SINCE our last issue we have received the following expressions of sympathy in the loss that has come to us, for which we are very grateful indeed:
Mr. C. M. Everest, Missionary Secretary of the Minnesota Conference, writes: “You may be sure that we sympathize with you in the great calamity that has befallen our Pacific Press Publishing House,” and kindly gives to us ten or twelve volumes of the Signs which he has been preserving for his own use. We need not say that we are very grateful.
Prof. M. E. Olsen of London, England, writes: “While we joyed over the large edition of the Signs at the time of the earthquake, we have felt to sympathize deeply in the loss of the institution in the way of damage; and now the news of the terrible fire redoubles our sorrow. For one I feel like doing as Job’s friends did to begin with, sitting still in silent sympathy. When they began to talk they were all wrong, and that is likely to be the case to-day. No doubt there is some lesson for every one of us in every calamity that God permits to come upon our institutions or upon some individual, but the lesson may take years to be perfectly understood and comprehended. I feel to pray with all humility of heart: “Teach me Thy way, O Lord, and lead me in a plain path, because of mine enemies.” . . . May God abundantly bless you, and may the Pacific Press, rising out of the ashes, become in time an even more powerful factor in spreading the beautiful light of the Gospel than ever in the past is the prayer of your brother.”
Mr. Wilbur A. Reaser, the artist, writes us: “Three days ago the first shocking news reached us of your terrible loss. With all our hearts we sympathize with you. This is a great mystery why the Pacific Press should be called upon to make so great a sacrifice at such a time as this. It may be some great light will come to us when we shall be literally saved as by fire.”
Elder H. A. St. John, chaplain of the St. Helena Sanatarium, writes: “I feel that the loss of the Pacific Press Publishing House is my loss, but I further see and feel that to you, more than any other person, it seems to me, the loss must be greatest. How many things pertaining to your connection with the office were doubtless consumed that money or memory can never reproduce. But after all I believe it to be a chastisement upon us all, and if we are rightly exercised by it, its full meaning will be seen in the peaceable fruits of righteousness that will follow. I expect great good to each of us, and much to the cause of God will come out of it.”
Prof. J. L. Derby, who had a series of articles, nine in number, destroyed by the fire, writes: “My present solicitation is only how to get the Pacific Press rebuilt. It will rise again, rise through the self-sacrifice of a determined people. When they recover from the confusion of the shock, they will, slowly perhaps, but none the less surely, lift anew. In the final reckoning the adversary can not complain that he was not given every advantage—money, talent, government; while the Lord took the poor in this world, the mean in natural gifts, the victims of governmental oppression, and has accomplished and will accomplish His purposes.”
Elder R. A. Underwood, president of the Northern Union Conference, writes from Minneapolis, July 31: “We have heard of the terrible loss of the Pacific Press. We were almost appalled by the news. God has something in it for us, and I believe our brethren will rally to the support of the Press as never before. Wishing you abundance of success, and with the assurance that your calamity is our calamity, I am your brother.”
Mr. Wm. Thomson, of Thomas Nelson & Sons, publishers of the American Standard Revised Version of the Bible, writes: “We regret very much to learn of your serious loss by fire and earthquake, and beg to assure you that you have our sympathy and that we will do everything in our power to assist you in rebuilding your business. We appreciate very much your kind expressions with reference to the American Revised Standard Bible, and for your information and assistance.”
Pastor R. C. Porter, president Kansas Conference, writes under date of August 1: “I assure you I was very glad to learn more of the facts concerning the burning of your plant at Mountain View—I say your plant; I should have said our plant. I am sure we are all equally interested in these publishing plants that have been established by our people for the dissemination of the message of truth we hold so dear. Anything that touches the publishing houses touches the hearts of our people. . . . We stand ready to join in any plan to further the work. . . . Assuring you of my hearty co-operation and sincere sympathy, I am sincerely yours.”
Elder A. G. Daniells, president of the General Conference, writes from Washington under date of August 2: “It is not necessary for me to use many words in telling you how terribly we have all felt over the destruction of your plant. You have no doubt had many letters of sympathy. Words from us can not tell you of the terrible impression this disaster has made upon us. . . . We join with you in earnestly praying the Lord to teach us the meaning of this calamity, how to learn the lesson and secure the blessing He designs we shall. We are deeply interested in the plans you may develop for the restoration of your plant. . . . Closing, I wish again to assure you of our sympathy and our fullest desire to co-operate with you in placing your institution on vantage-ground.”
THE SOLID GROUND OF FAITH.
By H. A. St. John
God's immutable and unchangeable Word is the solid ground of faith. That Word retains all of its original vigor, and authority. To the believing, trusting soul, God's printed Word still thrills with all its former warm and quivering life energy. The unchangeableness of God's Word demands that if He, in Christ, once said to a poor, heart-broken, believing, pleading penitent, "Thy sins which are many are all forgiven thee," He will now and always speak in the same way to all those who put themselves in exactly the same moral relations to Him.
The attributes of God's character demand that if He once said to a confessing, believing, praying, dying thief, "Verily I say unto thee to-day, Shalt thou be with Me in Paradise," He will speak in exactly the same voice to-day to any poor culprit who will put himself in the same moral relations to Him and His Law.
And is it not an eternal truth that the Author and the embodiment of all true laws is bound by His own attributes to speak in Christ, to a weeping, praying, believing mother by her daughter's dying bed, to-day, as in the past, "O woman, great is thy faith; be it unto thee even as thou wilt"?
God's very omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, and immutability are the pledges of the fact that He will forgive the sinner, cleanse the leper, heal the sick, cast out devils, etc., to-day, as in the past, if a similar set of moral circumstances are brought about in faith, penitence, humiliation, confession, restitution, earnest prayer, and an intelligent and constant purpose to do His whole will.
Pseudo scientists deny the possibility of a supernatural, spiritual blessing, and a divine and supernatural healing of the body and mind; and an ignorant ministry and an unscriptural church membership endorse their fallacies, or qualify either the spiritual blessing or bodily healing practically out of existence. Yet sound science, and the very nature and being of God demand that both be definite facts to-day, as unlimited and free to penitent, intelligent faith as the natural air to the body. This view forms an inspiration to faith, and an inducement to prayer and holy living, in that it leaves no question as to God's certainty of answering, if the conditions are intelligently met. The Gospel of Jesus in its fulness embraces all we have suggested in the preceding, and that Gospel is for the church to carry to all the world in this generation. The lack of this faith and experience is the disgrace of the church to-day, and this disgrace to Christianity is the infidel-making element of the age. Failure or defeat in the work of God is a plain call of penitence, heart searching, a truer and stronger faith, a clearer perception of the divine will, and better and wiser adjustment of life generally, as the cause of the failure must be in us, and not in God. Let the messengers of the Gospel go everywhere in the fulness of the blessing of the Gospel of Christ.
H. A. ST. JOHN.
COURAGE.
BECAUSE I hold it sinful to despond,
And will not let the bitterness of life
Blind me with burning tears, but look beyond
Its tumult and its strife;
Because I lift my head above the mist,
Where the sun shines and the broad breezes blow,
By every ray and every raindrop kissed
That God's love doth bestow—
Think you I find no bitterness at all,
No burden to be borne, like Christian's pack?
Think you there are no ready tears to fall
Because I keep them back?
Why should I hug life's ill with cold reserve
To curse myself and all who love me? Nay!
A thousand times more good than I deserve
God gives me every day.
And in each one of these rebellious tears,
Kept bravely back, He makes a rainbow shine.
Grateful, I take His slightest gift. No fears
Nor any doubts are mine.
Dark skies must clear, and when the clouds are past,
One golden day redeems a weary year.
Patient I listen, sure that sweet at last
Will sound His voice of cheer.
—Selected.
WHY DRINK IS DANGEROUS.
By Beatrice Fairfax
[Beatrice Fairfax, in Examiner.]
WHISKY and prosperity can not rule the same house.
Where you find the head of the home addicted to drink, you find poverty and wretchedness.
The wife is harrassed and careworn, the children are shabby and ill-nourished.
Instead of looking upon their father as the best man in the world, they fear and distrust him.
Instead of looking forward to his homecoming, they dread it.
The wife sees other women with comfortable homes, pretty clothes, well-dressed children.
She knows that she can not have any of those things because the money which should buy them is spent on whisky.
The man she promised to ``love, honor, and obey'' is nothing but a burden to her.
He is no help to her in the upbringing of the children. They can learn no good from him for the reason that they have absolutely no respect for him.
The duty of a father toward his children is quite as great as that of a mother.
It is his duty to train them to be honorable, diligent, useful citizens.
He should be the guide and counselor of his sons, ordering his life in such a way that they will have the greatest respect for his judgment.
But if he loves drink better than he does his children, he can do nothing for them.
He can only handicap them by obliging them to live down their father's shame and degradation.
The husband and father can not afford to drink. He has married a woman, taken her, perhaps, from a comfortable home, and promised to do his best to support her in comfort for the rest of her days.
He has become a father, and his plain duty and responsibility demand that he should give his wife and children the best that he can afford.
But if he is cursed by the love of drink he can be no help to them.
The saddest home in the world is the drunkard's home.
Grim poverty sits enthroned everywhere. There is little to eat and little to wear.
The pinched faces and shivering bodies of his children should be enough to bring the father to his senses.
His fellow men have no respect for him. His word counts for nothing. He is known as a bore and a nuisance.
In his time he was probably called a `good fellow'' and a `sport.'' He drank for conviviality's sake, and this is what it has brought him to.
The head of the house is supposed to stand as an example of all that is fine and splendid in his children's eyes.
If he is addicted to drink they will very soon discover that their idol has feet of clay.
Instead of loving and respecting him, they will be ashamed to call him father. As time goes on there will be nothing left but the cause of his downfall—whisky. Wife, children, friends, honor—all will have left him.
MILITARISM.
A CARTOONIST in an Austrian journal represents the condition of European countries by a man clothed in complete armor, with sword, dagger, and pistols, while dragging after him is a war-vessel and cannon. And that-well represents the condition of the world. Ten years ago Great Britain expended on her army and navy thirty million pounds sterling a year, but estimated cost this year exceeds sixty millions. Japan, in the fiscal year 1895-1896, expended on its army and navy about six million dollars, but in 1905-6, ten years later, apart from the expense of troops in the field, she expended thirty million dollars. So while she was successful over Russia, the war has left her with an incubus of debt which, as one writer remarks, ''remains as a permanent dead weight upon the country's life and enterprise.'' Russia expends $185,000,000 a year; Germany, $157,000,000; France, $133,000,000; United States, $112,000,000; India, $98,000,000; Austria, $84,000,000; Italy $55,000,000. The last issue of the World Almanac gives the expenditures of this country of the army and navy, fortifications, and military academy as about $185,000,000, with $140,000,000 more in pensions. Certainly the outlook is not for a millennium.
President Roosevelt and Catholicism
By Editor
President Roosevelt and Catholicism.—Bishop Gabriels of Ogdenburg, N. Y., one of a company of American pilgrims to Rome, read an address before the Pope, in which he said that Catholicism is making rapid strides in America, owing to the freedom which the church enjoys and the good-will of the American civil authorities. He quoted President Roosevelt as saying to him, on learning that the Bishop was conducting a pilgrimage to Rome: "Tell the pope that I send him my profoundest regards. I have tried to treat Protestants and Catholics alike, as my recent appointments show. I will try to perpetuate this policy. This Republic will stand for many a century. I expect that there will be Catholic presidents as well as Protestant. I trust that they all will treat each other as I have tried to do." The pope in reply, we are told "expressed great love for the United States, and the very highest esteem for President Roosevelt.
Logically no Roman Catholic ought to be President, because he professes his highest allegiance to one who claims to be the ruler of the earth. It may be very readily seen that the influence of a Catholic president would be used to further the aims of his church in this country.
INCREASE OF CRIME.
It is a good thing that there are some men who are clear-sighted enough and are willing to lift themselves above the range of low human vision high enough to see the condition of the world. Years ago the servant of the Lord told us that evil men and seducers would wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. See 2 Timothy 3. He pointed out that in the last days among those who made profession of godliness there would be no less than eighteen different sins held by those "having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof," and our Lord tells us that as the days of Noah were "so shall the coming of the Son of Man be." And we are told that in Noah's day the imaginations of men's hearts ran to evil, while the earth was filled with violence.
Some of these facts, at least, have been noted by the Rev. Wiley J. Phillips, of Los Angeles Emanuel Baptist Church. He is reported to have said that altho this is the twentieth century, almost two thousand years after Christ, less than five per cent. of our young men ever darken a church door, and only two and one-half per cent. are even brought into vital touch with the religion of Christ. One reason for this, he declares, is the defective system of family government and lack of a proper sense of moral responsibility. The child begins with disobeying the parents, a juvenile law-breaker, and continues that way the rest of his life, and finds placed in his pathway more saloons than churches, more saloon-keepers than preachers, more saloon-keepers than Sunday-school teachers. Eighty dollars is paid for the support of the liquor traffic to every dollar paid for the education of our children; one hundred three dollars is paid for the support of the saloon to every dollar we pay for the support of the Gospel of Christ.
He instances San Francisco before the fire, which had thirty-four hundred saloons and less than two hundred churches. During the last twenty-five years San Francisco increased thousands yearly in population, and yet the church membership was several thousand less than it was twenty-five years ago. The excuse is made that saloons are needed for revenue. San Francisco's thirty-four hundred saloons paid last year $268,000, while the city paid for police protection more than $1,500,000. It costs $737,000 more to patrol the city than is gotten from the saloons. And all this is in harmony with the prophetic Word.
GROWTH OF SUNDAY INTOLERANCE.
THE most delusive feature of the Sunday-law principle is hidden in the exceptions; for the reason that most people who know the whole principle to be tyrannical and intolerant will withhold opposition if only the things in which they are interested are excepted. The man who accepts an exemption of his particular interest in lieu of prohibition of wrong virtually throws his influence in favor of the wrong; he really concedes that the whole principle is right, and that his exemption is a compromise of right. In other words, he accepts a bribe for his tacit approval of that which he knows to be unjust.
On the other hand, it is a compromise of principle to grant the privilege of conducting enterprises conducive of evil under the protection of law, on condition that they be closed on Sunday. Yet nearly all observers of Sunday yield to this compromise; in fact, it is a small minority of them that ever ask any more even in respect to the saloon evil—that great hatchery of crime.
But a certain proposition for exceptions to the Ohio Sunday law called forth the spirit of Sunday legislation, and its hold upon the people, in a way that made the proposition at least worth the while. During the last session of the Ohio Legislature a bill was introduced providing for an amendment to the Sunday law excepting from its penalty the baseball games and theatrical performances. The result was a defeat by a vote of eighty-four to eight. This was regarded, and no doubt correctly, as a fair expression of popular sentiment regarding the Sunday law as it is. It might even be regarded as an indication that even a more stringent one would be tolerated—with a little popular agitation of the question.
The real spirit behind such legislation was manifested when the member who introduced the proposed amendment was not even allowed to discuss his bill before the house. This was carrying the spirit of intolerance well along toward the extreme, when a ''republican'' legislative body denies to one of its own members the right of free speech on a question of popular rights, and arbitrarily declares what men may not do on Sunday—solely because it is Sunday. The action, on the whole, was a deliberate step backward from the principle of civil and religious liberty which gave this republic its prestige among nations.
When the fathers of our government founded a republic they, perhaps unwittingly, allowed the colonies to bring over their Sunday laws and incorporate them into their state statutes, and that seed of church-and-stateism has grown and spread its baleful influence until it has become a formidable menace to our most cherished institutions. And National Reformism and Church Federationism are making it a stepping-stone to the enthronement of a political church as a national dictator.
G.
WHY SOME CHILDREN ARE CHILDISH.
The Sunday-School Times has a good note on this subject in a recent issue. The subject can not be taken too seriously, for the childish mind is plastic wax to be impressed by every statement and action of those about them. We quote:
'If we want children to tell the truth, we must tell the truth to them. If we want them to behave seriously, we must behave seriously toward them. Two women sat in a railroad station with two little girls. 'How does the man know when the train is ready, and when the train that is ready is going?' asked one of the little girls, as the man who called out the trains from a platform in the corner of the station began to shout through his megaphone. 'O, he knows by instinct, or by revelation,' said one of the women.
'That was a lie, and a lie bound to have large and evil educational results, alike on the child's confidence in truth, and in others as tellers of the truth, and on the child's thoughts about revelation.
'Then the other woman began to nag the children. She exchanged their hats, greatly to their distress, pulled them about playfully, and otherwise affronted their childish but just ideals of propriety. Under her educating influence, one of the children soon began to be as childish as the woman was, and threw one of the woman's possessions on the floor. That brought things to an end, and the woman reproved the child for what the child would not have done except for the woman's example and influence.
'There is a good deal of latent foolishness in children. But from whom did they inherit it? Doubtless some of it will work out in any case, but if grown people would be a little less foolish, the children would stand more chance of growing up as wise and sensible children. Children learn more foolishness from grown-up people than they would ever develop out of original sin.'
SIGNS OF THE TIMES
GRAND CANYON
OF ARIZONA
"A whole chaotic underworld. Most sublime scene on earth. A mile deep, 13 miles wide, 217 miles long, and painted like a flower."
TICKET OFFICES:
Ferry Building, San Francisco
1112 Broadway, Oakland
40th St. and San Pablo Ave., Oakland
University and West Sts., Berkeley
2d and J Streets, Sacramento
21 So. 1st Street, San Jose, Cal.
Is your husband proud of your COOKERY?
Likes good things to eat—does he?
Wouldn't it be a pleasant surprise to him in the winter time to set out some sliced tomatoes on a pretty white plate, fixed up just the way he likes them—
ECONOMY JARS
Or some sweet corn on the cob, as juicy and creamy as the day it was plucked, or green peas, or—
Say—a dish of brook trout—
Or some other article of food of which he is particularly fond, but which can not be obtained for love or money, out of season?
Well—
The ECONOMY Jar enables you to give him that very surprise.
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The next time the man of the house brings in a basket of trout or game, just put up some of them in an ECONOMY Jar. Then, without saying a word to him, set them out for his dinner some day next winter. They will be as sweet and wholesome and appetizing as the day they were put up. The treat will be like a vacation day in the woods or mountains. A single dozen ECONOMY Jars will prove this to you. Get them at your dealers.
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KERR GLASS MFG.-CO. 275 Hoyt St., Portland, Ore.
Eastern Office Dept. O., Philadelphia, Pa.
NOTICE.
A Seventh-day Adventist lady wishes work for her son (sixteen years of age) with Seventh-day Adventist family on a California ranch.
Address, Mrs. R. P., P. O. Box 613, Pacific Grove, Cal.
Personally Conducted
Tourist Cars
ON THE
UNION PACIFIC
Operate daily between principal Eastern points and California.
The route of the Overland Limited.
S. F. BOOTH, General Agent,
San Francisco, Cal.
E. L. LOMAX, G. P. A.
Omaha, Neb.
Eastern Excursions.
The Chicago and Northwestern Railway's daily and personally conducted excursions to the East afford the greatest amount of comfort at the least cost. The cars are of the very latest pattern and are provided with every convenience. Daily cars leave San Francisco at 6:00 P. M. and personally conducted every Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday at 9:00 A. M. Ask Southern Pacific Agents or R. R. Ritchie, 435 14th Street, Oakland, Cal.
SPECIAL MEETING OF THE PACIFIC PRESS PUBLISHING CO.
A special meeting of the stockholders of the Pacific Press Publishing Co. will be held at their place of business at Mountain View, Cal., on Monday, Sept. 10, 1906, at 2 o'clock P.M., for the purpose of considering the question of rebuilding their plant.
PACIFIC PRESS PUBLISHING COMPANY,
By H. W. COTTRELL, President,
H. G. CHILDS, Secretary.
Bank of Mountain View
If you haven't already done so, why don't you drop us a postal asking us to send you a copy of our monthly paper, "The Bank of Mountain View Journal." It is very interesting. It is full of good ideas, and it is free to you for the asking. If you live in the East, send for a copy and see how we do it in California. We still hold ourselves ready to furnish you with information about Mountain View. Write us.
—
Address
Bank of Mountain View
Mountain View, Santa Clara County, California
Southern Pacific
Whether going East or coming West, do not fail to take advantage of the most essential features of traveling
Speed,Comfort,Safety
Which are given the greatest attention in the equipment of the
Overland Limited
Running over the Southern and Union Pacific. Secure tickets and make reservations for berths from any
Local Agent
Southern Pacific Company
— OR —
City Ticket Office,
Ferry Bldg., San Francisco, Cal.
SPECIAL MEETING OF THE PACIFIC PRESS PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION.
A special meeting of the members of the Pacific Press Publishing Association will be held at their place of business in Mountain View, Cal., on Monday, Sept. 10, 1906, at 3 o'clock P.M., for the purpose of considering the question of rebuilding the plant of the Pacific Press Publishing Co.
PACIFIC PRESS PUBLISHING ASS'N,
M. C. WILCOX, President,
E. A. CHAPMAN, Secretary.
