p. 14 | Signs of the Times, Vol. 37, No. 3. (1/18/1910)

Needs of the Bible Society

THE American Bible Society, in its Bulletin No. 8, tells us that it has received in subscriptions on the Sage endowment fund, $368,487.88, of which $194,316.93 has been paid in. Over $31,000 has been received since it issued its last bulletin. The bulletin suggests that if every church interested in the Bible Society would send in a subscription of $10.00 at once, and if those who feel that they can give $1,000 would join the growing list of such subscribers, and every one who reads this bulletin would send a dollar or such gift as his means make possible, the entire amount would be completed.

Millions will never see the Bible unless adequate support is given to the society whose sole business is to assist in translating, publishing, and circulating the Scriptures without note or comment through this country and the world. This bulletin is signed by John Fox and Wm. I. Haven, corresponding secretaries, Box B, Station D, New York, N. Y.

Extra Fine Jessie Strawberry Plants

By J. C. Evans

$3 per 1000 for small lots; rates made on large lots; very large, early, prolific, and sweet berries, and self-pollenizing.

J. C. Evans - - - Ripon, Cal.

Education

By Editor

Education.—The object of true education and how it may be realized by the youth, the parent, the teacher, the writer, the tiller of the soil, and the business man, is the great theme of this book.

Its first chapter is devoted to First Principles; following that are illustrations taken from the history of Israel. Master Teacher, Nature Teaching, the Bible as an Educator, Physical Culture, Character Building, the Under Teacher, and the Higher Course, are titles of other chapters. 321 pages. Cloth, $1.25. Address this office.

"Marriage Alarm Bells"

By Jacob H. Miller

MANY Christians have been wrecked upon the rocks of mismated marriages. This should not be.

"It is not good that the man should be alone."

Marriage is honorable to all who honorably enter upon it. God designs that the home shall be a beautiful and peaceful heaven, a foretaste of the home eternal.

Mismated marriages thwart God's purpose, and make it too often a place of bickering and strife, with alarming frequency ending in divorce.

How can these evils be avoided?

I. By hearing and heeding the following Marriage Alarm Bells:

a. Believer, don't marry an unbeliever in the truth. God forbids it. "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers." 2 Cor. 6:14.

b. There can be no spiritual fellowship between a child of God and a child of sin, such as all unbelieving persons are.

c. Mental and physical affinity will not suffice for spiritual communion.

d. God's blessing never rests upon a marriage which he forbids; hence if you marry an unbeliever you thus forbid God's blessing.

e. You would each have different aims in life, one living for Christ and the other not.

f. The unbelieving companion often becomes jealous because God is loved more than himself.

g. A goat and a sheep never make a good team.

h. Their sources of enjoyment are opposite.

i. The person who will not promise to be true to God you can not trust to be true as a companion.

j. Such marriages are usually unhappy.

k. The Christian who is thus ensnared usually repents when it is too late.

l. The unbelieving are frequently regardless of observance of the laws of marital self-control and purity, without which marriage is degraded, and both suffer in mind, soul, and body.

m. The children of such marriages are robbed of the sacred prenatal influences to which they have a right, and which largely affect their destiny.

n. The unbelieving often insist upon ruinous sexual indulgence and prenatal murder, debasing the sacred bond of marriage into a license for lust.

o. You have no right to choose for the father or mother of your children a godless person.

p. Both husband and wife need all of God's grace that is for them in order to exercise the forbearance and self-denial which marriage demands.

q. There are always matters arising upon which there will be a division. One wants to go to church, the other on a stroll or visit; one wants to give for the Gospel, the other is opposed to it; one welcomes God's ministers, the other dreads them or forbids them; one wishes to rear the children for God, the other for the world. How many mothers have aching hearts because the father leads the children to the dance, the theater, the horse-race, and the circus.

II. The Exceptions

a. The fact that God has overruled so that sometimes the marriage of Christians with ungodly leads to their conversion, is no argument in favor of such marriages. See Neh. 13:23-31.

b. A kind disposition, personal beauty, a mere profession of religion, or church membership and promises of reformation, should never be accepted as substitutes for vital piety. All who have not that, are practical "unbelievers."

c. If, through infatuation or personal magnetism or natural affection, you have become engaged to an unbeliever, the first duty you owe to God, the person, and yourself, is to wisely, firmly, tenderly, and quickly as possible break off the engagement the same as you would any other sin.

d. If you do not, you will sooner or later bitterly regret it.

e. Tho unbelievers sometimes live happily together on a worldly plane, yet such instances are rare, and in no wise affect the law which is to govern the actions of Christians. The aims of worldlings are one, those of Christians are opposite.

III. Never marry a person to reform him. Why not?

a. Because you can not reform him that way. Salvation, not matrimony, is God's prescription for such persons.

b. Many have been deceived by this device, and discovered the mistake only when too late.

c. If your love and influence are powerless to win your friend before marriage, much less will it be after, when you have lost the power of religion by marrying against the will of God.

IV. Never marry a divorced person.

Many lives have been wrecked on this rock. Marrying a divorced person before her husband or his wife from whom he or she is divorced is dead, is adultery (Rom. 7:1-3); and as no adulterer can enter heaven, all such, unless they break off the unholy alliance, are lost. Neither time, nor affection, nor children, nor public approval, can atone for this express violation of God's law.

V. Never marry to please others, nor for money, nor for a home, nor social position, nor for any other reason less than pleasing God and doing Him better service.

Thousands marry from social motives, and reap a harvest of disappointment.

If God's blessing is received, His will must be learned and done. A single state with His favor is Paradise compared with a married life without it.

Marriage without true love is like a furnace without a fire.

VI. It is no reason you should marry a person because infatuated.

Two persons may be of such temperaments and so keyed mentally and physically as to become infatuated almost on first sight. Many mistake this feeling for true love and the basis of matrimony, and by its balmy breezes are wafted into the harbor of a wedded life, only to discover, when the glamour is gone, that they are mismated and mistaken. The bright morning dewdrops of intense infatuation are soon dissipated by the hot sun of the long day of marriage endurance. For a fuller treatment of this point lift your eyes up to your Maker.

VII. Be sure and learn God's will as to whom and when to marry.

You can afford to make no mistake at this point, and victory here means victory at all other points. He knows just whom you need, and who needs you, and with whom you can be the most useful and happy; and if you will claim His counsel, He will make you sure.

Never marry while there is doubt at this point; and be sure never to mistake your own will, or the will of others, for God's will in this matter. Then all will be well.

If you have married against these rules, and find yourself the wedded companion of an unbeliever, then seek by penitence and prayer the fulness of God's favor, and strive to win the unbelieving one to God.

VIII. Be right with God yourself.

Be sure that you are converted, and also that your heart is fully cleansed from all sin and selfishness, and filled with the Holy Spirit. Until then you are unfitted for the holy offices which marriage brings.

"And it shall come to pass, if ye shall harken diligently unto My commandments which I command you this day, to love the Lord your God, and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul, that I will give you the rain of your land in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil. And I will send grass in thy fields for thy cattle, that thou mayest eat and be full. Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be not deceived, and ye turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them. . . . Therefore shall ye lay up these My words in your heart and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes. And ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt write them upon the door posts of thine house, and upon thy gates: that your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, in the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers to give them, as the days of heaven upon the earth." Deut. 11:13-21.

1375 Prime Court, Pasadena, Cal.

Dawn

By Maidie E. Barritz

As when, at morn, on looking from the window, We see return to greet us, with the day, The slow, sweet light, in gradual lengths unfolding From shade to shade, from gradual gray to gray,

The same sweet flowers, unfolding in their places, The same sweet, silent rapture of the light, The hill and vale, the field and wood aglow, As when they left our vision with the night;

And as we feel the new life still unfolding, In bird and flower and tree, O, may we see behind it, still returning, The life which flows from Thee.

Only one endlessness, which all includeth Which is or has been known, Yours in the dear day's dawn for choosing What you will make your own.

MAIDIE E. BARRITZ. 10620 Cedar Ave., Cleveland, O.

In the Cheering-Up Business

By Clifford M. Loveland

WHEN Miss Edith Wyatt was at Bryn Mawr College she was known as "the girl in the cheering-up business." Girls who were "homesick," discouraged, and behind in their studies, and students who were tired, always went to her for a bit of encouragement; and they always found it. She radiated cheerfulness.

There are great openings in the "cheering-up business." There is plenty of room in it for everybody, and it does not interfere with any other vocation. Make it a hobby if you want to be happy and successful in life. You may do more good in it than in your regular vocation, and it will be one of the best and wisest investments. How much does it cost? — Nothing, but a little effort. Yet see what wonderful, surprising results are obtained by it. Try it and you will not be sorry, I am sure.

"Keep the brightest trail," said an Indian, when asked by Bishop Baker in pioneer days the best route across the plains to the Rocky Mountains. This was good advice before the railroads were built. It is still, for the much-used tracks shine.

Let us apply it universally. Keep the brightest trail this coming year. Leave the dark, gloomy subterranean passages. Leave the gloom, anxiety, work, and discouragement behind. Face the sun. Trust in God and do the right, brothers, sisters, one and all. He will guide through darkest night, and will help us lest we fall.

CLIFFORD M. LOVELAND.

High Point, Georgia.

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Daily News Bulletins

SOUTHERN PACIFIC

Good Home for Sale

Modern six-room house on 50 by 150 corner lot. Located two blocks from Seventh-day Adventist Church, Mountain View, Cal. This is a new house, well built, up to date in every way, well located. Price and terms reasonable. Address, S. L. W., care SIGNS OF THE TIMES, Mountain View, Cal.

Another Choice Property for Home or Investment

Modern six-room double house. Each apartment contains three rooms, bath, etc. Ideal for renting to small family. Located on 50 by 150 foot lot adjoining property described above. Reasonable price and terms. Address S. L. W., care SIGNS OF THE TIMES, Mountain View, Cal.

Bibles

By Editor

Bibles.—Remember that we are headquarters for anything in the Bible line. We shall be pleased to send you our catalog of Bible selections on application. Pacific Press, Mountain View, Cal.

DATE OF EXPIRATION

By C. H. Jones, Circulation Manager

The SIGNS wrapper bears date of last issue due on your subscription. Unless renewed in advance, paper stops with expiration date.

If herewith is an order-blank, you will know you have overlooked sending renewal. You will not wish to miss a single issue. Back numbers often can not be furnished.

C. H. Jones, Circulation Manager.

Life and Health

By Editor

A PRACTICAL health journal, published with a view of meeting hygienic needs in every home; teaching how to care for the health and how to preserve life; prescribing simple home treatments to assist nature in throwing off diseases rather than adding more poison by using drugs or unnatural stimulants as remedies: teaching how to avoid disease as far as possible, how to manage in the home when sickness does come, and how to combat the disease by simple remedies which nature provides.

Send for sample copy and special rates to agents. Price 10 cents per copy or $1.00 per year.

Address, LIFE & HEALTH, Takoma Park, D.C.

LIBERTY

THE OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE RELIGIOUS LIBERTY BUREAU

AN illustrated, 48-page, quarterly magazine, published as an exponent and advocate of true religious liberty; defending Christianity and the rights of conscience; upholding the Bible as the infallible word of God; recognizing the church and state as ordained of Heaven for specific and distinct purposes, but vigorously protesting against the alliance of the church with the state in the attempt to advance religion and to promote the state.

Price 25 cents per year. Liberal terms to agents.

Address, LIBERTY, Takoma Park, D. C.

Our Little Friend

By Editor

An Illustrated Paper for the Smaller Men and Women, for the Children and Little Ones

Instructive and entertaining, clean, wholesome, sensible. It is a character builder, a helper to father and mother. Our Little Friend would plant seed in the joyous life of the children in the Present, that it may bear blessed fruitage in the Harvest of the Future. Respect your child's individuality. Take the paper for him or her. Only 60 cents a year.

Address, OUR LITTLE FRIEND Mountain View, Cal.

A Call for Prophets

By Editor

Professor Chas. S. Nash, of Pacific Theological Seminary, Berkeley, Cal., truly says in The Homiletic Review for January, that "there never was a day when the call for prophets of the living God was so widespread, appealing, and insistent, as it is at the present." By this, Professor Nash means men who will speak for God, who will give God's Word to the people. And it is true.

We are sure that it is neither news nor comfort to say that the whole country has been treated to such a freeze as it has not had in many long years. No place, so far as we know, has been exempt. It is from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the North Pole to the Gulf of Mexico. There has been great suffering in the North and West, especially on the part of the great cattle herds. Doubtless there is some compensation. If the germs of disease and the larvæ of destructive insects could be frozen out, it would be a blessing. They have the power, however, of enduring severe freezing and surviving.

The "Signs of the Times Monthly" for February is a number of decided interest. While called the Washington and Lincoln number, it is not confined to that topic. Washington and Lincoln are set forth as great, strong characters who believed in liberty, which ought to be prized at the present time. Apart from this the current topics deal with the United States Naval Power; Frauds — Their Meaning and Restraint; Halley's Comet; Situation in England, etc. Some of the special articles are The Great Apostasy; Washington and Lincoln; "What of the Night?" The First Day of the Week and Its Bible Claims; Why Keep Sunday Every Week? True Liberty; Divine Healing. There are other articles, Bible readings, poetry, etc., of interest and importance. It is an excellent number, full of important Bible instruction, and interesting in the facts which it presents. Ten cents a copy. The Monthly can be secured with the weekly at $2.25 a year.

The Year 1909

By Editor

THE best temporary record given of the events of the year is always found in the Chicago Daily Tribune of January 1. We note some of the statistics given for the year. They are truly signs of the times:

1. Disasters at Home and Abroad.—The loss of life resulting from disasters of various kinds reported by telegraph and in the public press are as follows: drownings, 3,835; fire, 2,197; mines, 1,342; cyclones and storms, 758; explosions, 532; killed by electricity, 220; by lightning, 198; asphyxiation, 186; elevators, 79.

2. Suicides in the United States.—There is, we are glad to report, a slight decrease over 1908, the total number being 10,230, as compared with 10,852 in the former year. Of these, 7,201 were males and 3,029 females; which seems to indicate, as in former years, that women bear up under trouble better than men. One of the great reasons perhaps is that they are more temperate. Among professional men, physicians still head the list, 27; 10 prominent attorneys, 9 clergymen, 7 college professors, 6 journalists, and 4 artists. One of the reasons for the decrease seems to have been in the greater prosperity of the past year. In 1908 there were over 600 who committed suicide because of despondency arising from business losses; last year but 81. The general causes, almost impossible to classify, are given as follows: despondency, 4,760; unknown, 1,487; insanity, 559; ill health, 936; domestic troubles, 834; disappointment in love, 243. Only 130 are ascribed to liquor-drinking; doubtless a great many of the others were the fruits of intemperance. It is a fearful showing. Think of a city of 10,230 completely giving itself up to self-destruction!

3. Fires in the United States.—The fire loss of last year was fearful, being $19,000,000 more than the year before, and $41,000,000 more than in 1907. The total amount of loss as recorded in the press amounts to $191,000,000. Between 375 and 400 fires occurred in which the loss of each equaled or exceeded $100,000.

4. Marine Disasters.—Loss of life by disaster upon the ocean during 1909 was 1,743, and upon the Great Lakes and other inland waters, 200.

5. Epidemics.—It is a cause for gratitude that some of the great epidemic diseases have been stayed by more effective sanitary agencies during the last year. The ravages of plague and cholera have been principally confined to Russia and China; the number of victims being a little over 5,000, as compared with 50,000 last year.

6. Wars.—While there have been no great wars in 1909, the casualties in the field have been larger than in 1908. One can hardly believe it; but 68,239 deaths are recorded as against 22,179 last year. More than half of these were in Asiatic Turkey—37,000; 10,000 in Morocco; 7,212 in Persia; 6,019 in Turkey proper; 3,879 in Spain; 1,962 in Nicaragua. Other smaller losses are reported from China, Albania, Russia, Africa, Philippines, Armenia, and Peru.

7. Homicides in the United States.—The number of deaths in this country by all kinds of personal violence, as reported by telegraph and recorded in the various states and territories, shows a falling off from 1908, as does the suicide list. For 1908 the number was 8,952; last year, 8,103. Some of the principal causes are given as follows: quarrels, 4,252; liquor, 689; by highwaymen, 897; jealousy, 572; infanticide, 335; highwaymen killed, 108. The Tribune points out that a significant feature of these figures is the increase of murders by highwaymen and thugs, being 185 more than in 1908.

8. Executions in the United States.—The number of legal executions are 107 as against 92 in 1908; 43 of these were in Northern states, and 64 in the Southern. And in these cases, 55 were Negroes, 48 whites, 3 Chinamen, and one Indian. The crimes for which they were executed were, murder, 99; rape, 82. Louisiana leads the fearful list with 19; Pennsylvania comes next with 12; New York and Virginia 10 each.

9. Lynchings.—There were 13 less lynchings in 1909 than in 1908—a gratifying showing, but still 87 mob murders in all. In 1908 there were 100. The highest record in 25 years was in 1892, when 235 were lynched. Georgia heads the list with 16 to her credit, or discredit; Mississippi 11; Louisiana and Texas each 10; Florida and Alabama each 7; Arkansas and Oklahoma each 5. Of the total number lynched, 73 were Negroes, 14 whites. The crimes alleged were as follows: murder, 47; rape, 14; attempted rape, 6; complicity to murder, 5; unnamed causes, 4; murderous assaults, 4; insults, 2; quarrels, barn-burning, burglary, window-peeping, and bringing suit against a white man, each 1. The only Northern state which indulged in mob murder was Illinois, in which 2 were lynched. Surely every normal, thinking person must feel that the crime, suicide, and lynching records are awful. Think of a civilized state in which so many meet death in an illegal way!

10. The embezzlemenst in 1909 amounted to $8,160,525.

11. The agricultural yields of the country were indeed colossal. The estimated worth of 6 cereals, namely, corn, wheat, oats, barley, rye, buckwheat, amounted to $2,921,010,000, a gain over the previous year of nearly $150,000,000. The value of the agricultural products, including flaxseed, potatoes, hay, tobacco, rice, and cotton, amounts to $8,760,000,000.

12. The bank clearings for 1909 amounted to $164,000,000,000. The statisticians tell us that the year to come will be more prosperous still.

13. The gifts and bequests during the year by Americans amounted to the total sum of $147,641,253; a little less than one half of which represented gifts; the balance bequests. Over $67,000,000 of this goes to charity; the larger part of the balance to educational institutions. Very much of this was given by men who have gathered their millions upon millions from the country. It is certainly less than common justice that they should pay a small portion of it back where it will benefit humanity.

Our Next Issue

By Editor

Our next issue is a continuation of the great topic begun in this number; namely, The Great Message for To-day. Some of the articles considered in that issue will be

The Law the Standard of Life and Character.

The Sabbath, Is It Temporal or Eternal?

The First Day of the Week and Its Claims upon Us.

Surely these are living questions. Upon the individual, be he worldling or church-member, the Sabbath question is forced. Very few legislatures indeed in the United States but what will be compelled to consider the subject during the next year. It is no longer a mere question for discussion in religious circles; it has entered political circles. Surely every thoughtful, earnest man will desire to understand the true basis of Sabbath claims. These we will endeavor to set before our readers from the view-point of the Bible. In our next issue we shall have something to say regarding the new money power in this country and what it portends.

The Presence I sit within my room, and joy to find That Thou who always lov'st art with me here, That I am never left by Thee behind, But by Thyself Thou keep'st me ever near; The fire burns brighter when with Thee I look, And seems a kinder servant sent to me; With gladder heart I read Thy holy book, Because Thou art the eyes by which I see; This aged chair, that table, watch, and door, Around in ready service ever wait; Nor can I ask of Thee a menial more To fill the measure of my large estate, For Thou Thyself with all a Father's care Where'er I turn, art ever with me there. — Jones Very.

A representation of aeroplanes in the air at one time in the great aviation meet at Rheims, August 22-29, 1909