p. 416 | Signs of the Times, Vol. 41, No. 26. (7/7/1914)

Earlier text: THE KINGDOM OF GRACE MANIFESTED

TEMPERANCE

Here is a group of leaflets on temperance that is selling by the hundreds of thousands, and will exert a tremendous influence in the prohibition campaign now opening throughout the United States and Canada:

The Demons' Council

A unique eight-page document, written in allegorical style. It shows how the liquor traffic has grown and fastened its hideous fangs on the souls of human beings, leaving wreck and ruin in its path.

Price a hundred, post-paid ...........$ .50

Prohibition or the Liquor Traffic Which?

This tract in the main consists of admissions from the opponents of prohibition as to the evils growing out of the liquor traffic. Here is one of their admissions: "It deliberately aids the most corrupt political powers, and backs with all of its resources the most unworthy men, the most corrupt and recreant officials. It does not aid the purification of municipal, state, or national administration. Why?—Because it has to ask immunity for its own lawlessness."

The terrible arraignment of the liquor interests by the liquor dealers themselves makes this one of the strongest documents produced in favor of prohibition.

Price a hundred, post-paid ...........$ .50

Story of a Dry Town

Experience is the best teacher. This four-page leaflet tells an interesting story of a town as it was two years ago, with seven saloons, and the results two years after the saloons were closed.

Price a hundred, post-paid ...........$ .25

Why Does the Saloon Exist?

The liquor dealer argues that from the standpoint of personal rights, he should be allowed to maintain and operate a saloon, and the only obligation is to meet the requirements of the state. Does he have this right? Read what Ex-Governor Patterson and others have to say on this question of personal rights, in this tract.

Price a hundred, post-paid ...........$1.00

Dark Valley Railroad

This document was prepared with special reference to temperance campaigns. Printed in two colors, in the form of a railroad timetable. It contains the names of stations, time of train arrival, and map of the route. It begins with Cigaretville. Some of the stations on the way are Mild Drink, Tipplerville, Bummer's Roost, Hungry Hollow, Drunkard's Curve, Deliriumville, Rattlesnake Swamp, and Prisonersburg, and it ends at Perdition.

Price a hundred, post-paid. $1.50

It Doesn't Pay

Does the liquor traffic pay? This is one of the most vital questions under discussion at the present time. If the individual who argues that it does pay, will read this tract, the candid, truthful answer will come back, No, it does not pay.

The tract contains 16 pages and is well illustrated. Price a hundred, post-paid..$1.00

The Wine Industry and Prohibition

An unanswerable reply to the claim that prohibition would throw 75,000 people out of employment in California and render valueless 170,000 acres of land.

Contains 16 pages, with illustrated heading. Price a hundred, post-paid ...........$1.00

Pocket Package No. 4

Four hundred pages of the above tracts in a strong manila envelope, post-paid....$ .25

Address your tract society or PACIFIC PRESS PUB. ASSN., Mountain View, Cal. Portland, Ore., Kansas City, Mo., Calgary, Alta., Can.

A Menace Rivaling the Evils of Alcohol

By Daniel H. Kress, M. D.

The Cigarette as a Mind and Body Destroyer — The Host of Boys Addicted to the Habit — A Growing Number of Women Who Smoke — The Danger-Signal Should Be Hoisted

By DANIEL H. KRESS, M. D.

DR. KRESS is a regular medical practitioner with an unusual variety of opportunities for study and observation, not merely in different parts of this country, but in his travels abroad. He has taken even more interest in the study of reforms that promote and preserve health than in the rather prescribed practise of healing those who are broken down by disease, although his work as an ordinary physician has been extensive.

His interest in a reformatory way has led him into wide research of the cigarette evil, particularly among school children. His investigations and work have been favorably and quite extensively commented upon by the press.

Two articles from his pen upon this subject will follow. The next one will give a brief history of the use of tobacco in various nations; and the last will tell something about the insanity, the criminality, and the susceptibility to disease that may be traced to the cigarette.

HEART PULSATIONS AS SHOWN BY SPHYGMOGRAPH

THE cigarette is to-day one of the worst evils of civilization. It contains one of the most subtle and deadly of all poisons. There are few substances that destroy life more rapidly.

EIGHT DROPS KILLS A HORSE

A few puffs of tobacco smoke will immediately destroy insects on plants. One drop of nicotin — the active poison found in tobacco — placed on the tongue of a cat will cause death in less than four minutes. Two drops will kill a good-sized dog, and eight drops is sufficient to kill a horse.

In every cigar of moderate strength there is sufficient nicotin to kill two or three men. Fortunate it is, for the smoker, that not all the nicotin is absorbed. Most of it is thrown into the air surrounding the tobacco user, to be inhaled by his friends.

CREATES UNNATURAL THIRST

The use of tobacco creates an unnatural thirst, and invariably tends toward the use of beer and other stronger drinks. In the countries where the tobacco habit is most prevalent, we find alcoholic drinks used most freely. Nearly all drunkards are tobacco users, and nearly all begin with tobacco and follow it by strong drink, or some other drug, as cocain, heroin, etc.

The use of tobacco is especially injurious to the young, preventing the development of both mind and body, and the result is physical, mental, and moral deterioration.

IT LESSENS VISION

It lessens the acuteness of vision. The changes in the optic nerves are brought about gradually and insidiously, and for this reason many do not realize the damage wrought, until too late. Many of the accidents by land and by sea could be traced to defective vision instead of fogs, etc., if a little effort were made. At present the Canadian government finds it necessary to reject about two thirds of her young recruits for the navy, owing to impaired vision due to the cigarette. The state of Massachusetts is obliged to reject a similar proportion of young applicants for the navy.

THE TOBACCO HEART

"Tobacco heart" is common in men of forty to fifty years, and the mortality from heart failure is rapidly increasing. Men who smoke before they go on the running track or into the gymnasium quickly get out of breath, while the same men, if they abstain from smoking before exercising, have good wind.

The fact that tobacco weakens a man's wind and lessens his endurance, affords the best positive proof that it shortens life; for the power to live long means simply the power to breathe well and endure long the physical strains and emergencies to which the body and especially the heart is continually subjected during life.

GREATER CURSE THAN ALCOHOL

I regard tobacco, because of its prevalent use by boys, a greater curse to the human family than is alcohol.

The boys of to-day will be the men of to-morrow. Whenever a boy takes up with the cigarette, a good man is buried. The boy who begins the use of cigarettes at ten to twelve years of age is usually handicapped for life. He seldom passes his entrance examinations for high school. He is a failure in any profession he may take up later in life.

Morally he is inferior to the abstainer from cigarettes. The crimes of to-day are committed usually by boys or young men; and in almost every case, these young criminals are cigarette addicts.

Not only is the user himself injured by the smoke he inhales, but the air about him is poisoned by the exhalation through his lungs and skin, and all who are obliged to be near him suffer. Fathers need not be surprised to have their boys continue tobacco smoke inhalation by the use of cigarettes as soon as they are able to do so, if they have been previously compelled to live in a tobacco-laden atmosphere and inhale the smoke. The habit had been formed before they took up with the cigarette. Many an infant is slowly poisoned by sleeping in the room or in the bed with a tobacco-using father. Many a wife has been made an invalid by sleeping alongside a tobacco-saturated husband, from whose body emanated deadly odors.

It would be considered a crime for a man to go through the country contaminating or poisoning the water-supply of our cities. Is it not strange that we should permit this wholesale poisoning of the air that others have to breathe, the purity of which is much more essential than that of water?

PREVALENT AMONG WOMEN

The tobacco habit is becoming quite prevalent among women — not as yet to a very great degree in public, for sentiment is against it; but the present indications are that this sentiment will soon vanish, and that in the near future the sight of women smoking in public, the same as men, will be no uncommon thing.

Two hundred years ago, public sentiment was as much against the use of tobacco in public among men, as it now is against its use by women — in fact, more so, for those who were found thus using it were punished as criminals.

Woman has an equal right with man to use tobacco. If tobacco is a blessing to men, let us encourage its use among women, and among children as well. If it is a curse, let the fathers acknowledge the fact, and be consistent enough to abandon the use of the stuff, and then let them discourage its use among their wives and children. Let them teach by example as well as by precept, and results will follow. Until fathers set the right example, we can not hope to accomplish much in our efforts to suppress the use of cigarettes among boys through educational or legislative efforts.

THE PREACHERS AFRAID TO SPEAK

The use of tobacco is so general that few ministers dare, from their pulpits, make mention of it as an evil; and owing to the money received for advertisements, few papers dare say all they would like to say on the subject. There is no one evil to-day that is doing more to neutralize the efforts of the ministry than the use of this drug. The boy who uses cigarettes has no relish for things religious. He is not found in church services or Sunday-school. The cheap moving-picture show, the tango, or the pool-room is more in accord with the lowered moral plane on which he lives.

INCREASED FOUR HUNDRED PER CENT

During the past ten years, the use of cigarettes has increased over four hundred per cent. In some of our public schools I

DR. KRESS TESTING THE DEGREE TO WHICH SMOKING HAS AFFECTED A BOY'S HEART ACTION

have found ninety per cent of the young fellows to be victims of the cigarette. In others, the percentage is considerably lower; but the assertion can be made safely that eighty per cent of all our boys will become smokers before they reach the age of twenty years. This is a conservative estimate. And all, practically, will begin with the cigarette, and the great majority of them before reaching the age of fourteen years.

The average consumption of cigarettes in America is about twelve hundred for every male inhabitant over ten years of age. This is a drug addiction that stands side by side with that of opium, heroin, and cocaine, and it binds its victims about as securely as do these other drugs. Yet little is said against it from the pulpit or by the public press.

The time is coming when we shall be compelled to suppress the use of tobacco in America, as in China they are now suppressing the use of opium.

A GOOD HOME FOR SALE

By Milton C. Wilcox

ON account of change of work, I desire to sell my property in best part of Mountain View, California, consisting of an acre of land, nine-room house, bathroom, lavatories, toilets, large closets, sleeping porches, fireplace, good basement, solar water heater; a neat shingled bungalow of three rooms, bath, and toilet; a good well and tank house, with complete power pumping plant, water piped to all parts of the acre; a garage, chicken house and yard; two magnificent live oak shade-trees in right place, with palm and other trees; a good family orchard, just well in bearing, of more than thirty trees — apple, almond, cherry, fig, nectarine, orange, peach, plum, prune, quince, walnut, small fruits, grapes and berries, with plenty of land for garden. Fifteen minutes' walk, five minutes' ride, from station where fourteen trains stop each way, daily; six miles from Stanford University; good schools in town, including S. D. A. school of ten grades; town dry and growing. A good place for small sanitarium. Address M. C. Wilcox, Mountain View, California.

Sanitarium Cooking Oil

"THE OIL OF QUALITY"

Pure Cotton Seed Oil direct from refinery. Sweet, wholesome, and delicious. 4 1-gallon cans, $3.60; 5-gallon can, $3.90; 2 5-gallon cans, $7.70; 30-gallon barrel, $20.80; 50-gallon barrel, $32.75. Cash with order. Sanitarium Cooking Oil Co., Louisville, Kentucky.

New Studies in the Fireside Correspondence School

By C. C. Lewis

THE Fireside Correspondence School is ready to receive pupils in the following new subjects: educational psychology, agriculture, Hebrew I. Those who are interested in pursuing these subjects during the summer vacation should address the undersigned for full particulars, so that they may begin work as soon as possible.

C. C. LEWIS, Principal, Takoma Park, D. C.

To Church School Teachers

By C. C. Lewis

Your vacation is just at hand. Perhaps it has already begun. No doubt you are thinking about those studies you will need to pursue in order to obtain a higher grade certificate. The Fireside Correspondence School is able to help you, and would like to do so. We will start you at once, and let you pay the tuition by instalments, or in any other way that will better suit your convenience. Write for calendar, stating what subjects you would like to take up.

C. C. Lewis, Principal, Takoma Park, D. C.

The Tithing Question and Principles Concerning the Law

By Editor

A Mr. M. T. Wheeler recently addressed a very interesting letter to the editor of the New York Christian Advocate. The editor published the letter in full, and we extract the following paragraphs, which are worthy of more than mere note:

"Editor the Christian Advocate: One of your correspondents says that tithing is a part of the law, but that a man not under the law, but under grace, need not obey it. By this reasoning, he need not obey the law of profanity, or robbery, or of murder. He proves too much. A man who condemns the law most assuredly is not under grace.

"A man is under grace because he is reborn. While a man under the law antagonizes and hates it, a man under grace loves it and its Author. His attitude toward the law is the same as if he himself had made it. To him the law is spiritual, and in spirit he is the author of it. His highest pleasure is to honor and obey it, and do his best endeavor to induce others to do likewise. Instead of his 'high calling' in grace giving him license to break any part of the law, it holds him to a stricter accounting and a stress of higher obligation. If a man under the law ought to tithe, much more the man under grace. If a man under the law must not commit adultery, much more a man under grace must live a pure life. The man under the law wants to break it; the man under grace wants to keep it."

The reasoning of Brother Wheeler upon the subject of the law is sound. Very appropriately does he say that a man who condemns the law "most assuredly is not under grace," and that "a man is under grace because he is reborn," and furthermore, that "while a man under the law antagonizes and hates it, a man under grace loves it and its Author."

While Mr. Wheeler refers these principles to the tithing question, which was really not specifically mentioned in the Ten Commandments, yet these same principles are much broader than many people will admit when it comes to applying them definitely and practically. Most people will recognize and assert with earnestness the very same things that are laid down in the foregoing paragraphs, and will apply them in certain directions where they may be especially interested. But those principles will, if logically carried out, lead every individual in the world to observe the seventh-day Sabbath.

Mr. Wheeler is stating good, sound, substantial doctrine, that has been really fundamental in the Methodist Church, to which he belongs. And it was following just such principles as this, which the Bible teaches so clearly, and which the Methodist Church has asserted so strongly, that has led the Seventh-day Adventists to observe the seventh-day Sabbath. There is no getting away from the logical conclusions.

Our Methodist brethren have done a mighty and a noble work in this world, and they never did more good in any one line than in their straight teaching of the principles of the law. We urge them to stand ever upon the solid foundation, and to press on to the position of actually carrying out the principles which they lay down.

Once the individual learns to know the spirit of true Sabbath-keeping, as it is taught in God's word, it becomes one of the greatest pleasures of the whole life.

Great Progress in Circulating Bibles

By Editor

THE annual meeting of the American Bible Society was held in the Bible House in New York on May 14, and the published report of that meeting has just reached us. This report shows that the society has issued, during the year, 5,251,176 volumes of the sacred Word. This is an increase over 1912 of 1,201,666 volumes. In the ninety-eight years of the society's existence, it has circulated, all told, 103,519,891 volumes of the Scriptures.

The society maintains twelve agencies in foreign countries. In the republic of China, during the past year, 1,653,956 volumes were circulated. This is an advance, in that country, of 286,561 volumes over the previous year. Wherever the sun shines and human beings live, earnest workers representing this great society are carrying the sacred Word into the homes of the people.

One of the most significant occurrences of the day is the receiving of a superhuman burden into the hearts of men, which sends them with impelling orders from the divine throne, to put the great Book of God into the hands of every individual on earth. God is sending a message of warning to this world, of the soon-coming Christ; and a part of the great plan of the Infinite is to give His word to every creature, so that they may know for themselves the prophecies that predict the Coming One.

There is no more important work in all the realm of evangelical endeavor than that carried forward by our great Bible society in this country, and the British and Foreign Bible Society in England, and the kindred institutions that are working throughout the world. Money and service devoted to that purpose will surely bring their reward.

The Church as Pleasure Purveyor

A LEADING pastor in one of the largest cities of the nation has recently said that the country church is a flat failure. He thinks it is not worth the time devoted to it, and that unless the country church can be made the center of country life, it might as well go.

He recommends establishing a "parish plant where reading-rooms and gymnasiums, pool parlors and moving-picture shows, will be installed for the enjoyment of all the members of the community." He thinks that if such pleasures were adopted, the general drifting away from the church might be counteracted, and "that the present-day unrest which has detracted materially from the church attendance" might be overcome.

The sentiment is growing stronger and stronger, particularly in certain localities, of making the church a kind of social club that will dispense all sorts of pleasure, and through these pleasures and enjoyments, win the multitude.

In following such a course, the great essential of presenting salvation through Christ is largely overlooked. The power that comes into the life through the Spirit of God, and that regenerates and re-creates, is not accepted.

This condition shows two very strong influences: First, the church is losing sight of its mission, and consequently is losing its power. Second, the craze for pleasure has become so strong that even the weakened yet professed church of Jesus Christ is bowing before it.

Among the things that the apostle tells us would make the last days perilous is that men "having a form of godliness" would deny its power, and withal, they would be "lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God." Please read carefully the third chapter of 2 Timothy, particularly the first few verses.

The hilarious pleasures that this world has to confer, and God and His gospel of salvation, are presented before the multitude, and the deliberate choice is made of accepting the pleasures rather than God. But men who make this choice are deceived, and ministers who lead in such things are deluded completely. There is a joy in the gospel of Christ that is far superior to anything that this world has to confer. Let us not be deceived by the conditions that prevail in this time.

Because He Got Drunk

By Editor

A YOUNG man was sent to San Quentin for seventeen years for implication in a murder committed near Sacramento. He was a mere schoolboy at the time of the murder. After serving eleven years of his seventeen-year sentence, he was paroled, and had led two years of honorable life. But a few days ago, he got into a drunken brawl, and broke his parole, and had to be sent back to the prison for the rest of his term.

There are many evil things of this character that can be said in regard to the whisky business, but there is no one redeeming thing that can be said in its favor. A business that is evil and only evil ought to be stamped out. Why is it that men who seem to be able to reason intelligently upon other subjects lose their senses when they come to this question, and will stand in favor of a traffic that is sending men to the penitentiaries, the gallows, and into all the other various kinds of degradation that are incident to indulging strong drink?

"Held Up" the Policeman

A FEW days ago, in one of our Western cities, a bandit, unmasked, walked into a saloon; found therein the special policeman who guarded the block in which the saloon was located; took the officer's revolver away from him; made him stand against the wall, with his hands over his head; and then gave his attention to the other men who were in the place, taking all the money they had on their persons, and relieving the cash register of some forty dollars that it contained.

The report says that he "then quietly made his exit." The boldness and the daring of bandits is becoming more and more pronounced. Every few days they are doing something of the most dastardly character. It is significant of the breaking down of the barriers of society; and a great deal of it,—particularly of that character of which this saloon hold-up is an example,—is accomplished by the officers of the law being in league with the thieves.

A generation is here that are losing their moral sense and their moral powers. It is true that there are as many of the strongest good men and women in the world to-day as any generation has ever produced; but despite this fact, these forces of evil are growing stronger and bolder every day. The divine Book says that evil men and seducers shall "wax worse and worse," and that "the last days" shall be made "perilous" because of the wickedness there will be in them.

But the blessed hope is that the second coming of Christ will soon occur to bring joy to those who are ready, and to put an end to all the crimes and the terrors brought about by sin.

City Life and Country Living

IN a lecture recently in Boston, Dr. Charles W. Eliot, president emeritus of Harvard University, said, "Boston, New York, and other large cities are becoming so congested that the race can not live normally, and soon there will be a country-wide tendency to degeneracy." "The only remedy," said the doctor, "is to make each large city with wide streets and small gardens about workers' homes, and a better housing of workmen." All these suggestions are very good as far as they go, but better still is the education that leads men and women from the degenerating conditions of the city into the more wholesome and more natural atmosphere of country life.

For Your Convenience

By G. C. Hoskin

YOU may be interested in some of the subjects presented in this journal, and may desire to make further study. A complete line of moral, temperance, and gospel literature, in various forms, is obtainable at the offices listed on page thirteen. Our publications are now classified in 300 distinct bound books under different titles, 300 pamphlets, more than 1,000 tracts, and 124 periodicals. Literature can be furnished in 75 languages. You can be supplied on the topics discussed in these columns from week to week.

These depositories are at your service, and will gladly furnish catalogue. You should call on or communicate with them.

G. C. HOSKIN, Circulating Manager.

Destined to Triumph

By J. O. C.

As the pilgrimage of the militant church nears its close, and the haven of rest is almost in sight, she may well expect to meet great difficulties. The strong man armed will contest every step of the way. Dissensions within her borders will perhaps seemingly impede her progress. The crew of Columbus mutinied as the coast of the New World was nearing. But because war and tumult are encountered, the heart should not grow faint or our faith fail. God has spoken good concerning Israel, and His word will prevail. We need have no fear to lay siege to the apparently impregnable bastions of Satan's kingdom, for we are led by a Captain who already has spoiled the kingdom of darkness, and like a mighty conqueror, has triumphed over it. J. O. C.