Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 21, 1875
THE MILLENNIUM.
By James White
(Concluded.)
Having examined the principal texts quoted to prove the conversion of the world, and having shown that they do not mean what they are said to mean, we will call attention to some of the many direct proofs that no such state of things can exist prior to the second advent.
1. The prevalence of the little horn. “I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them; until the Ancient of Days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the Most High; and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom.” Dan. 7:21, 22. “But the saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom forever, even forever and ever.” Verse 18. Here it will be seen that the little horn makes war with the saints until they take the kingdom, and when they once obtain the kingdom, they hold it forever and ever. Where, then, is there room for that period of peace and triumph of the church called the temporal millennium?
2. The apostasy. In 2 Thess. 2:1–7, Paul states what would take place before the second coming of Christ. Is it the triumph of the world’s conversion? No; it is the sad apostasy, the falling away, and the manifestation of the papacy, the man of sin, who will continue to the end. The apostle speaks of the manifestation and destruction of this blasphemous power in these words: “And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming.” Verse 8.
3. The wicked continue with the righteous, as illustrated by the parable of the wheat and tares, until the end of the Christian age. See Matt. 13:24–30. The friends of the doctrine of the world’s conversion find this parable directly in their way, and they have wearied themselves in laboring to explain it away. But, as our divine Lord, by special request, gave an explanation of it, modesty suggests that we accept his explanation. See verses 36–43. We simply repeat, “The field is the world.” “The good seed are the children of the kingdom.” “The tares are the children of the wicked one.” “Let both grow together until the harvest.” “The harvest is the end of the world.”
4. Persecution and tribulation were to be the portion of the church of God in all ages. The apostle speaks of the faithful who had lived and suffered before, who “had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment; they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword; they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented (of whom the world was not worthy); they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise; God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.” Heb. 11:36–40. He also points to the future, and says: “Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” 2 Tim. 3:12.
5. The last days of human probation have been regarded as the favored period for the completion of the great work of converting the world. But the prophets of the Old Testament nowhere represent God as saying that the last days would be glorious. Jesus and the apostles of the New Testament never speak of the last days as a period of triumph to the church; but rather as the days of her peril, which demand especial watching; the days of her mourning and tears and importunate prayers for deliverance. Paul describes the last days thus: “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof; from such turn away.” 2 Tim. 3:1–5.
6. Peter says: “There shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming?” 2 Pet. 3:3, 4. How could these scoffers arise and deny his coming, and persecutions and perils exist in the last days, if all were converted long before his coming?
7. The last days embrace the very last day, reaching down to the coming of the Son of man. The days of the coming of the Son of man were to be like the days of Noah and Lot. “And as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.” Luke 17:26–30.
8. Destruction, not conversion, awaits the world at the very time when many popular professors cherish the delusive hope of a good time coming. They see no danger, and brand as fanatical alarmists those who obey the prophetic injunction, “Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain; let all the inhabitants of the land tremble; for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand.” Joel 2:1. But, says the apostle: “When they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them.” 1 Thess. 5:3.
9. The way to destruction is broad, and many go in it; and the way to life is narrow, and but few find it. When one asked Jesus, “Are there few that be saved?” he answered, “Strive to enter in at the strait gate; for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.” Luke 13:23, 24. Again it is recorded, “Enter ye in at the strait gate; for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat; because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” Matt. 7:13, 14. The doctrine of the world’s conversion, and that of universal salvation, are both directly opposed to this passage. The one has the way to life narrow at first, but growing wider, until all walk in it; while the other has the way to life always wide enough for all the world. But our Lord states a great fact in this passage, which existed when spoken, ever had existed, and which would exist until the close of probation; namely, that the way to destruction was broad, and many would go in it; and that the way to life was narrow, and few would find it.
But when the few of each successive generation, from righteous Abel to the close of probation, who have bent their lonely footsteps in the narrow path to Mount Zion, shall reach their everlasting rest, they will constitute that “great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues,” arrayed in Heaven’s purity. Not one of these had come out of that imaginary period of a converted world. No; not one. What an imposing scene! “And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they? And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” Rev. 7:13, 14.
J. W.
THE SABBATH COMMANDMENT
By J. H. Waggoner
THE LAW OF GOD.—NO. 2.
BY J. H. WAGGONER.
THE SABBATH COMMANDMENT.
ALL the objections which are urged against the ten commandments are aimed at the fourth commandment. Were it not for this, few of them would be put forth. And they are not generally intended to have any effect on any other. Thus it is claimed that there is no precept for keeping the Sabbath until the Israelites were brought out of Egypt, nor any record of anybody keeping it previous to that time. If this were true, and if it did furnish evidence against the Sabbath, what shall we say of the third commandment? for there is not a hint concerning it or its violation till after the exode. But two positions can be taken respecting it by opposers of the law:—
(1.) That it was then necessarily of force, though not mentioned, as the name of God was as “holy and reverend” as now; and as much to be honored as now. This we accept; and the conclusion follows that a law is proved to exist where the reason is proved to exist. But we have positive proof that the Sabbath was a sacred, sanctified institution from the creation of the world; and therefore the duty to “keep it holy” also existed. It “was made for man;” Mark 2:27; and as it was made at the time of creation, of course it was sanctified, or “set apart” for man at that time. This is conclusive.
(2.) The absence of any mention of profanity, or of taking the name of God in vain, in the book of Genesis, may be offered as evidence that it, with the other parts of the ten commandments, were not binding until the exode, and then only binding on the Jews. But besides the evidence offered on the other commandments, we have proof direct and positive against this objection. In Lev. 18 the Lord gave instructions to Israel to avoid the ways of the Canaanites, among which is the following: “Neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God.” “For all these abominations have the men of the land done, which were before you, and the land is defiled.” Verses 21, 27. And in Deut. 18, speaking of the sins committed by the nations in Canaan, he said: “Because of these abominations the Lord doth drive them out from before thee.”
Now apply to these declarations the words of Paul to the Romans: “Where no law is there is no transgression,” and, “Sin is not imputed when there is no law.” But sin was imputed to them, and among their sins was the violation of the third commandment. They were guilty of profaning the name of God. Therefore they knew of the existence of such a law, though we have no record of its having been given.
4. Remember the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.
The following remarks from the pen of Eld. J. N. Andrews are worthy of careful consideration:—
“In the absence of direct testimony either way, it is by no means certain that ‘holy men of old’ did not regard the Sabbath. We read of their reckoning time by weeks, and by sevens of days. Gen. 29:27, 28; 8:10, 12. The [reckoning of time by weeks is not derived from anything in nature, and can be traced to but one source, to wit: the six days’ work of creation, and the rest of the seventh. It is not very likely that the work of creation should be remembered and commemorated, and the rest and sanctification of the holy Sabbath should be forgotten.”
“But were it possible to show a violation of the Sabbatic institution in the patriarchal age, it would no more destroy the sacred character of that institution than a plain violation of the institution of marriage on the part of some of the patriarchs affects the sacredness of the marriage institution.” Mal. 2:14, 15; Gen. 2:21–24; Matt. 19:4–8; Mark 10:6–8, compared with Gen. 16; 25:6; 29:30.
“Both of these institutions were made for man before the fall. Mark 2:27; Gen. 2:1–3; 1 Cor. 11:12; Gen. 2:18. Their sanctity is not derived from the decalogue; but the fourth commandment guards the sacredness of one, and the seventh, the other. Gen. 20:8–11, 14.”
Inasmuch as the sole aim of objectors and opposers is to disprove the obligation of the Sabbath both in the patriarchal age and in our own, we might reasonably expect to find some reason urged against this institution and its commandment which would not rest against the other commandments. But this is not the case. To the contrary there is more and stronger evidence in its favor than can be found in favor of most of the other precepts of the decalogue. And only one other, the seventh, has equal claims to having been given to man before his fall from innocence.
Before the law was given on Sinai the Lord expressed his intention to prove the people whether they would walk in his law or no. The proof was furnished by testing them on the Sabbath. On six days the manna fell, and on the seventh day, the Sabbath, it was withheld. When the people gathered a double portion on the sixth day, and the rulers told Moses, he said, “To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord.” But some of the people went out on the seventh day to gather, and the Lord reproved them, saying, “How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws! See, for that the Lord hath given you the Sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days.” Ex. 16:23, 28, 29. This proves beyond all controversy that the law of the Sabbath existed before it was given on Sinai.
It is supposed by some that the Sabbath originated at that time, in the wilderness; that here it was first consecrated and enforced. If this were the case we should reasonably expect to find here some reason for its consecration; some reason why the seventh day was chosen in preference to any other day of the week. But we do not find it. The only reason given in Ex. 16 for resting on the seventh day is, that God had a26law which required it. But why such a law was enacted, and why it embraced the seventh day, Ex. 16 does not inform us. For this information we must appeal to other scriptures. And we are not left at a loss in this respect; Gen. 2:3, and Ex. 20:8–11 are full and explicit on this point.
Ex. 20:8–11 contain the fourth commandment in full. And in it are given both the reason for the sanctification of the day, and the reason why the sanctity was placed on the seventh day. If the Sabbath was a Jewish institution, if it originated at or after the exode, and if it was founded on anything peculiar to that people in their history or experience, here is the place to look for the proof of it. But we do not find it. We find only a reference to the events of creation week as the reason for the institution of the Sabbath, and the rest of God from all his works of creation as the reason for blessing the seventh day in preference to any other day.
“The seventh day is the Sabbath [rest] of the Lord thy God.” It is the Lord’s rest, and the Lord’s day. The reason is plainly given. “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day [literally, the day of the rest], and hallowed it.”
“Wherefore” signifies “for this reason.” The reason, and the only reason given in the Bible, why the Lord blessed the Sabbath and consecrated it is that in it he rested from his work of creation. When he blessed and hallowed the day we learn from Gen. 2:3, “And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it, because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.” Here we have the time and the occasion of the sanctifying of the Sabbath.
And this opens to us some important considerations. The Sabbath was not a Jewish, or national, or local institution, because it dates from creation, was God’s own rest-day, and has nothing in it peculiar to any one nation or people. It was not typical, as it was instituted before the fall of man, and therefore before types could have any significance. Its proper place is just where we find it, with moral laws—laws growing out of the action and will of God.
We would call special attention to this idea. All duties growing out of the action of God alone, are primary, and are properly considered moral. There are secondary truths, growing out of a perversion of God’s work, out of the rebellion of his creatures. And all institutions arising from these secondary relations are limited in their nature; they are positive or typical. No typical institution or merely positive duty can grow out of original relations, that is, out of relations existing from creation. This cannot be disputed. And it is equally evident that no moral obligation can originate in the action of the creature. All the types and shadows, and everything pertaining to a remedial system, have respect to man’s condition as a sinner, and they would never have existed if man had not sinned. They owe their existence to man’s rebellion against his Maker. Every one can see at a glance that man, by sin, could not give rise to a moral relation or a moral duty. These grow out of the sole will and action of the great Moral Governor.
But the Sabbath was made before man fell; before sin existed. And of course if man had not fallen, if sin never had existed the Sabbath would have been observed as a sacred institution, a perpetual reminder of the power and benevolence of the Creator. This consideration ought to convince all that the Sabbath is not a local, typical, or national institution, subject to change or abrogation as are all typical institutions.
But the objection is raised that, though the Sabbath originated at creation, there was no commandment to enforce its observance until after the Jews were brought out of Egypt. There are three sufficient arguments against this objection.
1. The objection is erroneous because it assumes that there was no law given because no law is formally written in Genesis. But this assumption is contrary to reason and to established facts. Enoch walked with God, but we are not told that he either had or obeyed any law. Shall we therefore infer that no law was known or obeyed by him? Noah was righteous before God. How, or wherein, we are not told in the history of his life. But the Scriptures inform us that righteousness consists in right doing. 1 John 3:7. Hence a rule of right, or law, was known by Noah. Also, there is no mention of the third commandment, either of its obligation or violation, in Genesis, nor until it was spoken on Sinai. But the Canaanites were condemned for violating it; Lev. 18:21, 27; which proves that there was such a law though Genesis does not mention it. Therefore the objection is not valid.
2. We learn by Ex. 16 that God had a law which enjoined the observance of the Sabbath, not only before it was spoken on Sinai, but before the manna was given. For the reason and origin of this law we are referred to the work of creation, and to God’s resting on, and sanctifying, the seventh day.
3. In Gen. 2:3, we are informed that God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it, because that in it he had rested from all his work. To sanctify means to set apart or to appoint to a sacred or religious use.
The obligation of the Sabbath was fully established when it was appointed to be sacredly observed; this is all that can be required to establish any institution. As this was done at the close of creation week, it fixes to a certainty the date of the origin of Sabbath obligation. And as “the Sabbath was made for man,” the sanctification—the appointment or setting apart—was for man, for his observance. No other precept of the decalogue has so clear proof in favor of its having been given before the fall of man. The Sabbath institution was given to man while in a sinless state; it was suited to the condition of sinless beings. It existed in Paradise before it was lost, and will be kept according to the original design of its institutor—the Creator of heaven and earth—when Paradise is restored.
HYMN
By Laura Harvey
“So He bringeth them to their desired haven.”— Ps. 107:30.
How does He lead them? This they cannot tell,
They only know he doeth all things well—
Through fire and water some, where floods do meet,
O’er briars and thorns, with torn and bleeding feet,
Where tempests rage and storms burst overhead,
And clouds portentous all around are spread;
But still he leads them, rough or smooth the way,
And all his paths are peace, and lead to day.
And some, where springs abound and pastures sweet,
Go singing all the way with gladsome feet;
And some he leadeth gently on the way,
Guiding the wandering steps that fain would stray;
Others go trembling on the road for fear,
With faith so weak that will not see him near—
But still he leads them, rough or smooth the way,
Who follow on to know. He shows the way.
How does he draw them? Some by cords of love,
That sweetest cord to lift the soul above.
But not all thus—so wisely doth he lead—
Love would not always answer to their need;
And so, by other cords—pain, fear, unrest—
But always just the one most fit and best;
And so he draws them from themselves and sin,
Until they find their perfect rest in him.
How does he keep them? This is theirs alone
To whom the secret of the Lord is known—
In perfect peace, though outward foes prevail,
They stand upon a Rock none dare assail;
Though every human prop has given way,
They rest in him, their comforter and stay—
And so he keeps them till, their journey o’er,
They enter in where they go out no more.
—Laura Harvey.
A Wonderful Contrast.
By R. M. Kilgore
[ALL eyes are turned in the direction of the papacy, and are witnessing the waning away of that power once so universal. Under the above heading, the Cincinnati Weekly Times, Dec. 24, 1874, speaks as follows; indicating in a marked manner the fulfillment of Dan. 7: 26. R. M. KILGORE.]
“In the midst of this common quarrel with the church of Rome—while Bismarck is handling his battle-ax against the church, as Coeur de Lion handled his for it; while Gladstone is fighting Manning with paper pellets; while bishops and emperors are waging war in Brazil, and popery and no popery turns the tide of battle in Spain—one mighty fact stands out, clear-limned and bright, against the lurid background of the past: the fact that the dominance of the spiritual power over the civil is gone forever.
The wildest dream that crazed romancer ever penned, smiles into every-day reality beside the contrast which the present and the past present in this particular. Instances crowd upon the memory, but two will amply suffice. Eight centuries ago—it lacks but three years of being exactly eight centuries, with the next month—in the depth of a terrible winter, the emperor of Germany, after exhausting the resources of his realm in a vain battle with Gregory VII., crossed the icy Alps to beg with utmost humiliation the pardon of the pope. For three days, clothed in the white raiment of a penitent, cold and fasting, this haughty monarch stood amid the dreary snow before the gates of Canova, pleading for the forgiveness of the inexorable pontiff—the Vice-Regent of Christ upon earth.
Our second scene is amid the lagoons of Venice, under the great lions of St. Mark. The fierce struggle of Frederick Barbarossa with Pope Alexander III. has culminated in the defeat of the emperor. In the place of St. Mark sits his Holiness, arrayed in his pontifical robes, with the highest dignitaries of his court, and the ambassadors of the great powers of the world grouped about him. Humbly, as a whipped child, the great emperor approaches, strips off his mantle, kneels, and kisses the feet of the pope. Intoxicated with his awful triumph, and gloating over the agony of the proud warrior, the pontiff places his foot on the neck of his prostrate enemy, and exclaims in a loud voice: “Thou shalt tread upon the asp and the basilisk; the lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under foot.” “Not to thee, but to Peter,” cried the outraged and agonized emperor. “To both me and Peter,” replied the pope, with another pressure of his heel upon the bowed neck.
And now how changed the scene. Stripped of his temporalities, without a friend or an ally among the rulers of the earth, with a hostile king in the Seven-hilled City, the aged prelate sits trembling upon his throne, with nothing but feeble remonstrances for Bismarck, and still more feeble epithets for Gladstone. And what is the secret—what the causes—of this marvelous change? Not the force of arms, and not the voice of battle. It is the growth of intellect—the resistless march of science. The popes have fallen upon the battle-field of their own choice. The sovereign power that made the earth the center of the universe; that forbade that it should move about the sun; that murdered Hypatia; anathematized Copernicus; burned Bruno at the stake, and imprisoned Galileo; has been finally beaten at every point by its opponent, and now finds its power confined to a daily narrowing circle of ignorance and superstition.
And to this opponent—the intellectual growth of the people—the pope and his cause may well be left. Bismarck may persecute, and Gladstone write pamphlets, for their own private ends; but the fall of the papacy will be neither hastened nor retarded thereby. Animal force has never yet availed anything against a great religion, and never will. It falls, if it falls at all, before something infinitely more powerful—the resistless march of intellect.”
Advertising Gratis.
We charge nothing for advertising the nostrums enumerated below. We would give them the benefit of a notice every week if by that means we could advertise them out of the market and lead people to save their money, their health, and their character, by letting these accursed compounds alone. These bitters are Satan’s entering wedge, his artful decoy, to prepare the way for the fiery flood of undisguised intoxicating liquors that now threatens to engulf all the land. No epithet that could be fished up from the depths of the Stygian lake would be too hot and sulphurous to apply to them. Yet more numerous than the frogs of Egypt their advertising sheets, almanacs, bills, circulars, &c., are sent over the land. A subscriber of the Health Reformer went into a drug store not long since, and there was placed in his hands a package of these prints, of which he speaks as follows:—
ED. REFORMER:—I went to town the other day, and the druggist, a dapper little fellow, politely presented me with a bundle for the “gude housewife,” which, upon examining, we find to be made up of medical almanacs, bills, circulars, etc., etc., which in the aggregate would well compare in size with the “great flying roll” of the prophet.
First on the file is a 40-page family almanac, setting forth in a taking way the indispensable virtues of “Hostetter’s Celebrated Stomach Bitters”—good for all zones and peoples, and just the thing in sickness and in health. Well, the writer has jogged along some forty years, amid the ills of this mortal state, without using these “bitters,” which the proprietors say are composed of the finest liquors for the “stimulating basis,” and would frankly advise others to do so too, and to let this elixir of Satan alone, lest peradventure they lie down in sorrow in a drunkard’s grave.
Next up is “Walker’s California Vinegar Bitters Almanac,” in flaming colors, all the way from San Francisco, as full of puffs and bombast as it can be crammed. The proprietor pathetically exclaims, “Save your health and money by the use of Dr. Walker’s Vinegar Bitters.” Reader, for one, I shall just let these intoxicating bitters alone, and save my health and money by not using them.
No. 3 is the “Radway Almanac and Guide to Health” (who has not seen the cabalistic R. R. R.?), from that great emporium of patent medicine nostrums, New York City. It has an affecting vignette of a woman with outspread angel wings, having a pill box in one hand and a bottle of R. R. syrup in the other, which she is offering to a group of cripples and invalids, who look up with wishful eyes as if they expected a blessing. Deluded souls! they had better all subscribe for the Reformer, adopt hygiene, and cast that miserable R. R. trash to the moles and the bats.
Now comes the “Centaur Almanac,” with a strange creature on the title page, which is half man and half horse. This mythological being is fabled to be the god of medicine, Esculapius by name, and ages since to have compounded a recipe which is equally good for man and for beast. This was recently discovered by a wise professor in an old Greek MS., and is now being fabricated by an enterprising firm in New York! Shall we not believe all this, and use the Centaur remedies? These almanac-makers swear that they always tell the truth!!
No. 5 is the great “Hoofland Almanac and Family Recipe Book for Everybody’s Use,” which comes from the city of “brotherly love.” It says the German Bitters will “effectually cure” (note these two mighty words) “liver complaint, jaundice,” etc., etc., “and all diseases arising from a disordered stomach or bowels.” By the way we are informed that the purest Santa Cruz rum is used in getting up their tonic, which makes it the “most pleasant preparation ever offered to the public!” Reader, that is significant—beware of these liquor tonics, lest your experience and end be a “bitter” one indeed.
Another one is “Merchant’s Gargling Oil National Almanac,” setting forth in words as smooth as oil the wondrous worth of their remedies, “equally good for man or beast,” and may be used inside or out. This is certainly convenient, but who knows what the greasy stuff is made of? The writer once applied a patent embrocation to his stomach, and for two hours he was in mortal agony as a consequence. One of their recipes for children’s physic is: “Mix one dram of CALOMEL, five drams of sesqui carbonate of soda, and ten drams of compound chalk, together. Dose, five grains. Use as a purgative for children teething.” Now if their oil curare formale is after this recipe, it would be quite appropriate for the throat of a volcano.
No. 6 is “Pond’s Extract,” a pamphlet in the interest of a new proprietary remedy which a stock concern are endeavoring with might and main to puff into notoriety. This “great remedy” is based on the virtues of Hamamelis—the common Witch Hazel. Perhaps there is something to this, for the witch hazel is a “remarkable shrub.” Certain persons are said to be able to take a little crooked witch hazel stick, and with it to be able to discover a vein of water in the ground! If it can do that, perhaps it is equally good in the manufacture of a medicinal nostrum.
Next comes “Mrs. Winslow’s Domestic Receipt Book,” with her Soothing Syrup, etc. Others have decided on the demerits of this wretched preparation, one physician affirming that there was scarcely a remedy so destructive of infant life as this syrup. No doubt it has “soothed” thousands of little children so effectually that they will never cry, or even breathe, again.
“Pierce’s Memorandum and Account Book,” comes next in the bundle. This is styled, “A Present from the People’s Medical Servant.” His remedies are evidently cutting quite a figure in the world; for he has built up a “World’s Dispensary” in Buffalo, where he seems to be doing a good thing, at least in the money line. There is at least one good thing to this book—every other page is blank. Would not the world be the better for it if these trashy prints were all blank?
Here follow circulars, etc.; one from Dr. Fitler, of Philadelphia, who has made rheumatism a study for forty years. He, also, has a GREAT REMEDY, and, of course, great means. But, reader, when the writer has the rheumatism he means to try the electrical bath first.
Another is “Dr. Fowler’s Medical Journal,” from New York, who proposes to cure everything that human flesh is heir to, with “One Dollar a Bottle.” In fact, one dollar a bottle is the main thing on the sheet, which black ink makes very prominent.
Another still, from Dr. Ayer, Lowell, devoted to Pectoral and Pills. He wants all people to try his stuff. So, reader, as the spider said to the fly,
“Will you walk into my parlor?”
And yet another, “Cutler’s Pocket Inhaler” and “Inhalant,” from Buffalo, for the throat and lungs, full of puffs and accounts of great things wrought. Shall we not believe all he says?
Here is a flat sheet with the pathetic appeal to “Stop that Terrible Cough!” etc., with “Idaho Gum Crystals,” which are “warranted to give entire satisfaction.” No doubt the maker will be satisfied if his little tid-bits are purchased; further than this, deponent saith not.
Another one is devoted to “Dr. Kermott’s Celebrated Vegetable Medicines”—five varieties, “positive and never-failing,” etc. The doctor says he has fifteen bushels of pills on hand. Here is business, certainly, for somebody. But hold! the next line says, “No harm can arise from their use in any quantity”!
One more still, “Dr. O. Phelps Brown’s Vermifuge Pills and Ointment.” He thinks the human family greatly in need of his aperient—“the best remedy in the world;” “effectual in every case;” will do wonders “in one minute of time,” and so on, and so forth, ad infinitum.
But hold, reader, this thing is played out. Are you not disgusted with this farrago of the patent-medicine mongers? The subscriber is, and will just pitch the rest of his bundle into the rag-bag for the ragman’s cart, and save time and strength for a better purpose.
VERITAS.
Luminous Apparitions, or False Lights.
These are not due, as was long supposed, to the products of animal or vegetable decomposition, but are caused by insects which possess organs that become luminous. It is now well known that the phosphorescence of the sea is due to the presence of immense numbers of microscopic animals.—Journal of the Chemical Society.