p. 16 | Signs of the Times, Vol. 33, No. 22. (5/29/1907)

Earlier text: Christian Influences in China

DATE OF EXPIRATION.

By Editor

The SIGNS wrapper bears date of last issue due on your subscription. Unless renewed in advance, paper stops with expiration date.

If herewith is an order blank, you will know you have overlooked sending renewal. You will not wish to miss a single issue. Back numbers often can not be furnished.

Signs of His Coming.

It is not any one sign which has taken place or is now before us which shows that the coming of the Lord is imminent. There are very few things which are occurring of which, considered singly, it can not be said "This hath already been." The great evidence is the culmination of line upon line of prophecy, and the concurrent testimony of many predicted signs which clearly point out these times in which we live as the last days. All these things are focused upon this generation. There are in the body great nerve ganglia, centers of impulse and action in various parts, of great influence at various times, but all these smaller concentrations and sub-centers receive power from, and respond to, the great center, the brain, the focal dynamo of all life-impulse and action. Even so it is in this cosmos of the ages. There have been great centers of disturbance and action all along the ages. Signs of the inward impulses have been manifest outwardly. Sometimes it has seemed from the local single disturbance alone that creation would go to wreck and humanity would perish, but the rolling time swept the generations past that center, and fears were dissipated. But now all the impulses and signs of the ages are appearing, duplicating, re-duplicating, with stronger power and greater scope, till the evidences of the end of the age and the second coming of Christ are hung out everywhere. The great nerves of the ages, the ganglia of time, are bringing the world in this constant impulse nearer to the great center, the coming of the Head of the Church, the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed is he that will hear and read.

Where Is the Promise of His Coming?

Many are asking it. From pulpit to grogshop, from "Christian" to infidel, the question is asked, asked not in inquiry, not to elicit information, but asked as an unanswerable argument; and immediately the question is followed by the statement that all things continue as they were from the beginning. These dear souls do not know that they themselves are the sign of the coming; that the very question they ask, the very statement they make, based on the unproved and unprovable hypothesis of geologists of uniformity in change, has been predicted by Holy Writ for nearly two thousand years. Read: "Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of His coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation." 2 Peter 3:3, 4.

How the truth of the prophecy—its very fulfilment—has been repeatedly vindicated by the scoffers in every class—rich and poor, learned and unschooled, religious and unreligious and irreligious! Why do they do this? The same apostle continues: "For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: but the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men." We may honor men who are as grass, we may ignore the rock of God's word as the dust of our feet, but sometime (God wants it now to our good) we shall learn that "the grass withereth, and the flower thereof fadeth away; but the word of the Lord endureth forever."

Publication and Bible Version Policy

By Editor

We send no papers from this office to individuals without pay in advance. 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 to pay for them. Please read the papers you may receive, and hand them to your friends to read.

Our authority is the Bible, the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. When the Common ("King James" or "Authorized") Version, or the American Standard Revised Version is used, quotations will not be designated in reference. Any Bible quotation in this paper, therefore, differing from the Common Version, unless otherwise indicated, will be almost invariably from the American Standard Revised Version (Thomas Nelson & Sons, Publishers).

Evidence of Christ’s Soon Coming

Add to the evidences of Christ's soon coming the vast amount of testimony brought out in the recent articles on the Peace Conference.

Sabbath-School Lesson Quarterly

By Editor

"The Sabbath-School Lesson Quarterly" for July is now ready for mailing. The subject of the studies is "God's Everlasting Covenant," taken up in thirteen different lessons for the quarter. Surely it is a good series and should be faithfully studied. The price of the quarterly is five cents. Address your State tract society, or this office.

France and the Papacy

By Editor

France and the Papacy.—Read our Outlook, pages 10 and 11, if you wish to get a brief, clear exposition of the relations between France and the Papacy. This issue gives a historical sketch of their relations from the days of Pepin to the present. The next article will lay before us the facts of the present controversy. These articles are written by a French gentleman, a native of Switzerland. He aims to lay before our readers, according to positive instruction, the exact facts of the controversy.

Two Great Trials Pending

By Editor

As we go to press two great trials are pending, one in Idaho for the murder of Governor Steunenberg; the other in San Francisco, a trial of Abram Ruef for extortion and other crimes. The country is interested in them both. The former case has been tried over and over again by a great many of the Socialists and the men acquitted; and everybody who has even intimated that it would be better to wait until after the trial is over and the evidence is in has been stigmatized as an enemy to the laboring man, and many other worse epithets. No cause gains anything by such means. The friends of Haywood, Moyer, and Pettibone would gain very much more sympathy from the people at large if they themselves would say, "We are not only willing but anxious that justice shall be done and the crime placed where it belongs; and while we wish to defend our brethren, we will do everything on our part to help the cause of truth and justice." Tennyson has well said:

'The evil can not brook delay, The good can well afford to wait.'

In San Francisco the testimony before the grand jury has seemed to indicate that Mr. Ruef and his associates are guilty of superlative grafting, and the report comes before this note is finished that Mr. Ruef has pleaded guilty and the jury is discharged. The trial of Mayor Schmitz comes next, the case against whom is said to be stronger than against Ruef. Certainly San Francisco is to be pitied. The earthquake and the fire are the lesser of her evils.

Why?

By Editor

Why?—A special cable from Rome, under date of April 13, to the New York Times, gives us a long account of how Rev. Mr. Lowrie, rector of the Episcopalian American Church in Rome, has deeply offended his own people and others by referring to the pope as “My reverend brother, Joseph Taylor.” The name of the pope is Giuseppe Sarto, which translated into English is Joseph Taylor, and in Rector Lowrie’s Parish Notes, he says, “With my reverend brother, Joseph Taylor, across the Tiber I have no quarrel.” How in the world that can offend the pope or any of his friends we can not understand. When our Lord was upon the earth He was called many times the simple name of Jesus (Hebrew, Joshua, a not uncommon name among His people). The apostle Peter designates himself an “elder” among the elders, and the apostle Paul a “bond-servant of the Lord Jesus Christ.” If Christians had kept to heart the one lesson of giving no glory to men there would never have been any offense in what Rector Lowrie said; but to carry it further, there would never have been any pope of Rome.

Peace and War

Peace and War.—It seems almost to be irony to decorate Andrew Carnegie with the cross of the Legion of Honor, a distinctive military organization, and he one of the leading apostles of modern peace. By that decoration he is entitled to a military funeral. He may wear the necktie of the order with its pendant cross, and in the lapel of his coat the coveted button. The same honor provides a school for his daughter, sisters, or nieces, “presumably,” one paper adds, “with reasonable library privileges.” The New York World declares that “Doubtless the most dramatic episode of the Peace Conference, everything considered, was the decoration of its president with the badge of the military society founded by the greatest of modern warriors.”

Dr. John Watson Dies

While on a lecture tour in this country Dr. John Watson, better known as "Ian MacLaren," died of blood poisoning, at Burlington, Iowa, May 6. Dr. Watson was born at Manningtree, Essex, England, educated in Scotland and Germany, ordained to the ministry at twenty-five, being for many years pastor of Sefton Park Presbyterian Church in Liverpool. He is best known as an author, among his most popular books being "Beside the Bonnie Briar Bush," "A Doctor of the Old School," etc., all breathing deep devotion, especially as manifest in the simple lives of the Scotch country-folk.

New Apples of Gold.

By Editor

Three more of these little leaflets have been restored by our presses, our stock of which was burned in the fire of last year, copies of which have come to our table. They are as follows: (1) "Great Popular Evils." This little leaflet covers the ethics of the theater, the card-table and the dance, and also the question of the skating-rink. A large part of it is from a sermon by Rev. E. E. Knapp, pastor of the First Baptist Church at Fairport, N. Y. It certainly presents a very needed lesson at the present time. It ought to have a tremendous circulation among the youth of our land. Sixteen pages, price, one cent. (2) "Food, Its Mental and Moral Value," by Mina Mann, the publication of a paper read at a convention of the W. C. T. U., containing excellent instruction on the ethical value of foods. Eight pages, price, one-half cent. (3) "A Chat with My Tobacco-Using Brother," the same number of pages and the same price. It discusses the tobacco-using question from a view-point of spiritual, moral, mental, physical, and financial phases. It certainly is worth while for the tobacco-user to consider it. We are sure that after reading it he will find some reasons which he has not thought of before for giving it up. Thousands upon thousands have given it up and praise God that they have, and this tract, we hope, will help many others to do the same thing. If these tracts are ordered singly, of course postage should be added. Three cents, including postage, will get a single copy of each of the three. The better way is to send for them in larger quantities for distribution. Write to this office or to your tract society.