—The attendance at the World's Fair last Sunday was 53,504.
—Fire destroyed twenty-six buildings in Spencer, Mass., on the 13th inst., causing a loss of over $300,000.
—Thirteen smuggled Chinese were captured at Oyster Bay, twenty miles from Olympia, Wash., on the 17th inst.
—A convent at Lockport, La., was demolished by a cyclone recently, when three sisters, a young lady pupil, and a servant were killed.
—As was expected, the British House of Lords, by a large majority, defeated the Irish Home Rule Bill recently passed by the Commons.
—The city treasurer of Seattle, Wash., has gone to British Columbia, and an examination of his accounts shows a shortage of $125,000.
—Canada has enacted a new law against lotteries, imposing heavy fines and imprisonment, which "laws apply to all games of chance except church fairs."
—Typhoid fever is reported to be epidemic at the Good Templars' Orphans' Home, near Vallejo, Cal. There are thirty little patients on the sick list, and trained nurses are needed.
—Of the 9,000 pilgrims who went to Mecca on May 4, 500 perished of cholera and other diseases. Of a body of 700 Turkish troops who were detailed to bury the dead, 500 also died.
—A Constantinople dispatch says that cholera has broken out there in the central prison and in the French and municipal hospitals at Pera. Several cases are reported in the Argentine Republic.
—Governor Northen, of Georgia, has issued an appeal to the people of the State to furnish money and provisions for the destitute and suffering of Brunswick, where the yellow fever continues its hold.
—Five negroes, one a woman, suspected of burning a mill, were shot to death in the jail at Carrollton, Miss., on the night of the 14th inst., by a mob of masked men who forced their way into the prison.
—The great strike of coal miners in England has brought on a state of suffering, which, under existing circumstances, must continue to increase. The strike fund is exhausted, and thousands are being fed by charity.
—A Rome dispatch says that on the 12th inst. a mob of Italians attacked the Hungarian peasants at Delayses and tried to burn the town hall. The riot was quelled by troops after twenty-five persons had been killed.
—Late official advices from Tien-Tsin report disastrous floods in North China. Large tracts of country are laid waste, crops are destroyed, and houses swept away. As famine already exists, great suffering must result.
—While the country at large was about to become agitated over the naming of the new baby girl which lately graced the Presidential family, Mr. Cleveland cut the matter short by naming her Esther, ignoring all suggestions.
—A London dispatch says that another war with South African natives seems inevitable. The powerful Matabele tribe has become so aggressive that it will be necessary to subdue them, and the task is not deemed an easy one.
—It is seldom that a judge is actually prosecuted on a criminal charge, but the probate judge at Prescott, A. T., has been held to answer before the grand jury on three charges,—forgery, embezzlement, and presenting a fraudulent warrant for payment.
—There is a passenger rate war between the Southern Pacific and the Santa Fe companies, which, if not patched up, will result in material reductions of fare from California to the East. These little spats always show what the railroad companies can do when they want to.
—A Pittsburg, Pa., dispatch says a pension attorney, whose name is withheld, has been writing letters to persons whose pensions have been suspended, advising them to assassinate the President and the Secretary of the Interior. Copies of the letters have been forwarded to Washington.
—A band of robbers is supposed to be hidden in the brush which grows very thickly along the Mormon Channel in the vicinity of Stockton, this State. Several persons have been robbed of late within a few miles of the city—one case being that of a lady teacher on her way to a district schoolhouse.
—The Austrian authorities have suspended the constitutional provisions guaranteeing trial by jury, the freedom of the press, and the right to hold public meetings within the city of Prague and the districts of Weinberge, Karolinenthal, and Smichow, owing to the agitation in favor of home rule for Bohemia.
—The jail in Fresno, Cal., has now more than 100 tramps and thugs in it. It has been discovered that a large number of thugs are in Fresno waiting to rob grape pickers who come into the city with their wages. Several of these robberies have already occurred, and the police are making a general round-up of all suspicious persons, and the jail is overrunning.
—The extremely hot weather in the Southwest on the 13th inst. was hard on the people who are racing and striving for land entries in the Cherokee Strip. At Arkansas City, Kan., over fifty were overcome by the heat, six of whom died. At Orlando thirty-two were sunstruck and two died. At Hennessey eighteen were stricken down, one case proving fatal.
—A sensation was created at the Philadelphia mint last week by the discovery that thirty bars of gold bullion, worth $134,000, were missing. An old and trusted employe has confessed to the theft. He had been drawing on a vault containing $16,000,000 worth of bullion, which has not been investigated since 1887. The greater part of the missing treasure has been recovered.
—The province of Toledo, Spain, was swept by violent storms last week, causing extensive floods and great destruction of property. At Villa Canas the peasants sought refuge in caves on the hillside for the night, when a sudden rise of the water deluged the caves, drowning many of the occupants. Eighty corpses had been recovered. In another village over fifty people were drowned.
—The Cherokee Strip was opened to the thousands of would-be settlers on the 16th inst., and during the day it is said that 200,000 people entered the new territory, and the scramble for homes was terrific. Many were injured and several killed in the mad rush. Four new town sites have 5,000 inhabitants each, while several others have from 1,000 to 3,000. The lack of water and high prices of provisions threaten an era of suffering among the eager land seekers.
—Very extensive and destructive forest and prairie fires are said to be raging in Northern Wisconsin. Whole settlements and some small villages have been utterly destroyed, and several towns and cities are reported to be in imminent danger. In some places the people saved their lives by dropping into wells and caves, or covering themselves with wet blankets. Nearly the whole northern part of the State at latest accounts was covered with a dense cloud of smoke. The financial loss will be enormous.
—Concerning the naval rebellion in Brazil, U. S. Minister Thompson telegraphs to Washington, under date of the 14th inst., as follows: "At 11 o'clock this morning the revolutionary forces bombarded the forts commanding the entrance of the harbor and also the arsenal on a wharf in the center of the city. A few shells were fired into the city. A woman was killed in her residence. Commercial telegrams have been again forbidden. The Charleston [U. S. war ship] has not yet arrived." A later dispatch says that the revolutionists had taken several ports around the harbor, and that the president had left Rio Janeiro.
—On the night of the 11th inst. a daring train robbery was committed by twenty masked men near Kendallville, Ind., on the Lake Shore Railroad. The train was signaled by a false light, and when brought to a stand the engineer's inquiry as to what was the matter was answered by a rifle shot which seriously wounded him. The fireman was kept under cover of a revolver, while the express car was blown open with dynamite and a large sum of money taken. One of the noted Dalton brothers was supposed to have been the leader of the gang, as he was seen in Chicago the day previous, and cannot be found since. The robbers all escaped.
—On the 13th inst. ten Chinamen were arrested at Riverside under the Exclusion Act. Other arrests were made at San Bernardino, and five were arrested at Fresno. These arrests are stirring up the Chinese population more than all the riotous attacks upon them. But the latest phase of the question is that the U. S. Marshal is in a quandary in regard to prisoners under sentence of deportation. Judge McKenna will not admit them to bail, and the Attorney General has instructed the Marshal not to deport them until the Supreme Court has passed upon certain points in the Exclusion Act. It is now understood that the administration is determined to annul the Act, and a bill is before Congress having that end in view.
CONTENTS OF THIS NUMBER
By Editor
We send no papers from this office without pay in advance unless by special arrangement. When persons receive copies without ordering them, they are sent by other parties, and we can give no information in regard to them. Persons thus receiving copies of the SIGNS are not indebted to the office, and will not be called upon for pay. Please read the papers and hand them to your friends to read.
CONTENTS OF THIS NUMBER.
Editorial.—Notes and Comments—God's Wondrous Mercy—Not Quite Correct—Treason to Christ—The Exactness of a Science—Our Question Corner (No. 111, John 11:26 and 2 Cor. 3:7—112, Hos. 6:2—113, The One Fold in Christ—114, What Was "Done Away"? "Church"—115, Three Days and Three Nights)........................................................................................721, 722, 736
Doctrinal.—The Sighs of the Church (poetry)—The Mystery of God versus the Mystery of Iniquity—Secret Sins—True Sabbath Keeping—Truth Will Prevail......................................................................................................723–725
Miscellaneous.—My Shepherd (poetry)—"Why Halt Ye between Two Opinions?"—How to Take Hold of the Lord's Strength—Bible Prayers and Bible Answers—The Light of the World—What a Methodist Authority Says—Pay John Williams—How Will It End?—Signs That Show Christ's Coming Is Near...726–728
Home and Health.—The Journey of Life (poetry)—An Unexpected Prize (chapter 1)—Wine and Wit—In Two Chapters—The Friendly Lion—Raising Wrecks by Gas—Careless Habits of Bathing—A New Jellyfish........................................................................................................729, 730
Mission Fields.—A Few Thoughts—Indian Items—Zenana Work—Slavery in Siam........................................................730, 731
Our Work and Workers.—Do That He Bids Thee (poetry)—A Tour in Europe—From the Pitcairn—Good Words for the SIGNS—Field Notes.........................................................................................................................731–733
International S. S. Lessons.—Redemption in Christ (Lesson 2, Sunday, October 8)—Walking in the Light (Lesson 1, Sabbath, October 7)—Analysis of the First Epistle of John.........................................................................................................734
News and Notes.—Religious—Secular........................................................................................................735
WE do not believe in serial stories as a general thing, but we are constrained to present one before our readers, entitled "An Unexpected Prize." We hope our readers may find the prize as they read the story.
WE ask a careful reading of the article on "The Mystery of God versus the Mystery of Iniquity." Hand the paper to sincere lovers of truth and righteousness and of the word of God. Let them see by the evidence presented from God's word that no man who knows the mystery of God, which is "Christ in you the hope of glory," can ever demand religious legislation, but that the principle of religious legislation is the principle of the mystery of iniquity which would usurp the very place of God.
THE Evangel and Sabbath Outlook, as quoted by the Cottage Pulpit of September, says: "The book of Acts and the letters of Paul, taken all together contain but one reference to the first day of the week (Acts 20:7)." We did not notice the article in the Outlook, but presume that the Pulpit has quoted it correctly. We are surprised at the oversight on the part of the acute editors of both papers. 1 Cor. 16:2 is in one of Paul's letters, and it mentions "the first day of the week." It was truly a lapsus stylus.
A WRITER of Salt Lake City, in the Deseret Weekly News of some time ago, endeavors to break the force of Ps. 146:4, "His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish," by saying that "perish" means runs out. He says "per" is a Latin root and means through; "ish" implies motion or passing; hence when the body dies, the thoughts perish or pass out of it." But the Hebrew word abad, from which "perish" is translated, is defined "to be lost." It is translated many times "destroy" and "destroyed." See Jer. 1:10; 18:7; Eze. 30:13; Deut. 12:2. The same writer, while correctly holding that at death the spirit goes to God, incorrectly makes that spirit a conscious, intelligent entity, confounding it with spiritual beings, as angels or demons, whereas the word of God counts it simply life. The writer of the article misapprehends the view of Seventh-day Adventists on the question.
THE Midwinter Fair in San Francisco is an assured thing. Within seven weeks from the time the first step was actually taken, committees had been appointed, ground secured and surveyed, contracts let for grading and excavating, and the ground broken. The first shovelful was lifted August 24, in the presence of 120,000 people. California can push things when it makes an effort and is united. The one obstacle impeding its progress at the present is the religious one. Our Sunday friends want to compel the Fair to keep Sunday.
THE GENERAL CONFERENCE BIBLE SCHOOL.
By Editor
This most important school opens in Battle Creek, Mich., October 12 and will continue twenty-four weeks. This school is not designed for those who have time and means to attend any of our excellent colleges, but for those who desire to labor in the cause and who need a preparation to fit them for the work. It is especially designed to help those in older years, as well as those of our ministers, licentiates, and Bible workers who may be able to spend this time for this purpose. There are hundreds in our various churches throughout this country who, by availing themselves of this opportunity and by consecrating themselves and their all to God, could be of great service in winning souls to Christ. The instruction will be simple and yet thorough. The Bible instruction will cover the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles to the Galatians and Romans, the prophecy of Isaiah, and topical study on the word of God, creation and redemption; sin,—its origin, effects, power, and punishment; power and work of the Holy Spirit; life in Christ; the two mysteries; the new birth, etc., etc., etc. Instruction will be given in the English language and special work, including health and temperance. The tuition for the full course, three studies, will be $3.50 per month; two studies, $2.65 per month; one study, $1.75 per month. If any person is appointed to any work at or before the close of the term by the General Conference, Foreign Mission Board, any State Conference, or the S. D. A. Medical Missionary and Benevolent Association, tuition will be refunded. All who attend will be expected to care for themselves as regards board and room. The expense in that city will range from $2.50 to $3.50 per week.
We look for great results from the school. We would that everyone could attend who ought to be there. All who desire to attend should correspond with Elder L. T. Nicola, Review and Herald, Battle Creek, Mich., and make preparation to do so at once.