OUR Mexican contemporary and coworker, El Amigo de la Verdad, published at Guadalajara, comes to us at the beginning of the new year full of good matter on the living Gospel issues of the time, and illustrated. It would seem that there would be many Spanish families in the States who would be glad to get this paper, full of Gospel truth. Why should it not be sent among them? It is only 50 cents a year, and in American money, possibly less. Particulars may be had by addressing the editor, Dan. T. Jones, Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico.
Seventh-Day Baptist Statistics
SEVENTH-DAY BAPTISTS, according to the Independent’s report of the churches, had at the close of 1896, 117 ministers, 105 churches, and 9,173 members, showing an increase of 15 ministers, 5 churches, and a loss of 71 members, which is probably a mistake.
Elder W. C. White Arrives
We have the pleasure of greeting once more Elder W. C. White, at one time president of the Pacific Press Publishing Company, but now president of the Echo Publishing Company, of Melbourne, Australia, and superintendent of the Australasian General Conference district. Brother White came in on the Monowai the 15th instant. He will stop a few days on the coast looking after publishing interests and calling on friends, and will then proceed eastward to attend the General Conference to convene in Lincoln, Neb., February 19. May his stay be both pleasant and profitable.
What Have Sunday Papers to Do with It?
In one of his recent sermons in New York City on the Ten Commandments, Mr. Moody is reported by the Independent as saying:— “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” Now I come to the Sunday newspapers. I wouldn't touch a Sunday newspaper any more than I would touch tar. If there are any attacks on me next Sunday I won't see them, for if any one sends me a Sunday newspaper I always tear it up. Nothing is doing more damage to the church of God than the Sunday newspapers. The papers abuse Tammany, but Tammany never did one-quarter as much harm in this city as have the Sunday newspapers. There are about 25,000 divorces every year in the United States. Many of them are directly due to the Sunday newspapers, which publish accounts of divorces in all their details. The Sunday newspapers are responsible for many suicides and murders. All the theaters in Chicago are open on Sunday as the result of the Sunday newspapers. In Chicago men are knocked down and robbed in open daylight, murders occur every day, masked men go into the stores and rob them. There is not a divorce case which is full of filth, there is not a case of adultery, which the Sunday newspapers don't rake up and publish. The angel Gabriel could not be heard by the Sunday newspaper readers. Now, how many here will swear that they will never again read a Sunday newspaper? Raise your hands. (The hands of three-fourths of those present were raised.) Let the reporters take that down.
Now we have no defense to make of the vile Sunday newspaper, nor the prurient press of any day of the week. But what has the Sunday newspaper and the Sunday theater to do with the command, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy”? Why not condemn the vile Saturday sheets which are published on the day appointed of God? Now Mr. Moody knows, or ought to know, that the Sabbath of the fourth commandment is not Sunday; it is the seventh day, from sunset of Friday to the sunset following. If the very proportion of time is important, why is not the very time itself? God gave it, and over and over has specifically emphasized it, that “the seventh day,” the day just before the first day of the week (Ex. 20: 8–11; Matt. 28: 1; Mark 16: 1, 2), is the Sabbath. Why not accept this word of God? The Sunday paper is often very evil; and it is about the same in kind all through the week; but the condemnation of the Sunday paper does not justify the transgression of the Lord's commandment, to keep, not Sunday but the seventh day, the day just before Sunday.
How Roman Catholics Regard Protestants.
The New York Independent of January 7 gives, as usual in its first number of the year, a symposium of the churches, with articles from leading men in the various sects. The article on the Roman Catholic Church is by Rev. David S. Phelan, editor of the Western Watchman. In speaking of the removal of Bishop Keane from the Washington University, he takes occasion to say:—
“But it is doubtful if he would have been removed if he had not advanced dangerous views on Protestantism. Catholics believe that Protestantism is a damnable heresy, worse than any that has yet arisen in the church. They think it is charity to tell Protestants so; to labor to convince them that it is so; to co-operate in bringing them out of their position of awful danger. If there is anything more uncharitable than another in our intercourse with those of heterodox persuasion, it is teaching them or encouraging them to be content with their present spiritual state. Bishop Keane was the paraclete of American Protestants, and gave them consolation which better theologians considered cruel and unjustifiable. For this he was removed from the headship of an institution which was to train the men who were to lead the thought of the American Catholic Church in years to come.”
This is frank, and honest, and consistent. We wish Protestants could be as truly so. Of this we shall have more to say hereafter.
Catholic Missionary Society Receipts
The Society for the Propagation of the Faith (the greatest and principal missionary society among Roman Catholics) reports a falling off of $46,120 in its receipts of 1895 below those of 1894; the total amount for the year being $1,364,030. Of this France gave $827,375; Belgium, the next, gave only one-tenth as much. America gave $62,177, of which $34,763 came from the United States. Not a very liberal sum for 8,000,000 or more Catholics. At 7,000,000 it is only about one-half a cent apiece. The Catholics of Mexico were more liberal. They gave $25,312. About $16,800 is returned to the United States for needy missions. It is said that there are 250,000 colored Roman Catholics in this country.
Sunday-Law Petition in Atlantic, Iowa
A PETITION has been circulated in Atlantic, Iowa, asking all business men to close their places of business on Sunday, and a committee has been appointed to ask the mayor and city council to strictly enforce the Sunday law. Thus goes on the work of making still stronger the bond of union between Church and State in this much-lauded “land of the free;” this, too, in face of the positive assurance that God accepts only such Sabbath observance as is “according to the commandment,” and this voluntary on the part of the individual.