THE men of this world understand the great power of the printing press. The politician seizes this lever to lift himself into office. Political campaigns are run principally through the press. Advertisements of this, that, and the other, posted and scattered everywhere, are evidences that the man of business understands the influence of the press.
This is a reading age. Active minds must be employed. The people will read. The masses prefer fiction to fact. The writers, publishers, and sellers of fictitious works fully comprehend the situation, and for gain flood the world with light literature. Thus the devil seizes the press to turn the minds of the people from the real facts and duties of this life, and a preparation for the life to come. The minds of the young are fevered with fiction to that degree that they lose relish for solid reading. They are so completely filled with trash that there is but little room in their minds and hearts for that which is substantial and real.
"Ye are the light of the world," said Christ in his memorable sermon on the mount. "A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven." Matt. 5:14–16.
Christians should be as wise in their generation as the men of this world. They should seize upon every means, and every opportunity, to let their light shine. They should let it shine from the hill-tops. The press, which in the hands of the children of darkness is a power for evil, may, in the hands of the children of light, be a mighty power for good. All our preachers in the lecturing field should not only act as pastors in visiting and praying with the people, but as colporters to circulate our publications wherever they go. The reasons follow.
1. It has been said upon good authority that our ministers add nine-tenths to their usefulness in the active circulation of our publications in connection with their public labors as speakers, and experience proves it. Time is short, and is very precious to the true servant of Jesus Christ, in whose heart the love of souls has been planted by the Holy Spirit. He keenly feels the importance of laboring to the best advantage, and if he is wise, he will seize upon the plan by which one man can do the work of ten.
2. The changes of his three-fold work, as preacher, pastor, and colporter, will be conducive to physical and spiritual health. This course will equalize the labor and wear, and strengthen the physical, mental, and spiritual. It will give the preacher time for reading and that study necessary for the preparation of his subjects, and will also give him opportunities for physical exercise, and the cultivation of those qualifications for pastoral labors which are as important for his success as are his labors in the speaker's stand. While thus laboring in public and from house to house, his opportunities for circulating our publications will be neither few nor small.
3. Some of our preachers are rusting from inaction, and can never rise from second or third rate preachers, and become men of usefulness unless they adopt more active habits of life. There is no better exercise than walking from house to house, with a light satchel well filled with publications. Exercise increases the circulation of the blood, and stimulates thought. Coming in contact with different minds under these circumstances conduces to mental growth.
4. Others of our preachers of more studious habits read many volumes hastily, think, reason, and write carelessly and loosely, under the mistaken idea that they are accomplishing much for the Lord. These are making great mistakes. In their haste to cover so much literary ground, they cannot find time to act the pastor in visiting the people, and to cultivate those social qualities so necessary for a minister and true laborer in the Lord's vineyard. Neither can they find time to act the colporter, and thus add nine-tenths to their usefulness. And besides these evils, they read more than they can properly digest and incorporate into their labors and work. They become literary dyspeptics. Men of this stamp are wearing out too fast in accomplishing but little real good.
As writers, their productions are wordy and lean, and their reasoning loose, to the annoyance of the editor, and the weariness of the reader. If these brethren would read less, exercise more in visiting and in urging our publications upon the people, think more, reason more closely, and write less, they would do ten men's work where they now poorly do that of only one. We already have too many books, tons of which are lying idle on the shelves at our offices. Before more are written and published, let these be put into the field.
God has given us in the tract and missionary societies the best system for the circulation of reading matter known to the Christian world. This may be made more efficient and receive a new impetus by the hearty co-operation of all our ministers. They should set an example to the tract and missionary workers. This system makes all the members efficient laborers in the cause of God. A good, earnest, devoted lay-worker in this field can accomplish more than two preachers who shut themselves up to the work of preaching.
Our preachers should and can have a good support, without feeling that they must depend in part upon the profits of the publications they sell. And it is in their power to bring about the state of things which will give them better support than they now have. If the farmer would have his farm give him better support, he improves it. And if the miller desires more water upon his wheel, instead of closing the main channel, he opens new ones. The place for our ministers to take hold in working up a better state of things is at the great lever of the press, in the wider and more thorough circulation of our periodicals and publications.
Our offices of publication are theirs. All our ministers should work to the point to free them from embarrassment, and to build them up. In the products of our presses is light for the people. The tract and missionary societies, with the active support of all our preachers, can bring numbers and financial support to our cause, and thus replenish our empty treasuries. The action, or inaction, of our preachers, in withholding their support from our publishing houses would be cutting off the main channel that moves the machinery. The Review, Signs, Good Health, Instructor, and periodicals in other languages, should have the active support of all our preachers.
The Review and Herald, and the Signs of the Times should have a circulation of not less than 10,000 each. Good Health, and the weekly Instructor should be raised to 15,000 each; and now, at the very commencement of the year, is the time to do this work. With united efforts on the part of preachers and people, this can be accomplished, which will result in relieving our publishing houses from embarrassment, raising up friends to the cause, and improving our finances generally.
But the financial benefit of a united effort to circulate our reading matter, led off by the ministry, is of small consequence compared with the great good such action would accomplish in the salvation of souls. Here is the principal ground of our appeal. The people are perishing for lack of knowledge. We do the work God has given us to do in educating people in the truth of God, and not by flashly revivals. Our preachers are few in number, and cannot do a tithe of this work in preaching only. In the accomplishment of this last great work, in the brief time left for it, we must seize the great lever, the press, and avail ourselves of all its advantages.
J. W.
CHRISTIAN UNION
By James White
THERE is no sentiment in all the New Testament more strongly expressed than that of Christian union. While Christ was with his disciples, their leader and teacher, he secured to them unity and love. And when about to leave them without a visible leader, to go up to his Father, we should expect his great yearning heart would go out in petition for them in words expressive of true Christian union. “And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.” John 17:11. “I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth.” Verses 15–17. “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.” Verses 20, 21.
Accepting the testimony of the apostles as expressing the mind of Christ as breathed forth in earnest petition for the unity of his church, we have in Paul’s epistles to the churches at Rome and at Corinth a more complete idea of the subject: “Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be like-minded one toward another, according to Christ Jesus; that ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Rom. 15:5, 6. “Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.” 1 Cor. 1:10.
Paul exhorts to unity in the high “name of our Lord Jesus Christ,” which means more than kindly feeling toward those who hold opposing views. It reaches almost infinitely beyond the insipid idea of modern times, that the highest type of Christian unity is expressed in the words, “We will differ in love,” and embraces a oneness such as exists between the Father and the Son, expressed by the apostle as being “perfectly joined together in the same mind, and in the same judgment.”
This is the unity taught by the first apostles of Christ. For this they labored, and to this they exhort Christians of each successive generation since they wrote. But, oh, unhappy church of Christ! that she passed under the shades and into the mists of the great apostasy, down into the wilderness of papal corruptions of the word, where she gathered to herself tradition and superstitions, which even the power of the great Reformation did not tear completely off. What a pity that the reformers left off reforming! The Lutherans stopped with Luther; the Calvinists, with Calvin; the Methodists, with Wesley; and so on, bringing to the present century, as represented in nearly all our cities and towns, the various denominations, presenting a grand babel of confusion of creeds, church covenants, articles of faith, and different forms of church organization and government, for which there is not a single apology in all the New Testament. But, thank God, above all this Babylonish chatter the Pauline note of more than eighteen centuries ago rings forth in all its entreating earnestness, “Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.” 1 Cor. 1:10.
Nothing short of the mind of Christ, as seen in his prayer for his church and as expressed in the earnest pleadings of Paul, is the full measure of Christian unity. Christ prays for this. The New Testament pleads for this in plainest terms, and the callings and gifts placed in the Christian church were designed to secure this state of complete unity. “And he gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” Eph. 4:11–13.
Just how this complete state of unity is to be perfected, when it will be reached, and who are to be embraced in it, it is not the design of this article to set5forth. But the writer may be allowed to state that one of the happiest hopes that has cheered him on in battling for Bible truth for more than a quarter of a century, has been this, that pure truth that can be read out of the Bible will call forth a people who shall be keeping the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus Christ, looking for the coming of the Son of man. Then will the two ends of the Christian age be brought round to meet, when our adorable Redeemer shall come the second time and find his waiting people standing in unity and in power, such as was the crown of glory that adorned the church at his ascension.
We hold it to be wrong to differ with others where there are no good reasons to differ. Once an earnest sister asked the writer’s opinion as to the importance of all the church coming to the unity of the faith. Being apprised of the fact that this good woman was dealing in small matters which could be no test of Christian character, we answered, that on all important questions, such as keeping the commandments of God, we thought it very necessary that the church should stand in unity; but in such matters as whether our brethren should plant white beans or striped beans in their gardens we did not regard unity important.
Paul, standing at a period when outward circumcision had ceased, meets the mistaken zeal of those who would still urge it upon the church, with these words “Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God is something.” Whiting’s translation of 1 Cor. 7:19. “If thou wilt enter into life,” says the Son of God, “keep the commandments.” In the divine law, and in the gospel of the divine Son, are the tests of Christian character. And it is with an ill grace that those who have been splitting up into petty sects during the nineteenth century over forms of church government, matters of expediency, free and restricted salvation, trinity and unity, whether we may sing any good hymn in church or only the Psalms of David, and other matters which constitute no test of fitness for Heaven, now pounce upon us, and display any amount of religious horror, simply because we regard strict conformity to the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus the only true test of Christian character. J. W.
EDITORIAL NOTICE.
By Editor
The signatures to articles in volume six of the Signs will be as follows:—The editors will be known by their initials: j. w. for James White; j. n. a. for J. N. Andrews; and u. s. for Uriah Smith. All other articles will be signed by the full name when the author is known, except items on the last page, which may or may not be signed, according to their length and nature. The names of the writers of original articles will be in SMALL CAPITALS. Selections will be credited in Italics.
Good Dispositions and Good Principles
Good dispositions, of themselves, are of but very little benefit to their possessors, unless they are confirmed into good principles, which come only from religious instruction and cultivation of the moral temper.
CHRIST'S FOLLOWERS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD.
By Ellen G. White
(Continued from Vol. 5, No. 47.)
In the work of creation, when the dawn of the first day broke, and the heavens and the earth, by the call of infinite power, came out of darkness; responsive to the rising light, "the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy." In the rising sun, gilding the mountains of Judah with its bright beams, Jesus saw the symbol of the gospel light to be proclaimed in the earth by his disciples, dispelling by its bright beams, superstition, error, and tradition, and ushering in truth and righteousness, bringing back to allegiance those who have been disobedient to the law of God. Christ taught that all true goodness and greatness of character, all peace and joy in the soul, must come through perfect and entire submission to his Father's will, which is the highest law of duty. The lessons connected with their great commission, which they were to put to a practical use, were given to the disciples upon this occasion. They were to carry the light of truth to the world.
The Light of the world, the "Sun of righteousness," was imparting his beams of light to his disciples, and illuminating their minds, sweeping away their traditions and man-made requirements, and enforcing the real principles of God's law upon them. He taught them lessons which they should put to a practical use in order to be the lights of the world. He taught them that they should exhibit in their character the graces of his Spirit which he pronounced blessed. The acceptance of the light he urged upon his hearers, as essential for their restoration to spiritual life. And for them to have a sound, healthful, happy experience, they must exercise the best and noblest faculties of the soul. He would have them understand that if they would make their lives pleasant, and useful to others, they must be obedient to the requirements of God. He always directs safely, and we shall not go astray while following where he leads. Said Christ, "I am the light of the world. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life."
Christ represents the disciples who have the attributes which characterize them as children of God, as the light of the world. Without these attributes they cannot be the light of the world, and they would not correctly represent Christ who is the Light of the world. As the sun goes forth in the heavens on its errand of mercy and love, and as the golden beams of day flood the canopy of the heavens and beautify forests and mountains, and awaken the world from their slumbers by dispelling the darkness of night, so should his followers go forth on their mission. They should gather the divine rays of light from the Light of the world, and let it shine forth in good works upon those who are in the darkness of error. Through the ministration of his ordained servants he carries forward his work through all time.
The message of light given to the assembled multitude on the mount was not alone for them, but was to be sounded in the ears of the church all along the line, through successive generations, resting with more solemn weight upon Christ's ambassadors in the last days. Sinners are to be turned from the darkness of error to the light of truth, by the foolishness of preaching. He who accepts the light is to claim no authority himself; but as God's messenger, with light reflected to him from the Source of light, he may claim the highest authority.
God might write the messages of truth upon the firmament of the heavens as easily as he placed the stars in their position. He might proclaim the truth and let it shine to the world through angel visitors, but this is not the way he ordained. He delegated power to his disciples to carry the light which he would communicate to them, to all parts of the world. Through his ambassadors God graciously infuses light to the understanding and warmth to the souls of those who acknowledge the message he sends, bearing light to those in darkness.
Paul writes to Timothy: "Be thou an example of the believers in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity." "Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them, for in so doing thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee." The ambassador must be obedient and faithful in the performance of his work as an instrument of God in the salvation of others. He cannot be saved himself if he is an unfaithful servant. He must be the light of the world. He must erect the standard of Christ in families, in villages, and cities, and in the hearts of men.
God does not select angels who have never fallen, but fallen man who has felt the redeeming power of the grace of Christ sanctifying his own life, and the bright beams of truth warming his own heart. As they have been in peril themselves, they are acquainted with the dangers and difficulties of others, and the way to reach others in like peril.
Said Paul, "We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us." This is the reason why angels were not chosen to preach the truth. The gospel was committed to weak and erring men that God might have all the glory. The supremacy of God is to be discerned in the frail instrument chosen to proclaim the message of truth.
Our Saviour often spent all night in prayer to his Father, coming forth with the rising sun to shed his beams of light upon the world. With his heart all full of sympathy for the poor, the ignorant and afflicted, he labored that he might elevate fallen man, and dispel the moral darkness by the light reflected from himself.
E. G. WHITE.
(To be Continued.)
LETTER FROM CONSTANTINOPLE.
The following letter we take from the Vallejo, Cal., Chronicle. It is written by a man of education, who is a close observer of European affairs. It is more than ordinarily interesting:—
Constantinople, Nov. 28, 1879.
Under ordinary circumstances it is not probable that the politics of Constantinople would possess any very great interest for the readers of your paper at Vallejo, but events are transpiring here which would seem likely to lead, ere long, to complications which will have a world-wide interest; for sooner or later Turkey must become again the battle-field of races and religions. It is here that the first collision between the East and the West must culminate—a collision to which the Turko-Russian war was a mere prelude. For no one here is so sanguine as to imagine that the Eastern question was settled at the Congress of Berlin, or that the treaty, which was its result, was more than a temporary expedient to patch up the question for the time, and afford the Powers chiefly interested in its solution opportunities for fresh combinations. Russia was exhausted; England was not ready; Germany was afraid of socialism; France was afraid of Germany; Austria was isolated, and all desired to postpone the evil hour—for all regard the possibilities of the future with apprehension and dismay, and yet all feel that a crash is inevitable, and that it behooves each to prepare for it. So England takes Cypress and Afghanistan. Russia meets her by advancing her legions into Central Asia, Germany and Austria strengthen themselves by a mutual alliance, and France husbands her resources and strains every nerve to increase her power for defense, and offense, if need be.
Meantime Turkey, the theater upon which the great drama is to be played, is rapidly crumbling to pieces. Her exchequer is thinned to its utmost para, so that a week ago there was actually not enough money in the Palace to pay the butcher’s bill, and that worthy, tired of remaining longer out of pocket, refused the daily supply of meat, and the Sultan thus received a most indisputable testimony of the poverty of his resources. To-day we hear that the garrison of Galtipoli is without rations, and on the point of mutiny. Officers in the army have been arrested for trying to earn an honest penny by acting as posters in the street in full uniform, and justify their conduct by the fact that their wives and children are literally starving. The clerks in the public offices are dependent for their subsistence almost entirely upon bribes, and the final catastrophe cannot be postponed much longer. The country is in fact on the verge of revolution. A wide-spread feeling of discontent exists throughout the army and the navy, neither of which service has received any pay for nearly two years. The peasantry, Moslem and Christian alike, are tired of being squeezed for taxes, which are no sooner paid than more are called for, while the sums received by the Treasury are at once appropriated by its numerous and voracious creditors.
Bankers are getting tired of advancing loans, for already every source of revenue is pledged and hypothecated, and there is no more security to be found.
Meantime the Sultan has come under solemn engagements to reform his administration, but there is no money with which to inaugurate such reforms. There is one active insurrection going on in Kurdutan, which the Government is powerless to repress. The whole of Armenia is a prey to brigandage and violence, which renders existence there almost insupportable. In Europe border warfare is perpetually going on upon the Greek frontier. The Albanians have formed a league for their independence, and only remain quiet because the Turkish Government refrains from exercising its authority, and allows the people to be as lawless as they please. The foreign consuls at Prisrend, the chief town in Albania, have for weeks past been prisoners in their own houses, and are unable even to venture into the streets, having been threatened with assassination should they dare to do so. In all parts of the Empire the elements of disturbance are seething, and when the explosion comes, the Foreign Powers will be compelled to interpose. Then will come the struggle for the fragments. Servia, Bulgaria and Montenegro already threaten to form a league, in defiance of the Treaty of Berlin, to resist the advance of Austria. Austria will push foward for Salonica and the Ægean, possibly for Constantinople itself. Albania and Eastern Roumania will make a strike for their independence; Greece will overflow its borders into Thessaly and Epirus, where it will find itself in collision with Albania. The Slavs, the Greeks and the Latins, all antagonistic, will struggle for the supremacy, while the Moslems will find themselves opposed to all three, and driven to a war of desperation for existence. Thus the whole of Turkey in Europe will be turned into a battle-field, on which it is impossible now to predict how the opposing parties will range themselves, or what will be the result.
One thing alone seems certain, and that is that the Moslem rule in Europe will terminate. In Asiatic Turkey matters will not be much better. Prussia geographically barred from interference in the affairs of European Turkey, and politically unable to meet the combinations formed by the Treaty of Berlin against her there, will direct her attention to resist the advance of England in Asia Minor, and endeavor to occupy Syria and Palestine, thereby securing a seaport on the Mediterranean and threatening Egypt and the highway to India. England will meet it by the expedition of troops to Cypress and by the creation of an army composed of the warlike population of Syria and Asia Minor organized under British officers. It is probable too that France, finding her interests in Syria threatened, will ally herself with England in this region, or she may seek to obtain guarantees for them from Russia by peaceable means, on condition of her abstaining from the quarrel. The future battle-field between England and Russia will be the plains and highlands of Syria and all things tend to show that the day of the conflict cannot be very remote.
It is probable that Germany will take advantage of the moment when Russia has her hands full in the East to obtain possession of the German provinces on the Baltic, which still remain outside of German unity, and upon which Prince Bismarck has long cast covetous eyes. We are now in the lull before the storm. The traveler arriving here, and finding in Constantinople the quintessence of all that is dull, dirty, monotonous and disagreeable, can with difficulty realize that it may before long become the center of the ponderous struggle which is destined to shake the old world to its foundation.
False View of the Divine Sovereignty
There have been—alas! there are men who trace non-conversion up to some mysterious decree of almighty God. The solution of all the problems of human impenitence is to be found, not in the moral agency of the creature, but in the sovereign purposes of the Creator—in some mystic and immutable plan, far back in the fathomless eternity. Perish these unscriptural and blasphemous ideas! They are the miserable dreams of a barbarous theology. They find no record on the bright book of God. Here, in this revelation of paternal love, we learn that, instead of sovereignty forming a single hindrance, it is its prerogative—its delight, to remove whatever obstructions stand in the way of human salvation.
OAKLAND V. M. SOCIETY.
By Mrs. H. S. Tay, Secretary
JESUS says, "Go work in my vineyard." This we as members of the Vigilant Missionary Society are trying to do, and we feel more and more encouraged as we see some fruit resulting from our labor.
The following extracts from letters received will give some idea of the interest manifested in reading the Signs. A gentleman in Colorado writes: "Your note of the 6th is at hand, and in reply I would say, the Signs you sent I received, and they are the best papers I ever saw or read. In regard to the Bible teachings they suit me perfectly in every form; the immortality doctrine is just what I am studying, and the Signs are a great help. I will say here I do not believe in the immortality of man, only as a reward—something that is given in reward for well doing. The Signs is the first paper I have found to give me every help. When I began reading I was a Methodist, and I supposed I had an immortal soul, but I found no such thing in the Bible, or nothing to lead me to think I had, and so I found I was wrong. You can rest assured you conferred a great favor in sending me the Signs, and I hope in a short time to add my name to the list of subscribers and become a constant reader of that valuable paper."
A lady in Scotland says: "I received your kind and welcome letter, also your very nice copies of the Signs of the Times, which I must say I had great pleasure in reading, and am happy to learn that there are faithful workers abroad as well as at home here."
A lady writes from New Jersey: "The Signs are valuable; I like them. I have been well posted on all the Advent truths since 1843, except the Sabbath question. In this I have become satisfied you are correct. I try to keep the seventh day as well as I can alone; do no work, but spend it in reading God's word, and the Signs. I have enjoyed the reading and the letters of the sisters. I have enjoyed dear Sr. White's communications. God bless her; may she long live to sound the gospel trump. My age and feebleness of body say to me, time is short. One thing is very surprising: the conformity to the world in these last days; nothing is more detrimental to a life of Bible holiness, yet we see it everywhere, and but little said about it. May the ambassadors of Christ receive a fresh anointing. It is very uncertain whether I live through the winter; the twenty-sixth day of this month closes my eighty-seventh year. Friends and kindred are most all sleeping. The joy of my heart is, my treasure is where it cannot be got by thieves, and my heart is there also."
A gentleman in Colorado writes: "Yours of Oct. 25th came duly to hand as I learned to-day. I have been away from home for the last three months and I am sorry to say that I have not had the pleasure of reading but a few of the papers that you sent me. I have just been reading one; it is quite interesting. Religion is a subject that I am studying and am not satisfied as yet. I will thank you very much for any light that you can throw on the subject."
A lady in Jamaica says: "I beg now to acknowledge the receipt of your kind favor and also four numbers of the Signs of the Times. I thank you very much. In answer to your question whether I am pleased with them I can assure you that I am delighted with them; they contain the great essential truths taken from Holy Writ. I have read them prayerfully, cordially, and shall never be tired to read them over. I have also lent them to my pastor and other Christian friends, and they are all pleased. May I venture to ask you to continue your kindness in sending them to me? I am happy to see the advanced state of Christianity in California."
The same lady still later writes: "I must now apologize for my seeming neglect in not answering your kind note ere this. My sole reason is that I have been very sick with fever; could not leave my bed for some time. I must now return you my many thanks for the papers, tracts, and book sent me; they have indeed been blest to me. More especially the book, Redemption; it is a treasure; it has made me love my Saviour more, and given me a more earnest desire to be like the spotless Lamb of God. Oh, for that lamblike spirit, even to his enemies, Lord, give me that sinless spirit. My friends are of the same mind that it is very profitable. I do thank you and shall feel sorry when I cannot get them, but I shall never be tired of reading them over. You very kindly asked me to name the parts that have struck me most. I answer the first line on the paper, "Signs of the Times." I do pray that the many signs that are visible as to the second coming of Christ may stir up believers and alarm the unconverted. Accept, dear friend, my prayer and earnest wish for the prosperity of this missionary work."
Let us as missionary workers improve every opportunity to spread the truth, that when Christ comes to reward every one according to his works we may be found among the faithful.
MRS. H. S. TAY, Secretary.
MORE ABOUT ANNUALS.
By Barbara C. Stickney
We are sorry to report a failure in disposing of all the Annuals that the Missionary Society voted to take at its yearly meeting; and it arises in this manner; over six thousand were ordered by individuals at our camp-meeting, and these have been sent. Then an estimate was made that Oakland could take four thousand, and that of course San Francisco could take fully as many; but they have not been able to come up to these figures, about one half of this number has been taken by these places. We do not want to send to the districts unless ordered; so those remaining over will be a dead loss to the Society. In this case it will be looked upon as a favor and in fact a donation to our State Society, for those to order what can be disposed of in their vicinity.
The price, 1.50 per hundred, is very reasonable and much good may be accomplished with them in bringing us into notice as a people. It is not yet too late as they will be useful for a year to come.
The following notice from The Weekly Rescue of Los Angeles, a temperance paper, to whom a few copies had been sent, shows the favorable impression made by them:—
"The California Health and Temperance Association, of Oakland, has just issued 'The Family Health and Temperance Annual,' a pamphlet telling what to eat and drink, what to avoid eating and drinking, and how to live in order to enjoy good health. These are things worth knowing, and everybody ought to feel an interest. For particulars address Barbara C. Stickney, Sec. H. and T. Association, Oakland, Cal."
Send your orders accompanied with directions how they shall be sent. It is not necessary to send the money when the business can be done through the missionary officers.
BARBARA C. STICKNEY.