Earlier text: THE MONARCHICAL PRINCIPLE ESTABLISHEDIN THE LAND OF ROGER WILLIAMS.
Noble principles and holy deeds are not native to the soil of any spot of earth; they are heaven-born. When he whose life embodies the principle passes away, when the principles which moved him and gave his land fame cease to live dominantly in human hearts, the people soon revert to the selfishness and tyranny of former conditions. The traditions and halos linger in page and song and tale, but the liberty, righteousness, and justice are forgotten. Among the most blasted of lands to-day is that which once knew the earthly footprints of the Son of God. It was not many years after Roger Williams lived at Salem, that the people of that town persecuted as witches, even unto death, innocent men and women. Roger Williams, driven out from Massachusetts Colony, went to the wilderness of Rhode Island, to enjoy the religious freedom and true liberty of which men sought to deprive him in Massachusetts. But to-day Rhode Island possesses in letter that union of religion with the State against which Williams revolted, and on account of which he raised the standard in the wilderness. Rhode Island has on its statute books that relic of the Dark Ages, a Sunday law. On July 14 a match game of baseball was played in Westerly. The Sun of that city of that day says:— There is considerable feeling being manifested in regard to the playing of Sunday ball, especially as it is an innovation. The clergymen claim that it is a direct violation of the law, and therefore should be stopped. This does not seem much of an argument to those in favor of the game, as the sentiment of the people of Westerly does not favor rigid enforcement of many of the old laws. No attempt has been made to stop the street-cars, to shut up livery stables, to close drug stores, to keep still merry-go-rounds, or affect any of the stores at Watch Hill. At the latter place golf is played, and never any complaint by Westerly clergymen, say the baseball enthusiasts, and naturally they are asking why any distinction is now made. One is as much a violation of the law as the other. The ministers, feeling as they do, as usual have preached sermons on the subject. One by Rev. F. H. Decker, Congregationalist, reported by the Westerly Sun of July 15, we notice in part, because it is representative of Sunday-law sermons all over the country, and because of some of the errors it contains, received by many as truth. Mr. Decker's text was Mark 2:27: “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.” The following solid paragraphs are from Mr. Decker's sermon as reported. If he has been misquoted in these, we will gladly correct if he will inform us:— The ancient Egyptians began their week with Saturday, and, continuing seven days, we find that their Sabbath fell on Friday. The Jewish Sabbath changed each year to a different day of the week because of the pentecostal Sabbath. Once in each year two Sabbaths came together on consecutive days. If the pentecostal Sabbath fell on Sunday one year, the following year it would fall on Monday, and so on through the week. There was a change of the Jewish Sabbath once each year, and in each succeeding year the Sabbath fell on a different day of the week. The Jewish Sabbath never fell on the same day of the week on consecutive years. For these statements Mr. Decker has no authority. The old Egyptian language had no word for week. The first day was dedicated to Ra, the sun; the second to Thoth, the moon; the third to Hor, or Mars (corresponding to the Norse god of war, Woden); the fourth to Sebkan, or Mercury; the fifth to Jupiter; the sixth to Morning Star, or Venus; the seventh to Hor Ka, or Saturn. It will be seen that their week corresponds to ours. The Coptic, an Egyptian language, dead for two centuries, defines week by pi anan z̄, with a macron over the letter z, meaning seven, the whole meaning, “A period of time, belonging to the Sabbath.” The days are numbered, the last in the period was called both “the Seventh” and “the Sabbath.” The authority for this is “A Chart of the Week, showing the unchanged order of the days,” in both ancient and modern languages, prepared by the late Rev. Wm. Mead Jones, D. D., of London, Eng., assisted by the best scholars all over the world. The “pentecostal Sabbath” had absolutely no effect on the seventh-day Sabbath. How could the seventh-day Sabbath fall each succeeding year on a different day of the week, when the week was constituted and the days named by number, with direct and sole reference to the Sabbath day? If by “Jewish Sabbath” is meant the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, Mr. Decker has no other authority for his statement than the groundless assumption of men to support an unreasonable, unscriptural, and God-dishonoring theory. Here is another statement as groundless:— The Seventh-day Adventists have gone to the Legislature, and with money and printing-presses have helped to repeal many of the Sunday laws. This may not be applicable to all Seventh-day Baptists, but it is applicable to the class. We know of no instance on record where Seventh-day Adventists have helped to repeal a Sunday law. They have protested against them as contrary to the principles of liberty expressed in the national and State constitutions, as against the equal, God-given rights of mankind, as against Christianity, in order that they might save men from committing themselves to a course which would prove disastrous to the State, the church, and themselves, to say nothing of the persecution of the innocent. Will the gentleman kindly point out one Sunday law repealed where “Seventh-day Adventists have gone to the Legislature, and with money and printing-presses helped ‘to repeal’ it, to say nothing of ‘many’”? There are in this country 4,000,000 men who have no Sabbath, not because they do so from choice, but because they are placed in positions where by stern necessity they are compelled to work seven days in the week. To deny a man the right of a sabbath is to deny him the privilege of Christian citizenship. When the day comes that our American citizens are not allowed to have the day their conscience dictates, then our freedom becomes a farce. But who has denied 4,000,000 men the right of a Sabbath? Who drives them as slaves to work on a day their conscience dictates should be kept otherwise? What is a conscience good for if it is not worth sacrificing for? What hinders these men, each and several, from keeping any day? “They would lose their job,” it is said. Well, what of that? Is not true principle worth losing one's job for, and if necessary, one's life? O, let men be men. Let preachers teach men to be men, instead of teaching them that it is necessary that they should be nursed and coddled like spoiled children by a great parental State. Will not God care for His own? And here is a sample of how Rhode Island law helps a man's liberty, as stated by Mr. Decker:— Every man not a Sabbatarian, who does not belong to a Sabbatarian church, has no right to work for a seventh-day man. No man, unless he can bring a certificate from a pastor or church committee of a seventh-day church, or from a Jewish priest, has a legal right to labor on Sunday, either for himself or others. There is no wonder that a liberty-loving community revolts against such a law. Mr. Decker declares:— We are not all going to take up with Saturday as the Sabbath. If we have any Sabbath in this country, we shall have Sunday, and it is Sunday that we shall defend. We do not wish him to take up with Saturday as the Sabbath, because it isn't the Sabbath. Saturday is a Roman secular day, beginning at midnight and ending at midnight. The Sabbath of the Lord is “from even to even,”—sunset Friday night to sunset Saturday night. We want all to observe that day in Christ Jesus, because there is great blessing in it; but we would not compel even one man to do it, for that is not the work of Christians. In fact, we could compel no man; no power can compel any man to keep a day holy; and only so can the Sabbath be rightly kept. Only the Spirit of God received by faith can regulate that. For man to attempt it always results in tyranny, hypocrisy, and persecution. He again says:— It has pleased almighty God to unite the ministers of this town in this matter. If Sunday is a blue day to you without baseball games, then heaven would be a blue place to you. If you say that Sunday must be made pleasant by a trip down the river, by golf, by baseball, then you would be lonely in heaven. There will be no golf-links there, no Sunday papers cried upon the streets, and no baseball games in heaven. No; there will be no baseball games in heaven, nor golf-links, nor Sunday laws. This is what the prophet says of that place: “For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before Me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain; and it shall come to pass, that from one new moon [month] to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before Me, saith the Lord.” Isa. 66:22, 23. Sunday has no place there. Why not get used to keeping the Lord's blessed rest-day here? Once more Mr. D. says:— Sunday represents God; it represents first of all fellowship with God. Is that attractive to you? If you don't like that here, you wouldn't like it in heaven. If the Sabbath means nothing here, it will mean nothing there. God rested from His work, and if you have His nature, you will find that every man who is a child of God will love the Sabbath. Now that is all true as regards the Sabbath, the day that God made, the day He blessed, the day He commanded, the day in which he has placed His own presence; but it is not true of Sunday. Sunday has ever stood as the representative of apostasy. We do not refer to those who have observed it ignorantly and honestly as the divinely-ordained rest-day of the Lord, but to the institution as shown by its origin, its general history, its influence, and the continued appeal of its friends that it should be supported by civil law. No institution of God requires it. No true friend of any of God's institutions will ask civil support. His own mighty, glorious power will support and sustain all that is worthy in the hearts of His children; and “every plant,” says Jesus, “which My heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up.” Is it because men have not the Word of God for Sunday that they ask for the law of man? DISPOSING OF TWO HUNDRED SEVENTY-FIVE MILLIONS.
By T.
It is stated on what seems to be good authority that Mr. Andrew Carnegie has about $275,000,000 that he desires to dispose of in some useful or charitable way before he dies. A recent issue of a New York daily presented some of the suggestions that different people have made through the paper as to the best way of doing this. Among the suggestions is the idea of buying up large tracts of unoccupied land, and relieving the tenement-house evil by moving the people upon farms. This is a very practical suggestion, but the New York editor thinks there are some insurmountable difficulties in the way. He says these tenement-house people are not farmers, to which it can be replied that many of them can be taught to farm. He says that many of them could not be induced to leave the city; but, it is replied, there are many others who would gladly go. He states further that there is a demand in the city for the tenement-house laborer; and if you remove the present lot to the country, another would come to take their place, and so the evil would not be abated. And it is replied, If some of these powerful masters in the field of industry and trade would apply themselves to the work of overcoming this difficulty, they would not find it harder to accomplish than many things they have had to surmount in building up their colossal industries. The one thing needed is to get some of these men who have achieved such unparalleled success to undertake it, and then it will be found that every difficulty will be promptly met. And unless these men of such vast wealth do turn their affections as well as their minds to the work of resolutely-relieving the distresses of the poor, they will soon find themselves involved in the terrible struggles of their own absolute ruin. UNREST AMONG THE PEOPLE.
By G.
A “National Social and Political Conference” was held at Detroit, Mich., June 28. This was the second annual conference of this movement. It is said that “men and women of all shades of belief ‘and representing all parts of the country were ‘present.’” A number of Canadians were also present. The mayor of Detroit delivered an address of welcome, and the mayor of Cleveland responded. The convention adopted a political platform, but all efforts to organize a new political party failed. So did every attempt to indorse existing parties. One of the planks of the platform is, “Honest ‘elections, free from partisan manipulation or con-’trol.” Another plank is, “We demand for others ‘the same rights and liberties we ask for ourselves.” And still another is, “Opposition to militarism and ‘conquest, and advocacy of international arbitration.” These are all good, but how they are to be carried out without political organization is not made clear. This action rather indicates a restlessness on the part of the people, under the conviction that their rights are being infringed, that in some way trouble for the masses is upon us, and those who are convinced of these things do not know just how to avoid them. And the perplexity will deepen; for while the people are wondering what to do to avoid oppression, the cords are being tightened around them by the very elements—wealth and imperialism—which they instinctively dread, but are powerless to resist. They will find, too, that there is no remedy in “social and political conferences.” Those who now have the reins are adepts in this line. Those who have the money, and the political prestige, and the military power at command, will not be overthrown by conventions and paper platforms. The fiat has gone forth; the day of equal rights is past; “self and ‘greed hold sway.” As it was in the days of Noah, the earth is “filled with violence.” There is but one refuge from the coming storm, and that is in the faith of the soon-coming Lord. It is an individual refuge; society or the masses can not run into it by companies or by States and nations.9The “nations are angry,” their rulers are perplexed, and are rushing blindly into the vortex of destruction. “Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. . . . Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God.” Ps. 146:3-5. Utterly futile are all human efforts to avert the troubles that have even now begun. “It is time to ‘seek the Lord.” The world is crying, “Peace, peace, when there is no peace.” G. Pere Hyacinth is touring Mohammedan countries on a mission which has for its object the unification of all religionists who believe in and worship the one God. He writes recently from Constantinople, telling of progress in his mission, and of the cordial reception which was given him by Turkish officials. While it is not at all likely that there will ever be a tangible union between Islam, Judaism, and formal Christianity, yet this movement is another illustration of the tendency of the times toward that spirit of confederacy against which God warns His people, Isa. 8:12, 13. There is confederacy and combination on every hand. There is now a drawing together of formal Christian organizations for the purpose of putting in legal form the principles or tenets of religious societies; and this movement will continue and accelerate until formal Protestantism is encircled in the arms of Rome, practically, if not really. Such an ending is but the logical result of actions that are being taken, and movements that are going forward to-day. The vision given to the seer of Patmos (Revelation 13) shows that one master mind will be ruling the formal religious bodies of the world just prior to the return of Christ. That will be the acme of confederacy; for the whole world will be yielded to it, with the exception only of those who are keeping the commandments of God and have the faith of Jesus. That power which thus absorbs all other powers within itself is a religious power; for it compels the whole world to worship something. The confederating work which is now going on in the earth is hastening the condition and the proclamation there brought to view. The oppressive laws being made or resurrected are also working to that end. There must be a change from present conditions before that power is able to “speak, and cause that as many as ‘would not worship the image of the beast should be ‘killed.” Rev. 13:15. That change is coming—it is even going on now. That spirit of jealous protection of liberty of conscience is dying out of the masses and going the way of the other principles of liberty, so that oppression for religious belief and practise is not only carried on in this country, but is coming to be looked upon with less concern by the general public, and with some is a matter of practical indifference. As the spirit of confederacy grows, and as confederacy takes more and more definite shape, we may expect to see a proportionate increase in religious persecution, until it is made a capital offense to believe and practise otherwise than as that power shall direct. This is the logical outcome of that spirit of confederacy which the Lord has told us would dominate the world in the last days. More than that, it is the outcome which the Lord has declared will be. THE United States new rapid-fire gun will, it is said, “hurl a steel projectile weighing 55 pounds a distance of 24 miles at the rate of 4,000 feet a second. At the highest point of its flight, the projectile rises 51,853 feet above the firing point, or nearly 10 miles. Ten shots a minute can be fired, so that it is possible to fire 18 shells and have them all in the air before the first one strikes 24 miles from the gun, the time of flight of each projectile being 108 3-10 seconds. The chief feature of the new gun is centered in the construction, which embodies entirely new principles over the present built-up or hoop patterns now in use by our government. The tube and main body of the gun are composed of curved steel sheets one-seventh of an inch thick, extending the full length of the tube. These sheets are wound by square steel wire one-seventh of an inch thick. Ten miles of this wire is wrapped around the outside of the tube in order to harness in the enormous force and energy utilized by the weapon.” The powder chamber is much larger than those of other types. THE Washington (D. C.) Evening Star of July 22 quotes the Pilgrim series of Sunday-school lessons (Congregational) as saying in the lesson on Genesis 1: “Some students have talked about millions of years as included in the world’s history, but conservative geologists believe that present processes have been going on for from 30,000 to 50,000 years.” And again: “We have here not a scientific account of the process of creation, but a brief panoramic vision of its development. No positive scientific explanation of the origin of the world and the introduction of life on it is as yet possible. Sometime it may be able to speak with some definiteness relative to the process; but it can never tell us how or by what power the process was set in motion.” Sometime, we hope when it will not be too late, men will see that God’s Word is science—true knowledge—and that the wisdom of man is foolishness with God. WE are now told that “the great 126-ton 16-inch rifle, costing over $500,000, almost completed at Watervliet Arsenal, is now practically pronounced by ordnance experts to be a failure, and probably never will be fired. The recent bursting of one of the thirteen-inch guns of the Kearsarge while at sea practise has caused doubt in the minds of the naval authorities whether such huge guns will stand the test of a single engagement. The huge 110-ton naval gun built by the Armstrongs for the English ship Sans Pareil, after twenty-five rounds of fire sagged forward and was disabled, and had to be put out of service. On the continent General Miles found cracks in all the big guns. The 120-ton Krupp gun exhibited at the World’s Fair, and the 119-ton Krupp gun on the Italian coast, have proved total failures.” DESPATCHES from Berlin state that the weekly financial reviews “read like confessions of national financial sin.” They are horrified at the disclosures of mismanagement and peculation in the conduct of financial concerns whose credit has stood high. Our German friends may comfort themselves. The Germans are quite as honest as the people of other nations. The financial sins that will shock America after a little are now in due process of commission. We have the impression that Germany will deal far more effectively with her financial sinners than we shall be able to with ours when the crop now maturing is ready to harvest.—San Francisco Chronicle. On account of charges of cowardice and other conduct unbecoming a naval officer made in a recent book on naval history against Admiral Schley, in the Spanish-American war, the proofs of which book were read by Admiral Sampson, the former has demanded a naval court of inquiry. This Secretary Long has granted, and has appointed the court, of which Admiral Dewey is chairman. THE claims of the United States against the Turkish Government for damages growing out of the Armenian troubles, chiefly the destruction of educational and missionary buildings at Harput and Marash, amounting to $95,000, have at last been paid. It will be remembered that many religious people were in favor of collecting these at the muzzle of naval guns, a most unchristian way. THE “clerical” party, which means the Roman Catholic party, has triumphed in the elections in the Netherlands over the Liberals. This means the State subservient to the church for four years, at least. The ultra-Calvinists stood with the Catholics for a division of the school funds for sectarian education. The Liberals opposed all State sectarian teaching. COLOMBIAN officials took an insurgent from a Hamburg-American line steamer at Savanilla, July 29, contrary to the protest of the captain, who was sailing under German colors. The German flag was called “a dirty rag.” And now the matter will have to be settled between Germany and the Colombian Government with the Monroe doctrine mixed in. THE franchises recently voted away for nothing by the Philadelphia City Council to certain politicians were sold by them to the Union Traction Company for $2,250,000. The company controls thirteen new franchises. This gives it almost unlimited power. As we are about to go to press, the welcome news comes that the long drought has been broken in the middle West, good rains have fallen in many localities, and temperature generally is much lower. Strikes in the West.—There are now on strike around San Francisco Bay, chiefly in the city, the following: City Front Federation, comprising fourteen organizations of sailors, longshoremen, marine firemen, teamsters, porters, packers and warehousemen, pile-drivers and bridge-builders, hoisting engineers, ship and steamboat joiners, steam and hot-water fitters, marine cooks and stewards, etc., to the number of 10,000; machinists and iron-workers, 4,000; cooks and waiters, 1,500; sand teamsters, 500; Oakland teamsters, 800; total, about 15,000. The chief bone of contention is the principle of unionism. The employers are determined to treat with their own employees as individuals, and not through unions, or, as often expressed, “to run their own ‘business,’” while the strikers are contending for the right of organization. There is considerable to be said on both sides. Some of the organizations are out on the question of hours or wages or both. There has been some mob violence on the part of strikers and their friends, in the treatment of non-union men; some have had to work under police protection and have had police escort to and from their work; yet notwithstanding, several have been badly bruised, and noses and arms have been broken. In two or more cases the men roughly used were found to be union men. Such is the “justice” or “reason” of the mob. Business is paralyzed, and many interests will suffer, especially in fruit shipments. Strikes in the East.—The strike in the East promises settlement at this writing. The mills will stand as at present, union and non-union, those having unionized since troubles began will be recognized as union mills; the regular union scale of wages will be paid in all union mills; the unions may extend their organization into other mills without interference or prejudice by the company, if the workmen so desire; no steel worker shall be discharged because of his connection with the Amalgamated Association; all mills in the steel trust shall be open to all workers with or without union cards; the Amalgamated Association will not demand that the Steel Trust sign the scale for all the mills; and the signing of the scale for union mills shall last twelve months. The losses at present are thus estimated: To the trust companies, $5,200,000; to the men $7,600,000, a total to both of over $12,800,000. AT the recent Congress on Tuberculosis, in London, Dr. Robert Koch, of tuberculin fame, gave it as his opinion that there was but little danger of infection from tuberculosis in the use of tuberculous meat or milk. He bases this on experiments that seemed to show that the disease is quite different in bovines and humans, inasmuch as the bovine could not be infected by germs taken from the human. But Dr. Koch’s opinion is strenuously combated by men who have made it a study for years in this country. They say that the human will take it from meat and milk, and tuberculosis taken in that way is the most virulent of all. THE First National Bank of New York has declared a dividend of approximately 1,000 per cent. on its old capital stock of $500,000. Its capitalization has been increased to $10,000,000. At its old capitalization its stock was worth in the market $6,000 a share. Since its new capitalization $800 a share is asked, and $700 a share has been bid, so that the 100,000 shares are worth in the market $70,000,000. What has raised this stock is the desire of Mr. Rockefeller to control it. The struggle lies between the Rockefeller and Morgan interests for control of the greatest bank in the Western world. THE Southern Pacific Railway Management very properly ordered the discontinuance of all saloons on the broad and narrow gauge ferry boats of the Southern Pacific, also those on its Sacramento River steamers, and on the Solano, plying between Port Costa and Benicia, inasmuch as it properly prohibits its employees from using intoxicating liquors. But now the liquor dealers of San Francisco demand that the order shall be recalled or all liquor shipments from the East will be given to the Santa Fe. We hope, for the sake of morality, that the good order will be enforced. THE last of July two of the largest sailing vessels afloat left New York for Yokohama. The British bark, Brilliant, carried 1,750,000 gallons of case oil, and the American bark, Acme, follows with 1,500,000 gallons. HEAVY rains in Arizona have done great damage in the San Pedro Valley. Some houses, two miles of embankment, and ten miles of railroad track have been washed away. THE noted geologist James E. Mills, a pupil of Agassiz, died at San Fernando, Mexico, July 25. He was born in Bangor, Maine, Feb. 13, 1834. THE railroads of the United States employed 1,017,653 persons in 1900, and paid them an average of $576 a year, or a total of $576,865,230. IT is recommended by King Edward that Lord Roberts be given the sum of £100,000 for eminent services in South Africa. WORD comes from the north that three prospectors were shot by Aleutian Indians on Unimak Island in June. SEVERE forest fires have been raging in Nevada County, California, causing much loss of property. A VETERAN BURGLAR AT FOURTEEN.
By T.
A LAD of fourteen was recently caught in a robbery in a suburb of New York City. He confessed in the police court to sixty-five house robberies, and admitted having confederates in his evil deeds. Promises of clemency, threats of severe punishment, and solitary confinement, were all alike unavailing in inducing him to reveal who his confederates were. He showed all the hardihood and tactfulness of an old experienced and hardened criminal. The child belonged to a respected family, who are members of the church, and he himself was a Sunday-school scholar. The church and the Sunday-school were working to plant the seeds of morality, but the baleful literature that crowds the news-stands and book-marts did their awful work. Instances of this kind emphasize the fact that parents should make close companions of their children, and not only know the books and papers they read, but also the company they keep. The fact that our city life affords such a university of criminality that a boy of fourteen may be graduated into a hard-faced criminal, should thoroughly arouse every father and mother in the land. When we consider that the city population is greatly on the increase, and then take into account how our boys and girls in the cities are being tutored in vice and crime, what a terrible prospect is placed before us. We must not shut our eyes to these things. They present conditions that this generation will surely have to deal with, and that, too, at a very early day. “THE ARMAGEDDON OF CAPITAL AND LABOR.”
If the Steel Trust finally decides to fight—and it looks now as if that would be its decision—it will be compelled to fight the whole power of organized labor, and the struggle will be great enough seriously to demoralize the business of the country. President Gompers has stated that the whole American Federation of Labor will stand by the Amalgamated Association, and there is no doubt that every labor union in the country will recognize as a trumpet call to battle the first overt act by the great trust. The men in the trust can hardly be supposed to underrate the seriousness of the situation; they have a billion dollars of capital on which to pay interest and dividends, but beyond that they have vast railroad, steamship, and banking interests which would be affected disastrously by a prolonged strike; in short, they have more to lose by such a contest than ever any set of men had before in a labor strike. What, then, must be the importance which they attach to the principle of independence of labor-union control, for which they are fighting? They must believe that this principle represents millions on millions to them in future years; for if they did not, they would not stand for it in the face of inevitable heavy losses just at the time when the Steel Trust, which is the most wholesale experiment in industrial combination yet tried, is getting into working order. On the other hand, the labor unions, also, face the certainty of vast loss and suffering; for if the great contest takes place, several hundred thousand men will cease to earn wages for an indefinite period of time, and they and their families will suffer. The worst of it will be that the loss and suffering will fall largely upon classes of persons who have had nothing to say, one way or the other, in regard to bringing on the strike, since the shutting down of the iron and steel mills will hit all manner of industries, and the contest will be not merely one of endurance to the two sides immediately opposed, but to all classes, in which those who have nothing at stake may happen to suffer most. The London newspaper which referred to the impending contest as the Armageddon of capital and labor in America, gave it an appropriate name; for there was never such a contest before, and may be the consequences will be such as to render a similar one impossible in future. —Oakland Enquirer. FORMATION BETTER THAN REFORMATION.
The only thoroughly reliable temperance people are those who have been such from their youth. We rejoice that thousands of drunkards have been reformed, and have stood firmly in the new life, and yet how many who bade fair to do so have fallen. It is perhaps physically and morally impossible that all tendencies to the recurrence of any evil habit shall be so thoroughly eradicated that he who has once been a victim of an evil practise shall be as whole as tho he had never sinned in that respect. Here comes in the ounce of prevention, which is worth the pound of cure. Parents, teachers, and guardians will do far better work in forming the young aright in total abstinence habits than in depending on reforming them when any shall have become victims of strong drink.—American Issue. The power of Gospel singing has yet to be properly estimated. There are countless incidents on record showing the softening influences of the Story in song, in cases where it might seem that every spark of manliness or right feeling had died out through the effects of sin and degradation. Sometimes it is the “old songs that mother sang,” that touch and soften the heart, and bring back the memory of mother’s prayers, and her loving words of warning. Sometimes it is a long-forgotten hymn, heard in the old church when life was young and pure. Sometimes it is a strain unheard before, that seems dimly connected with heavenly things, and lifts the soul to where it can again get a glimpse of God and His loving Fatherhood. Many and many are the wandering ones who are brought “back to ‘the Father’s house’” through the ministration of Gospel song, as was “Ole man Kine,” whose story is told by the American Messenger, as follows:— “It was high noon, but the lines of the sun had not penetrated the dense growth along the river bottom. In the very densest part of it, where the rank grass came up to his middle, came the form of a man with his gun slung across his shoulder. Within reach almost of his hand the water was dimpled with the antics of finny creatures, and ardent altho unconscious disciple of Izaak Walton that he was, the temptation was powerless to divert his attention for an instant from the one object on which was centered his gaze—a small frame school-house a little distance off. “Yes, he was sure his daughter was there with her husband in that school-house. He had heard her wish a hundred times that she lived where she could attend church and Sunday-school, and the house her husband had built was not a half mile away on the land that his father, Jerry Wilson, had swindled him, Jacob Kine, out of long years ago. And now Jerry Wilson’s son had added another injury to the already long list by stealing his daughter away, the only being on earth that he cared for. “He thought of her as he had seen her that last afternoon as she stood facing him with the drawn knife in her hand. It was the first time she had ever defied him. Up to that hour she had been submissive to his commands, and borne in silence his threats. But the thought of her past submission and faithful discharge of duty did not touch him, nor did her tearful eyes and the pleading tones of her voice play any part in his memory of that last scene. He muttered curses on her. “The prayer was over and the preacher lined out the verse of the hymn, the children’s voices ringing out sweet and clear in the chorus as they sang,— Jesus died for all mankind,
And Jesus died for me. “But to the wretched man, brooding over his wrongs there in the river bottom, and biding his time to avenge them, the words, rendered indistinct by the distance and the immature voices of the children, were fraught with peculiar significance. It seemed to him they were singing,— Jesus died for old man Kine,
And Jesus died for me, and to him, ignorant and superstitious, the singing had a weird, unearthly sound. Did it really come from the school-house, or did it come from the clouds? If from the former, what did the children mean by singing of him? Why, his presence, his very name, was a terror to the children through the length and breadth of his county and those adjoining. He had seen them many and many a time scurrying along before him like frightened squirrels; he had even taken a certain pleasure in pointing his gun at them in cruel sport. “A sudden emotion, that he hardly understood as yet, faint as a new-born infant’s breath, began to stir in his heart. “A second time the preacher lined out a verse, and the sweet childish voices sang, as he thought,— Jesus died for old man Kine,
And Jesus died for me. “He had had very few softening influences in his life. Environment and unbridled license to natural bent had hewn out rough paths for his feet, and perhaps the only sentiment left to him in common with other men was the memory of his wife; and as he crouched there in the rank undergrowth of the river bottom, listening to the children singing ‘Jesus died for old man Kine,’ he thought of her as she lay dying, how she had begged him to break off from his ungodly ways, live in peace with his fellow-men, and be a good father to the little baby she was leaving behind. “He shut his teeth hard and clenched his hands until the veins on them were like great cords. He was fighting the first faint premonition of the giving way of the iron fetters that had long enslaved him. He did not attempt to reason about it; but he possessed a shrewd native intelligence, and knew that something out of the ordinary was moving him strangely. “A third time the voices of the children floated out sweet and clear in the chorus, repeating the lines twice:— Jesus died for old man Kine,
And Jesus died for me. “And when the last echoes died away, he knew he could fight no longer, that he was overpowered, and throwing down his gun, he kneeled there in the rank grass, and shaking like one smitten with the palsy, watched the people emerge from the little school-house and scatter to their homes, while he cried to God for mercy. “His daughter and her husband passed within a dozen yards of where he was concealed. They were laughing and talking together, and swinging each other’s hands, like two happy children. But, strangely enough, the sight of their happiness did not anger him. He felt no disposition to molest them. The sword of the Spirit had suddenly and mysteriously, but most effectively, done its work. The barriers set up by that stubborn, vindictive nature against God and humanity were forever broken down. “Henceforth old Jacob Kine, the man of blood, was the man of peace, the friend of the evangelists, and a hearty co-worker with them in all matters that furthered the interest of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He is a staunch believer in the efficacy of the means of grace, and has been known during heavy freshets to swim the river on his horse, at the risk of his life, in order to attend divine service. Hundreds throughout the mountain country where he lives will testify to his marvelous change of life, and his perseverance in good works among the rough, lawless people around him.”