Earlier text: Invocation of the Saints and Exaltation of MaryShould S. D. Adventists Exist? No. 2.
By Ransom F. Cottrell
Most Christians have been taught that Jesus Christ is an intercessor and mediator at the throne of God; but that there are two distinct parts of his ministration in the temple of God, corresponding to the daily and yearly services of the Jewish priests, though clearly revealed, seems to have been hidden from men's eyes, till “the time of the end,” when it was promised that knowledge should be increased, Dan. 12: 4, even till the beginning of the sounding of the seventh angel, when the temple of God in heaven was to be opened. Rev. 11:19. People speak of the atonement as having been made on Calvary. The offering was there slain; but the atonement is made by the priest, entering into the sanctuary with the blood. Christ is a priest; but his office of priesthood is performed wholly in heaven. The apostle says, “If he were on earth, he should not be a priest.” He must, as priest, follow the type that was given on purpose to truly represent his priestly service. He must, as we have said, minister first in the first apartment of the sanctuary, and then close his service by entering the most holy place to cleanse the sanctuary, removing all the sins of all his people, from first to last, from the sanctuary, where they have been conveyed in the blood of the sin-offering, blotting them from the book of God's remembrance forever. By reading Lev. 16 carefully, it will be seen that the day of atonement, or of cleansing the sanctuary, was a great solemnity; that it was a scene representative of the Judgment. Hence we infer the importance of the work of Christ in the anti-type. And has the time of this work of our great High Priest been set in prophecy? If so, it is of vast importance to understand it. Paul says that God “hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world,” by Jesus Christ. That day is doubtless a period of considerable length. And who can say that it does not begin before the second advent, even with the work of Christ in his closing ministration in his priestly office, in which the sins of his people are finally disposed of, and they acquitted forever? At his second coming no investigative judgment takes place; but “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,” the saints are rewarded with immortality. Will they be judged after having been made immortal? It seems that their judgment has preceded this. If so, it must have been in connection with the closing ministration of their High Priest in the sanctuary in Heaven. Has the time been appointed for this solemn work? It has. More than two thousand years ago an angel of God said to the prophet Daniel, in a vision, “Unto two thousand and three hundred days, then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.” Dan. 8: 14. It was a subject of importance to men to be thus revealed, especially to those that should live at the end of the days. Have those days terminated? S. D. Adventists teach that they have; and we are the only people that hold forth this great truth to the people. Time-setters, those who have been determined to tell the world the exact time of the second advent—a thing not revealed in the Scriptures—have tried to stretch these days down, from time to time, this side of 1844, where they evidently ended; but no prophetic student of intelligence can now pretend to affirm that they have not ended. If Dan. 8 and 9 are connected, if Gabriel gives the date of their commencement in Dan. 9: 25, as there is abundant evidence, then they have certainly terminated. From the time that Ezra began the work “to restore and to build Jerusalem,” B. C. 457, (Ezra 7) 2300 years would reach to A. D. 1844. There we believe and teach that they ended; and it is of importance that it should be known. The revelation was not made without a purpose; and the evident purpose is that we may know the present closing, judgment work of our great High Priest, namely, the final atonement for sin, preparatory to his coming “a second time without sin unto salvation.” The period has ended in the past. No one can refute this declaration. It ended somewhere within twenty years of 1844. There should be something to mark its termination. What has occurred to mark its close? In 1844 a message was sounding through the world, the burden of which was, “Fear God, and give glory to him, for the hour of his judgment is come.” Rev. 14:7. And this preaching was based upon the ending of the 2300 years at that time. There was an error connected with that preaching; for it led to a disappointment. Now since it is so evident that the time is expired, the error must have been in relation to the sanctuary and its cleansing, a subject that is now clearly seen. The promises of God, both in Daniel and Revelation, have been fulfilled, and there is perfect harmony. Here is a truth of God of thrilling importance to all. The time appointed for the closing work of our Mediator at the “right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens,” the “minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle,” is come. The decisive period of the atonement for sins is here. It cannot be refuted. None are preaching this truth but S. D. Adventists. Therefore they have a right to exist. No, this is a necessary work; and “if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.” Hosannas welcomed the King of Israel at his first advent; we preach the message of his second coming near, in the very order as it has been expressly foretold in prophecy. Dr. Clarke on the Law and the Gospel.
By Dr. Clarke
“Wherefore then serveth the law”? Of what real use can it be in the economy of salvation? I answer, It serves the most important purposes: 1. Its purity and strictness show us its origin—it came from God. All religious institutions, merely human, though pretended from Heaven, show their origin by extravagant demands in some cases and by sinful concessions in others. In the law of God nothing of this appears, and therefore we see in it a transcript of the divine nature. 2. It shows us the perfection of the original state of man; for as that law was suited to his state, and the law is holy, and the commandment holy, just, and good, so was his nature; it is, therefore, a comment on these words, “God made man in his own image, and in his own likeness.” 3. It serves to show the nature of sin; the real obliquity of a crooked line can only be ascertained by laying a straight one to it. Thus the fall of man, and the depth of that fall, are ascertained by the law. 4. It serves to convict man of sin, righteousness and judgment; it shows him the deplorable state into which he is fallen, and the great danger to which he is exposed. 5. It serves as a schoolmaster (or leader of children to school), to convince us of the absolute necessity and value of the gospel; for that pure and moral law must be written upon the hearts of believers; and its precepts, both in letter and spirit, become the rule of their lives. By the law is the knowledge of sin; for how can the finer deviations from a straight line be ascertained without the application of a known straight edge? Without this rule of right, sin can only be known in a sort of general way; the innumerable deviations from positive rectitude can only be known by the application of the righteous statutes of which the law is composed. And it was necessary that the law should be given that the true nature of sin might be seen, and that men might be the better prepared to receive the gospel; finding that this law worketh only wrath, that is, denounces punishment, forasmuch as all have sinned. Now, it is wisely ordered of God, that wherever the gospel goes, there the law goes also; entering everywhere that sin may be seen to abound, and that men may be led to despair of salvation in any other way, or on any other terms, than those proposed in the gospel of Christ. Thus the sinner becomes a true penitent, and is glad, seeing the curses of the law hanging over the soul, to flee for refuge to the hope set before him in the gospel. Law is only the means of disclosing the sinful propensity, not of producing it; as the bright beam of the sun introduced into a room shows millions of motes which appear to be dancing in all directions. But these were not introduced by the light, they were there before, only there was not light enough to make them manifest; so the evil propensity was there before, but there was not light sufficient to discover it. It was one design of the law to show the abominable and destructive nature of sin, as well as to be a rule of life. It would be almost impossible for a man to have that just notion of the demerit of sin, so as to produce repentance, or to see the nature and necessity of the death of Christ, if the law were not applied to his conscience by the light of the Holy Spirit; it is then alone that he sees himself to be carnal and sold under sin, and that the law and the commandment are holy, just and good. And let it be observed that the law did not answer this end merely among the Jews in the days of the apostle; it is just as necessary to the Gentiles of the present hour. Nor do we find that true repentance takes place where the moral law is not preached and enforced. Those who preach only the gospel to sinners, at best only heal the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly. The law, therefore, is the grand instrument in the hands of the faithful minister to alarm and awaken sinners; and he may safely show that every sinner is under the law, and consequently under the curse, who has not fled for refuge to the hope held out by the gospel; for in this sense also “Jesus Christ is the end of the law for justification to them that believe.” CATHOLICS often talk of the antiquity of their religion, but we think that the following dates of the original of their peculiar doctrines and practices, will show them to be too modern for a scriptural Christian to receive them:— A. D.
Holy Water ........................................ 120
Penance ............................................ 158
Monkery ............................................ 328
Latin Mass ......................................... 394
Extreme unction ................................... 558
Purgatory ........................................... 558
Invocation of Virgin Mary and of Saints ........... 594
Papal usurpation ................................... 607
Kissing the Pope's toe ............................. 708
Image worship ....................................... 715
Canonization of Saints ............................. 993
Baptism of Bells .................................. 1000
Transubstantiation ............................... 1000
Celibacy ........................................... 1015
Indulgences ........................................ 1190
Dispensations ...................................... 1200
The Inquisition .................................... 1204
Confession ......................................... 1215
Elevation of the Host ............................. 1222
The Immaculate Conception .......................... 1854 PRAYER is ever profitable: at night it is our covering; in the morning it is our armor. Prayer should be the key to the day, and the lock of the night. Immortality of the Soul—Frank Confession.
The following is from the Comprehensive Commentary. Note on Joshua 8:29. “The Talmudists say, The reason bodies were to be buried immediately, was lest the view of the carcass should lead the common people into the idea that the soul was also dead; and thus weaken the opinion which needed a revelation from God to make it believed, that the soul was immortal.” According to the above, it was admitted many years ago, that the doctrine of the soul’s immortality, was an “opinion which needed a revelation from God to make it believed.” Now we ask, Has this “necessity” ever been supplied? and answer, It has not. Many have searched in vain the book of the revelations of God, for something to support that “opinion.” Every pretended revelation from God which bears the marks of being genuine, condemns that “opinion” and proves the entire mortality of man. “God only hath immortality.”—Paul. “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.”—Ezekiel. “His breath goeth forth . . . in that very day his thoughts perish.”—David. It appears from the above confession, that certain supporters of the doctrine of the soul’s immortality, were afraid that even nature itself would teach the common people better than to believe the “opinion” in the absence of direct revelation. And they would have us believe that Joshua commanded the dead bodies to be taken down immediately, lest the ignorant should learn from nature’s truth which has from the beginning been plainly revealed; for God declared to Adam, “Thou shalt surely die.” God has never revealed anything concerning man’s former, present, or future state that is contrary to nature; for the God of the Bible is the God of nature; hence if the doctrine of the soul’s immortality was truth, there would be no danger that the faith of the unlearned could be “weakened” in that “opinion” even though they should be constantly surrounded by thousands of dead carcasses. But by reference to Deut. 21: 22, 23, we learn that the commandment of Joshua was according to the commandment of God; and it is not to be supposed that the system of truth revealed by the God of nature, is out of harmony with nature itself. The reason there given for burying the dead immediately, is, not lest a view of them should lead the common people away from any opinion founded on truth, but, “That thy land be not defiled,” &c. What a gross misrepresentation of revealed truth is the above! He that originated the first lie ever believed by man, was no doubt the author of this perversion of God’s word. Satan has a long time been aware that his first sermon to our race (or that part of it which says “thou shalt surely die) never would be believed by all without a special revelation. He knows that the dogma of an “opinion” needs a revelation to strengthen it; and, knowing also that he has but a short time, he has already commenced a system of revelation, manifested by great “power, signs, lying wonders, and deceivableness,” &c. He is not slow to confess that all this mysterious rapping, writing, speaking, and moving tables, &c., &c., is to “convince men of the immortality of the soul.” He has succeeded in this last mighty effort wonderfully. Millions are already deceived beyond hope. No view of a dead carcass can make any impression upon their minds now; for they are taught that the long “needed revelation” has at last come; besides they are made to believe that the body is a mere prison-house, from which the soul escapes at death, never more to be bound. They now have strong delusion. In all this it is Satan’s object to rob Christ of his glory; the resurrection of its importance, and bring the Bible into general disrepute; and thus hopelessly deceive the world, and add to the number of the mighty host which he will finally marshall to encompass the city of New Jerusalem and camp of the saints, when he shall make his last effort in wrath against those who keep the commandments of God and faith of Jesus. Oh, may the Lord save the honest from this fatal snare.—Sel. There is a class of people who think that to be grim is to be good; that piety is a sort of facial longitude; and that a thought, to be really wholesome, must be shapen like a coffin. Knowledge, Talent, Position, and Birth
KNOWLEDGE, talent, position, and birth are not bestowed on us for the benefit of self, but for the welfare of all. The Coming of the Lord Draweth Nigh.
We are told, on every side, that we are living in remarkable times. We read of it in the newspapers; we hear it in our daily conversation; and we feel it to be true. There is, undoubtedly, a rumbling of some extraordinary earthquake, which, growing more and more distinct, forewarns the thoughtful that a crisis of no slight importance is not far in our advance. We see, indeed, the Christian, the unbeliever, the philanthropist, and the politician all agreeing in the expectation of some gigantic outburst. We find the hearts of men of judgment “failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth.” The eyes of many turn with anxious gaze towards the observers of the times, the learned, the statesmen, the merchants, and the ministers of the gospel, with the inquiry, “Watchman, what of the night?” But who among the sons of men can satisfy the inquiry? Opinions, various enough, come forth. A rush of many voices gives reply. But who is to be trusted? The only safe response which any man can give, is this, It is not for you to know the times and the seasons which the Father hath put in his own power. Yet, for all this, there is a ray of light, feeble, certainly, but not to be neglected, for it comes down directly from the Father's hand of love, and sheds its gentle beam upon this wondrous period in which we live. By this one beam, those men who have the Spirit of the Lord can read a word of warning which diffuses joyful expectation through their willing hearts. That word is, “Watch and pray, for the coming of the Lord draws near.” This ray of light illuminates, moreover, a few signs and portents, and exhorts, “When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh.” Luke 21: 28. Now for this gleam let those of us who know the Saviour render praise; and while we read, and watch, and pray, be humble, looking to the Lord submissively, with patient, waiting hearts; behaving ourselves always circumspectly; being well prepared to leave this bondage whenever our Redeemer's voice shall call us to arise and meet him. I know that there are Christians, not a few, who will agree with me that these are times which ought to lead God's people to be much upon the watch-tower, forasmuch as many things betoken clearly that the coming of the Lord is near. And doubtless there are others, who, although they will not go with me so far as this, will yet agree that these are days when things around forbode a crisis which has scarcely known a precedent. An idea is abroad in Christian society, that through the progress of civilization and the gradual spread of the gospel, a millennium of peace and righteousness will be introduced, and this world will thereby be prepared for the second advent of our Lord. The Word of God has nowhere sanctioned such a notion; indeed, the direct contrary is clearly laid before us. Moreover we ourselves are called to live in days when science and civilization have arrived at wondrous height. Men's talents never were so highly tutored; human skill was never so developed; refinement, also, has attained to exquisite perfection in almost every grade of life. But what of peace? It is needful to speak very cautiously respecting it, and to give all our science a direction which concerns the munitions of war. And what of righteousness? In every circle of society (clothed indeed in seemly garment, but all the more iniquitous by consequence) ungodliness abounds; sin grows in presumption and comes in with gentleness and plausibility, to take possession and to overthrow. We are not, therefore, making progress towards this visionary excellence. Nay, are we not departing farther, day by day, from what is good and holy? I need not surely stay to offer proofs of these positions. They are patent to the most casual observers of the times. No one who mingles with society, or reads the daily newspapers, can help lamenting that the case is even thus. It does not seem, therefore, as if we were at present making progress toward millennial perfection. No one, I should suppose, can say that matters lead to any such conclusion. Our Saviour cheers us indeed by the declaration that, “The gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations,” and by other gladdening assurances; but then, on the other hand, he forewarns us that as the end draws near, “iniquity shall abound” and “the love of many shall wax cold.” He reminds us of the days of Noah, when the world was totally regardless of the fear of God; when “every imagination of the thoughts of man's heart was only evil continually,” (Gen. 6: 5), and tells us, “So shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.” Luke 17: 26. He refers, likewise, to the days of Lot, when men were “sinners before the Lord exceedingly,” (Gen. 13: 13), and declares “Even thus shall it be in the days when the Son of man is revealed.” Luke 17: 30. And elsewhere we find the Saviour asking the conclusive question, “Nevertheless, when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” Luke 18: 8. Paul deals therewith plainly: “Let no man deceive you by any means, for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming. Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power and signs, and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.” 2 Thess. 2: 3, 8–10. Speaking of the “perilous times” which shall come “in the last days,” he says, “Men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false-accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.” 2 Tim. 3: 1–5. Jude also warns us how that in the last time there shall be “mockers” who shall walk “after their own ungodly lusts.” Jude 18. The glorious rest, therefore, which this world shall enjoy, will not be gradually developed; it will not be brought about by education, nor by the preaching of the gospel; nor by the mutual consent of nations, nor by any instrumentality whatsoever which mankind will bring to bear on its direction. “The whole world lieth in wickedness.” It has so lain since Adam fell. It will so lie until the day of its regeneration.—Prophetic Times. The Love of the Redeemer.
By Ellen G. White
THE life of Christ was characterized by disinterested benevolence. Precious Saviour! What sacrifices has he made for us that we should not perish but have everlasting life. Heaven will be cheap enough if we resign every selfish interest to obtain it. Can we afford to have our own way and take ourselves out of the hands of God because it is more pleasing to our nature? God requires a perfect submission and perfect obedience. Eternal life is worth everything to us. We may come in close connection with God if we will agonize to enter into the strait gate. The Saviour of the world was the adored of the angels, he was a prince in the royal courts of Heaven. But he laid aside his glory and clothed his divinity with humanity. He became the meek and lowly Jesus. His riches and glory he left in Heaven, and he became poor that we, through his poverty, might be made rich. Three years he was going from place to place, a homeless wanderer. But selfish men will repine and murmur if called to leave their little earthly treasure for Christ's sake, or to labor in the work of saving souls for whom Christ gave his precious life. Oh, what ingratitude! No one can appreciate the blessings of redemption unless he feels that he can joyfully afford to make any and every sacrifice for the love of Christ. Every sacrifice made for Christ enriches the giver, and every suffering and privation endured for his dear sake increases the overcomer's final joy in Heaven. We know but little of real sacrifice and genuine denial of self. We have had but little experience in hardships compared to those of Christ. The young man who asked Jesus what he should do that he might have eternal life, was answered “Keep the commandments.” He confidently and proudly replied, “All these have I kept from my youth up. What lack I yet?” Jesus looked pityingly upon the young man, he loved him and he knew the words which he spoke would separate him from himself forever. Nevertheless Jesus touches the plague-spot of his soul. He says to the young man, “Go sell that thou hast and give to the poor, take up thy cross and follow me and thou shalt have treasure in heaven.” The young man wanted Heaven but not enough to withdraw his affection from his earthly treasure. He refused to yield to the conditions required by God in order to enter into life. He was very sorrowful, for he had great possessions which he thought were too valuable to exchange for eternal rewards. He had asked what he must do to be saved and the answer had been given. But his worldly heart could not make the sacrifice of his wealth to become Christ's disciple. His decision was to give up heaven and to cling to his earthly treasure. How many are now making the very same decision which fixed the destiny of this young man. Have we any of us an opportunity of doing something for Christ, how eagerly should we seize it and with the greatest earnestness do all we can to be co-workers with him. The very trials that task our faith most severely, and make it seem that God has forsaken us, are to lead us more closely to Christ, that we may lay all our burdens at his feet and experience the peace he will give us in exchange. The old delusion that education is unfavorable to labor has almost passed away. We no longer argue that the more a man thinks, the less he is inclined to work, nor fear that the material interests of our country will suffer through intellectual cultivation. We acknowledge that a well educated man may work as well as his neighbor who can hardly sign his name; and we even go a step further, and admit that a certain amount of education is necessary to secure the best kind of labor. Yet we are still far from appreciating the full effect of mental progress upon industrial employments, or estimating the vast debt which the latter owe to the former. Intellectual culture, so far from unfitting men and women for exertion, actually excites them to it. Ignorance is the chief cause of indolence, and they are rarely separated. Savage tribes know but little of the benefits that industry can secure, and, having scarcely a motive beyond that of appeasing hunger, are proportionately idle. Educate them—show them the superiority of a house to a wigwam, and of a comfortable dress to a blanket—and the industry which can secure these benefits immediately begins to expand. Each fresh accession of civilized life demands a fresh accession of labor; and in proportion as the results of industry become more and more apparent, industry itself will more and more develop. Education benefits industry, not alone by exciting and increasing it. It has an equally direct and powerful influence upon it in raising and improving its quality. How is the soil made most productive? Not by an unthinking routine of drudgery upon it, but rather by a knowledge of its nature and requirements; a study of the laws which govern vegetation; a thoughtful consideration of the relations which subsist between human needs and the powers of agriculture to supply them. The success of manufactures is due almost wholly to the busy thoughts that are ever planning improvements; making new inventions; constructing machinery; combining and regulating labor, and adapting all the various means within reach to the highest and most productive ends. Commerce, too, owes its very existence to the same source. The more forethought, judgment, discretion, and knowledge the merchant possesses, the more certain we may be of his ultimate success. But The same is true of those occupations which we are accustomed to consider wholly manual. The mechanic or laborer who thinks out the meaning of his work, who enters into its spirit, who devises improved plans for its execution, and sends a thought with every stroke, has tenfold the value of one who only bestows physical strength upon his work. In the province of domestic service, every housekeeper knows that the great lack is of mental, not bodily, power. There are plenty of girls who have the requisite muscle, but few who can furnish the judgment, care, forethought, and economy which are so needful in the kitchen and the nursery. Each laborer, whatever be his sphere of action, needs to understand the laws which govern his department of labor, and so to adapt his efforts as to conform with them. If he does not, his work must be to that extent unproductive and unsuccessful. These laws, however, are so entwined with those of other branches, and so dependent upon those of life in general, that a thorough education upon a broad basis is the best preparation for any kind of labor, and a continued mental discipline the best safeguard for its success. No industry can afford to slight the intellect; no man or woman who is a mere machine can ever give out his full value to the world; no nation or community can ever emerge from indolence, except in so far as they emerge from ignorance. In this country, where the opportunities of education are so numerous and so widely spread, it would hardly seem necessary to urge their acceptance; yet it is of the highest importance to our national prosperity and personal well-being that we all recognize the intimate connection between the growth of intelligence and the value of labor.—Philadelphia Ledger. Look Aloft and Live for Christ.
“Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.” “Set your affection on things above.” Silly man, why linger gazing,
Earthward where corruption lies?
Angels wait to greet the raising
Of thine eyelids to the skies. Earth hath nought but toil and trouble,
Life is but a fleeting breath,
Honor but an empty bubble,
Worthless in the hour of death. Look aloft, his promise trusting
Of protection on the road
Up to mansions everlasting,
Stable as the throne of God. Let no fleeting joys deceive thee,
Pleasures do not come to stay;
Let no worldly losses grieve thee,
All of earth must pass away. Simple man, what mean you, hiding
Goods that fade, and turn to dust,
Rather than lay up abiding
Treasures safe from moth and rust? O the blindness! O the madness
Of rejecting life and light.
Endless day and endless gladness
For the gloom of endless night! Losing all that's pure and holy,
Losing life, and light, and bliss—
No extreme of human folly
Can at all compare with this! Earthly goods are hard to gather,
Harder are they still to keep;
Heavenly treasures—thieves and robbers
Cannot steal them while we sleep. Thorns are in the rich man's pillow
When his riches are his god;
With his harp upon the willow,
Oft he sighs beneath his load. Foolish man! why build where rageth
Storms o'er ever-shifting sands?
Why not on the “Rock of ages,”
Which secure forever stands? Man’s Duty to Women.
By Rev. F. D. Huntington
Let him learn to be grateful to woman for this undoubted achievement of her sex, that it is she, she far more than he, and she, too, in spite of him, who has kept Christendom from lapsing into barbarism—kept mercy and truth from being utterly overborne by those two greedy monsters, money, and war. Let him be grateful for this, that almost every great soul that has led forward or lifted up the race, has been furnished for each noble deed, and inspired with each patriotic and holy aspiration, by the retiring fortitude of some Spartan or more than Spartan—some Christian mother. Moses, the deliverer of his people, drawn out of the Nile by the king’s daughter, some one has hinted, is only a symbol of the way that woman’s better instinct always outwits the tyrannical diplomacy of man. Let him cheerfully remember that though the sinewy sex achieves enterprises on public theaters, it is the nerve and sensibility of the other that arm the mind and inflame the soul in secret. “A man discovered America, but a woman equipped the voyage.” So everywhere; man executes the performance, but woman trains the man. Every effectual person, leaving his mark on the world, is but another Columbus, for whose furnishing, some Isabella, in the form of his mother, lays down her jewelry, her vanities, her comfort.—Rev. F. D. Huntington. Poisoned Arrows of the Papuans.
The warlike habits of the Papuans and their implements of warfare are described in a private letter recently addressed to Dr. Hooker. The writer says that no man leaves his dwelling, for his bit of cultivation even, without his powerful bamboo bow and a few deadly poisoned arrows. These poisoned arrows are only a few among a great number not poisoned, the former being distinguished by elaborate carving and painting, probably to prevent accident among themselves. They are each pointed and barbed with human bone brought to almost needle-like sharpness, most carefully and neatly finished; they are poisoned by plunging in a human corpse for several days. Poor Commodore Goodenough and his men suffered from arrows so poisoned. It is a sort of blood poisoning that, like other kinds of inoculation, does not develop itself for several days, the slightest scratch being sufficient to render almost inevitable a horrible death. The symptoms are accompanied by violent spasms like tetanus, with consciousness until the last.—Nature. Watch for the Time Is Short
“WATCH for the time is short.” —March 6, Hon. Richard H. Dana, Jr., was nominated United States Minister to Great Britain, as successor to general Schenck. —An appeal has been made to the citizens of Toronto for funds to aid the “Institut Canadien,” the organization which carried on the Guibord litigation. —Protestant missions were begun in Brazil in 1859. There are now fifteen organized churches in the Empire, and missionary work is everywhere successful. —Within the last five years, seven hundred Buddhist temples in Japan have been converted into dwelling houses, or adapted to other uses than for worship. —The “Methodist Almanac” states the total membership of the M. E. church in the United States to be 3,025,427, and the total number of itinerant ministers to be 27,591. —The great Sunday-school at Stockport, England, is famous everywhere. Its last report shows in its main school 301 teachers and 3,614 scholars. Including four branch schools, the total membership is 424 teachers and 4,702 scholars. Since this school was founded, 4,992 teachers and 89,324 scholars have been enrolled in its membership. —Realizing the power of the press, the Pope—according to reports—has sanctioned the starting of a great newspaper in Rome this year, which is to be the organ of the whole Catholic world. It is stated that among its reporters there will be high officials, that it will have cardinals upon its editorial force, and that the nuncios of the Roman See at the courts of Europe will act as its correspondents, transmitting to it regularly the news of their capitals. —The inhabitants of Ceylon protest against the grant of £14,000 made by the English government to the two State churches represented in that country. This sum was to be raised by taxation from the whole people, while it is a fact that 2,158,595 of the entire population are non-Christian, and out of 250,000 nominal Christians 190,000 are Roman Catholics, leaving only 60,000 Protestants of whom only 15,000 are members of the Episcopal and Presbyterian State churches of Great Britain. This kind of treatment they have rebelled against, and have “unanimously resolved to memorialize the Queen and Legislative Council in opposition to this great injustice.” —There are three classes that demand the exclusion of the Bible from the schools: Roman Catholics, who demand Catholic schools for their children; and who, having sworn allegiance to a foreign potentate, are therefore in right no true citizens of this country; Secularists, who have formed an alliance with the Romanists, on account of their hatred of the very names of Christian and the Bible, and who would willingly substitute the Koran or anything else for the Bible. The former are for purely sectarian, and the latter purely secular schools. Judaism also strikes hands with Romanism, not only in excluding the Word of God from our schools, but in forbidding its use by the common people at home, as is evidenced by a recent article in the Jewish Times, which says: “For those who know not to discriminate between good and evil, between the chaff and the grain, the sacred books are as poisonous as the snake’s bite.” —The Examiner and Chronicle says that “Rhode Islanders are practical people. If a new idea appears with a practical kernel in it, they strike boldly for it and put it to practical proof.” This paper still further states that it is the first State that has taken legislative action in regard to the taxation of church property, the question now attracting such general attention. A bill passed the House, exempting the buildings used for church, educational and charitable purposes, but taxing the land and all invested funds. But before the bill passed the Senate some amendments were made, exempting buildings used exclusively for religious or educational purposes, and the land upon which they stand, and immediately surrounding the same to an extent not exceeding one acre. This may be very flattering to the little State of Rhode Island, but we beg leave to correct this statement as California several years since passed the same law.