Earlier text: Wave and TideThe Crisis Steadily Nearing
By Maximo Trummer
As the people with the last message of grace, we have the greatest trust that has ever been committed to man. The Lord has brought us together from the different nations and from the different denominations and united us in the church whose principal object and work is to admonish all nations that our world has reached the time of its end. A solemn message indeed! The greatest evidence of the approaching culmination is seen in the things which are now coming to pass, and which we have been assured by the Word of God would come to pass before the end. It is easy to understand, then, how necessary it is that there be watchmen to point out these evidences until the end. As God’s watchmen it is high time therefore that we discharge our duty most faithfully. As Seventh-day Adventists we are responsible in a large measure for warning the world of its danger. The words of Christ, “Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come,” never have merited a closer attention than now. The times are becoming more critical year by year. According to the latest statistics, the great strike of last year cost England the enormous sum of fifty million dollars, which makes it one of the most expensive labor uprisings in the history of the world. At the present time we have collisions in governmental affairs and war in eight different countries, or in the fourth part of the world. The newspapers are continually full of the most foreboding news, and it is only because of the increasing repetition of these occurrences and conditions that they fail to startle us. In giving account of the Chinese revolution, La Prensa, the leading newspaper of Argentina, declared that for the last twenty years books on the French Revolution had been translated into Chinese, and that the present state of affairs showed the result. The thrones which have stood the test of time for four thousand years fall easily before the spirit of unrest of the present generation. It is not known, as yet, what significance will attach to the fall of the oldest monarchy of the world and the inauguration of the great republic of China. Surely, in our age we shall have to face the greatest problems of all ages. The angels of God are still holding the winds, but only until the servants of God are sealed. The present truth is a guiding star which will point our way through the most critical crisis. That crisis is near for all of us. Let us watch vigilantly, warn faithfully, and press forward joyfully, until the glad morning of eternal rest shall dawn. Undignified Legislation
By A. Smith
ACCORDING to the provisions of the Johnston Sunday bill now lying quiescent in waiting for the action of the present Congress, the sale of cigars, etc., is permissible to Sunday-keepers during the entire day; but the sale of bread and other commodities is a misdemeanor punishable by fine and imprisonment. One, however, who observes some other day as the Sabbath could sell cigars, bread, or any other article of merchandise with impunity. Another provision of the bill limits, during a portion of the year, the lawful sale or delivery of certain articles to the early forenoon, but makes it a criminal offense a few minutes after the time limitation. Such legislation is a statutory echo of the old Connecticut blue-laws, also of the ancient pharisaical law that prohibited the eating of eggs laid on the Sabbath by fowls kept for laying purposes, but permitted the eating of eggs laid by fowls fattening for roast or pot-pie. Legislation of such a character is extremely elastic in its possibilities, and if persisted in, no one can tell to what lengths of inconsistency and of injustice it may go, or what persecution it may bring upon dissenters. TAKEN aside by Jesus
To feel the touch of his hand,
To rest for a while in the shadow
Of the Rock in a weary land. Taken aside by Jesus
That henceforth my voice may be
Made clear to tell of the love divine
And the Rock of Eternity. Taken aside by Jesus
To hear as I never heard
The sacred ring of his loving voice,
The sound of the Living Word. Taken aside by Jesus,
With a sorrowful heart to-day,
But I heard him nigh in the desert place,
And I heard my Beloved say: “It is I, and I know thy pain;
It is I, and I know thy loss;
It is I, thou shalt know the eternal gain;
It is I that endured the cross.” Taken aside by Jesus,
Shall I shirk the desert place,
Where I hear as I never heard before,
And see him face to face? Taken aside by Jesus,
Till faith seems almost sight,
And I dwell so near to my Father's house,
Almost within its light. Little Mary and Her Umbrella
LITTLE Mary Gage was a ten-year-old girl who lived in the country among the farmers, near Woodford’s Corner, not far from Portland, Maine. One summer, about the year 1864, there was a terrible drought in that region. The heavens were bright and brassy, the wells were low, the brooks dried up, the grass was dead, the crops were failing for want of moisture, and the people were in distress; and so a day was appointed for them to fast and pray that God might send rain upon the earth. A meeting was to be held in the chapel at Woodford’s Corner, and the pastor of the little church started for the place in the morning, with one or two friends. On the way they fell in with little Mary, who was trudging along, carrying in her arms her mother’s big blue umbrella. “Why, Mary,” said the minister, “why do you bring that great umbrella, on such a bright day as this?” “Please, sir,” said little Mary, “I heard they were going to pray for rain, and I thought I should be sure to need the umbrella.”—Herald of Life. “Daddy, ain’t I worth more to you than your taxes? If you vote ‘wet,’ maybe I’ll be a drunkard some day.” Returning from a recent local option meeting in Cheboygan County, Michigan, a lad climbed upon his father’s lap and asked:— “What way will you vote, pa,—‘wet’ or ‘dry’?” “Wet, of course,” replied the man. “Pa, why will you vote wet?” the child continued. “Because,” returned the parent, “the saloons help to pay my taxes.” The little fellow had been deeply impressed by the lecture at the schoolhouse around the corner that evening, and he failed to comprehend how his own father could not understand as he did. Innocently, he then asked the foregoing question, and made the awful prediction that some day the saloons that “help to pay” the taxes, as that father explained, might drag down that same boy to the grave of a drunkard. That small son wanted to know which is the more vital, a human life or a mere tax levy. Should a father value a few paltry dollars, paid in just taxes, above the very life of his own flesh and blood? That’s what the Cheboygan lad wanted to know. It was a sleepless night for that father, for those dreadful words kept ringing in his ears: “If you vote wet, maybe I’ll be a drunkard some day.” To-day there isn’t a stronger advocate of local option in all Michigan. “That boy is worth more to me than all the property I could ever own,” he declares, emphatically. Other fathers, how about you?—Michigan Issue. Editorial Correspondence
By F. M. W.
ST. HELENA, CAL., Feb. 18, 1912. LEAVING Portland the evening of February 12, the morning of the fourteenth brought us to the little village of St. Helena, Cal. Two and a half miles from the station, perched on the side of Howell Mountain, overlooking the beautiful Napa River valley, is located the St. Helena Sanitarium. This institution was formerly known as the Rural Health Retreat, a name most fitting to its location. Brother R. M. Dennison, whose face has grown familiar for the last fourteen years to the patrons of the institution, met us at the station. The winding road up the mountainside has grown none the less precipitous since our last visit to the institution, eighteen years ago. We are pleased to note, however, that the road-bed has been very greatly improved, good, hard gravel replacing the shifting sand, so that the ascent is now quite easily made, not only by driving carriages but also by automobiles. This institution was incorporated in 1878; hence it is the oldest denominational sanitarium among Seventh-day Adventists. The present building, representing an evolution of years, through changes and additions as the growing needs of the work have demanded from time to time, consists of a five-story structure. In addition, a large four-story building has been erected for a hospital, and nearly one dozen cottages containing from two to twenty rooms, scattered about upon the hillside, are also owned by the institution. The grounds comprise about one hundred acres of land, for the most part heavily wooded. A small portion is covered with fruit-trees and vineyards, while a few acres immediately surrounding the buildings are laid out in gardens, terraces, lawns, and walks, ornamented with trees, palms, and flowering and foliage plants. The arrangement is quite unique, and greatly adds to the beauty of the place. This institution has gone through some severe struggles during its history. Encumbered from the beginning with indebtedness, which from time to time was added to in the making of necessary additions, or because of a lack of ample patronage, it has labored under a great burden of debt. It has seemed at times that it could never work out from under this incubus. There have come to it, however, messages of encouragement and counsel. When some favored the abandonment of the enterprise, the message of the servant of the Lord has been, “Let it live,” and the assurance was given that if its friends would heartily rally to its support, God in his providence would make it a success. We are deeply thankful that the institution is beginning to realize the fulfilment of this promise. For several years those connected with the institution have earnestly labored, in every possible way, to reduce the indebtedness, and this great load has so far lightened, and the pall of darkness so nearly dissipated, that the institution will be very nearly, if not quite, able this year to sing the song of jubilee in its experience. God’s favoring hand has certainly been over the work, and next to this in the accomplishment of these splendid results, is the spirit of consecration and earnestness which has characterized the board of management and the family of workers. The experience of this institution should prove a source of inspiration to other sanitariums that are now going through days of darkness. To some of them a similar testimony has been borne by the servant of the Lord. Let them take courage from what has been accomplished by this, our oldest sanitarium, and with new consecration dedicate themselves to perfecting and accomplishing the work God has given them to do, and we believe that the song of victory will arise from other quarters as well as from the St. Helena institution. During 1910, in addition to paying a tithe on its earnings, the sanitarium at St. Helena gave five thousand dollars for the benefit of the work in the Orient. Several thousand will be donated to this or some similar work from the proceeds of the last year’s business. This institution at the present time possesses a splendid working staff. Brother L. M. Bowen is the business manager, with E. F. Stow as assistant. The medical faculty consists of Dr. George Thomason, Dr. Ida Herr-Nelson, Dr. G. Clingerman, and Dr. Myrtle B. Hudson, with Miss Helen N. Rice as head nurse. Dr. Thomason has only recently taken hold of the work here, but already has won the hearts of the sanitarium family, including both guests and workers. In the self-sacrificing efforts that have been made in the liquidation of indebtedness during the past few years, many conditions have been endured which the management hope may be remedied in the near future. A new building is demanded. It is proposed, however, not to erect this with borrowed money, but from the earnings of the institution from year to year to set apart a certain per cent to be applied to this purpose. Four nurses’ classes are in operation. An excellent spirit exists in the family. Elder C. L. Taylor, who for a number of years has been the chaplain of the institution, is doing excellent work in this capacity, and the Lord is blessing the ministry of his Word. Four or five have been baptized during the last few weeks, as a result of the quiet, Christian influence which is being exerted. In the valley below, about one mile from the sanitarium, is carried forward the work of the Sanitarium Food Company. An excellent line of products is being manufactured. Under the management of Brethren Leon Whitney and R. Rose a good work is being done in this department. It has been a great pleasure for us, while here, to meet again Sister J. L. Ings, the matron of the institution, who has been connected with the work for twenty-four years. We have been pleased also to greet once more Elder H. A. St. John, who occupies a little cottage on the hillside, a short distance from the institution. Brother St. John is feeble in body, and barely able to be about, but his mind is still clear and strong, and with his faithful wife he is looking forward with expectant hope to the grand consummation of our common faith. Considering the many handicaps under which the institution here has carried on its work for so many years, the meager facilities with which it has had to operate, we feel that the splendid success attending the work is the more commendable, and is truly phenomenal. If the workers maintain their loyalty to the principles of right and their consecration to God, still greater success will attend this work in the years to come. God's Rich Offer
By C. M. S.
The time is drawing near when the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdom of our Lord; when the kingdoms of men, ruled by men and fomenting strife, will be broken as a potter's vessel, and the kingdom of Christ will fill the whole earth. Those kingdoms ground to powder by the stone “cut out of the mountain without hands,” will be scattered as the winds of autumn scatter9 the chaff of the summer thrashing-floor. But concerning that time the prophet declares that our Lord “shall stand, and shall feed his flock in the strength of Jehovah, in the majesty of the name of Jehovah his God: and they shall abide.” Micah 5:4. Strife is running riot in the world to-day; but he who is fed of God will have peace in the very midst of this world's commotion. He will abide, and abide in peace; and not only that, but he “shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty;” and that means to abide forever. He will not be moved; he will not be anxious amid this world's tumults; he will not be fearful of the outcome, because “this man shall be our peace,”. The inn of Bethlehem had no place for Him in whose hands lay all the blessings of heaven for a lost world. The house was filled with the every-day trafficker and traveler. So with the hearts of the great mass of humanity to-day. Men are struggling, striving, surging, self-seeking, competing, crowding the heart-walls for room; while the Saviour of the world stands without, knocking unheard, pleading unanswered, and loving, through it all, the souls that weave themselves as woof into the warp of this world. And when one does hear, and turns from the turmoil and the strife and the grasping and the soul-starving to the water of life and the house of bread, then Heaven rejoices, and the long waiting and the scorn and the rebuffs and the mockings of the rabble that hounded him to the cross then, and that follow his disciples now,—all are forgotten in the joy that fills the heart of Christ. He is then seeing the fruit of soul-travail, and the seeing brings the satisfying which recompenses all. O soul outside of Christ, why dwell longer in sin? Why wander longer in the wilderness of sin and doubting? Why walk longer in the way that has no other end, or goal, than death? Why, journey on toward the desert of death, when you might return to the garden of God, with its flowing river of life, its fruit-filled tree of life, its bread of life? Why serve longer the prince of this world on the battle-fields of selfishness, greed, strife, and all manner of evil, when the Prince of Peace has unfurlled his banner, in whose service all is love and joy and peace and all manner of good? The time for choosing is now, to-day. The hosts of evil are swelling to untold proportions, and soon the harvest they have sown they will reap. But out of this sin-sown soil God is bringing forth a remnant for his glory, who shall walk over the ashes of the hosts of Satan, when the dross of sin has been burned out of this world. To that remnant are all the promises of God. They shall live and reign with him forever, even forever and ever. Souls are deciding every hour for either life or death. “Choose you this day whom ye will serve.” The unbidden Guest of Bethlehem holds out to you the bread of life, and bids you drink of the water of life, and offers to you the joys and blessings of eternal life, where the canker of sin can never come. It is the richest offer that has ever been made to man. Let us accept it, and accept it now.
C. M. S. Notes on Important Eras of Prophecy
By W. A. S.
The Hand of God in History — No. 3
Notes on Important Eras of Prophecy
Witness Borne to Nations in Ancient Times
2. The Deliverance From Babylon
AGAIN, a time prophecy was uttered, promising deliverance to captives in a strange land; and all the nations saw the arm of God made bare in bringing about the fulfilment. Jeremiah the prophet had foretold the doom of Jerusalem. Its people had rejected the counsels of the God of Israel, whose protection alone had warded off conquest by their more powerful neighbors. Now it was declared:— “This whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, saith the Lord, for their iniquity.” Jer. 25:11, 12. The time of the promise was drawing near—the ending of the seventy years. The nations were in convulsion. It was a crisis in human history. The time had come for the living God to fulfil his word. Cyrus the Persian was the commander of the army that overthrew Babylon. More than one hundred years before he was born, the prophet Isaiah had written:— “Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two-leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut.” Isa. 45:1. For nearly if not quite two centuries that prophecy had stood written on the parchment roll. The night came when the army of Cyrus was to make its attack upon Babylon. The golden city, inside its mighty walls, scoffed at the besiegers. Belshazzar made a feast, in which, with a thousand of his lords, he drank defiance to the living God from the cups of gold and silver taken from the temple in Jerusalem. Meanwhile the troops of Cyrus were entering beneath the outer walls, where the Euphrates River flowed into the city and out again. By trenches far above, the channel of the river had been turned aside, and the waters were so lowered that the soldiers could march in along the river bed. But even so they would ordinarily have gained little; for massive walls lined the river banks inside the city. Had the gates of these river walls been shut, the troops of Cyrus would have been helpless; in fact, as one writer suggests, they might have been caught by the Chaldeans like “rats in a trap.” But a century or two before, the prophecy had been written: “The gates shall not be shut.” So it was that night. Careless and confident and drunken, the Babylonians had left the river gates open, and the Persian troops were rushing into the city even as the mystic hand was writing the doom of Babylon on the wall of Belshazzar’s palace. That night the dominion of the world passed into the hands of the Medes and Persians. The Chaldean scribe who at the time wrote the story on a clay tablet (which was secured by the British Museum in the year 1879) closed his record with the words:— On the sixteenth day, Gobryas, pasha of the land of Gutium, and the troops of Cyrus, without a battle, entered Babylon.—From tablet, “Annals of Nabonidus,” quoted by C. J. Ball, in “Light From the East.” That provision foretold by the prophet so long before—“the gates shall not be shut”—turned the scale of world-empire. But Cyrus was not only the rod in the hand of Providence for the punishment of Babylon; he was to be the agent for the deliverance of the Lord’s people from captivity. Isaiah’s prophecy had said of him:— “He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure; even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid.” Isa. 44:28. The seventy years of the captivity were at an end, and it was time for the work of restoration to begin according to the prophecy. Josephus, the Jewish historian, says that this prophecy came to the knowledge of Cyrus:— This was made known to Cyrus by his reading the book which Isaiah left behind him of his prophecies. . . . This was foretold by Isaiah one hundred forty years before the temple was demolished. Accordingly, when Cyrus read this, and admired the divine power, an earnest desire and ambition seized upon him to fulfil what was so written.—Antiquities, book 2, chap. 1. How he fulfilled the word written is told in Scripture:— “Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying, Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, The Lord10 God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and he hath charged me to build him an house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all his people? his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the Lord God of Israel (he is the God), which is in Jerusalem.” Ezra 1:1-3. Thus witness of the living God—“he is the God”—was borne by a master of the world before all nations; and when the seventy years of the prophecy were fulfilled, the return from captivity began. In the story of the rebuilding of the temple, an incident is recorded in Scripture which draws aside the veil for a moment, and gives us a thrilling view of the work that angels from heaven are doing in this world of ours. As soon as the work was fairly going forward, opposition arose. Ezra says:— “Then the people of the land weakened the hands of the people of Judah, and troubled them in building, and hired counselors against them, to frustrate their purpose, all the days of Cyrus.” Ezra 4:4, 5. The scene now shifts from Jerusalem to the court of Cyrus, in Persia. The hired counselors are there seeking to turn the king against the work that he had authorized at Jerusalem in accordance with the purpose of God. At the same time Daniel, the prophet, is in Persia, by the river Tigris. For three weeks Daniel had been specially seeking God in prayer. At last an angel came to answer his cry. “Fear not, Daniel,” the angel said; “for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words.” But why had the angel delayed his appearance for three weeks, if at the first Daniel’s prayer was heard? The angel told why:— “But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days: but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes [“the first” of the chief princes, margin], came to help me; and I remained there with the kings of Persia.” Dan. 10:13. It is all plain,—the hired attorneys, and, no doubt, the representatives of the Jews at the Persian court; the king wavering, and inclined to yield to the opposers of God’s plan and purpose; and there, too, unseen by mortal eyes, were angels from heaven, working day after day to restrain the evil counsel and to lead the king in the right way. And at last the Prince of the host, Michael himself, came to help in the great crisis. The king was prevailed upon to do the right, and the work at Jerusalem went forward according to the prophecy. We know that the angels of God are still abroad in the earth, ministering to the least of the heirs of salvation, and standing in the courts of kings or in the halls of legislation. The God who declared things to come and brought them to pass, and who delivered his children in ancient days, is still the living God. As King Darius once proclaimed him to “all people, nations, and languages,”— “He delivereth and rescueth, and he worketh signs and wonders in heaven and in earth, who hath delivered Daniel from the power of the lions.” Dan. 6:27.