EVERY careful student of present-day conditions must recognize the wide-spread influence which the spirit of commercialism, competition, and money-making has upon spiritual life. Business and Christianity in many minds can in no wise be combined, and the successful business man is supposed to be one whose sharp dealings and business methods have forfeited the name of Christianity. A writer in the Christian Work and Evangelist (New York), as quoted in the Literary Digest of March 25, speaks of the spirit of graft which is becoming so wide-spread in its influence at the present time. Many young men, he asserts, “find it extremely difficult to practise their Christian principles in the environment in which they find themselves in shops and offices.” One man, a New Yorker, confessed that for every article he sold to a wealthy household, it was necessary to bribe the servants in order to accomplish the sale. Of the broader influence of this system he says:—
Graft runs through the business system of New York from top to bottom. It even extends to some undertakers. We had been in New York hardly a month as a pastor, when an undertaker came to us, and offered us a “rake off” on every funeral we would get him. Of course, they go to the sextons as well. We do not know whether they have an agreement with the doctors or not. There is not a pair of horses sold on Fifth Avenue that the coachman does not get a handsome present from the dealer for bringing his employer there. The dealer that puts up the biggest price to the coachman sells the horses. A grocer who provides for many wealthy New York families said that unless the cooks were supplied with presents, and some of them with bottles of whisky, he would not keep the trade of that house. A grain dealer told us that this was the universal practise of his business. With every yacht fitted out in New York City, the captain gets handsome presents of clothes and other things. When it comes to large contracts, such as furnishing one of the great ocean steamers, presents of very great value are given by the party that gets the contract to the captain or agent that is influential in the letting of it. The same thing runs through the whole list of contracting businesses.
Of the operation of the system among other classes, he says:— Salesmen have to treat prospective buyers to dinners and expensive wines and theaters, or they could not sell a thing. A young salesman whom we asked about this very thing, said: “I have long wanted to change my job because I have to take men and women out to suppers and theaters, and in other ways bribe them to buy.” A school superintendent told us that a certain text-book publishing-house had made him very flattering approaches of friendship when it was time to get new text-books introduced. Some houses have that reputation. We know one which, we are glad to say, forbids its representatives, by letters, to stoop to any bribings or illegitimate methods. But so it all goes on, down to the push-cart man, who has to pay the police for privileges, until it sometimes looks as if our whole business system was based on graft. And good men are the victims. One great firm has to do it because others do. One man has to outdo the other to get a sale. And good men, objecting to the whole thing, have to do it to keep their place.
And places are not waiting in New York. And there are babies at home. We talked with one such man the other day. He has been trying for two years to get a job where he can work without straining his conscience. He is near the head of a department of a great store. He has to wink at some things. He is looking for a secretaryship or treasurer's office in a missionary or religious society, on the ground, we suppose, that that is the only place where graft does not enter. It tries to get in, though, everywhere. It knocks at the doors of religious journals. It sometimes says, We will advertise with you if you will praise our goods—and the goods do not always deserve praise. It is a very difficult thing for a man caught in the system to escape. Sometimes he has even to practise straight lying to keep his job. A plasterer told us that he had to lie to the inspector every time he came around as to the stuff he was putting on the walls, or lose his job. To lose his job meant the baby hungry. Pretty good men will lie to keep the baby from starving. There has got to be radical reformation.
Nor is this pernicious system confined alone, according to this writer, to private business life, but it has even entered legislative halls. Of recent investigations which have been made he says:—
The sugar trust was found cheating everybody out of hundreds of thousands by short weights. The insurance companies had been robbing policy-holders by the thousand. The Pittsburg scandals of last year involved banks as well as politicians. In San Francisco one man after another was convicted. The courts brought judgments of millions against the oil companies. The arbitrators in the coal strike found systems of deliberate robbery of the employees going on. Senators have been found who have been buying seats, and now at Albany many are testifying that men connected with the racing interests were buying senators. These men deny it; but notice that they are not denying having made large contributions for “publicity purposes,” to defeat the laws against gambling; and even fools know what this publicity means. And these business men are some of them church-members.12So were the insurance men, and the sugar men, and the coal operators. So the thing has gone on, and we are all asking, “Who next?” Is it not time the church did a little thinking?
The closing question is most pertinent. What, indeed, is the duty of the church in view of such conditions, which our own observation teaches us exist in a greater or less degree in every community? Is it not the duty of the church to sound the danger-signal, to point out the morbid conditions which exist, to raise the standard of righteousness, and call men to rally about it? Has not the church also the duty to labor for those within its membership who are guilty of these sins, and if there be no reformation of life, to place herself clear before the world in the elimination of these diseased members? Truly, every church in every community should see that it stands clear, and not permit the spirit of graft to strangle in its own membership the spirit of practical Christianity. Upon the church of God to-day there rests a fearful responsibility in meeting the moral issues of the age, in presenting to the unconverted a high type of manhood and womanhood, in erecting as a standard of Christian attainment the character of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by its own influence and example calling men to rally to that standard.
F. M. W.
Delivered from a Fanatical Mob
By W. A. S.
THE promise, “Lo, I am with you alway,” does not mean that the path may not be the way of trial. But it gives assurance of sustaining grace in the trial.
The apostle Paul said of his appearance before Cæsar: “Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; . . . and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.” And though he knew that he was soon to suffer martyrdom, he testified to his confidence that the same delivering grace would keep him through the crisis: “And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom.” 2 Tim. 4:17, 18.
Continually the child of God who looks up may see evidences of the delivering, shielding power of God. We know that still “the angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.”
Here is a story from Spain, told by Elder Walter Bond at the Latin Union meeting last summer, which shows anew how the intervening providence of God guards his children in service in difficult places.
Good work has been done in Spain by some of our Spanish sisters who have gone out with our publications to bring the precious truth to others. Two of these sisters were working in a fanatically Catholic region in the province of Lerida. Elder Bond said:—
They came in their work to a village built at the summit of a high hill. They went from house to house offering for sale their tracts and papers. Soon they were being followed by a woman, under the influence of one of the priests, who would take her stand behind them at every door, and by gestures, if not by words, warn the villagers not to buy the tracts. This opposition was so persistent that very few publications were sold in the place.
Our sisters went over the village, however, determined not to miss any opening to sow some seeds of truth. They then started for the next town. As they passed along the road, on the way down the hill, they both became suddenly conscious of being very thirsty. They had not felt the thirst before that moment; but now it was so insistent that they stopped to look about for a place to get a drink.
Just at the moment, a man called to them from his garden, down the hillside, and motioned to them to come down. They turned from the road and made their way down a rocky path to the peasant home. There the man asked them courteously if they would not like a drink from his well. Thankful for this kindly peasant hospitality, they quenched their thirst, and sat for a time resting, before going onward down another path leading them by a shorter way into the valley.
Later they learned that the special providence of God was in that sudden sense of thirst and the call from the stranger, that led them from the highway. While sitting by the peasant’s well, they were entirely hidden from the road above by a high wall. At that same time a mob of ruffians, stirred up by fanaticism, were hurrying along the road, armed with stones, expecting at every turn to overtake our sisters. They followed the road for some distance, and searched in vain for the distributors of the heretical tracts. No women were visible, and yet they had but a moment before passed along the road. The superstitious villagers concluded that either their visitors had been evil spirits, or else that the ground had opened and swallowed them.
Our sisters knew nothing of it—hidden as they were behind the high wall—until the next day, when one of the same neighborhood saw them in another town, and told them how the whole village was talking about it.
Several months afterward one of the sisters visited the village again. The people had learned that our workers had not been swallowed up that day, and now many felt that truly their deliverance was of God, and that he had hidden them behind that wall to save them.
And so, we know, it was in truth. Things are not merely happening. God is over all, and his angels are in the world and by the believer’s side. “Whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord.”
One of these colporteur sisters is the woman whose father, in dying years ago, told her that sometime a people would come to Spain who would preach the truth of God, and he wanted her to watch for that message of truth. When she heard of our teaching, through her little boy, who attended a school started by our workers, she felt impressed that this was the message of truth her father had prayed that she might be ready to hear. And on listening to it herself, she gladly received it, and has been working to bring the light to other hearts.
W. A. S.
Our Case and Our Advocate
By C. M. S.
As the Word of God is true and can not fail, we are nearing the time when every one must render account for the life he has led upon this earth.
In the beginning, man was placed upon the earth with a code of morals essential to his existence,—a code of morals in whose spirit rested the government of the whole universe. Man broke that law, that moral code, that principle of eternal right-doing, and brought upon himself the penalty which the breaking involved. But before that penalty fell upon the race, the life of Christ was interposed, and the possibility of eternal life was again held out to man.
Then the eternal Son of God became the Advocate of the prisoner at the bar, and the Father and Ruler of the universe became the Judge upon the bench of ultimate justice. Now what is man's case? and what is his hope of acquittal or pardon? Is his case safe in the hands of his Advocate? And what is the standing of his Advocate in the court of last resort?
Speaking of those who had professed his name, the Lord declares, “They have transgressed my covenant, and trespassed against my law.” Hosea 8:1. The prophet of the Lord declares, in Ezra 9:6, “Our iniquities have increased over our head, and our trespass is grown up unto the heavens.” Inspiration declares that we were “dead in trespasses and sins.”
Although that is our condition in God's sight, yet the record that is kept of all our doings is not a prejudiced nor partial one. Faithful are they who write it down, and faithful is he that must pass upon the records. “Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book?” Ps. 56:8. Along with the record of the wanderings goes the record of our sorrow for sin. We can not change the record by anything that we can do; for “though thou wash thee with niter, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord.” Jer. 2:22.
As soon as man sinned, he made necessary a salvation that must come through another; for his own misdeeds13merited death. “The wages of sin is death.” Rom. 6:23. “And so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” Rom. 5:12.
In such a condition, with such a penalty hanging over his head, unable to save himself (to say nothing of saving others), what foundation has man for hoping to escape that death from which there is no awakening?—Ah, there comes in that glorious provision voluntarily made by the self-sacrificing Son of God. He might have stayed in heaven, refused the humility of the human, escaped the torturing death of the cross, and still have retained the glory which he had with the Father “before the world was.” But he did not choose thus to do. Speaking of him, the Word says: “Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Heb. 12:2. In fact, he emptied himself of his own glory, that he might restore man to the glory which he had lost. He “became obedient unto death,” that he might provide a way whereby man could triumph over death. He died, the Just for the unjust; rose again, because he could not be holden of death; and thus became the “Captain of our salvation.” Because man had sinned,—because we had sinned,—Christ, to bear the penalty which we deserved, was made “to be sin for us,” while he himself was sinless, that we might appear, in the eyes of the law, blameless as he. He did all this while we were yet in sin, yet in rebellion against the authority of Heaven.
He has even engaged to present man's case in the court of last resort. That blessed fact is announced in the following unmistakable language: “If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” That Advocate is able to save to the uttermost all who will come unto God by him. “Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.” The awful earnestness of that work is shown in the following: “The Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which can not be uttered.”
The only thing that now stands between man and life everlasting in the kingdom of God is man's refusal to repent of sin and accept the proffered pardon, putting his case in the hands of One who is at once his Friend, his Brother, his Redeemer, and his Advocate at the bar of eternity.
Our case is now at that bar. Our crucified and risen Lord is the only One who is able to carry it through. The all-important question for each of us is this: Is my case in the hands of the one Advocate who has a right to plead for me there?
C. M. S.
Privilege Rather Than Duty
REFERRING to a recent agreement of the ministers at Atlanta, Ga., to refrain from begging for funds for local church work, the Lutheran of February 16 says:—
Certain it is that when church-members understand their duty and privilege, it will not be necessary for the minister to beg for the money required to maintain the church. The services of the sanctuary can not be gratuitously maintained; and the freer a congregation leaves the pastor of the temporal affairs of the parish, the more highly will it be possible for him to develop the spiritual life of the people. There is therefore the larger reciprocal benefit. The men of the churches are awakening to their responsibilities as never before, and we believe that the laymen are going to handle the finances without the aid of the pastors, who then will have every opportunity to develop the religious consciousness of their members.
Hypnotic Evil of the Streets
By W. T. Knox
We are consciously and unconsciously affected by what we see. Evil appears to us in many suggestive forms, and the impression oftentimes is no less marked in the life because the grosser evil is thinly veiled. Mr. Harold Begbie, in a more recent book called “The Hands of the Potter,” speaks of the hypnotic power attending London street scenes:—
A visitor to England from India or China, whose purpose was to study the followers of the Son of God at the center of their national life, would surely feel himself, in the streets of London, to be the victim of an immense hallucination. He would see on every side an ostentation of wealth bewildering in its profusion and staggering in its effrontery. He would find it impossible to distinguish the lady of fashion from the public woman of the streets. He would see in the shop windows the manifold production of a commerce created by vanity, voluptuousness, and sensuality. The boardings would shock his modesty by their prurience, or disgust his intellect by their vulgarity. He would feel himself the witness of a carousal. It would seem to him that every unit in the multitude was dressed to attract attention, was bent upon self-indulgence, had no purpose in life save dissipation.
Of the responsibility of the church in view of this lowering of the Christian standard he says:—
The great note of Christianity—selflessness—makes no sound in the symphony of the public streets. Is it a great thing to expect that every man and woman in London whose life has been touched and exalted by the character of Christ should, by the simplicity of their dress, the beauty of their manners, and the nobility of their pursuits, convey an impression to the streets which is at once a reproach to vanity and an invitation to holiness? Is it not high time that the church awake to the tremendous power of hypnotic suggestion, and make definite war upon the extreme luxury, license, and gaudery of society, which are now spreading through the streets of the town a contagion terribly destructive to the noblest virtues of the human soul?
Truly it is time that the church of Christ awake to its tremendous responsibility. Some there are who sense this burden; but the great majority, we fear, do not. But upon those who see and recognize the evil tendencies of these times, there is thrown a burden of sounding a note of warning, and of seeking, so far as in them lies, to erect in the midst of abounding iniquity the standard of righteousness.14
The foregoing quarterly report of mission receipts is in the main quite encouraging. If the receipts for the remaining three quarters of the year should be in proportion to those for the first quarter, the gifts for the year would slightly exceed ten cents a week per member. There are, however, some facts to which our attention should be called. The months of January and February contain quite large receipts from the annual offering and the Harvest Ingathering campaign, from which sources we shall have but comparatively small receipts for the remaining nine months of the year.
The receipts from all sources for the first two months were almost $70,000, or an average of about $35,000 a month, while the receipts from all sources for March were a little less than $20,000. It is unreasonable to expect the volume of offerings throughout the year to be in proportion to the first two months’ receipts. But a little calculation will reveal what monthly receipts of only $20,000 will mean to the Mission Board and the foreign fields, if continued throughout the year. Instead of receiving $330,000, the amount called for by the Ten-cent-a-week Plan, the Mission Board would receive less than $270,000, a shortage of $60,000, an amount almost sufficient to meet our operating expenses for two months. This would mean, then, nearly two months in which our mission fields would be without support.
Surely the distress of the mission fields in 1910 is too fresh in our minds to necessitate enlarging upon the imperativeness of faithfulness and liberality on the part of all in this service of proper support of our brethren in foreign fields. It is far better for us now, in the first months of the year, to understand the situation, appreciate the danger of an empty treasury, and guard against it while it is possible, than to wait until another crisis is upon us.
W. T. Knox, Treasurer.
Leaving the Farms
By F. M. W.
DURING the last few years, the tide of American population has set in strongly toward the great centers of population. It is claimed that in Virginia sixty per cent of the young men leave the farms, most of them before they are twenty years old. This perhaps is characteristic of many other States in the Union.
The same marked tendency is seen in the case of young women. The office, the shop, and the factory, with the social and educational advantages of the town, hold out inducements to both classes with which the country can not cope. But these advantages of city life are more than offset by its disadvantages. The dangers of city life, as compared with life in rural districts, are as ten to one. Many young men and women who have led, in their rural home surroundings, industrious, virtuous lives, have made shipwreck of their experience upon entrance into the larger sphere of city activity.
After all there is a beauty and sweetness in life in the country that is never found in the busy marts of trade and commerce. Where can one find sweeter communion with the great Creator than in the woods and fields, becoming acquainted with his visible forms of creative power! Here life can find free and full expression; here childhood can develop in simplicity and strength.
Unless drawn to the city by the direct leadings of duty, let every young man and woman consider if, after all, it would not be better to follow God's original plan in the peopling of the earth with the human family. Centralization had no part in this plan. The principle of heaven, as applied both to the population of the earth and to the spread of the gospel, is the principle of diffusion. Contravening this principle, the human family has placed itself in a position where it becomes more greatly the prey of Satan's wiles and temptations.
F. M. W.
Statement of the Ten-Cent-a-Week Offering to Missions for Quarter Ending March 31, 1911
CONFERENCES
ANNUAL OFFERING
FIRST-DAY OFFERING
MIDSUMMER OFFERING
MISSIONS
SABBATH-SCHOOL OFFERING
HARVEST INGATHERING
TOTALS
Atlantic Union Conference
Central New England
$390.20
$143.18
....
$9.13
$387.22
$181.40
$1111.13
Greater New York
911.65
61.67
....
431.13
502.84
573.78
2481.07
Maine
69.10
3.79
....
....
16.07
43.12
132.08
New York
144.00
64.74
....
10.00
107.47
189.70
515.91
Northern New England
66.01
35.57
....
.61
136.51
52.80
291.50
Southern New England
429.87
134.34
....
5.07
226.91
263.35
1059.54
Western New York
223.14
....
....
91.74
256.51
104.55
675.94
Totals
2233.97
443.29
....
547.68
1633.53
1408.70
6267.17
Canadian Union Conference
Maritime
169.11
30.39
....
....
85.66
103.84
389.00
Ontario
220.70
50.47
....
152.50
140.13
272.30
836.10
Quebec
....
23.31
....
....
47.27
64.25
134.83
Newfoundland
....
....
....
....
....
77.00
77.00
Totals
389.81
104.17
....
152.50
273.06
517.39
1436.93
Central Union Conference
Colorado
143.05
27.18
....
197.71
356.40
115.64
839.98
East Kansas
990.17
59.69
$14.40
203.35
672.61
232.74
2172.96
Nebraska
506.28
40.02
....
799.24
876.82
382.76
2605.12
North Missouri
54.77
10.93
....
10.16
123.30
30.67
229.83
South Missouri
259.05
47.78
22.25
282.54
318.15
149.98
1079.75
Western Colorado
207.88
52.95
....
68.24
164.00
174.17
667.24
West Kansas
717.70
98.70
....
496.39
520.29
274.33
2107.41
Wyoming
178.56
29.80
....
186.38
201.02
45.80
641.56
St. Louis Mission
....
....
....
96.31
37.75
17.65
151.71
Totals
3057.46
367.05
36.65
2340.32
3270.34
1423.74
10495.56
Columbia Union Conference
Chesapeake
196.96
60.36
....
18.34
169.17
157.93
602.76
District of Columbia
992.75
4.90
1.00
87.55
293.45
323.28
1702.93
Eastern Pennsylvania
401.91
75.30
2.00
178.18
495.10
1397.64
2550.13
New Jersey
484.22
26.79
....
71.78
349.84
455.15
1387.78
Ohio
1224.69
118.12
....
213.35
470.71
430.49
2457.36
Virginia
154.92
10.42
....
65.26
88.77
103.96
423.33
West Pennsylvania
259.22
88.68
....
23.31
275.26
134.49
780.96
West Virginia
54.05
8.65
....
98.20
58.41
77.58
296.89
Totals
3768.72
393.22
3.00
755.97
2200.71
3080.52
10202.14
Lake Union Conference
East Michigan
157.61
25.70
....
634.06
297.00
72.04
1186.41
Indiana
625.12
255.78
20.24
44.26
495.67
407.65
1848.72
Northern Illinois
201.12
7.10
....
138.47
398.51
296.48
1041.68
North Michigan
165.25
28.32
3.00
52.77
126.91
104.43
480.68
Southern Illinois
....
....
....
266.60
181.65
40.43
488.68
West Michigan
523.61
220.49
....
166.01
612.71
133.99
1656.81
Wisconsin
1453.79
136.19
....
164.05
706.12
641.16
3101.31
Totals
3126.49
673.58
23.24
1466.22
2818.57
1696.18
9804.29
Northern Union Conference
Iowa
339.10
205.76
....
210.59
846.05
296.33
1897.83
Minnesota
486.71
....
....
12.00
566.97
232.40
1298.08
North Dakota
550.00
6.50
....
126.65
200.00
223.81
1106.96
South Dakota
386.08
28.09
2.00
401.07
688.27
756.58
2262.09
Totals
1761.89
240.35
2.00
750.31
2301.29
1509.12
6564.96
North Pacific Union Conference
Montana
354.34
148.80
....
48.70
272.22
303.43
1127.49
Southern Idaho
540.21
67.25
....
160.19
304.72
205.12
1277.49
Southern Oregon
389.19
16.26
....
159.54
272.44
121.35
958.78
Upper Columbia
2043.20
115.03
....
219.01
1152.21
782.81
4312.26
Western Oregon
1562.79
44.82
2.70
615.41
868.48
356.93
3451.13
Western Washington
734.77
114.35
....
125.68
222.39
228.33
1425.52
Alaska
....
....
....
....
6.00
....
6.00
Eastern Oregon Mission
14.75
....
....
.65
21.68
46.75
83.83
Totals
5639.25
506.51
2.70
1329.18
3120.14
2044.72
12642.50
Pacific Union Conference
Arizona
282.49
....
....
47.57
158.01
88.25
576.32
California
3567.86
....
29.00
1707.66
2720.00
1471.36
9495.88
Southern California
3121.86
....
....
939.61
1188.14
953.16
6202.77
Utah
95.67
....
....
8.00
88.33
44.73
236.73
Totals
7067.88
....
29.00
2702.84
4154.48
2557.50
16511.70
CONFERENCES
ANNUAL OFFERING
FIRST-DAY OFFERING
MIDSUMMER OFFERING
MISSIONS
SABBATH-SCHOOL OFFERING
HARVEST INGATHERING
TOTALS
Southeastern Union Conference
Cumberland
$444.90
$28.18
....
$115.88
$213.69
$117.21
$919.86
Florida
708.95
16.10
....
184.24
313.51
87.09
1309.89
Georgia
136.38
7.53
....
96.03
175.18
188.41
603.53
North Carolina
113.10
13.12
....
57.61
102.29
....
286.12
South Carolina
69.94
2.33
....
22.44
68.75
81.20
244.66
Bahama Mission
76.05
10.13
....
....
6.22
1.15
93.55
Totals
1549.32
77.39
....
476.20
879.64
475.06
3457.61
Southern Union Conference
Alabama
56.60
107.55
....
....
34.59
14.15
212.89
Kentucky
36.95
....
$1.50
30.54
72.79
105.46
247.24
Louisiana
....
....
....
....
....
....
....
Mississippi
104.99
31.95
....
6.41
51.76
46.25
241.36
Tennessee River
183.16
13.79
17.13
5.71
79.24
71.45
370.48
Southern Union Mission
....
....
....
....
....
....
....
Totals
381.70
153.29
18.63
42.66
238.38
237.31
1071.97
Southwestern Union Conference
Arkansas
107.72
35.34
....
36.89
122.32
52.92
355.19
New Mexico
153.24
8.48
....
27.70
41.56
123.06
354.04
North Texas
470.85
....
....
170.86
382.14
244.12
1267.97
Oklahoma
706.67
13.15
2.90
534.57
1018.75
239.78
2515.82
South Texas
44.27
10.61
....
26.11
169.91
45.90
296.80
West Texas
100.03
....
5.00
17.99
55.13
101.78
279.93
Southwestern Union Mis.
21.26
....
....
9.10
37.28
2.04
69.68
Totals
1604.04
67.58
7.90
823.22
1827.09
809.60
5139.43
Western Canadian Union Conference
Alberta
488.65
1.50
....
15.20
347.28
48.80
901.43
British Columbia
231.33
....
....
148.36
179.00
296.25
854.94
Manitoba
97.70
....
....
32.23
123.93
45.35
299.21
Saskatchewan
181.95
....
....
71.10
171.98
90.00
515.03
Totals
999.63
1.50
....
266.89
822.19
480.40
2570.61
Summary
ANNUAL OFFERING
FIRST-DAY OFFERING
MIDSUMMER OFFERING
MISSIONS
SABBATH-SCHOOL OFFERING
HARVEST INGATHERING
TOTALS
Atlantic Union
$2233.97
$443.29
....
$547.68
$1633.53
$1408.70
$6267.17
Canadian Union
389.81
104.17
....
152.50
273.06
517.39
1436.93
Central Union
3057.46
367.05
$36.65
2340.32
3270.34
1423.74
10495.56
Columbia Union
3768.72
393.22
3.00
755.97
2200.71
3080.52
10202.14
Lake Union
3126.49
673.58
23.24
1466.22
2818.57
1696.18
9804.29
Northern Union
1761.89
240.35
2.00
750.31
2301.29
1509.12
6564.96
North Pacific Union
5639.25
506.51
2.70
1329.18
3120.14
2044.72
12642.50
Pacific Union
7067.88
....
29.00
2702.84
4154.48
2557.50
16511.70
Southeastern Union
1549.32
77.39
....
476.20
879.64
475.06
3457.61
Southern Union
381.70
153.29
18.63
42.66
238.38
237.31
1071.97
Southwestern Union
1604.04
67.58
7.90
823.22
1827.09
809.60
5139.43
Western Canadian
999.63
1.50
....
266.89
822.19
480.40
2570.61
Miscellaneous
131.15
6.00
....
2574.02
8.00
47.10
2766.27
Totals
$31580.16
$3033.93
$123.12
$14228.01
$23547.42
$16287.34
$88931.14
Profanity on the Stage
A BILL was recently offered in the New York City council, making profanity on the stage a misdemeanor. The board of aldermen refused to pass it, on the ground that the public could be depended upon to discourage anything that borders on blasphemy. The Washington Post of March 16, commenting on this, says: “It has been the occasion of comment lately that virtue is no longer persistently triumphant on the stage, since villains have become heroes, and heroes villains. The popularity of this change may be taken to indicate a loosening sense of the proprieties on the part of the public.”
The Colon Fire
By H. H. Cobban
It is with sadness and regret that we report the loss by fire, on the afternoon of March 23, of our printing-office and mission headquarters located at Cristobal (a suburb of Colon), Canal Zone, Panama, when an area equal to seven city blocks was burned. The fire started about one block from our building; and because of the inflammable character of the buildings around us, and the fact that a strong breeze was blowing in our direction, we had only about twenty minutes in which to get things out of our building.
THE FIRE IN COLON AND CRISTOBAL, PANAMA
This building served as our printing-office, union conference headquarters, church, and a home for the workers connected with the printing-office and conference work. Thus the effects of the fire are far-reaching,—our printing plant has been destroyed; our office furniture, files, and papers (except such as were in the safe) are gone; our brethren in Colon and Cristobal are without a meeting-place; and our workers are without homes. Those living in the building all suffered heavy personal losses, as it was impossible, in the time at our disposal, to save our household goods.
The printing-office was engaged in the publication of the Caribbean Watchman, our West Indian missionary paper; the Centinela de la Verdad (Sentinel of Truth), our missionary paper for the Spanish islands and countries about the Caribbean Sea; and the West Indian Messenger, our local church paper. Besides the publication of these periodicals, we were working on small books and pamphlets.
The necessity of such an office was felt by the brethren in the West Indies some years ago; and through personal sacrifice and the offerings of friends in America, the work has been built up. In a field like the West Indies, where the laborers are few, there is a distinct need for a missionary paper that can be circulated freely among the people. Such a paper must be sold at a price which the people can pay. The Caribbean Watchman has met this need, and has had the largest circulation of any religious journal in the West Indies. It has proved a real help to our work.
Our fire has brought all this work to a standstill. Our brethren do not feel that it should stop. It is possible for us to use other Spanish papers in the place of the one which we have been publishing, but there is no paper in the English language that will meet the needs of our field. There is, therefore, great need for our resuming our work at the earliest possible date. While we wait, thousands of people who have been reading our truth-filled papers each month will be without our literature.
The great problem now is where the money is to come from with which to equip an office. We shall not be able to rebuild in Panama because of lack of money, and the General Conference Committee has counseled us to move our office to Riversdale, Jamaica, where we can use one of the buildings on the school farm. We need immediate financial help. Are there not brethren in the United States or elsewhere who can help us at this time? The progress of the message in our island field depends largely upon the printed matter that our Sabbath-keepers circulate from month to month, and we do not wish to have their supply of literature cut off longer than is absolutely necessary. We appeal to our brethren who read the REVIEW to help us in this our time of need. Any help thus rendered will be greatly appreciated. All money should be sent through your local conference office, or to W. T. Knox, treasurer of the General Conference. Be sure to state that it is for the Watchman Office Fund.
