p. 15 | Signs of the Times, Vol. 33, No. 3. (1/16/1907)

Earlier text: The Joy of California Sunshine at the California Sanitariums

"A NATIONAL MOCKERY."

According to the New York "World" there were on Christmas twenty-six killings in three States only—Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. The names of all are given. Most of these were the result in some way of Christmas dissipation. There was much property loss besides, and many injured who will not die. The twenty-six does not include the eleven killed in the race riots at Jackson, Miss. This sort of Christmas observance was quite general. The Atlanta "Constitution" calls the Christmas celebration "A National Mockery," and continues:

"The newspapers issued on the day after Christmas, throout America, are calendars of crime. It seems as tho in brutal mockery of the anniversary of the birth of Christ, humanity in this country lets loose on Christmas Day its vilest passions. Run over the papers published from the gulf to the great lakes and Maine to California, and, without an exception, if they print the news, they chronicle in multiple form the violation of every law in the moral and legal code. "Murder, riot, robbery, arson, assault, drunkenness! "That is the horrible satirical procession, stalking annually before the eyes of a nation hypothetically devoted to law and order, giving at least a nominal allegiance to the Christian religion. It is the paradoxical spectacle of a Christian people making the holiest religious festival in the year the gruesome climax to a ten-day saturnalia of outlawry and debauchery that shames the annals of the decadent Roman Empire in its most revolting phases."

What a denial such a record gives to the "Christian nation" idea! "Christian nation," forsooth! What a lesson it ought to be to Christians in this respect: That any heathen festival, adopted by a backslidden and apostate Christianity can never become Christian. The whole Yule-tide season is distinctly pagan in pedigree and persistence. The old Roman Saturnalia is the basis for our Christmas feasting, gormandizing, gluttony. "Christmas" has no Biblical basis, no basis in fact. Christ was not then born; nor does the Bible ask any recognition of His birth from us, only as it affects the whole man every day. Sunday is a parallel to Christmas. Men are prone to observe Sunday as their pagan ancestors observed it, in pleasure. Men are vainly trying to enforce a sacredness the day never possessed, by law. We shall soon find plenty of "reformers" who are anxious to compel the "sacred observance of the climax of the Saturnalia, called Christmas, in the same way. "Every plant which My heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up." Christmas of any kind is not of God's planting.

SHOPLIFTING IN NEW YORK.

By Springfield Republican

SHOPLIFTING in the big department stores of New York is not only on the increase, but it has become an organized matter. There are fifty shoplifting cases pending trial, and it is complained that the courts are too lenient in dealing with this class of offenders. A legal representative of the retail dry-goods association asserts that detectives in the employ of the merchants have discovered that there are at least three organized gangs of shoplifters in the big city. One is composed of thieving Syrians, another is an Italian gang, and the third is made up of Spanish Jews.

Each gang is composed of both men and women, and goods are stolen by one of the thieves and secreted on the person of another. These gangs are organized upon business principles. Each has a sinking fund, out of which bail is furnished, and counsel retained and paid. It would seem as if the bar association might take a hand in the exposure and expulsion of lawyers who do such a business as that.—Springfield Republican.

San Francisco Earthquake Reassurance

Professor Branner, of Stanford University, has assured San Franciscans that there need be no fear of a tidal wave sweeping over their peninsula. He has told them that the fault of April 18 had a slipping movement, not a falling movement. Presumably the people who saw the collapse and fall of scores of buildings on the morning of April 18 cared very little as to the scientific fault or the particular movement in the interior of the earth. It was tremendously effective whether it was a slip or a fall! The point, however, in Dr. Branner's assurance is that it will be some fifty years before we have another fault of the severity of that of last April. So he is reported. However, the earthquake may not follow a science time-table. It might be worth something in these times if men would give some attention to the Word of God which has spoken concerning these things.

Russia’s Opposition to Jewish Rights

The reactionary element in Russia is still very active in opposition to reform. It is especially violent against any relief for the Jews. A late despatch says that "the party of legal order has joined the openly reactionary leagues." The czar and premier have received a warning from Kiev, in which it is stated that "the extension of the rights of the Jews will drive the patriotic Russian people to criminal measures." To people who have modern ideas of "legal order" and "patriotic" citizens, this sounds decidedly reactionary. But such is the fruit of absolute monarchy in the hands of poor humanity. But it is said that the peasants are beginning to look upon the Jews in a more friendly way.

Office Notices and Current Events

By Editor

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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).

NEXT WEEK we will print a list of some of the more prominent disasters of what has been called "the year of disaster."

RELIGIOUS LIBERTY will be prominently discussed in our next issue. It is an important subject; no one can understand it too well, nor be too alive to the dangers that menace its existence.

FIFTY KILLED and half as many more injured is the record of a wreck about forty miles west of Topeka, Kans., January 2. Thru a misunderstanding of the operator at Volland, where the trains should have passed, a train was allowed to go on the main line, where it crashed into a train from the opposite direction. Of the fifty killed, forty-six were Mexican laborers.

NEW YEAR'S DAY witnessed many accidents and fatalities. On January 2 the San Francisco "Examiner" reported for San Francisco and Oakland one killed, four badly injured in collisions between auto and trolley car, two killed by trains, one killed, two injured by a falling wall, one shot and killed by accident, one ground to death under the crank of the engine of a steam schooner, ten injured in minor automobile accidents, besides forty-four treated in the hospitals for injuries received in drunken brawls and accidents.

THE ENGLISH GOVERNMENT has sent to this country as its new ambassador a gentleman of distinguished ability, and one who is acquainted with America. He is the Right Honorable James Bryce, noted for his authorship of one of the best analyses of this government and people ever written, "The American Commonwealth." He is a Scotchman by birth, he received his education both at the University of Glasgow and Oxford, and has had an enviable career in law, literature, and statesmanship. He has been a late member of the British Cabinet, filling the part of Chief Secretary for Ireland. He will be cordially welcomed, and it would seem that his broad views, and thoro knowledge, and liberal statesmanship would make him a strong factor in the world's balance.

"LOVERS OF PLEASURE."—It would seem that in view of the awful year of calamity which the world has just passed thru, it would lead to serious thought and soberness of conduct the first day of the dawning year. Yet perhaps no city on the American continent showed so much extravagance in the opening of 1907 as San Francisco, the one that had suffered the most. The celebration was said to be the greatest in the city's history, and the night was a night of revelry. The Crocker ball which was given January 2 cost the magnificent sum of over $35,000. Scores of workmen were employed for days to put up a pavilion for the express purpose. There were three hundred invited guests who are now the "society" of the West; the old "four hundred" are gone. How much happier these souls would have been if the amount of money that was expended on foolish extravagance, poured out in costly wines, had been used to relieve those who are really suffering in San Francisco. The greater the need of serious thought the more eagerly the people seem to indulge in the mad pleasures of earth. As one report expressed it, "Nothing was too extravagant, too noisy, too absurd;" but after all this, the judgment.

A GOOD, STRONG, PATRIOTIC EXPRESSION.

On the proposed Sunday Constitutional Amendment the Mountain View "Leader" has the following sensible words:

"The Amendment never should be adopted. There are many reasons against it, but one is sufficient: It would be the first step toward a union of Church and State, a condition that offers the greatest possible menace to a democratic form of government. If the Legislature of this or any state, can say to rational, responsible men, you SHALL NOT do certain things on a certain day in each week, it may also, with equal propriety, say to them, there are certain things which you SHALL do on a certain day in the week. If legislation can dictate any part of a man's religious policy, it can dictate all of his religious policy. From telling us that we shall not do certain things on Sunday, it is only a little step to telling us that we must attend some form of religious worship; and then one more little step, and we are told what form of religious worship we must attend. This is a perfectly logical sequence.

"The American people never will submit to compulsory religion. That is something which, with compulsory vaccination and a belief in ghosts and fairies, belongs back in medieval times, when the smartest people didn't know any better than to close their eyes and accept any kind of religious doctrine which those in power saw fit to cram down their silly throats.

"The Constitution of the United States is the Supreme Law. It says: 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.' Will the Legislature of the State of California presume to do that which the Constitution of the United States says the Congress of the United States shall not do?"

"THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST."—Laws for the protection of human rights are necessary; but class institutions, among which are all religious days and dogmas, must depend for their existence and promotion on the loyalty, devotion, and zeal of their adherents. If they are worthy to live, if they are of benefit to the human race, if there is back of them real intrinsic worth, their value will be recognized, and they will be perpetuated in the hearts and lives of their constant and multiplying constituency. But if these institutions can not be thus maintained by their inherent worth, they deserve to die. And above all other classes, Christians should recognize this fact and indorse this sentiment. Jesus Christ declares, "EVERY PLANT WHICH MY HEAVENLY FATHER HATH NOT PLANTED, SHALL BE ROOTED UP." Matt. 15: 13. Men may bolster up Sunday by tradition and false teaching, they may put behind it all the combined power of civil government, but if it is not of God, it will surely perish, and will include in its destruction all those who have identified themselves with it. But if it be of God, let its religious friends look to Him with the calm faith of an Elijah. The Rock, and all builded upon it, will endure. All the storms of infidelity may break upon it, but the waves and winds will be proved to be but spray, which will whiten, harden, and polish the Rock. We leave these queries with those of our readers who hold to the Sunday institution: Is not the appeal to civil law a tacit confession that they know that the Sunday is not of Christ, that it is not of God's planting? Or, if they believe it to be of God, does not their appeal to civil law show that they have lost faith in the "all power" of the Gospel?

THE SABBATH does not need man's power or man's aid or man's laws. It is man that needs the Sabbath. "The Sabbath was made for man." But what the Sabbath shall be to a man rests upon his own sense of his own need, not upon what some other man may think. Prayer or baptism does not need man, but man needs these; and yet their value depends not on what others may do, but his own faith in God's ordinances. Jesus Christ died to save men, not institutions.

HUMAN GOVERNMENT never enforced God's word or law or Sabbath; it only enforced some man's conception of what God demanded. Men of old, professing to be teachers of God, believed that Jesus Christ ought to die because He did not keep the Sabbath in the same way they did. There are teachers now who believe that men who keep the same Sabbath that Jesus did ought to die because they do not keep a day He never kept. Should such teachers ever be entrusted with the power of Caesar?

ASSISTANT DISTRICT ATTORNEY HENEY, of San Francisco, retires from the Federal cases with which he has been connected to give his entire time to prosecuting grafters in San Francisco. The cases of Mayor Schmitz and Abram Reuf will be pushed vigorously.

FAILING TO SEE THE SIGNAL, an engineer on the Baltimore & Ohio road ran his train at high speed thru a fog, just out of Washington, D. C., December 30, colliding with another train, causing a wreck in which nearly sixty lives were lost and many others injured.

A DESPATCH FROM PEKIN states that at least four million people are starving in China, and that tens of thousands are utterly destitute and are wandering over the country in search of rice. The American Red Cross has issued a call for aid.

GENERAL VON DER LAUNITZ, Prefect of Police of St. Petersburg, was shot and instantly killed by a young Terrorist, January 3. His assassin was immediately slain with a sword.

FRANCE orders four more submarine cruisers, superior, it is said, to any existing type. This makes twenty submarines within a year for the French Government.

AT THIS WRITING a general firemen's strike is feared thruout the Harriman lines. The root of the difficulty seems to be between the firemen and engineers.

BLIZZARDS in Russia have been of exceptional severity, and 160 people have perished in consequence.

THE VOLCANO KILAUEA, of the Hawaiian Islands is said to be more active than for twelve years.

THE EGYPTIAN CAMPAIGN. - THE FRENCH AT WORK.

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