Earlier text: In the Great WorldBenefits of Bible Study ............... (A. G. L., 10) $ .50 Topical Bible Studies .................. (B. S. L., 185) 1.50 How Esther Read Her Bible ........ (A. G. L., 7) .50 Back to the Old Paths ................. (A. G. L., 44) 1.00 Thoughts for the Candid .............. (B. S. L., 47) .50 Tormented Forever and Ever ........ (B. S. L., 111) 1.00 Rich Man and Lazarus ................... (B. S. L., 146) 1.00 Satan’s First Lie ............................ (B. S. L., 199) 2.00 Is Man Immortal? .......................... (A. G. L., 86) 1.00 Without Excuse ............................. (B. S. L., 46) $ .50 Great Day of the Lord .................. (B. S. L., 65) 2.00 The Eastern Question ................... (B. S. L., 144) 1.00 We Would See Jesus ...................... (B. S. L., 173) 1.00 The Gospel Message .................... (B. S. L., 188) 1.00 Waymarks to the Holy City ........... (B. S. L., 189) 1.00 Signs of the End ............................ (B. S. L., 194) 1.00 Coming of the Lord ....................... (A. G. L., 40) .50 Heralds of His Coming .................. (A. G. L., 85) 1.50 “Come, for All Things Are Now Ready” ................. (A. G. L., 87) 1.00 Why Not Found Out Before? ........ (B. S. L., 52) .50 Jewish ........................................... (B. S. L., 69) .50 From Sabbath to Sunday .............. (B. S. L., 95) .50 Identical Seventh Day .................. (B. S. L., 114) 1.00 The Seal of God and Mark of the Beast ............ (B. S. L., 130) 2.00 New Testament Sabbath ............... (B. S. L., 137) 1.00 Who Changed the Sabbath ........... (B. S. L., 187) 1.00 Elihu on the Sabbath ....................... (B. S. L., 192) 1.00 Evolution and the Sabbath ............ (B. S. L., 198) 1.00 The Seventh or One-Seventh ......... (A. G. L., 39) .50 Day of the Sabbath ......................... (A. G. L., 50) 1.00 Which Day Do You Keep, and Why? (A. G. L., 75) .50 Is Sunday the Sabbath? ................ (A. G. L., 76) .50 The True Seventh Day .................... (A. G. L., 78) 1.50 Sunday in a Nutshell ....................... (A. G. L., 88) 1.00 Temporal Millennium .................... (B. S. L., 121) 1.50 Prayer, by A. T. Pierson ................. (A. G. L., 52) 1.00 Under the Law; or Under Grace ... (B. S. L., 163) 1.00 Relation of the Law and Gospel ... (B. S. L., 166) 1.50 The Perpetuity of the Law ............. (B. S. L., 178) 1.00 Ceremonial and Moral Law Distinguished ............... (B. S. L., 195) 1.00 The Two Covenants ......................... (A. G. L., 83) 1.00 Spiritualism: Its Source and Character ................. (B. S. L., 112) $1.00 Try the Spirits ................................. (A. G. L., 48) .50 Drunkenness and Crime ............... (B. S. L., 196) 1.00 A Chat with My Tobacco-Loving Brother ............ (A. G. L., 67) .50 Demons’ Council .............................. (A. G. L., 80) .50 It Does Not Pay ............................... (A. G. L., 82) 1.00 Reports of the Next General Conference
THE next General Conference will be held in Washington, D. C., May 13 to June 6, and the committee has decided to issue a daily Bulletin during the session giving complete reports instead of giving condensed reports as was done last session. The Bulletin will be entered as a second-class publication and issued daily during the session, of the same size of page as former bulletins. It will contain from 16 to 32 pages per issue as may be required to give a full detailed report of the full proceedings of the conference. The price is fixed at 50 cents, domestic and foreign, and no club rates. A large list of subscribers is desired previous to April 15, 1909, as the list will be needed in order to enter the Bulletin. All orders for it should be sent direct to the General Conference instead of to the Review and Herald. Neither should orders for the Bulletin be mixed with orders for other periodicals. Those who may desire this publication during General Conference should send in their subscription at once. Wanted for Missionary Work.
A CONSTANT supply of SIGNS OF THE TIMES, Watchman, and Review. Address Mrs. James T. Woods, 322 S. Detroit St., Warsaw, Ind. SIGNS OF THE TIMES. Address Mrs. Nancy M. Guild, 51½ Blossom St., Fitchburg, Mass. CLEAN copies of SIGNS, Bible Training School, Instructor, Liberty, and Life and Health, also tracts. Address W. R. Lamb, Napa, Cal. CHANGE OF ADDRESS.—The permanent address of Elder J. K. Humphrey is 1693 Dean St., Brooklyn, N. Y. ADDRESS WANTED.—Present address of Edward Sutter, formerly of Great Falls, Mont. Address J. C. Foster, Rockvale, Mont. At Greatly Reduced Prices.
WE wish to clear our shelves of weekly and monthly SIGNS OF THE TIMES overstock. To do so quickly we offer packages of 100 assorted weekly SIGNS (8 pages 10 x 15 size, or 16 pages 7¼ x 9¾ size) for 50 cents per package. We pay the postage. Several hundred each of the September and November magazines are still on hand. These will go at the very low price of 2½ cents per copy. All these papers and magazines are clean and in first-class condition and are as good as any for free distribution or general missionary work. Address SIGNS OF THE TIMES, Mountain View, Cal. Our Bible Band.
By Mrs. M. J. Cole
[There are in the Bible 66 books, 39 in the Old Testament, 27 in the New; 1,139 chapters; 31,173 verses; 773,692 words; 3,576,589 letters.] COME, let us read our Bibles through—
God’s witnesses—both Old and New;
Brothers and sisters all unite
To make this practice our delight;
’Twill fill our hearts with joy and song,
And make us happy all day long. Five chapters Sabbath, so they say,
With three as well, on each week day,
Will take us through both Old and New,
With four days left just to review;
So what we’ve read and pondered well
We may in love to others tell. Religious Liberty in Russia.
RELIGIOUS liberty did not become entirely the order of the day in Russia through the Imperial ukase bestowing it upon the subjects of the Czar, says the London (Eng.) Present Truth. The state church is unwilling to see the different denominations at liberty to teach according to their own convictions of truth, and is fighting hard for the retention of its old predominance. Chapels have been built in large numbers by the various dissenting sects, especially by the Baptists, but the Holy Synod of the Orthodox church recently issued an edict ordering all Baptist chapels to be closed, and requiring lists of members to be supplied, so as to enable them to prevent further proselytizing. The government has canceled this edict, but the Czar’s ukase has not yet been enacted into law by the Duma, and the state church is trying hard to introduce extensive modifications into the law before it is finally passed. One amendment is to the effect that “no Russian member of the National church shall be allowed to secede to another communion, without first submitting to daily ‘admonition’ from his parish priest for forty days consecutively.” There is a strong party in the Duma, however, in favor of religious liberty, and the dissenters have hope of receiving fair treatment. The agitation over the true principles of religious liberty must have an educational value for many of the Russian people. A Cure for Impatience.
By D. H. Kress
We go to the doctor to be cured of rheumatism, and we resort to prayer to be cured of impatience. Nevertheless, that which is responsible for the one is frequently responsible for the other. Rheumatism is caused by the circulation or deposit of irritants in muscles, or muscle sheaths. When the muscles are moved, friction is produced as they glide over each other; this sets up an inflammatory process and causes pain. When these pains appear, the patient consults a doctor. The doctor says, you had better abstain from the use of sugar, sweet puddings, pastry, etc., and eat in moderation soups, porridges, and other soft starchy foods. The physician recognizes that sweets and soft, starchy foods readily undergo fermentation, thus forming the irritants that are frequently responsible for rheumatism. He may also recommend the disuse of flesh foods on account of the uric acid and the large quantity of waste products they contain. Tea, he tells his patient, if he is an intelligent physician, you should entirely discard, because tea interferes with the process of digestion, and favors fermentation, then besides, it contains a poison very similar in character to uric acid. If the patient follows out the directions given, in a short time the system will unload some of these irritants and rheumatism will probably be a thing of the past. He will ever after thank the physician for the kind advice and good counsel. Impatience is caused by the same irritants which produce rheumatism. By their circulation through the blood they rasp the delicate brain and nerve cells, and the nerves are set on edge. The least noise irritates; everything appears to go wrong. All the sweetness of home life is destroyed. It is hard often for the person to believe that the trouble all exists within instead of without. The sweetest music grates upon the nerves. Naturally the person becomes impatient, and says and does that which he would not do if in the right mind. He goes to the Lord in prayer, and pleads for the needed grace to be patient. I don't say that it is impossible for such a person to be kept patient, but he must be constantly on guard. It is possible for a person covered from head to foot with mosquitoes to receive grace to endure, but certainly it would be easier to attain his end, and life would be made more pleasant, by having the mosquitoes brushed off. In the same way it would be easier to be patient, by having the blood cleansed from these irritants. The same good advice given by the physician to the rheumatic patient would be a help to the impatient patient, since both are due to the same causes. Very often the Lord answers the prayer of the impatient by pointing out the causes of impatience, and then calls upon them to remove the causes. Human hands had to remove the stone from the grave of Lazarus before the words could be spoken, “Lazarus, come forth.” Man must cooperate with God and do all that human hands can do, then his prayers will be answered, and he will be able to testify, “Faithful is He that hath promised, who also will do it.” A MAN of affairs who handles a business of millions every year, making money for his stockholders and at the same time carrying on a large constructive work of inestimable value to the community in which he lives, told this true story. Of course a writer of fiction might improve on it, but this has the merit of not being fiction. It is an experience out of life that makes us think well of our kind, and helps us to believe in generosity, in self-sacrifice, and in the goodness of men—in spite of tales of graft and of exposures of corruption and of the arraying of class against class. This is the story in the words of the man who told it, and with a suggestion of our own about something he did not speak of; and if any one who reads it knows another story like it, these columns await that story. “He wasn’t one of the brand of heroes that do spectacular things to the blare of brass bands or the cheering of onlookers or amid the stimulus of physical excitement. But you can judge for yourself. “I was educated at a little freshwater college. Among the men there one of the most interesting was a farm-hand, a great, big, brawny, slow chap who had made up his mind years before that he’d get out of the day-laborer class. So he’d saved and scrimped for years upon years, had gone to the local minister and plodded doggedly along under his coaching, and finally with a few hundred hard-saved dollars had taken the entrance examinations at this college and been admitted. I never saw a man possessed with a more stubborn resolve to lift himself up a peg or two. He knew his limitations and didn’t aim too high, but he was determined to get along to be, say, a lawyer in some country town; and the path seemed open before him, tho his mental slowness and lack of early advantages meant that it would take him twice as long as it would a clever youngster. “It happened that his roommate was the son of a country doctor, his very antithesis, clever and quick, easily the head of his class, who had been brought up in substantial comfort, with no thought on the boy’s part where the money came from. “The two became fast friends. The doctor’s son used to help the other with his studies and the ex-farm-hand looked up to his superior quickness with sort of awed admiration which was pathetic to see. “One day, just about the end of the first year, the doctor’s son received a letter from home. His father had died suddenly and his mother had succumbed to the shock a few hours later. It presently turned out that the father had had nothing except a good income from practise; so the boy was left high and dry. He had long talks about it with his chum, of course, and told him that it was evidently all up so far as his career was concerned: he had not the stamina which would enable him to earn his own living while going through college, and he accepted the event as meaning that he would be side-tracked, perhaps as a teacher in some out-of-the-way country place. Shortly, he had to return home to settle up some family affairs. “A few days later he received a letter from his roommate, which ran something like this: “ ‘DEAR JACK: I’ve been thinking things over. There’s no possible question that you’ll get more out of a college course than I could. You’ll surely make a mark in the world. I can never be more than a fourth-rate lawyer. Economically considered, therefore, to educate me and leave you out is reckless extravagance. “ ‘I enclose a check for the amount I’ve saved, which was to give me my course. This will see you through, with strict economy. “ ‘Of course, I know you won’t want to do this; but I’ve thought it all out, and it’s the plain common sense of the situation. Moreover, I shall disappear by the time you receive this and nobody will know where I am. So you couldn’t return the check anyhow. “ ‘Good-by and good luck.’ ” The speaker stopped. There was a huskiness in his voice which made the listener look up quickly. “You must excuse me,” said he, rising from his chair and walking up and down. “The truth is, I can’t tell that story without having the tears come to my eyes.” “Did the doctor’s son take his college course?” he was asked. “He did. And he’s doing very well to-day—very well.” “And he never saw his friend again?” The man who listened had by this time a conviction about the identity of one character in this little drama of self-sacrifice. It15seemed that this tale was a kind of memorial, the laying of a wreath on a grave, the only tribute that could be paid to a brave man who had given up for his friend something rather more difficult to give up than life itself. And the fine thing about it all was that, without any sentimentality or fancifulness, one could see how this had changed the successful man’s whole attitude toward the world, leaving him with a sense of obligation and of a necessity to pass something on to others.—The World’s Work. Our Lesson.
By Minnie Otterstein
WHEN we're tired and worn at evening
With the cares of busy day,
And the weary world is resting,
And the fitful shadows play,
Then it is we count the blessings
From our heavenly Father's hand,
And we learn each day some lesson,
If His will we understand. All our trying daily crosses,
All our toil and pain and care,
Are but lessons that will teach us
How the weight of life to bear.
May we look on all as blessings
Given by the Father's hand,
That will lead us on life's pathway
To a purer, better land. CHURCH-SCHOOL MANUAL FOR PARENTS AND TEACHERS.
Every teacher and parent, having a sincere desire to give the children under their care a well-balanced Christian education, will hail with joy the splendid instruction afforded them by this new school manual. The table of contents of itself is an inspiration, and we give it in full below: Principles of Christian Education. Proceedings of the General Conference Educational Convention. School Organization and Management. Manual or Industrial Training. Arithmetic and Keeping Accounts. English—Reading, Spelling, Language, and Composition. Drills—Penmanship, Drawing, and Music. Books and School Library. The chapter on Geography contains one section, “Mission Outlines of the World,” which gives most valuable information regarding the work “in the regions beyond.” The chapters on “Physiology and Hygiene” and “Manual or Industrial Training” are alone worth the price of the book. This splendid book should be in the hands of every teacher, as it is one of the most efficient helps yet provided for the training of our children. Contains 378 pages; attractive and durable cloth binding, price, 50 cents. Order now of your state tract society, or Pacific Press Publishing Assn., Mountain View, Cal.; 61 Park St., N., Portland, Ore.; 1109 E. 12th St., Kansas City, Mo.; Box 666, Regina, Sask., Canada. A WRITER tells of a boy who was sunny and brave. He met the ills of life which too many people regard as almost tragedies, with courage. But one day something serious happened. He and a playmate climbed a tree. Just as our little philosopher reached the top, his foot slipped and he fell to the ground. He lay there, but uttered no cry. It was his playmate that screamed. The doctor found the leg badly broken. The boy bore the setting patiently, without a whimper. The mother slipped out of the room to hide her own tears,—she couldn’t stand it as well as her boy did. Outside she heard a faint sound and hurried back, almost hoping to find him crying. “My boy!” she said, “do you want something? I thought I heard you call.” “O, no, mother,” he said, “I didn’t call. I just thought I’d try singing a bit.” And he went on with his song. When you have pain or struggle, or a heavy load, or a great anguish, don’t complain, don’t cry out, don’t sink down in despair, don’t be afraid,—try singing a bit. Trust God and praise.—Sunday School Times. I LIKE the ox-team so serene and slow,
Instead of garage, chauffeur, and all that,
Let's talk of good old Saxon yoke and bow,
And trust to Star and Buck, so sleek and fat.
Instead of flying through the outraged air,
With hoot and stench and death's-head at the fore,
I'll sit upon the tongue without a care,
And hear the bobolink his song outpour.
Whoa, Buck! gee, Star! I'll watch the shadbush shed its living snow —
If it is June — and sniff the fir and pine
Instead of gasoline; and, as I go,
The joy of life — the open way is mine.
And if a neighbor's children or his dog
Get in the way, it gives my nerves no jar;
For murder and heart-failure shun the jog
Of honest Buck and calm, sleek-sided Star.
Gee, Buck! back, Star! The touring car is Satan's latest snare,
To tempt the world to deviltry and crime.
The ox-team may be slow, but gets you there
Decent and whole, if not ahead of time.
Give me the goad and take your gasoline;
The cricket's chirp, and keep your fiendish horn;
I'll choose the wood road, where God's steps have been,
And die as naturally as I was born.
Whoa, Buck! back, Star! Actions Rather Than Resolutions
By Horace Mann
I HAVE never heard anything about the resolutions of the disciples, but a great deal about the acts of the apostles.—Horace Mann.