THE TELEPHONE | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · January 15, 1880

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 3

THE TELEPHONE.

MUCH as has already been done to fulfill Daniel’s prophecy that in the time of the end many should run to and fro, and knowledge should be increased, new developments and new confirmations of the prophet’s words are every day appearing. The telephone seems destined to perform an important part in this work.

Of the rapidity with which this device has been put to a practical use (and which also furnishes an index to the spirit of this age) the Scientific American, in its issue of Jan. 10, 1880, thus speaks:—

“There is nothing more characteristic of the present age than the avidity with which it seizes upon and puts to practical use the discoveries of science and the infinite marvels of invention. To-day the experimental student wrests from the secret treasures of the universe a new truth, a new law, a new manifestation of force. To-morrow a countless host of printing presses spread a knowledge of the discovery to the earth’s remotest bounds. Directly it is made a working factor in the world’s best thought and action; in a little while some practical mind puts the harness of utility upon the new truth, and straightway the world is the richer by another invention. What would formerly have taken centuries to accomplish—or what the most fearless minds would scarcely have dared to dream of undertaking—is now done in a day. The invention is achieved, and finds a world predisposed to receive it with gladness, even though its adoption should necessitate many and radical changes in the whole range of national and social customs. It took the steam engine centuries to pass from the stage of science unapplied to that of practical utility. The telegraph was not so many years in rising from the level of scientific experiment to that of a useful factor in the daily affairs of nations. What the telegraph accomplished in years the telephone has done in months. One year it was a scientific toy, with infinite possibilities of practical use; the next it was the basis of a system of communication the most rapidly expanding, intricate, and convenient that the world has known.”

Having described the Telephone Exchange of N. Y. city, at the central office of which upwards of 5,000 messages are received daily, the Scientific American continues:—

“The limits of our space forbid any attempt even to summarize the infinite range and variety of possible telephonic communication. Its scope is as wide, as limitless indeed, as is the range of communication possible between men. Any question that a business man may have occasion to ask of another, any instruction he may wish to give to a distant subordinate, any message that a boy can carry, and that may be written, falls within its province. Even at the low average of a mile for the distance between the widely separated subscribers in this city the five thousand daily communications mean five thousand miles of travel saved for somebody. And the time gained by the saving of those five thousand miles of travel means not less than a thousand hours of the most valuable portion of the day, an average of over an hour and a half daily to each subscriber. The increase of business efficiency due to such savings of time and trouble is beyond computation.”