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Signs of the Times, Volume 41, Number 49

Surpassing Love Revealed in His Plan
Earlier text: If You Can't Give Libraries GIVE GOOD BOOKS

Our Depositories

By Editor

Alabama Tract Society, 316 Lyric Bldg., Birmingham, Ala.
Alberta Tract Society, Drawer U, Lacombe, Alberta, Canada.
Arizona Tract Society, 417 West Fifth St., Los Angeles, Cal.
Arkansas Tract Society, 37 E. South St., Fayetteville, Ark.
British Columbia Tract Society, 1708 Maple St., Vancouver, B. C., Canada.
California Bible House, 537 Twenty-fifth St., Oakland, Cal.
California-Nevada Tract Society, 341 E. Lodi Ave., Lodi, Cal.
California Tract Society, Southern, 417 W. Fifth St., Los Angeles, Cal.
Canadian Publishing Association (Eastern Canada), Box 308, Oshawa, Ont., Canada.
Central California Bible House, Box 1304, Fresno, Cal.
Chesapeake Tract Society, 1611 Ellamont St., Baltimore, Md.
Colorado Tract Society, Eastern, 1112 Kalamath St., Denver, Colo.
Colorado Tract Society, Western, 122 S. Eighth St., Grand Junction, Colo.
Cumberland Tract Society (Eastern Tennessee), Graysville, Tenn.
District of Columbia Tract Society, 708 McLachlen Bldg., Washington, D. C.
Florida Tract Society, 19 W. Church St., Orlando, Fla.
Georgia Tract Society, 169 Bryan St., Atlanta, Ga.
Hawaiian Tract Society, 767 Kinau St., Honolulu, H. T.
Idaho Tract Society, Southern, Room 327 Sonna Building, Boise, Idaho.
Illinois Tract Society, Northern, 3645 Ogden Ave., Hawthorne Sta., Chicago, Ill.
Illinois Tract Society, Southern, 304 W. Allen St., Springfield, Ill.
Indiana Tract Society, 521 E. 23d St., Indianapolis, Ind.
Iowa Tract Society, Nevada, Iowa.
Kansas Tract Society, Room 614 Buttes Bldg., cor. First St. and Lawrence Ave., Wichita, Kan.
Kentucky Tract Society, Nicholasville, Ky.
Louisiana Tract Society, 810 Jackson Ave., New Orleans, La.
Maine Tract Society, 75 Grant St., Portland, Maine.
Manitoba Tract Society, 290 Bannerman Ave., Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
Massachusetts Tract Society, South Lancaster, Mass.
Michigan Tract Society, East, 426 Trumbull Ave., Detroit, Mich.
Michigan Tract Society, North, 510 Petoskey St., Petoskey, Mich.
Michigan Tract Society, West, 1214 Madison Ave., Grand Rapids, Mich.
Minnesota Tract Society, 336 East Lake St., Minneapolis, Minn.
Mississippi Tract Society, 932 Union St., Jackson, Miss.
Missouri Tract Society, 203 W. Franklin St., Clinton, Mo.
Montana Tract Society, 411 S. Black Ave., Bozeman, Mont.
Nebraska Bible Supply House, 905 N. California Ave., Hastings, Neb.
Nevada (See California-Nevada Missionary Society).
New England Tract Society, Northern, 136 N. Main St., Concord, N. H.
New England Tract Society, Southern (Rhode Island and Connecticut), 51 Whitmore St., Hartford, Conn.
New Hampshire (See Northern New England).
New Jersey Tract Society, 200 Columbus Ave., Trenton, N. J.
New Mexico Tract Society, Box 286, Albuquerque, New Mexico.
New York Tract Society (Greater), Room 904, 32 Union Square, New York, N. Y.
New York Tract Society, 317 W. Bloomfield St., Rome, N. Y.
New York Tract Society, Western, 8 E. Jefferson St., Salamanca, N. Y.
North Carolina Tract Society, 711 W. Lee St., Greensboro, N. C.
North Dakota Tract Society, Drawer N, Jamestown, N. Dak.
Ohio Tract Society, Box 187, Mount Vernon, Ohio.
Oklahoma Tract Society, P. O. Box 644, Oklahoma City, Okla.
Oregon Missionary Society, Western, 508 E. Everett St., Portland, Ore.
Oregon Tract Society, Southern, 1164 Military St., Roseburg, Ore.
Pennsylvania Tract Society, Eastern, 4910 Arch St., Philadelphia, Pa.
Pennsylvania Tract Society, Western, 7155 Mt. Vernon St., Pittsburgh, Pa.
Saskatchewan Tract Society, Box 244, Regina, Sask., Canada.
South Carolina Tract Society, 1208 Calhoun St., Columbia, S. C.
South Dakota Tract Society, Drawer R, Redfield, S. Dak.
Tennessee River Tract Society (Western Tennessee), 509 Cole Bldg., Nashville, Tenn.
Texas Tract Society, North, Box 15, Keene, Texas.
Texas Tract Society, South, Box 392, Austin, Texas.
Texas Tract Society, West, Box 16, Abilene, Texas.
Upper Columbia Tract Society, College Place, Wash.
Utah Tract and Bible Society, 776 E. Sixth St., Salt Lake City, Utah.
Vermont (See Northern New England).
Virginia Tract Society, 2705 W. Main St., Richmond, Va.
Washington Missionary Society, Western, Box Q, Auburn, Wash.
West Virginia Tract Society, 124 Marion St., Fairmont, W. Va.
Wisconsin Tract Society, Box 57, Grand Rapids, Wis.
Wyoming Tract Society, Crawford, Neb.
Above is a list of our authorised agencies and depositories, and we invite you to communicate with them if you wish to secure any books or periodicals advertised in this journal.

Wanted for Missionary Work

Literature for missionary work. James Harvey, 1729 Grove Street, Oakland, California.
A continuous supply of SIGNS, Watchman, Liberty, and Protestant, for missionary work. Mrs. L. A. Calhoun, N. Chillicothe, Illinois.
COLDS: Their Cause, Prevention, and Cure. A little 25c book that tells how to treat colds successfully without drugs. Better yet, it tells how to live so as not to “catch” colds. Address our depository (see list above) in your state or
PACIFIC PRESS PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION Mountain View, California

Prodigality and Wastefulness

IT is asserted, on good authority, that the taxes of the world have been doubled since 1897. The bonded indebtedness of the world, largely for war preparations, is in round numbers $37,000,000,000. When the war in Europe is over, this sum will certainly be increased from one fourth to one half or more.
Referring to this condition of increasing debt, Dr. Jordan says that “instead of living beyond our means, we are living beyond the means of the fourth generation,” and then he adds, “There is certainly a dangerous portent in a prosperity that rests on taxing the future, and in the steady inflation of values, because we waste so large a percentage of all our increments of effort.” And the doctor quotes Leroy-Beaulieu as having declared that “the world has rarely before been so badly governed. Its financial affairs are ‘in the hands of incurable prodigals and improvident experimenters.’”
Statements of this character coming from men who are making no particular study of the prophecies, and who therefore can not be said to be trying to make out a case, are strikingly significant when placed alongside such utterances as we find in the fifth chapter of James, where the prophet calls attention to the heaping together of treasure in the last days, and to the wanton prodigalities and extravagant luxuries of those who are spending their money in sensual pleasures without any realizing sense of the conditions into which they are plunging the world.
Men may justly be alarmed over what is confronting us, particularly in the field of finance, where so much is involved in the rapidly increasing debts of the leading cities, as well as of the nations in which these cities are located. Much of this increasing debt in cities is due to downright dishonesty. Everybody recognizes and deplores this fact. Much of the increasing debt of the nations is due to the preparations for war. Such things can not continue without world-wide bankruptcy and world-wide ruin.
Some men try to get comfort out of the thought that similar conditions have existed in the world before, and that regardless of the evil portents, the world has always moved along in some way, and risen above it. But as was recently stated by Mr. Balfour at the lord mayor’s banquet in London, “We live in times for which there is no precedent.” This is literally true. History furnishes no precedent whatever for the times in which we are living. Never before was the world a single neighborhood through the instrumentalities of the telegraph, the railroad, and the steamship; and our problems to-day are not neighborhood problems, but world problems. It behooves the sober-minded people of this generation to think; and the more they think, the more they will recognize the fact that there is no light ahead for us unless we can find it through the inspired prophets, who were enabled by divine vision to pierce the future. But turning to these, the future is all lighted up, and we may know, if we will, what the conditions of this time portend, and what will be the outcome.

Hold-Ups and Robberies

One of the San Francisco papers has the following significant heading: “Seven Held Up in a Night in City Streets—Footpads Work Boldly—They Slug and Beat Victims in Various Sections of the Town—Homes Also Are Looted.” Such conditions are common in all of our large cities, and they are permitted to flourish because the officers of the law have become corrupted and are a party to the thievery and looting. Honest citizens are grappling with conditions of this kind everywhere; but men ignore such facts, and pass right on humming over to themselves the song that the world is getting better and better.
If men would only exercise their ordinary faculties, instead of allowing themselves to be hypnotized by prevailing sentiment, they would awake to the fact that the people of this world are moving with awful strides in the direction of ruin and destruction. A person who points out these things is not an alarmist in the sense of being one who is making a stir about nothing. He is merely stating fact; and if the facts as they exist alarm people, surely people ought to be alarmed, for there is really occasion for it. Indeed, the conditions become such, just before the close of time, that God says:
“Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in My holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand; a day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people and a strong; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations.” Joel 2: 1, 2.
God calls for an alarm to be sounded among His own people. Many of them are not awake to the situation. They are disregarding God’s plain warnings, which tell them the meaning of the conditions that surround us in the world. Sooner or later each individual will become alarmed. If we allow ourselves to be alarmed in time to forsake our sins and to avail ourselves of the great plan of salvation, we will be prepared for the final climax when it is reached. But how sad it will be for those who refuse the warnings until the final awakening comes, when it is forever too late for them to prepare for the crisis that is hanging over this world!
The second coming of Christ is even at the doors. The conditions in the world everywhere are calling for His personal presence. And when He comes, He comes to save those who are ready; but the Book says that all the wicked will be destroyed by the brightness of His glorious appearing.

Communing with the Spirits

SIR OLIVER LODGE, in a recent speech in London, expressed his conviction that there was positive evidence of a future existence. A few sentences from his speech are the following: “I say this on definite scientific grounds. I say it because I know that certain friends of mine still exist, because I have talked to them. Communication is possible, but one must obey the laws to find out the conditions.”
Sir Oliver Lodge is one of the world’s eminent scientists. He, with many other leading characters, has been devoting a great deal of time to “psychical research.” These men are endeavoring to find out, in a “scientific way,” that there is a future life; and instead of basing their evidence upon the word of the infinite God, they tell us that they are sure of a future life because they have conversed with the spirits of those who have died.
Communing with the spirits is no new thing. Among the laws that Moses gave to the Israelites was this:
“Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them: I am the Lord your God.” Lev. 19: 31.
And through the prophet Isaiah is sent out this warning:
“When they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits and unto the wizards, that chirp and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? on behalf of the living should they seek unto the dead?” Isa. 8: 19, A. R. V.
The same Bible that gives us these positive laws against experimenting with the supposed spirits of the dead, tells us that “the dead know not anything.” Eccl. 9: 5. The Bible teaches that there is utter unconsciousness between the death of the individual and his resurrection.
The idea of an immortal soul that lives on after death, is a pure superstition. It has no scientific foundation under it whatever, and furthermore it has the most positive declarations of the Bible against it. But some of the worst delusions with which the closing days of time will be cursed will be brought about through the seducing spirits of the fallen angels, that will claim to be the spirits of the dead. The apostle says, “The Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils.” 1 Tim. 4: 1. Millions of people are seduced by these fallen spirits, just as the Bible said they would be; but those who actually believe and follow God’s word will not be entrapped in this matter.

He Is Coming Again

THE Lord Jesus Christ is coming again, and He is coming very soon. While He was here in person, He told His disciples that He would return. A large part of the divine Book is devoted to the promises of His coming, to describing the manner of His return, and to giving us the evidence by which we may know that the event is near.
The fact that men will laugh at the thought of His returning, that they will refuse to consider the evidence, does not set the matter aside. In fact, He has told us “that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of His coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.” 2 Peter 3: 3, 4. According to this text, instead of the scoffer who ridicules the second coming of Christ being a hindrance, that will set the great event to one side, he is merely an evidence that the Master knew how to foretell even what men would be saying “in the last days.”
God's prophecies are so numerous and so clear that those who take time to study them are aroused to tell the world that the end of all things is at hand, and that the glorious appearing of the blessed Christ is a near-by event. But the scoffer, in order to quiet his fears, derisively asks, “Where is the promise of His coming?” He refuses the evidence, and scoffs at the thought of it. The Master knew that he would do this, and foretold it.
That great day is coming. Jesus will soon return. The world will be made up of two classes. The one will study the evidence, and be ready for the event; the other will be scoffing at it. It is for each individual to decide which class he will be in.

Impressed by Prohibition

PROHIBITION did not carry in the recent elections in California; but nevertheless, it has made a very profound impression upon the liquor interests. The attorney for the “California Grape Protective Association” has come out with an urgent recommendation, to his clients, of sweeping reforms that they should work for. The saloon must be cleaned up. Drastic laws should be secured against the sale of intoxicating liquors to minors, women, or persons intoxicated. He also recommends that all saloons be closed at midnight and on Sundays.
It is a recognized fact that the saloon is one of the worst enemies society has. In the saloon the pickpockets, the thieves, and the highwaymen usually have their headquarters. Not that all saloons are of that character; but many of them are, and the only safe thing for the “California Grape Protective Association” and everybody else is to have the saloons completely closed.

Foot and Mouth Disease Spreads Among Animals

The University of California sends out the information regarding the foot and mouth disease among animals, that “cattle are most frequently infected. Next in order come hogs, sheep, and goats. Horses, dogs, cats, and even poultry have been in rare cases affected. But these animals, especially the last three mentioned, are particularly dangerous as carriers of the disease. Man is not immune to this disease, and children drinking raw milk from affected animals may develop blisters similar to those in the cattle. The affection in man is not serious, and recovery promptly follows.”
Judge Willis Brown, of Salt Lake City, in a talk to students of the Northwestern University, of Illinois, said, “Cigarette smoking is a growing vice in our colleges and schools, and no smoker of cigarettes can achieve distinction in finance or statesmanship or any other useful line of duty.” Young men should take such statements to heart, and not place upon themselves the handicap of cigarette smoking.
The wine grape business is not a paying one. Why plead for it? About the only profit seems to be, not to the grape grower, but to the wineries. Let it go. Other crops will pay better.
It is stated that China will have the largest display of any foreign nation at the Panama-Pacific Exposition at San Francisco.

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Signs of the Times · Dec 15, 1914