p. 688 | Signs of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 43. (9/4/1893)

News and Comment

By Editor

MR. ALBERT A. POPE, of Boston, suggests a good measure for giving relief to the unemployed throughout the country. His plan is for county and municipal authorities to inaugurate good road enterprises within their respective jurisdictions. It is a fact that this country is notoriously deficient in the matter of good roads, and, without doubt, this is an opportune moment to procure abundant laborers at reasonable wages, and the good to be done in relieving want and allaying the “tramp” evil would be incalculable.

THE underlying motive for settling a permanent papal delegate in the United States is thus stated (and it is probably correct) by the Evening Tribune of this city:—

The past year has been remarkable in more ways than one in Catholic America. No one knows how nearly there came to being an American Catholic Church with Archbishop Corrigan at his head, had not the opportune arrival of Monsignor Satolli nipped the scheme in the bud. No man ever will know, perhaps, the extent and depth of this conspiracy. The Catholic Church keeps its own secrets, as it keeps many secrets not its own. But it is a safe prophecy that Archbishop Corrigan will find his sphere of influence greatly lessened hereafter, and that he will never now reach the red hat for which his soul has longed for many years.

A DOCTOR of this city has had a peculiar experience through his belief in Spiritualism. An intimate friend of his explains that he has been for about five years under the influence of a lot of mediums in San Francisco who have worked all manner of schemes to get money out of him. Although having a material wife, he was induced to marry a “spirit bride,” one who materialized at the seances which he attended; however, she had to obtain a divorce from another material husband before uniting with the doctor. Then came demands from the spirit lands for a variety of finery, such as silk dresses, diamonds, etc., which were theoretically dematerialized and sent to Jupiter to be worn by the spirit bride. But it has transpired that these articles were in some peculiar manner sent back and were subsequently worn by some very earthy women. But his real wife avers that she never received any of them. She further avers that he had “spirit brides” to the number of five. A man who was connected with the mediums went East and by some means became an inmate of a prison, where he made a confession exposing the conspiracy against the doctor. When a

man becomes enamored of Spiritualism he might as well be swindled in one way as in another, for the whole Satanic doctrine is a delusion and a snare that will eventually rob its votaries not only of their material means but also of eternal life.

WE have before made mention of the Retail Clerks’ Union of this city celebrating their victory in securing the Sunday closing of the stores of their employers. But a “Delegate to Federated Trades,” in a communication to a local paper, announces it as a “Sunday victory.” All these local episodes of the Sunday-closing class are quickly seized upon to swell the Sunday wave that is sweeping the liberties of the people into the vortex of Church and State union. We have reached that point in the progress of popular religious domination where civil and religious liberty is construed to apply only to those who believe in Sunday sacredness. And the Federated Trades having fallen into the current so far as this county is concerned, the abovementioned “delegate” calls down the boycott of the people upon the merchant who “has the temerity to defy the Federated Trades of Alameda County.” It is remarkable how promptly the spirit of persecution seizes upon men when they espouse the cause of enforced Sunday observance. This one fact should be enough to open the eyes of thinking people to the innate iniquity of the cause.

HOW WOULD THE COURT DECIDE?

By Editor

THIS is what Justice Brewer, of the U. S. Supreme Court, has to say of the ominous tendency toward organization to the menace of individual independence:—

The business men are becoming the slaves of the combine, the laborers of the trades union and organization. Through the land the idea is growing that the individual is nothing, and the organization, and then the State, is everything; and we have the fancy sketch of the dreamer of a supposed ideal State, in which the individual has no choice of lot or toil, but is moved about according to the supposed superior wisdom of the organized mass; and this, we are told, is the liberty for which the ages have toiled and for which human blood has crimsoned the earth. As against this servitude and sacrifice of individual liberty I wish to enter my earnest protest. The Great Master divined the powers and possibilities of our nature when he dethroned priests and prelates and bade each soul stand face to face alone with its God. In every century humanity has looked forward through tears to a better day to come, and has asserted, as the ideal yet to be attained, the liberty of the individual. Is it not bartering away the experiences of the past, are we not selling our birth-right for a mess of pottage, when we encourage, or even tolerate, the domination of the combine, when we look in silence upon the growing servitude of the individual to the organization?

In view of the above expression, we can but wonder what would be the decision of Justice Brewer and the Supreme Court in regard to the right of the general government or the State governments to enact Sabbath or other religious laws which compel the conscience of the individual and lay the individual under penalties for disobedience of the organization in matters in regard to which he should “stand face to face with his God.” A United States Court has decided against the individual in one such case, and it was presumably after counseling with Supreme Court justices. But it is probable that the higher court will before long be called upon to decide directly upon such cases, judging from the tendency of which Justice Brewer complains and certain precedents established by Congress and most of the States. In such case will the court stand for the constitutional “ideal” of individual liberty, or in harmony with “the growing servitude of the individual to the organization”? We shall see.

CONTENTS OF THIS NUMBER.

By Editor

Editorial.—Notes and Comments—How Are They Answered—Paternal Government—With Christ Not Men—Coming into “Closer Fellowship”—How Would the Court Decide?—San Francisco Midwinter Fair—Literary Notices...........................................................................673, 674, 688

Doctrinal.—Christ Our King—What Christ’s Coming Is to the Church—The Wages of Sin—Justification—God’s Description of Our Generation, No. 2...........................................................................675-678

Miscellaneous.—Sabbath Morning (poetry)—The Religion That Is unto Salvation—Is the Nation a Moral Agent?—Christ More Than Teacher—Teaching Self-Consciousness—Our Greatest Peril...........................................................................679-681

Home and Health.—It Never Pays (poetry)—His Night Off—A Temperance Hero—Who Pays the Bills?—Scientific and Curious...........................................................................681, 682

Mission Fields.—Who Will Go? (poetry)—A Day among Devil Worshipers in Trichinopoly—Stundist Converts to Orthodoxy—An Art of the Navajos...........................................................................682, 683

Our Work and Workers.—Now (poetry)—From Europe—Field Notes...........................................................................684, 685

International S. S. Lessons.—Personal Responsibility (Lesson 12, Sunday, September 17)—Instructions to the Church (Lesson 12, Sabbath, September 16)...........................................................................686

News and Notes.—Religious—Secular...........................................................................687

COMING INTO “CLOSER FELLOWSHIP.”

By Editor

THE following clipping from the Advance may be set down as a sign of the times:—

The Baptist Church of Long Island City deserves praise for a highly Christian act. The new St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church was entirely destroyed by fire last week. Immediately the Baptist Church offered the use of its edifice to its afflicted neighbor, and the offer was accepted in the same spirit with which it was made. Sunday morning four masses were celebrated in the Baptist Church between 6 and 9:30, the worshipers filling the house to the vestibule. A temporary wooden altar was placed in front of the baptistry upon which were the cross and the lighted candles. Father McGuire in his address made grateful mention of the Christian spirit of toleration and liberality by which his people were furnished with a place of worship. While the Catholics were dispersing, the Baptists and Methodists were entering for a union service, and never before, perhaps, have three of the great creeds of Christendom come into closer fellowship. This sight will be witnessed every Sunday morning of the summer, and who will deny that it is the sign of a better day?

When Baptist Churches can be devoted to the papal service, and the Methodists enter the “fellowship,” and a Congregational paper bestows its “praise” upon the scene and hails it as “the sign of a better day,” what is left for such a waning Protestantism to protest about anyway? This occurrence adds force to the words of the Catholic News, published in last week’s issue: “There is only one creed, and that is our creed. If the Protestants accept that, they are not Protestants. There is only one chance of unity, and that is the total annexation. Our Protestant friends will do well to learn that fact.”

SAN FRANCISCO'S MIDWINTER FAIR.

By Editor

AUGUST 24 was the occasion of an enthusiastic demonstration in San Francisco, when ground was broken for the contemplated buildings and other improvements connected with the Midwinter Fair. A large number of invitations were sent out by the Executive Committee, the ministers of the city being amongst the number thus honored. One of these, Rev. E. B. Stewart, of the Second United Presbyterian Church, sent a letter in reply, in which was this statement:—

As one who entered emphatic protest against attendance upon “The World’s Fair” at Chicago because of the violation both of national and of divine laws, duty is clearly setting before me the necessity of avoiding even so much complicity in this enterprise until assurance is had that its gates shall be closed on the sabbath. Such assurance I do not have at present, and therefore must beg leave to decline with regret the invitation so courteously given.

The committee did not take any formal action on the letter, but Gen. W. H. L. Barnes, of the committee, returned a somewhat caustic response, in which occurred these sentiments:—

In common with all other clergymen of all religious denominations of San Francisco, you were invited to be present at the inauguration of an enterprise whose importance to the State, to the general education, and to the highest expression of Christianity—charity to the poor and labor for the laborless—cannot at this time be exaggerated. We regret that, as a teacher of the people, you withhold your sanction and presence on such an occasion. The celebration will, nevertheless, take place. It will be opened with prayer and finished with a benediction, implored of that Divine Power whose aid in our work we seek. We hope he will be present, if you are not, and we believe he will.

This is what the Examiner calls the Executive Committee’s “first brush with the Sunday-closing idea.” But the “Sunday-closing idea” has been preparing for an extended “brush” with the management of the Fair if the latter does not unconditionally make the desired concession. The Presbyterian ministers of San Francisco and Oakland have taken their stand for closing; the Christian Endeavor Society has also spoken, and other religious associations, temperance societies, and some industrial organizations are also expected to join the crusade. Inasmuch as the leading counties and principal cities of the State will take a deep interest in the Fair, we may expect to see a determined trial of strength on the part of all the forces usually conspicuous in the advocacy of Sunday laws.

Nearly all classes of men are predicting an approaching time of trouble and disaster. We believe there is an hour of spiritual darkness even now upon the world, and nothing more forcibly portends this prophetic fact than the intolerant spirit now being manifested in the increasing clamor for Sunday laws and their rigid enforcement.

Biblical Questions About Human Nature

BIBLE QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CONCERNING MAN. By Alonzo T. Jones. Bible Students’ Library, No. 76 Pacific Press Pub. Co., Oakland, Cal. 16 pp.; 2 cents.