WE are happy to report progress in this mission. Although my last reports made mention of what the SIGNS OF THE TIMES was accomplishing, other labors are not neglected. Since last reporting, we have learned of several more who have commenced obedience to the truth, and of others almost persuaded.
When Bro. Andrews called for one thousand copies of the SIGNS per week to be used in this mission, it was no hasty move, but was made after prayerful, and careful deliberation. We knew it involved work to use properly these papers, and it was never designed that they should take the place of other efforts in the mission.
It has taken a little time and care to get new hands trained to this business, but that is now so far accomplished that the one thousand papers can be well cared for, and I be left free to enter the preaching field almost wholly. We are very thankful to our American brethren for what they have done in furnishing the papers, which are a great auxiliary to the work.
We hope it may be their pleasure to continue the papers, until such time as publishing shall be commenced here.
I go to-night to Bâle, Switzerland to spend two weeks. I desire to have an opportunity of prayer and council with our dear Bro. Andrews. I expect to return here about May 26, and immediately prepare for a series of meetings, either with the tent or without, in some new field.
Brethren pray for us that God may give success to his truth. J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR BEER.
By Ellet Joseph Waggoner
MEN will never lack for an excuse for drinking. If they have no inherited disease for which liquor is a panacea, they can soon drink enough to produce a disease for which liquor is an "infallible remedy." Similia similibus curantur is the beer guzzler's motto. In this respect they are true Homeopathists, but in practice, they go on the principle that if a little is good a good deal is better.
But besides curative (?) properties of alcoholic beverages, they are much lauded as preventives of disease. A very common excuse for indulging in them is, that the water is bad, and the liquor is added—usually in a separate glass—to correct the impurities in the water. But modern enterprise knows no limit, and now we have, as an excuse for drinking, the fact that water is pure! A correspondent of the N. Y. Sun, writes from a town in Mexico as follows:—
"There is a splendid chance in Tepic for an enterprising brewer. There is here plenty of good water, pure, cold, and sweet; and an abundance of land for the cultivation of barley and hops."
One would suppose that such water would afford no excuse for drinking alcoholic liquor. But no. This correspondent sees in it nothing but the material for beer. The little girl who, when asked what flowers were made for, replied that they were for patterns for artificials was far ahead of this man; for, while her idea would leave us the enjoyment of the flowers, he would turn the pure water into impure beer. What an amount of unimproved water there is. All the mountain streams, clear as crystal, and innumerable lakes, and rivers, and Niagara's inexhaustible torrent, running to waste. What quantities of beer they would make. Beer enough for everybody. Truly, "God hath made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions."
E. J. WAGGONER.
Wine Banished from Fashionable Receptions
Temperance workers can well take knowledge of the fact that liquors of all kinds, including wines, are of late seldom seen upon the tables or sideboards at any of the most fashionable receptions. Cultured people have come to the conclusion that wine is not an essential of hospitality. The banishment of wine from the White House by Mrs. Hayes—the inverted wine glass of General Grant at the great banquets that the world has given him—are the most effectual temperance lectures ever delivered. No father desires his daughter to marry a drunkard, and no mother but revolts at the thought that her son should become one. There is no mistaking the fact that every day there is growing a larger inquiry, how shall we protect our sons and daughters from the legalized temptations to vice.—Inter-Ocean.
ALABAMA AND MISSISSIPPI.
By C. O. Taylor
AT our last monthly meeting at church No. 2, Bladen Springs, one was received into fellowship. It was rather an interesting case, the sister being the aged mother of Eld. J. M. Elliott. She had struggled long with the strong habit of tobacco-using, and finally gained the victory in her seventy-eighth year, and came with us. When I was in Washington county last month, we worshiped in our new meeting-house, though it was not finished. Nine received the ordinance of baptism. I visited Jasper Co., Miss., the last of last month for the first time. Bro. Elliott has labored here at different times during the last year. As the result, I found ten adults keeping the Sabbath, with a large number of children to swell their number sometime, if rightly instructed. Seven received the ordinance of baptism.
C. O. TAYLOR.
TOUCH NOT THE TEMPTING CUP.
Touch not the tempting cup, my boy,
Touch not the sparkling wine;
Praise not the pleasure of the bowl,
The glories of the wine.
The bloated face, the bloodshot eye,
Shall let you know the reason why.
Touch not the tempting cup, my boy,
Beer, brandy, wine or gin;
Let topers praise their foolish ways,
Who make a mock at sin.
The drunkard's wild, delirious cry,
Shall let you know the reason why.
Touch not the tempting cup, my boy,
Though urged by friend, or foe;
Dare when the tempter urges most,
To firmly answer, No!
The joyous angels from on high,
Will glory in your brave reply.
Touch not the tempting cup, my boy,
In righteousness be brave;
Take not the FIRST—a single step,
Toward the drunkard's grave.
The widow's tears, and orphan's sigh,
Shall let you know the reason why.
—Sel.
DRUNKENNESS IN EATING.
By John Harvey Kellogg
Drunkenness may be caused by bad physical conditions, brought about by bad habits of eating. Would it not be well for us to look into bad table habits for one of the reasons why so many of our young men become drunkards? May there not be some cause working in the flesh of our youths, driving them to intemperance? May it not be possible that kind fathers and mothers for years have been filling up the awful gap of 10,000 dead drunkards annually, by feeding their children upon stimulating, highly-seasoned, innutritious foods? There is no doubt in my mind that every man is a glutton before he is a drunkard. If nature's laws are violated, a man's sensations will be all abnormal, and the mainspring of his life will be befouled, and the result will be irregular and vicious expressions of all the appetites, both for food and drink. I am, therefore, confident that the widespread appetite for intoxicating liquors is largely due to the false relations that the American people hold to their food. We cannot hope much from moral suasion and legal enactments so long as we overlook the physical condition of the drunkard. If you would cure disease or vice effectually, you must shut off that which nourishes them, instead of putting all your force into efforts to antidote them. "Let the wicked forsake his way," and then turn unto the Lord, "and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." There are 200,000 drunkards in the United States, 10,000 of whom go annually to premature graves. There are 20,000 prostitutes, whose average life in their profession is four years. Do you believe that this vast army of human beings go willingly to ruin? There are causes lying back of mere perversities of soul, in the common every-day dietetic habits of these forlorn ones.
Eating and drinking are always associated with the bar and the brothel, and if you will take notice, the eating is always of that kind of food which goes straight for the animal nature, and wakes up in a man everything that is beastly.
The whole tendency of the food furnished at the popular bar-room restaurant is to stir the baser elements in humanity and keep up the demand for alcoholic stimulants. No wonder the drinking saloons can afford to give what they call "free lunch." Care is taken to furnish such food as fires the appetite for strong drink, and the rum-seller gets his pay for his "free lunch" through the sale of the whisky that must inevitably follow it. Those who live on highly stimulating foods, but do not drink strong drinks, will find that the bias of their bodily powers, instead of being toward mental and spiritual spheres, will be toward animal indulgences, dragging the mind and soul into servitude to the flesh, and where there are any moral aspirations, making the conflict between the higher and the lower nature so intense that a vast amount of moral force is wasted in self-conflict that ought to go into the world's redemptive agencies for saving the lost.
I am confident that the American habit of eating sumptuous and late suppers, whether at our homes or church fairs or festivals, is damaging the physical, mental, and moral health of our nation more than any other one thing of its kind; more damaging, because it has the appearance of innocency, and the sanction of our fathers and mothers and some of our pastors.—Rev. J. F. Clymer.
A FRANK CONFESSION.
By Editor
THE Whisky Leader of last week gives utterance to the following very frank confession:—
“The great danger which has been impending over the liquor trade has now practically been averted, the legislature refusing to pass the prohibitory bill. It is useless for us to blind ourselves to the immensity of the danger to the liquor trade which the passage of the amendment would undoubtedly have entailed. The placing of such a measure before the people in their present prejudiced condition would have been certain destruction to the trade, and the consequent spoliation of thousands of dollars' worth of valuable property.”
We are surprised almost beyond measure at these words. The friends and sympathizers of the liquor traffic have constantly urged that the people of the State of Michigan do not want prohibition. They have constantly represented the temperance men of the State as simply a set of fanatics, whose fanaticism the people of the State were not ready to accept. They have, however, shown the insincerity of their claim by strenuously refusing to allow the people to say for themselves whether they wanted prohibition or not; and now through their mouthpiece they frankly acknowledge that the majority of people do want prohibition, and not only that they do want prohibition, but that the passage of the amendment by the people would have proved the “certain destruction” of the trade. This acknowledgment proves that the friends of the traffic have more faith in the ability of prohibition to destroy the traffic than many of the temperance men themselves.
There is a lesson which ought to be learned from these words. In the first place, the friends of whisky and their sympathizers have been thoroughly scared by the amendment movement. They have felt themselves on the verge of a precipice. Destruction has stared them in the face, and they are willing to own it. This being the case, the friends of temperance can go into the next struggle with renewed energy and determination, while the friends of whisky must begin the next struggle with increased weakness and trembling. We believe it true that had all the friends of temperance done their whole duty, victory would have been ours before this. Having come so near to success in this struggle, it seems to us that the faithless must take courage, and that victory is an absolute certainty in the next general engagement.—Lever.
Wine Made from Old Boots
By Christian Statesman
WHAT next will this adulterous generation do? How is an old soaker to get a drink of clear spirits? Why, a New York wine importer tells a private friend that the only way to get any pure wine is to straddle a barrel, ride it to the vineyard, watch the grapes squeezed into it, then ride it home again. It has become, too, one of the industries of large cities to gather up old boots and shoes and convert these old corn-covers into wine. Being no longer fit for mud and stables, they are just fit for fools to drink the juice of. They are boiled in pure spirits and allowed to stand for a few weeks, the product far surpassing the Jamaica rum made with essences, burnt sugar and spirits. A gentleman who doubted the truth of this story stopped recently at a low grog shop in the neighborhood of the factory and inquired if they had any rum from old shoes. "No," said the barkeeper, "we don't keep it much now; the druggists, who want a clear article, all sell it, and the price has gone up. But we have had it, and can get some if you want it."—Christian Statesman.
Wine Production and Population Decline
By Editor
The San Francisco Merchant says: "Our vine growing centers should reflect upon the means of maintaining a permanent, industrious population in their vicinity." That will be a very difficult thing to do if the grapes are manufactured into wine and the neighboring population consume the product.
IN TWO PEWS.
It was a strange minister preached that day. Parson Beers was old and almost worn out. He had resigned for the rest of his life, and the church in Eltham was candidating. This present “sample” was a young man, full of the enthusiasm and faith of youth, and his words were like messages of fire compared to the weary utterances of doctrine that Parson Beers dealt in. The text was that word of Christ, “By their fruits shall ye know them,” and the preacher began by simply restating this fact in the terms and illustrations of every-day life. When he had fairly brought it home to the minds of his hearers that no one of them was so practically silly as to expect to gather good grapes from a wild frost-grape vine, or the best kinds of edible apples from the thorny seedlings of the wayside, he turned the facts back on their experience.
“And yet, my dear friends, you use your common sense so little in matters of religion that you say from day to day among yourselves: ‘How stingy that woman is! How close she holds her money! How she grudges wages to those who work for her, and counts every penny she has to pay out for honest work. But she is a real Christian. She subscribes to missions and attends all the prayer-meetings.’
“What do you think of Christ? Is that his image and superscription? No! As far as the Heaven is from the earth, so far is he above such so-called Christianity. It is not his. He who exhorts that we should do unto others as we would that others should do unto us owns no such discipleship. Loving and giving are the fruit of his example, not fault-finding and with-holding. You do not gather this sour and bitter fruit from the branches of the true Vine. Or, again, you say: ‘That man is a hard man in his family; harsh to his children. They do not love or obey him except from fear of his heavy hand or bitter tongue. His wife is almost dead with hard work. He never considers her comfort or convenience. But he is the most orthodox man in the church; he exhorts in meeting, prays like a prophet, and is the most searching examiner of converts we have ever had here. No flaw in doctrine is permitted to pass. We rely on him as one of our pillars.’ Is this the result of religion? Is it the outgrowth of a following of Him who pitieth his children; who comforts us as one whom his mother comforteth; who gave himself to die for the church, and leaves to us this exhortation, ‘Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church’? Or, you are yourself a selfish man or woman. You go about your daily business and let the world go about theirs. It is not you who visit the sick, feed the poor, clothe the naked. You have too much to do at home. There are your clothes to make, your business to see to, your children to dress, your investments to look after. No one finds in your house a place of rest or refreshing. Your children do not love to come home when they once escape from the nest. You have few friends, and they are not warm ones. You know well that if you were to die to-morrow you could count on the fingers of one hand those who would mourn for you; but you belong to the church, you sit at the Lord's table, and you expect to go to Heaven.
“My friends, I ask the question in all solemnity, What are you going to do there? Heaven is not a place where selfishness can breathe. The air is too pure, the surroundings too exalted. It will not be your ‘own place.’ Stop, and hear me say, with the authority of my Master, You are not Christians! If religion means anything (and I thank God it means everything to the heart that honestly receives it) it means a life of godliness, a life of love to man and obedience to God, a light that shines, a vine that bears good grapes, a city set on a hill. When men say, ‘If this man is a Christian, then there is nothing good in religion,’ and say it of you (as I have heard it said about hundreds of nominal Christians), it shows that your religion is vain, and I counsel you with the counsel of Him who sent me, to stop in your course at once, repent, believe, and practice, for neither repentance nor faith are genuine without they bear fruit in works, and the hope of the hypocrite shall perish, even though he rely on it to the end.”
Much more the minister said, to the same purpose, and said it with all the impressiveness that a feeling voice and earnest manner can give to speech.
Mrs. Marsh, who sat full in front of the pulpit was much interested in the novelty of his style and his fluent utterance, and complacently listened to every word. She was a woman of good position in the town, well-dressed, and a member of the church; and she thought of all this with satisfaction as the sermon went on, but rather as a side issue. She applied every pungent sentence, every close application to Mrs. Tucker, in the next slip, who was really Mordecai in the gate to Mrs. Marsh.
“I wonder how she likes that!” murmured the occupant of the front pew, to herself. “She thinks she is real smart, and she looks down on me, I know; but I guess she ain't any better Christian than other folks. She never comes to sewing society, and if that isn't ‘clothing the naked,’ I don't know what is. And she's awfully selfish. I never knew of her sending Mrs. Clark a mite of anything nice all these years she's been sick. I hope she's takin' of it to heart.”
Mrs. Marsh happened to be as good an illustration of the preacher's last supposed case as could be found in the congregation. She was a woman who made religion unlovely wherever she went. Positive, selfish, jealous, she lived in the narrow circle of her small family, devoting her time to herself and her boys, as far as they could occupy it, and the rest of her hours were given to other duties.
Her husband was a fact, but not an object of special attention; his clothes were never cared for, never cleaned, mended, or made to look “Amaist as weel's new” by thoughtful attention. Little Fred and Conrad were dressed in all the velvet and embroidery their mother's facile fingers could devise, and her own clothes were marvels of finery; home-made, it is true, and of poor material, but still fine. Her husband's ragged button-holes and undarned coats made painful contrast; but she thought they were “good enough for him.”
She was not a woman whom anybody loved beyond her own immediate family; yet she was jealous of every other woman who had many or warm friends, and attributed it to deceit, or policy, or superior fortune, rather than to any real reason. She was not an educated woman, and her ignorance of life, either through books or from experience, warped her outlook, no doubt. She was industrious, and to a certain extent kind-hearted; but her life, as it grew narrower, made her as narrow too. She, indeed, might have counted on half the fingers of one hand those who would mourn her loss, and her husband had long ago come to the conclusion that a Christian profession did not mean anything better than a life of decency, without religion. He was an honest, kindly man, and conscientiously did what he thought he ought to do in his business and toward his family; but he was not a Christian. He had no inward love for God's character or works; he had no trust in Christ as his Saviour; he never read the Bible or prayed. His wife did these things, and was no more lovely or kindly for their doing. She had not half the friends the husband had, and she made clamorous complaint about it. Is it strange that the unexpected thought of his heart was: “If Ann is a Christian, why, I don't care to be one. It isn't much of a gain on the ordinary sort of folks, after all.”
The boys, too, alternately indulged and punished, scolded and kissed, learned to have little respect for the parent who slapped them, when she was angry, for the smallest transgression, and laughed at much worse faults when she was in good humor. Her cross words and loud remonstrances fell on their ears after a while much like the clatter of a machine that nobody in its vicinity notices till it stops. Such was Mrs. Marsh.
Mrs. Tucker, in the next pew, was her antithesis. The daughter of the old clergyman of Eltham, Annie Beers, had received a thorough education, and her mother, a gentle lady, whose ancestors had been clergymen for two or three generations, had trained her only child in the delicate, gentle ways of her own home. Annie had married early the pastor of a church in the city, and moved in refined society as long as her husband lived. After his death she came home, with her two little girls, and set herself down in this country town, to do her duty as well as she knew how. Cultivated and refined, she excited Mrs. Marsh's domineering nature by her quiet self-respect and the natural superiority which made the elder and coarser woman unwillingly conscious of her own shortcomings. She almost hated Mrs. Tucker, simply for her good manners, her tasteful dress, her pleasant voice, and grammatical conversation; and it was her delight to complain of the sweet woman's pride, to sneer at her ways of thought and life, and to “fetch her down a peg,” as she termed it, on occasion.
Now Mrs. Tucker was a real, humble, Christian woman, and she had heard the Sunday's sermon with a deep sense of her own shortcomings. She did not think of Mrs. Marsh, or apply the words of the preacher to her neighbors, though there were many about her who were the very models of his illustrations. She fixed her inward eyes upon herself, and owned to the ear she knew could hear even a thought, that she had not done what she could to glorify Him. She confessed that she had been a little too proud to enjoy the church societies, and, not being confident of their usefulness, had staid away, instead of attending them and trying to improve them. She owned, too, that she had neglected her sick neighbors who were rich, and sent the delicacies she knew well how to prepare and the small luxuries, so grateful to invalids, all to the poor, forgetting that she owed an equal care to all in any sort of need, whether of flesh or spirit. Moreover, there were certain people, even some members of the church, whom she knew did not like her. What had she done to dim the light of Christ? She was conscious that Mrs. Marsh had an aversion to her. Why was it? Had she not been civil or friendly? She could not have sympathy of the ordinary sort with a woman who was so radically different from her, and she felt, sorrowfully, that her tastes revolted from intercourse with so coarse a nature with so little education; but she resolved to try to do better—to be more self-denying, less exclusive to bring even her tastes and peculiarities of nature into subjection to Him whose sublime reproach it was that the common people heard him gladly, and that he ate and drank with publicans and sinners. Her resolutions were not of the fruitless sort, for they abided in the true Vine and shared its divine vitality; but she did not blazon them, preferring to live, rather than to talk. The next sewing-circle met at Mrs. Marsh's house, and, to her surprise, Mrs. Tucker was one of the first arrivals. Just then the few who had come before her were busy getting on a quilt, and, absorbed in the operation, the hostess had no time for any special greeting; but when the quilters were gathered about the frame and the rest of the society busy at other work Mrs. Marsh's coarse voice intruded itself on every ear.251“Well, Mis' Tucker, it's a sight to behold to see you to sewin'-circle. I guess the sermon Sunday sort of fetched you. Didn't it?”
Mrs. Tucker's delicate face colored and her soft eyes flashed; but she said, gently, half smiling: “I think it did.”
“Well,” went on Mrs. Marsh, “'twas a most a splendid discourse. I enjoyed it ever so much; and as I sat there listenin', thinks me: I guess that hits all 'round, and I thought you looked as though it went home to you.”
“It did,” said Mrs. Tucker; but something in the dimmed eyes or the tone of voice conveyed more than she said.
“Well, 'twas searchin', no doubt. You don't mind my sayin' so, I suppose. I mean well.”
Mrs. Tucker smiled. She did not speak, but Dosiah Burt, a keen and outspoken old maid, had her word to utter.
“When I lived to Hartford, and 'tended Dr. Bushnell's church, he used to say: ‘My friends, don't hear my sermons for those in the next pew. I mean it for you, yourselves.’”
A general silence fell on the sewing-circle.
Desiah's arrow had hit the mark. Mrs. Marsh turned away without a sign of having heard her, and left the room to get her supper-table ready; and Mrs. Deacon Green, whose Sunday-school class had vexed her righteous but rather illiterate soul, the last time they met, by insisting on an explanation of the text, “To the one we are the savor of death unto death and to the other the savor of life unto life,” thought she understood now what it meant. Perhaps she did; but even Paul wound up with, “And who is sufficient for these things?” And, after all, people in that very church still continue, up to the present speaking, to hear for their neighbors in the next pew; and perhaps they will so long as Eltham continues to be inhabited by poor humanity. Dear reader, do you live there?—Independent.
STRENGTH FOR THE DAY.
By Rachel G. Alsop
STRENGTH for the day! At early dawn, I stand
Helpless and weak, and with unrested eyes,
Watching for day. Before its portal lies
A low, black cloud,—a heavy, iron hand.
Slowly the mist is lifted from the land,
And pearl and amber gleam across the skies,
Gladdening my upward gaze with sweet surprise.
I own the sign; I know that He whose hand
Hath fringed those somber clouds with ruby ray,
And changed that iron bar to molten gold,
Will to my wandering steps be guide and stay;
Breathe o'er my wavering heart his rest for aye,
And give my waiting, folded palms to hold
His blessed morning boon,—strength for the day!
—Rachel G. Alsop, in Scribner's.
ITEMS OF NEWS.
— Nebraska has a school population of 142,348. — Corporal punishment is forbidden in the French public schools. — The reduction of the public debt for May will be over $11,000,000. — A ransom of $45,000 was paid to the brigands, for the release of Sutter. — Harrison, Arkansas, was totally destroyed by an incendiary fire, May 26. — There are now 4,700,000 children taught in the French communal schools. — An Italian Methodist Conference has been organized with fifteen preachers. — The number of dissenters from the Greek church in Russia is estimated at 14,000,000. — A temperance mission has been organized among the Welsh-speaking population of Liverpool. — The total customs revenues for May are $14,300,000; the internal revenue receipts are $12,300,000. — The arbitration of the United States between Venezuela and her French creditors has been accepted. — The Mormon missionaries who have been trying to make proselytes in Germany are to be expelled from the country. — It is estimated by competent authorities that 100,000 buffalo hides will be shipped out of the Yellowstone country this season. — Patchoque, Long Island, has again voted in favor of no license. The experiment has worked well during the past three years. — The Southern Pacific railroad has reached El Paso. It is the intention of the company to push it through to the Gulf of Mexico. — Berea College, Ky., an institution for the education of whites and blacks, has lately secured from contributions in six States an endowment of $50,000. — Jorgensen, the editor of the Socialist paper, the Herald, has been arrested on a charge of inciting to murder the king, and establish a Commune. — It is reported that 30,000 colored people from Louisiana and other southern States are preparing to emigrate to New Mexico during the coming summer. — The Livingstone Mission of the Free Church of Scotland, has stopped the slave trade about Lake Nyassa, whence 10,000 slaves were annually carried off. — May 23, the mammoth steamer Furnissia brought 1,439 emigrants from Glasgow; the Vandalia, 1,343 from Hamburg, and the England, 1,347 from Liverpool. — During the first nine months of the current year, the foreign trade of the United States showed exports, exclusive of specie, exceeding the imports by $234,745,000, while the imports of gold exceeded the imports of silver by $78,624,000. — An edict has just been published in Unterhallen, a town in one of the Swiss cantons, forbidding any person under 15 years of age to smoke either in public or private. — The aggregate circulation of daily newspapers in the United States is said to be nearly 3,600,000 copies. The people pay more than $25,000,000 annually for the daily papers. — A popular vote on the question whether the purchase of spirituous liquors, with the exception of wine and cider, shall be prohibited, will be taken in North Carolina next August. — Belgium has 59 technical schools, 32 industrial schools and a higher commercial school, all receiving funds annually from the State. Many foreigners are now attending her schools. — The Danish Supreme Court has confirmed the sentence of death passed by the West Indian Commission on thirty-nine negroes convicted of participating in the Santa Cruz revolt. — The Board of Trustees of the town of Alameda, have passed an ordinance prohibiting persons from riding on the platforms of the local trains. Several violators of the ordinance have been arrested. — May 28, the corner-stone of a sugar refinery was laid in San Francisco, by Claus Spreckles. When completed, it will be the largest sugar refinery in the world. It will cost about a million and a quarter of dollars. — A dispatch from Copenhagen says the Swedish Government is becoming alarmed, and contemplates legislation in view of the immigration which is assuming the proportions of an exodus. Several counties are practically denuded of able-bodied inhabitants. — The revised New Testament is having a very extensive sale. Hundreds of thousands of copies have been sold. The weight of opinion in regard to it in this country is favorable. In England it is not regarded with much favor, and will come into use very slowly if at all. — The Russian revolutionists have answered the Czar's manifesto by a second utterance dwelling on the wretchedness of the peasants, the deportations to Siberia, the gagging of free speech and public journals, and declaring that false counsellors are in possession of the Czar's ear. The document concludes as follows: "Let your Majesty assemble your people around you and listen to their wishes in an unprejudiced spirit, and then neither your Majesty nor the State will have any reason to apprehend further catastrophe." — A dispatch from Indianapolis, May 26, says: "Kalloch was foiled in his effort to secure recognition by the Baptist Home Mission Society. To-day Kalloch called upon Rev. Henry I. Morehouse, one of the Secretaries, and, upon stating his errand, was told that there was no disposition to attack him, but there was an unmistakable desire to ignore him entirely, and common prudence should teach him to keep away. Kalloch remarked that he had no intention of making a disturbing element, and thereupon withdrew." — At Michelstown, County Cork, Ireland, May 27, the sheriff, assisted by twenty-five policemen, and the military, attempted to evict five tenants, but met with such a determined resistance, that the work was only partially accomplished. The chapel bells for ten miles round commenced ringing at 9 in the morning, and within an hour fully ten thousand persons assembled. The streets were obstructed, and showers of stones, clubs, etc., were hurled at the Sheriff and his assistants. Many of both parties were severely injured. — A terrible disaster occurred on the Thames river, near London, Ontario, May 24. The steamer Victoria, having on board over 600 excursionists, suddenly collapsed and became a wreck level with the water's edge. All the passengers were precipitated into the stream. Over two hundred persons were drowned. There seems to have been criminal carelessness on the part of the managers, for the steamer was unseaworthy, and was loaded to nearly double her capacity. If the responsible persons in this case, and others of a similar nature, were convicted of manslaughter, there might be fewer reckless risks of human life.
A WIFE'S POWER.
"The power of a wife for good or evil is irresistible. Home must be the seat of happiness, or it must be unknown forever. A good wife is to a man wisdom and courage, strength and endurance. A bad one is confusion, weakness, discomfiture and despair. No condition is hopeless where the wife possesses firmness, decision, and economy. There is no outward prosperity which can counteract indolence, extravagance, and folly at home. No spirit can endure bad domestic influence. Man is strong, but his heart is not adamant. He delights in enterprise and action; to sustain him he needs a tranquil mind and a whole heart. He needs moral force in the conflicts of the world. To recover his equanimity and composure, home must be a place of repose, cheerfulness, peace, comfort; and his soul renews its strength again, and goes forth with fresh vigor to encounter the trouble and labor of life. But if at home he finds no rest, and is there met with bad temper, sullenness, or gloom, or is assailed with discontent or complaint, hope vanishes, and he sinks into despair."
Obituary.
By H. A. Whittaker
WHITTAKER.—Died at East Pueblo, Col., May 8, 1881, Mrs. Joanna H., wife of H. A. Whittaker, aged 42 years, 4 months, and 13 days. The subject of this sketch was born in Wolwich, Me., Dec. 25, 1838. After finishing her studies in the Bath high school, she took up the occupation of teaching, and went to Green Bay, Wis. A few years later we removed to Burt Co., Neb., where, twelve years ago, we heard the third angel's message preached by Elds. Bartlett and Morrison. We also read some old Reviews left by Father Harlow, and saw that we were trampling on God's law. We embraced the truth; and when Bro. R. Kilgore organized the Decatur church, Mrs. W. became a member.
Her disease was consumption. She went to the Sanitarium a year ago last May, but failed to get relief. She grew worse through the winter, and as a last resort tried the climate of Colorado, and lived five weeks. She gave up all for Christ, and the Saviour was very near. She died in the Lord, full of faith, and hopeful of a part in the first resurrection. Services by Eld. J. M. Crooks, of the Christian church, from 1 Cor. 15 : 22.
H. A. WHITTAKER.