WE would call special attention to the recommendations of the General Conference concerning the holidays.
1. It is recommended that the two Sabbath days—Christmas and New Year's—"be days of fasting, humbling of our hearts, and especially seeking God for his help."
2. It is recommended that the week between Christmas and New Year's be observed by our people generally as a week of prayer, for the blessing of God upon his work, his workers, and his people.
3. It is recommended that "on the Sunday following Christmas, our people everywhere assemble at their places of worship prepared to bestow their means to the very best of their ability in behalf of the objects presented," as was done last year.
There will be addresses sent to the churches throughout the country stating the wants of the cause, and the departments which immediately need our help the most. The work is spreading more rapidly than ever before. There are openings for the truth in every direction, but lack of means to send it. Soon the world will have been encircled with the light of the Third Angel's Message, and then there will be no use for means, and no more calls will be made. Those who expect to give anything at all, will have to do so soon. Those who expect to have any part in sending the message to the world must take that part soon, or they will have no chance. And when the day comes that no more means is wanted, and no more calls will be made, none can tell the agony of those who might have helped but did not help. Do not delay. Whether it be little or much do what you can now.
While thinking of these other things do not forget the regular missionary donation of the fourth Sabbath in the month. And remember that, this being the last month in the year, the missionary donation of the fourth Sabbath everywhere goes to the International Tract and Missionary Society. For eleven months the donations are devoted to the local work of each society, and the donation of the twelfth month is for the International Society. Let each of these matters receive its proper share of attention, and may the blessing of God be upon all.
A Tell-Tale Illustration.
By Editor
A GOOD illustration of the lightness and frivolity of those who constitute "religious society" is given in the Christian at Work of November 25, by a disgusting illustration termed "A Thanksgiving Medley." In the upper part of this picture is a long table at the respective ends of which are seated a weeping father and mother turkey, while on each side of the table is a row of empty chairs; this production is entitled "The Desolate Household." It is astonishing that any one professing Christianity should publish such a hideous caricature on the ravages of death, and no one who has realized half the meaning of the words, a "desolate household," would be guilty of such mockery. On each side of this production are other ridiculous figures, one a plucked turkey on crutches, and another a turkey on a bicycle—sketches worthy of a fourth-rate hoodlum comic paper.
But the central picture of the group is particularly objectionable. It represents one of the "Christians at work," we suppose, pulling a wish-bone out of a woman's mouth with his teeth. It would not be surprising to see such an exhibition in the Police Gazette, but it is surprising that a paper bearing the name "Christian" should fall so low. If this is to be taken as a standard of Christian propriety, can we wonder that indecent pictures are flaunted in the face of the public everywhere?
This picture is well called "A Thanksgiving Medley," and is a good illustration of the real spirit that underlies this festival. Thanksgiving has come to be synonymous with "gormandizing" and is supposed to be an excuse for revelry and surfeiting. But they that do such things "serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple" (Rom. 16:18); and are "enemies of the cross of Christ; whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is their shame, who mind earthly things." Phil. 3:18, 19.
THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES,
By Editor
PUBLISHED WEEKLY, AT OAKLAND, CAL., FOR THE
International Tract and Missionary Society.
A sixteen-page Religious Family Paper, devoted to a discussion of the Prophecies, Signs of the Times, Second Coming of Christ, Harmony of the Law and Gospel; with Departments devoted to Health and Temperance, the Home Circle, the Missionary Work, and the Sabbath-school.
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Address, SIGNS OF THE TIMES, Twelfth and Castro Streets, OAKLAND, CAL., U. S. A.
The Elect Cannot Be Deceived
By Editor
A RECENT number of the Golden Gate credits Seventh-day Adventists with teaching that Satan not only appears sometimes as "an angel of light," but "that he plays his part so well as to be able even to deceive the very elect." That is a misstatement of our position. Seventh-day Adventists believe and teach that Spiritualism is a Satanic deception; and they so believe because the Scriptures so teach. The Bible plainly declares that "the dead know not anything" (Eccl. 9:5), and that the spirits that personate them are "the spirits of devils." Rev. 16:14. But even though Satan works "with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness" (2 Thess. 2:9, 10), only those will be deceived who receive "not the love of the truth." From the words of the Saviour (Matt. 24:24) we learn that the elect, those who believe and love the truth, cannot be deceived.