North Pacific Camp-Meeting and Biblical Institute.
By Editor
After prayerful consideration it has been decided to hold our camp-meeting June 24 to July 1; and probably at the city of Portland.
We are living in perilous times; the enemy of souls is on the track of every one who will endeavor to keep the commandments of God; and we know our only safety is in a thorough knowledge of, and strict obedience to, the Scriptures. Daily, prayerful study of the Bible is one of our first duties. But this has been neglected by nearly every one, and we shall not regain what we have lost by this neglect without a special effort. The spirit of Bible study must be revived.
It is with joy that we have seen the advancement made in other Conferences, by means of schools and biblical institutes. And believing that there are many in our Conferences who would make great sacrifices if necessary to secure the help in this line that we so much need, we have arranged to hold a Biblical Institute during the ten days preceding the camp-meeting.
Elder E. J. Waggoner, biblical instructor at Healdsburg College, will be present, and conduct the institute, which begins June 13 and continues till the 23d.
In addition to the Bible-class, instruction will be given as to the duty of church officers, Sabbath-school officers, librarians, canvassers, and colporters.
There are in every church those who should spend more or less time in placing the truth before others. Some could spend all of their time; others, both men and women, can take from home duties a few hours now and then, to devote to this work. We also have neighbors who would subscribe for our periodicals if their merits could be properly presented. By reading these papers an interest would be awakened, which should be followed up by appropriate Bible-readings. But those who should do this work do not know how either to properly prepare or to give these readings. How important then that we learn all we can at this Institute.
There are also those who desire to devote their time to canvassing and colporter work, but do not know how to approach the people, and, for want of this knowledge, after a few unsuccessful efforts, they give up in discouragement. This is not as the Master would have it, and some who desire it will never hear the "well done, good and faithful servant."
As classes will be formed and instruction given systematically, beginning the 13th, it will be important for those who desire to receive the full benefit, to commence with the beginning. Come the last of the preceding week, and have your tents pitched, and preparations made before the Sabbath. Arrangements will be made to furnish board for all who may desire it, who are present at the commencement, at the rate of two dollars per week.
Parents, do you want to become connected with and aid in giving this last message of mercy before it closes? Then come to this meeting and bring your children. Let them become acquainted with the work and the workers, and they will partake of the Spirit of the message. Church and tract society officers, do you want to be better fitted for your work? Then do not fail to come to these meetings. Time is so precious—it rushes on so rapidly—you cannot afford to wait another year.
CHAS. L. BOYD,
J. E. GRAHAM,
J. C. HALL,
Conference Committee.
Washington, D. C., Mission.
By J. W. S. Miller
MANY are becoming informed and convinced of the truth. We have two hundred readers. The days are too short for me. Inclosed please find three more yearly subscriptions to the SIGNS. J. W. S. MILLER.
Centerville, Oregon.
By H. W. Decker; J. Bartlett
WE pitched our tent in this place April 5, and have held four meetings, with an attendance of about one hundred. The people are very friendly, and manifest considerable interest in the meetings. The evenings are quite cool, but with a stove in the tent we keep it comfortable.
Centerville is a little village of about four hundred inhabitants, situated in the midst of a good farming country. We are of good courage and expect to see some fruit.
April 8, 1885. H. W. DECKER,
J. BARTLETT.
Honolulu, H. I.
By L. A. Scott
SINCE our last report I have visted Hilo, the principal town on the island of Hawaii, something over two hundred miles southeast of this city. The town is pleasantly located on Hilo Bay, toward the east end of the island, and favored with a most delightful climate; and the thickly wooded hills and mountains surrounding the place are in marked contrast to those around Honolulu, and the scenery in the distance is inspiring indeed, especially when one reflects that the Lord has often looked on this ground and so often touched these hills. Ps. 104:32.
The population of the town numbers between 1,000 and 1,200. I found but few English speaking families in the place, most of whom I met in canvassing for our periodicals. There is a school for boys in the place, carried on under the auspices of the Congregational Church, where manual labor is combined with study, the students devoting a part of each day to the cultivation of the ground belonging to the institution. There are about seventy students in attendance at present.
I met with a good degree of success in canvassing, obtaining thirteen subscribers. In conversing on the near coming of Christ, and kindred subjects, with those whom I met, I found some who seemed well disposed to search the Scriptures to see if these things were so (Acts 17:11), while others were quite conservative. The Library Club of the place accepted a set of our books, and I left a "Read and Return" distributer at the house where I put up.
The work here in Honolulu is making visible progress, and we trust that the seed which is being sown will fall on good ground, and bear fruit to the glory and honor of God. There are now in these islands ninety-three subscribers to our periodicals. There have been distributed over fifty thousand pages of tracts; twenty-three ships have been supplied with reading matter; over one hundred dollars' worth of books have been sold, and fifteen distributers are doing duty on land and sea.
Altogether we feel quite encouraged, and trust that in due time we shall reap, if we faint not. We earnestly desire the prayers of God's people, that his blessing may attend the work here in these distant islands. L. A. Scott.
April 1, 1885.
Upper Columbia Conference.
By George W. Colcord
SINCE the 15th of January I have spent about seven weeks at six different places northeast of Walla Walla, besides work done in Walla Walla Valley. After holding encouraging services with the church at Dayton, Brother W. R. Jones and I were with the brethren and sisters at Pataha Prairie over two Sabbaths. Here trine immersion had been a stumbling block to several for years. We gave a Bible-reading on the subject, and all but one favored the Bible mode. One young man verbally confessed the truth, and another signed the covenant.
At Colfax we gave two readings and I spoke six times. Four signed the covenant.
On Dry Creek I gave a brief course of sermons, which, together with other labor at Garfield, and in families, resulted in five signing the covenant. Remembering the words of Isa. 58:1, 12, I spoke plainly, and, as partial results, tobacco was condemned, wrong habits in diet were confessed, and at one place three sisters together laid aside their jewelry. More than twenty-five in Whitman County have vowed to obey the truth, as results of labor done by Elder J. Bartlett and others since our last conference.
G. W. COLCORD.
Walla Walla, W. T., March 27, 1885.
A Japanese Girl's Simile.
At a class-meeting in Japan where a number of Christian girls were gathered together, the subject was, "How to glorify Christ by our lives." One of the girls said: "It seems to me like this: one spring my mother got some flower seeds, little ugly, black things, and planted them; they grew and blossomed beautifully. One day a neighbor coming in and seeing these flowers said, 'Oh, how beautiful! I must have some too; won't you please give me some seed?' Now if this neighbor had only just seen the flower seeds, she wouldn't have called for them; 'twas only when she saw how beautiful was the blossom that she wanted the seed. And so with Christianity; when we speak to our friends of the truths of the Bible, they seem to them hard and uninteresting, and they say: 'We don't care to hear about these things; they are not so interesting as our own stories;' but when they see these same truths blossoming out in our lives into kindly words and good acts, then they say, 'How beautiful these lives! What makes them different from other lives?' And when they hear that 'tis Jesus' teaching, then they say, 'We must have it too!' And thus by our lives more than by our tongues, we can preach Christ to our unbelieving friends."—Sel.
Religion in Tahiti
THE island of Tahiti, one of the first in Polynesia to be reached by missionary efforts, has to-day a motley population of natives, Europeans, and Chinese, numbering, in all the group, 9,551. The French protectorate began in 1844 and ended in colonial annexation shortly after the death of Queen Pomare, in 1878. An article by Rev. Mr. Pearse, in the Chronicle of the London Missionary Society, speaks of the present condition of the island, affirming that there is great drunkenness and profligacy among the people not connected with the Protestant mission. There is full freedom of worship, and the papist and Protestant forms of religion are living side by side, the former being under the patronage of the Government. The Government schools are Roman Catholic, and the natives who are adherents of that faith are not called to bear any of the expense of public worship. But the contrast in results is very striking. Among the native population the Protestants outnumber the papists ten to one. The eighteen Protestant churches have 2,377 members, besides adherents, while the ten papist churches have not more than 200 members with adherents. The hold that true religion has over this native population is spoken of as wonderful. Against the baneful example of the foreign population, and surrounded with manifold temptations, these native Christians are living faithful, prayerful, godly lives.—Sel.
Seeing One's Self.
By Esther Converse
"There's Fan Huntly and her father; do see her new suit, Julia," said Mabel Grant to her friend.
A grave look came over Julia's face as she turned and saw, not the suit at first, but an elderly man whose anxious face, bent form, and plain attire told of a life of hardship, if not of poverty. Without overcoat or gloves, though the morning was chill, his cheerless appearance contrasted painfully with the elegantly-dressed daughter by his side. Then she saw the velvet suit, costly hat, feathers, laces, and gloves that made Fan Huntly the admiration of her companions. She turned away without speaking.
"Isn't she stylish?" continued Mabel. "Why, Julia, there are tears in your eyes; what is it?"
"He will reach the end of his journey before she knows how tired he is; she will never overtake him," said Julia.
"What do you mean? You are so odd," exclaimed Mabel. "What has changed you so? Lately you seem not to care about your dress or anything. I never see the furs and the lovely silk you wore when I met you in the city. I don't wish to be inquisitive, Julia, but why do you not wear them?"
Julia colored and hesitated before she replied, "Because my mother has no furs nor silk."
"Because your mother"—repeated her companion.
"I knew you would not understand. Mabel, were you less sympathetic and appreciative, I could not explain; you would only smile at the trivial incidents that have affected me so seriously. I hope I am changed, and I will tell you if you really wish it. You know I spent Christmas in the city. Uncle Henry gave me those furs; the dress was Aunt Mary's gift. My cloak and hat were new, and more costly than I have usually worn. I have seldom felt more complacent than when I went to church one Sunday morning wearing my entire outfit for the first time. I was not in a frame of mind to engage in worship. My attention was soon drawn to a lady who bore a striking resemblance to my mother. She was dressed in worn, faded garments that heightened the wan, pathetic expression of a refined face. Two daughters were with her, I wish you could have seen those girls. Dressed in the extreme of fashion, with a profusion of laces, silks, velvets, feathers, bracelets, chains, and ear-rings, they seemed intent upon display.
"Do you remember in 'Dombey and Son' the meeting of Edith and her mother with two other figures 'like an exaggerated imitation of their own?' Edith thought one like 'a distorted shadow of her mother,' and in the other she recognized enough that was like herself 'to strike her with unusual feeling.' I thought of that picture, for I saw myself in one of those over-dressed girls. No, the resemblance was not imaginary; Aunt Mary saw it. Like Edith I seemed to feel a 'chill creep over me, as if the day were darkening and the wind were colder.' I thought of mother here at church in the faded cloak, worn cashmere, and old gloves, and I hated my new furs, cloak, and silk. I saw many a significant glance directed towards that group. Aunt Mary told me about them, that the mother had been untiring in her devotion to these daughters, denying herself to provide for their education; that now, though able to repay her care and sacrifice, the home remained unchanged in its poverty, and the mother destitute of comforts necessary to one so delicate.
"My conscience 'wakened many a bitter memory,' and if it was not a parallel case, it was a slight exaggeration. I thought of the bracelets I bought last summer, and of the old shabby carpet in mother's room, of my new velvet basque, and of the overcoat father needed, but did not buy. At Sunday-school I saw that engraving from 'Pilgrim's Progress'—the people journeying to the beautiful gate of the city that stands on a mighty hill; and in my sleep at night, I seemed to be climbing the hill seeking father and mother. I entered a path bright with flowers and sunshine, and wherever I looked I saw girls dressed like those I have described. Wandering on, I soon found another path, bleak and dreary, with nothing to brighten the solitude except a faint gleam of golden light from beyond. Here were the poor, the aged, and feeble, toiling up the steep path, bearing heavy burdens that young, strong arms could have borne so easily. At last, in the distance, I saw my father and mother, nearing the end of the journey and bending under burdens I recognized as my own. I tried to overtake them; I entreated them to wait; but it was too late; they were just passing from my sight when I cried out and awoke. It was only a dream, but to me it seemed only too real. Our parents toil on, leaving us to walk in the pleasant paths. We take everything and do not see that they are left cold and bare.
"I was thoroughly aroused and impressed; I saw how mother had denied herself to gratify my wishes; it was my turn to make sacrifices. I resolved to lay aside my furs and silk until mother was provided with better clothing. A cloak she must have, or I felt that I could not wear my own. I need not explain how I accomplished this. Father helped me a little, saying, 'I wish I could do more, but Johnnie's illness has been expensive.' How grateful I was that he did not remind me of the heavy drafts I made upon his purse before I went to the city. On mother's birthday father asked her to ride over to Aunt Jane's, and as I went for her bonnet and cloak; she said, 'Bring the old shawl, too, Julia, my cloak is thin for such a day.' I came in softly and wrapped the new cloak around her. 'What is it?' she asked, shrinking from it in surprise, as she felt the fur. I put my arms around her and cried. Dozens of silks could not make me so happy as I am when I see her in that nice, warm cloak.
"I have overtaken father and mother before they passed from my sight, and I shall walk with them in shadow and sunlight. I do not intend to make a virtue of plain dress, but I do purpose to wear nothing showy, or nothing more expensive than mother wears. When I see girls dressed like Fan Huntly, I cannot help thinking about the father and the home. I wonder if the walls and floors are bare, or if there is money enough for all.
"I have answered your question. Yes, I am changed. Am I odd to heed the lessons?"
There was no reply, but Julia, looking up, read an answer in the thoughtful face and tearful eyes of her companion.
The Home Circle.
BEAUTIFUL.
Beautiful faces are those that wear—
It matters little if dark or fair—
Whole-souled honesty printed there.
Beautiful eyes are those that show
Like crystal panes where hearth-fires glow,
Beautiful thoughts that burn below.
Beautiful lips are those whose words
Leap from the heart like songs of birds,
Yet whose utterance prudence girds.
Beautiful hands are those that do
Work that is earnest and brave and true,
Moment by moment the long day through.
Beautiful feet are those that go
On kindly ministry to and fro,
Down lowliest ways if God wills so.
Beautiful shoulders are those that bear
Ceaseless burdens of homely care,
With patient grace and daily prayer.
Beautiful lives are those that bless—
Silent rivers of happiness,
Whose hidden fountains but few may guess.
Beautiful twilight at set of sun,
Beautiful goal with race well run,
Beautiful rest with work well done. —Sel.
As Quick as the Telephone.
ONE night, a well-known citizen of a Western city, who had been walking for some time in the downward path, came out of his house and started down town for a night of carousal with some old companions he had promised to meet. His young wife had besought him, with imploring eyes, to spend the evening with her, and had reminded him of the time when evenings passed in her company were all too short. His little daughter had clung about his knees, and had coaxed in her pretty, willful way, for "papa" to tell her some bed-time stories; but habit was stronger than love for child and wife, and he eluded her tender questioning by the deceits and excuses which are the convenient refuge of the intemperate, and so went on his way.
When he was some blocks distant from his home, he found that, in changing his coat, he had forgotten to remove his wallet; and he could not go out on a drinking bout without money, even though he knew his family needed it and his wife was economizing every day more and more, in order to make up his deficits. So he hurried back, and crept softly past the window of his little home, in order that he might steal in and obtain it without running the gauntlet of either questions or caresses.
But, as he looked through the window, something stayed his feet. There was a fire in the grate within, for the night was chill, and it lit up the little parlor and brought out in startling effect the pictures on the wall. But these were nothing to the pictures on the hearth. There, in the soft glow of the fire-light, knelt his child at her mother's feet, its small hands clasped in prayer, its fair head bowed; and as its rosy lips whispered each word with childish distinctness, the father listened, spell-bound, to the words which he himself had so often uttered at his own mother's knee—
"Now I lay me down to sleep."
His thoughts ran back to his boyhood hours; and, as he compressed his bearded lips, he could see in memory the face of that mother, long since gone to her rest, who taught his own infant lips prayers which he had long forgotten to utter.
The child went on, and completed her little verse, and then, as prompted by the mother, continued—
"God bless mamma, papa, and my own self;" then there was a pause, and she lifted her troubled blue eyes to her mother's face.
"God bless papa," prompted the mother, softly.
"God—bless papa," lisped the little one.
"And—please send him home sober." He could not hear the mother as she said this; but the child followed in a clear, inspired tone—
Mother and child sprung to their feet in alarm, when the door opened so suddenly; but they were not afraid when they saw who it was. That night, when little Mary was being tucked up in bed, after such a romp with papa, she said, in the sleepiest and most contented of voices—
"Mamma, God answers most as quick as the telephone, doesn't he?"—Sel.
The Spirit of Criticism
By United Presbyterian
A SPIRIT of criticism, if indulged in, leads to a censoriousness of disposition that is destructive of all nobler feeling. The man who lives to find fault has a miserable mission.—United Presbyterian.
The Limits of Pleasure
By Fuller
VENTURE not to the utmost bounds of even lawful pleasure; the limits of good and evil join.—Fuller.
Health and Temperance.
By Mrs. Mary H. Hunt
It Is Our Children They Want.
OUR Government is only as strong as the moral character back of the hands that drop the ballot. The keystone of its whole great arch is the capacity of the individual citizen for self-government. We expended and consumed, last year, nearly one thousand millions of dollars for beverages aptly styled "Satan in solution," because of their power to destroy the self-governing capacity of the drinker. Why are we spending our money thus? Asking all along the line of the consumers, when we get an honest answer, it is, "I like it." The evil, then, is one of appetite, personal, imperious appetite for a chemical poison.
Tradition tells us that some four thousand years ago the emperor of China issued an edict forbidding the citizens of his kingdom to drink alcoholic beverages for a given time, and that thereafter it rained gold for three days. It would rain gold for three hundred and sixty-five days in a year if we could forbid it in this country. But the old English adage, that "A man's house is his castle," describes the circle around the individual over which law in a republic cannot go. It cannot say to a man, "You shall not drink." It can say, "You shall not sell to your neighbor." But what if a majority of the neighbors want to buy what the man has to sell? It is a government of majorities. If these drinking habits are unchecked, the limitations before us as a nation are fixed by certain scientific laws. In our trouble we appeal to the Government, only to find ourselves confronted with the fact that when the majority of the men on the outside of the saloon want what the man on the inside has to sell, we are in an embarrassing situation. A republic has no power with which it can coerce majorities.
If the conscience and understanding are enlightened, the individual citizen will be capable of self-government, was the foundation idea of the republic. Vermont, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, and Rhode Island propose to test the power of enlightened understandings and consciences to control this evil; for the laws of these States make the study of the effects of alcoholic drinks and other narcotics in connection with physiology, mandatory in all their public schools. A brighter to-morrow is dawning for the inhabitants of those States.
That which we would have appear in the character of citizenship, should be wrought into that character through the schools, is an axiom of education.
Who have been the opposers to this movement? Not the saloon men.
This legislation is found to be in harmony with natural law, in its appeal to two great forces in the human heart:—
First, self-preservation in the pulpit, and second, paternal instinct, even in the traffic itself; for if a man keeps a saloon, he does not want his boy to keep a saloon. If a man drinks, he does not want his boy to drink. Saloon-keepers have signed petitions for these laws again and again. Who, then, are the opposers? The brewers! Why? Because they have vested interests,—real estate and money invested in breweries. They are looking out for their dividends, ten, fifteen, and twenty years hence. The children of to-day are wanted by the brewers for the drunkards of to-morrow. It is our children they want. They do not want them thus taught, but left in ignorance to buy their beer, to be the beer-bloats of to-morrow. A self-governing people must be a sober people, training its children to sobriety. The death knell of the possibilities of Washington's ideas dominating not only our country, but pervading other nations, is sounded when a State refuses such education.
The mothers of Massachusetts are petitioning their Legislature, now in session, for this temperance education law. I stand here to represent that motherhood. The brewers are competing for our children. Who shall win? Shall the brewers?—Mrs. Mary H. Hunt.
Both Sides.
By Louise J. Kirkwood
Two FARMERS, in an easy-going sort of way, were jogging along a country road together. As they came in sight of the country church, whose sloping roof showed the patches of new shingles, it naturally suggested remark. From the church the conversation found an easy road to the parson.
Farmer Blake, who was well known in the neighborhood as cherishing a pique at the parson, spoke up with an enlivened tone, as if the subject had a special relish for him:—
"I ain't no Christian myself, though I'm free to confess I wish I was, just for the sake of feeling easy like against a time that's comin', surer nor sunset, but I'll be bound if I care to be one like the parson over there. They say religion is good to make a man open-handed, and good-tempered, and unselfish, but as near as I can figger, the parson aint nary one on 'em. T'other day he kept Larry splittin' wood for him from mornin' till dark, for just three shillin's. That's what I call close-fisted; an' him a gittin' his clear six hundred a year, and not a chick nor a child to raise onto it. And haven't I known him to lay abed mornin's till the smoke was a pourin' out of his chimney, and his wife firing away at the t'other end getting of his breakfast? That's what I call downright lazy and selfish. As for his temper, I can't say as I ever heard him say anything outright pesky mad; but he looks solemnner nor an owl, most times, and makes you feel as if the east wind was blowin' at yer, more nor the sun shinin' around yer."
"Neighbor Blake," said his companion, after a little pause, "have you got done firin' those shots? If you think you've hit anything, you're mighty mistaken. Blank catridges; that's all they be. To begin with, there ain't a more generous, self-sacrificing man a goin' than just that man, Parson Williams, over yonder, and I know it. One thing I know for certain, he gives a clean hundred dollars a year to old Parson Coe, down to Concord, who has been on his back for years with rheumatism, and him no kin to him, neither, only, as he says, in the Lord; and that ain't the end of his givin', neither, though how he can give more out of six hundred dollars beats me. Another thing I know, he gets the dyspepsia the very worst way, sometimes, and don't half sleep nights, and if his wife, who can sleep, has a mind to get up such times and start the fire, I don't think it is any business of ourn, nor anything agen him. As for his looks, he can't help them, for I do allow he does look kinder down-hearted sometimes, but it's all owin' to his havin' the dyspepsia in the worst way. I tell you it takes a power of kingdom come in a man to hold up his head like a sunflower when he's carryin' a load like lead in his stomach. As for Larry's tellin' he got only three shillin' for splittin' wood, he's been lyin', that's all. He got a good half-barrel of first-class potatoes along with it, and I know it. That's what I call pretty good picking, not considering what a shirk Larry is, especially a splittin' wood. So I think, neighbor, you had better stop figgerin' the parson's character; you can't prove your sums, nohow."
"It's fair for me to confess," he went on to say, in a softened tone, "that he's helped me to see some things the way I never saw them before, and if ever I do get inside of them golden gates, it will be a great deal along of the parson's pointin' out the way so plain, and I advise you, neighbor Blake, to be gettin' ready right off, for a time which you say yourself, for a truth, is comin' surer nor sunset. It isn't a business, neighbor, that can be ketched up when you're near dyin'."
"That's so," responded Farmer Blake in a subdued tone, "and if all you say about the parson is true, I'll be bound if I oughtn't to take back what I said."—Louise J. Kirkwood, in Christian at Work.
A Suggestive Catechism.
Question.—What is the population of the city of New York?
Answer.—1,206,299.
Q.—How many places of religious worship in the city?
A.—489.
Q.—How much is annually required for their support?
A.—$3,000,000.
Q.—On an equal division, how many men, women, and children to each church?
A.—2,466.
Q.—How many liquor-drinking places in the city?
A.—9,075 licensed, and more than 1,000 unlicensed; over 10,000 in all.
Q.—How much is annually spent in them?
A.—$60,000,000, or twenty times more than for the support of the churches.
Q.—How many grog-shops to every 120 men, women, and children?
A.—One.
Q.—How many men, women, and children to every church?
A.—2,466. One church for every 2,466, and one grog shop for every 120.
Q.—How many persons were arrested and committed to the city prison by the police in 1882?
A.—44,578.
Q.—How many of these were of intemperate habits?
A.—33,432, or three-fourths of the whole number.
Q.—How much did the city treasury receive as fees for the licensure of these 9,075 drinking places in 1882?
A.—$500,000.
Q.—How much did the city treasury expend during the same time for cost of police, the courts, and charities, directly and indirectly, chargeable to the liquor traffic?
A.—$9,000,000.
Q.—Is it a wise municipal economy to license, patronize, or tolerate a business which requires an expenditure of eighteen dollars for every one received?
A.—Such is the opinion and practice of some.
Q.—What about the crimes of violence, the destitution, the neglect, the tears, the sorrows, the wretchedness, the lost hopes, the lost souls, and woes occasioned by this losing business, the blackest this side of the bottomless pit?
A.—What do the liquor-dealers, the patrons of the grog-shops, and their apologists care for all that is involved in such questions?—Sel.
Drunkenness and Licensed Saloons
An exchange says: "A man recently got drunk in an Eastern town where saloons are licensed, and was arrested and fined, but appealed the case to the Circuit Court on the ground that a town has no right to fine a man for getting drunk after licensing saloons to sell liquor. He won the case."
Prison Statistics by State
The annual report of the Inspectors of State-prisons of Maine shows the proportion in the prisons of the State to be but 1 in every 1,591 of population, while in New York State it is 1 in every 577; in New Jersey, 1 in every 707; Massachusetts, 1 in every 487; Iowa, 1 in every 2,003.
Warning Against Drunkenness and Gluttony
"Be not among winebibbers; among riotous eaters of flesh; for the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty; and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags. Hearken unto thy father, . . . and despise not thy mother when she is old." Prov. 23:20-22.
SECULAR.
—Nebraska reports fruit of all kinds in fine condition.
—Nine whales were recently killed on the coast of Maine.
—Cherries were shipped from Vacaville, Cal., week before last.
—The town of Marysville, Tenn., was nearly destroyed by fire, April 6.
—Many arrests of anarchists have recently been made in some of the cantons of Switzerland.
—The thermometrical register of New York shows the coldest February and March for fifteen years.
—The Washington Monument was struck three times by lightning April 8. No damage reported.
—The steamer Michigan, which was held forty-two days in the ice on Lake Michigan, sunk March 22.
—In the public schools in Sweden, four hours a week are devoted to instruction in mechanical arts.
—A new morning paper, devoted to the interests of a high protective tariff, and having a capital of $100,000, will soon be published in New York.
—The endowment of Girard College is $10,138,000; of Columbia, $6,250,000; of Harvard, $4,500,000.
—Additional troops left the Brooklyn Navy Yard last week to protect American interests at Aspinwall.
—April 6, one of the gangways of the Cuyler Colliery, near Shenandoah, Penn., caved in, burying ten men.
—The Australian Frozen Meat Company lost $30,000 in the last six months, from their English shipments.
—Bartholdi's statue of "Liberty Enlightening the World" will leave Rouen for New York about the last of April.
—The paint shop and spar shed of the Norfolk Navy Yard were burned April 5. The loss is said to be very heavy.
—A number of Benedictine Sisters from Switzerland have located at Uniontown, W. T., where they intend to open schools.
—Miss Caroline F. Whiting has been principal of the East Twenty-seventh Street Grammar School of New York for fifty years.
—At last, ninety years after the death of the Scotch poet, Robert Burns, a marble bust of him has been placed in Westminster Abbey.
—An official proclamation from Constantinople was issued April 8, denouncing El Mahdi as an imposter and robber chief of the vilest stamp.
—The Canadian Pacific Railway promises to run its first train through from Quebec to Port Moody on August 22d, and will make the trip in 105 hours.
—A post-office has been established at Massowah, the chief town of a sterile island in the Red Sea, and said by geographers to be the hottest place on earth.
—Two Christian temperance women were recently fined ten dollars each by a Justice of the Peace in Cornwall, N. Y., for disturbing the liquor saloons of that town, by prayer!
—Louisiana is said to be the "worst whisky scourged State in the South," having 5,380 retail liquor dealers, while Mississippi, with 200,000 more population, has but 931.
—The Manitoba rebellion has become formidable. The Indians connected with it have up to date massacred fourteen whites who were considered enemies to their movement.
—The Mormons are much dissatisfied with the late rulings of the Supreme Court, which declares constitutional the Edmunds Act, which was framed to abolish polygamy in Utah.
—General Barrios, president of Guatemala, and would-be dictator of all Central America, has been killed. His successor has been chosen in the person of General Manuel Lizandro Barrillos.
—It is rumored that an American syndicate has been formed to colonize American citizens in Nicaragua. Among those engaged in the scheme are prominent politicians of Michigan and New York.
—A terrific storm and tidal wave occurred on the English coast April 7. The steamship Germanic, which had just left Queenstown with passengers for New York, encountered the storm and was forced to return to port.
—The late war news from the Afghan frontier has caused a great excitement in the Produce Exchange, New York. On April 8, 10,000,000 bushels of wheat changed hands, and prices advanced seven cents per bushel.
—The "Victorian Year Book," just published, gives the population of Victoria, Australia, for March 31, 1884, at 938,937. The population of Australia together with Tasmania and New Zealand is increasing at the rate of 110,000 a year.
—A naval officer in Washington says that the Russian Minister to this country has endeavored to secure the services of an American naval officer to purchase vessels for Russia to be used in case of war between that country and England.
—After a long fight over the matter, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad has succeeded in obtaining the right of way for their road into the city of Philadelphia, where they will make connection with the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad.
—Vermont has started to solve the question of ignorant and incompetent juries. A law passed by the last Legislature provides for the drawing of special juries in important cases. It is first being applied in the trial of the case of ex-Gov. John B. Page, of Rutland. The jury drawn consists of leading citizens of the county outside of Rutland.255
—A decree was recently issued by the Viceroy of Yunnan, China, for the destruction of all Roman Catholics and foreigners. In obedience to the order it is said that several Roman Catholic villages were destroyed, and some hundreds of converts killed.
—Russian troops attacked the Afghans entrenched at Penjdeh, on the Afghan frontier, March 30, and killed 200 of the garrison. The English regard the act, so it is said, as a formal declaration of war between themselves and Russia, and will at once send 12,000 re-enforcements to India.
—The National Temperance Society is to have a "Temperance Centennial," commencing Sunday, Sept. 20, 1885, at which temperance sermons and lectures will be delivered by ministers of all denominations. A committee will select the place of meeting, and perfect arrangements.
—England has ordered 5,000,000 pounds of canned meat from Chicago, and 200,000 swords of the Ames Manufacturing Company of Chicopee, Mass. So says the Christian at Work. It may be that England wishes to introduce the millennium, and is buying stock of which to make plowshares.
—Judge Ewing, of Pittsburg, Penn., has decided that a store order given by any company to an employe is illegal. Miners in Western Pennsylvania who have been compelled to accept such orders now propose to enter suit against their employers to recover wages. It is said that claims amounting to several hundred thousands of dollars will be presented.
A Warning.
By Christian Union
RARELY has the danger from drinking impure well water been brought more forcibly to mind than during the past week. A gentleman recently bought and removed to a farm three miles north of Stamford, Conn., in a little hamlet known as Roxbury. During the past week the owner and his two children were buried. On investigation it has been found that the well water had been poisoned by drainage from the barn-yard and out-buildings. Comment is unnecessary; the fact speaks for itself. That the same conditions exist in thousands of homes there is no doubt. Nor is there any doubt that many of those who will be bereaved and left desolate will derive spiritual comfort and consolation from the thought that "whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth," never doubting that death comes from the Lord. Death may well be called an avenger, for death is the avenger of broken and neglected laws of health.
The porosity of the soil is not understood as it should be. A vessel of any sort filled with dry earth, compressed as much as possible, will still absorb one-quarter to one-third of its own bulk of water without overflow. This not only proves the danger from drainage into wells and cisterns, but also proves the dangers arising from the gases which are the result of decomposition.
The season of warm weather is approaching, and one that is looked forward to with peculiar dread, and it behooves every householder to look well to the ways of his household out-of-doors. Where the habit of throwing slops and refuse around the house has been formed, stop it, and use all possible means to remedy the evil that has been done, by providing suitable arrangements for the convenience and health of the household.