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TEACHERS’ BIBLE PREMIUM OFFER
By Editor
For January and February, 1897
During the first two months of 1897 the SIGNS OF THE TIMES offers to all NEW SUBSCRIBERS a chance to secure a Magnificent Self-Pronouncing Teachers’ Bible at an astonishingly low price. Never before have the publishers been able to make such
An Unparalleled Offer
This Self-Pronouncing Teachers’ Bible is American made—not a cheap reprint, but a copyrighted edition from new type set plates. It has the chapter numbers in plain figures, contains a Complete Series of Helps with Illustrations, and a “Word Book,” which embraces a Concordance, Subject Index, Gazetteer, Bible Dictionary, Etc., all in one Alphabetical Arrangement. By consulting the Word Book you can find at once what you want, and do not need to look in half a dozen places for it.
OUR OFFER
Few people can read and properly pronounce the difficult proper names in the first chapter of Matthew, but the Self-Pronouncing feature in this Bible will enable anyone to read them at sight.
This new Bible has Minion type (see specimen page herewith), is bound in American Morocco, has silk head bands, a silk marker, a silk-finish lining, and red under gold edges, and will be furnished to bona fide new subscribers, together with a year’s subscription to the SIGNS OF THE TIMES, if ordered during the month of January or February, 1897, for $2.50. Both Bible and Paper sent post-paid.
Bible contains 17 Maps, A Word Book of 268 pages, and 180 pages of other Helps, making in one volume a Bible and Reference Library of over 1400 pages.
WE GUARANTEE the Bible to give satisfaction, and anyone who is not satisfied with it may return it to us, within three days after receipt, and we will refund his money.
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OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA
A [illegible] Divinity Circuit Teachers’ Bible, with red under gold; “Signs of the Times,” the best Missionary Paper in the world,16
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Edges, worth $3.25, and the for one year, Price $1.00. BOTH TOGETHER, TO NEW SUBSCRIBERS POST-PAID, FOR $2.50
Sunday Laws in Japan
A NATIVE pastor, says the Union Gospel News, writes “that there are five important things which he says the Christian religion has accomplished for the empire of Japan. First, the adoption by their government of our calendar; next, the enactment of a law compelling the inhabitants to keep one day in the week as a day of rest, which is our sabbath; then the adoption of our common-school system; fourth, freedom to bury their dead as they like (formerly the body at death had to be given to some Buddhist priest); finally, the separation of Church and State, which gives them entire freedom of worship and opens Japan as never before to Christian missionaries.”
All this would be good if true. But the second and fifth can not both be true. Sunday is solely a religious or church institution; and when it is upheld, supported, or enforced by the power of the state, it forms a union of church and state. It is not the Christian religion of Christ which leads to such results.
A CATHOLIC ON CATHOLIC PAPERS.
The Monitor (Roman Catholic), of San Francisco, has been feeling quite hurt of late, because it has been discriminated against by the trustees of the Oakland Free Library by having been thrown out of that institution, because it was considered offensively abusive in its personal thrusts against those whom the editor did not favor. This action of the trustees has been resented with much vigor in press and on the platform by the editor; and yet the good editor of the Monitor should not feel so sensitive if Protestants should refuse to consider his paper all that he considers it to be, a first-class representative of Roman Catholicism, when he himself has to say what he does concerning the Roman Catholic papers. In the Literary Digest of January 2 is the following quotation from the Monitor: “The Catholic Church throughout the world has more dead-beats and barnacles attached to it than any other organization that ever existed. The most obnoxious of this class in this country are the Catholic book and picture peddler, and the Catholic newspaper fakir. When a man has failed in every legitimate business that he puts his hand to, he starts a Catholic newspaper and runs it on the criminal charity of Catholics and an unlimited supply of gall. And so we have the country flooded with papers that are a disgrace to the church which they are supposed to represent. To a great many non-Catholics these reflect the culture of the average Catholic mind.” No doubt what the editor of the Monitor says is true. We are willing to accept his word for it; and he should not be seriously offended if those outside of the church should class his paper among those against which he issues his “counterblasts” even tho his critics may be mistaken.
A Bible and Paper Offer
By Editor
Once again we call attention to our Bible offer on a previous page. Where can so good a paper and so good a Bible be obtained at so small a price?
May 1896 Casualties Across Ten States
It is said that there were 230 persons injured and 437 killed in the one month of May, 1896, in ten states; and this does not include the St. Louis tornado. We will give fuller particulars of the year hereafter.
Apples of Gold Library
Apples of Gold Library.—The last issue of this publication is No. 36, entitled, “The True Church, How We May Know It.” It sets before the reader in simple form the essential features of the church of God, and the tests by which we may know that church. This monthly Library is only 10 cents a year. Price per single tract is one cent. Address, Pacific Press, Oakland, Cal.
Return to the Simple Word of God
More and more do we find creeping into the religious teachings of the time the two extremes of a legal religion: on the one hand, a carrying out of the letter of dogma and creed and tradition; and on the other, of an utter setting aside of the word of God, making all depend on “intuition,” “divine immanence,” etc. Verily there is need of coming back to the simple word of God as it is in Jesus. It is to this word we invite the reader.
Cigarette Habit Leads to Insanity
A COMMON item of news nowadays is of the death, or instances of poisoning, from the use of tobacco. The latest is a case in Williamsbridge, N. Y., of a bright young man, said to have graduated with honors a few years ago, with all the prospects of a successful business future. He connected with a business house and his promotion was rapid; but the cigarette habit had such a strong hold upon him that his sun of usefulness and prosperity set into the oblivion of insanity before it had reached its zenith. His moral powers were so weakened that his own desires, the entreaties of friends, and the aid of the physicians, all were unable to break the tobacco habit, and he is now hopelessly insane.
“Why Do You Keep the Seventh-Day Sabbath?”—
This is a question often asked the Sabbath-keeper. One answer is, and it seems to us that it ought to be sufficient. God commands it: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. . . . The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” (See Ex. 20: 8–11.) This commandment is repeated and its obligation enjoined elsewhere many times in the word of God. A second reason, equally forcible and undeniable, might be given, namely, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Master, kept it; and “he that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked.” 1 John 2:6. Are not these sufficient reasons for observing the day? Are they not consistent Christian reasons?
A SUNDAY-LAW INCIDENT.
The following from the New York Journal of Jan. 6, 1896, illustrates the beauties of a Sunday closing law:—
“Sarah Blauground, of No. 73 Willett Street, was arraigned in the Essex Market Police Court yesterday, charged with selling a piece of dry goods in violation of the Sunday law. She wept piteously, and begged Magistrate Mott to let her go. Every one in the court room was moved by her appeal, except the magistrate. The woman fainted when her case was called.”
“Morris Schwartz, the court interpreter, explained to the woman that, unless she pleaded guilty, she would be held for trial.”
“You plead guilty, do you?” magistrate Mott said. “Then I’ll fine you $5.00.”
“For God’s sake, don’t fine me,” exclaimed the prisoner. “I have only ten cents in my pocket.”
“‘I don’t care,’ said the magistrate, ‘that’s the law.’”
Five days in prison stared the woman in the face. She begged the magistrate not to send her to prison. Several persons came to her assistance, and asked the magistrate to remit the fine, but he refused to do so. The amount of the fine was then raised among the spectators, and the woman allowed to go.
“Moral” Reform
By Editor
In the Parkhurstian methods of reform, practiced in Los Angeles recently, the reporter of the court proceedings in the Los Angeles Times relates that in order to convict a saloon-keeper, a minister and young theological student “entered the Olive Saloon about three minutes before 12 o’clock at night, and remained there until five minutes after the closing hour. In that time they purchased drinks, Rev. Mr. Ball taking beer, and Ryder a glass of blackberry cordial. Before leaving, Rev. Mr. Ball bought a bottle of whisky, which they carried away with them.” The cross-examination elicited the fact that when these men entered the saloon, the saloon-keeper “had already taken off his apron and put on his coat and hat, preparatory to closing the place for the night. Their first request was to be admitted to the toilet. There they remained not less than five minutes, so that when they came back to the bar it was after midnight. When they called for drinks, Rev. Mr. Ball took beer, and Ryder called for port wine.” He changed this at the suggestion of the saloon-keeper, who thought him ill, to blackberry cordial. “They stood over the bar sipping their drinks for at least two minutes, then Rev. Mr. Ball bought a bottle of whisky to take away with them.” What a travesty this is on the work of the Christian minister! We have no sympathy with liquor selling in any way, but we do not believe it can ever be suppressed by such inquisitorial, bribe-giving methods as the above. Such methods are a disgrace to the Gospel ministry, and would be promptly and severely denounced by the religious press if the Gospel power were dominant in the churches.
Words of Trust.
The following words of trust, says a writer in the United Presbyterian, were recited often by the Huguenots of France during the days of their bitter persecution:—
“If perish we must under thy justice, we shall perish adoring thee. Thy wrath; would it extinguish us? Then we shall flee to thy heart. Is extermination thy design for us? We shall make that new cause to fear thee. In spite of ills, in spite of death, we shall bless the stroke thy hand applies. They are the blows of a tempest, but they bring us into port.”
But they that trust in the Lord “shall not be confounded.”
New England Conference Year Book
We have received a neat pamphlet containing an “official report of the organizations connected with the New England Seventh-day Adventist Camp-meeting, which was held at Leominster Park, Mass., from Aug. 27 to Sept. 7, 1896.” It is, in fact, a year book of the New England Conference, giving full financial reports, with statistical matter, and the action taken at that time, well condensed and sufficiently explicit. The New England Conference makes an excellent showing in the matter of tithe and offerings, the average tithe per member, including women and children, being $10.51.
Whisky and Preaching.
“Saloons and churches” might perhaps be the better term. But men go to saloons to get whisky and to churches to hear preaching. In a district in New York City containing a population of 40,000, a recent investigation by the Society for the Federation of Churches finds 90 saloons, one for every 444 people, while there is one church building for every 4,547 people, and one church organization for every 3,327 persons. This is not a hopeful sign of the popular millennium.