danger now than ever before of being led astray by human speculations and so-called scientific reasonings, by “science falsely so called.” “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the elements of the world, and not after Christ.”
Pantheistic Christianity, if we can use such a contradictory expression, is an apostasy from the truth. It is one of the delusions of these last days. The everlasting gospel in the threefold message of Revelation 14 is the one setting of the truth which will correct this false teaching. Those who really accept this message will neither teach nor believe this “vain philosophy.”
Editorial
By Editor
A Warning Message
THE third angel’s message is just as much a message of warning to those who profess to believe it as to those who have not yet heard it. To us who are trying to give this message it must never cease to be a message of warning. By our very circumstances and surroundings we may be preserved from uniting with the papacy in its outward forms, but while speaking words against the beast and his image we may be doing deeds which testify that in reality we are exalting ourselves against God. We must give most earnest heed ourselves to the warning message which we are proclaiming to others.
Studies in the Prophecies’
“Babylon the Great”—No. 4
THE downfall of the ancient city of Babylon in the land of Chaldea was clearly foretold by the prophets, and the prophecies have been fulfilled. It was declared that “Babylon shall become heaps,” and the present location of “the glory of kingdoms” is distinguished by the various “heaps” which mark the place. But although Babylon fell, the spirit of Babylon still survived. The spirit of rebellion and rivalry was not destroyed in the destruction of Babylon. There still remained the determined opposition against the government of God and the same fixed purpose to dethrone God and to put another in his place. The temporal kingdom of ancient Babylon finds its counterpart in the spiritual kingdom of modern Babylon. In its spirit of rebellion and opposition to God, in its refusal to give to God the place which belongs to him and the determination to put another on the throne in his place, and in the revelation of pride and self-exaltation, ancient Babylon was a type and a prophecy. This will appear from a study of the scriptures which deal with this question.
To John, the revelator, there was given in holy vision a view of modern Babylon; “And he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sitting upon a scarlet-colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stone and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations, even the unclean things of her fornication, and upon her forehead a name written, Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of the Harlots and of the Abominations of the Earth. And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.” The interpretation and the application of this symbolic prophecy are readily made by a comparison with other prophecies. The beast “having seven heads and ten horns” is the same as the beast from the sea which is described in Rev. 13: 1, 2. And this beast from the sea is simply another phase or a variation of the “great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns,” which is described in Rev. 12: 3. And both of these symbols are closely related to the great and terrible beast which Daniel saw in vision. “After this I saw in the night-visions, and, behold, a fourth beast, terrible and powerful, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth; it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with its feet: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns.” When Daniel “desired to know the truth concerning the fourth beast,” he was told that “the fourth beast shall be a fourth kingdom upon earth, . . . and as for the ten horns, out of this kingdom shall ten kings arise.” The fourth universal kingdom upon the earth from the time of Daniel was Rome, “the iron monarchy of Rome,” which was later divided into ten kingdoms. And this ten-horned beast of Daniel’s vision, and the ten-horned dragon, and the ten-horned beast from the sea, and the ten-horned, scarlet-colored beast, upon which the woman sat, are all closely related. Under these different symbols are presented various phases of the history of Rome and Romanism. The picture is completed by the prophecy given through the apostle Paul: “Let no man beguile you in any wise: for it [the day of the Lord] will not be, except the falling away come first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, he that opposeth and exalteth himself against all that is called God or that is worshiped; so that he sitteth in the temple of God, setting himself forth as God. Remember ye not that when I was yet with you, I told you these things? And now ye know that which restraineth, to the end that he may be revealed in his own season. For the mystery of lawlessness doth already work.”
Thus “there are three distinct sets of prophecies of the rise, character, deeds, and doom of Romanism. The first is found in the book of Daniel, the second in the epistles of Paul, and the third in the letters and Apocalypse of John; and no one of these three is complete in itself. It is only by combining their separate features that we obtain the perfect portrait.”
The expression “the mystery of lawlessness,” directly connects Paul’s prophecy of “the falling away” with John’s prophecy of the woman who was seated upon the scarlet-colored beast, for upon her forehead a name was written, “Mystery, Babylon the Great.” Both are dealing with an apostate church. Paul speaks of “the man of sin” who5“opposeth and exalteth himself against all that is called God or that is worshiped; so that he sitteth in the temple of God, setting himself forth as God.” John speaks of the woman as “having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations, even the unclean things of her fornication.” But John designates this apostate church as “Babylon the Great.” Paul’s prophecy then is a further description in plain and simple language of the characteristics of “Babylon the Great,” and Daniel’s prophecy of the little horn is a prophecy of “Babylon the Great.” But there is no reasonable doubt that the prophecy of the little horn of Daniel and the prophecy of “the man of sin” of Paul are prophecies of the papacy, and we are therefore justified in the conclusion that the papacy is modern Babylon, “Babylon the Great” of our own time.
We may still further demonstrate this identification of “Babylon the Great” with the papacy by giving a little consideration to the number of the beast from the sea, mentioned in Revelation 13. “Here is wisdom. He that hath understanding, let him count the number of the beast; for it is the number of a man: and his number is six hundred and sixty and six.” The number of the pope, the man who is the head of “the mystery of iniquity,” is six hundred and sixty-six. But ancient Babylon had her system of mysteries, as well as modern Babylon, and in order to connect the two systems by showing that their numbers are the same “we have now only to inquire what was the name by which Nimrod was known as the god of the Chaldean Mysteries. That name . . . was Saturn. Saturn and Mystery are both Chaldean words, and they are correlative terms. As Mystery signifies the hidden system, so Saturn signifies the hidden god. To those who were initiated the god was revealed; to all else he was hidden. Now, the name Saturn in Chaldee is pronounced Satur, but, as every Chaldee scholar knows, consists of only four letters,—S-t-u-r. This name contains exactly the apocalyptic number 666:—
S equals 60
T equals 400
U equals 6
R equals 200
666
. . . Thus, then, the pope has a double claim to the name and number of the beast. He is the only legitimate representative of the original Saturn at this day in existence, and he reigns in the very city of the seven hills where the Roman Saturn formerly reigned; and, from his residence in which, the whole of Italy was ‘long after called by his name,’ being commonly named ‘the Saturnian land.’”
Who can doubt, then, that in the principles of government, in the religion, and in the religious teaching of ancient Babylon, we have a picture, a concrete prophecy, of modern Babylon, the papacy? and who can fail to see that in the experiences of ancient Babylon there are lessons of value for our own time? It is plain that in modern Babylon the great rebel leader is seeking to accomplish what he failed to accomplish in ancient Babylon. And as in the olden time the prophet Jeremiah uttered the warning, “Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and save every man his life; be not cut off in her iniquity;” so in this time we have the warning, “Come forth, my people, out of her, that ye have no fellowship with her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.” We may therefore receive light for our own experience in this last generation just before the final overthrow of “Babylon the Great” by studying the creed and the teaching of ancient Babylon, and by observing the cause of her downfall. This we hope to do in future articles.
General Conference Committee Council
By Arthur G. Daniells
DURING the past few days Brethren H. W. Cottrell, W. W. Prescott, W. C. White, Frederick Griggs, and the writer, all members of the General Conference Committee, have had an opportunity to counsel together regarding a number of important interests of the cause. As we looked over the field at home and abroad, and endeavored to discuss the various matters before us at this time, we were convinced that the General Conference Committee should be called together at the earliest date possible. For the purpose of meeting in a central place, and with the prospect of having the presence of Brother and Sister White with us, we decided to appoint the council to be held at College View, Neb., September 15-26.
The next session of the General Conference will be one of the important questions to be dealt with by the committee. Where and when shall this meeting be held? What arrangements shall be made for the proper attendance from both the home and foreign fields? What preparation can be made to make this session of the conference the blessing to the cause that it should be?
Another matter to be considered is the general missionary campaign during the next six months. What can be done to hasten the proclamation of this message into the dark places where its blessed light has not yet penetrated?
Sister White, who is about to return to her home in California, can be with us at the time and place mentioned above. We know that our brethren will greatly appreciate her counsels regarding the many important interests that will come before us for consideration.
I trust that all the members of the General Conference Committee who can consistently do so will attend this council. The first meeting will be held Thursday afternoon, September 15, at three o'clock. It is very probable that a public meeting will be held in the College View church each evening during the council. As soon as arrangements are made, we shall give particulars regarding entertainment, etc. Let all who come be on hand for the first meeting. May we not have the prayers of God's people for a very profitable council? A. G. DANIELLS.
Modern Methods of Finance
By L. A. S.
THE story of “Frenzied Finance,” which is being told by Thomas W. Lawson, Boston millionaire, in Everybody’s Magazine, constitutes a forcible commentary upon the words of the apostle James: “Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. . . . Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.”
In his account of the make-up and methods of the great Standard Oil machine, Mr. Lawson, who speaks from the knowledge gained by actual participation in its affairs, sets before us the means by which this latter-day heaping up of treasure is accomplished. It comes, as he shows us, through the channel of dishonesty. It is accumulated “loot,” obtained by acts of robbery compared with which the deeds of the most successful bank burglar or train robber pale into utter insignificance.
Of the many transactions which engage the activities of the Standard Oil octopus, the particular one of which Mr. Lawson speaks is that of “Amalgamated Copper.” This concern, he tells us, “was begotten in 1898, born in 1899, and in the first five years of its existence plundered the public to the extent of over one hundred millions of dollars.”
This was accomplished by unloading upon the public the shares of stock in “Amalgamated,” at a highly fictitious value created by “watering,” and adroit handling of the stock by “Wall Street’s king of manipulators.”
Amalgamated Copper, Mr. Lawson tells us, “is a corporation with $155,000,000 capital, 1,550,000 shares of the par value of one hundred dollars each. Its entire stock was sold to the public at an average of $115 per share ($100 to $130), and in 1903 the price had declined to $33 per share.”
This concern was built up, it appears, upon the foundation of the great Anaconda gold, silver, and copper mine, of which Marcus Daly was manager and6part owner, two other men being owners with him. Mr. Daly alone, however, knew the real value of the mine, there being hidden veins of ore which made its real worth far greater than its surface valuation. Mr. Daly conceived the idea of buying out his two partners at a price based on the mine’s surface valuation, and thus alone reaping the profits of the rich secret veins which he as manager had been careful to leave unworked, and of whose existence he alone knew.
He confided his scheme to the chief executive of Standard Oil, Mr. Henry H. Rogers, who undertook to finance it, with Mr. Daly as silent partner.
The surface valuation of the mine, based on the amount of ore ‘in sight,’ was $24,000,000. Some other properties were purchased with this for about $15,000,000, making a total of $39,000,000. These consolidated with the Anaconda made the Amalgamated company, and this was capitalized a few days after the purchase at $75,000,000. Thirty-nine millions were at once swelled to seventy-five millions. On this capitalization the shares were sold to the public; $36,000,000 ‘profits’ being thus realized out of $39,000,000 in a few days’ time. Nor did the $39,000,000 even belong to the few men who realized on it this enormous profit at the public expense, Mr. Lawson says, and promises to show in a future chapter of his story.
This is a sample instance of the methods by which unscrupulous men of ability in the modern world of finance, intoxicated with the power of wealth until they become insensible to the claims of honesty and justice, are heaping together treasure for the fires of the approaching day of God. To-day these men walk proudly, in defiance of any human power that would punish them or thwart their designs. But the hour is swiftly nearing when they will come face to face with a new Power concerning which they had not reckoned. Their startled ears will catch the sound of the chariot wheels of the coming King, and then will they ‘weep and howl’ for that which they see coming upon them.
L. A. S.
Sunday Is Not the Seventh Day
The New York Observer begins a discussion of the question of the “best use of Sunday” by saying:—
The question that needs to be asked, and asked with redoubled earnestness in this age, is, What sort of difference does the coming of Sunday make? In what respect is the seventh day better than the first, second, or third day of the week?
Can it be that the Observer’s almanac puts Sunday as the seventh day of the week? or that the Observer does not know that Sunday is the first day of the week, and not the seventh? If not, why does the Observer, speaking of Sunday, “inquire in what respect the seventh day is better than the first, second, or third day of the week?”
The Observer is, of course, considering Sunday as the Sabbath. But what value can its conclusions have when they are all based upon the idea that Sunday is the seventh day of the week?
Sunday may be a seventh day or a seventh part of time, but it is not and can not be the seventh day of the week. The Sabbath is and always must be the seventh day of the week; for the Creator, having worked six days, rested on, blessed, and sanctified the seventh day, and that made the week, with its seventh day the Sabbath. That is how the week originated, and the Sabbath and the week are inseparable. The Sabbath is a part of the week, occupying a definite and fixed place in it.
The Creator instituted the week, and man received it from him, and his eternal and unchangeable law commands the observance of the seventh day as the Sabbath, because of his resting on and blessing that day at the close of creation.
This is why men persist in getting Sunday mixed with the seventh day of the week. They acknowledge that they are bound to observe the seventh day as the Sabbath, according to the commandment; but no amount of mixing up of Sunday with the seventh day will make it the seventh day. It is surely a bad cause in which men are forced to make assumptions contrary to revelation, to history, and to the almanac.
Note and Comment
BISHOP POTTER'S effort to inaugurate a religious rumshop, to serve as a sort of poor man's club, seems to strike the religious world in general with surprise, as well it may. A rumshop can never be anything but a terrible curse, and the bishop's blessing which he is said to have pronounced upon it, can only make it worse than it was before, by increasing its power for evil. The character of evil can not be changed, and if God should pronounce a blessing on sin, it would only make sin infinitely worse than it is now. The bishop's idea, if we may judge from newspaper statements, draws condemnation from the church and ridicule from the world. Here, for example, is a brief quotation on the subject from the New York Sun:—
His project is the laughing-stock of every man who knows anything about the liquor business, and his shallow and silly arguments in defense of it as a great scheme for social elevation will meet only with ridicule among sensible frequenters of drinking bars. They are not worth a reply.
As one of our correspondents to-day remarks, if religion can properly go into such a partnership, it may as consistently go into any other business which caters to appetites of men, the indulgence in which provides the police with most of their business.
The religious rumshop will thrive for a few days or a few weeks as an absurd sensation, and its promoter's name will have an ephemeral notoriety. But eventually he and his rumshop will have to struggle along in obscurity as merely a single competitor of the thousands of saloons licensed in New York, and run by men far more competent for the business than an amateur liquor dealer.
The bishop's project, however, is quite characteristic of the times.
Philadelphia Sunday Ice Prosecutions Overturned
RECENTLY an attempt was made in Philadelphia to enforce the Sunday observance law of 1794, and a number of ice dealers were prosecuted for delivering ice on Sunday. For a number of weeks the crusade was continued, much to the discomfort, and even suffering, of the poor, and the indignation of a large majority of the people. A recent court decision has now caused the collapse of the crusade, according to the statements of a New England paper which says:—
The Philadelphia Sabbath Association has attempted to prohibit the sale of ice on Sunday under the ancient law of 1794. The magistrate before whom the action was brought fined a dealer for such sale. The dealer appealed. Now Judge Audenried, on appeal, reverses the decision in an opinion holding that ice is one of the necessities of life, not a luxury, as it was one hundred and ten years ago. A luxury, once indulged in, said this judge, becomes a necessity; and the argument adduced that the delivery of ice on Sunday can not be a necessary work, because if every family were to have refrigerators they could lay in sufficient ice on Saturday to last over Sunday, falls before the fact that not every family does have facilities for keeping ice. The actual conditions are what rule. “To insist on that argument,” says Judge Audenried, “would be on a par with requiring the shutting off on Sunday of the water-supply, on the ground that everybody might keep in his house a tank large enough to hold all the water required for household use over Sunday.” This is sound enough; and the prosecution simply illustrates the bigotry of the ultra-Sabbatarians.
Speaking of necessities, it is proper to observe that the enjoyment of natural, God-given rights, among which is the right to labor for the support of one’s self and family, is as much a necessity as anything can be, and on Sunday no less than on other days of the week.
Revolution in Paraguay and Uruguay
A REVOLUTION is reported in Paraguay, the object of which is the overthrow of the administration of President Ezcurra. Uruguay is also in the throes of this chronic Latin-American disorder, and serious fighting is said to have occurred recently, in which the government forces suffered a defeat.
The Refiner
’Tis sweet to know that he who tries
The silver, takes his seat
Beside the fire which purifies,
Lest too intense a heat,
Raised to consume the base alloy,
The precious metal, too, destroy.
’Tis sweet to think how well he knows
The silver’s power to bear
The ordeal through which it goes;
And that with skill and care
He’ll take it from the fire when fit,
With his own hand, to polish it.
’Tis blessed still to know that he
The work he has begun
Will not forsake till he can see
The work itself well done:
An image by its brightness shown,
The perfect likeness of his own!
But O! how much of earthly mold,
Dark relics of the mine
Lost from the ore, must he behold!
How long must he refine
Ere in the silver he can trace
The first faint semblance of his face?
Thou, great Refiner, sit thou by,
Thy purpose to fulfil;
Moved by thy hand, beneath thine eye,
And melted at thy will,
O may thy work forever shine,
Reflecting beauty pure as thine!