p. 15 | Signs of the Times, Vol. 37, No. 50. (12/20/1910)

Earlier text: The World's Christian Citizenship Conference

THE HOUSE WE LIVE IN

By Vesta J. Farnsworth

OR THE MAKING OF THE HUMAN BODY

BY VESTA J. FARNSWORTH

THIS is a book for home reading and it is a great help to mothers in teaching their children how to care for themselves physically.

The structure of the human body is set forth in a most interesting and instructive manner, and all its wonders, uses, functions, etc., are told in a most attractive way.

The style of the book is conversational—a mother talking with her children. It makes a splendid birthday gift.

Two hundred and eighteen pages, nearly 150 illustrations, attractive cloth cover. Price, post-paid, $1.00.

Pacific Press Publishing Assn.

Mountain View, California

Portland, Ore. Calgary, Alberta Kansas City, Mo.

An Acceptable Xmas Gift

$3 $3 $3

Not a great sum, is it? Enough, however, to pay for five yearly subscriptions to the Signs Monthly—the magazine which has won thousands of friends because of the excellence of its articles and attractive get-up. Its Scriptural, health, temperance, and religious liberty articles, and notes on current events, make this magazine of interest to the Christian and unbeliever alike.

An Acceptable Xmas Gift

You wish to give something of value, of lasting benefit, at small cost, don't you? Then why look farther? The Signs Monthly Magazine will fill the want. It will be a 12-time reminder of your thought and love. If requested we will send receipt and word of explanation to your friends.

Agents to sell this magazine are wanted everywhere. It sells easily. The January number will be a good one to start with. It is

NOW READY

Sample copies free to those who mean business. Send all orders through your tract society if address is known.

SIGNS OF THE TIMES

Mountain View, Cal.

$3 $3 $3

Our Work and Workers

FIVE persons are awaiting baptism at Princeton, Illinois.

A CHURCH of ten members has been organized at Lansing, Iowa.

FOUR have been received into the church at Merrill, Wisconsin.

THREE more have united with the church at Kenosha, Wisconsin.

FIVE converts celebrated the ordinance of baptism at Keene, New York.

A CHURCH of nineteen members has been organized at Antelope, Montana.

FOUR persons were baptized at Keeler, Michigan, and three others at Detroit.

AT Nevis, Minnesota, six adults have purposed to observe all God's commandments.

SIX have accepted the truth as the result of tent meetings held at Muncie, Indiana.

SEVEN adults at Carterville, Illinois, have taken a firm stand for the principles of this truth.

AT the close of a series of meetings in Chattanooga, Tennessee, four united with the church in that city.

TEN persons were received into the membership of the Artesian, South Dakota, church. Word comes from Alpena that five souls have identified themselves with the truth of this message in that town.

PASTOR L. D. LONGARD, who is laboring at Halifax, Nova Scotia, reports the baptism of three persons and the addition of four others to that church. He says there is also a growing interest at Dartmouth.

AT the close of a series of meetings at Mussoorie, India, where one of our sanitariums is located, an impressive baptismal service was held when six converts were immersed in the beautiful waters of a little mountain stream.

ONE hundred and thirty-five Bibles and Testaments have just been sent the Somabula Mission, South Africa. They report the sale of many other books as well. Five hundred Bible readings in the Zulu language had just arrived.

FROM a field report of a prolonged campaign in the interests of the message at Fort Worth, Texas, we note that fifty new church-members have been enrolled with at least fifteen others observing the commandments and considered as prospective members.

PASTOR W. H. ANDERSON writes from West Rhodesia, South Africa: “Our church here is growing. We had baptism a short time ago, and six more were added to the church. We will more than double our membership for the two years between the union conferences.”

ONE of our ministers, while looking for a suitable place in which to hold a series of meetings in a certain locality, called upon a gentleman who, upon learning that he was a Seventh-day Adventist minister, expressed himself as follows: “I know you people have the truth, but have never attended any of your meetings; and if you ever come to this town to hold meetings, I have a hall you are welcome to free of charge, or if you find some other place I am willing to help bear the expense.”

The Desire of Ages

We have in our possession a few copies of the original wide-margin edition of that grand book by Mrs. E. G. White, “The Desire of Ages,” which we offer while they last, as follows:

Cloth, gilt edge, $4.25 — our price $2.25.

Library, marble edge, $5.00 — our price $2.75.

These prices are post-paid. A better book gift could not be made than one of these “Desire of Ages.” Address, Pacific Press Publishing Assn., 1109 E. 12th Street, Kansas City, Missouri.

A Good Companion for Children

By Editor

ARE you interested in your children? — You ought to be.

You are interested then in their companions. Some of them are not the best. Some of them are expensive. You wish they would not come.

Let us tell you of a companion always good which you can have visit your child 52 times a year, fresh and clean and new every week, always interesting and entertaining, always instructive and helpful. You can trust your children with this companion, and it will cost you less than many others. Send along only 60 cents to Our Little Friend, Mountain View, California, that it may visit your boy or girl every week for 1911.

“No children?” What about grandchildren? or nieces or nephews? or your neighbor’s boy or girl? Make it a blessing to some child and get a greater blessing. The first issue for 1911 is a beauty, a double number with colored cover.

IN THREE DAYS

SAN FRANCISCO

Overland Limited

TAKES YOU

To Chicago

ACROSS GREAT SALT LAKE

AND HIGH SIERRA BY DAYLIGHT

Luxurious High-class Equipment

Electric Lighted Throughout

Pullman Drawing-room Stateroom Vestibuled Sleeping-cars Careful and Attentive Dining Service Parlor Observation-car with Library and Cafe Ladies' Reading-room Gentlemen's Smoking-room Daily News Bulletins Latest Papers and Magazines

Southern Pacific

APPROXIMATE CHRONOLOGY, OR THE TIME OF THE CRUCIFIXION

By John Norton Loughborough; J. O. Corliss; E. J. Hibbard

Places in condensed form a few facts, from Scripture, history, and astronomy, that will enable the reader to understand the exact time of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, giving the year, the month, the day of the month, the time of the moon, the day of the week, and the day of the Jewish month. Price 25 cents. Address H. H. Perry, 67 19th St., San Diego, California.

Having read the “Time of the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ,” we testify that to our minds it contains a clear and interesting statement of the facts in the case, fortified with good evidence for the positions taken.

J. N. Loughborough, J. O. Corliss, E. J. Hibbard.

Farm for Sale

By Lillie E. Affolter; F. E. Belden

Bible Object-Lessons and Songs for Little Ones.—By Lillie E. Affolter and F. E. Belden. This book contains fifty-two illustrated lessons, accompanied by thirty original hymns and songs, and thirty-one large engravings from the famous “Hofmann Series.” The steps in the teaching are natural and progressive; the music is good and pleasing, and adapted to little children, and the illustrations are beautiful. Blue cloth, ink titles, white edges, 7½x10 inches, $2.00. Bible kindergarten material (3 boxes) to illustrate lessons, $1.75.

Farm for Sale

109 acre farm — Northeastern Texas. Five-room house. 45 acres in cultivation, 2-acre orchard, peaches, pears, plums. Good water, plenty timber, sandy loam. Healthy. Fruit, farm, and garden land, near Adventist school and church, seven miles from railroad town. Price $15.00 an acre. $1,000.00 cash, $635.00 to suit. D. Jones, Jefferson, Texas.

Life and Health

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

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

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

LIBERTY

THE OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE RELIGIOUS LIBERTY BUREAU

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

Price 25 cents per year. Liberal terms to agents.

Address, LIBERTY, Takoma Park, D. C.

It Came at Last

By Editor

It Came at Last.—Long and dry has been the summer, not unusual in California; nevertheless the rains in this section seemed to tarry longer than usual. The dead, dull gray of dust was upon everything. Were it not for the evergreens and the occasionally irrigated patches one could almost imagine at times and in spots that he was looking upon a dead world, and that never again would the fields spring to life, beautified with vegetation. The eventides came, the nights were clear and cold, sometimes frosty, the days generally remarkably pleasant; but the fields were dry, and the herds longed for green pastures. At last it came, unheralded by wind or black clouds or threatening foretokens of any sort. The sky grew softly gray with clouds, and the drops of rain began to fall as gentle as a mist and warm as summer. All through the long night and part of the day fell the rain, and the dry and thirsty land drank it eagerly. How sweet is the air, washed from its dust. How grateful the fragrance of the moistened soil. Already a ghost of green appears in the fields, erstwhile so dry and dead; and in a few days the vernal carpet will everywhere be spread, save where the plowman turns the soil for richer crop than unaided nature affords. Even so God pours out His Spirit upon and into the thirsty, dry, dead soil of human hearts. “I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and streams upon the dry ground; I will pour My spirit upon thy seed, and My blessing upon thine offspring.” Thank God for the rain and its lessons.

We give, as we advertise, fifty numbers each year. This present issue is our fiftieth; therefore there will be no paper next week.

Our next issue is dated Jan. 3, 1911. We wish all our readers a HAPPY NEW YEAR, a year in which self shall be forgotten for others’ good. Let the blood of Jesus Christ cleanse the past, and let His life fill you for service in the year to come.

About “Christmas.”—

The word “Christmas”—Christ’s mass—is neither sacred nor Biblical. A much better term is “the Nativity;” but this is a misnomer as applied to December 25. The birth of the Son of God into the human family does not pertain to a day. It had nothing to do with a day, only that it was sometime during a day that Christ was born; but that event is for every day, every life, every land. “The Word was made flesh, and tabernacled among us.” God showed that it was possible for poor, weak, sinful human flesh to live above sin. It was that which our Lord took upon Himself; He became a brother to all humanity, and lived victor over sin in that humanity, in order that He might encourage every other human in the hope of victory. For as Jesus Christ perfectly overcame in the flesh, so is He able, if admitted into our life, to overcome in us. This is the great lesson which the truth of Christ ought to bring home to all human hearts. But to think that we have fittingly celebrated that marvelous event by observing a pagan festival day is to hide from us its mighty, life-giving import.

The “Signs of the Times” for 1911

By Editor

WITH

“Questions and Answers”

We do not mean the question department of the paper, valuable as it is regarded by many of our family, but a book, the descriptive title of which is “Questions and Answers.”

The SIGNS OF THE TIMES will be the same faithful exponent of Bible truth it has been for more than a third of a century. Its one aim is to be true to the Word of God; its object is to save souls and build up the church of Jesus Christ. In 1911 it will, please God, be brighter and better and more helpful than ever before. It has answered during the last seventeen years an average of two hundred questions a year on Bible and historical themes. Many of these questions have meant long study, much research, great expense. We have been asked again and again to publish these questions in permanent form. This book, now in preparation, is selected from the thousands of answers, to questions which have troubled the hearts and minds of many, those which we believe will be of interest, profit, and spiritual helpfulness. There are questions on hundreds of Scripture passages arranged under more than a score of chapter subdivisions, Biblical, historical, doctrinal, practical, spiritual. Here are some of the chapter headings of the book:

The Bible; Christ; Prophecy and the Coming of the Lord; The Moral and Ceremonial Laws; The Sabbath; The Nature of Man; The Church and Her Ordinances; Religious Liberty; Christian Experiences; The Holy Spirit; Meats and Drinks.

There are as many more. Some of what are called the “hard texts” are made understandable, and seeming contradictions are seen to be harmonious.

The book will be well printed and substantially bound in cloth.

It will have topical and textual indexes. It will contain 250 or more pages.

If placed on the market it would sell for $1.25. But it is not for sale, and can not be purchased by itself. It belongs to the SIGNS OF THE TIMES, and with the journal we make this remarkable offer:

SIGNS OF THE TIMES, one year.......$1.75 “Questions and Answers”........ 1.25 Total retail price ....................$3.00 Both together for only $2.00

You can get it in no other way.

It is a paper and a book for yourself, your family, your neighbors. The book will be ready in a few weeks. Subscribe now, or renew your subscription for a year in advance of your present subscription, and secure the book.

Subscriptions will be accepted when the paper is sent to one address and the book to another.

Address, SIGNS OF THE TIMES, Mountain View, California.

Bible Band Schedules

By Editor

Two Bible Band schedules are given in this issue, as there is no paper next week.

The Week of Prayer

By Editor

We are getting out this paper on the eve of the week of prayer, December 10 to 17. May it prove a great blessing to all who take part in the refreshing season, and through them to others. God blesses men that those blessed may be blessings to others.

The Last Issue of 1910

By Editor

This is our last issue in 1910. There will be no paper next week.

An Original Scotch Song

In another column we print an original song by a Scotchman to be sung to an old Scotch air, “Will He Ne’er Come Back Again?” The tune provides for the irregularities of the verse. Some o’ oor Scotch frien’s may remember the tune and so be able to sing it.

The Liquor Question

The Liquor Question.— One of the paramount political issues of some parts of this country, one of the unsettling things, is the liquor question. This is what I. M. Gilmore, in Bonfort's Wine and Spirit Circular, says:

“The situation is a grave one, and it demands the attention of the men who have hundreds of millions interested in breweries, distilleries, wineries, and in stocks of liquors. . . . It raises the question as to whether our cause as a trade is incompetent or in incompetent hands, or whether it can be possible that the liquor trade is so disreputable that it can not be successfully defended before the bar of public sentiment.”

It seems to us that the latter question ought to have been settled long years agone. A cause which ruins men, wrecks homes, fills our jails with criminals and our politics with corruption, and damns forever the souls of millions, can not be anything else but disreputable.

But Is It Not Well to Give?

“But is it not well to give?”—Yes, it is always well to give to the poor, the needy; it is well to cheer the sick, the weary, the lonely ones; to remember the unremembered. We believe that it is better to remember our friends and acquaintances on their birthdays with appropriate gifts, when there can be no rivalry, and far less opportunity for invidious comparison. Let the giving of festal occasions be for the poor, the needy, the great dark heathen world. Hearts that so give will be doubly blessed.

Christmas Gifts and Their Origins

The gifts connected with the season—the selfish sending and giving of gifts one to another—come down to us from the old heathen Saturnalia, as do also the feasting and revels. They do not in any wise belong to the Biblical event. The only gifts directly connected with the birth of our Lord were the emphasis of God's eternal Gift to man, and the adoration and worship of the shepherds. The gifts of the wise men came sometime in the following month. All these are facts, dear readers. Why not meet them as such? The SIGNS OF THE TIMES would be an unworthy expositor of truth did it hide these facts.

The Wise Men and Christ’s Birth

An article in our last week's issue clearly showed that December 25 was not the day of our Lord's birth. Still further, while the shepherds greeted Him on the night He came into the world, “the wise men from the East”—the Magi—did not see Him till several weeks later. Jesus was born in a stable; but the wise men found Him in a house. The events of Luke 2:21-24 were probably performed before the wise men came; for immediately after their visit Joseph took the young Child and His mother to Egypt. Disregard for the facts of Scripture inevitably leads to a minimizing of the lessons.

THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF REVELATION II AND III