This book will save you hundreds of dollars. If you are thinking of building a house you ought to buy the new book, PALLISER'S AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE, or, Every Man a Complete Builder, prepared by Palliser, Palliser & Co., the well-known Architects.
There is not a Builder, or any one intending to build, or otherwise interested, that can afford to be without it. It is a practical work, and the best, cheapest and most popular book ever issued on Building. Nearly four hundred drawings. A $10 book in size and style, but we have determined to make it meet the popular demand, to suit the times.
It contains 104 pages, 11x14 inches in size, and consists of large 9x12 plate pages, giving plans, elevations, perspective views, descriptions, owner's names, actual cost of construction, NO GUESSWORK, and instructions How to Build 70 Cottages, Villas, Double Houses, Brick Block Houses, suitable for city, suburbs, town and country, houses for the farm, and workmen's homes for all sections of the country, and costing from $800 to $6,500; also Barns, Stables, Schoolhouse, Town Hall, Churches and other public buildings, together with specifications, form of contract, and a large amount of information on the erection of buildings, selection of site, employment of Architects. It is worth $5.00 to any one, but we will send it in paper cover by mail, post-paid, on receipt of $1.00; bound in cloth, $2.00. Address all orders to
Laconia Publishing Co., 123 Liberty St., New York.
When you write, please mention the SIGNS OF THE TIMES.
SCIENCE in the KITCHEN
By Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
By MRS. E. E. KELLOGG, A. M.,
Superintendent of the Sanitarium School of Cookery and of the Bay View Assembly School of Cookery, and Chairman of the World's Fair Committee on Food Supplies for Michigan.
A scientific treatise on food substances and their dietetic properties, together with a practical explanation of the principles of healthful cookery, and a large number of original, palatable and wholesome recipes.
AGENTS WANTED. Send $1.25 for outfit, giving choice of territory.
Address,
PACIFIC PRESS PUBLISHING CO.,
Oakland, Cal.
Typewriters Cheap
Until recently we have had the Pacific Coast Agency for the “World’s Greatest”
Densmore Typewriter
The magnitude of our publishing work has compelled us to relinquish this agency, and we are closing out our old model machines VERY CHEAP. Write for particulars.
Pacific Press Publishing Co.,Oakland, California
TO CONTRIBUTORS.
By Editor
THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES is a purely missionary enterprise. For this reason it has felt free to ask for contributions from its friends. It pays nothing for contributions, either prose or poetry, unless solicited by the editor, and then the fact is stated when the articles are asked for. This is a plan rarely followed, but sometimes deemed expedient.
Articles Desired.—Those which set forth in the Spirit of Christ the great saving truths of God, short and to the point. It is better to treat one important truth clearly, in a short article, than many points vaguely in a long one. We desire no caustic, critical productions, which might minister to personal pride or pleasure, but can not save souls.
How Prepared.—Write plainly, with typewriter or ink, with wide space between the lines, to freely admit of editing, writing of subheads, etc. Write on one side of the sheet only. Sign the name to the manuscript, as it becomes oftentimes separated from accompanying letter. Anonymous contributions are not used, whatever their merit. If the writer does not wish his name to appear, let him furnish a pseudonym for the public. But we wish the name.
Manuscript Returned.—We will return all unused manuscript desired if stamp and directions are inclosed. We are forced sometimes to return good manuscript mainly for three reasons: (a) Sometimes the articles are too long; (b) sometimes we have a number on the same subject; (c) sometimes our plans are such that an article can not be used till it is out of date. We therefore hope that no offense will be taken by those who have freely contributed their best thought if their productions are returned. When we receive so much matter, we can not use all.
A CARD.
TO ALL interested in carrying the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the inhabitants of other lands, and who desire to assist in supporting missionaries already there and others who may engage in the work, the opportunity is given to make an offering to the Foreign Mission Board of the Seventh-day Adventist denomination. Such donations should be sent to W. H. Edwards, the Treasurer of the Board, 1730 North Fifteenth Street, Philadelphia, Penn.
Christ and the Sabbath
By James White
CHRIST AND THE SABBATH: Or Christ in the Old Testament and the Sabbath in the New
by Elder James White. Paper covers, fifty-six pages, sent post-paid for ten cents.
Address, PACIFIC PRESS, Oakland, Cal.
In the Heart of the Sierras
IN ELEGANT CLOTH BINDING
$1.50
This is an authentic description of the Yosemite Valley and Big Trees. It contains nearly 500 pages of text, and 150 illustrations, 28 of which are beautiful full-page artotypes.
Regular Price, $2.75Special During July, $1.50, Post-paid
Says Horace Greeley of this world-renowned valley:—
“Of the grandest sights I have enjoyed—Rome from the dome of St. Peters, the Alps from the valley of Lake Como, Mount Blanc and her glaciers from Chamouni, Niagara and the Yosemite—I judge the last named the most unique and stupendous.”
Says Joaquin Miller of the book:—
“Many books have been written about the glorious and wondrous story of the Sierras. But it seems to me that this scholarly and venerable pioneer is the one man who is entitled by his culture, his fine tastes, and, above all, his long and wonderful experience, to write the one great and responsible authority about the Heart of the Sierras.”
PACIFIC PRESS PUBLISHING CO.
Oakland, California
39 Bond Street, New York City
18 West 5th St., Kansas City, Mo.
Two Popular Books
Thirty Thousand Copies Sold in 90 Days
The Coming King
By Elder J. E. White
Takes up the connection of our Saviour with the earth from creation to its final restoration, and the redemption of man. It represents Christ as the Creator, the Leader of Israel, the Man of Sorrows, the Redeemer of His People, and the King of the earth made new. 290 pages, 150 engravings. Prices:
CLOTH, INK TITLE . . . $1 00
CLOTH, EMBOSSED IN GOLD, GILT TOP . . . 1 50
ORDER BOOK FOR AGENTS . . . 25
The Story of Redemption
By Elder William Covert
Its object is to assure the sinner that the plan of salvation is for him. It abounds with new and beautiful truths concerning the redemption of man, and will leave with the reader an inspiration for a higher and nobler life.
The illustrations have been carefully prepared and include four three-color half tones from original paintings made expressly for this book. Contains 237 pages and bound in cloth.
NOTICE.—The “Alarm of War” is now published in English, German, Swedish, and Danish. Price, $2.00 per hundred.
TRACTS FOR MANILA
The California Tract Society has just sent one thousand each of the following tracts with the soldiers going to the Philippines:
“Bible Questions and Answers Concerning Man” … 1c
“Elihu on the Sabbath” … 1c
“Benefits of Bible Study” … ½c
“Choose Ye This Day” … ½c
“The Riches of His Grace” … ½c
“Coming of the Lord” … ½c
In addition to this the “Alarm of War” has been widely distributed in the camp at San Francisco. Are there not other societies desirous of doing a similar work? For tracts address,
PACIFIC PRESS PUBLISHING COMPANY
OAKLAND, CAL.,
39 Bond St., New York City.
18 West Fifth St., Kansas City, Mo.
They Sell
I sell the “Alarm of War” in nearly every house.
J. Jensen, in The Kansas Worker.
We notice that 7,000 of the English “Alarm of War” have been used in our State, and the orders are still coming in at a good rate. Let the good work go on.
The Kansas Worker.
Scarcely a mail comes but what brings a good-sized order for “The Alarm of War” and “Arming of the Nations.” A number are meeting with excellent success selling them on the streets and in the stores. Let all who can engage in this work while the demand for such timely literature exists.
Workers’ Record.
Bible Students’ Library Nos. 151 and 152 have been combined and enlarged in a ten-cent pamphlet entitled “The Arming of the Nations.” This is an especially timely publication, as the heading indicates. In harmony with the mind of our State agent, we suggest that our canvassers use this pamphlet in connection with their other helps.
The Workers’ Bulletin.
Send us 50 “Arming of Nations.” These pamphlets go like hot cakes. The people are hungry for them.
Oklahoma Gleaner.
PRICES.
“Christian” Demand for War . . . . .$1 00 per 100
Alarm of War . . . . . . . . . . . 2 00 “ “
Arming of the Nations . . . . . . 10c each or 5 00 “ “
PACIFIC PRESS PUBLISHING CO.
OAKLAND, CAL.
39 Bond St., 18 W. 5th St.,
New York City Kansas City, Mo.
THE SABBATH SCHOOL LESSONS for the next six months will be on the book of Genesis. The new lesson pamphlet, which is now ready, contains a carefully selected series of notes and suggestions on these lessons, and no student should be without a copy. Price, 5c.
PACIFIC PRESS PUBLISHING CO., OAKLAND, CAL.
39 Bond Street, 18 West 5th Street,
New York City. Kansas City, Mo.
“WILL A MAN ROB GOD” is an important pamphlet on the tithing system. It treats every phase of this great question, and deserves especial attention in these days, when the Lord’s means of supporting His cause is almost lost sight of. Price, 10c each.
Pacific Press Pub. Co., Oakland, Cal.
Kansas City, Mo. New York City, N. Y.
NOTICE.—Our new 66 page catalog of publications will be sent free to those desiring it.
Pacific Press Pub. Co., Oakland, Cal.
New York, N. Y. Kansas City, Mo.
How It Looks to an Outsider.
—That Mr. Ambrose Bierce is a man of letters no one who knows him will dispute. But he is not a religious man. We should judge him to be at least an agnostic. But he, like many others of his ilk, does admire consistency, and can oftentimes see it with a clearness unknown to the religious man of perverted view. Mr. Bierce has had more or less to say of late, in common with many others, on war chaplains. In the Examiner of June 26, in referring to a paper which lauds the fighting parson, Mr. Bierce well says:— “Fighting is not the duty of a chaplain, and for my part I respect a good deal more the minister who does? My reason? O, that is very simple: it is that I am unable to imagine Christ fighting! To that ultimate test I subject the acts of all Christ’s ministers—for that matter all professed Christians. If any man of them can conceive a war so righteous that Christ would have armed Himself and actively engaged in its battles, cheering on His comrades and killing His antagonists, why, let that imaginative man go soldiering to the adequate gratification of his mind and heart; to me it seems that the world’s rough work is best performed by the worldly—that in the dismal extremity which we name war a Christian nation’s best hope lies in its sinners. The army chaplain is usually a conscientious and well-meaning, if somewhat narrow, man, having a demonstrable utility; but that he commonly has, or ever ought to have, a stomach for fighting is untrue.”
And who that believes God’s Word will impugn Mr. Bierce’s standard of judgment. A true Christian nation would not go to war; that it does go to war proves a nation not Christian.
THE GOSPEL IN GENESIS ONE.
Now THAT our Sabbath-school lessons, which appear in the SIGNS, are for this quarter on the book of Genesis, it is earnestly hoped that the student will not miss the Gospel treasure which is there deposited, by vainly speculating over mere theories. Of course a few facts are easily settled by the Scriptures; and, first, a few suggestions as to these facts, and, secondly, as to the Gospel.
When did God create, or bring into existence, the heaven and the earth?—“In the beginning.”
When this “beginning” was, how long a period it covered, it is idle to conjecture; for it is not revealed. That it was a period which antedated the six days’ work is evident from the following:—
1. There were other beings created before man existed. These are known as God’s angels or messengers. They were present when the “foundations” of the earth were laid (Job 38:4-7), “in the beginning” (Heb. 1:10; Col. 1:16; John 1:1-3). These beings must have had habitations, which of course were created before the six days’ work.
2. Satan was once Lucifer, the Day Star, or Light-bringer, one of the “morning stars.” The early history of the earth presents him as a tempter in the Garden of Eden, immediately after the six days’ work. Genesis 3. But when “the foundations of the earth” were laid, “the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.” Job 38:4-7. When Adam was placed in Eden, one of the morning stars—Lucifer—had fallen.
3. The first day could not begin till God created light and separated light from darkness. Gen. 1:3-5 marks the first day’s work.
4. Verse 2 of Genesis 1 indicates also that a period of time existed after the creation of verse 1 and before the six days’ work which followed, during which the earth was “waste and void,” and darkness enshrouded it. Job 38:9.
5. In referring to the work in the beginning it is said, “In the beginning God created;” but in referring to the six days’ work we read, “In six days the Lord made.” Surely this is not accidental. Verse 1 refers to the matter of the earth; the six days’ work, to its formation. In the beginning the weaver creates his web, and for a time leaves it; subsequently, in six days, he makes of it a beautiful garment.
The Gospel.
1. The record presents before us as the God of the Book the Creator of the heaven and the earth. Subsequent revelation shows us that this was God the Son, known to the world later as Jesus the Christ, creating with the Father. He is the Revelation of God to man. (See 1 Cor. 8:6; John 1:1-3.) “For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers; all things were created by Him, and for Him.” Col. 1:16. When were they created, their foundations laid?—“In the beginning.” This is the God of power which the Book places before us in the first sentence, in whom we may trust and not be afraid.
2. God knew that angels and man would be tempted, knew that they would fall; and so He gave a practical lesson right in the very earth itself of His power to redeem. He brought the matter of the earth into existence in the beginning. “He spake, and it was.” Ps. 33:9. But while He finished for the abode of other creatures the worlds they needed, the earth was left “waste and void” [R.V.], “desolate and waste” (Boothroyd), “without form and chaotic” (Spurrell), “unsightly [better, perhaps, “invisible”] and unfinished” (Septuagint), and covered with darkness. So also is the sinner, darkened, blinded, his mind in chaos and confusion, desolate of good, alienated from the life of God. (See Eph. 2:2, 3, 12; 4:18, 19; 2 Cor. 4:4.) But as the Spirit of God came and moved upon, brooded over, the face of the dark waste (Gen. 1:2), so God sends His Spirit into the world to strive with man, to turn him to repentance. (See Gen. 6:3; John 16:8; Gal. 5:17.) And then as God by His word spoke the matter into existence before His creatures knew; as He by His word spoke the world from confusion to order, from chaos to cosmos, from wasteness and ugliness to fruitfulness and beauty, during the six days, when His angels all beheld rejoicing, and Satan stood abashed, so into every waste, desolate, darkened, blinded, chaotic soul who believes God, who looks to Him, who reaches up his helpless hand to His Saviour and asks His presence, that mighty Creator-Redeemer will by the same word speak light and life and fruitfulness and order and beauty. He may say as did the leper, “Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean,” and by faith may hear the word spoken to him, “I will; be thou clean.” He may know, “Now are ye clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.” In his blindness the sinner may say, “Jesus, Thou Son of David, have mercy on me,” and he may by faith feel the divine touch which opens his eyes. “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” Blessed be God for the revelation of both Creator and Redeemer in the first expressions of His Book.
We need not, therefore, trouble ourselves as to just how we came into existence, as to just what our lives have been; our Creator is also Redeemer, and He is able to save to the uttermost.
Copies Sent Without Order
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.
Christ the Prince of Peace
Jesus Christ is the “Prince of Peace,” not the god of war. And “He is our peace.” Would that all might accept Him as such.
Faith Takes God at His Word
Faith is not feeling; it is taking God at His Word without question. He who says, “The Word is true, but”—really does not believe God. There are no “buts” in faith.
Prayer
No. 52 of Apples of Gold Library is entitled “Prayer,” and is written by Arthur T. Pierson, D.D., editor of the Missionary Review. 16 pages; price, 1 cent. It is a most excellent little tract, instructive, inspiring, helpful,
The Papacy and the Anglo-American Alliance
It is well to note the fact that the chief opponents to the much-talked-of Anglo-American alliance are Roman Catholics. And when the judgment books unfold the facts of history, it will be found that not a little of the enmity of Continental Europe against England has been originated and fostered by the Papacy. But the world will not see it till too late to escape the papal snare.
God Has Supply
God has supply for all our need; but He bestows it somewhat according to our sense of our need. If we feel we have need of nothing, that we are full, He will pass us by. The rain from above will not enter the closed cistern; and the water shut in will soon become stagnant. When we can come to God with a sense of our utter need, He will supply our need “according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”
Church and State in the Philippines
Mr. Joseph T. Mannix, a newspaper correspondent, and himself a Roman Catholic, in reporting his investigations in the Philippine Islands, which investigations were greatly hindered by the Spanish authorities, tells us, according to the Literary Digest, that “the Church and State are so inseparably linked together that no important action is taken by Spain’s political representatives in the islands until the archbishop has first been consulted;” and that many of the friars, the majority, “are greatly concerned in political matters, have acted as agents of the government in imposing arbitrary and burdensome taxation on the natives.” And so it will ever be where Rome rules.
Five New Subscribers
By Editor
A brother writes us as follows: “In reply to your proposition in the SIGNS of June 2, will say, You can count on five new subscribers from me, and if five won’t do the work, I’ll make it ten.” The proposition to which he refers has been in this paper regularly for several weeks. Have you seen it? If so, what are you going to do about it? Are you to be one of the 5,000? If so, have you written us about it? If not, please write us while the subject is on your mind. If you have not seen this proposition and don’t know what it is, turn to page 12 and read all about it.
“WHEN RELIGIOUS LAWS ARE NEEDED.”
A BRIGHT new paper, the American Banner, of Philadelphia, emblazons forth to the world these words:—
“A man-made religion always requires man-made laws to support and protect it. The religion of God—true Christianity—never has and never will ask for civil laws in its favor. It could not do it except by denying the principles of the Christian religion. Christianity has not flourished because of human laws, but in spite of them. If civil government protects the individual in his right to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, it will have performed all that is ever required of it in regard to religion.”
And the government should give also equal protection to him who does not worship at all. It does this, however, for the sake of men, not because of religion. As long as the Banner gives to the world such truths, may it wave prosperously.
