p. 16 | Signs of the Times, Vol. 39, No. 21. (5/28/1912)

Earlier text: The Father, His Burdens and Rights

They Missed the Titanic

By Editor

It was feared that Pastor J. J. Nethery and wife, formerly of England, now of Oregon, were on the ill-fated Titanic. He applied for passage on the Olympic, but if that were full, he would be willing to go on the Titanic. In God's good providence a place was found on the overcrowded Olympic, which landed in New York the same day the Titanic went down. We are glad they missed the fatal boat.

Man Needs the Sabbath

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 upon man's own faith in God's ordinances. Jesus Christ dies to save men, not institutions.

Poor Mexico

By Editor

Poor Mexico.—The war with the insurrectos drags on, the last reports showing that the federal troops are in the ascendancy. Orozco, however, the rebel leader, tells us that the war has just begun, and even tho sorely defeated, he feels that victory will finally be his. The equipment and arms and supplies seem to be altogether on the side of the federal troops. President Taft is urged, in various quarters, to take a hand; Great Britain has sent gunboats to look after her own. But it is perhaps better to wait. We pity the poor, suffering people of Mexico, however, and wish there were less ambition to rule and more desire for the good of the people on the part of the leaders.

Save Mammoth Cave

By Editor

Not long ago we spoke a good word for the saving of Tallulah Falls, in Georgia. It would seem as if Americans ought to speak a good word to save Mammoth Cave, which not very many years ago was one of the great natural attractions of the country, standing, perhaps, second to Niagara Falls. New things have attracted tourists elsewhere, and there have not been the easy facilities for reaching Mammoth Cave that are available for other attractions, so that Mammoth Cave is now in the market. It ought not to be; it ought to be held as one of the great, natural wonders of the country itself.

Japan’s Foothold in Mexico

By Editor

We are not receiving very much light on the Japanese foothold in Mexico. Some of the Eastern papers are telling us that the story is a pure fake; that the territory round about Magdalena Bay is utterly barren; that it is not a proper place for government port or station. And yet the Hearst papers contend that a Japanese corporation secured last August from the Mexican government a seacoast concession 700 miles long on the mainland of Western Mexico; that thirty Japanese scientists and experts are now engaged in making maps of this concession; that the survey is directed by officials of the Japanese government; and that the Japanese are now negotiating for the control of lands commanding the strategic control of Magdalena Bay. Surely this would hardly look like a mere fishing excursion.

In Our Next Issue

By Editor

The principal articles in our next issue will be as follows:

1. Religious Liberty in America — The Constitution and Its Guarantees. By C. M. Snow, editor of "Liberty."

2. Religious Liberty in California — Her Unique Position Compared with Other States. By John Orr Corliss.

3. An Inquiry into Religious Liberty, the Catechism continued. By W. A. Colcord.

4. Christ Came Not to Judge, but to Save. By H. W. Cottrell.

5. Coöperation with God a Necessity. By Mrs. E. G. White.

6. The United States a Subject of Prophecy.

7. The Mother — Her Burdens and Rights. By Mary Alice Hare Loper.

This will be a splendid number, packed full of inspiration and instruction.

Relief for Mississippi Valley Sufferers

By Editor

It would seem that if there is in the country a needy class which demands help, it is the sufferers in the Mississippi Valley. The floods have been very severe this year. Levee after levee has broken, and even Baton Rouge and New Orleans have been in great danger. Thousands have been driven from their homes, many have lost their houses, and crops have been swept away. But few, comparatively, of the survivors in the Titanic disaster suffered, yet thousands of dollars has been raised all over the country for this; but there have been no great appeals, so far as we know, for the relief of the sufferers in the valley of the great Mississippi. It is a great, suffering old world. Calamities have come and will come; they are with us perennially and constantly, and the hard-hearted among us doubtless need them to arouse our sympathy and take us out of ourselves.

Pretty Dry

Pretty Dry.—This is what an old one-time resident and property owner writes of the temperance victory in Mountain View: "We are rejoicing with you over the fine victory for temperance in Mountain View. I hope the town may be so dry that if a bottle of whisky were brought into the village, it would evaporate through the sides of the glass."

Contraband Drugs Burned in San Francisco

Twenty thousand dollars worth of contraband opium, morphin, cocain, and opium-smoking outfits were burned in a huge bonfire in San Francisco recently. The Pharmacy Board has $30,000 worth more of opium on hand waiting for the decision of the court to be consigned to the same fate.

The War Between Turkey and Italy

By Editor

The war between Turkey and Italy still drags on. There are statesmen who consider that its prolongation is of grave danger to the peace of Europe. If military operations could be confined to Tripoli and its section, the struggle might go on almost indefinitely, and the world know little of it; but it is not in the nature of things that Italy should be content to forego her enormous maritime superiority, while finding herself foiled in every attempt to push forward in Europe. Every attempt of Italy to strike at the heart of Turkey is checked by the fact that action on her part would be detrimental to the interests of other powers. For instance, if Saloniki were bombarded, the Jewish warehouses, with their intimate connection with all the capitals of Europe, would probably be burned down; but the Turks have none to destroy. If the Dardanelles were blockaded, the Russian grain ships would suffer. One report is that a holy war has been called for. This is probably a rumor, but it is feared that one might be called, and all the Mohammedan hosts of Africa rise to its call. The powers are endeavoring to bring about peace, but Turkey can not accept any proposals unless they provide for the maintenance of the effective, integral, sovereign rights of Turkey and the evacuation of Tripoli by the Italian troops. But Italy will not evacuate Tripoli. One of her latest steps was to seize Rhodes. Nearly seven centuries ago it was in the hands of Italians, and they held it for more than two centuries. The seizure of Rhodes is a distinct blow at the integrity of the Turkish empire, even as an Asiatic power. What the end of the present struggle will be we do not know, nor can any one foresee. It may mean the wiping out of Turkey in Europe; it may mean the seizing of the Holy Land by Italy, and the conveyance of it to the pope, in fee simple, as was stated at the beginning of the war; and it may mean a dozen different things that no one can imagine.

Failure to Trust God

Failure to Trust God.—The demand on the part of Christian people for State support or aid or enactment for institution or dogma or tenet or creed, is a tacit confession that they can not trust God to do what He has abundantly promised. In the great Gospel commission, as He sent forth His servants, His assurance was: "All authority hath been given unto Me in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations." The power which these servants were to possess was not the power of coercion, the sword of civil jurisdiction; it was the power of the Spirit of God. It is an age-old lesson. "Not by might [army], nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith Jehovah of hosts." Israel's failure to trust God led them to subjection, to the confusion of Babylon on the one side, or the darkness and degradation of Egypt on the other. In the Christian conflict, "the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God." That Christian who forsakes God's power, and seeks that of the State, repudiates faith in God, and puts the civil power in the place of the divine.

The Spiritual Test of Scripture

The "historical" process and the "inductive method" of the Higher Critics applied to the Holy Scriptures leave out one important test stated by the Messiah Himself to the higher critics of His time: "If any man willeth to do His [God's] will, he shall know of the teaching." This is the one infallible test. It is unscientific not to respect it. It is a spiritual test, we admit, but the Christian Book comes to us as a spiritual Book, with a spiritual law, and a salvation which is spiritual. If it be not this, it is nothing but a book of incomplete history and marvelous ethics. He who ignores its higher purpose, its spiritual life power, loses all. True criticism meets its test and finds it not wanting.

Every Day Should Be Mothers' Day

By Editor

"Mothers' Day," May 12, seems to have been quite widely observed. Surely the mothers ought to be honored at least one day, when every day ought to be a mother's day. Relegating simply one day in the year to the honor of mothers will take from them more than it adds to them, it seems to us. The family is a thing for every day, and the mother is a necessity to the family.