p. 7 | Signs of the Times, Vol. 5, No. 36.

Nevada City, Cal.

By R. A. Morton; J. D. Rice

Having finished our labor here for the present, we took down our tent Monday, Sept. 8, and shipped it to camp-meeting. Have labored here about two months under many disadvantages, but the Lord has been with us. Have held sixty-one public meetings which have resulted in ten more Sabbath keepers, five of whom have signed the covenant and with the six already here make eleven. Organized a Sabbath-school with a present attendance of twenty-five. Presented the Bible system of finance and fourteen signed the S. B. pledge. The brethren and sisters are much encouraged. We leave many friends in this place.

We are now on our way to camp-meeting and will stop a few days to labor with the brethren in Colusa county.

We go, trusting that the good seed which has been sown will come forth and bear much fruit for the kingdom of glory.

R. A. Morton. J. D. Rice. September 9.

Orange, Cal.

By J. L. Wood

I HAVE just pitched the tent and commenced meetings in this place. Last night was our first meeting; about fifty were out. Orange is a small place, less than five miles from Santa Ana. We are in hopes of accomplishing something here. I never felt more the need of the prayers of God's people than at present.

J. L. WOOD. Sept. 10, 1879.

Colorado.

By A. O. Burrill

The tent has been in the city of Denver for four weeks. Thirty-one discourses have been given. I came here yesterday and found Elder Corliss in good health and spirits. Twenty four are keeping the Sabbath, the most of whom have newly come to the faith.

We move the tent next Monday (Sept. 8) to another quarter of the city, there to follow up the interest already awakened, and arouse others, who have not heard, to an investigation of the truth.

September 5. A. O. BURRILL.

Where Do You Sleep?

THE Housekeeper happened to hear, the other day, of a lad whom she will call Jotham, though that is not his name. Jotham has lived since he was a very little fellow with a kind couple, and he has helped on their farm and about their home in return for his clothing, board and education. They have given him good food in abundance, and have not asked him to work nearly so hard as they have always worked themselves. But now that he is nearly grown up, he is pale, hollow-chested, has a cough, and is apparently going rapidly into a decline.

"I am not surprised," said the Housekeeper to the friend who told her this. "I am only amazed that Jotham has lived so long and has been so well as he has. Slow poison would have killed me long before this, had I been in his place."

"What do you mean?" asked the friend.

"I mean that Jotham sleeps in a chamber under the roof, which has only one narrow window for ventilating purposes, and that window, winter or summer, is always shut. The air he breathes every night is pestilential. But the good woman, who is nursing him with cough syrups now, does not know that this condition of things is hurtful. She herself sleeps in an ill-ventilated room, and if she has a morning headache, traces it to any cause except the right one."

Where do you sleep? Where do your children sleep? Do you know that no child or young person should ever share the bed of an invalid or an aged person, under any circumstances of convenience or apparent necessity? Make some other arrangement than this. Where you sleep is a matter of great importance.—Christian at Work.

Nicotine Poisoning.

A rather unusual case of nicotine poisoning occurred lately in a Parisian suburb. The victim, a man in the prime of life, had been cleaning his pipe with a clasp knife. With this he accidentally cut one of his fingers subsequently, but as the wound was of a trivial nature, he paid no heed to it. Five or six hours later, however, the cut finger grew painful and became much swollen. The inflammation rapidly spread to the arm and shoulder, the patient suffering such intense pain that he was obliged to betake himself to his bed. Medical assistance was called in and the ordinary remedies applied, ineffectually. The man, when questioned as to the manner in which he had cut himself, explained the use to which the pocket knife had been applied, adding that he had omitted to wipe it after cleaning his pipe. The apparent mystery which surrounded the case was thus cleared up, and, as the patient's state had become alarming, he was conveyed to the hospital. Upon his admission, the doctors declared that, in the immediate amputation of the arm, lay the only hope of saving the patient's life. The poisoned member was therefore amputated; but in spite of the promptitude with which the operation was performed, the man lies in so precarious a condition, that the chances of his recovery are said to be slight.

Something on Your Head

It is not advisable to go out of doors without anything on your head, nor into company without anything in it.

Religious News and Notes.

By Editor

—Another minister has refused the “D. D.”

—Atonement day with the Jews, the tenth day of the seventh month, falls on the 28th day of September this year.

—The Scandinavian Baptist churches in the Northwest have held their first General convention at Village Creek, Iowa.

—Religious papers all take to serials, but the Lutheran, of Philadelphia, has the greatest novelty in this line. It is running a theological dictionary through its editorial columns.

—Excitement has been created among the members of the Grand Army of the Republic by the refusal of Bishop Wood to permit members to enter the Catholic cemetery at Philadelphia, on the occasion of the burial of a comrade.

—The Christian Register says:—In the thoughtful inner circles of orthodoxy there seems to be a powerful recoil from the doctrine of endless punishment, and many are finding relief in the possible annihilation of the incorrigibly wicked.

—In July last 208 Russian Mennonites left Toronto for Manitoba, making a total of 1,325 families, and 7,383 persons who have gone to that region. Of the 1,325 families, 23 went to Northern Dakota; but most of them moved back to Manitoba and several families settled in Kansas.

—An eastern religious paper has this item:—At a camp-meeting in Bucyrus, Ohio, a minister prayed fervently that one member of every anti-Christian family in the country might be struck dead, so as to awaken the survivors. The survivors were sufficiently awakened to make it necessary for that minister to close his labors.

—The Advocate of Holiness says a young preacher traveled six hundred miles to a camp-meeting in order to get “fully saved.” To which the Cal. Christian Advocate replies that “one better instructed, with clearer views of gospel conditions and Christ’s willingness to save,” would not need to take so long a pilgrimage to find salvation.

—The Christian at Work utters the following words of wisdom to an over-working sister: “There may be even religious worship which becomes exciting and dissipating to the real worship of the soul, and fatal to communion with God. Is it not better, by prudence and care, not to get into a place where the doctor must come, with his imperative prohibitions and his compulsory injunctions as to the darkened room.”

—The Boston Journal, reporting the (first day) Adventist Camp-meeting at Alton Bay, N. H., speaks of the last Sunday meeting as follows: “The impression obtained would likely be that a great secular jubilee was taking place; and we don’t know, as a matter of fact, as he would be far out of the way. At high noon it did look more like Fourth of July day than as the Sabbath at an Advent Camp-meeting should look.”

—The Roman Catholic Bishops of Belgium, in regard to the new education law, have resolved that absolution is to be refused to all teachers and pupils at the public normal schools; that, teaching in all public schools being schismatical, all teachers employed in them are excommunicated. If “the church” would show its consistency, and forbid Catholics to teach in the public schools in the United States, no complaint would be made.

—The Moravians are much less numerous than many other churches. Outside of their mission work they have but 122 congregations, with an aggregate of 16,000 members. Yet this little Church sustains 350 missionaries in the foreign field, that is one to every fifty members, and five to every two congregations, while independently of what they recieve from other sources their own members contribute on an average six dollars each per annum.

—Dr. Talmage writes, concerning church prayers for fair weather: One minister in North Wales, a few Sabbaths ago, got the wrong place in the Prayer Book, and, to the horror of his congregation, prayed for more rain, not finding out his mistake till it was too late to correct it. But it is a consolation to believe that such a prayer as that will have no effect on the weather. If a man is not enough in earnest to know what he is praying about, his petition is harmless to every one but himself.”

—The New York Independent is sharply severe on the “holiness camp-meetings” held by Mr. Inskip, who charges an admittance fee on Sunday. It says: “If the Sabbath is to be a day of recreation and travel for the man—a day for circuses, theatres, and buffoons, to make money—then Sunday, the 17th of August, was well observed at Urbana, O. But to call this Bible holiness, and to set up this mercenary, canting religion as something above the attainments of ordinary Christians, is a piece of indecent assumption.”

—Hard times and scarcity of money is the general complaint in England. But Mr. Henry Irving, the tragedian, states that during the past seven months of this year no less than thirty-thousand pounds ($174,600) have been received for admission to his dramatic performances at the Lyceum Theatre. Also twenty thousand pounds ($97,000) have been received from the Comedie Francaise dramatic company at the Gaiety Theatre of which Sara Bernhardt was the tour, during their visit of three months to London. The plays performed by the French company were considered to be of immoral tendency, like most French plays.

Secular News

By Editor

Frost has injured the coffee crop in Rio de Janeiro.

Spring wheat makes a very bad showing in Canada.

The Republicans have carried the State of Maine by large majorities.

The prospects are still gloomy in the manufacturing interests.

Spain is becoming much alarmed at the prospect of serious trouble in Cuba.

Many people are reported drowned in the recent inundation at St. Petersburg.

The insurrection in Hayti was supposed to be quelled, but fighting is still going on.

John G. Saxe has done no literary work for three years; cause, nervous prostration.

Mayor-elect Kalloch, of San Francisco, is recovering. De Young is out on $25,000 bail.

Alexander Mitchell, Democrat, has declined the nomination for Governor of Wisconsin.

New complications are arising in Europe. Germany and Austria are on loving terms, and Russia is nihil.

A committee of the legislature of Georgia has reported a resolution to impeach the Treasurer of the State.

Matters are seriously unsettled in Afghanistan. The Russians are charged with inciting the recent outbreak.

Three men were taken from jail in Mendocino county, on the 3d inst., and lynched. They were charged with larceny.

Both gold and emigrants are fast coming to the United States from Great Britain. Only the emigrants do not have the gold.

Yellow fever continues without abatement in Memphis, though it is not spreading much to other cities. It is severe in the West Indies.

The ship Frank F. Curling, of Thomaston, Maine, was struck by a hurricane southwest of Cape Horn, and lost. The crew were rescued.

Gen. Grant favors the Nicaragua canal, and will probably become president of that enterprise. De Lessep's Panama scheme has collapsed.

An exchange says the local option law has closed the saloons in nearly four hundred towns in Kentucky; which, if true, is decidedly good for the Bourbon State.

The trial of the Chisholm murderers in Mississippi has brought out the fact that indictments have lain two years without any arrests being made upon them.

The number of ships that have entered the golden gate lately is larger than ever before. They are mostly large vessels, and many are coming to load with wheat.

One span of the bridge over the Kansas River at Lawrence fell on the 9th inst. A drove of cattle was on the bridge. Mr. Young and son, with team, went down, but no life was lost.

The Victoria Regia, the Queen of water-lilies, is opening flowers every few days in the Lick Conservatory, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. Its leaves are now six feet, eight inches in diameter.

The New York State Democratic Convention ended in a break-up. John C. Jacobs was first nominated for Governor, but declined. Gov. Robinson was re-nominated, and the Tammany delegation retired and nominated John Kelly of New York City.

Geo. W. Jones, once U. S. Senator from Iowa, by reason of poverty asks to be elected sheriff of Dubuque county. He is 80 years old. The old folks will remember him as having been connected with the duel in which Cilley of Maine was murdered by Graves of Virginia, some forty years ago.

The Norwegian bark Columbia, from London for Quebec, was struck by a large fish or sea monster, and had a hole knocked in her bottom, which caused her to sink in half an hour. The water around the bark became bloody immediately after the shock was felt. A steamship rescued the crew.

Kearney said he would have Gen. Grant burned in effigy on the sand lot when he arrived in San Francisco. In answer to the storm of indignation, he said if they were interfered with, there were those ready to strike from one end of the country to the other, and we would see a worse time than that of the French revolution.

The steamship Belgenland at Philadelphia, Sept. 11, from Antwerp, reports the sinking of the bark Laura, from Porto Rico for Queenstown with sugar, and the loss of the second mate, carpenter, steward and three seamen of the bark. Among the passengers of the Belgenland are Baron Grundel, Belgian Minister to Mexico; Dr. John Wilson, United States Consul at Brussels, and J. Riley Weaver, United States Consul at Vienna.

An Atlanta (Ga.) special says: Reports of a fatal fever raging in the counties of Polk, Paulding, and Harrison have not been overdrawn. Within a few days over fifty men died in an exclusively rural population. Those attacked suffer horribly, the tongue turning black and swelling double the size, and blood oozing from their mouth and ears. Immediately after death the bodies become spotted and discolored. Of twenty-nine cases under one physician's treatment, not one recovered. The greatest alarm and distress prevails, and it is steadily spreading.

Battle Creek College.

By Editor

OUR young California student will please pardon us for making public a part of a private letter lately received from him. We wish to notice the school, and we wish the people of this State to know what he says:—

“I have entered the second year of the special course, and am well satisfied with the school. The Professors are all obliging. Bro. Bell's mode of teaching grammar is excellent. I hope to learn much from him.

“I do wish California was better represented. Isaac Morrison graduates this year (June 1880); so I will be the only one from California. Can’t you find any more? They could never find fault with my accommodations. I could not be better pleased with my boarding place, and will never cease to thank you for the interest you have taken in me. I am trying to draw near to God, and to give my entire self to him. Hoping you will pray for me, I am your brother, JOHN A. WALL.”

In recommending the school, and in assisting young people to go there, we feel that we take no risks; we can do so with all confidence. Bro. W. has been attending the High School in Oakland, which is considered an excellent school of its kind. But he desired a still better school, where he could receive better instruction, and be surrounded with better influences; and he is satisfied that he has found one.

We sincerely wish—may we not hope?—that we may find some more in California who may be induced to go to Battle Creek College. It is only with much effort that we have been able to send our own children there; but what they are receiving there is worth more than the millions which Vanderbilt left to his heirs, and no chance of a quarrel for its possession.

We regret that neither the July number of the College Record nor the Catalogue of the current year was received at this Office. This must be our apology for the lack of a seasonable notice.

Demoralized Sunday Schools.

THE Christian World criticises the Sunday-school music of the present day as demoralized and demoralizing: "Good taste in words and music is grossly violated because the school wants stirring, shouting hymns and pitching-along choruses. It is simply shocking to have tolerably good hymns sung to so many of our 'hickory, dickory, dock' tunes, and jolted out like a two-wheeled cart over cobblestones, with a responsive refrain reminding one of a swinging chandelier in a rocking ship. Take up any one of the large batch of Sunday-school hymn books published during the last ten years, and you are sure to find a number of marching, fighting, rallying hymns, full of aspiration to quit this 'dull earth' and these 'vile bodies' and soar away to the 'evergreen shore,' the 'sweet by and by,' and the 'summer land.' Immensely charming favorites with many schools are the jump-frog choruses, in which the treble takes a start by four or six notes, and then halts on a long note until the bass and tenor hop along in time, and all parts link harmoniously together to the end of the refrain. There is a sickening amount of pretty sentimentalities and pious doggerel warped into just such Sunday-school melodies. In the laborious effort to accommodate Sunday-school music and hymns to 'the young idea' lurks a terrible danger—a danger of subverting the very foundation of religion. Such singing works on the nerves of sensitive children, but not on their minds or hearts. The effect is simply to tear down the dividing wall between the sacred and the secular, to the utter perversion of the religious idea."

To Healdsburg.

By Editor

EXCURSION Tickets to the camp-meeting and return can be obtained at the Ticket Office, Washington St. Wharf, by presenting a card signed by M. C. Israel. Those not having these cards can obtain them of Bro. M. C. Blake, 333, Montgomery St., San Francisco.

Questions.

By Editor

SOME of our correspondents may think we neglect their questions, but it is not by any intention. Of late we have had too much on hand to attend to them. After camp-meeting we hope to be able to do them better justice.

Pro-Chinese Decision.

Judge Deady of the United States Court in Oregon has decided that a law of that State is illegal which forbids contractors employing Chinese on public works. If this decision is sustained, and we think from Judge Deady's reasoning that it must be, it will nullify a provision of the new Constitution of California, and one which aided much in its adoption.

To Absent Members.

By Editor

We are requested by the clerk of Oakland church to say to absent members that, when they write their quarterly letters to the church, they should send them to the clerk or some officer of the church. Frequently such letters are sent to personal friends, and if ever they find their way to the church, it is after the quarterly meeting. This notice is good for all churches.

Missionary Papers.

By Editor

WE frequently have copies of the SIGNS sent to this Office marked "Refused," which were not sent out by us. The names to which they were sent were never on our lists. To them we may seem uncourteous because we do not stop their paper, but the matter is not under our control.

A mailing machine is used in this Office; those papers directed with a pen are sent by private parties. But some who receive them understand the case. We are pleased to publish the following, just received:—

"Some person sends me your valuable paper. Will you kindly ask them through your columns to send their address to P. O. box 1079, Toronto, Ontario? and oblige, yours truly, ARTHUR M. WADE."

Double-Minded.

By John Nevins Andrews

“A DOUBLE-MINDED man,” says James, “is unstable in all his ways.” James 1:8. He has two minds. One mind desires this world; the other desires the next. One mind seeks the approval of God; the other the favor of men. Sometimes one mind controls; sometimes the other. Under the influence of the better mind, the man takes steps heavenward. But the other mind still living, and only held in check for a little time, on the first occasion that gives it the advantage, asserts the lead, and all the ground that was gained in the direction of Heaven is lost.

Sometimes both these minds act with so nearly an evenly-balanced force that the man is neither the one thing nor the other. Men with singleness of purpose are sure to succeed. The double-minded man is certain to make an utter failure. Lot and his wife are proper examples of these two classes. Both believed the warning; both desired to escape the coming destruction. They had great possessions, as we may judge from Gen. 13. They were agreed in leaving all, to flee for life. Both started out of Sodom, and for a space journeyed over the plain. But now the difference between them reveals itself. Lot had only one mind. Sodom had no hold on him. He must reach Zoar. Not so his wife. She had strong attractions toward Sodom, as well as strong desires to make her way to Zoar. She was simply double-minded. She followed one mind as long as she could. Then the other mind asserted its claims. She looked back toward Sodom and in a moment became a pillar of salt. But not even this terrible calamity could cause righteous Lot to turn his face from Zoar. Lot and his wife determined their cases before ever they left Sodom. It was this difference in religious experience which made itself so conspicuous on that eventful day. Reader, which one of these are you like? Have you the single mind of Lot, or the double mind of his wife?

J. N. A.

Lafayette, Vacaville, and Rocklin.

By B. A. Stephens

August 14-17, I met with the friends in Lafayette, and spoke in Pacheco on the Sabbath, and baptized four in Galindo's lake. Spoke upon temperance the last evening, and had the pleasure of hearing even some outside of our faith decide to leave their tobacco. The Lord gave freedom.

August 22-24, in company with Bro. Haskell, met with the Vacaville church. Every one in the church signed the teetotal pledge and joined the Health and Temperance Association. The tithing system was adopted without a dissenting voice.

August 25-31, labored with the friends in Rocklin; baptized four, organized a church of eight, and ordained Bro. Griffin P. Davis elder, and Bro. J. I. Davis deacon. Sister. M. E. Ertle was elected church clerk. There are several others who will unite with the church, who were absent. Some outside the church signed the anti-rum and tobacco pledge here.

B. A. STEPHENS.

Novelists’ False Pictures of Christians

FASHIONABLE novelists are fond of going to the haunts of crime and describing what they see there; but why do they not take the trouble to examine the heights of Christian life that they may give true pictures of what they see there? A company of would-be naturalists in the olden time, who were writing a dictionary, once said to Baron Cuvier, “Here is a good definition of a crab.” “What is it?” asked Cuvier. “A little red fish that moves backwards.” “Very good,” said he, “only there are three mistakes; it is not a fish, it is not red, and it does not move backwards.” That is very much the style of definition that novelists give to Christian people. In denouncing hypocritical professors of religion—who cannot be too severely denounced—novelists often convey the false impression, that such men are types of Christian character, and they neglect to delineate sincere Christian men and women, who are illustrations of the life that is in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Health Publications

By Editor

The Uses of Water in Health and Disease. Bound, 160 pp., 50c. Paper covers, pp. 136, 25c.

The Household Manual. Brief, plain directions for treatment of common sicknesses, etc. Bound, 176 pp. 75c.

Plain Facts about Sexual Life. (The Boston Journal, and many other papers, highly recommend this work.) Bound, tinted paper, 360 pp., $1.50. Flexible covers, 260 pp., 75c.

The Physical, Moral, and Social Effects of Alcoholic Poison as a Beverage and a Medicine. Paper, 128 pp., 25c.

Healthful Cookery. Indispensable to every household. 128 pp., 25c.

Proper Diet for Man. Paper, 48 pp., 15c.

Evils of Fashionable Dress, and How to Dress Healthfully. 40 pp., 10c.

Tracts. Dyspepsia, its Cause and Cure. 32 pp., 4c.

Healthful Clothing. 32 pp., 4c.

Startling Facts about Tobacco. 32 pp., 4c.

Tea and Coffee. 32 pp., 4c.

Wine and the Bible, (showing that the Bible affords no support to the use of intoxicating beverages). 24 pp., 3c.

Principles of Health Reform. 16 pp., 2c.

Twenty-five Arguments for Tobacco-using Answered. 24 pp., 3c.

Pork, (with an engraving of the terrible trichina worm). 16 pp., 2c.

The Drunkard's Arguments Answered. 16 pp., 2c.

Alcoholic Medication. 16 pp., 2c.

Moral and Social Effects of Alcohol. 8 pp., 1c.

Causes and Cure of Intemperance. 8 pp., 1c.

Alcohol; What is it? 4 pp., ½c.

Alcoholic Poison. 4 pp., ½c.

True Temperance. 4 pp., ½c.

The whole series of Tracts put up in a neat package, 30c. Discount made to Tract and Temperance societies.

Address— Signs of the Times. Oakland, Cal.

Appointments.

By Editor

OAKLAND—Services at the Seventh-day Adventist church, corner of Thirteenth and Clay streets, every Sabbath (Saturday) at 11 A. M., and Sunday evening at 7:30. Prayer-meeting every Tuesday evening at 7:30. Sabbath-school at 9:30 o'clock Sabbath morning.

SAN FRANCISCO—Services at the Seventh-day Adventist church, on Laguna street, between Tyler and McAllister, every Sabbath (Saturday), at 11 A. M., and Sunday evening at 7:30. Prayer-meeting every Wednesday evening at 7:30. The Hayes Valley cars of Market street and the Lone Mountain cars of the Central railroad, cross Laguna street near the church.

Business Department.

By Editor

$2.00 EACH. Mr J M Shaw 6-35, J L Dickson 6-35, Isabella Moore 6-12, S H Turman 6-35, Mrs C M Sweet 6-35, Stella Langfitt 6-34, Bon C Hall 6-35, J A Williams 6-35, L J Walsworth 6-14.

$1.50 EACH. A Darr 6-35, Francis Godfry 6-35, Mrs Susan Fuller 6-35, Allen Blake 6-35, L O Stowell 6-35, Louis Bloren 6-35, T T Perrault 6-35, Mrs M A Fife 6-35.

MISCELLANEOUS. Mrs Bell Wright 1.00, 6-19, John S Myers 1.00, 6-19, Joseph Faust 50c 6-3, Sarah Quick (2 copies) 2.40, 6-35, Miss A P Hays (2 copies) 3.00, 6-35, H S McKyes 50c 6-2, Mrs Annie Jones 50c 6-2, W Richardson 50c 6-2, Mrs Lina Sauer 75c 6-11, J Crandall (2 copies) 2.40, 6-35, H P Wakefield (4 copies) 4.80, 6-35, F M Busic 40c 5-47, M J Myers 63c 6-11, Ida M Fulk 50c 6-3, Chas Summerfield 50c 6-3, C M Burus 50c 6-3, Mrs Catharin Carrier 60c 6-2, Joseph Miller 1.25, 6-35, Dick Stanfield 63c 6-11, Mahala Barnum 63c 6-11, James W Gilman 1.25, 6-34, Sarah Linsey 63c 6-11, Philander Dougherty 63c 6-11, Abraham Caryell 1.20, 6-35, Alvin Powers 1.25, 6-35, J R Foggin 75c 6-16, Josephine Narcross 1.00, 6.20, M R Stern (2 copies) 3.00, 6-35, M Kinckerbacker 1.00, 6-4, Lydia A Abbott 50c 6-3, Ollie Southerland 50, 6-22, Mrs Henry Parfitt 1.00, 6-1, Chas F Gray 90c 6-11, Alice Harrington (2 copies) 3.00, 6.35.

CAL CONFERENCE. Peter Scazighini 50.00, A Leoni 30.00, Placerville church 10.00.

RECEIVED ON ACCOUNT. Cal T and M Society 70.00, Vermont T and M Society 140.00, Illinois T and M Society 75.00.

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