p. 238 | Review and Herald, Vol. 29, No. 20. (4/23/1867)

BOSTON.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

APRIL 1 to 7, I spent in Boston. Bro. Howard was with me most of the time. We had a very sweet meeting at Bro. Rice’s on the Sabbath. There are about a dozen Sabbath-keepers in this city. Though they are somewhat scattered, yet they have Sabbath meetings. On Sunday, two were baptized. With judicious labor here there might be a good company gathered out.

The First-day Advent Conference was holden in this city while I was here; so I attended nearly every meeting, to learn what they were doing, and see what spirit they were of. The conclusion that I came to was, that they are in a sad state of confusion, bewildered and perplexed, not knowing either their point of compass, or the time of night. They are sure that the Lord is coming soon, many of them say this year, some next, some in 1875, &c., &c. There is little harmony among them about it. They can not give any better reason why the Lord is coming now than they could for a dozen or more other times which they have set before. One man said, “I believed without a doubt that Jesus was coming in 1844; I believed without a doubt that he was coming in 1854; and I now believe without a doubt that he is coming in 1867.” A listener remarked, “This believing without a doubt does not seem to amount to much.” It seems strange that men should be so blind as all this. They have set so many definite times “without a doubt,” that the people are getting disgusted with it, and now it has little or no effect on the people.

I was sorry to find them running into a light, frothy, and, it seemed to me, an irreverent spirit. They often speak of God, the Judgment, and the most sacred things, in the most common way. One preacher said that he did not fear God, hell, nor the Judgment, because he was prepared for translation, &c. I thought that this was going a little too far.

I was credibly informed that Eld. Thurman has abandoned his ’68 time, and now is positive that the Lord is coming in ’75. It will be remembered that the Crisis a short time ago lauded Eld. T. to the skies; but now it is noticed that they are very silent about him and his chronology. He was at this Conference, but took no part in any way.

I was glad to hear them bear a very decided testimony against tobacco. Further than this, not a word was said about Health Reform in any way, yet they profess to believe in it.

It is my conviction that soon division upon division will come up among this people. The reason for this is that there is nothing to keep them together but “time,” and on this they are not agreed. They are “in the dark, without the law, without the ark.” They are making no preparation for the time of trouble which is coming, for the reason that they do not think that it is coming.

Now, can the Lord be leading a people who are thus in the dark and confusion, divided and subdivided, and not able to give any certain information as to where we are, or to explain the disappointments in the past? God does not leave his people thus. After looking at all these things, I felt to thank God for the third angel’s message.

D. M. CANRIGHT.

News and Miscellany.

Can ye not discern the Signs of the Times? Matt. xvi, 3.

New Epidemic.—A fatal disease termed Meningitis has prevailed for some time past in several places on Long Island. It attacks persons in robust health, and is generally fatal in forty-eight hours. The membranes of the brain and spinal chord are inflamed, and the whole muscular system is subjected to strong contraction. Reaction and stupor follow, into which the patient sinks and dies. In every case, so far as heard from, except one, death has supervened.

Diseased Chickens.—We learn that there is very prevalent now, among barn-yard fowls, a disease that is particularly fatal to the chickens. They are dying by hundreds all over the country. It is possible that some of these diseased fowls are brought to our daily markets. Our citizens should be very careful in making purchases of defunct chickens.—Cincinnati Commercial.

—The cholera is expected at St. Louis this summer—several cases have even been reported already—and the Board of Health of that city are making every effort to ward it off.

—The London Times, while recognising the right of Russia to cede possessions on this continent to the United States, thinks its exercise indicates a disposition on the part of the Russian Bear and the American Eagle, to form an alliance against the rest of the world, and especially against England and France. It asserts that American politicians “admire Russian autocracy and manage to discover strange affinities between it and their own form of government,” and that they “fancy that French Imperialists and English Constitutionalists are in conspiracy with each other to propagate despotic principles in the New World.”

France.—Trade throughout France is very dull and great popular discontent prevails. Apprehension of war, disappointment in regard to the effects of the great exhibition upon trade, and the oppressiveness of the new army organization, are the leading causes of the discouragement.

Prince Napoleon, Joseph, son of Jerome Bonapart by his second wife, Miss Patterson of Baltimore being his first, has not got over his quarrel with the Emperor. In order to avoid being present at the opening of the Paris Exhibition he left a day or two previously for Havre, where he was to remain a month. It will be recollected that the Prince is son-in-law of Victor Emanuel, King of Italy, and in the event of the death of the little Prince Imperial, stands most conspicuous as the Emperor’s successor.

—The Moniteur, the official organ of the French government, yesterday contained a pacific editorial on European politics. The cable does not inform us whether it squarely denied the reports that have been circulated relative to the Luxemburg negotiations, which it would of course have been easy to do, were they untrue. Meanwhile the latest dispatches have a more warlike look than anything previously received. Bismark has sent a peremptory demand to Napoleon for the reason of the military preparations going on in France; and at the same time the garrisons of the German fortresses are being strengthened, and preparations are making for the rapid transportation of troops. Still it is to be remembered that the authority for all these statements is not given. They may be false. They may be dreadfully true. The life of the Princess of Wales is despaired of. The Sultan has sent Omar Pacha to command against the insurgents in Thessaly.—Det. Trib., April, 13.

Military Re-organization in South Germany.—The military reorganization of the Southern forces is being seriously taken in hand. The Baden Government has borrowed 6,000 needle guns from Prussia, to exercise their soldiers with until those ordered are delivered. The Bavarian Government, too, is stated, in a Berlin paper, to have bespoken 60,000 helmets of the Prussian pattern, of a Berlin manufacturer. That the Hanover military question has been ultimately disposed of by the acceptance of Prussian commissioners on the part of the great majority of the ex-officers is another victory of unity ideas over military prejudices.—Berlin Correspondence of the London Times.

—The rumors of a European complication, which have been rife for some days past, are thus explained by a dispatch from London: “It is now known that the Emperor Napoleon, deeming the possession of Luxemburg indispensable for the military security of the French frontier, not long since commenced negotiations with the King of Holland for the purchase of the Grand Duchy and its incorporation with the French Empire. But as the fortress of Luxemburg, which is one of the strongest fortifications in Europe, is held by a Prussian garrison, and the Prussian Government, backed by the whole of Germany, firmly objects to the transfer of the Duchy to France, the King of Holland has withdrawn from any further negotiations on the subject. The French Emperor insists that his propositions shall be carried out and the treaty completed. The national pride of France has been deeply wounded, and a wild anti-Prussian feeling has seized the country. Meantime, while the dispute is pending, both Prussia and France are making military preparations.”

Important Revolution in South America.—Advices from Panama present a picture of anarchy and military despotism in Columbia.

Mosquera had finally broken up the Congress by military force and imprisoned sixty-eight Senators and Representatives, among them ex-President Murillo, his rival at the next election.

It was expected that his next object of attack would be Panama, and that the State of that name would in all likelihood declare itself free and independent.

The Re-Opening of the Eastern Question.—There seems to be a general expectation in Europe that the “eastern question,” which never stays long settled, is to be reopened this summer, and possibly to assume larger proportions than ever before. All the governments are increasing their armaments, and with every motive to peace among themselves, they are vigorously preparing for war. It is the eastern question that thus puts them on the alert. They foresee the prospect of a general revolt in the European provinces of Turkey, and they mean to stand ready to interfere for the proper reconstruction of the map of Europe after the Turk is finally driven out. This would seem to be the next great step in the restoration and consolidation of nationalities, which is now the conspicuous tendency everywhere. European Turkey is Turkish only by conquest, and by a permanent process of subjugation. Of the sixteen millions of people inhabiting the Turkish provinces in Europe, less than one-fourth are Turks. The rest are chiefly Greeks and Armenians, with a few Jews, the Greeks being the prevailing race in all the western and southern provinces, which were formerly part of the Greek empire. There is no assimilation of the races, nor is likely to be if they live together for many centuries to come. They are still as unlike in religion, customs, manners, modes of thought, and every characteristic, as when first the crescent supplanted the dominion of the cross, and scarcely less hostile. Society is a state of perpetual warfare; the Christians have no adequate protection against the rapacity and cruelty of the Mussulmen, and the poor Jews are victims to both Christians and Mohammedans.

The Cretans still hold out bravely, and there are preparations for revolt in Servia and Thessaly. There would be a general rebellion in the principalities that are properly Grecian, if there were only the Turkish power to be resisted. But the European governments are likely to interfere, not from love of Turkey, but jealousy of each other. This is the security of the Porte, and has been for a long time. If the other great powers could agree as to the partition to be made of the principalities, they would stand aside and allow Turkey to fall to pieces, as is the tendency, and must ultimately be the fact. Greece ought to recover the principalities that were once her own and are still predominantly Greek in population and interest. Russia covets the principalities south of her own territory, and would not know where to stop short of Constantinople itself. Austria would put in claims to the principalities “convenient” to her own border, but is hardly strong enough now to press her claims with any great urgency, unless backed by France and England for the sake of holding in check the ambition of Russia. The latter power is supposed to be secretly instigating the Turkish populations to revolt, with a view to the promotion of her own designs in that quarter. What the result will be, or what the course of France, England and Prussia, if there shall be a general revolt in European Turkey, must for the present remain open to conjecture. For the time the eastern question bids fair to be a prominent one on the other side of the Atlantic. It is possible that the idea of the extension of her dominion in the East is one of the considerations that makes Russia willing to relinquish her territory upon this continent.—Springfield Repub.

France and Prussia.

THE FRENCH are surprised and chagrined by the announcement that Prussia has secured treaties with all the States of Southern Germany except Austria, which gives to the former Power the control of their armies. The result is that Germany is practically united under a single sovereign, and that the army which can be called into the field by Prussia outnumbers that of France. This fact furnishes the key to the effort lately made by France to secure the alliance of Holland, Belgium and Switzerland. France

finds that she is about to be overawed by a superior power. A united Germany, united as it has never been before, confronts her, not exactly in the field, but with power to march into the field at the shortest notice, with a large, well-drilled and efficient force. Presuming that Prussia has no hostile demands against France, she still by her successes, and by alliance has become the dominant Power in Europe, and France must either content herself with a secondary position, or engage in war to recover her ancient prestige.

As France is ambitious, and Napoleon III reckless, there is no knowing how soon the storm of battle may break forth. During the summer, France is under bonds for her good behavior, but the Industrial Exposition once over we may expect that trouble will arise. Meanwhile we may anticipate that the efforts to enlarge the French army will increase, and that it will be rendered as thoroughly effective as unlimited expenditure and wholesale conscript can make it. War, therefore, may break out before the end of the present year. If not, the adverse nations will go on arming themselves to the teeth, making, meanwhile, the most desperate endeavors to gain diplomatic advantages over each other. European politics are, therefore, worthy of the closest attention in this country, that we may thoroughly understand the issues which will constantly arise, and be prepared to anticipate the force of the various movements that will be made on the chess board of nations.—Philadelphia Inquirer.

The Review.

By J. S. MILLER

It is now some four months since I commenced taking the Review, and I think I can say, that of all the papers I have ever taken no other has been read with so much interest as this. Indeed, it has become as indispensable as my regular meals. My method of reading the Review is to commence with the first page and read it through entire, and as I read the last article stop and wonder if the publishers will succeed in getting the necessary encouragement to enlarge it to sixteen pages. What are you doing dear reader to bring about the result? The publishers tell us that what they need is more subscribers. Now, suppose we all send one new name apiece; that would just double the list. Have you done your best to get that new subscriber? Now is the time for prompt action.

Another thought. In my recent visit among the brethren of this State, I stopped at the houses of some who did not, as I thought, value the Review as they should. A paper costing $2.50 per year, and containing as much valuable reading as the Review, costs too much and is too valuable to be used for wrapping parcels or papering the walls of chamber rooms. Let them either be kept on file for future reference or given away to some neighbor to whom they may carry a word in due season. J. S. MILLER. Ashaway, R. I., March 25.

The Power of Truth.

By E. ENGLIES

It takes but a very small portion of truth to convert the soul, if it only receives application from above; and without this opening of the eyes to behold wondrous things out of God's law, one would in vain concentrate the light of seven days upon one sightless eyeball. A single summons, consisting of only two words, “Follow me,” severed the connection between the heart of Matthew, and his place at the money-changer's table. One sentence brings Zaccheus joyfully down from the tree to the feet of Christ. One declaration, uttered in a breath, sent away the woman that was a sinner, penitent and relieved, from the house of the Pharisee.

E. ENGLIES.

Without Natural Affection.

The following recital is almost too horrible for belief, yet it does not come forth attended with any circumstances, calculated to throw discredit upon it. If it was written in party or political interests, its statements might be taken with considerable limitation; but no such motives can be involved in it; and besides, it appears in the N. Y. Tribune, a paper usually reliable and accurate in its statements. The apostle has told us that one sign which would show when we were living in the last days would be, that people would be without natural affection. A picture far less revolting than the following would be an ample fulfilment of the apostle's prediction. If all the characteristics of the last days, are to be brought out with the same terrible intensity, we are truly living in fearful times. But we cannot expect any improvement till the reign of righteousness is brought in; for men will continue to shut out from their hearts, more and more, the restraining influence of the grace of God. And have we not occasion, even now, in the language of the prophet, to cry and sigh for the abominations done in the land? Let us be thankful that a change of dispensation is near. The Tribune says:

“It is getting to be a serious question among Christian men and women whether we ought not to have a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. We had not recovered from the sickening horrors of the case of the Rev. Mr. Lindsey, who whipped his little son to death because the child would not say his prayers, when we were called upon the other day to record a frightful instance of child torture near Hackensack, N. J., which fortunately came to the authorities before it had culminated in downright murder. A man and his wife, named Vanderbilt, had taken an orphan child, one Mary Ann Farrell, from an asylum, for the purpose of employing her as a servant. For about eleven months the husband knocked her about with a broomstick, and the wife beat her about with an iron dipper. They used to take her to the cellar, strip her naked, tie her up by the wrists, lash her with a horsewhip till the blood ran down her limbs, and then rub the raw flesh with brine. She made her escape at last, and was found one morning in the open fields, with bare feet and legs, and wearing only a single thin undergarment, so saturated with blood and filth that it had to be peeled from her body like a scab. She appeared in court with evidences of torture so pitiful on her person that stout men wept at the spectacle. Her jaw had been broken; her hair had been torn out by handfuls; her face was swollen and deformed; her lips were cut open; her eyes were blackened and scarred; her whole body was bruised and discolored. Little wonder that the neighbors were with difficulty restrained from wreaking lynch-law vengeance on the authors of the outrage.

“The same day we reported the discovery of the dead body of an infant in an alley way in this city. Its throat had been cut from ear to ear; the head was nearly severed from the body; there were three or four cuts about the neck, as if inflicted by the trembling, hurried hand of a woman. On that day also another case of infanticide was added to the long list which disgraces our annual police calendar. An unknown woman was seen to drop a bundle in Twenty-sixth street. When opened it was found to contain the murdered body of a child, killed by strangulation.

“One of the most shocking and inhuman child-murders that we ever read of occurred in the early part of March, in Warsaw, Indiana. An abandoned woman named Hines, apprenticed her little boy, four years of age, to a Mr. and Mrs. Harl. They were to have kept the boy until he was of age; but the process of ‘conquering’ him which the man Harl immediately commenced, was too severe for so tender a baby, and death relieved him of the charge at the end of four weeks. The day after his introduction to his new home the poor infant was whipped with a ‘black snake whip,’ because he did not know his letters. He was scourged with a knotted waggon-whip, beaten with straps, knocked out of his chair for falling asleep, bruised with clubs and bits of board until his flesh was like jelly. One day the brute Harl hanged him by the waist from a hook in the wall, took off his shoes and stockings, and kindled a fire under the soles of his feet. When the flames began to die out, the child's mother, who was present, was compelled, with dreadful threats, to bring fresh coals. This torture lasted nearly half an hour. Then the sufferer was taken down and tied to a bed post. Spent with pain, he fell asleep; for this crime he was locked up half naked for two hours and a half, on a cold February day, in a cellar. At night the executioner dipped his head in a bucket of water and imprisoned him again in the cellar. Then he turned him out of doors in his shirt and trousers. After the burning, said Harl's wife, in her testimony in court, ‘the child was not able to run around as well as usual.’ Sometimes, as a variation of the torture, the boy was hanged up by the heels. One day, after he had been whipped as usual, he seemed ‘very poorly;’ he ‘did not talk any,’ and at noon he was put to bed. Early in the evening Harl sent his wife to her room. It was very late when he followed her. ‘We had no conversation that night,’ says Mrs. Harl; ‘the child was not there in the morning.’ Mrs. Hines, the mother, suspected foul play, and applied to a magistrate. A search was made, and the body of the poor boy was found in a trunk at the bottom of a well. Harl made his escape, but has since been captured. The women were both arrested, and tried as accomplices in the murder. They were acquitted, after an examination, which seems to show that the mother, who had done little or nothing to prevent the foul cruelty which had been exercised under her very eyes, was the worst criminal of the three.

“A few days ago a German carpenter was arrested in Chicago on a charge of whipping his daughter to death. The neighbors, alarmed at the horrid outcries of the little sufferer, sent word to the police; when the officers entered the house, the man and his wife were absent, and the child was found dead, lying on her face upon a bed. Her back was a mass of wounds; her garments were saturated with blood; her neck was purple with marks of a clutched hand; the eyes were open, and the face was distorted with agony.

“These things are almost too sickening for comment. We used to believe that the wholesale killing of children by slow torture was a refinement of wickedness in which England led the world; but the records of the last year or two go far to transfer the bad pre-eminence to ourselves. Murder by the lash seems almost to have become an epidemic, and one of the worst features in the case is that women are so often implicated in the unnatural brutality. A state of society in which such horrors can become frequent, such ineffable crimes be perpetrated by parents on their own offspring, cries out to Heaven for signal punishment, with a cry to which God cannot long be deaf.”

The War Cloud in Europe

The War Cloud in Europe.—The sensitive financial barometer of Europe indicates an outbreak of war. The cable dispatches inform us of a wide-spread distrust among business men of the intentions of the French Emperor, and a decline in securities of all kinds. This uneasiness is not without foundation. The French Emperor has been terribly humiliated by the great Prussian Prime Minister. He has been checkmated at all points. Louis Napoleon has prided himself upon nothing more than his foreign policy. He was regarded as the arbiter of Europe, and as holding the fate of nations in his hands. Frenchmen were taught that the foreign influence and greatness of their country under the auspices of the Emperor more than atoned for the loss of their personal freedom.

But this remarkable prestige and reputation of the French Emperor has been suddenly withered by the genius of Bismarck. The latter gains all that the former loses. Every detail is mortifying to French pride. The recent debates in the French Corps Legislatif threw a flood of light upon last year's eventful history. The French Emperor believed that Prussia would be defeated in the recent war with Austria. Perhaps this “wish was father to the thought.” At any rate, Austria was left without an ally, and in a week was at the mercy of Prussia. It seemed as though Prussia was going to ruin the Empire of Austria hopelessly, and absorb the whole of Germany. But here Louis Napoleon interposed. He warned Bismarck that if he pursued his conquests, France would enter the field in defence of Austria. Still more, he whispered that inasmuch as Prussia had already gained an enormous accession of territory, it was only fair that it should divide the spoils, and yield that “little rectification of frontier” to the Rhine. It is just here that Bismarck displays the ascendancy of his genius. He made peace with Austria on such conditions as we know of, and then turned the French Emperor's greed of territory to account. It so happened that parts of this territory coveted by France belonged to Baden and to Bavaria, which had espoused the Austrian side of the quarrel in the Germanic Confederation. But Bismarck converted these hostile States into friends by revealing to their rulers that the French Emperor wanted to despoil them. The King of Bavaria and the Grand Duke of Baden were naturally indignant, and readily fell in with Bismarck's plan of an alliance with Prussia, which would guarantee them their independence upon condition of placing their country and military forces at the disposal of Prussia in case of war.

The treaties between Prussia and Bavaria and Baden were kept profoundly secret, until they were contemptuously revealed by Bismarck in the North German Parliament, in response to certain indiscreet boastings of M. Rouher, the French Prime Minister, in the Corps Legislatif. The effect was prodigious. It was seen at a glance that Bismarck had completely outwitted Louis Napoleon, and had virtually effected the unity of Germany. By his skill in war and peace, he was in a position to confront Europe with forty millions of united Germans, drilled in the most effective manner in the world, and armed with the terrible “needle guns.” United Germany had always been regarded as a match for both Russia and France, and it is obvious that the latter can effect very little single-handed against any policy Bismarck may choose to adopt. Louis Napoleon may precipitate a war in order to cover up the mortification to which he has been exposed abroad, and to avoid still greater danger from the growing discontent of Frenchmen. A few days will determine whether he will resort to this desperate alternative. But it now looks as if his proper course would be to attend to his great Exhibition, and content himself with amusing Europe while Bismarck governs it.—N. Y. Commercial Advertiser.

Infant Murder in New York

Child Murder in New York.—HORRIBLE REVELATIONS.—The New York Board of Health has knowledge of more than thirty houses in that city wherein the sole business is the procuring of abortions. Four deaths of infants having been reported in one house, in a single day, Registrar Harris ordered an investigation, and the inspector found the mansion full of young and middle-aged women from all parts of the country, all either far advanced in pregnancy or suffering from operations which had but recently been performed. Here are the rules of the house, as posted in every lodging room:

Ladies entering this institution for confinement are not allowed below the parlor stairs.
No visitors, male or female, allowed in the rooms.
Each occupant is expected to keep her room in order, excepting when disabled by sickness; such notice to be sent to the Madame.

4. All persons leaving children at this institution can have no further claim upon them, and must never trouble the Madame for said children as to their whereabouts.

The board of Health is seeking power to break up such establishments, which it does not now possess. It is said that the abortionists, being unable to obtain burial permits for the infants which they slaughter, now burn the remains in furnaces.

—A society for carrying on systematically the business of stealing and secreting, and selling stolen goods, has just been unearthed and broken up at Norwalk, Conn. It was regularly organized, with President, Secretary and Treasurer, and was composed mainly of clerks in all branches of trade. A strict account was kept of the stealings of each member, and the value accredited to him on the society book. Profit enough had been, already secured to enable two families connected with it to visit the Paris Exposition.

—Newbern (N. C.) imports twelve hundred barrels of Scotch snuff annually from a single firm in New York. It supplies all the North Carolina “dippers.”

—The morality of running street cars on Sunday is being discussed by Baltimore clergymen in their pulpits.

Conference Department.

Exhorting one another, and so much the more as ye see the day approaching. Heb. 10, 25.

This Department is designed to fill the same place in the paper that the Conference or Social Meeting does in the worship of God. Speak often one to another to comfort, edify and aid each other in the way of holiness and true Christian experience.

The Deathbed Testimony of Ezra Treat

By Samuel Treat

From Bro. Treat.

BRO. SMITH: Through the goodness and mercy of God I am yet alive; and for the benefit of friends abroad desire to give some particulars of the death of my son, Ezra F. Treat, who died Apr. 2d, after a very long and painful disease of Bronchial Consumption, aged 27 years. He had not spoken above a whisper since last Sept. It has been quite a trial to me because I could not talk with him, I being dull of hearing. One evening a few weeks previous to his death he wrote to me on the slate as follows.

“Dear Father: I thought as we are unable to converse with each other, I would write a few thoughts on the slate. I expect if we are both faithful we shall soon meet to part no more in a land where there will be no more feeble voices, nor dullness of hearing; for we shall be immortal never more to decay. Oh, dear father, what a blissful hope this is to contemplate while I lie here suffering, unable to speak. How this hope cheers me! It seems that the Lord will save me if I continue faithful unto the end. I want to be at peace with God and all men.”

“I do not expect to be able to talk much more with any one, for my strength in that respect is failing Father; I have thought much since lying here of the Sabbath. I have felt more than two thirds convinced for some time that I ought to keep it. Even when opposing you the hardest I sometimes thought you were right; and I now very much regret such opposition, and ask you to forgive me. I think if I had my life to live over again, I should try and obey the commandments of God. But still I feel at times as though I was the Lord’s. Pray for me that I may be patient in all my sufferings.”

Thanks be to God, he was patient, and although young, he went down to the grave as a shock of corn ripe for the harvest. Since sitting down to write this letter, another son who never made a profession of religion has been in and said that his dying brother’s earnest entreaties had harassed him day and night, and he had resolved to live for the Lord in the future. He has commenced to pray in his family, and wished us to pray for him. So in the midst of trials I am exceeding joyful, and hope to meet in the morning of the resurrection my dear departed friends and unite my voice with theirs in ascribing glory and honor to God and the Lamb forever.

I am highly pleased with the Review since its enlargement and hope it will still be enlarged. I am willing to pay three dollars a year as long as the Lord provides the means. I think that time is short, and it becomes us to give all diligence to make our calling and election sure. I wish we could have some preaching here on the present truth. There seems to be a spirit of inquiry among the people after the truth in this community. In hope of eternal life.

SAMUEL TREAT. Searsport, Me.

NANCY A. SNYDER

By Nancy A. Snyder

From Sister Snyder.

DEAR BRETHREN AND SISTERS: I am glad to say there are a few here trying to keep the commandments of God and practice truth as fast as we learn it. We sometimes feel almost discouraged by seeing so few interested in the cause of God, but when we read letters from brethren and sisters scattered abroad who are trying to make their way through to Mount Zion alone, it makes us thankful that there are enough believers here to meet together and claim the promise.

I can truly say the Lord has been good to me. A little over two years ago I was thrown on a bed of affliction and there lay, a subject of God's mercy, to go down to the grave, or be raised by his power. Here our faith was tried. But thanks be to God, in immediate answer to earnest prayer I was enabled to rise up and join in singing two hymns of praise, whereas I had not been able to speak above a whisper for several hours previous. From that hour I improved fast, and was soon going about. I then decided to stop drugging, and the next spring laid aside pork, and began gradually to grow into the Health Reform. But last fall after hearing Bro. Bourdeau's lectures on health and seeing their consistent example, some of us resolved to take a more decided stand. Others here cannot yet see the necessity or importance of it, but we hope they will soon. The more strictly I carry out the Health Reform, the better I feel, and the clearer the light shines.

NANCY A. SNYDER

Davies Co., Mo.

A Testimony on Keeping the Sabbath

By S. T. McAllister

SISTER S. T. MCALLISTER writes from Passadumkeag, Me.: I praise the Lord for the light I have received on his precious word, through his dear people. Truly the Lord has been very gracious to me. Last July I was in ignorance of God's holy Sabbath, but through his good providence, sister Davis came to this place and was made an instrument of conveying light to my dark mind. She gave me some of your excellent tracts which shed so much light on the Bible that I could but see it a duty enjoined on all, to keep all of the ten commandments; and although it has been very crossing to me to come out and keep a day of rest different from my friends and neighbors around me, yet I have been blessed in so doing. I feel that it is honoring God to rest upon the same day that he rested, and honoring his Son to rest on that day of which he declared himself the Lord.

I commenced keeping the Sabbath last August. Sister Davis and I were alone at that time, but we have one more added to our number now, and expect more still if we are faithful. I think there is a considerable feeling here on the Sabbath question. We have had no preaching yet, but we are praying for the Lord to send some of his messengers this way. We believe they will come in his own time. We need instruction very much. We get a great deal in the Review, for which we feel very thankful, but want to see some one that we can talk with that we may understand the way more perfectly. We feel that we are far behind the brethren and sisters in the last message, but are trying to live up to all the light we have.

It seems strange to us that ministers who profess to preach the gospel, should be so hard against us for keeping the commandments of God, but so it is. They are the hardest ones we have to contend with.

The Review Among the Scattered

Bro. Wm. Penniman writes from Macoupin Co., Ill: I wish to say a word in regard to the enlargement of the Review. I think none can so much desire or need a further enlargement, as the scattered and lonely ones. We are now among that number, and more than ever do we prize its weekly visits. It has grown more and more interesting, and now that we are blessed with the weekly sermons, we can not well do without them. What a consolation it is, that if we can not listen to the verbal teachings of the messengers, we can read their writings.

It was hard for us to leave those of like precious faith, and go as it were into the wilderness, but we trust that we acted in the fear of the Lord. The Lord is good to his people, to those who put their trust in him. We want to do all that we do to his honor and glory.

How true it is that God's people must take the step of temperance before they can take that of patience. We are trying to take it with them, and to rise with the message, that at last we may be among the overcomers.

A Feast of Fat Things

By Sister L. H. Winslow

SISTER L. H. WINSLOW writes from Boone Co., Iowa: For the last four years my lot has been far from Sabbath-keepers, but my trust is yet in my Heavenly Father, and I can to-day rejoice for the light which is leading the remnant people of God.

I often feel disconsolate and think what a privilege it would be to meet in conference meeting with some of like precious faith, but when the Review and Health Reform come, it is then I have a feast of fat things.

A Determined Overcomer

SISTER H. J. WESCOTT writes: I see the hand of God in every advance move leading us step by step, just as fast as we are able to move forward.

The Health Reform has done much for me, though I do not understand it as well as some others, consequently do not receive as much benefit from it as I otherwise might. I am fully determined to go forward although it may cut off a right arm or pluck out a right eye. I love the appearing of my Saviour as I never did before, having been called to lay a child in the dusty tomb to wait until the Life giver comes. It is a severe chastisement, but I deserved it, and feel to bless God that he has taken the one that was fully prepared, to warn the rest. I feel lonely but not forsaken. I am determined to be a perfect overcomer that I may be prepared to meet my child in that kingdom where sorrow and death are not known.

The Review Is the Best Paper

BRO. S. A. BRAGG writes from Cambridge Wis.: Please put me on the list of your three dollar paying subscribers; and I will make money at that, for before the enlargement of the Review, I had to take the Independent to gain a kind of information, the Review did not contain; and if its second enlargement adds as much as its first has, it will be cheap enough at four dollars a year. I believe it to be the best paper printed.

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