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Review and Herald, Vol. 82, No. 16.

Life and Health

Review and Herald

Apr 20, 1905

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Apr 20, 1905

Life and Health

A Monthly Health Journal

Devoted to teaching the fundamental principles governing the life and health of the human organism, and revealing to the masses these natural heritages applied in daily life, pointing out the plain, simple way to regain and maintain health, and presenting the A B C principles in so simple and practical a manner that none can fail to apply them.
*A POPULAR, PRACTICAL HOME MANUAL FOR ALL CLASSES.*
Prices: 5 cents a copy; 25 copies and over, 2 1-2 cents a copy. Yearly subscriptions, 50 cents.

The Year-Book

for 1905
Contains over 2,000 important historical facts on the rise and progress of the denomination, a concise statement of the Fundamental Principles together with the usual State and union conference organizations, directories of workers, and institutions of the denomination.
A cyclopedia of denominational information essential to every church-member, and instructive to all.
Paper covers; Price, 25 cents.

Colds

Their Causes, Prevention, and Cure
The object of this little work is to enlighten the public upon the causes of colds, to teach methods of prevention, and to outline proper treatment for their cure.
It contains practical directions for breaking up a cold by simple, rational treatments without the use of drugs, and gives helpful suggestions for the prevention of colds.
Beautifully bound in cloth, 58 pages. Price, 25 cents, post-paid.

A New Edition of the Empire Series

Now Ready

This new edition is printed on better paper, bound in uniform bindings, so that the three volumes, “Empires of the Bible,” “Great Empires of Prophecy,” and “Ecclesiastical Empire,” now form a neat and most valuable set, and as

An Introduction

to the whole series, there is printed at the beginning of the first volume an essay of special value on

The Philosophy of History

which was made the introduction to the “Empire Series” by vote of the College View Educational Convention of 1903. Every student of history should read this Essay on the Philosophy of History. To those who have copies of the first edition of “Empires of the Bible,” the Philosophy of History will be a great help. Those who buy the new edition of the “Empires of the Bible” get the Philosophy of History in the book itself.
Printed in pamphlet form to supply those who have only the old edition; price, 10 cents.
Price of the full set of the “Empire Series,” $6.

Vegetarian Cook Book

The product of a practical and successful hygienic cook, containing numerous practical recipes of all kinds of palatable hygienic dishes, and common-sense rules with reference to boiling, steaming, stewing, baking, braizing, and broiling, and the benefits to be derived therefrom when science and reason are combined.
Over 225 pages of choice and valuable information for every household. Bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents.

An Appeal to Clergy

$50,000 Circulated in Two Months
An eight-page tract containing an Open Letter on the Sabbath question, addressed to the ministers of Washington, D. C. Its rapid circulation testifies of its merits and the public appreciation. It contains a clear, concise presentation of the Sabbath and the Fundamental Principles of Religious Liberty.
Price, 40 cents a hundred; $3.75 a thousand.

The Sabbath School Worker

A sixteen-page monthly journal devoted to the Sabbath-school work and its general interest, containing valuable instruction on the various phases of the Sabbath-school work, practical suggestions on organization, teaching, class, general, and missionary exercises, with helps on current Sabbath-school lessons for the Senior, Intermediate, Primary, and Kindergarten Departments, and many other valuable suggestions for Sabbath-school officers, teachers, parents, and pupils. The Worker is an invaluable aid to all engaged in the Sabbath-school work.
Price: one copy, 35 cents a year; 2 or more copies to one address, 25 cents each.

The General Conference Review

A Thirty-two Page Weekly
With no increase in the six, eight, and twelve months’ subscription rates, the two and four months’ rates cut out, and the three months’ rate raised from 40 cents to 50 cents on new subscriptions made between April 1 and June 30.
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The Youth’s Instructor

Established in 1852
An illustrated eight-page weekly paper, devoted to educating and encouraging the youth to a high conception of life. Lively and entertaining, yet free from cheap, exciting stories common in journals designed for the youth. Its general tone is well calculated to strengthen the understanding, to supply the mind with proper information, to invigorate the moral nature, and to increase reverence, devotion, and a love for God and humanity.
Subscription Rates
Yearly subscription, 75 cents; six months, 40 cents; three months, 20 cents; foreign countries, one year, $1.25.

Editorial

By Editor

“He . . . Is Risen”
SORROW and perplexity were changed into astonishment when the two men “in shining garments” said to the women at the tomb, “Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen.” Although his enemies “made the sepulcher sure, sealing the stone, and setting a watch,” yet the sinless One triumphed over death, and over the rent sepulcher he proclaimed, “I am the resurrection and the life.”
“Vainly they watch his bed, Jesus, my Saviour! Vainly they seal the dead, Jesus, my Lord! Up from the grave he arose, With a mighty triumph o’er his foes; He arose a victor from the dark domain, And he lives forever with his saints to reign: He arose! Hallelujah! Christ arose!”
The resurrection demonstrates the rightfulness of Christ’s claim to oneness with the Father. The resurrection furnishes the ground of confidence for the forgiveness of sins. “If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. . . . Ye are yet in your sins.” The resurrection establishes the certainty of Christ’s power over the grave: “I am the first and the last, and the Living One; and I became dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.” In the likeness and the power of the resurrection we are quickened, and enabled to lead the life of righteousness: “We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.” Thus the resurrection is a corner-stone of the Christian faith. And the time is near at hand when “them also that are fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring with him.” We need to be often reminded that “He . . . is risen.”

“Of What Sort It Is”

As we draw nearer to the close of this hour of God’s judgment, we may expect to see the true character of every professed believer in the truth made manifest to us and to the world. That which is hidden will be revealed. There will be combinations of circumstances which will test the genuineness of each one’s experience. Those whose profession of religion is a mere cloak for evil practises; those who have refused to heed warning and instruction; those who have more confidence in themselves than in God or his Word; those who have gradually become entangled in Satan’s snares by refusing to break away from unhallowed influences and unholy alliances,—all these will, in the court of God’s providence, be placed on trial, and they will seal their own destiny either by a genuine conversion to God or by a complete surrender to the rule of Satan. Even now we may see indications that we have entered upon the time of test, and we may experience some sad surprises as we find what we had supposed to be good wheat to be only chaff. When we consider the meaning of these things, we ought not to lose heart, even though there are betrayals of trust and departures from the faith. We have looked forward to this shaking time, and as we see evidences that we have entered upon it, we may count it as one more token that the end is near. “To stand in defence of truth and righteousness when the majority forsake us, to fight the battles of the Lord when champions are few,—this will be our test. At this time we must gather warmth from the coldness of others, courage from their cowardice, and loyalty from their treason.” “He that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved.” What may sometimes seem to us like confusion and failure in God’s work is simply the process of purification, a necessary preparation for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the closing work of great power. This is the time when every man’s work will be revealed, “of what sort it is.” Character is being tested, and choices are being made for eternity.

Religious Instruction in the Public Schools

By William Warren Prescott

A Review of the Case—by W. W. Prescott
(Seventh-day Adventist)
UNDER this heading there appeared in the Washington Post of April 8, an article by the editor of the REVIEW, dealing with some of the arguments which had been advanced in favor of the introduction of religious instruction into the public schools. This article is reprinted in these columns without change. The editor said:—
The real question involved in the present demand that definite religious instruction shall be given in the public schools of the District of Columbia, is a very simple one. If it is not obscured by irrelevant statements and arguments, if the attention of the public is not diverted from the real issue to the people who oppose this movement, and if unwarranted assumptions are not accepted as proof, there ought to be little difficulty in arriving at a decision upon this matter.
Preliminary to any serious consideration of the arguments advanced in favor of teaching religion in the public schools, I will briefly refer to the wholesale accusation that those who oppose this movement are “foes of the Sabbath.” Why is this issue raised in this campaign? The only possible ground upon which opposition to the introduction of religious teaching into the public schools can logically be regarded as opposition to the Sabbath (meaning thereby the Sunday sabbath) is plainly that this religious teaching will deal with the Sabbath controversy, and that it is expected to maintain, either directly or indirectly, the Sunday side of the controversy. But this reveals at once the sectarian and controversial character of the instruction which will inevitably be given. This ebullition of religious zeal is certainly a boomerang.
But if by “foes of the Sabbath” those are meant who observe the seventh-day Sabbath of the fourth commandment, which it is desired shall be taught in the schools, who are the friends of the Sabbath? It appears to me that another correction would not be out of place.
But leaving appeals to race and religious prejudice unanswered, inasmuch as they carry their own antidote by revealing the spirit which prompts them, let us deal with the real issue. Divested of all irrelevant matters, which, whether so intended or not, are well adapted to confuse the minds of the people, the real question involved is this: Is it within the legitimate province of the state to give religious instruction in its schools? It is not a question as to how much religious instruction shall be given. Conceding the right to give any such instruction concedes the right to give just as much and just such a kind as is deemed expedient. It logically places the state in control of religion. For this reason those who do not desire a state religion oppose the first step which concedes this principle.
It is constantly urged in favor of this demand for definite religious instruction in the public schools that the Supreme Court has decided that “this is a Christian nation,” or that “this is a religious nation,” and that, therefore, it will be constitutional for the state to teach the Christian religion. To claim that this opinion of the Supreme Court authorizes the teaching of the Christian religion in the schools of the state is to assert that Christianity is already established as the state religion. This, however, is utterly at variance with the plain declaration made in the treaty with Tripoli, negotiated in 1796, seven years after the adoption of the Constitution. It declared that “the government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.” This treaty was drafted by an ex-Congregational clergyman, and was signed by George Washington. This is a sufficient answer to all the claims, based upon irrelevant quotations, that Washington believed in a union of religion and the state.
This republic was founded as a Christian nation, in the true sense of the term, and for this reason, quoting the words of George Bancroft, “The new nation dared to set the example of accepting in its relations to God the principle first divinely ordained of God in Judea; . . . not from indifference, but that the infinite spirit of eternal truth might move in its freedom and purity and power.” When this principle is once discarded, the glory of this country will depart, and it can no longer be legitimately declared that this is a Christian nation. It is a departure from the Christian principle laid down for nations when the state attempts to become the exponent of religion.
It is a perversion of testimony to quote the opinions of those who believe in a Christian education and in the value of the Bible in the education of the young as supporting the plan of religious education by the state. We are soberly assured that Jefferson presented “a copy of the Bible to each of his grandchildren at the age of twelve years.” I commend this practise; but what of it? Why resort to puerile arguments and unfair inferences? Why not quote Jefferson’s own words in his preamble to his “Act for Establishing Religious Freedom”? He said: “To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical.” If the fact that Jefferson gave a Bible to each of his grandchildren has any bearing upon the present controversy, it indicates that he believed that religious education should be imparted in the home.
Writing to Edward Everett directly upon the question of religious teaching in state schools, under date of March 19, 1823, James Madison said: “The difficulty of reconciling the Christian mind to the absence of a religious tuition from a university established by law, and at the common expense, is probably less with us than with you. The settled opinion here is that religion is essentially distinct from civil government, and exempt from its cognizance; that a connection between them is injurious to both.” After reading these quotations will any one further urge the claim that Jefferson and Madison were in favor of teaching religion at the expense of the state?
It has been repeatedly urged that “it is a violation of the broad democratic principle on which our government rests” if the majority are not permitted to have their own way in this matter of teaching religion in the public schools. Even if “the great majority” should join in the demand for religion to be taught by the state, it would be a violation of the true principles of civil government to grant it. On this point I will quote the language of Rev. Samuel T. Spear, D. D., a Presbyterian clergyman: “In order to be a democratic state, governed by the rule of equal and impartial justice, it must leave the religionist and his creed to take care of themselves, concerning itself only with the citizen. The moment the state abandons this ground, the elementary law of a democratic government is gone.” “The public school is not a church, or a synagogue, or a theological seminary; but a piece of state machinery, organized and supported for purely temporal ends. It does not propose a complete education; and does not propose a religious education at all, either partial or complete. . . . This we believe to be the true ground on which to place a school system organized and conducted by the authority of an American state. . . . The objections to the doctrine urged by those who dissent from it, when traced to their final application, are simply objections to the system of government which the American people have chosen to adopt, and under which they are now living. Those who are not willing that an American state should occupy this position either do not understand the theory of such a state or are not content to abide by its fundamental doctrine.” May it not be just possible that the very man who denounces what he is pleased to term “the Hebrew-German-American interpretation of our Constitution” may be trying to foist upon us an un-American interpretation of that same document? Some good advice has been given in the past to dwellers in glass houses, and it may be worth remembering.
The American doctrine of the democratic principle of government is this: In all matters properly within its sphere the government should be one of a majority; religion is not within the purview of the state, and the minority are protected by the Constitution from the oppression of the majority, no matter how great that majority may be. It betrays a lack of appreciation of the American idea of government to appeal to the example of other countries in arguing the proper relations between church and state in America. It has been well said by Rev. Sanford H. Cobb, in “The Rise of Religious Liberty in America,” that “the history of religion and the church in America, as they stand related to the civil government, presents features unparalleled in the rest of Christendom, and marks a sharp contrast with the religious and ecclesiastical history of Europe.” If “this is the only English-speaking country on the globe, except the colony of Victoria, where education is purely secular,” it is simply because this is the only country where the American idea of government prevails.
The demand for religious instruction in the public schools is defended on the plea that only a little is now recommended to be introduced—only “four brief sentences.” Only four brief sentences, but enough to involve the whole principle. This professedly slight difference between the promoters and the opposers of this movement is parallel to the slight change which the infidel wished to make in the ten commandments and the Apostles’ Creed before accepting them. He expressed a willingness to subscribe to both if they would simply take all the “not’s” out of the commandments, and insert them in the creed! Only a slight change! It is against just this slight change from a separation of church and state to the union of church and state that “all these formidable batteries have been directed.” And the game is worth the powder. When we have conceded the right of the state to teach “these four brief sentences,” with or without “a brief exposition of the meaning of these four commandments,” we have no further right to protest against a complete state theology.
Here, then, is the real issue: Is it within the legitimate province of the state to teach any religion? If it begins by teaching little, it will soon teach more. In his published sermon upon this subject, the originator of this movement, after recommending the teaching of the ten commandments in the schools, asked the following suggestive question: “But ought not the state to go a step farther than this?” There is every reason to believe that it will “go a step farther,” and then another “step farther,” since the very arguments advanced for taking the first step demand the repeated taking of “a step farther.” The only safe course is to refuse consent to the teaching of even “these four brief sentences,” the first step in the wrong direction.
It shows either a woful ignorance or a total misapprehension of the first principles of religious liberty to assert that this proposal to teach religion in the schools of the state supported by compulsory taxation is not a violation of such principles, inasmuch as it is recommended that the children of parents objecting to such instruction “shall be assigned some secular study in some other room.” Such reasoning as this indicates that the conclusion was accepted first, and the arguments were then thought of little account. It was Gladstone who said: “Men are apt to mistake the strength of their feeling for the strength of their argument.” This seems to be an illustration of just such a case. Of this unique application of religious liberty principles it is necessary to say nothing further than to quote again the words of Jefferson: “To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical.” The citizen who has no children in school, but pays his taxes for the support of the school, has the same right to protest against religious teaching in the school as has the father of six. This is the Christian and the American idea of religious liberty.
It is no answer to “the temperate and unanswerable arguments” which have been adduced against an attempted violation of the right principle to make the flippant charge that “all the opponents of this movement harp on the same string;” namely, the union of church and state. Why should they not harp on the string which is stretched before them by the promoters of this movement? If the sound is not pleasant, the harping will cease when the string is withdrawn, but not till then.
I believe that crime is increasing to an alarming extent in this country, and that an earnest effort ought to be made to teach to young and old the ten commandments and obedience to them just as they read, but let this be done by Christian methods. Why should the state and the schools be held responsible for the lack of religious influences in the community? The state was never commissioned by the divine Author of Christianity to preach his gospel, and the public schools, being simply a part of the machinery of the state, are not one of the legitimate agencies for teaching religion. Parents in the home, and not teachers in the public schools, have been directed by God to teach his commandments to the children, and the church, not the state, has received the commission to preach the gospel “to every creature.” Even a sincere effort to employ the resources of the state in doing the work of the church is “a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.” The case has been well stated by Rev. Dr. Spear in these words: “Those who demand religious teaching and religious worship in the public schools of this country are justly amenable to the charge of seeking a good end by an unchristian method. We bring this charge not against their motives, but against what they propose.” I have undertaken to oppose this present movement to introduce religious instruction into the public schools because I should greatly regret to see Christianity wounded in the house of its professed friends.

Credulity and Faith

By L. A. S.

CONSIDERABLE prominence has been given of late in the papers to the exposure of the Storey-Cotton “get-rich-quick” company, of which nothing now remains above what is left by a burst bubble, save vain regrets on the part of the victims who put into it several millions of their dollars. A recent issue of the Washington Times prints a list of such concerns which have exploded within a few weeks past, together with the amounts which each had succeeded in abstracting from the pockets of the credulous public; and if the list could be made complete for the time these piratical concerns have been flourishing in this country, it would be a long one indeed.
For years past exposures of the character and methods of such companies have been almost constantly before the public, yet they continue to find victims apparently as easily as ever.
A multitude of people are ready to believe the words of men who advertise to return interest at a fabulous rate on money deposited with them, contrary to all sound business rules and experience. This is credulity. These same individuals, if asked to believe the Word of God, which sets before them real riches, would refuse to do so. They would manifest an entire lack of faith, and would illustrate the difference between faith and credulity. Those whose lives are controlled by faith are never found engaging in such doubtful ventures.
The Bible sets before us the true and only way to get rich quick. That way is to exchange the dross of our human sinful natures for the pure gold of the divine nature and the righteousness of faith. This is the “true riches,” which are infinitely more real, more valuable, more free, and more enduring than any riches of earthly origin. L. A. S.

A New Thing in the Fields

By William Ambrose Spicer

A NEW and very encouraging phase of work presents itself in various mission fields. As different lands were entered in past years, and a constituency was raised up, efforts were made to plant training centers for the development of workers in the field. The fruits of this effort were not immediately apparent, but now the results are appearing.
In South African native work, some of the youth who have received training in the schools are now going out to plant village schools, and to teach the truth in the regions beyond. It is just the beginning of what we shall see in all that vast continent; for the African himself must be trained to run with this message through all those winding paths that thread the African interior.
In other lands, as well, this new era has come to us. All Europe has been busily training consecrated young people who are now going into the field. Australasia is doing the same, with its eyes upon its vast mission fields in the Pacific. In a recent letter from Argentina, South America, Brother N. Z. Town says:—
There is no discouraging word to send from the work here. In every place where there are workers, we hear of souls who are accepting the truth. This is especially true of the young native workers who went out this year from our school.
The effort to train workers during the last few years as the great fields have been opened has not been in vain. Now we shall see an ever-increasing band of laborers pressing the triumphs of the message among their own peoples, and with a familiarity with local conditions that should give special advantage when seasoned experience has been gained. Yet, of course, there is bound to be a continual call for consecrated helpers from the home land of this message, to join the forces raised up in the fields. There is a great field to be covered within a brief time; for ere this generation closes, the work for the world will be finished. W. A. S.

A Good Criticism on “The Third Day”

By W. A. S.

FROM the figurative language of Christ to the carping Pharisees, in Matt. 12:40 (“three days and three nights in the heart of the earth”), some argue that the crucifixion was on Wednesday, and that the resurrection was in the closing hours of the Sabbath. This would place the resurrection on the fourth day, and would squarely contradict the oft-repeated Scripture phrase “the third day,” bringing confusion into the whole narrative.
The phrase “the third day,” naturally suggests a series of three days, the events of the first being separated from those of the third by one full day only. An old writer and Greek scholar, Dr. Pearson, Bishop of Chester (England), shows that this plain suggestion in our English usage is most emphatically enforced by the original. His criticism on the phrase “the third day,” is so simple that the force of it is plainly apparent even to those of us who are not students of Greek. He says:—
According to the constant language of the Greeks and Hebrews, he can not be said to rise to life on the third day, who died upon any other day between which and the day of his resurrection there intervened any more than one day.
He illustrates the usage by referring to our modern word “tertian” (from a root signifying third), commonly used by physicians to describe a fever that comes on every third day, one day intervening between the attacks. Any good dictionary gives the word. Dr. Pearson then quotes from the old Greek grammarians and medical writers to show the same use of the word tritaios among the Greeks, and concludes:—
If the fever be a tritaios, the day of intermission is but one, if tetartaios, two. . . . Thus if our Saviour were one whole day in the grave, and died the day before, and rose the day after, he did rise tritaios; if he were two whole days in the grave, he rose tetartaios. . . . From trite comes tritaios, and from tetarte, tetartaios, in which hemera [day] is always understood. . . . Thus Christ did certainly rise te trite hemera [the third day], he did rise according to the Greeks, tritaios, . . . that is, one day only intervening between the day of his death and the day of his resurrection.
The whole record agrees with this. Jesus was to be crucified and rise again “the third day.” Late on that Sunday, as the two disciples walked to Emmaus, they told their unknown companion about the crucifixion, and said, “To-day is the third day since these things were done.” Jesus showed himself to the disciples on that third day, the first day of the week, not at all to honor the day, but in order that they might be witnesses to the fact that “he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.”
W. A. S.

Clearing the Pathway

By L. A. S.

ALL the world is talking about what is happening to Russia, but the real significance of what is taking place in that quarter of the world, and in Russian territory in the far East, is not generally comprehended. It is not set forth in any of the newspaper dispatches or editorials. It should be understood, however, by those who know that present-day events throughout the world are all leading up to that impending greatest of all events—the “glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.”
Under the blows struck by Japan’s armies, the Russian military power in the far East is breaking up; and under the steady working of the revolutionary spirit, the autocracy at St. Petersburg is shaken to its foundations, and threatened with actual overthrow. All this greatly weakens the system of government under which the name of Russia has been almost a synonym for civil and religious despotism.
The world sees all this, but there is a reason why these things are taking place to-day which the world does not understand. God is bringing about a new order of things in Russia, under which there will be greater religious freedom, that the last gospel message to the world may more swiftly go to the people of that country. All things are in readiness for the final rapid march of the third angel’s message throughout the world’s unentered fields, and there is no power that can stay such a shaping of events in those fields as will open the doors which God wants opened to the messengers of his truth.
If we look over the record of world events during the time that the last warning message has been spreading abroad in the earth, we shall find many evidences that the hand of God has been shaping history in this time for the rapid evangelization of the world. In many lands we see the opening of doors long closed. In South America the hold of Rome has been loosened until even in Ecuador the gospel messenger can do his work with comparative freedom. The same thing is true of Cuba and the Philippines. It was not long ago that Rome held political control in these lands, and papal bigotry and intolerance barred the way of the gospel message.
Dull, indeed, are our ears to-day if we can not hear the sounding of the trumpet of God’s preparation. We look out over the world-wide field from a far higher standpoint than that of the mere news gatherer or politician, one that reveals to us far more important truths than are discernible from the worldling’s point of view. To us, the unfolding of events should be a continual reminder that—
“We are living, we are dwelling, In a grand, and awful time.”
It is a day of great things, greater perhaps than the world has seen in any previous time, but the hand of God is clearing a pathway in all the earth for his final message to mankind, and to that work everything else in the earth is made secondary. Everything in the world, and indeed “everything in the universe” now calls upon those entrusted with this final message of truth to make everything in their own lives secondary to its proclamation in all lands, for a witness unto all nations, that the last obstacle to the coming of Christ’s kingdom may be removed.
L. A. S.

“Worse and Worse”

By L. A. S.

THE climax of the exposures of governmental corruption now being described by Mr. Lincoln Steffens, is reached in the April issue of McClure’s, in which Mr. Steffens dwells at length upon the theme “New Jersey: A Traitor State.” While in other States, individually, political “graft” affects directly only the people of that State, in New Jersey it affects the people of all the States. “New Jersey,” Mr. Steffens says, “is selling out the rest of us.” New Jersey is the trust chartering State, and “she not only licenses companies to do in other States what those States would not license; she licenses them to do in those other States what she would not let them do in Jersey.” The citizens of New Jersey, while taxed to the limit of endurance, “pay no direct State tax; the corporations pay all the expenses of the State, and more.” And the people of the other States pay New Jersey’s expenses through these corporations. The history of legislative corruption in that State, Mr. Steffens shows, is largely a history of legislative control of the State by the railway interests, which Mr. Steffens traces, beginning with the Camden and Amboy in earlier times, down to the present ownership of the State by the Pennsylvania system. The railways which came into the State secured charters exempting them from county and local taxation, and as the railways increased in size and absorbed more of the property of the State, the burden of taxation fell more and more heavily on the citizens, until the amount of railroad property exempt from taxation amounted to more than one fourth of all property of the State, and the exemption represented an annual tax on the citizens of two million dollars.
Popular government in New Jersey, Mr. Steffens shows, is dead. The State “was turned over to the Republican party, which delivered it up to the Pennsylvania Railroad,” which governs for its own benefit and that of other roads and “interests.” What is called “pretty good government” by citizens in that State is, Mr. Steffens promises to show in a further article, their “share of the plunder of our business pirates who buy, cheap, her letters of marque, to prey not only on American business, but on the American character, and when caught at their crimes, sail for her ports to purchase, cheap, legislative immunity from our laws.” L. A. S.

One of Canada's Pressing Needs

By Arthur Grosvenor Daniells

LAST September, Elder W. C. White and the writer attended the Canadian Union Conference held at Knowlton, Quebec. At this meeting we met nearly all our ministers of eastern Canada, and the majority of our brethren and sisters of the Quebec Conference.
These ministers and people united in a most earnest request for us to help them raise four thousand dollars for the Knowlton Sanitarium. They proposed to raise one thousand in Canada, and asked that the conferences in the States be asked to contribute three thousand. Some of their reasons for making this request for help from the States were these:—
First, there is no place in North America where our sanitarium work is calculated to render this cause better service than in Quebec. The Catholic element and influences are strong. For years our cause has languished in that province. The work that has been done by the Knowlton Sanitarium has already exerted a wonderful influence in that section of the country.
Second, for over forty years Canada has been sending contributions of money and youth to our schools and sanitariums in the States. It is true that during the same time the conferences in the States have sent ministers to Canada, and helped to support them. But the constant draining of the Canadian field of its young people who come to the States to attend our schools and enter our sanitariums, greatly weakens the work in Canada.
Third, the Canadian brethren are now struggling to establish one or two small schools, and a small sanitarium. They have taken hold with cheerful and liberal hearts to do all they can financially, but they are not able to place these institutions where they can do the efficient work they should to give them the standing and influence that should attend them.
Fourth, they are starting on a very modest scale, and are aiming to keep from loading themselves down with large institutional debts. They are making brave and successful efforts to become self-supporting. In this they are being greatly blessed. The sanitarium has had a good patronage ever since it was opened. But from a personal, thorough inspection with a large committee at the time of our visit last fall, I am free to say that the institution must have help to provide better accommodations and equipment, if it shall be able to hold the confidence of the public.
These are a few of the reasons why the Canadian brethren ask our brethren in the States for help, and why the General Conference Committee at the College View (Neb.) Council recommended that this request be granted. The cause in Canada should and must be strengthened. This is one of the most important steps to take just now. A few thousand dollars invested in this enterprise will bring large returns later on. May the Lord move upon those who are able to respond to this need. Send your gifts to your State conference treasurer, stating that they are for the Knowlton Sanitarium. A. G. DANIELLS.

Note and Comment

By Editor

THE following paragraph from an editorial in the New York Sun of April 8, should be of interest to people who put their trust and their money in life insurance companies. The editorial, which is entitled “The Hand at the Policy-holder’s Throat,” has reference to the great Equitable Life Assurance Society of New York, which is perhaps the foremost organization of the kind in the world, and one which would be above suspicion if eminence and respectability of officials and directors could make it so. In fact, however, it is anything but that. Note the words of the Sun:—
No more flagrant instance, to our mind, of gross, persistent, and systematized dishonesty has ever come to light than that of the Equitable corporation. Just enough has been revealed to disclose an interminable vista of corruption and peculation in the administration of the most sacred fiduciary institution that we know in our social scheme of life. And what is the result? The trustees and directors, in a panic at the disclosure, resolve to shut it out from public scrutiny, to heap detergents and disinfectants over it, to whitewash the casement of the cesspool, and to enshroud the whole unspeakable thing in a fictitious oblivion. They have undertaken the impossible.
This is not all the Sun has to say, but it is enough. We believe there is a better kind of life insurance for the Christian than this that the world has to offer.
Continue reading: Canada’s Educational Controversy