p. 31 | Signs of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 2. (1/14/1889)

Earlier text: THE WEEK OF PRAYER IN CALIFORNIA

News and Notes.

By Editor

RELIGIOUS.

—The Bible has been translated into more than 300 different languages.

—The Mennonites, a German religious denomination, have decreed that no person can now belong to that church if he has a life insurance policy hanging over his head.

—A bill is now before Congress providing for an increase of the corps of army chaplains to 100. The number now allowed by law is 34. Three-fourths of the garrisons are without chaplains.

—Nearly five years since the Bible was made accessible to Japanese scholars by being published in Chinese characters with diacritical marks, but within the past year it has been given to that nation in their own language.

—During the past year the American Bible Society issued in this and other lands 1,504,647 copies of the Scriptures. The total number issued since the organization of the society, seventy-two years ago, is 49,829,563 copies.

—Rev. Wilber F. Crafts has resigned his pastorate in New York City, to accept the position of field secretary of the American Sunday Union, which met recently in Washington. Gen. O. O. Howard is a member of the Executive Committee.

—The Congregationalists have about one twenty-fourth of the so-called evangelical church members in the United States, and therefore feel that they are responsible for the religious instruction of about two and a half million people in this country.

—The Church Progress (Catholic) says that four Catholic missionaries have recently been sent to the Congo from Belgium. Those who have read the history of Catholic missions on the Congo in the past will know about what to expect as the result of like efforts now.

Publishers' Department.

By Editor

BOUND VOLUMES OF THE AMERICAN SENTINEL.

WE can furnish Vol. 1 (1886), Vol. 2 (1887), and Vol. 3 (1888), of the American Sentinel, bound in strong paper covers, with index, at sixty cents per volume, post-paid. The first two volumes bound in one, in cloth, with index and gilt title, for $1.50 post-paid; the three years' papers all bound in one cloth volume, with index and “Extra,” or special campaign number, for $2.25 post-paid. Address, American Sentinel, 1059 Castro Street, Oakland, Cal.

NOTICE TO MISSIONARY WORKERS.

By Editor

PLEASE stop sending the Signs to any of the following names, as this office has received notice that the papers are refused, unclaimed, or sent to the wrong post-office:—

Josie Pewis, E. A. Bliss, Georgia Safford, Mr. H. Weaver, Mrs. T. L. Smith, Mrs. Alice Murty, Mr. Carmichael the night-watchman, H. L. Dracom, Miss May E. Brown, Mrs. M. H. Waldron, Mabel Worley, Mrs. Peter Mcleowd, C. M. Benett, Anna Spangler, Miss Katie Swintz, Mrs. Wm. Hen.

THE JANUARY SENTINEL.

By Editor

The American Sentinel for January, 1889, is one of the best numbers for general circulation that has yet been issued. This opinion seems to be shared by others, for various State Tract Societies are sending in orders for from 5,000 to 40,000 copies to use in their Conference for missionary work. Some societies send the Sentinel to all the editors in their State, others to lawyers, doctors, and educational men, while some distribute the papers among all that can read English.

The January Sentinel contains: "The Illinois Sunday Convention," "Principles, Not Parties," "A National Reform Ally," "Freedom in Religion," "The National Sunday Convention," "Sunday-law Arguments," "The Amended Sunday Bill," "Our Position Again Stated," etc.

The publishers have already printed 100,000 copies of the January issue, and say that they would like to make the circulation a quarter of a million (250,000) copies. Will you aid in this laudable work? The papers will be mailed for $1.50 per 100 or $12 per 1,000 copies. Order from the Secretary of your State Tract Society, or address the publishers, American Sentinel, 1059 Castro St., Oakland, Cal.

VIEWS OF NATIONAL REFORM.

By Editor

PACKAGE NO. 1, 184 PAGES, 20 CENTS.

THIS package contains thirteen tracts treating upon the various phases of the National Reform movement, as follows:—

NO.	PAGES.
1. Religious Legislation,	8
2. Religious Liberty,	8
3. National Reform and the Rights of Conscience,	16
4. The American Papacy,	16
5. Bold and Base Avowal,	16
6. National Reform is Church and State,	16
7. Purity of National Religion,	8
8. The Salem Witchcraft,	8
9. What Think Ye of Christ?,	8
10. National Reformed Constitution and the American Hierarchy,	24
11. The Republic of Israel,	8
12. National Reformed Presbyterianism,	32
13. The National Reform Movement an Absurdity,	16

The above package will be sent post-paid to any address for twenty cents.

Address, AMERICAN SENTINEL, Oakland, Cal.

CHRIST IN THE GOSPELS,

By James P. Cadman

—OR—

The Life of our Lord in the Words of the Evangelists,

BY JAMES P. CADMAN, A. M.

Is, as its Name Indicates, a Compilation in which the four Narratives of ### THE LIFE OF CHRIST ARE WOVEN INTO ONE CONNECTED STORY, MAKING A COMPLETE HARMONY OF THE GOSPELS IN THE EXACT LANGUAGE OF THE SCRIPTURES.

THE text is that of the Revised Version, and while every word in the four Gospels appears, the work is so arranged that the reader can tell at a glance the words used in each Gospel. Those who have tried to gather all the facts concerning some miracle, or other event, and at the same time properly locate and credit the various parts of the narrative, will appreciate this book, which is the very best of its kind and gives evidence of an immense amount of careful and painstaking labor.

The book is fully indexed so that any text or subject can be readily found; and the maps, notes, and diagrams which it contains are alone well worth the price of the volume. The following partial (less than half) TABLE OF CONTENTS will give an idea of the scope of the work:—

Index to chapter and verses; Life of Our Lord (333 pages); Index of persons, places, and subjects, with dictionary of proper names; Explanation of maps and diagrams; Map of the pathway of Jesus; Diagrams illustrating the principal events of crucifixion week.

This work is invaluable, and all who love the Bible should have a copy. It contains 394 pages, is well printed on good paper, and is neatly and substantially bound in cloth. Price, post-paid, - - - - - - - $1.50 With gilt edges, - - - - - - - 2.00 Address, PACIFIC PRESS, Oakland, Cal.

BIBLE-READINGS.

By Ellet Joseph Waggoner

IN TWO NUMBERS EMBRACING A PORTION OF THE BIBLE COURSE AT HEALDSBURG COLLEGE.

BY ELD. E. J. WAGGONER.

THESE Readings were prepared especially for the use of colporters and those who intend to conduct Bible-readings in missionary fields, and they present a connected chain of argument upon the fundamental doctrines of Present Truth.

NUMBER ONE contains 57 pages, embracing sixteen readings, as follows:—

	No. Ques.		No. Ques.
Daniel 2	93	The Law of God, No. 4	32
Daniel 7	93	" " " 5	31
Daniel 8	60	Ephesians 2:15	26
Daniel 9	94	Romans 6:14	23
The Sanctuary	179	Romans 10:4	17
The Law of God, No. 1	30	Galatians 3:13	19
" " " 2	31	Romans 3:20	10
" " " 3	28	Tithing	99

NUMBER TWO contains 46 pages, embracing twenty-two readings, as follows:—

	No. Ques.		No. Ques.
The Sabbath, No. 1	51	2 Corinthians 5:8	18
" " 2	49	Luke 23:39-43	16
" " 3	42	1 Peter 3:18-20	10
Colossians 2:14-17	19	Luke 16:19-31	37
Psalms 118:24	13	Living Souls	14
Penalty of Transgression	10	Nature of Man	18
Sanctification	43	Punishment of the Wicked	70
Second Coming of Christ	64	Work of the Spirit, No. 1	47
The Resurrection	59	" " " 2	51
Immortality	18	Church Membership	61
Philippians 1:23	5	Missionary Labor	52

Price for the Two, 50 Cents. Address, PACIFIC PRESS, Oakland, Cal.

IN THE HEART OF THE SIERRAS.

By Editor

BY J. M. HUTCHINGS.

THIS new work is a complete historical and descriptive summary of the wonderful Yo Semite Valley and Big Tree Groves. The author, Mr. Hutchings, is an old pioneer, and has for more than 20 years resided in the Valley. He took the first sketches of it that were ever taken, and was the first to make its

MARVELOUS GRANDEUR KNOWN TO THE WORLD.

The work is complete in one volume of nearly 600 pages, and is illustrated with over 150 illustrations, 28 of which are

BEAUTIFUL FULL-PAGE ARTOTYPES.

These artotypes are the most charmingly characteristic of any illustrations ever produced, and are perfectly true to life, having been photographed from nature.

Sold only by subscription. Agents wanted everywhere. For prices and terms,

Address, PACIFIC PRESS, Oakland, Cal.

THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.

By James White

BY ELDER JAMES WHITE.

This pamphlet gives a brief exposition of the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew, and its relation to other scriptures bearing upon the subject of the time and manner of the Second Advent, and invites your careful and prayerful attention to the prophetic address of the Son of God as delivered upon the Mount of Olives. Paper covers, sixty-four pages, sent post-paid for ten cents.

Address: PACIFIC PRESS, Oakland, Cal.

The Signs of the Times.

By Editor

OAKLAND, CAL., SECOND-DAY, JANUARY 14, 1889.

We send no papers from this office without pay in advance unless by special arrangement. When persons receive copies without ordering them, they are sent by other parties, and we can give no information in regard to them. Persons thus receiving copies of the Signs are not indebted to the office, and will not be called upon for pay. Please read the papers and hand them to your friends to read.

OUR article on the Sabbath-school lesson for this week is, with other important matter, crowded out. But we believe our readers will not be disappointed in the excellent matter furnished this week, especially that which relates to our own times, and the dangers that threaten us.

THE publishers wish us to announce that it has been decided to publish the American Sentinel weekly, instead of monthly, as heretofore. The present volume will consist of forty-eight numbers, the next number being dated January 30. The subscription price will be $1.00 a year; in clubs of ten or more to one name and address, seventy-five cents. By this change the Sentinel will contain nearly four times as much reading matter as now, for twice the money, and it is hoped that a large subscription list will be secured at once.

JANUARY 1 the Presbyterian ministers of Minneapolis, Minn., held a meeting and decided to inaugurate a Sunday crusade in that State, and also to join in urging Congressional action. It was decided to "wage war against Sunday breakers and to strike for an era of better laws, and for the better enforcement of existing statutes." Sunday papers were denounced, and Congress was called upon to abstain from patronizing them. It was the sentiment of the clergymen that some more effective legislation was positively necessary, and a move will be made in that direction. The ministers of other denominations in Minneapolis have signified their intention of joining their Presbyterian brethren in this crusade against the Sunday papers.

IN the report from one church of the week of prayer, it was stated that "confessions were made, and quite a goodly number were enabled to grasp by faith the promises of God and appropriate them to themselves." Appropriating God's promises to ourselves is faith. We may believe God's promise; that is, we may give to it our mental assent, our judgment is convinced, we believe. Our neighbor we believe to be humble and true and honestly seeking God, and we believe God accepts him, because our neighbor has complied with the conditions. We believe God will accept us, if we so comply. But that is mere mental assent, and it may never move to action, never profit us in the least. But faith lays hold of the promise and says, "It is mine; Christ is my Saviour; I am his child." Belief assents; but faith appropriates. Faith is a vitalizing, force-infusing principle, fruitful always in good works.

IN noticing editorially the Converted Catholic, published in New York by James A. O'Connor, formerly a priest of the Roman Catholic Church, the Jewish Times and Observer mentions the fact that he has been joined in his work by three other priests, and asks:— "Are we to conclude from this that 'the infallible' head of the Catholic Church is destined to be overthrown in time by the very men it has educated to uphold and defend his alleged infallible authority?" Were the editors of the Observer as familiar as they should be with their own scriptures, to say nothing of the New Testament, they would not ask such a question. The Testaments are a unit in teaching that the Papal power is to stand until destroyed, not "by the very men it has educated to uphold and defend its alleged authority," but by the coming of the Lord of glory. Says the prophet Daniel: "I beheld even till the beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame." Dan. 7:11. And the apostle testifies of the same power, that it shall be destroyed by the brightness of the Lord's coming. 2 Thess. 2:8. The Scriptures, and they only, make known "what shall be in the latter days."

IF persistent assertion made that which is asserted true it would certainly be a fact that wine drinking tends only to sobriety, for the whole wine-subsidized press of California, parrot-like, have repeated this statement so frequently that it has not only become threadbare but the editors themselves seem almost to have come to believe it, notwithstanding the evidence to the contrary, which thickens on every side. Let it be remembered that even the light wines contain alcohol, and that alcohol taken habitually even in small quantities produces a demand for more. The fiction that wine-drinking countries are the most temperate countries has been exploded time and again.

It will be remembered by our readers that California has now in the East a paid "missionary" preaching the "gospel" of temperance reform by the wine-drinking method, which if it does not prove effective in reforming and elevating drunkards, may possibly secure the equality of those who embrace it by bringing all to the level of common tiplers. "Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his color in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder."

HAVE we not reached that period spoken of by Paul in 2 Tim. 4:3: "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears"? In harmony with this, note the following from a writer in the Interior of December 27:— "The English-speaking world is just now in the throes of an epidemic of sensationalism. We see the spots of the plague everywhere—in politics, in trade, in art, in literature, in religion." This unhealthy craving for the extravagant and the extraordinary is not absent from the religious sphere. We see its results very palpably in the pulpit. The popular preacher is the man who affects the dramatic in his manner and the "spicy" in his speech, who seeks "to adorn his doctrine" by attitudinizing, pyrotechnics, and slang. The stronger the text or the more sensational the subject the better; the great desideratum is to tickle and hold the audience at all costs, even though it involve taking Scripture as a point of departure, and treading on the brink of the profane. Sensationalism is the basis of a great many people's religion in these days."

But the true minister of Christ should swerve not. It is still his duty to "preach the word," to "be instant in season, out of season," to "reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and doctrine," till the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ.

A WRITER in an Eastern exchange in an article against Christmas, reveals the characteristic ignorance of the age regarding so-called Christian institutions. He claims that there is nothing in the Scriptures to warrant the observance of Christmas, which is all true. It is a child of that "mystery of iniquity," as he intimates. But the same writer in the same article refers to Sunday as "a commemorative day that returns to us once in every seven, around which gathers, and in which, as historical and prophetic, centers all that is glorious in the mission and finished work of Jesus." And he closes thus: "And can I not assert with truth that the people who make so much of Christmas are not the people who make so much of the 'Christian Sabbath'? All of this about Sunday would be exceedingly good if it were true; but, unfortunately, like Christmas, it has nothing to sustain it but lying tradition. The Scriptures reveal naught of all this. Christmas and Sunday are both children of the Papacy. And no class, except Romanists, pays a higher regard to Christmas than those who are putting forth such efforts in behalf of the legal observance of Sunday. Reverence to either as a Christian institution is "will worship."

THE National Baptist of December 13 has the following, which shows the tendency of the Protestantism of to-day:— "At a religious conference in New York last week, a minister, apparently a foreigner, indulged in a wholesale denunciation of the Roman Catholics, and was very properly checked by Dr. Josiah Strong and by Mr. Dodge, who was presiding. This sort of thing [denunciation of error], in our opinion, does no good. The best way to do away with error is to preach truth."

Josiah Strong and all professed Protestants may "check" denunciation of Roman Catholicism; but no minister can faithfully "preach the word" without denouncing "the little horn" (Dan. 7), the "man of sin," the "mystery of iniquity" (2 Thess. 2), the Apocalyptic scarlet-robed harlot, who has made all nations drunk by the wine of her fornication. Rev. 17 and 18. These are the terms which Inspiration uses to characterize the Papacy, which is embodied in Roman Catholicism. It is a part of that word which is truth. John 17:17; 2 Peter 1:19, 20; Dan. 10:21. Did Luther and Zwingle and Calvin and Hooper and Ridley and hundreds of others labor and suffer and die for naught? Did they "suffer so great things in vain? if it be yet in vain?" Gal. 3:4, margin. Was and is the Reformation a failure? Are the words of the Lord vain words? Have not Drs. Strong, Dodge, and the editor of the National Baptist drunk of the siren's wine?

How much of comfort is expressed in these words of our Redeemer, "Follow me"! He does not ask us to go before him into untried paths, into unmet difficulties, into strange temptations; he does not ask us to turn aside from the oft rugged path into some untrod by-path. He only asks us to follow him, in the path which he has trodden before us, into the difficulties which he has met, into the temptations which he has overcome. Here he will cheer us by his Spirit. The fragrance of his life hallows the whole path. Is the way steep and rugged? Jesus has been here before us. Do the briars and thorns wound and tear flesh and garment? Even so they did those of the Master. Do the clouds hang heavily, and does darkness shut us in? A deeper darkness than we may know enveloped Jesus in this very path. Do we suffer weariness and pain? So did Jesus. Are we perplexed, tempted, tried? He was before we were. Do we meet scoffing and persecution? Jesus met more. His feet have taken every step of the journey which he calls upon us to take. In every trial, every difficulty, every temptation, every cruel assault, we can say with truth, Jesus was here. And knowing this we can come with full confidence to One who can be "touched with the feeling of our infirmities," who is "a merciful and faithful High Priest," having been made "in all things" "like unto his brethren." To Him we can come boldly and "obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need." He will walk the path again with us by his Holy Spirit. He will make the roughest places smooth by his presence. The valley of weeping will become a well-spring of joy; the parched land, a fountain of life. And faith will not only say, "Jesus was here," but, "Jesus is here."