Earlier text: Nearer Than We DreamNews From Lake Titicaca
By W. A. S.
BECAUSE of the message from Elder F. A. Stahl, asking special prayer in behalf of the work at the Lake Titicaca Indian Mission, we know that many will be watching for the first news from that frontier post. Shortly, no doubt, we shall have a full report from Elder Stahl of experiences the mission has been passing through in the fresh outbreak of persecution. The first word, however, comes from Elder A. N. Allen, superintendent of the Peruvian Mission, who writes from Lima, the capital. The Indian Mission is about five days' journey from Lima by boat and rail, so that as yet few particulars had come through over the telegraph-lines. Elder Allen writes:— Our Indian work at Lake Titicaca is again in the limelight of publicity, caused by an assault made on our mission at Plateria by the bishop of Puno and about twenty mounted men and a number of others. Some damage was done to the mission property, and Camacho, our Indian teacher, and others of the believers were thrown into jail. A telegram just received from Brother Stahl says that they are free again. Brother Stahl was returning to the mission from La Paz, Bolivia, and arrived just a day or two after the attack. I got the wires to working through the American consul, and also through the pro indigina [the Peruvian commissioner for Indian affairs, as we should say]. Some of the papers in the south have been lauding our work too much to suit the bishop, I think. It will surely only mean another victory for us in the end. The work is God's, and to him be all the praise. It was about a year and a half ago that one of the bishops came up to the town of Chacuito, the nearest town to Plateria, the mission location, and delivered in the church an old-fashioned Roman curse upon the mission, and ordered the destruction of the work. We in lands where the Roman Church has not full sway can little realize the power that the priests wield in those far mountain highlands. The word was brought to Brother Stahl and to the Indian believers that they were to be driven out and destroyed. Every day the believers met and prayed the Lord to intervene in behalf of his truth. Word was telegraphed to Lima, and at that time also Elder Allen notified the authorities, and messages were quickly sent to the civil officers to allow no violence toward the mission. Even independent of these official messages, some hearts were remarkably changed in feeling toward our work, in which our brethren saw clearly the intervening hand of God. Also at that time two local spirits who had been most antagonistic to our work were suddenly called to their last account, one by sudden death, the other by sudden illness terminating fatally, and it seemed that the fear of God fell upon the hearts of those who had arrayed themselves against the work. In the meantime, however, the mission has been extending, and the numbers of believers have considerably increased. Recently the mission dispensary and school were moved from temporary quarters to our own buildings near the highway running round Lake Titicaca, and no doubt these signs of advancement stirred up again the ire of the ecclesiastical authorities. Surely our brethren will remember still this work and the workers in prayer, and as Brother Allen suggests, we may expect to see deliverance come and yet greater enlargement of the work. W. A. S. Christ and the Law of God
By C. M. S.
God’s will must be in harmony with his character. His law expresses his will. His law is, therefore, an expression of his character. To abolish that law would be to abolish the will of God, and to abolish the will of God would be to abolish the character of God, and that would be to abolish God himself. That, however, was what Satan started out to do when he declared his purpose, “I will be like the Most High;” “I will exalt my throne above the stars of God.” As there could not be two Most Highs, he who would be like the Most High must thrust the Most High out of his place and take that place himself; must put his law, his will, his character, in the place of that of the Most High. Let us see what is involved in such a usurpation and transformation. We have seen the law of God demonstrating the character of God by teaching men the essentials of holiness, so that they, with that criterion before them and the Holy Spirit to impress and to guide, have had their lives and characters fashioned after the life and character of the divine Pattern; and in that attitude of willingness and submission and loyalty to the law of the divine government, the robe of Christ’s righteousness has been thrown over them. Then the sins that are past, the fallings, the failures, and the weaknesses of the flesh are lost sight of, and there is seen in such individuals only that righteous life of the Redeemer, with the unchangeable law bearing witness to that righteousness. On the other hand, we have seen the character of the adversary—who would abolish God and his law—wrought out in the lives of men. They have abolished the law out of their lives, and have given themselves license to follow every dictate of unlawful and unholy desire. The result has been a stern harshness of character, a selfish disregard of the wishes and even the rights of others, an exaltation of self above every thought of service for others, and in the end a life as hard as the surf-beaten cliffs, and a future prospect as barren of hope as the glaciers of the Alps are of vegetation. In that heart the law of God was abolished, and the law of self-service, which is the law of Satan’s kingdom, took its place. Iniquity, usurping the throne of righteousness in the heart of man, has strewn the world with strife, contention, war, sorrow, misery, covetousness, greed, folly, licentiousness, desolation, death. But those things are not against men only: they are against God, primarily against him; for they are devastating his possessions and disputing his rule within his own dominion. The character developed by that rule of life is the very antithesis of the character of God. Of his character we read: “Jehovah is righteous in all his ways.” Ps. 145:17. “Righteous art thou, O Jehovah, and upright are thy judgments. . . . Thy law is truth. . . . Thy commandments are my delight.” Ps. 119:137-143. His righteous character developed judgments that are upright, a law that is truth, and commandments that are the delight of the true child of God. Our Saviour emphasized this when he said: “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.” John 15:10. Jesus Christ was a keeper of the law. In that keeping he demonstrated his loyalty to the Father and his right to represent the Father in the earth. To abide in the love of God, one must be in harmony with the will of God, and that will is expressed in his holy law. Note the blessed promise. “Ye shall abide in my love.” But the promise is368 contingent upon a certain attitude toward the commandments—“If ye keep my commandments.” What is the converse of the proposition? Certainly it must be this: If we do not keep his commandments, we shall not abide in his love. It is not difficult to comprehend what that would mean. If we do not abide in the love of Christ, we shall certainly fail of having an abode in his everlasting kingdom. How much depends, therefore, upon maintaining a right attitude toward the law of God! But, the objector says, that means Christ’s commandments, not the decalogue given on Sinai. Our Saviour’s own answer to that objection is: “Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets: I came not to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law, till all things be accomplished.” Matt. 5:17, 18. Could two supreme laws govern the same universe at the same time? Has our Saviour made a law to rule the universe? To do so would be to displace, or abolish, the law of the Most High; and that is what he explicitly declares he did not come into the world to do, and it could never be done. The law of ten commandments is the law of Christ. He kept it to the Father, and we keep it to him and to the Father. Christ was the mouthpiece of the Father. “I have given them thy word,” said our Lord in that wonderful prayer to the Father recorded in the seventeenth chapter of John. Again: “The words that I say unto you I speak not from myself: but the Father abiding in me doeth his works.” John 14:10. There is no shadow of idea set forth in any of our Saviour’s teachings that he had thrust aside the law of God and established a law of his own in its place. He came to teach obedience by the example of his own life; and he could not teach obedience by abolishing that which he set out to obey. The whole trouble, and the root of all the trouble in the world, was that man was disobedient, that he broke the law. We read: “As through the one man’s [Adam’s] disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one [Christ] shall the many be made righteous.” Rom. 5:19. How unjust to Christ and how untrue, therefore, is the declaration that he came to abolish the law of God! He did not; but he did come to abolish death, which is the result of the transgression of that law. Abolish the law and there is no need of the gospel. The gospel is the remedy for sin; but the Word declares that “sin is not imputed when there is no law.” Rom. 5:13. Therefore, with the law abolished, sin is gone; and as we do not need a remedy for something that does not exist, the need of the gospel—the remedy for sin—is swept away also. Upon that hypothesis the church for nearly two thousand years has been battling against something which did not exist, and seeking to mollify that non-existent wound with the lotion of the gospel. Into what an inextricable maelstrom of inconsistency and contradiction and confusion do they fall who argue the abolition of God’s holy and unchangeable law! The Basis of Our Hope
By F. M. W.
“Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward. For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.” Heb. 10:35-39. WHAT assurance have we that the Lord Jesus Christ will come to this earth the second time? How may we know that things will not continue for ages as they have existed from the foundation of the world? Our answer is found in the revelation of God to man. That word which tells us of the coming of the Lord in humility nineteen hundred years ago as clearly proclaims his coming a second time in glory and majesty. This faith has been cherished by the church of God in every age. It was contained in the promise to Adam that the seed of the woman should bruise the head of the serpent. “Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied” of the coming of the Lord with “ten thousand of his saints.” Job, in the days of the patriarchs, declared his faith in a living Redeemer, “that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth,” and that in his flesh would he for himself, with his own eyes, behold the Lord. In the writings of David, the sweet singer of Israel; of Daniel, the prophet-statesman; of Joel; of Amos, the herdsman; of Zechariah, in his highly figurative description of the coming kingdom; of Malachi, whose prophecy closes the Old Testament scriptures, the coming of the Lord is set forth as the grand fruition of the Christian’s hope. It was made the chief object of prophetic vision. Of it the bards sang and the poets wrote. Even in the days of darkness and depression, when Israel was a stranger in a strange land, the glories of the coming state and of Israel restored, were the hope that kept the heart from sinking. The same blessed hope is set before the church of God in the New Testament scriptures. Of his coming in his kingdom, of the time when he shall be seated on the throne, of his glory when he shall descend to earth with myriads of the heavenly hosts to gather his children to himself, the Lord speaks in no uncertain terms. Note his prophetic utterance as recorded in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21. It was this hope which cheered the hearts of the disciples and nerved them for the conflict when separated from their divine Lord. Listen to the words of the angelic messengers: “Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.” Acts 1:11. “This same Jesus!” How these words must have thrilled their hearts! From one they had come to love better than life they had been separated. The one who had been their companion in trials, a sharer of their joys and griefs, their comforter in many trying hours; the one with whom they had labored and toiled and watched and prayed, with whom they had made common cause in hope and purpose, in persecution and suffering, for whom in following they had forsaken all and subordinated every earthly ambition; the one who had become life of their life and hope of their hope, had left them to go to his Father, and they were deprived of his blessed presence. But before leaving he had breathed upon them his own blessed Spirit. Their hearts had thrilled and responded anew to the hope and desires and purposes which possessed his. They joyfully assumed the commission he had given them to perform, realizing that his watchful eye was upon them; that he took account of their labors, and that though absent from them, by his own blessed Spirit he would still continue to share in their experiences; and then as the climax of all there was the assurance of a renewal of that blessed association which they had enjoyed with him so intimately. “This same Jesus” was to come again and take them unto himself. This hope cheered John, James, and Peter alike, as is evidenced by their later epistles. Peter tells of the coming of the “chief Shepherd,” the one who had commissioned him during his absence to feed his sheep (1 Peter 5:4); James exhorts the believers to be “patient . . . unto the coming of the Lord;” and John professes the same abiding faith in the coming of his beloved Master. The great inspirational hope in the heart of Paul was the coming of the Master. Read his weighty argument on the resurrection in the fifteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians. See369 how he sets forth the grand climax, the hope of the church in every age, as the coming of the Lord and the resurrection of the saints at that time. Read his comforting word as contained in the fourth chapter of the first epistle to the Thessalonians. It was the hope he placed before the believers at Colosse, at Philippi, in Galatia, and the church at Rome. There can be no mistaking the character of this hope. It was more than a fantasy, an ideal. It was a vision, a revelation to the soul, a part of the very life. It furnished inspiration for labor, and nerve for the conflict. It was a real, tangible, genuine, enduring hope, and all this it remains to the church of to-day. In these days of darkness to what other source shall we turn for relief? How else shall we obtain freedom from the pall of sin? In what other way will misery and crime and sickness and death be banished from the earth? How else can there come surcease from pain and crying and tears? Lost and undone indeed would be our condition without the blessed assurance in the Scriptures of Truth of our Lord’s return. Thus the hope of the saints of God in every age, of apostle, priest, prophet, and king, is our hope to-day. The basis of that hope is the unchanged and unchangeable word of our blessed Master. Upon this we may rest with assurance. Following the Light
By F. M. W.
In the human family the ill effects of man's disobedience are everywhere apparent. Men's bodies have become dwarfed, enfeebled, diseased. The human race to-day is the prey of numberless maladies, and each year affords new diseases or new complications in old ones. And we must conclude from the testimony of Scripture that these conditions will grow worse until they culminate in the terrible pestilences of the last days. In view of these conditions it naturally would be expected that the gospel message for this time should embrace not only the quickening of men's spiritual natures, the transformation of their character, but that there should be connected with it that which would offer some relief from the terrible effects of sin as seen in the physical degeneracy of the human race. This it does. The message represented by this movement is a message of reform which calls men to a higher standard of both spiritual and physical living. Instruction has been given this people for many years through the servant of the Lord regarding the principles of healthful living. Again and again through the testimonies of the spirit of prophecy have these principles been urged upon the attention of our people. Some have given to this instruction careful study. Consistently and faithfully they have endeavored to apply the principles of health to their own families and to their own individual needs, and God has blessed in this effort. Others have indifferently turned from the instruction and persevered in disobedience to the laws of life and health. These have suffered great loss. Surely when light is sent the people of God, it is important that they give to it diligent heed. It is not enough to argue that it is inconvenient to do so, that it is easier to follow the old beaten paths. The children of Israel felt this way in the wilderness, and longed for the dietary of Egypt. Their course brought darkness and backsliding. Nor does it avail to point to some misguided member of the church, who, in perversion of judgment, has wrongly applied the principles, and becoming extreme in his conceptions, has made his own standard of living a test and gage by which to judge the Christianity of others. Every movement has had its misguided votaries. The unwise course pursued by extremists does not lessen our responsibility to follow the light which God has given. We find some professed Seventh-day Adventists who take extreme positions with reference to Sabbath observance, the coming of the Lord, and other cardinal features of the message we hold. This by no means detracts from the force of these truths. Nor does the unwise course of others in dietary reform lessen our individual responsibility to obtain, from better habits of living closer, observance of the laws of our being, the blessings which God designs we shall receive. It is not for us to judge our brethren in meat or in drink. It is not for us to erect some personal standard of reform and by it seek to gage the conduct of our fellows. But it does behoove every Seventh-day Adventist to take the light and counsel which have come to this people on this important question, and make of the principles involved a faithful and earnest personal study, and in his own life apply them just so far as circumstances will permit, and as God gives him wisdom. We are confident that to those who do this there will come rich blessing. Without this how can we expect to be kept in the times of peril upon which we have entered? How can we expect the protection of heaven from disease and pestilence if we walk contrary to that which we know, or to that which it is our privilege to know? Ignorance of the subject can not consistently be urged as an excuse for neglect of the principles. It is the duty of every child of God to become acquainted with the laws of his being, to study the questions of health from a scientific and a physiological standpoint. No large amount of erudition is necessary for this work. A knowledge of the simple principles of hygiene and physiology may easily be obtained. The science of proper cooking and dietetics may be made to come within the range of knowledge of the ordinary housewife. Much valuable instruction is afforded in our health journals, in the Home and Health department of the REVIEW, and above all in the “Testimonies for the Church,” to say nothing of the treatment of these questions from a scientific basis as contained in scientific books to which all have access. Our sisters,—especially wives and mothers,—the teachers in our schools, our ministers, in fact all who stand before the people as leaders and instructors, have a duty to become intelligent on the question of healthful living. They owe it to their position; they owe it to those who look to them for guidance. Let us walk in the light of God. Then we can take hold of him with confidence, with no mountain of transgression and condemnation arising before us to eclipse our faith. Let us honor God by obedience to the principles of truth, and then God will honor us in the fulfilment of the promises of his Word in relation to our physical well-being. Then will the Lord fulfil to us the promise made to Israel of old: “If thou wilt diligently harken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the Lord that healeth thee.” Note and Comment
By Editor
The religious journals comment freely upon the terrible disasters that have visited the Central West during the last few weeks. The Examiner of April 3 says:— It is, undoubtedly, an “act of God,” who sent the whelming rains; but the reason for it is beyond our ken. The Northwestern Christian Advocate says:— Again, our vaunted scientific age has received a severe shock by this raid of nature’s forces. No astuteness of mind, no known law of science, gave the wise ones any inkling of the morrow’s titanic program. Man closed his eyes in sleep for a few minutes and was awakened by the shock of an aroused monster.370 Of course, we can explain it to-day, but no secret of nature could come galloping to us in premonitory warning. About the time we have builded our house on the sands of science, the winds blow and the floods come and our house falls in confusion. We have no particular insight into the laws of nature. How can we conceive a science of religion? We speak of the natural disturbances of the past week as terrible. We seem too stunned to seek a way of explanation. Some of the journals seek to harmonize disasters of this character with the judgment and mercy of God. Speaking on this point, the Lutheran of April 3 says:— Such disasters, because of their suddenness and unexpectedness, completely overshadow in importance, in the popular mind, evils infinitely more appalling than they. Think of the sorrow and distress which sin is bringing with it every day in millions of homes outwardly prosperous. The tempests and floods of a whole century do not begin to cause such havoc in men’s lives as the breaking of the ten commandments do in a single year or even month. . . . Who gives this a thought? Verily, the loss of life and property wrought by storm and flood, is not to be compared with the disasters wrought by sin, terrible though the former for the moment seem to be. The Advance of April 3 refers to the recent disasters, in the same way:— There has come to this country a pamphlet in German by Professor Lutgert, of Germany, on the shock which the optimism of Europe received from the earthquake of 1755. At that time the greatest name among philosophers was Leibnitz, with his laws of monads and their eternal harmony. The brightest mind in contemporary life was Voltaire, with a theory of an esthetic benevolence in nature. And everywhere was a complacent deism that thought God was good but that he was not very much in earnest. Then on Nov. 1, 1755, the city of Lisbon went down with a loss of between 30,000 and 40,000 lives, and men began anew to examine their theories. From that time, Professor Lutgert maintains, the rationalists ceased to be as optimistic as formerly, and taught a doctrine of submission to the inevitable; while the orthodox, who had been counted pessimists in their sterner doctrine of God, now rallied to a new faith, preached a goodness that could not be submerged by any calamity of life, a trust in God that no shock could overthrow, and a new emphasis on free will. Thus, as this author contends, the rationalists became the pessimists, and the Christians were revealed as the true optimists. There had been a removal of the things that had been shaken, that the things that were not shaken might remain. We believe that God in his infinite love permits such disasters for the very purpose of leading men to give thought to the questions of sin and the way of escape therefrom. In regard to this we quote the following from “Testimonies for the Church,” Vol. IX, page 97:— More and more, as the days go by, it is becoming apparent that God’s judgments are in the world. In fire and flood and earthquake, he is warning the inhabitants of this earth of his near approach. The time is nearing when the great crisis in the history of the world will have come, when every movement in the government of God will be watched with intense interest and inexpressible apprehension. In quick succession the judgments of God will follow one another,—fire and flood and earthquake, with war and bloodshed. O that the people might know the time of their visitation! There are many who have not yet heard the testing truth for this time. There are many with whom the Spirit of God is striving. The time of God’s destructive judgments is the time of mercy for those who have had no opportunity to learn what is truth. Through the ministration of the Spirit, through the preaching of the cross, through the circulation of the Scriptures and the distribution of religious literature, God is seeking to save men from the wrath to come; and just as surely is he saying, “Come,” through fire and flood and sickness and sorrow which he permits to visit the human family. He is not the author of sorrow in that he creates it, but he does permit it, and he permits it in love. May God grant that those for whom the lesson is designed may learn it and turn to him who wounds that he may heal, and bruises that he may bind up again. ONE of the great problems before the people of this country at the present time, in both its religious and civil phases, is the divorce problem. Perhaps there is no one tendency which shows so greatly the laxity of the moral tone as the rapidly increasing number of divorces that are granted annually. Destroying as it does so many homes, and affecting in such a large degree the social and civil life of the people, the question is one proper for consideration by the state, and the moral phase of the question should appeal more forcibly to the Christian church. Speaking of this, the New York American says:— To what extent the divorce evil is encroaching on our national life is shown by the report of the Illinois commission appointed to secure evidence on that subject. The figures it submits are staggering. Within the last half-century divorce has increased on an average of more than three and one-third times as fast as the population. In the past year it is estimated that 100,000 divorces were granted; it is within moderation to say that in the last fifty years 2,000,000 homes have been wrecked, and that nearly a million and a half of children under the age of ten were deprived of one or both parents. Compare the figures for 1900 in twenty European countries, in addition to Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, with a total population of 267,000,000 as against our population at that time of 76,000,000. The divorces granted in the twenty-three countries were 27,000. The divorces granted in this country were 50,000. The rate here was seven times that of Europe. The commission believes a remedy can be found only by a revision of our marriage laws. “We can never hope,” says its report, “to eradicate the evil of the divorce court until we safeguard the morals and health of the community by just, sane, and adequate marriage laws.” The teaching of the Scriptures permits divorce on one ground only, the violation of the seventh commandment. The church of Christ should consistently hold to this standard. It can not justly fellowship those who obtain divorce for the thousand and one reasons permitted by the civil court. The integrity of the home should be safeguarded, and the church should exalt the standard and seek to quicken the consciences of its members with reference to this important question. In spite of the protests of the powers and of the active blockade of the port of Montenegro by the war-ships of Austria, Germany, England, France, and Italy, active operations of the Montenegrins and Servians against Scutari continue unabated. The great powers are sensibly worried over their failure to bring about peace between the allies and Turkey, and seem at a complete loss to know how to proceed further in their efforts. While Russia has acquiesced in the blockade of Montenegro’s seaport, she has not participated in it, and the Austrians are now accusing the Russians of playing a double game. The king of Montenegro has given over the direction of the forces of Montenegro and Servia to a Servian general, and the Servians have been strongly reenforced before Scutari. In a combined attack against the chief fortress of that city, Great Tarabosch, the besiegers lost heavily, but it is reported that the fortifications were captured. The Turks report successful engagements with the Bulgarians near the Tchataldja fortifications. An engagement is also reported to have taken place between a Servian army and a detachment of the Turks numbering several thousand, whose whereabouts had been a mystery for some time. The Turks were defeated with considerable loss, and their hospitals and wounded were left in the hands of the Servians. It is reported that practically the whole of the Adrianople army has left the vicinity of that city, and will join the forces now lying in front of the Tchataldja11 lines. While the Turks have accepted the peace plans of the greater powers, the allies are holding aloof and continuing their operations. The fear is expressed that if coercive measures are adopted by the greater powers, there are liable to be clashes of interests which would embroil all Europe. The British prime minister has announced that by reaching an agreement to restrict Montenegro’s activities and maintain the independence of Albania, the powers have averted a war among themselves which otherwise would doubtless have occurred. But the seriousness of the situation is still recognized. The German chancellor, in submitting the government bills in the Reichstag on April 7, gave expression to the imminent danger existing, and did not hide his fears of a clash between Germany on the one side and France and Russia on the other. A FINANCIAL panic has been hovering over Europe for some weeks, due to the present war and the fear of a greater one. Germany fears that if ever she should be in a war grapple with England or Russia, France would make an attempt to retake Alsace-Lorraine, and that such a combination against her would require all her resources both of men and of means. France has been giving much attention to her army, and is preparing a great fleet of air-ships, both aeroplanes and dirigible balloons. Germany, in seeking to prepare herself to meet this military increase on the part of France, has had to resort to the unprecedented expedient of putting a graduated tax upon the incomes of the wealthy and well-to-do. France was quick to see what was involved in this, and is planning to meet that move. This feverish preparation has caused the people to feel that they would be better prepared to provide for themselves if they had their money in their own lockers, and they have been withdrawing their deposits from banks, and seeking to realize on what is owing them. With this feeling general throughout the country, the result has been a stringent tightening of money throughout these countries; and when one or two countries are thus affected, the result is felt in all the rest. The people are asking what is the meaning of this state of things in such a country as Germany, one of the wealthiest of Europe’s manufacturing and supply centers. A financial authority, writing in the London Daily Mail, declares that “the rival armament preparations of Germany and France have produced a state of nervous tension of which the gold scarcity is a natural though unpleasant expression.” Since the outbreak of the Balkan war, between $75,000,000 and $100,000,000 in gold has been taken from the banks of Germany alone and hoarded by the people. Withdrawing such an amount of actual gold from circulation can not fail to result in a serious stringency in the money market. There was a real question as to Germany’s ability to secure enough gold to counteract the heavy pressure on the money market. It was done, however, by energetic efforts, and the panic was averted. But as the pressure becomes more and more acute, due to the race for naval and military equipment, the uneasiness of the people will be accentuated and the danger of serious trouble will be more imminent. The burden of actual war could not be much greater than the present burden of war preparation. How long the people will be able to endure it men can not tell. There is quite a general feeling that the backs of the people have about reached the breaking-point under that burden. The State Department of the United States proposed to the other nations that the new republic of China be recognized on April 8, the day on which her legislature met; but the other nations have not felt free to follow the suggestion of the American government. The fact that the province of Mongolia has declared its independence of China and has been recognized by Russia has complicated the situation to some extent. It is reported that the other nations will not recognize the Chinese Republic until it is in full working order under its constitution, which has not yet been adopted. Whether the United States will act alone or will wait until the other powers act has not been definitely decided. The flood waters that have caused such devastation in Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Illinois, are now swelling the Mississippi to a most dangerous height. Cities of considerable importance along the Mississippi are now below the level of the turbid waters of the great river, but so far the levees have been holding, and the devastation that has been almost hourly expected has not occurred. Great inconvenience has been caused the people, however, on account of having to move from their threatened dwellings to higher ground. Disease has begun to appear in the devastated districts, and great fears are felt in Indiana and Ohio that epidemics will occur. One city already has an unprecedented number of smallpox cases, in spite of the fact that every precaution is being taken. In most sections visited by the flood the work of rehabilitation is going on rapidly; but the effect of the calamity in the two States which suffered worst will be felt for years. The leader of the woman suffrage movement in England is now in prison, beginning to serve out her term of three years' imprisonment for her connection with the destruction of buildings by fire and dynamite. Feeling on the part of both the suffragettes and those opposed to their movement is becoming very bitter. On a number of occasions during the week the police have had to protect women speakers against mob violence. There has been further destruction of property by those interested in the woman suffrage movement, both in the hope of aiding the movement and as a protest against the imprisonment of the leader, Mrs. Pankhurst. Threats have been made that the situation now is one of open war, and that life as well as property will be destroyed in order to attain their object. All the principal public officials are being closely guarded by the police to protect them from the violence of the friends of the woman suffrage campaign. In Washington, D. C., on April 7, suffragists from all the States marched down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol under police escort and entered the Capitol building to present petitions personally to their representatives, and otherwise to further the interests of their cause. In Michigan on April 7 the question of woman suffrage was voted on, and was lost by a rather close vote. DURING the first week in May a large number of delegates from practically all the Christian churches will meet in Washington, D. C., to discuss the formation of an interdenominational, worldwide Christian church. The convention will be made up of representatives from the Catholic, Protestant, and Greek Churches. It is the aim of the gathering to settle on some form of Christian church which will embody all three of these faiths. The general outline will be made in this meeting, and at some later date it is planned to call a meeting of delegates from all over the world to have discuss the matter and arrive at a definite settlement. It is expected to absorb into this amalgamation every Christian denomination in the world. Toward this object the late J. Pierpont Morgan donated the sum of $100,000. This is another important move toward the uniting of Christendom under one spiritual head, who will, beyond doubt, be the prisoner of the Vatican. C. M. S.