Earlier text: CHRIST AND THE SABBATHA PARABLE.
By Frank H. Casson
THERE was once a man who went to church somewhat irregularly; and when he did go he dropped into a seat very near the door. Then, as soon as the service was over, he took his hat and hurried out of church and scarcely ever shook hands with anybody. After a while this man began to complain of that church for its coldness. He met another man on the street one day, and began telling him about it. "Why," said he, "it is the coldest church I ever knew" (he didn't say how few churches he really knew anything about). "Nobody shakes hands with a man. There is the minister, he never shakes hands with me, nor the deacons, nor any of the leading men. They'll talk about it, but I'd like to see them do it. I believe in practicing what you preach. No, sir, I tell you it's the coldest church in this town." And he really believed he was telling the truth. And his manner was so earnest that the other man was quite convinced, though he had never been to this church. So he went and reported this fact to a third man, with some pretty severe criticisms upon church members not living up to their professions. Of course he told it to a fourth, and the ball went on rolling. Pretty soon quite a strong feeling was developed in various parts of the town, especially among those who did not attend church, that this church was very cold, "high-toned," "stuck-up," and "a sort of club for the rich folks, you know." But one day the man who started all this talk got to thinking about it. Now, the fact was that he didn't often get to thinking very hard over religious matters. But this time he did. And the more he thought the more surprised he became at himself. For this was about the line his thoughts took: "Here I've been a-telling how cold the minister and the deacons and the leading men of the church were, but how do I know it is so? Have I ever given them a chance at me?—No! I've just hurried out of the church and never let the minister get within fifty feet of me, nor the deacons within thirty or forty, nor any of them very near. Is it fair to say they didn't want to shake hands?—No, it isn't. Suppose they wanted to shake hands, could they do it if my hand wasn't there to shake?—Of course they could not. Now I believe I will just try them once." The next Sunday morning he just stood in his pew and faced the stream of people coming down the aisle. He wanted to run, but he had just grit enough not to. And really how pleasant they looked at him! First one man shook hands. And then a second gave him a grip and a, "Glad to see you, John." (Why, it was the very man he worked for!) And then a lady wished him "good-morning." After her two men tried to shake his hand at the same time. And the rich Mr. B. stepped up and gave him a cordial grip. How the blood tingled in his ears as he thought of the hard things he had said about Mr. B.'s stiffness and selfishness! Soon the deacons and the minister came along and shook hands in good, hearty man fashion, and were real glad to see him. And how ashamed he felt when the minister said: "I've noticed your face frequently in the audience, and wanted to shake hands with you and learn your name, but I never succeeded in reaching you, till now, before you got out of church"! So of course he had to tell the minister his name, and where he lived, and the latter said he would call on his family very soon. But, perhaps, the best of all was to have an old lady with such a kindly face put out her hand and say: "I don't know your name, sir, but I'm real glad to see you at church today. And wasn't it a good sermon?" That man went home with his heart in his mouth. He told his wife all about it, and fairly cried when he acknowledged how he had misjudged those good people. And he wound up by saying, "Fact is, wife, it's mighty easy to misjudge people." Then he went out and met some of his former friends and told them what an experience he had just had. "Why, to think," said he, "that I was such an idiot as to go around telling you that those church people were all cold and selfish, when I didn't know anything about it. Don't any of you ever tell anybody, after this, that I said such things about any of them. I was just a fool, that's what I was. But I'll tell you what I am going to do. I'm going to hire two seats in that church and be there every Sunday morning with my wife. See if I don't. And the minister's coming to call on us, and I'm going to get acquainted with him and the rest of them. For I tell you, boys, I've just learned one thing: You can't get acquainted with folks, and you can't shake hands with them, if your hand isn't there to shake."—Rev. Frank H. Casson, in Advance. More Revivals, Fearless Preachers
"THERE would be more revivals if we had more preachers who were not afraid of dying in the poorhouse." "I NEVER have a five cents even for postage stamps without asking for it." The speaker was a young wife, who, in her girlhood, earned regular wages as a seamstress, and when married, found her financial position changed. Eben held the purse strings, and made plenty of money. But new machinery was often needed, improvements must be made, hired hands cost a good deal, and so no allowance was thought of for the wife, who held the position of "nurse, housemaid, seamstress, cook," with the added duties of motherhood. "I always have a lump in my throat when I ask for a dollar," she said, "and I used to go to his pocket book for spare change, for at the marriage service he said, 'With all my worldly goods I thee endow.' "But when little Tom began to steal pennies because he wanted something and could not get it, I began to wonder if I had done wrong and the sin was visited on him." It was a sad contrast, this little mother's tender conscience, with a world of trickery and knavery. Nowhere is this lack of pocket money felt so much as among farmer's wives and daughters. Many of them go from positions in the city—teachers, typewriters, saleswomen, with a regular salary—a good cook can earn $15 a month. She may marry a young farmer, and, with all her life before her, decide to be his help and money saver. How they work and struggle to pay off the farm, to get the necessary improvements made! But the young wife has a feeling of envy on Saturday nights when her husband pays the "hands" who have worked for him, and has not a dollar for her, for she knows that they have been fed, while she has served; that they have slept, while she lost hours of slumber with the precious babe in her arms, and that they can buy clothes that she would feel it extravagant to wear.—Montreal Witness. OUR traveler noted the extreme youth of many of the crowd at the fiction table in the public library. And in response to her questions, the attendant said: "These are mostly schoolchildren. In the evening we have the shop girls, even the cash boys and girls, not older than these younger ones, in just such a crowd." "And do many of these come often, so that you get to know them?" "Oh, yes! That girl you see at the desk now," a slender child, not above thirteen, by her looks, "takes out two books a week regularly. That boy you see gets two every Wednesday, and two more every Saturday; and he wants the most exciting stories we can select for him; won't take anything better if we suggest it to him. And the girl just back of him is a high-school scholar, and takes out from two to four a week. We know almost all of this crowd." "And, so far as you know, they select for themselves, are allowed to choose from this public table without home restriction as to quantity or quality?" asked the inquirer. "Yes; the most of these come to this department on Saturday. At the departments of travel, biography, history, science, art, and standard fiction, many young boys and girls come with slips of paper on which are written the titles of books they have been advised to consult, or take home to read, by their parents or teachers. We try to advise those who pick for themselves—the trustees of the library wish us to do so—but we can't make them take what they don't want, and we don't have much time to talk with any of those who come in such a crowd as this." There are two inflexible rules which every parent should obey, and make the child obey, in respect to all reading outside of that required and suggested by a competent and trusted teacher in connection with school work. The first rule is, Get the best and widest knowledge possible to you in respect to mentally and morally desirable books and papers for your children to read. The second rule is, Allow no child to read anything which you have not selected yourself understandingly. What would be thought of a parent who turned a baby loose upon a table of indigestible and poisonous foods and drinks prepared for feasting grown-up and depraved appetites, and let it eat and drink at will? Yet, inasmuch as the mind and conscience are more precious and costly than the body, to permit a child to range, unattended and unrestrained, through the field of literature, is far more murderous and criminal. There can be hardly one mother in all America so isolated from educated people, or so poor in literary opportunities, that it is impossible for her to get something good, wholesome, and attractive for her children to read. Cheap editions of standard books, and low-priced magazines, free libraries, and friendly advisers among ministers and teachers and helpful people, abound. It is failure to appreciate at its full power the evil that is in bad or poor literature, rather than inability to find out and procure good literature, which is the real trouble. It is the failure of ordinary parents to appreciate the duty to control and protect the growing mind, as of the same binding importance as the protection and care of the little body, which is the real trouble in this matter. It is, deeper than all, a false taste and vitiated moral judgment in the parents themselves that leave the children a prey to bad and silly books and papers. Let the parents "begin at Jerusalem." Let them cultivate in themselves a refined taste, a discriminating mental choice, and a real elevation of moral feeling respecting literature, and then they can and will surround their children with reading matter which will be altogether helpful. Another point which parents must think of seriously in studying the effects of literature upon vicious tendencies, is the influence of the daily press. The newspaper is almost the sole literature of millions of families, of more people by far than read books or magazines. The "story papers" are, with a few honorable exceptions, weakening to the mind, and enervating or positively hurtful to the moral sense. They give low ideas of life, false pictures of society, and strained or overstimulating play of incident; but numerous and widely circulated as these story papers are, the daily newspaper is doubtless read by a hundred where these are read by one. There are clean journals, giving news and not vulgar gossip, giving a full record of the time, of the evil as well as the good, as a true newspaper must do, but showing, by the space given respectively to each, that they hold great movements in the conduct of public affairs to be of more importance than small details of personal vice and crime. But of how many newspapers is this true? In how many is the eye first attracted by showy headings relating to the evil doings of insignificant people, or vulgar details of personal gossip! In how many is to be found a disgusting particularity in all reports of scandals and obscenities! In how many is the space not devoted to advertisements given much more largely to the vicious than to the good side of life! Let mothers and fathers see to it that the daily press, the cheap story paper, the widely-circulated book, and all the reading matter which enters the home, or is suffered to influence the child, is pure in tone and elevating to mind and to heart.—Selected. A CORRESPONDENT who is a Methodist pastor, in a letter to the editor, says: "I have been doing arithmetical work in my parish, and as a result I do not hesitate to say that there are many professing Christians whose record will stand more for tobacco—a hundredfold—than for the conversion of the world." He then gives the following startling statistics: "I have two hundred and sixty-seven members in full communion and one hundred probationers in my charge. Sixty-seven of them use tobacco, and on making inquiry of each one, I find they have spent for that article in a single year $845. The entire membership, with the aid of outsiders, gave to pay the pastor and presiding elder, Conference claimants, missions, church extension and freedmen, $841." In that church one member confessed to spending over $100 for tobacco, while his522 contribution for church extension was sixty-six cents. Another confessed to an expenditure of $91 for tobacco. His contributions stood thus: Missions, $1.00; Conference claimants, $1.00. Is it not high time for smoking Christians to consider whether tobacco or the church of God has the strongest claim upon their purses? When a man pays a hundred and fifty times as much for nasty, dirty, filthy, stinking, outrageous, abominable, licentious, disease-breeding, lust of the flesh, poisonous idol, as he does for the cause of the Lord Jesus Christ, he is a hundred and fifty times more an abominable, licentious idolator than he is a Christian. To have such an unmitigated, filthy nuisance belong to a so-called Christian church, and for men of sense to call them "Christians," is to stultify themselves to all sense of decency, common sense, and Scripture. The man who will not obey a plain command of God is no more a Christian than the devil or any other child of disobedience is a Christian, and the word of God is, "Cleanse yourselves from all filthiness of the flesh," and the man who will not do it is no Christian. "Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself even as he [Christ] is pure."—The Way, the Truth, and the Life. Only sixteen, so the papers say,
Yet there on the stony ground he lay;
'Tis the same sad story we hear every day.
He came to his death in the public highway.
Full of promise, talent, and pride,
Yet the rum fiend conquered him—so he died.
Did not the angels weep o'er the scene?
For he died a drunkard—and only sixteen,
Only sixteen. Oh! it was sad he must die all alone;
That of all his friends not even one
Was there to list to his last faint moan,
Or point the suffering soul to the throne
Of grace. If, perchance, God's only Son
Would say, "Whosoever will may come"—
But we hasten to draw a veil o'er the scene.
With his God we leave him—only sixteen—
Only sixteen. Rumseller, come view the work you have wrought;
Witness the suffering and pain you have brought
To the poor boy's friends. They loved him well,
And yet you dared the vile beverage to sell
That beclouded his brain, his reason dethroned,
And left him to die out there all alone.
What if he was your only brother?
What if your wife were that poor boy's mother—
And he only sixteen.
—Selected. A YOUNG man entered the barroom of a village tavern and called for a drink. "No," said the landlord, "you have had the delirium tremens once, and I cannot sell you any more." He stepped aside to make room for a couple of young men who had just entered, and the landlord waited upon them very politely. The other had stood by silent and sullen, and when they had finished he walked up to the landlord, and thus addressed him:— "Six years ago, at their age, I stood where those two young men now are. I was a man with fair prospects. Now, at the age of twenty-eight, I am a wreck—body and mind. You led me to drink. In this room I formed the habit that has been my ruin. Now sell me a few more glasses, and your work will be done. I shall soon be out of the way; there is no hope for me. But they can be saved. Do not sell it to them. Sell it to me and let me die, and the world will be rid of me; but for heaven's sake sell no more to them." The landlord listened, pale and trembling. Setting down his decanter, he exclaimed, "God help me, it is the last drop I will sell to anyone!" And he kept his word.—The Christian. 'BEDIBUS NINE-O'CLOCKIBUS.'
REGULAR habits of life will do much toward establishing good health and good looks. Plenty of rest and sleep, and at regular hours, are among the prime essentials, and often do more than medicine in disease. The following anecdote by Dr. Dio Lewis admirably illustrates this:— A young lady came into his office one day looking rather grave and troubled. "Doctor," said she, "do you not think I am looking very old for twenty, and so thin, too—nothing but skin and bones?" The doctor admitted that she was right, that she did look rather old for twenty. "But, doctor, what can I do?" she asked. "Can you not give me some prescription?" "Would you be willing to take something very bitter?" asked the doctor. "I don't care how bad it is; what is it?" "The technical name of it is Bedibus nine-o'clockibus." "Bedibus nine o'clockibus! O doctor, what an awful name!" "Yes; it means you must go to bed every night before nine o'clock." "Oh, I can't do that! I thought it was something to take." "What time do you generally go to bed?" "Generally about twelve o'clock." "I thought so. Now, if you will go to bed every night for six months at nine o'clock, without making any change in your habits, you will gain ten pounds in weight and look five years younger. Your skin will become fresh and your spirits improve wonderfully." "I'll do it, though of course when I have company—" "It is regularity that is vital in the case. To sit up till twelve o'clock three nights in a week, and then go to bed four nights at nine, one might think would do very well. I don't think this every other night early and every other night late is much better than every night late. Even sitting up one night in the week deranges the nervous system. Regularity in sleep is every bit as important as regularity in food." The doctor's argument prevailed. The lean patient suddenly exclaimed: "Doctor, I will go to bed every night for six months before nine o'clock if it kills me, or, rather, if it breaks the hearts of all my friends." She did it, gained twenty-one pounds in five months, and found herself in the very best possible health and spirits, fresh and young looking, and quite delighted with the new and simple remedy, which she recommended enthusiastically to her friends.—Selected. A CHOLERA REMEDY
By Editor
THE following we clip from the Medical Times; it seems to have the indorsement of that journal:— CITRIC ACID vs. CHOLERA GERMS.
Experiments made by J. De Christmas are said to demonstrate that a weak solution of citric acid will destroy the cholera germ. It is said that a solution of 8 in 10,000 always kills them. The mixture is only slightly acid to the taste, and is harmless to the tissues with which it comes in contact. The public should be informed on this subject. ANSWERED PRAYER.
By Lilla Warren
O Thou who hearest prayer
When in true faith 'tis given,
Look down in tender love
And fit me now for heaven. This idol I have loved,
Oh, may I give to thee!
Lord, I am poor and weak,
Oh, grant me now this plea! Lord, I have not the strength
To yield my will to thine,
But thine is all the power,
And thou canst make it mine. I know that thou hast said
That thou wouldst work in us
Thy will and wish to do.
Oh, may it now be thus! Lord, thou hast heard my prayer;
I thank thee through thy Son.
I know that now in me
Thy will on earth is done. Through faith this strength is given
To battle with the wrong;
And he who yields his all
May in the Lord be strong. And oh! the wondrous thought!
To mortal man is given
The power to reach the throne
And grasp the strength of heaven. In 1790 the first national census was taken. In 1890, 100 years later, the last national census was taken. These censuses are taken every ten years, and from their examination an adequate idea of the growth of the country may be obtained. "Statistics are usually considered very irksome reading," says the Yankee Blade, "but the census statistics of the United States, recording as they do the most marvelous national growth in all history, are of great interest to all who are impressed by our country's development. "In the census of 1790 the present States of Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, West Virginia, Wisconsin, North and South Dakota, Montana, and Washington were not represented, for the simple reason that they had not yet come into existence. Indeed, the territory of most of them had not yet been explored. It was a solitude, roamed by savages and wild beasts. "The population of Massachusetts in 1790 was 378,787, or about 100,000 less than the population of the single city of Boston to-day. "The population of the State of New York in 1790 was 340,126. There are seven cities in the United States to-day,—New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Brooklyn, St. Louis, Boston, and Baltimore,—that contain a larger population than did the entire State of New York in 1790. "The population of the entire country in 1790 was 3,929,214—about as many people as are contained to-day in the three cities of New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia."—Selected. At a certain livery stable in a Western city, says an exchange, the men were so loud and profane in their conversation that they were frequently complained of to the "boss," who threatened to discharge them one and all if they did not reform. They listened to him respectfully, but went on swearing right and left, quarreling and wrangling among themselves all the time they were grooming customers' horses or harnessing teams within earshot of the public. But of a sudden all this stopped. The man who had been the loudest and most profane swearer went about his work as still as a mouse. All the men spoke pleasantly to each other, and not a loud or violent word disturbed the serene air. It was as if a miracle had happened. "You men have turned over a new leaf," said the proprietor of the stable; "what has caused the change? You use to swear by the —" "H-u-s-h, boss," said the man nearest to him, "we don't want her to know." He looked up and saw a little face at the window—the face of a delicate child, whom he now remembered to have seen playing lately about the stable. "It's Jim's kid. Her mother is dead, and we've taken her to help fetch up for Jim. She's a right nice little thing, and she thinks her pap just hunky, and we don't 'low her to get wind of any wrong doin,' and if enny man uses a swear word before her we'll break his—gosh, I nearly done it. Well, we're all just a-bustin' with meanness, but it's got to stay there, 'cause you see Nellie's a real little lady." "I see," said the livery man goodhumoredly, "that Nellie is going to be a missionary round here, and keep all you fellows straight." And the little face at the window smiled down on them, and Nellie was happy because they were "pap's" friends.—Selected. DEATHS from trichinæ are becoming so frequent that they have almost ceased to be the subject of remark. The last victim is a young woman seventeen years of age, residing in Paoli, Ill. The flesh of the patient was found to be filled with trichinæ.—Washington Temperance Magazine. Discouraging Harmful Habits in Children
MUCH mischief comes from the habit children have of putting things into their mouths while out-of-doors. Dangerous diseases are introduced into the system through the mouth, and such pernicious habits as biting the gloves, gnawing the carriage strap, as some babies do, and, worst of all, holding money or car tickets between the teeth, as is a common trick with little ones, ought to be persistently discouraged. Too often this habit is fostered in infancy by a thoughtless nurse, who lets baby suck balls, spools, and all small objects indiscriminately. Teeth must be helped through the gums, they say, and friction helps. Yes, but let us choose our appliances. Give baby a clean rubber or ivory ring and let him learn to discriminate between that and harmful objects. Then when he goes, at six, to walk in the park, he will not chew acorns, suck his gloves, nor bite rotten sticks to allay his craving.—Childhood. INDIA, with her long line of history, her strange customs and peoples, is a fascinating country to learn about. All the opulence and mystery of the East clusters around that name. We have always marveled at this wondrous land, with its "Black Hole of Calcutta," its Thugs, its peculiar "Baboo" English, and its horrid customs of throwing infants into the sacred river Ganges, and immolating its devout believers beneath the monster Juggernaut. Vishnu, the second person of the Hindu trinity (Brahma, Vishnu and Siva), was the preserver of creation. He had nine avaters, or incarnations. The eighth one is known as Krishna, and Juggernaut was the form in which he appeared to men. The name comes from the Sanskrit, jagannatha, meaning "lord of the world," and the original and principal seat of worship was at Puri, a small seaport on the Bay of Bengal, in the extreme east of the Indian peninsula. Every year over 300,000 pilgrims repair to this shrine, which contains 120 temples. The object of most reverence, however, is the great car of Juggernaut. On a large platform, 200 feet high, are three wooden figures made of rough wooden logs. They are armless, and crudity itself, but they represent the great Juggernaut, his brother Balabhadra, and sister Subhadra. The trappings and jewels which adorn this car are magnificent, and there is a tradition that one of the large diamonds now in the crown of the queen of England once formed one of the eyes of this idol, whence it was stolen by a French soldier in the early part of the eighteenth century and sold to a British nobleman, who presented it to the crown. The first historical appearance of Juggernautism was in 318 A. D., but myth carries back its history for several millions of years previous to this. The story runs thus: In the golden age, that is, long before history commences, King Indradyumna was ruler of Malva. Vishnu, the Preserver, had gone from the earth, and the king sent holy Brahmans out to find him. Those who went northward, eastward, and westward came back with no tidings. But the one who went southward, after penetrating a great jungle, came to Orissa on the sea. There dwelt a fowler named Basu, and with him the Brahman lodged. Basu, proud at having a holy Brahman as a guest, gave him his daughter for a wife, and they lived happily together. One day the Brahman asked Basu to whom he presented his daily offerings of fruit and flowers. For answer the fowler blindfolded him and led him out to a secluded spot. When he again saw, the Brahman perceived a coarse blue stone at the foot of a sacred fig tree. Then a voice from heaven said: "Return to King Indradyumna. Thou hast found the Lord of the World." The Brahman returned, and Indradyumna marched to Orissa with an army of 1,300,000 footmen and stonecutters and built the great temple. For a subsequent act of arrogance the blue stone god disappeared from earth, and now he and his confrères are represented by wooden images. Once every year the great car, with its wheels 16 feet in diameter, is drawn out from the temple and pulled for the distance of about a mile by the enthusiastic pilgrims, amid the incantations of the priests and the songs of the worshipers, who sometimes work themselves up into a frenzy, and have been known to throw themselves beneath the ponderous wheels, thinking thus to secure a passport to eternal bliss. Of late, however, travelers and writers of authority deny that this immolation is or ever has been a custom, averring that it is only the wild act of some of those fierce zealots who have become exhausted by the great pull in the intense heat, and wrought up to a pitch of semi-insanity by their religious zeal.—The Voice. THE ABOMINABLE HOLI FESTIVAL.
By Rev. T. E. F. Morton
Of all the festivals that are celebrated in India the Holi, in my judgment, is the most horrible. A trip to the post office a few days ago gave me an opportunity of witnessing some of the doings of the uncontrolled participators of the feasts. Large tubs of colored water could be seen at different points in the city, into which the rollicking scamps would plunge their brazen, tin, or bamboo syringes and then freely discharge their crimson contents on the Hindu passers-by. In the absence of syringes and paint, some would descend to the office of scavengers, by scraping up gutter filth and bedaubing their friends with it. Men and children would be forcibly seized and their persons abundantly supplied with red powder, and those who managed to extricate themselves, would have a red shower bath in flight. Hindu women would make themselves scarce on those wretched festival days, but those who dared to venture out received no little of the worst of abuse. Rich and poor, great and small, old and young, strong and weak, men, women, and children—all participate in the filthy feast. The grogshops are freely visited by the men. Madak (betel leaf mixed with opium), charas (a kind of intoxicating drug), and bhang (the leaf of the hemp plant) are constantly smoked; and under these maddening and intoxicating stuffs, they sally forth with country cymbals and drums, singing monotonously all over the place, to the infinite disgust of the Christian ear. The place overrun with the rowdy crowd is a perfect pandemonium. These are high days for the old devil. Certainly there are many and cogent reasons for the immediate stamping out, by the government, of this heaven-accursed festival. Such high license as has been above reported is destructive of life and property. Under the maddening influence of opium and drink a quarrel ensued the other day at Undilla, a village near by, in which eighteen men were wounded and one almost killed. While seated at the civil dispensary last Friday an old man was brought in from a village, who, from the nature of the wounds sustained, must have been severely belabored with a club; for he had three broad gashes on the head. From a small station like this such cases as the above are reported, but what must the large centers furnish? Drunkards and opium eaters and smokers are no respecters of persons; they are devoid of those nice, tender, filial feelings which are the heritage of the sober and the righteous, and are in danger any day of ruthlessly destroying others and themselves. I was indeed glad to read in the Guardian the other day of the move in the right direction which some of the educated Hindus had taken with reference to the modification of the Holi evil. I was also pleased to hear of the efforts in that direction even in the Punjab. There are educated Hindus all over this great empire who are verily ashamed of the outrageous doings at the Holi, who, I have not the least shadow of doubt, would rejoice should the government rise in all its strength and authority to wipe the evil out of existence. The officer in charge of the civil dispensary here, an educated Brahman, regards the Holi as a nuisance, and would be glad if the government knocked it on the head.—Gospel in All Lands. AWAKE! the morning cometh!
The east is all aglow!
Go, join the busy reapers,
As forth to the fields they go.
Wake, for the Lord of the harvest
Hath need of thee to-day.
The fields gleamed white in the dawning light;
Awake! and haste away! In distant sea-girt islands,
In many a summer clime,
Where seed was sown with weeping,
'Tis now the harvest time.
Wake! for the Lord of the harvest
Hath need of thee to-day;
He calls again, and the waving grain
Still beckons thee away. Art thou not strong for the reaping?
Yet haply thou shalt find,
While sheaves are bound by others,
Some gleanings left behind.
Wake! for the Lord of the harvest
Hath need of thee to-day;
Act well thy part with a willing heart;
His strength shall be thy stay. And you who cannot labor,
The Lord hath need of you.
Pray for the earnest reapers,
The toilers faint and few;
Pray ye the Lord of the harvest
That laborers he will send
To work with their might in the fields so white,
Till harvest time shall end.
—Selected. The author, in a book of 368 pages, takes up this great central doctrine of the gospel, and treats it in two parts. Part first, An Atonement Consistent with Reason.
In this he shows that the doctrine of an atonement through the medium of a voluntary substitute is consistent with reason. Part second, The Atonement as Revealed in the Bible.
In this is discussed the plan of redemption through Christ, by which every sinner who accepts Christ will be justified; sin will be turned back upon the head of its originator; the earth will be cleansed from the curse; God's righteous government will be restored over the entire universe; and all who will not become loyal subjects of that government will be destroyed. The book presents a CRITICAL AND EXHAUSTIVE TREATISE on this interesting subject, by a thorough Bible student, and wholly from a Bible standpoint, and cannot fail to be of great value to everyone who reads it. Third edition, bound in cloth, embossed in black, with gold title on back and front cover. Price, postpaid, $1.00.
Address, Pacific Press Publishing Co.,
Oakland, Cal.
Or 43 BOND ST.,
New York City. BAPTISM: Its Significance, Its Nature, and the Necessity for It. By E. J. Waggoner. Bible Students' Library, No. 79. Pacific Press Pub. Co., Oakland, Cal. 16 pp.; 2 cents. AT Thermal City, North Carolina, five persons were recently baptized by Elder D. T. Shireman. ELDER S. S. SHROCK reports a tour among German brethren in Oklahoma, and the addition of ten to our ranks. BROTHER J. W. COLLIE is holding meetings at Oakland, Florida, where he is very kindly received. Elder Crisler, who was so brutally assaulted not long ago at Grand Island, expects to connect with Brother Collie as soon as he is physically able. A SERIES of tent meetings was inaugurated in San Francisco on the evening of the 17th inst., by Elder H. A. St. John, R. S. Owen, and F. M. Wilcox. ELDER J. O. Corliss has removed his family to Washington City, which for a time will be his field of labor. His address is 1240 Maryland Avenue, N. E. Washington, D. C. BROTHER W. H. FALCONER reports sixteen additions to the faith as a result of meetings held at Maynard's Mills, Michigan. A church of twenty-five members was organized. ELDER D. T. BORDEAU, who has been laboring among the French in the vicinity of McDonald, Pennsylvania, baptized fifteen on the fourth inst. Most of these were Roman Catholics but a short time ago. THE new church building at Albuna, Ontario, the first in the province, was dedicated some three weeks ago. Elder A. T. Jones was present, together with Elders Burrill and Leland, and meetings were continued five days, with a number of additions to the church. Elders Burrill and Leland will remain in the province. Bible readers are now at work in Toronto, the capital. AT a country place called Beulah, in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, Brother B. L. Dieffenbacher has organized a Sabbath school of twenty-two members. A peculiar circumstance is reported in connection with his work there. He was preaching in a schoolhouse, and on petition of the Methodist congregation in the vicinity the house was closed against him, on the ground that his company would burn it down. A short time afterward the house took fire during school hours and was burned. THE Review of the 13th inst. has the following significant letter from Elder H. E. Robinson, president of Atlantic Conference: “I have just learned that three more of our people at Ford’s Store, Maryland, have been arrested and convicted for Sunday labor, and whose cases will come before the County Court on appeal, we suppose, in November, along with Brother Baker’s. One of these is a woman who was sewing in her own house. One of the brethren was arrested on complaint of his own father, and the chief witness was his brother.” THE annual meeting of the Seventh-day Adventists of the Maritime Provinces was held in Moncton, New Brunswick, in May. Elder I. D. Van Horn, of the General Conference Committee, was present. The following officers were elected: Executive Committee—R. S. Webber, F. I. Richardson, Levi Longard; Secretary and Treasurer, D. G. Scott. Sabbath School Association officers were chosen as follows: President, John F. Archibald; Vice Presidents, H. R. McKay, T. S. H. Berry; Secretary and Treasurer, Fannie Gibson. Mrs. I. H. Cowie was elected Tract Society Secretary.