Earlier text: HOW CAN I SUCCEED IN MY BUSINESS?SLAVERY TO-DAY IN THE UNITED STATES
In Anderson County, S. C., there has been going on for a long time a private convict slavery system, whereby negroes were caught, confined in private stockades, and made to work for rich cotton magnates. This system was brought to light by the recent killing of Will Hull, who, according to the Chicago Tribune, “had been seized on a trumped-up charge, and illegally committed to the stockade. . . . Hull protested against his incarceration. He asked for a fair trial, and his reward was a blow with a club. Not content with his lot, the negro planned escape, to get back to his wife and children. In the quiet of the night, with the chains still binding his legs, he stole forth. But the guards had orders to watch him. As Hull was going away, a bullet from a fifty-four caliber rifle bored its way into his brain, and he fell dead. Newell, the guard who had fired the shot, was arrested, and sent to court. Other guards went to his rescue, a story of self-defense was put up in court, and in five minutes the jury said the man was not guilty. But, in the death of Hull, the story came out. A rasping charge from Judge Bennet followed, and the grand jury, armed with full power to summon leaders and seize papers, went to work to investigate, and found the condition of affairs more horrible than was ever dreamed.” “On these big farms, where thousands of bales of cotton were raised, enormous revenues rolled into the coffers of the managers. Of the twenty-five negroes released [when the case was in court], not one had been held for an infraction of the law. The systems were privately operated. . . . Back in the mountain section, away from the world, these places held hundreds of ignorant negroes who had been stolen from their families to make fortunes for white men who occupied high positions in the social world of the county and State.” These private prisoners were clothed in the striped garments of the usual State convict type, and all that the owners had to pay for the services of these poor wretches was their wretched food and the convict-clothes used as a blind to the public. After the hard day’s work the negro men were driven to a pen, locked up, and guarded, being aroused the next morning before daylight. The grand jury reported at Anderson, S. C., the 7th inst., and “in a presentment which pictured the horrors of the bondage system, returned indictments against four of the leading citizens of Anderson, and a score of guards. So pleased was Judge Bennet, who first demanded an investigation, that he declared he was profoundly grateful to a jury which had the backbone to break up an iniquitous system of slavery, which was showing a tendency to spread throughout the State. The jury showed in its report that negroes had been bought and sold; that they had been seized on the highway and kidnapped and sent to prison pens, where they were bound and shackled, and warned that death would follow any effort to escape. When the jury began its investigations and summoned negroes, evidence could not be secured, because the former slaves claimed that they would be killed if they opened their mouths. The grand jury so far as it could has wiped out of existence the convict201 lease system, under the shroud of which these private slave dens were allowed to thrive.” “The jury gave an account of the visits to the stockades. At a place managed by Julius Miller [this was only one of many such places] evidence was produced to show that runners had been paid to go out and seize negroes; and one man, Warren Sloan, was sent in for more than a year, because he owed a debt of ten dollars. When a neighbor offered to pay the fine, the dealer declared that he would not part with his negro for one thousand dollars. At Miller’s place the negroes were flogged to the point of insensibility, and bound with chains.” Those indicted by the grand jury will be bound over for trial in June. The next thing will be to punish them. It is doubtful whether this will be possible, as the slaveholders are wealthy. “Proof was secured to show that the system of slavery was more binding than the slavery system in operation throughout the South before the proclamation of Abraham Lincoln.” Last week we gave the bare record of the repudiation of the Constitution and every principle of republican government by the Congress of the United States. But it ought not to be supposed that that is all there is to the record; and that it shall not be supposed by any, we now present some more of that important record—important to every human being. Remember that the legislation that was passed says that— All military, civil, and judicial powers necessary to govern the Philippine Islands acquired from Spain by the treaties concluded at Paris on the 10th day of December, 1898, and at Washington on the 7th day of November, 1900, shall, until otherwise provided by Congress, be vested in such person and persons, and shall be exercised in such manner, as the President of the United States shall direct for the establishment of civil government and for maintaining and protecting the inhabitants of such islands in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property, and religion: Provided, That all franchises granted under the authority hereof shall contain a reservation of the right to alter, amend, or repeal the same. On its face, and in every element of it, this places absolute power, for unlimited time, upon one man, and in such person, or persons, as that one man shall choose, and these persons ten thousand miles away from him; so that it puts absolute power on all questions into the hands of human beings who are ten thousand miles away from even the restraints of the opinion of their fellow men. It is true that there were attempts made to limit this power, both in itself and in the time of the exercise of it, and that every one of these attempts was promptly voted down. But this was not done without solemn warning of the nature and the consequences of what was being done. One speaker said:— When this amendment shall have been crystallized into law, and the President shall have executed it by appointing his representatives, I say here now that in all the world you will find no more absolute government than that, and you may search every page of history since letters were known to men, and you will not be able to find a more absolute government than that will be. An absolute government of that character established in the twentieth century by the professed great free government of the United States! It is not a free government, it can not be a free government, when all the power is resolved into one man, though he may have a hundred agents to execute it. The speaker then cited an address from the Continental Congress in 1774, to Britain, in repudiation of exactly this sort of government, though not quite so absolute, and then continued:— Those were students of history; they were philosophers in the art of government, and greater truths were never uttered. They were not original with them, however; for that great French writer Montesquieu had said the same thing. These great truths that are necessary to be recognized to maintain freedom and liberty are not the creation of men; they have existed always; they are the emanation of the Deity; they are not human, they are divine, and no nation has ever neglected them or repudiated them that could claim to be called a nation of freemen. To-day we are asked here to put our approval upon a bill that would carry the government of this country back to the Dark Ages. Mr. President, I will not give it my approval; but it will get the approval of the great American Senate and the American House of Representatives, and I very much fear that the people of this country have so forgotten these great principles of liberty that it may receive the approval also of the country. But, nevertheless, it is our duty to raise our voices against it, and at least give warning to the American people that an outrage of this kind, perpetrated upon ten million men, who may not be citizens of this country, but who are under its jurisdiction, at least, must in the end reflect upon every one of the seventy-six million men who dwell under our flag. I am more strongly opposed to the Philippine proposition than I am to the Cuban proposition; for I believe the Philippine proposition is absolutely indefensible in every respect. It is indefensible from every point of view; and while it is much less offensive and much less objectionable than it was before the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Hoar] offered his amendment, it is still so absolutely un-American, and it so completely violates every idea of government which I have ever heard of, that I am willing to do anything reasonable to defeat this proposition. Now, what do we propose to these people in the Philippines? It has been stated here, over and over again in this discussion, and I have no desire to repeat it, or to detain the Senate. It has been repeated here over and over again. There is no proposition here for the benefit of the people of the Philippines. The proposition is for somebody else, always somebody else, and the Constitution is set at naught that somebody else may profit by the sort of government that will prevail under this amendment, or what is called the Spooner bill. Human nature is the same everywhere. We recollect the example of Croesus in Asia Minor, and we recollect the more recent example of Clive and of Warren Hastings in India. Every colonizing country on earth, or country that has had other nations in subjection, that we know of, if history can tell the truth, shows that it has been the fountain and source of all corruption, and that it destroyed the ancient republics of the world. Greece existed in unmitigated splendor, and she colonized as much as any nation that ever lived, but never in any instance did she attempt to retain rule over her colonies; for she was as careless of them when they left her swarming country as the mother hive is of a swarm of bees that leaves. That was because the Greek was individual. But Rome was not individual. She undertook to extend her dominion over all of her colonies. The result was that corruption overthrew the mighty power of Rome. You are to send out Mr. —— and Mr. —— and the rest, giving them a power which, in the height of his glory, the American people never would have trusted to George Washington; giving them a power which, as an examination shows, the American people did not for a moment intrust to Thomas Jefferson when Louisiana was purchased, although Louisiana was not a people, but was only a great waste place on the face of the earth, save for a few Indian tribes, and a few French settlements, whose inhabitants were largely proposing to return to France. This act of yours is to wipe out, if it be adhered to, the last hope that the example of the United States hereafter is to continue to work out its great result in the ideas and aspirations of the downtrodden people of the rest of the world. Down to this year, or last year, everywhere the world over,—in Russia, in Austria, in the far East, in the islands of the sea, even in this distant archipelago,—every poor man, every downtrodden man, every brave man who had an impulse toward freedom in his heart, had heard, directly or indirectly, of the great liberty-loving people, where all men were equal, and where no government of despotism could be permitted. You are going to vote, as far as you can, in about ten minutes, to wipe all that out now. You may talk about benevolent assimilation, or giving good government, or use all the other fine phrases that your ingenuity can invent, but your act is pure, simple, undiluted, unchecked despotism. “In vain you call old notions fudge,
And match your morals to your feeling;
The Ten Commandments will not budge,
And stealing will continue stealing.” Mr. President, I do not know how others may feel. But this is the faith in which I was born, in which I was bred, which came to me from my ancestors in every drop of my blood. It is the faith in which I hope to die, and it is the faith for which I am willing to die. Whatever it may be called,—it may be called Quixotism, it may be called extravagance, it may be called enthusiasm, it may be called illusion,—whatever it is, it is the inmost purpose and faith of my soul. As the greatest intellect that ever lived on the soil of New England, perhaps the greatest that ever lived on American soil,—a mighty genius to which that of Dante alone can be compared,—said in the dark time of his life, so say I now:— “If such things are enthusiasm and the results of a distempered brain, let my brain be evermore possessed of that happy distemper. If this be distraction, I pray God that the world of mankind may all be seized with this benign, beneficial, beautiful, glorious distraction.” In supporting the amendment that was offered, beginning: “All persons shall be bailable,” etc., another said:— Mr. President, I think, after the statement made on this floor of the cruel torture that has been practiced upon these people by the soldiers of the United States and by the natives employed, the Macabebes, that it is very pertinent and proper that this amendment should be adopted; and if those people are to have no protection of the United States laws, and are to be absolutely under the power of the autocratic and absolute government that is to be established in violation of every principle of a free government, this amendment ought to be adopted. After this amendment had been rejected, then the same speaker said:— We are about to enact a law that is so contrary to anything that has ever taken place in American history that, even if it is late, I propose to read what the fathers of the republic said at an early day when they were contending with British power. To say it now I have no doubt is treason, but it was patriotism and good law then. On the 14th day of October, 1774, the congress of the colonies passed this resolution with some others, and I want to call the attention of the Senate to it. I want to know whether the Senate does not believe, when it is read, that either that was heresy then or this is heresy now. “Resolved, It is indispensably necessary to good government, and rendered essential by the English constitution, that the constituent branches of the legislature be independent of each other; that, therefore, the exercise of legislative power in several colonies, by a council appointed during pleasure by the Crown, is unconstitutional, dangerous, and destructive to the freedom of American legislation. “All and each of which the aforesaid deputies, in behalf of themselves and their constituents, do claim, demand, and insist on as their indubitable rights and liberties, which can not be legally taken from them, altered, or abridged, by any power whatever, without their own consent, by their representatives in their several provincial legislatures.” Mr. President, if the Crown of Great Britain can not establish an absolute government, the government of the United States can not do so; but that is what you are doing to-night. Again, in their address to the people of Great Britain, on the 21st day of the same month, that Congress said:— “That we hold it essential to English liberty that no man be condemned unheard, or punished for supposed offenses without having an opportunity of making his defense. “That we think the legislature of Great Britain is not authorized by the constitution to establish a religion fraught with sanguinary and impious tenets, or to erect an arbitrary form of government in any quarter of the globe. These rights we as well as you deem sacred, and yet, sacred as they are, they have, with many others, been repeatedly and flagrantly violated.” They are to be flagrantly violated by the authority of the Congress of the United States. . . . Mr. President, it is not a question of Filipinos alone; it is a question of American citizenship. I read here the other day of an outrage that has called forth no protest from any official of this government,—an outrage to an American citizen, a soldier, who had gone there to fight the battles of his country, and was there discharged; who wrote an inoffensive article in a public paper, an article that I read, and I challenge any man now here to assert that there was either treason or menace or defiance or anything of the character in it. I said then, and I repeat it now, that that rule applied would put every editor in the United States in jail; and yet that man was taken away from his business without a trial, without a hearing, except before a military officer, because he had assailed, not in violence, not slanderously either, the collector of the port, a man who appears to have been a pet of the government, a man who was court-martialed for conduct unbecoming a gentleman and an officer in202 the Navy, a man against whom the secretary of the Navy, Mr. Hunt, passed the severest condemnation. We have more than once called attention to the fact to which in these speeches attention is also called: that this legislation throws back the principles and the form of the government of the United States, not merely to those of Britain, but beyond those of Britain, to those of Rome alone. In 1825 there was absolute power in the hands of Englishmen, in the British West Indian possessions which had fallen to Britain from Spain. Thus these English inhabitants had succeeded to the Spanish absolutism. Macaulay wrote on the subject. It is true that, there, slavery was involved in the absolutism; but the principles laid down by Macaulay are universal, and without exception. There the law did really impose some restraints; but in THIS legislation of the United States with regard to the Philippines there is no restraint whatever. Then says Macaulay:— We are required to believe that the place of all other checks will be fully supplied by the general sense of those who participate in his power and his temptations. This may be reason at Kingston; but will it pass at Westminster? We are not inveighing against the white inhabitants of the West Indies. We do not say that they are naturally more cruel or more sensual than ourselves. But we say that they are men; and they desire to be considered as angels!—we say as angels, for to no human being, however generous and beneficent, to no philanthropist, to no fathers of the Church, could powers like theirs be safely intrusted. Such authority a parent ought not to have over his children. They ask, very complacently, “Are we men of a different species from yourselves? We come among you; we mingle with you in all your kinds of business and pleasure; we buy and sell with you on ’Change in the morning; we dance with your daughters in the evening. Are not our manners civil? Are not our dinners good? Are we not kind friends, fair dealers, generous benefactors? Are not our names in the subscription lists of all your charities? And can you believe that we are such monsters as the saints represent us to be? Can you imagine that, by merely crossing the Atlantic, we acquire a new nature?” We reply, You are not men of a different species from ourselves; and, therefore, we will not give you powers with which we would not dare to trust ourselves. We know that your passions are like ours. We know that your restraints are fewer; and, therefore, we know that your crimes must be greater. Are despotic sovereigns men of harder hearts by nature than their subjects? Are they born with a hereditary thirst for blood—with a natural incapacity for friendship?—Surely not. Yet what is their general character?—False, cruel, licentious, ungrateful. Many of them have performed single acts of splendid generosity and heroism; a few may be named whose general administration has been salutary; but scarcely one has passed through life without committing at least some one atrocious act, from the guilt and infamy of which restricting laws would have saved him and his victims. If Henry VIII had been a private man, he might have torn his wife’s ruff and kicked her lapdog. He was a king, and he cut off her head—not that his passions were more brutal than those of many other men, but that they were less restrained. How many of the West Indian overseers can boast of the piety and magnanimity of Theodosius? Yet, in a single moment of anger, that amiable prince destroyed more innocent people than all the ruffians in Europe stab in fifty years. . . . Nothing is so capricious and inconsistent as the compassion of men. The Romans were people of the same flesh and blood with ourselves: they loved their friends; they cried at tragedies; they gave money to beggars;—yet we know their fondness for gladiatorial shows. When, by order of Pompey, some elephants were tortured in the amphitheater, the audience was so shocked at the yells and contortions by which the poor creatures expressed their agony, that they burst forth into execrations against their favorite general. The same people, in the same place, had probably often given the fatal twirl of the thumb which condemned some gallant barbarian to receive the sword. In our own time, many a man shoots partridges in such numbers that he is compelled to bury them, who would chastise his son for amusing himself with the equally interesting, and not more cruel, diversion of catching flies and tearing them to pieces. The drover goads oxen; the fishmonger crimps cod; the dragoon sabers a Frenchman; the Spanish Inquisition burns a Jew; the Irish gentleman torments a Catholic. These persons are not necessarily destitute of feeling. Each of them would shrink from any cruel employment except that to which his station has familiarized him. This absolutism of government in the islands will inevitably react on the government at home. And thus the image of Rome continues to grow. WHEN DOES MICHAEL STAND UP?
By Uriah Smith
“And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great Prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.” Dan. 12:1. Such is the testimony of the prophet concerning events to occur when Michael shall stand up. They are sufficiently grave to warrant careful study. We do not, however, introduce this subject for the purpose of trying to describe these scenes, or to portray in detail their results upon the inhabitants of the earth, but only to notice some queries that have arisen concerning it, in the mind of a correspondent. It will be seen, from the language quoted, that it is a deciding time, and a closing scene. When it takes place, the world is right in the vortex of the great maelstrom in which the present state of things shall be swallowed up. The mind can form only one conception of a time of trouble. It is when trouble is the rule, and peace and quiet the exception; when calamity and woe shall form the warp and woof of life; when the whole volume of the current of events shall be such as to vex and annoy, to pain and distress, mankind; and the time here predicted will possess these features to a degree never before equaled since there was a nation upon the earth. But as Christ said to the disciples of His day, “Let not your heart be troubled,” so the prophet virtually says to us; for he immediately introduces deliverance: “And at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.” Then the announcement follows of a limited and specific resurrection that takes place in connection therewith, showing that it is something inseparably associated with the closing scenes of time. Thus far the prophet Daniel takes us. But John, in the Revelation, speaks of the same time, and describes some of its features more definitely. He describes the seven last plagues, which must be included in the time of trouble of which Daniel speaks. Under the sixth of these plagues, he says the great river Euphrates is dried up. But the great river Euphrates is a symbol of the power of which Daniel says that he comes to his end with none to help him. Dan. 11:45. John, speaking of the same power, under the symbol of the river Euphrates, says that it is dried up under the sixth plague; this drying up of the Euphrates is the same as the coming to his end of the king of the north, of which Daniel speaks. In connection with these events is the standing up of Michael. And here our correspondent finds difficulty; and in reference to this these remarks are penned. To get the subject more definitely before us, let us look further at the meaning of the terms here employed. There can be no question as to who Michael is. He is the Archangel. There can be but one head angel, and only one Michael. Jude 9. He is the great Prince that standeth for the people of God. He is the highest leader of the heavenly host, whose voice summons the dead saints from their long-sealed tombs. 1 Thess. 4:16; John 5:28, 29. All these expressions point to Christ. The expression “to stand up,” applied to a prince or ruler, means to take the throne; to reign. “There shall stand up yet three kings in Persia,” etc. Dan. 11:2. The text, then, points out the time when Christ shall ascend His throne, and reign. But the question may arise, Is He not reigning now?—Yes, on the general throne of dominion at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty on high. Heb. 8:1. But He is promised a throne specifically His own,—the throne of His father David, and a kingdom of which the angel Gabriel gave assurance to Mary, when announcing the advent of Jesus into this world, that there should be no end. Luke 1:31–33. This is the throne of which the prophet wrote when he said, “And at that time shall Michael stand up.” This is the time when God gives Him the heathen for His inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for His possession. Ps. 2:8. When Christ thus takes His throne, it is as a prince, in His kingly capacity, and not as a priest. His work as priest is then done; but when His work as priest is done, probation is ended; for Christ continues to act as priest and mediator for the world so long as mercy is offered to men. But when probation ends, and Christ is no longer pleading priest, but executive king, the plagues begin to fall; but it is not till the sixth vial is poured out that the river Euphrates is dried up; which, as before noticed, is the same as the king of the north coming to his end with none to help him. Dan. 11:45. And it is in connection with this coming to his end of the king of the north, that the prophet speaks of the standing up of Michael. Our correspondent, therefore, inquires if Michael does not stand up till the sixth plague is poured out, and if consequently probation continues to that time. But this can not be; for every principle involved in the ministration of Christ in the sanctuary forbids the idea that probation can continue till the sixth plague. How, then, can the scriptures referred to be harmonized? In answer, let us consider what points may be regarded as established. 1. The standing up of Michael is the beginning of the reign of Christ. That is the dividing line between His priestly and His kingly power. When He receives His kingly power, the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ, to be broken to shivers with a rod of iron, and dashed in pieces like a potter’s vessel. Ps. 2:9. 2. Mercy being no longer offered, the plagues begin to fall. In these plagues the great time of trouble finds its culmination. 3. The sixth plague falls upon the great river Euphrates, and the waters thereof are dried up; that is, the nation symbolized by that river—namely, the king of the north, the Turkish power—comes to its end. Why, then, is this which takes place under the sixth plague spoken of by Daniel (11:45) before the standing up of Michael (12:1), which takes place before any of the plagues begin to fall? This is the question that involves the difficulty, as this last comes in apparently as a later event. 4. The answer is that the prophecies, in presenting the themes they introduce, sometimes find it convenient to follow the uppermost line of thought to its conclusion, before bringing up other parts of the subject, so that correlated and associated events are not always stated in their strictly consecutive order. On another branch of this same subject we have an illustration of the working of this principle. For instance, part of the great time of trouble of Dan. 12:1 takes place before the standing up of Michael, though mentioned after it, as if it all came in later. So, in Rev. 12:1, the Church is represented as fully organized and established before Christ, the man-child, appears on the scene. But Christ was born before that condition of things was reached. So, in this case, the time of trouble, though it begins to take place before the standing up of Michael, is introduced subsequently, because its most appalling features appear after Michael has entered upon that position called his standing up. 5. The concurrent trend of the Scriptures concerning the closing scenes of time seems to be clearly this: The perils of the last days begin to thicken over the earth; religion gives way before worldliness; evil men and seducers, in high places as well as low, wax worse and worse; the nations are angry; nature itself becomes unbalanced; unwonted exhibitions of violence break forth in the ordinary course of events; the sea and the waves roar; tidal waves encroach upon the solid earth and the habitations of men; plague and pestilence fix their deadly fangs upon the body politic; flood and famine combine against the human race; such elements of anger and confusion are developed among individuals and peoples as appall men’s hearts with203 perplexity and distress. These are a part of the time of trouble. The earth is already feeling these throbbings of troublous times. The Ottoman power becomes the sick man of the East, ready at almost any time for dissolution by heart failure. Those agents that are to gather the kings of the earth and of the whole world to the obsequies, have entered the arena, and are doing their preliminary work. The prophecy indicates that the Turkish power will be compelled, by the increase of the pressure which for years has been accumulating upon it, to remove its seat of government from Constantinople to Jerusalem. It will be the beginning of the end with that power when it is compelled to make this move. How long after this before the end comes, we do not know; but probably it will not be a great while; for the next statement is that he comes to his end with none to help him. It is in connection with his coming to his end that Michael stands up; but how near to his expulsion from Europe we are not informed; but when Michael stands up, the plagues begin to fall; and it is not until the sixth vial is poured out that the end comes, and the symbolical river Euphrates is dried up. Some time before this, Michael stands up; but whether the Turk is at that time in Constantinople or in Jerusalem we have no means of knowing. But he is then so near his end that it will hardly affect the prophecy, to whichever we give the precedence in point of time. But we may be sure of this: The standing up of Michael is not delayed, and probation is not continued, till the falling of the sixth plague. OUR BOOKS' AND TRACTS
By S. H. Lane
No one during the course of time, and only the redeemed in eternity itself, can tell the good that our books are accomplishing in the world. Glory and honor will be ascribed to the King of kings and Lord of lords, throughout the ceaseless ages of eternity, from more than one immortalized tongue of the redeemed, because of the sanctifying influence of the truth brought to their notice through our publications. Nearly every mail received at this Office brings further evidence that the truth is stirring hearts; and an entire REVIEW could be filled with interesting facts culled from our mail. As an illustration of this, I quote a few lines from some letters that have been received from a person attending a large and influential university. The writer says: “I have in my possession a precious little book, entitled ‘Steps to Christ,’ which was written by Mrs. E. G. White, and published by the Review and Herald Pub. Co., and in the back of the book I see that a full line of religious publications on a wide range of subjects is kept on hand by you. I send you four cents in stamps for a tract entitled the ‘Sufferings of Christ.’ I also add two cents for a tract entitled ‘Tempted as We Are.’ Please send them at once.” They were sent, and I wrote him quite a lengthy letter, in which I stated that we have a book, written by Mrs. White, entitled “Mount of Blessing,” which some think equal to “Steps to Christ,” and which I regard fully as good. An order for the book was soon received, accompanied by a letter, in which he says: “I must say that I have drawn more information by reading your literature than I have in reading all other literature combined. I am almost persuaded to purchase a whole library of you. I shall endeavor to keep in touch with you. I am much gratified with the additional tracts you sent me.” In my first letter I gave him some of the reasons why I am an Adventist, and associated with that people; and in reply to that letter he says: “Your reasons for being a Seventh-day Adventist are good ones indeed, and I do not think you will find more truth among any other people. I have not.” I wrote him, stating that the “Mount of Blessing” had been sent. Book mail being slower than letter mail, the book did not reach him for a short time after the letter did. He became so anxious that he wrote again, and I replied that the book would probably be on hand in a short time; if not, we would send again. In this morning’s mail we received the following from him: “I am proud to say that I received the book, ‘Mount of Blessing,’ Monday, March 4, and this is Monday, March 11, and I have read it through. I find it an excellent book. The books, ‘Mount of Blessing’ and ‘Steps to Christ,’ are so interesting, reviving, and instructive that I am compelled to believe that they were written by inspiration. I was so anxious to get the ‘Mount of Blessing,’ that the time of waiting for it seemed longer than it really was.” He requested a catalogue, and I replied that one was on the press, and that we would send it in a few days; and in his last letter he adds, “Please do not forget to send me the catalogue: I wish to order more literature.” These are only specimens of many letters we are receiving; and let me ask every one who reads this article, Are you doing all you can in loaning our books and papers? If you are not, will you not begin a reformation right now? And if you have never sent out any of these good books on their mission of love and mercy, will you not do so at once? Have you not some friends to whom you can recommend “Steps to Christ,” and “Mount of Blessing,” and many of our works; or can you not purchase some of these books to send to your friends? They will make a lasting impression. From your efforts souls will be converted to God; and when a person is once converted to God, he will receive the truth as it is presented. Why not revive the old-time missionary spirit of writing letters, and of advertising our books and papers everywhere? Who will think over these matters and begin the work now? for now is our salvation nearer than when we first believed. S. H. LANE. SYSTEMATIC GIVING
By I. H. Evans
No PEOPLE ever believed in organized effort more than do Seventh-day Adventists. From the local church to the General Conference, we are an organized army of aggressive workers. Any plan for the furtherance of the Third Angel’s Message, which has within it the promise of success, needs only to be suggested, to be generally adopted. What millions of pages of literature bearing the Third Angel’s Message have been distributed through this co-operation! As an army is stronger and more efficient than the same number of men unorganized, because it utilizes the combined energy of the many by centralizing the strength of all upon a specific object, so the Church militant manifests its power in God’s service, not by the independent action of the many, but by the combined energy of all. Centralized effort has within it the elements of success. Heaven-approved co-operation by a widely scattered people, means success. Unity, when guided by the Holy Spirit, means victory. In giving, as in everything else, God’s people have a definiteness unknown to others. The tithing system is an example of how a Bible truth, when applied by a body of people to each individual life, will accomplish wonders in the service of God. Probably more than four hundred thousand dollars is annually raised by less than seventy thousand persons through this simple Bible method of giving. The ten-cent-a-week plan is another method of giving, which has within it possibilities that can accomplish wonders, if generally adopted. When the seventy thousand Seventh-day Adventists take hold of this, there will be a yearly income of three hundred and sixty-four thousand dollars for work in other lands: this means more than four times the amount now raised for spreading the truth in the regions beyond. The coming year the Foreign Mission Board should have not less than two hundred thousand dollars. It can not be that God wants us to stay our hands in carrying the gospel to the heathen. To us the command is, Go into all the world. We are charged to “preach the glad tidings to every creature.” The missions already established must be strengthened. In nearly every station are needed as many new recruits as there are workers on the grounds. Besides this doubling of our working force, in every country there are a hundred places demanding help. Nor is that all: twenty-two thousand dollars should be added to this to meet the semiannual payments at Christiania; eleven thousand dollars must be raised by July 1. None need be discouraged by these demands. We are abundantly able to go up and possess the goodly land. If all will adopt the ten-cent-a-week plan, we can pay off the Christiania debt in one year, and send two hundred more laborers into the foreign field, AND SUPPORT THEM ALL. This can be done. Only let the whole denomination take hold and pull together; and lo! the task will be accomplished! Let each librarian collect the contributions each week, and forward them to the State secretary monthly. Shall not each of us at once see to it that we give regularly and systematically and weekly to the cause of foreign missions? We must all certainly begin now, if the General Conference shall have the eleven thousand dollars needed July 1, and the foreign work be not retarded. Let each one who is giving regularly persuade some one who is not, to begin at once. With a united effort, we shall soon see marked results, not only in paying our debts, but in extending the work in other lands.