ITS PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE, AND WHAT THE SCRIPTURES SAY OF IT.
By U. SMITH.
AUTHOR OF "SMITH'S PARLIAMENTARY RULES," ETC., ETC.
THIS is a new and popular work on a subject of the deepest interest to all American citizens. It takes a brief but comprehensive view of our Government from a Historical, Political, and Religious Standpoint.
The Sunday Question,
Modern Spiritualism, and
National Reform
ARE PROMINENT AMONG THE TOPICS ABLY DISCUSSED IN THIS WORK.
THE MARVEL OF NATIONS is a work of 300 pages. It contains a steel plate of the author, and over forty illustrations. It is printed in clear type, and bound in cloth; price, $1.00.
Address, AMERICAN SENTINEL, Oakland, Cal
The Great Eastern Snowstorm
DURING the week past the papers have given extensive details of the snow-storm which prevailed in the Eastern States, beginning Sunday, March 11, and continuing for nearly three days. In the hands of the storm the great centers of business and traffic were utterly powerless. Railroads and telegraph lines became inactive. Boston communicated with New York via Liverpool by cable, and Washington with New York via Chicago over two solitary wires remaining. Business men perished in New York City on their way to or from their offices. The price of provisions ran very high, and a temporary famine was threatened. Over 500 corpses in New York awaited burial. The loss of life and property by land and sea is very great. Dakota is foremost with words and gifts of comfort for the suffering.
Notice About Unpaid Papers
By Editor
We send no papers from this office without pay in advance unless by special arrangement. When persons receive copies without ordering them, they are sent by other parties, and we can give no information in regard to them. Persons thus receiving copies of the Signs are not indebted to the office, and will not be called upon for pay. Please read the papers and hand them to your friends to read.
Oakland Church Dedication
By Editor
THE dedication of the Oakland Seventh-day Adventist house of worship will take place Sunday, April 22. This will be at the time of the annual meeting, and a large attendance from abroad is expected.
Baptist Theory of Baptism
The Christian Union having been asked for some work that will refute the Baptist theory of baptism, replies thus: “There used to be such works, but the world has moved, and they are antiquated. If the primitive mode of the sacrament is of unchangeable authority, the Baptists have the best of the argument.”
Sermons and Their Texts
It is said that a certain old colored minister always introduces his sermons with the following: "Brethren, my sermon is basted on the following text." That is more than many of his white, educated brethren could truthfully say, for many of their sermons are not even "basted" to the text. Too often there is not the slightest connection between the text and the sermon.
Explanation of Sabbath-School Lessons
By Editor
A WORD of explanation to those who are studying the Sabbath-school lessons. Last week we printed lesson twelve, and this week we print lesson fourteen. We do this because lesson thirteen is a review, and could be omitted as well as not, and we wish to put the lessons one week ahead, so that those in the most remote places may have the benefit of the notes in their preparation for Sabbath-school. We do this in response to requests that have been sent in by several subscribers.
The 1260 Years and 538
C. C.—The reckoning of the 1260 years, to have ended in 1798, is correct, because the prophecy says that three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots to give place to the Papacy. These three kingdoms which fell before the rise of the Papacy, were the Heruli, the Vandals, and the Ostrogoths. The Heruli were uprooted in 493; the Vandals in 534, and the Ostrogothic Kingdom was destroyed in 538. Now as the Papacy was to rise upon the fall of the three, and as the last of the three fell in 538, therefore the establishment of the Papacy must date, and the 1260 years begin, in A. D. 538.
Against Forced Bible Interpretations
By Editor
A BROTHER asks if it is safe to apply Job 20:12, 13 to tobacco-using. We say emphatically, No, it is not safe to apply it to tobacco-using, because such an application would be a false one. There are arguments enough against tobacco-using, without straining a point. The Bible has suffered fully as much from forced interpretations, a narrowing of the meaning, and attempts to make a sensation with a text, as it has from the assaults of its avowed enemies. If all who profess reverence for the Bible were consistent in their interpretation of it, and humble followers of its plain teaching, Christianity might laugh to scorn all the efforts of infidels.
Church Membership and Penitentiaries
The Rev. Alexander Jackson has an article in the Independent, on "The Relation of the Classes to the Church." A census has just been taken of the Protestant Churches of Pittsburg and Alleghany, Penn., and from that he takes his figures. Part of his conclusions are found in the following paragraph, which needs no comment:—
"There are more males than females in Pittsburg; but there are only 37.15 per cent. of Protestant church-members males, while 72.85 are females. Of the 47,838 members of evangelical churches in the two cities, 17,772 are males and 30,066 females. This unsatisfactory fact is more than offset by another: One Alleghany minister preaches to a congregation in which males are in the majority; he is chaplain of the penitentiary! More than nine-tenths of the prisoners in Pennsylvania are males. It is safe to say that if there were more men in our Protestant churches there would be fewer in our penitentiaries."
THE OLD TESTAMENT.
JOSEPH COOK, in a recent Monday lecture in Boston, took as his subject, "Christ's Testimony to the Inspiration of the Old Testament." A correspondent of the Congregationalist says of it:—
"The lecture opened with a remark of Columbus on first seeing the Orinoco River. 'This stream,' said he, 'cannot come from an island; it is too large; it must proceed from a continent.' In like manner the sermon on the mount is a stream from the Old Testament, and the preaching of John a ripple from the stream of Jewish economy. So much has been said lately about the higher criticism, that some timid people are beginning to inquire if the Old Testament has not been overrated, and question if it really contains any Messianic prophecies. But whatever the higher criticism may say, the fundamental principles of the kingdom of God, and the root idea of monotheism, underlie the Old Testament. The two great commandments, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself,' are the law of Jehovah."
Crime-Producing Literature
By Editor
WHILE vast sums of money are being expended in punishing crime, would it not be well to expend some of this solicitude and energy in removing the most active sources which produce crime and criminals? Some time since a den of young robbers was accidentally discovered under a sidewalk in Chicago. They were boys, fully organized and bound by terrible oaths written in blood. They had excavated the cave by night work, and it was adorned with arms, pictures from the Police Gazette, and furnished with cheap novels, which revel in blood and glorify crime. In San Francisco lately a policeman halted a footpad, who answered the challenge with a shot which dangerously wounded the officer. The fire was returned with fatal effect. Upon investigation, the criminal proved to be a man of noble physique, a boarder in a respectable place, who spent his entire days reading such books as have been mentioned. There was no possible necessity for such a course only as his mind, being drawn in that direction so strongly, impelled his hands to do the work of a robber and murderer. No words can adequately express the terrible Satanic nature of such reading. And it is everywhere. The minds of the youth are becoming imbued with such views of life as render crime and impurity matters of heroic virtue.
Our cities are filling up and our police courts are crowded with the young of both sexes, who have left the quiet homes of country or village life for the exciting whirl of the city, lured away from innocence by these pictures painted by demons, to deeds of crime. The publication of this vile flood might be stopped, and would be were not the moral sense of this generation steeped in these very things. But while the name of Anthony Comstock and the few of his associates are held as a by-word and a hissing, and every impediment is thrown in their way by municipal authorities, public sentiment, and newspapers, and the vilest men are exalted, we but hasten to the days of Sodom and Gomorrah.
"A DISCUSSION ON IMMORTALITY."
By Editor
THE following taken from the Christian Union goes to show that the doctrine of the natural immortality of the soul, which the professed Christian church has received from its heathen authors, is not satisfactory to all minds in the church. We gladly note this among other signs of an awakening to a sense of the truth in this important matter:—
"Considerable excitement has been caused in Neuchatel by the delivery there of a series of lectures on 'Conditional Immortality,' by Dr. Petavel-Olliffe, professor of theology, of Geneva. The course, which consisted of twelve lectures, was largely attended, the audience being composed of the professors and students of the two theological faculties, the ministers of the town, the heads of the numerous educational institutions, as well as of a large number of the general public. The learned doctor traversed the whole ground in an exhaustive manner, discussing the subject in its relation to biblical exegesis, to science, to philosophy, to the doctrines and usages of the primitive church, and to the patristic testimony. He argued that the traditional dogma rested on the platonic notion of the necessary immortality of the soul, which was entirely unscriptural, was unknown to the early Christians, and had been imported into the church by the Alexandrian school of Christian Fathers. He strongly urged that in placing the doctrine of a future life on a basis at once scientific and scriptural, there would be found the means of reconquering the ground lost to Christianity in France, and on the continent generally."
The Spiritualist Theory of Reincarnation
By Editor
The newest Spiritualist idea is that of "re-incarnation." That is, it is new in the sense that only recently has it been recognized by any great number of Spiritualists. The theory is based upon that of the pre-existence of souls. It is claimed that men now in the flesh have existed in the flesh in ages past, and, having passed into the spirit-land for a time, have once more materialized, and that after their death they may again be born into the world. It is the old Platonic theory revived. According to that theory, the spirit was made to drink of the waters of Lethe, before it came into the world in fleshy form, so that it forgot all that it had previously known. A recent writer in the Golden Gate thus explains how the re-incarnated spirit forgets its previous existence:—
"It is a well-known fact that spiritual essences suffer by contact with earthly elements. Often a materialized spirit will forget its very name, when coming within the circle of sitters. As regards an infant having no recollection of events, I knew of an intelligent child of seven years, who had been separated from its mother for ten years. At the end of that time the two were brought in contact, but the child had totally forgotten her parent and the former home life."
We don't blame the child for "forgetting" its mother under such circumstances. In spite of the Golden Gate's claim to the contrary, it will have to stand as the champion "funny paper."
Helps to Bible Study
By Editor
"Helps to Bible Study" or "Bible-Readings on Present Truth," in the German language, a pamphlet of 64 pages, has been issued by the Review and Herald press. It contains twenty-five readings on important topics connected with our work, which are prefaced with several pages of hints and instructions for Bible-workers. The book will be of great help to those who are interested in the work among people speaking the German language. Price, fifteen cents. Orders will be filled from the office of Pacific Press.
THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES,
By Editor
PUBLISHED WEEKLY, AT OAKLAND, CAL., FOR THE
International Tract and Missionary Society.
A sixteen-page Religious Family Paper, devoted to a discussion of the Prophecies, Signs of the Times, Second Coming of Christ, Harmony of the Law and Gospel; with Departments devoted to Health and Temperance, The Home Circle, the Missionary Work, and the Sabbath-school.
Price Per Year, post-paid, - - - - - $2.00
In clubs of five or more copies to one name and address, to be used in Missionary work, each, - - - - - $1.50
To foreign countries, single subscription, post-paid, 10s
Address, - - - - - SIGNS OF THE TIMES,
Twelfth and Castro Sts., OAKLAND, CAL., U. S. A.