p. 16 | Signs of the Times, Vol. 33, No. 14. (4/3/1907)

Earlier text: THE MINISTER'S LONG DRAWN OUT WORDS

SUNDAY LAW NOTES.

By Editor

SUNDAY-LAW men are rejoicing that Idaho has the best Sunday-law west of the Mississippi. Idaho had a Sunday law formerly, but it was declared unconstitutional two years ago. If the judges who may be called upon to pass on this are true Americans, this will suffer the same fate. By the way, it says nothing as to labor performed on that day, nor does it prohibit playing baseball.

SUNDAY laws are many times put forth as a temperance measure, but the Tacoma (Wash.) Herald of March 9, states that so far as closing of saloons and the stopping of the sale of liquor is concerned, it is claimed that the majority of the liquor dealers themselves are satisfied with the new order of things, and are prepared to obey it. The people are generally agreed as to this, and presumably among the greatest allies of the Sunday-law people in the future will be the saloon-keepers themselves. One of the great matters of contention, however, is that of fruit and candy stores.

RIGHT general laws for the protection of humanity ought to be of uniform operation. The simple fact that there must be exemptions, and special clauses, and special classes, considered in the law is one of the best evidences of its inherent unconstitutionality and injustice. For instance, Oregon has a Sunday law, but somehow or other the officers can not prosecute the push-cart pedler. The law provides for the closing of places of business on the Sunday, but seemingly they have no regular place of business, and as the Portland Tradesman declares, the push-cart pedler requires a special set of laws and ordinances for his regulation.

LOCAL effort is being put forth to close the various attractions at Ocean Beach, near Los Angeles. Women are generally counted as favoring Sunday-closing. The Los Angeles Express, however, declares that the women favor Sunday dancing, even to the extent of seven days in the week.

AN instance of Sunday prosecution is given as by the Tacoma (Wash.) Ledger of March 10. There is a certain confectioner in that place that keeps open on Sunday contrary to the State law. Mr. Knox, the keeper of it, has been twice prosecuted, but the juries have failed to agree. He claims that it comes under the hotel regulation, which the law permits to be kept open, inasmuch as he furnishes light refreshments. But tho juries disagree, the district attorney claims that he will keep up the prosecution if he has to prosecute for fifty-two Sundays in the year. This shows the utter inconsistency of the Sunday-law government. It is pretty hard to find a jury of men all of whom will agree that an act that is legal six days becomes criminal on the seventh.

THEY have a Sunday law up in British Columbia, but there is anything but united consent in its enforcement. The Board of Trade held its meeting on March 4, according to the Rossland Miner, and expressed themselves as not being in favor of the drastic Sunday law. The very government itself, thru Attorney Fulton, has also voiced its opposition to some of the provisions of the law.

IT was stated during the Sunday-law campaign in California over and over again that the law was in the interests of the workingman, and in one or two counties there was special effort put forth to enlist working organizations in behalf of the law. That was expressly repudiated by labor representatives of San Francisco, and now Vancouver, B. C., Province of March 8 declares that the laboring men on British soil oppose the enforcement of the Sunday law act, and the Attorney General is asked to withhold his assent to prosecutions.

TWO OTHER items reach us from Washington which will be of interest; one is that the Washington Sunday law is almost universally ignored or evaded by lax popular sentiment or shallow devices. There was one bill presented to repeal it, and another to confine it to Sunday forenoon. Both were indefinitely postponed, and the dead-letter law remains on the statute book. Efforts have been put forth in Tacoma against a place of amusement called "Dreamland," but it was impossible for them to find a case against the proprietor, as the neighbors on every side said it was not noisy and did not disturb them.

IT would be impossible to find in any just law the utter inconsistency and inequity which are constantly presented by the various phases and forms of Sunday laws.

The Socialistic wave in London seems to have greatly subsided. In a recent election, the candidates of the Moderates were chosen with overwhelming majority. London has no municipal government such as is found in the cities of America. It is what has been truly called a "hodge-podge of local authorities." The ancient City Corporation, over which the lord mayor presides, the London County Council, with jurisdiction extending over 119 square miles, the twenty-seven Borough Councils, Metropolitan Police, whose jurisdiction extends over 693 square miles, and thirty boards of Poor-Law guardians, and other local authorities too numerous to mention, make up the government. There is a governmental policy in this; if great London had one central government it is feared that it would have altogether too strong a hold upon the general government in Parliament. Yet during the time when it had so much of the radical local government it was still sending almost wholly conservative men to Parliament. The elections there are indicative of the political conditions in most parts of the world. They are in a state of flux, and we may look for them to be more and more so as the last days progress. Men are moved by political expediences more than they are by religious principles, and popular governments will show more and more of the constant change, and swing from one extreme to another.

Stockton, Napa, Sacramento, and other cities of California, and many other western cities suffered from the heavy rains of the latter part of March. The storm, which began March 16, extended from Puget Sound to Los Angeles, over the State of Nevada, thru the Colorado Valley of northern Arizona. Twenty Chinese were reported drowned at Oroville, Cal., many bridges were washed out, and much damage resulted. The fruit crop was injured also, many of the trees being in blossom. Damages will run into the millions. From Ogden and Salt Lake City comes news of extensive washouts from melting snows. The Ohio Valley people have suffered greatly from floods.

THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER.

By Editor

THE "Colonist" of February 20, a paper of British Columbia, thus criticizes the Dominion Sunday law:

"A question in which a great many people are interested is whether or not Sunday morning papers will be printed in British Columbia after March 1st. There never was a more absurd piece of legislation than that which prevents the publication of a Sunday morning paper while permitting the publishers of a Monday morning paper to work on Sunday. A Sunday morning paper calls for a minimum of interference with Sunday. A Monday morning paper makes the greater part of Sunday a secular day as far as newspaper offices and people having anything to do with newspapers are concerned. The act passed by the Dominion Parliament contemplates that the provincial legislatures may desire to regulate Sunday observance to suit the wishes of the people of the several provinces. . . . What we do most strenuously protest against is that the newspaper people of British Columbia, who have arranged their business so as not to interfere with Sunday at all after an early hour in the morning, shall be compelled to adopt a system of publication which will compel them to make a secular day of Sunday. If the Legislature can change this state of things, it ought to. It is said that there was no one in Parliament to speak for the Sunday newspapers, which is due to the fact that there are no Sunday papers in the East, and our western members never seem to feel called upon to do anything to shape legislation. But here in British Columbia the people know the operation of the system by which Sunday newspapers are printed, and they know perfectly well that it does not interfere nearly as much with the observance of the day as a Monday paper would."

Has our contemporary thought of another reason why the Sunday newspaper is not wanted by Sunday-law advocates? They do not wish the reading of the Sunday newspaper to come into competition with the Sunday sermon. They prefer that the few should labor Sunday in the newspaper offices to the many reading the Sunday paper. Of course that is not the right way nor the effectual way to win people to Christ or the church, but it is one of the desperate ways of a State religion, or State-fostered religious dogmas.

This editor feels cramped and hindered in his rights by the law, and rightly does he so feel; but what about his fellow citizens—Jews and Christians—who observe the same day Christ did? Should not the law—British law—regard their rights also?

Present Truth

By Editor

We send no papers from this office to individuals without pay in advance. When persons receive copies without ordering them, they are sent by other parties, and we can give no information in regard to them. Persons thus receiving copies of the SIGNS are not indebted to the office, and will not be called upon to pay for them. Please read the papers you may receive, and hand them to your friends to read.

Our authority is the Bible, the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. When the Common ("King James" or "Authorized") Version, or the American Standard Revised Version is used, quotations will not be designated in reference. Any Bible quotation in this paper, therefore, differing from the Common Version, unless otherwise indicated, will be almost invariably from the American Standard Revised Version (Thomas Nelson & Sons, Publishers).

We regret that the printing on the SIGNS has not been so good of late. But the change from our flat-bed press to the rotary, the repairing of machinery in press-room and foundry, the poor quality of metal from which plates have been made,—all have their part. But the "boys" are doing splendid work, and we hope soon to be running in better shape.

Present Truth.

A very liberal journal recently remarked to the effect that a live preacher could find foundation for many sermons morally applicable to these days of tyranny and oppression. This is true. Amos and other of the prophets contain teachings which are not only morally applicable, but prophetically applicable. The prophet spoke and sometimes wrote for the time in which he lived. He wrote for the days to come, and very often for the most perilous time of earth's history, these latter days.

It is not wholly a novel thing to furnish one's own funeral sermon, as did John Alexander Dowie, but his was unique for all that. It stormed and threatened, declared he would return in "another form, brighter and more beautiful and ten thousand times more terrible," to "exterminate the vipers and dogs of hell that now hold high places in Zion." Is it not strange that such a manifestly insane old man should hold such power over people for years? It would not have been thus if men had but studied God's word.

Life and Power Needed.

In a recent number, a well-known New York journal voices the cry of many almost-despairing souls in the question, "What have the higher critics left us?" And that journal thinks that about everything we need is left, and we are especially referred to many beautiful things in the ethics of the Gospel, the Golden Rule, the Beatitudes in substance, etc. Of course the atonement is gone; Jesus is an inspiration, a help, a teacher, but not a saviour. If this be true, then indeed are we hopeless. The ethics of the Bible are rainbows if Jesus Christ is not all that He is declared to be. It is not so much the knowing to do right that is needed, as the power to do right. The Bible reveals both in Christ Jesus.

To Our Brethren and Friends in Oregon and Washington.

Our people in Mountain View are about to build a church. Previous to the burning of the Pacific Press building, they met in the chapel of that building. In the rebuilding of the Press the chapel was omitted. Therefore they must build. Prices of the building material in the vicinity of San Francisco are almost prohibitive. The editor of this paper believes that we have among our readers and friends in Oregon and Washington those who could furnish us lumber in car-load lots for this purpose at a fair profit to themselves and greatly to our advantage. If there are those who can thus help us, we would like to hear from them at once as to prices of dimension lumber, shingles, and flooring, their facilities for shipping, and other necessary things to know. Address the chairman of building committee, care of M. C. Wilcox, Mountain View, Cal. Please write soon.

Mormonism and Maoris.

A writer in the Christian Worker, of Auckland, N. Z., tells us that "Mormonism, with its absurd interpretations of isolated scriptures, has taken great hold" of the Maoris. In talking with one of them, he urged him to take full notice of the context in which the isolated texts were found. The Mormon replied: "No! no! you read too much, then you can't prove anything." Blessed be that man that can take the whole of God's revelation.

The Awful Rains.

With a little adaptation and a good deal of emphasis the following from Whittier's "Among the Hills" is a picture of California conditions: "For weeks the clouds had raked the hills And vexed the vales with raining; And all the woods were sad with mist, And all the brooks complaining. "At last, a sudden night-storm tore The mountain veils asunder, And swept the valleys clean before The besom of the thunder." We have not had the thunder; but we have had rain, and rain, and rain. "Our redwoods drip and drip with rain." Yet it has not been the great quantity so much as the fact that it has been almost constant. Since it began, a little before the middle of December, neither land nor roads have been dry. A great deal of plowing remains to be done, or now will not be done at all. Until recently the earth has absorbed the rain, but the last rains fell upon a well-drenched soil, flowed off into arroyos, canyons, and rivers, and appalling, destructive floods have followed. Railway lines have washed out, tunnels have caved in, early fruits ruined, Stockton, Oroville, and other towns have been inundated, and thousands of square miles of the best lands in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys have been flooded; many lives have been lost, millions of dollars worth of damage has resulted, and the end is not yet. The damage to California will be very great. When this paper will reach the most of its readers we know not; we shall endeavor, the Lord willing, to do our part.

Josephus and Christianity.

In another column is an article on Josephus and Christianity, in which the writer clearly shows that Josephus in his history never referred to the Christians. But to our mind it is not necessary to assume great secrecy on the part of the Christians, or entire ignorance of them on his part as a reason why Josephus did not mention them in his history. He was a Pharisee by choice. While endeavoring to give an impartial history, his general view would lead him to minimize or utterly ignore all movements like Christianity which did not in his mind have a molding or critical effect upon that nation. In his mind Christianity did not have such effect. It was but an incident of which he doubtless knew so little that he would not cumber his history in an attempt to explain it. Truly has the poet said: "We see dimly in the present what is small and what is great." Josephus evidently saw dimly, knew little, and did not count it worth his while to search out facts which to him were but a mere incident, and which if told, he may have feared would have brought discredit upon his people and priesthood. Great age-molding, religious events are often passed over in silence by historians, while inferior and inconsequential acts of war are rehearsed in minutest detail.

What a blessing it would be if it were done! The Christian Advocate, of New York, truly says that "the mission of the church is to call men from a life of sense, of gratification, ambition, wealth, or dominion, to the life which covers the life which now is and that which is to come. This call must make the way easy for the repentant, and awaken in the unrepentant unrest and rational fear. It must call men first to the law, with its penalties, until they are compelled to recognize their unfitness for the highest form of earthly life, and wholly incapable of attaining the heavenly life without a radical change. Then at the first sign of repentance, the silver trumpet of peace and liberty should be blown." And that is true, but does the Christian Advocate believe that when there is repentance, and true liberty given by the Lord Jesus Christ, that that liberty should be used to transgress the law? That is what many are teaching at the present time; that in Christ Jesus there is liberty, and that liberty does not regard God's law. As, for instance, it makes no difference whether we keep the fourth commandment or not. In that case Christ is made the minister of sin, and justification a license to continue in sin. The man who truly preaches the Gospel must bring men to see their need of the Gospel by the condemning power of the law, and then if the Gospel message has its right effect upon the heart, it will bring men into harmony with the law which they have transgressed.

The Washington (D. C.) Herald reports in part a sermon by Rev. Abram Simon, rabbi of the Eighth Street Temple, in which some forceful facts are set forth, and one is that one of the danger signs of the times is that Americans are forgetting their democracy, and the caste and class spirit has taken possession of our universities. The youth of the common people is ostracized at the universities and private schools, a spirit which he declares is foreign and unworthy of the spirit of our forefathers. He intimates that it is a sad thing that while the spirit of democracy is gaining elsewhere on the globe that it is decreasing here. So the prophecy of the word declares that while this country should have horns like a lamb, representing equality and freedom, it should speak as a dragon, representative of imperialism and persecution.

Yale Spendthrifts.

The wealthiest students of Yale are said to spend more for drinking and smoking than for room rent and furniture. As would be expected, the "honor" men spend much less in vice than the low-standard men. Men who spend $2,000 a year devote 25 per cent. of their expenditures to clothes, while those in the $500 class spend only 6 per cent. for clothes.

A despatch from Guthrie, Okla., dated March 11, states that on final passage the Oklahoma Constitutional Convention, by a vote of 71 to 13, decided to submit Statewide prohibition amendment to a vote of the people. This is considered a great victory for the temperance forces, who are jubilant over the measure.

Temperance was a live issue in Knoxville, Tenn., on election day, March 12. The issue was on the "wet" and "dry" proposition, temperance people paraded the streets, church bells were tolled, speeches were made. The vote resulted in a majority of 1,929, of nearly 11,000 votes cast, in favor of prohibition.

A cave-in in a tunnel near San Luis Obispo, Cal., March 19, covered up six oil tanks in the middle of a train, leaving the engineers and firemen of the double-header and the conductor and two breakmen in the caboose uninjured. It really cut out the middle of the train.

Russia is not the only place where the deadly bomb is used. March 19, a bomb was exploded on the front porch of Judge F. B. Ogden, Oakland, Cal., by unknown parties. Fortunately no one was injured, tho the house was much damaged.

The powder magazine of the French battleship Iena blew up at Toulon, March 12. The entire afterpart of the ship was blown to pieces. About eighty men were killed and hundreds more were injured. The exact cause of the explosion is not known.

In an underground shaft of a coal mine near Forbach, Germany, an explosion of fire damp resulted in the death of seventy-five miners. Twelve others were injured and several missing.

Thomas Bailey Aldrich, author of many volumes of prose and poetry, from 1881 to 1890 editor of the Atlantic Monthly, died at his home in Boston, Mass., March 19.

New R. R. Bridge, spanning Yellow River on the Hankow-Peking line. Length, 3,007 meters; number of piers, 103, each of 30 meters span. Built in two years by 17 Europeans. One hundred tons test.