Earlier text: Elihu on the SabbathThe General Tract Organization.
By S. N. Haskell
At the extra sessions of the General Conference held at Battle Creek, Nov. 12th and 13th, 1876, it was voted to revive the above-named Society, with Sister M. Chapman as treasurer. By virtue of his office the President appointed Sister Chapman as Secretary also. The necessity of a General Tract Organization was felt for years. The Society was therefore organized at the session of the General Conference in 1874, but a pressure of other matters and unavoidable circumstances prevented the organization from receiving that attention which it deserved. There are companies of Sabbath-keepers in different sections of this country, also in Europe and other parts of the world, that are not organized with any conference of Seventh-day Adventists. When they learn of our Association they are anxious to co-operate with us in the missionary work. There are also many individuals who have embraced our doctrines, and are observing the Sabbath of the Lord, yet have never met others of like faith, excepting perhaps members of their own families who believe with them. Words of sympathy and counsel from those experienced in the faith are of great encouragement and assistance to these isolated ones struggling on alone. One object of this organization is to reach such companies and individuals as we have mentioned, and to link their interests with the cause of God in a special manner. Proper reading matter, and all other practicable assistance should be furnished them to build them up in the most holy faith. Again, if it is necessary to have organized State Conferences, in which the various churches are united, and if it is best to unite the different State Conferences in a General Conference to secure a unanimity of action throughout the entire body, and a concentration of its strength, then it is equally necessary that all our Tract Societies should unite in one general organization that will sustain the same relation to the various Tract Societies that the General Conference sustains to the different State Conferences. We are a one people, a unit in faith; no rending schism breaks our ranks. The union of sentiment existing among those who are keeping the commandments of God, in different parts of the world, separated as they are from one another by distance and national customs and caste, is truly wonderful. This remarkable union can only be attributed to the fact that God is the Author of those truths which have characterized our people for more than a quarter of a century. There are companies now in Spain, France, Italy, Prussia, Holland, Austria, and certain parts of Africa and Asia who have embraced the views held by the Seventh-day Adventists of America, and, in a number of instances, they have done so without knowing at the time that there were others of like faith in the world. Having learned of our existence as a church, they extend their arms to us for sympathy and help. They are greatly encouraged when they learn the extent of our work, and read the periodicals and publications which disseminate our precious truths. Hundreds of dollars have been expended by some of our conferences in sending our publications to different parts of the world. It is reasonable then, and, in fact, it has become a necessity that there should be a General Conference Tract Organization, sustained by the various Conference Tract Societies for the purpose of extending the light and truth which they have so bountifully received, to those who have less privileges, but are looking and longing for the appearing of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. We bid these recruits a hearty welcome to our ranks. We invite them to participate in the joys and sorrows common to those who are waiting for the coming of the Son of man. No caste of nation or class should be a barrier between those whose hearts rejoice in the present truth. All who revere God's holy law can meet upon this one platform—the “commandments of God and the faith of Jesus,” and then wait for the revelation of Him who is the joy of their hearts. But this tract and missionary work should be reduced to a complete and thorough system in order to accomplish the greatest possible good. Separate Societies acting in a limited manner can do little compared with what they might do if joined in an organized body with proper officers operating on a wide and extended plan. It can be readily seen that there is no place more fitting for the head-quarters of this organization than the great center of our work, where its chief publishing houses are located. To this place our publications direct the mind of the inquirer after truth. And there is no individual so fitting to be the President of such a society as the President of the General Conference. There is no one more suitable to be the secretary of this Society than some one connected with the publishing work at Battle Creek, Michigan. It is with such officers that the General Tract Organization is revived, and friends of the cause are invited to correspond with the Secretary of the General Society, Mrs. M. J. Chapman, Battle Creek, Mich., or with its President, Eld. James White, Oakland, California. In the absence of a General Tract and Missionary Organization many companies in this country have joined the New England Tract Society because their attention was first called to the truth by the efforts of members of that Conference, and these companies have received publications from that Conference. Now their names will be forwarded to the General Secretary, to be enrolled in the General Society, their donations will be sent to the Treasurer of that body, and all business pertaining to the missionary work in connection with such companies will be promptly attended to by the officers of the General Tract and Missionary Society. This arrangement does not include scattered individual members of regular organized churches amenable to their respective conferences. These individuals retain their memberships and labor as heretofore. But all who have become interested in the present truth and wish to obtain our publications, or any party, not belonging to any Conference organization of S. D. Adventists, but desirous of transacting business with us in connection with the tract and missionary work, are invited to communicate with the proper officers of the General Tract Society. This plan will in no wise prevent individual members of Tract Societies from laboring as heretofore to call the attention of thinking minds, by correspondence or otherwise, to the solemn truths we advocate. Scores are to-day observing the Sabbath as the result of such labor, and still greater results might be accomplished in this direction if the importance of the work was fully realized by those who are at liberty to engage in it. Our field is the world, and God's providence leads the way far in advance of us and bids us follow. We long to see the time when there will be a hearty co-operation of every company of Seventh-day Adventists on the globe. The New England Conference has to some extent, although under great disadvantages, tried for a few years past to systematically prosecute the tract and missionary work. For this purpose they organized a vigilant Society, and have since seen the blessed fruit of their labor. This Association has had a fund for missionary purposes, and hundreds of dollars have been expended in the cause. Now from its scanty treasury the Society donates $50.00 to the General Fund and invites its sister Tract Societies to appropriate of their means as God has given them the ability. We hope before the next session of the General Tract and Missionary Society that we shall receive a definite report from co-operating societies and individuals in different parts of the world, and we sincerely invite the various Tract Societies to unite in sustaining this organization. S. N. HASKELL. The Heavenly Race.
By A. SMITH
The ancient Greeks celebrated a variety of solemn games called Olympic, from a town in which they were held called Olympia. These celebrations occurred once in four years; whence originated the olympiad period of chronology, dating from B. C. 776. These games were dedicated to Jupiter, the god of heaven, and had, therefore, almost the sanctity of religious worship. Those who entered the list as athletes were required to submit to rigid discipline, subsist on a coarse and spare diet, use no wine, and observe strict continence; and while contending for the prize they were disencumbered of superfluous clothing, or such as would hinder a free use of their limbs. On either side of the stadium, or race course, were terraces provided with seats for the spectators. At the end of the stadium was placed the prize in full view of the contestants. Judges were appointed to decide the qualifications of the athletes, and to award the prizes. In view of these facts, employed as figures, how forcible the exhortation of the apostle, “Wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race set before us.” Heb. 12:1. Some of the weights that must be laid aside by the Christian are thus enumerated by Paul: “Put off all these things, anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, and filthy communication out of your mouth.” The Christian is engaged in a contest for a fadeless, immortal crown. The athletic runs for a perishable crown. But as the heavenly crown exceeds in glory that of laurels or pine with which the contestant is rewarded, so the life and conversation of the child of God exceeds in importance the preparatory discipline of the athletic. He who is “the author and finisher of our faith” prescribes the conditions of the heavenly race, and awards the prize. He has himself trodden the holy stadium in the days of his flesh; he suffered human woe; his heart was rent with human sorrow; there is no bitter cup for the lips of humanity that Jesus has not tasted; and all for our sakes, that he might lift us to the companionship of angels, and bring us near the throne. Oh, then, let us not become discouraged when we remember our past misdeeds, our neglect of duty, and our present unworthiness and helplessness; but by faith grasp the precious promises of God, who is waiting to bestow his rich blessings, and qualify us to tread the narrow way to life eternal. A. SMITH.
Jenisonville, Ottawa Co., Mich. Formation of Coal Beds.
By J. B. Frisbie
In order to give some idea of the luxuriance of the vegetation of the primitive world, I refer to the immense masses of vegetable matter which were doubtless accumulated in currents and have been converted in a moist condition into coal. That coal has not been formed from vegetable fibers charred by fire, but that it has probably been produced in the moist way by the action of sulphuric acid, is strikingly demonstrated by the excellent observation made by Goppert on the conversion of a fragment of amber-tree into black coal. The coal and the unaltered amber lay side by side. Regarding the part which the lower forms of vegetation may have had in the formation of coal beds, I would instance the Saarbrucker coal measures, where 120 beds are superposed on one another, exclusive of a great many which are less than a foot in thickness; the coal beds of Johnstone, in Scotland, and those in the Creuzot, in Burgundy, are some of them, respectively, thirty and fifty feet in thickness, while in the forests of our temperate zones, the carbon contained in the trees growing over a certain area would hardly suffice, in space of a hundred years, to cover it with more than a stratum of seven French lines in thickness. In comparing this bed of carbon, seven lines in thickness, with beds of coal, we must not omit to consider the enormous pressure to which the latter have been subjected from superimposed rock, and which manifests itself in the flattened form of the stems of the trees found in these subterranean regions. The so-called wood-hills discovered in 1866 by Siromatskoi, on the south coast of the island of New Siberia, consist, according to Hedenstrom, of horizontal strata of sandstone, alternating with bituminous trunks of trees, forming a mound thirty fathoms in height; at the summit of which the stems were in a vertical position. The bed of drifted wood is visible at five versts' distance.” The above I extract from Alexander Von Humboldt’s Cosmos, Vol. I., p. 280, which is considered as good authority as can be given from a human source in such matters. The only comment I wish to add is the following from Spiritual Gifts, Vol. III., p. 79, the writer of which not only had no acquaintance with Humboldt’s works but knew not that any such theory existed as he has set forth above:— “In some places large quantities of these immense trees were thrown together and covered with stones and earth by the commotions of the flood. They have since petrified and become coal, which accounts for the large coal beds which are now found.” J. B. FRISBIE. Death—What Is It?
By Wm. Sheldon
We talk about death, and read about it, in the Bible, and also witness its devastation in our midst; yet there is a kind of theology passing current as orthodox faith, averring that in reality there is no death—that what is called death is simply a separation of the soul from the body. This is a rather bold assumption, for it is only an assumption with not a shadow of proof; but let us see if it will not cringe when put to the test. 1. If death really signifies a separation of the soul from the body, this definition will make sense when used as a substitute for death in these scriptures: “He which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from separating from the body.” “The wages of sin is a separation of the soul from the body.” “Which is the second separation of the soul from the body.” “Sin came into the world, and a separation of the soul from the body by sin.” The last enemy that shall be destroyed is a separation of the soul from the body.” “And there shall be no more separation of the soul from the body.” How do the advocates of the no-death theory like their own definition of death, when tried? 2. Isaiah said to Hezekiah: “Thou shalt die, and not live.” Isa. 38 : 1. So, to die, really means that one shall “not live.” To say, “Thy soul shall separate from the body, and not live,” would be as bad as to have it die with the body. 3. Solomon, in speaking of man and beast, says: “As the one dieth, so dieth the other.” So if the death of the beast is real, then man’s death is of the same nature, for they die alike. Death is the extinction of life; and with this view, the resurrection is indispensably necessary.—Wm. Sheldon. Bible Weights and Measures.
A day's journey was thirty-three and one-fifth miles. A Sabbath day's journey was about one English mile. A cubit is twenty-two inches, nearly. A hand's breadth is equal to three and five-eighths inches. A shekel of silver was about fifty cents. A shekel of gold was $8.09. A talent of gold was $13,809. A piece of silver, or a penny, was thirteen cents. A farthing was three cents. A mite was less than a quarter of a cent. A gerah was one cent. An ephah contains seven gallons and five pints. A bin was one gallon and two pints. A firkin was seven pints. An omer was six pints. A bath was three pints. —Mercy is twice blessed;
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes;
'Tis mightiest in the mighty; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice. “Have you examined that bill, James?” The lad handed his employer a long bill that had been placed on his desk for examination. “Here is an error in the calculation of ten dollars, which they have made against themselves; and another of ten dollars in the footing.” “Also against themselves?” The merchant smiled in a way that struck the lad as peculiar. “Twenty dollars against themselves,” he remarked in a kind of pleasant surprise. “Trusty clerks they must have!” “Shall I correct the figures?” asked the lad. “No, let them correct their own mistakes. We don’t examine bills for other people’s benefit,” replied the merchant. “It will be time to rectify those errors when they find them out. All so much gain as it now stands.” The boy’s delicate moral sense was shocked at so unexpected a remark. He was the son of a poor widow, who had given him to understand that to be just was the duty of man. Mr. Carman, the merchant in whose employment he had been for only a few months, was an old friend of his father, and a person in whom he reposed the highest confidence. In fact, James had always looked upon him as a kind of model man; and when Mr. Carman agreed to take him into his store, he felt that great good fortune was in his way. “Let them correct their own mistakes.” These words made a strong impression on the mind of James Lewis. When first spoken by Mr. Carman, and with the meaning then involved, he felt, as we have said, shocked; but as he turned them over again in his thoughts, and connected their utterance with a person who stood so high in his mother’s estimation, he began to think that perhaps the thing was fair enough in business. Mr. Carman was hardly the man to do wrong. A few days after James had examined the bill, a clerk from the house by which it had been rendered, called for settlement. The lad, who was present, waited with interest to see whether Mr. Carman would speak of the error. But he made no remark. A check for the amount of the bill was rendered, was filled up, and a receipt taken. “Is that right?” James asked himself this question. His moral sense said no; but the fact that Mr. Carman had so acted, bewildered his mind. “It may be the way in business”—so he thought to himself—“but it don’t look honest. I wouldn’t have believed it of him.” Mr. Carman had a kind of way with him that won the boy’s heart, and naturally tended to make him judge of whatever he might do in a most favorable manner. “I wish he had corrected that error,” he said to himself a great many times when thinking in a pleased way of Mr. Carman, and his own good fortune in having been received into his employment. “It don’t look right, but it may be in the way of business.” One day he went to the bank and drew the money for a check. In counting it over he found that the teller had paid him fifty dollars too much, so he went back to the counter and told him of his mistake. The teller thanked him, and he returned to the store with the consciousness in his mind of having done right. “The teller overpaid me by fifty dollars,” he said to Mr. Carman, as he handed him the money. “Indeed,” replied the latter, a light breaking over his countenance; and he hastily counted the bank bills. The light faded as the last bill left his fingers. “There’s no mistake, James.” A tone of disappointment was in his voice. “Oh, I gave him back the fifty dollars. Wasn’t that right?” “You simpleton!” exclaimed Mr. Carman. “Don’t you know that bank mistakes are never corrected? If the teller had paid you fifty dollars short he would not have made it right.” The warm blood mantled the cheek of James under this reproof. It is often the case that more shame is felt for a blunder than a crime. In this instance the lad felt a sort of mortification at having done what Mr. Carman was pleased to call a silly thing, and he made up his mind that if they should ever over-pay him a thousand dollars at the bank, he should bring the amount to his employer, and let him do as he pleased with the money. “Let people look after their own mistakes,” said Mr. Carman. James Lewis pondered these things in his heart. The impression they made was too strong ever to be forgotten. “It may be right,” he said, but he did not feel altogether satisfied. A month or two after the occurrence of that bad mistake, as James counted over his weekly wages, just received from Mr. Carman, he discovered that he was paid half a dollar too much. The first impulse of his mind was to return the half-dollar to his employer, and it was on his lips to say, “You have given me half a dollar too much, sir,” when the unforgotten words, “Let people look after their own mistakes,” flashing upon his thoughts, made him hesitate. To hold a parley with evil is to be overcome. “I must think about this,” said James, as he put the money in his pocket. “If it is true in one case, it is true in another. Mr. Carman don’t correct mistakes that people make in his favor, and he can’t complain when the rule works against himself.” But the boy was very far from being in a comfortable state. He felt that to keep half a dollar would be a dishonest act. Still he could not make up his mind to return it, at least not then. James did not return the half-dollar, but spent it to his own gratification. After he had done this it came suddenly into his head that Mr. Carman had only been trying him, and he was filled with anxiety and alarm. Not long after Mr. Carman repeated the same mistake. James kept the half-dollar with less hesitation. “Let him correct his own mistakes,” said he resolutely; “that’s the doctrine he acts on with other people, and he can’t complain if he gets paid in the same coin he puts in circulation. I just wanted half a dollar.” From this time the fine moral sense of James Lewis was blunted. He had taken an evil counselor into his heart, stimulated a spirit of covetousness—latent in almost every mind—which caused him to desire the possession of things beyond his ability to obtain. James had good business qualifications, and so pleased Mr. Carman by his intelligence, industry, and tact with customers, that he advanced him rapidly, and gave him, before he was eighteen years of age, the most reliable position in the store. But James had learned something more from his employer than how to do business well. He had learned to be dishonest. He had never forgotten the first lesson he had received in his bad school; he had acted upon it, not only in two instances, but in a hundred, and almost always to the injury of Mr. Carman. He had long since given up waiting for mistakes to be made in his favor, but originated them in the varied and complicated transactions of a large business in which he was trusted implicitly. James grew sharp, cunning, and skillful; always on the alert; always bright, and ready to meet any approaches towards a discovery of his wrong-doing by his employer, who held him in the highest regard. Thus it went on until James Lewis was in his twentieth year, when the merchant had his suspicions aroused by a letter that spoke of the young man as not keeping the most respectable company, and as spending money too freely for a clerk on a moderate salary. Before this time James had removed his mother into a pleasant house, for which he paid a rent of four hundred dollars; his salary was eight hundred, but he deceived his mother by telling her it was fifteen hundred. Every comfort that she needed was fully supplied, and she was beginning to feel that, after a long and painful struggle with the world, her happier days had come. James was at his desk when the letter was received by Mr. Carman. He looked at his employer and saw him change countenance suddenly. He read it over twice, and James saw that the contents produced disturbance. Mr. Carman glanced towards the desk, and their eyes met; it was only for a moment, but the look that James received made his heart stop beating. There was something about the movements of Mr. Carman for the rest of the day that troubled the young man. It was plain to him that suspicion had been aroused by that letter. Oh, how bitterly now did he repent, in dread of discovery and punishment, the evil of which he had been guilty! Exposure would disgrace and ruin him, and bow the head of his widowed mother even to the grave. “You are not well this evening,” said Mrs. Lewis, as she looked at her son’s changed face across the table, and noticed that he did not eat. “Perhaps a rest will make you feel better.” “I’ll lie down on the sofa in the parlor for a short time.” Mrs. Lewis followed him into the parlor in a little while, and, sitting down on the sofa on which he was lying, placed her hand upon his head. Ah, it would take more than the loving pressure of a mother’s hand to ease the pain from which he was suffering. The touch of that pure hand increased the pain to agony. “Do you feel better?” asked Mrs. Lewis. She had remained some time with her hand on his forehead. “Not much,” he replied, and rising as he spoke, he added, “I think a walk in the open air will do me good.” “Don’t go out, James,” said Mrs. Lewis, a troubled feeling coming into her heart. “I’ll only walk a few squares.” And James went from the parlor and passed into the street. “There is something more than headache the matter with him,” thought Mrs. Lewis. For half an hour James walked without any purpose in his mind beyond the escape from the presence of his mother. At last his walk brought him near Mr. Carman’s store, and at passing he was surprised at seeing a light within. “What can this mean?” he asked himself, a new fear creeping, with its shuddering impulse, into his heart. He listened by the door and windows, but he could hear no sound within. “There’s something wrong,” he said, “what can it be? If this is discovered what will be the end of it? Ruin! ruin! My poor mother!” The wretched young man hastened on, walked the streets for two hours, when he returned home. His mother met him when he entered, and with unconcealed anxiety, asked him if he were better. He said yes, but in a manner that only increased the trouble she felt, and passed up hastily to his own room. In the morning the strangely altered face of James as he met his mother at the breakfast table struck alarm into her heart. He was silent, and evaded all her questions. While they sat at the table the door bell rang loudly. The sound startled James, and he turned his head to listen, in a nervous way. “Who is it?” asked Mrs. Lewis. “A gentleman who wishes to see Mr. James,” replied the girl. James rose instantly and went out into the hall, shutting the dining-room door as he did so. Mrs. Lewis sat waiting her son’s return. She heard him coming back in a few moments; but he did not enter the dining-room. Then he returned along the hall to the street door and she heard it shut. All was silent. Starting up, she ran into the passage, but James was not there. He had gone away with the person who called. Ah, that was a sad going away. Mr. Carman had spent half the night in examining the account of James, and discovered frauds of over six thousand dollars. Blindly indignant, he sent an officer to arrest him early in the morning; and it was with this officer that he went away from his mother, never to return. “The young villain shall lie in the bed he has made for himself!” exclaimed Mr. Carman, in his bitter indignation. And he made the exposure completely. At the trial he showed an eager desire to have him convicted, and presented such an array of evidence that the jury could not give any other verdict than guilty. The poor mother was in court, and audibly in the silence that followed came her convulsed sobs upon the air. The presiding Judge addressed the culprit, and asked if he had anything to say why the sentence should not be pronounced against him. All eyes were turned upon the pale, agitated young man, who rose with an effort, and leaned against the railing by which he stood, as if needing the support. “Will it please your honors,” he said, “to direct my prosecutor to come a little nearer, so that I can look at him and your honor at the same time.” Mr. Carman was directed to come forward to where the boy stood. James looked at him steadily for a few moments, and turned to the judges. “What I have to say to your honors is this” (he spoke calmly and distinctly), “and it may in a degree extenuate, though it cannot excuse, my crime. I went into that man’s store an innocent boy, and if he had been an honest man I would not have stood before you to-day as a criminal!” Mr. Carman appealed to the court for protection against an allegation of such an outrageous character; but he was peremptorily ordered to be silent. James went on in a firm voice,— “Only a few weeks after I went into his employment I examined a bill by his direction, and discovered an error of twenty dollars.” The face of Mr. Carman crimsoned. “You remember it, I see,” remarked James, “and I shall have cause to remember it as long as I live. The error was in favor15 of Mr. Carman. I asked if I should correct the figures, and he answered ‘No; let them correct their own mistakes. We don’t examine bills for other people’s benefit.’ It was my first lesson in dishonesty. I saw the bill settled, and Mr. Carman take twenty dollars that was not his own. I felt shocked at first; it seemed such a wrong thing. But soon after he called me a simpleton for handing back a fifty-dollar bill to the teller of a bank, which he had overpaid me on a check, and then—” “May I ask the protection of the Court?” said Mr. Carman. “Is it true what the lad says?” asked the presiding Judge. Mr. Carman hesitated and looked confused. All eyes were on his face; and judges and jury, lawyers and spectators, felt certain that he was guilty of leading the unhappy young man astray. “Not long afterward,” resumed Lewis, “in receiving my wages I found that Mr. Carman had paid me fifty cents too much. I was about to give it back to him, when I remembered his remark about letting people correct their own mistakes, and said to myself, ‘let him correct his own errors,’ and dishonestly kept the money. Again the same thing happened, and I kept the money that did not of right belong to me. This was the beginning of evil, and here I am. If he had shown any mercy, I might have kept silent and made no defense.” The young man covered his face with his hands, and sat down overpowered with his feelings. His mother who was near him sobbed aloud, and bending over, laid her hands on his head, saying:— “My poor boy! my poor boy!” There were few eyes in the court-room undimmed. In the silence that followed Mr. Carman spoke out:— “Is my character to be thus blasted on the word of a criminal, your honors? Is this right?” “Your solemn oath that this charge is untrue,” said the Judge, “will place you in the right.” It was the unhappy boy’s only opportunity, and the court felt bound in humanity to hear him. James Lewis stood up again instantly, and turned his white face and dark, piercing eyes upon Mr. Carman. “Let him take his oath if he dare!” he exclaimed. Mr. Carman consulted with his counsel, and withdrew. After a brief conference with his associates, the presiding Judge said, addressing the criminal:— “In consideration of your youth, and the temptation to which in tender years you were unhappily subject, the Court gives you the slightest sentence, one year’s imprisonment. But let me solemnly warn you against any further steps in the way you have taken. Crime can have no valid excuse. It is evil in the sight of God and man, and leads only to suffering. When you come forth again after your brief incarceration, may it be with the resolution to die rather than commit crime!” And the curtain fell on that sad scene in the boy’s life. When it was lifted again, and he came forth from prison a year afterwards, his mother was dead. From the day her pale face faded from his vision as he passed from the court-room, he never looked upon her again. Ten years afterward a man was reading a newspaper in a far Western town. He had a calm, serious face, and looked like one who had known suffering and trial. “Brought to justice at last!” he said to himself, as the blood came to his face; “convicted on the charge of open insolvency, and sent to State Prison. So much for the man who gave me in tender years the first lessons in ill-doing. But, thank God! the other lessons have been remembered. ‘When you come forth again,’ said the Judge, ‘may it be with the resolution to die rather than commit a crime!’ and I have kept this injunction in my heart when there seemed no way of escaping except through crime; and God helping me, I will keep it to the end.” As THROUGH the pictured pages of fair nature's book, With searching eye and thoughtful mind you look, Or man's own varied thought, and life, and face you scan, Ranging his changeful history since time began, The sage's vigorous word wins acquiescence due— “The Beautiful is but the splendor of the True.” The sheen of flowers, the grace of arching forest trees, The symmetry of hills, the smile of summer seas, The spell of music, all the wondrous charms of sound, Man's works of mind or hand, where strength or grace is found— All things in art or nature, small, great, old or new, If true are beautiful, if beautiful are true. False notes in song, false words, falseness in act, or thought, or form, Whatever violates God's perfect law must still deform. Heaven is all beautiful, because no falseness there Can enter in, its ordered perfectness to mar. Art o'er its failures, sin its shame, thin veils may draw; Nought can be beautiful that violates a law. So let us strive, whatever else we lose or gain, Whatever works be failures, whatever hopes be vain, Disdaining futile arts, false colors, false display, All tinsel brilliancy, attract however it may— Strive still, in thought and life this maxim to renew, “The Beautiful is but the splendor of the True.” At an Episcopal convention a discussion on temperance brought up the wine “question.” A part of the clergy advocated its entire disuse, and a part took the other side. At length an influential clergyman rose and made a vehement argument in favor of wine, denouncing the radical reformers for attempting to banish this token of hospitality from us. When he had resumed his seat, a layman, trembling with emotion, rose, and asked if it was allowable for him to speak. The chair having signified that he would be heard, he said:— “Mr. Moderator, it is not my purpose in rising to answer the learned arguments you have just listened to. My object is more humble, and I hope more practical. I once knew a father in moderate circumstances who was at much inconvenience to educate a beloved son at college. Here this son became dissipated; but after he had graduated and returned to his father, the influence of home acting upon his generous nature, actually reformed him. The father was overjoyed at the prospect that his cherished hopes of other days were still to be realized. “Several years passed, when, the young man having completed his professional study and being about to leave his father for the purpose of establishing himself in business, he was invited to dine with a neighboring clergyman distinguished for his hospitality and social qualities. At this dinner wine was introduced, and offered to this young man and refused; pressed upon him, and again firmly refused. This was repeated, and again firmly refused. This was repeated, and the young man was ridiculed for his singular abstinence. He was strong to overcome appetite, but could not resist ridicule; he drank, and fell; and from that moment became a confirmed drunkard, and long since has found a drunkard’s grave. “Mr. Moderator,” continued the old man, with streaming eyes, “I am that father;” and it was at the table of the clergyman who has just taken his seat, that his token of hospitality ruined the son I shall never cease to mourn.” RELIGIOUS NEWS AND NOTES.
—Rev. Stephen H. Tyng, Jr., says that at least one thousand joined the various churches in New York, as the result of Moody's meetings, and scores of drunkards who were reformed and converted hold out to-day. —Last month the Episcopal Methodists of held a camp-meeting in Lucknow, India, which continued eight days and was attended by native Christians from Calcutta, Cawnpore, Allahabad and Agra. It was here that a general massacre of European Christians took place some twenty years ago. —Trouble threatens the Protestant missions in Mexico in consequence of the revolution now in progress there. A mission-house in one of the cities was recently surrounded by a Catholic mob and only escaped demolition by the timely arrival of troops. Whatever party finally secures the government, it is hoped that religious liberty will be guaranteed as under the old regime. —In one respect at least, some of the heathen nations put Christianity to shame. Madagascar, nearly the largest island in the world, being almost thrice as large as Great Britain, is an island nearly a thousand miles long, with mountains rising one thousand feet above the sea. In the capital of this island liquor is not allowed to be drunk, and drunkards are unknown, save at seaport places where Europeans are found. —Another Romish "miracle" has come to nought. Three children living at Marpingen, Prussian Rhineland, last summer declared that they had repeatedly seen the Holy Virgin in a wood close to their village, and their glowing asseverations, backed by the clergy, attracted thousands of pilgrims to the sacred spot. But alas! the children were recently tried by Judge Comes, at St. Wendel, and were obliged to confess that their beatific vision was only a lie. Thereupon they were sentenced to be placed in an educational institution for culprits under twelve years of age. —Rev. James F. Clark, missionary to Turkey, says that there are three influences which are specially unfavorable to the establishment of Protestant missions among the Bulgarians. (1.) The offer which the Pope has made to grant internal freedom in their church matters if they would accept protection and own his supremacy. (2.) The national feeling which has kept the Bulgarians a separate people for more than a thousand years, and resists any influence which seems to them liable to detract from the oneness of the nation. (3.) The infidelity which the younger Bulgarians, in their zeal for education, have embraced in France and other parts of Europe, whither they went to seek learning. —Mr. Clark further states that this is a time of special importance to the Bulgarian nation, aside from its complication with the Turkish troubles, since, during the past year, the government has conceded to the people the right of the church which shall be independent of the Greek See at Constantinople, with which they have been merged since 1767. The form of their new church the people have yet to decide, and naturally great anxiety is felt that it shall be so shaped as to advance the cause of Christianity in Bulgaria. —The rage against the Turks is beginning to abate somewhat, and the Christians of Europe are beginning to ask whether a change from Turkish to Russian rule would be so very beneficial after all. Perhaps under Russian rule Christians would not be butchered wholesale, but they would be subjected to persecutions which would go to any length short of death. Let him who doubts this read the following extract from the Russian Criminal Code:— Art. 207. Whoever endeavors, by preaching or writing, to seduce members of the Orthodox Church to join any other Christian community, will be punished, the first time with the loss of some of his special rights, and imprisonment for one or two years in a house of correction; the second time with imprisonment in a fortress from four to six years; the third time with the loss of all his personal and social civil rights and status, and transportation for life to Tobolsk or Tomsk (Siberia), with imprisonment of one or two years."