—Rev. L. R. Woodward (Methodist), pastor of Eureka Circuit, this State, has been appointed Government Commissioner to Alaska. He hopes to carry on missionary work in connection with his governmental duties.
—A call has been issued for a conference in Pittsburg, Pa., on the 16th inst., of Prohibitionists, woman suffragists, and others interested in general reform of the government, to organize a new national party. It is signed by 1,800 Western Pennsylvania people, including many ministers and several prominent characters.
—It is said that six of the leading Jewish papers in the United States favor Sunday services instead of the usual Sabbath services. The Sunday innovation will no doubt become, in time, a recognized tradition of the elders. Having rejected the Lord, the time must come when they will ignore his law. The company that will stand in the judgment will “keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus” (Rev. 14:12). The two must stand together, for without the faith of Jesus no one can keep the commandments, and any attempt to do so is mockery of God.
—Great excitement prevailed at Swedesboro, New Jersey, on the 12th inst., on account of the excommunication of Priest Treacy by Bishop Carroll. Fifty members of the congregation, who sustained their pastor, were also excommunicated. An appeal is to be taken to Rome. The cause of the action is not dated in the press dispatch.
—There are many converts to Protestantism from the Catholic Church, and for this reason many people are credulous enough to believe that the papal power is waning, and eagerly look for a great hegira on that same road. But such overlook the mighty trend of Protestantism almost in a body toward the “Mother Church.” Many of the converts from Rome will erelong find themselves unwittingly back in the “Mother’s” arms, in principle if not in name.
—Lady Mary Elizabeth Herbert, in the Dublin Review, says: “If you ask a Russian peasant, ‘What is meant by orthodoxy?’ he will tell you that it consists of the following things: To be baptized a Christian; to wear on the breast a cross or a holy image of some sort; to adore Jesus Christ; to pray to the Blessed Virgin and all the saints; to keep the feasts of obligation; to fast at the appointed seasons; to venerate the priests and religious order; to receive the sacraments and attend to one’s religious duties.”
—A number of the students of the University of California have formed a society the purpose of which will be a scientific investigation of the religious thought of the world as shown in the world’s religions, and an inquiry into various religious problems. The methods of research will be scientific, and the aim of the society practical. James Freeman Clarke’s “Ten Great Religions” will be used as a basis of study. The Bible would be a great help in such a discussion, if there were any in the society who had sufficient practical knowledge of its contents to use it to advantage. But unfortunately the instruction imparted at the university has for several years been darkly shadowed by the modern evolution theory, whose vagaries are being forced into every department of popular education.
SECULAR.
—The California Legislature has passed an act exempting persons from taxation whose property is valued at less than $500.
—Last week a large increase in the deaths by pneumonia and la grippe, and diseases of a kindred nature, was reported in New York City. The number reported was 210.
—An ominous sign of the times is seen in the singular spectacle of the Board of Trade of Kansas City suspending business to give a reception to a champion prize fighter.
—President Cleveland has withdrawn the Hawaiian Annexation Treaty from the Senate. It is now thought that a special commission will be sent to the islands to inquire into the situation of affairs.
—In this city, on the night of the 10th inst., two burglars were detected by two policemen in the act of opening a safe. A fight ensued, in which one of the burglars and Officer Cashin were killed. The other burglar escaped.
—A Panama correspondent says that a new revolution has broken out in Southern Honduras. The Revolutionists, with 1,000 men, under Generals Sierra and Bonilla, had captured the city of Choluteca, which was garrisoned by 1,500 troops.
—Mr. Cleveland is now experiencing the most trying effects of success, that of portioning out the spoils of office. There are dozens of applicants for every position, and necessarily many recent friends will be—to say the least—disappointed.
—San Diego, Cal., seems determined to try women for the City Board of Education. The design is to lift the Board out of politics. The Democrats, Republicans, and Populists have all nominated women in most of the wards. One woman is on all three of the tickets.
—Some English radical papers are drawing doleful pictures of the contrast between the lavish toilettes of the wealthy people and the general depression and harrowing condition of the working classes. This contrast is becoming more and more marked in all countries.
—European advices say that there are increasing omens of cholera calamity the coming summer. The disease has broken out, in spite of the wintry weather, in several sections. Russia's latest reports state that about 500 new cases are noted daily in the district of Kamenzpodols.
—War has been waging between rival factions of Chinese highbinders in San Francisco for several weeks, and the police determined to put a stop to it. So last week they raided the joss houses of both parties and demolished their patron idols, and this was followed up by the arrest of between thirty and forty of the belligerent celestials.
—A destructive fire occurred in Boston on the 10th inst. Some of the finest buildings in the city were destroyed, with a loss estimated at $3,000,000. The fire also caused the death of twenty or more persons, and many others were seriously injured by jumping from windows or being burned.
—A Vienna dispatch of the 9th inst. says that Lichtenwacht, a village of 1,100 inhabitants, in Lower Austria, has been swept by a terrific thunderstorm, lasting fifteen hours. Many houses were struck by lightning, five persons were struck dead in the streets, and seven perished in the burning buildings.
—The grand jury of Atlanta, Georgia, have ignored the verdict of the lunacy commission in the case of Miss Julia Force, who recently killed two of her sisters. The jury claims that the decision of insanity was brought about by the influence of Miss Force's attorney and her friends, and she will have to stand trial.
—A Miss Little, who had been employed in the Assembly post office at Sacramento, went last week to Ogden to meet and marry a railroad conductor named Janes. Ten hours after her marriage she shot herself to death with a revolver. The couple were first cousins, and her parents had opposed the marriage. No reason was assigned for the deed.
—An immense ice gorge in the Susquehanna River at Wilkesbarre, Pa., went out on the 10th inst. with a tremendous crash. The town of Plainsville was submerged, trains were stalled, and the village of Port Bowkley was inundated. The whole country along the stream was afloat, and at Pittston the flood was twenty-three feet above low-water mark. So says a press dispatch.
—Additional reports from the South indicate that the damage by the great cyclone mentioned last week was greater than at first supposed. An Atlanta, Georgia, dispatch says that in Troupe County the storm swept away nearly all the farmhouses, scattering all their supplies. At Meridian, Miss., the mayor has called for contributions for the distressed people at Marion, Toomsuba, Kowance, Pachuta, and Burnett.
—The suggestion that the emperor of Austria is about to abdicate the throne is another cause for a sensation in European government affairs. The triple alliance between Austria, Italy, and Germany is weakening, because Austria and Italy cannot long sustain the financial cost. Germany has the most at stake, hence the young emperor is uneasy. A visit to Italy is contemplated, for an interview with King Humbert and the pope.
—The town of Sandgate, Kent County, England, was practically destroyed on the 5th inst. by the ground giving way for about a mile square, and sinking several feet. The incident was accompanied by loud rumbling, and noxious vapors issued from the breaks in the ground. The report says two hundred houses were totally destroyed, and the others rendered uninhabitable. The landslide is supposed to have been caused by the waves of the sea undermining the low cliff on which the town is built.
—The skeletons of forty-three soldiers and forty-five horses were recently discovered by mining prospectors in New Mexico. They are said to be the remains of a company sent out from Fort Marcy in 1879 in pursuit of Apache Indians. It has always been supposed that the company had been annihilated by the Indians, as no tidings had ever been received from them after leaving the fort. But it is quite evident that they were poisoned by drinking the water of a poison spring near their camp. The arms and ammunitions of the company were undisturbed, which would not have been the case had they been massacred by Indians.
—A terrible tale of disaster comes from Tomsk, Siberia. While on their way to that city a party of exiles encountered a terrific snowstorm. They were then six hours' march from their destination. Heavier and heavier became the fall of snow, and the wind grew in intensity. In one hour all traces of the road were lost. In two hours most of the men were exhausted. Then came a heartrending scene. One after another, the exiles would stumble and fall, each drawing with him two or three of his comrades, who were chained to him. No assistance was offered by the rest, however, and the weary party marched on, leaving the fallen ones to their fate. Of 374 prisoners only 91 survived.
—News of a hurricane at Tamatave, on the east coast of Madagascar, on February 22, was received in Paris on the 6th inst. The wind came from the sea, and first struck vessels near the mouth of the bay. The Alsimo, a French ship, was stripped almost instantly of masts and rigging, and a few minutes later went to the bottom with all on board. Five coasting vessels anchored within the harbor foundered almost simultaneously, and but ten men of the crews were saved. Four other coasters sank before the storm passed. In Tamatave the streets were swept clean of people and vehicles in a minute. Twenty-two of the best buildings in the place and a large number of huts were wrecked. Four sugar factories were leveled to the ground. Many lives were lost.
Christian Union and Daily Consecration
By Editor
It has been voted by the General Conference that our able contemporary, the Present Truth, published in London, be changed from a semimonthly to a weekly, and that Brother L. A. Smith go to London to assist Elder Waggoner in the editorial work. This is a good move, and of course will be a successful one.
THERE can be no Christian union outside of Jesus Christ. When all of Christ's followers are one with him, they will be one with each other. Let him be recognized as the head, and there will be no divisions in his spiritual body, the church of God. In him there is union and peace, but apart from him all is discord and division.
In order to succeed in the Christian life there must be a daily consecration to God. We live one day at a time, and day by day and hour by hour we must consecrate to God every purpose and object of life. Lay all before him, your plans to change or lay aside as his providence may direct. "If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me."
A REMARKABLE "Public Letter on the Sunday Closing" appears in the New York Christian Advocate of the 2d inst. It is addressed to Mr. Durborrow, chairman of the Congressional Select Committee on the Columbian Exposition. The remarkable thing about the letter is that it emphasizes the fact that in the act of Congress providing that the exposition should be closed on Sunday, the nation assumes a religious attitude. It also claims that the repeal of the Sunday-closing act would be the "elimination of the Sabbath . . . from its [the nation's] statute books." Then it is not only the opponents of the Sunday-closing act who observe that the act was religious legislation,—placing Sunday on the statute books as the sabbath to be recognized by the civil law,—but the friends of the act admit it to be so. There can be no evading the fact that the nation has established by law a religious tenet, an act expressly forbidden by the First Amendment to the Constitution. The Sunday sabbath becomes, by this act, the one religious badge of this nation. It has for centuries been the special badge or mark of authority held up to the world by the papal power. Can anyone fail, in the light of Revelation 13, to see the force of the image which the nation has set up? Having set up the image, will it fail to command the worship predicted by the prophecy? And when the decree goes forth, our duty is made plain. The warning must go: "If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb." Rev. 14: 9, 10.
SCHOOLS where a limited number of young men are received to train for gambling are among the latest additions of Chicago's already numerous agencies for evil. It is said that for forty dollars the bright student may be fitted in one month for this life of vice. No doubt many such devil traps might be found in all of our large cities. How many canker spots of sin and iniquity like the above, and even worse, if possible, our large cities contain, the judgment only will reveal. Evil doers may ease their guilty consciences now with the thought that because God interferes not with their iniquitous doings therefore he sees not nor regards. Let not such ones flatter themselves that God is like unto sinful man. Long-delayed justice will in God's own time be executed against every evil doer and every evil work.
PRESIDENT CLEVELAND refused to receive callers on Sunday, the day after his inauguration. And the San Francisco Christian Advocate says "his attitude on the Sunday question has greatly pleased the Christian people of this great nation." But suppose the President had "rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment," what would the "Christian people" and the Advocate have thought about it? This great "Christian nation" wouldn't have been a bit pleased; and why not?—Oh, "the majority," you know; the action of the majority, not the commandment of God, decides what is right! When King Saul disregarded the command of God, and spared the cattle and sheep of the Amalekites, he "greatly pleased" the people. When Pilate gave Christ into the hands of the mob, he "greatly pleased" the people. No man ever yet pleased the people and pleased God at the same time; when the people's pleasure was antagonistic to the commandments of God.
REV. DR. VAN DYKE (Presbyterian) says that there is "a determined and organized effort to introduce and apply a new test of orthodoxy in the Presbyterian Church," namely, "the inerrancy of the original autographs of the Holy Scriptures, as distinguished from the Holy Scriptures which we now possess." As to his own position he has this to say:—
I will have nothing to do with this theory of the inerrancy of the original autographs. I neither affirm nor deny it. Whether the original autographs were free from the difficulties which exist in the present text or not, is one of those things which no man can find out. The theory may be true, or it may be purely imaginary. God knows. I do not. I am perfectly contented with my ignorance. The Bible as it is is good enough for me. It is the word of God to my soul, a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path, my only rule to direct me how to glorify God and enjoy him forever, my treasury of grace and comfort, my chart in life's stormy voyage, my deed and title to an inheritance with the saints in light, my own word of prophecy whereunto I have taken heed until the day dawn and the daystar, Christ, arose in my heart.
THE American Sentinel truthfully says that "the principle of a mild religious law is just as evil as the principle of a harsh religious law. Civil laws enforcing religious doctrines always begin mildly. They could not obtain prestige at all if suddenly thrown before the people in an extreme form. The first Sunday law was very mild, only affecting the town people and public officials. Many of these were favored by the law, and the country people were favored by exemption. But about forty years afterward the sentiment had grown to such an extent that the Council of Laodicea was emboldened to pronounce it heresy to observe the seventh day. And so the spirit of intolerance and persecution grew into the cruelties of the Inquisition. A people are only prepared for extreme violence by the practice of lesser evils. But as "he that hateth his brother is a murderer," so in the milder forms of persecution lurk the seeds of the grosser cruelties. Thus the men who at first ask for Sunday laws with mild penalties and many exemptions, become hardened to clamor for "severer penalties and fewer exemptions."
MR. W. F. STEAD, editor of the Review of Reviews, according to a recent issue of the Christian Commonwealth of London, has been having what is termed "some singular psychical, or other phenomena, in his own experience." He claims that his hand, independent of his will or any visible force, has written messages from absent friends. He has been able to form a connection of thought with persons who were many miles away, and hold mental converse with them. He also claims to hold converse with an intelligence of the spirit world. Mr. Stead flatters himself that he has discovered some higher power of the mind of man, which he trusts by further development may prove of greater value in transmitting thought than any known mechanical device. But let not the editor of the Review of Reviews flatter himself that his discovery is that of a new power or hitherto unknown force in the mental endowment of the race. It may be a new phase, but it is the manifestation of the same science whereby the soothsayers and necromancers and diviners of the past prospered, and oftentimes told marvelous things. It is but a new manifestation of modern Spiritualism, and its source is the same, whether coming through a man of influence like Mr. Stead, or through the most ignorant devotee of the system. Many of the so-called "psychical phenomena" of to-day are but the workings of the crafty enemy of souls, who is putting forth every effort and using every argument and subterfuge to trap the unwary, and drown souls in perdition at last. While we should stand prepared to discern the manifestations of the Spirit of God, and follow where it leads, let us be watchful in avoiding the counterfeit, in whatever form, or under whatever name, nature, or claim it may turn up. This is an age of counterfeits and delusions. But the presence of counterfeits denotes the existence of the genuine and true. God's Spirit will work mightily in the last days. Satan will try to oppose its power and counterfeit its claims by miracles and lying wonders. But he who makes God his refuge will not be left to the deceivings of the enemy.
CALIFORNIA CAMP MEETING.
By Stephen Nelson Haskell
THE coming camp meeting to be held at Oakland will in many respects be the most important camp meeting ever held in California. We have reached an important era in the history of this work as well as in the history of the gospel of Jesus Christ. For nearly fifty years we have looked forward to the time when the loud cry of the Third Angel's Message would come—the time of the latter rain, when the experience of the early church would be acted over again. That time has come. The mighty angel which is to come down from heaven and lighten the earth with his glory, has come and begun his work.
We have also looked forward to the time of the persecution of the two-horned beast of Revelation 13 which would mark the beginning of the end. We have entered upon this period. Advance moves are being made. The entire armies of heaven are on the move. It is for us to coöperate at the present time ere we are left to perish.
There will be help from the General Conference at this meeting. We write this thus early so that our brethren may at once begin to prepare for this general gathering. We expect them to be in season at this meeting. Bring your unconverted children and neighbors. Let the meeting be a subject of prayer.
S. N. HASKELL,
Pres. Cal. Conf.