Earlier text: The Sonship of Christ"Every cloud has its silver lining." But it seemed to Helen Livingston that there could be none to her sorrow-cloud, it was so dark and heavy. And yet her home was a most luxurious mansion, she had everything money could buy, she was yet young and very beautiful. But there is one sorrow riches cannot avert—death. Two years ago her husband, proud, noble-hearted Edward Livingston, died. That almost crushed her, but she bore up for the sake of his son—her bright-eyed, golden-haired Eddie. And now Eddie was gone. And since the day they laid him beside his father, all her energy was gone. All her hopes and interests in life left her, and all day long she lay upon the sofa or sat in a deep lounging-chair in her darkened chamber, scarcely eating food enough to sustain life, refusing to see any friends except her own family, and resisting all entreaties to go out for a breath of air. And here her sister, Mrs. Maxwell, found her as she came one bright morning, bringing a breath of heaven's fresh loveliness into the close, perfumed, and heated chamber. "Come, Helen, do come out for a little ride," she entreated. "I've brought my own carriage and ponies, and I'll drive you myself. It is such a lovely morning. Please, Helen!" But Helen only turned wearily on her sofa. "No, no, Susan! How can you ask me?" "It will do you good, Helen," pleaded Susan. "I don't want to be done good. I only want to be let alone. I never want to leave this room until I am carried out as poor little Eddie was," moaned Helen. "And that won't be long, I'm thinking, if you're allowed to go on in this fashion," muttered Susan, under her breath, while she said aloud, using a last argument, "Please, come, Helen; we'll drive out to Laurel Hill and take some flowers to Edward and Eddie." But still the mourner only sighed, "No, Susan, no! I send flowers out every day. But I can't go myself; don't tease me, Susan." Poor Susan stood still, her bright eyes full of tears, looking at her sister for a little while. Then she turned abruptly, and left the room without another word. And she drove her pretty ponies straight to the house of a dear old Quaker friend—in two senses—into whose presence she carried her petition. "Aunt Rachel, do please go and see Helen," she begged. "I can't do anything with her—none of us can, and if you can, I don't know what will become of her." "Thee knows I will do what I can," softly returned Rachel Dalrymple. "Sit thee down and tell me all about Helen." And having heard, aunt Rachel donned her dove-colored plumage, and went in Susan's carriage to the mourner's home. "The servants will not want to admit you, but don't be denied," said Susan as aunt Rachel got out. The dear old lady nodded, and when the door was opened, she walked in at once. "I have come to see Helen Livingston," she said. "Mrs. Livingston does not see visitors," exclaimed the waiter. "She will see me. I will not trouble thee to go with me," she said, as she continued straightway up to Helen's darkened chamber. Entering with a soft tap, she crossed the room and took Helen's thin, white hand. "I have come to see thee Helen," she said softly. "But I cannot say I do see thee; thy chamber is too dark, dear." She walked at once to the window and drew aside the heavy curtains, letting in a flood of golden sunlight. "Oh, the light!" moaned Helen, turning away her head. "We cannot live without the light, my dear," said aunt Rachel, turning to a seat close beside Helen. "Now, Helen," she said gently, "I am older than thee, and I've been through the deep waters of tribulation. Tell me all thy troubles, and I will help thee if I can." The gentle words and tones went to Helen's heart, and she burst into a torrent of such tears as she had not shed before since her bereavement. Two or three hours aunt Rachel stayed, and continued her tender ministrations, and when she left she had won from Helen a promise that she would no longer nurse her sorrow in selfish loneliness, but go about in the world and endeavor to do the duties still left to her. "If thee tries to do right, thee'll find there is some happiness left yet," said gentle aunt Rachel. And though Helen did not quite believe she could ever be happy, she knew her wealth afforded her large means of doing good, and for that she would try to live. A few months later the winter snow had covered the graves of Eddie and his father with a robe of spotless white, and it was near the happy Christmas-tide. More than one humble home in the great city had been brightened by Helen's generous Christmas gifts, and she began to take some pleasure in these pleasant duties. Some one has beautifully said:— "Happiness is a perfume which we cannot sprinkle over others without spilling a few drops on ourselves." And Helen, in seeing how she made others happy, was far happier herself than she had ever hoped to be again. The day before Christmas she had word of an aged and bed-ridden relative across the river, on the Jersey side, and she at once went over to see her.111 As she stepped upon the ferry-boat to return, she found it very crowded, and with difficulty found a seat next a plain, neat-looking country-woman who had with her a little fellow of five or six years, and Helen's heart thrilled as she looked at the little face with its bright blue eyes and golden hair, for it bore quite a resemblance to the dear face of her lost Eddie. She could not help speaking to the child, and trying to win it to her, and presently she had him upon her knee. "What is your little boy's name?" she said, addressing the woman. "Eddie Hamilton," said the stranger, with a sigh, and Helen's heart thrilled again at the familiar name. "But he's not my child, he's an orphan," continued the woman. "Ah?" commented Helen, interested at once. "No ma'ma, he's not mine. His mother was a widow, and came to Brookville, where I live, a year ago come next March. She was very poor, and she had a little house right next to us, and tried to make her living with her needle. But she made her death ma'am, that's what she made—and we could n't bear to see the little fellow suffer, and not a friend in the world, as we knew of, so we took him, me and my John, and we've kept him ever since." "Do you still intend to keep him?" asked Helen. "We can't, ma'am. We're poor, hard-working folks, and we've got five children of our own. John had a bad fall last week—he can get about the house, but the doctors say he won't be able to work this winter. It don't stand to reason that we could keep an extra one, and be just to the rest, does it, ma'am?" "No, indeed," returned Helen, politely. "That's what's taking me to the city to-day," returned the woman. "We hated to do it, me and John did, awful bad, but we didn't see any other way to do, so I'm a-taking him to the Orphan Asylum. Do you think they'll be good to him, ma'am?" A thought which had struggled in Helen's heart for the last few minutes found expression now. "I don't know," she said, eagerly. "But I do know some one who would! You say you are poor—I am rich, and I am widowed and childless. I have lately lost my husband and my little Eddie, and I am alone and lonely. Give me your little Eddie, and I will love him, and be good to him, and bring him up as my own child!" "Are you in earnest, ma'am?" asked the country-woman. "Indeed I am! He looks like my lost Eddie—that is what made me first notice him—and it seems to me as if Heaven had sent him to me. He is my Christmas present! Oh, do let me have him!" "I can't say no, ma'am. I am sure he will have a happy home with you," replied the woman, earnestly. "Go with me and see!" cried Helen. "Your John would approve, I am sure. Please tell me your name." "Mine is Livingston. Now, Mrs. Reynolds you shall go home with me. It is not near the distance it is out to the Orphan Asylum, and you shall see how I will do for little Eddie. Oh, I am so happy to have him!" And as Helen hugged the child to her bosom, she did, indeed, feel that he was, in some measure, her lost Eddie, restored. So when Mrs. Livingston's elegant carriage met her on the city side of the ferry, she took Mrs. Reynolds and little Eddie to her handsome home. And over a dainty dinner, which Helen ordered, they made all arrangements and plans for little Eddie's transfer to his new mamma. For Helen proposed to adopt and educate him as her own son, with her own name, taking pride in the thought, that after all, an Edward Livingston might bear the name and wear the wealth and honors of the family. When Mrs. Reynolds returned home, Helen sent her to the ferry in her carriage again, to save her the long walk. "Come to see Eddie whenever you like," she said, as they parted, for Helen had no false pride about her—she was too true a lady for that—"and I will bring him to see you. I don't want him to forget his first kind benefactors. And here," slipping a tiny roll into Mrs. Reynolds' hands, "is a little Christmas present for John and the children." And when Mrs. Reynolds looked at the "little Christmas present" she found it was a crisp, new hundred-dollar bill. And so that Christmas Eve a golden curly head rested on the empty crib pillow in Helen Livingston's room. And the next morning two little stuffed stockings hung over the table, loaded with Christmas toys. While Helen, herself, was so bright and happy, that, when sister Susan and aunt Rachel came in to see the little stranger, of whose arrival Helen had sent them word, they stood astonished at the transformation. "Thee sees, Helen," said aunt Rachel, "that I was not wrong when I told thee if thee tried to do right thee would be sure to be happy!"—Sel. Life-Work.
By Eliza H. Morton
LITTLE by little our work is done,
From night till morning, from sun to sun,
Thoughts and deeds,
Fruit and weeds. Silently, slowly, they work within
Fierce struggles with Satan and with sin,
Leaving scars,
Iron bars. Mortal; your acts are measured above,
By acts of purity and of love,
Short of this,
Wretchedness. Music and dancing; frolic and mirth;
All the illusive pleasures of earth,
Cannot stay
Judgment day. Work is a failure unless it tends
To give us a life that never ends,
Joy and bliss,
Happiness. —A disastrous famine prevails in Morocco. —The Russians took Kars in 1828, 1834, 1855, and again in 1877. —Maine now ranks as the sixth State in lumbering; once she stood first. —About $1,000 has been raised in New York for the sufferers by the famine in China. —The thirtieth anniversary of the advent of modern Spiritualism was celebrated at New York. —The city of Staunton, Va., population about 10,000, consumes 100 pounds of opium a week. —There are a million and a half of people in the United States engaged in trade and transportation. —The old Charter Oak at Hartford was said to be at least 950 years old at the time of its destruction. —The copper product of Michigan for 1877 foots up to 16,000 tons, a little more than the preceding year. —Two million acres of cultivated land hardly suffice to produce the grain consumed in New York breweries yearly. —The orders for postal cards the last quarter amounted to fifty-three millions, or at the rate of two hundred and twelve million a year. —The House Committee on Coinage, Weights and Measures, have agreed to report Marsh's bill punishing defacers of gold and silver coin. —The population of Rome, which in 1857 was 215,573, rose last year to 280,574. From 7000 to 8000 soldiers were included in each enumeration. —A mass meeting recently held at Buffalo urged the passage by the Legislature of a bill authorizing a general pipe line to connect petroleum wells with the sea-board. —The drouth is causing alarm in the Hawaiian Islands. The cane crop is partially destroyed on the Island of Maui, and stock are dying for want of feed. —The Canada government has introduced into Parliament a "Permissive Bill," which in the United States would be called Local Option. It is expected that it will become a law. —The cholera is sweeping off the pilgrims to Mecca by the hundreds. It is feared that on their return to Constantinople it will break out in that city, where so much misery and filth exist. —The proprietors of the Philadelphia Press have discharged all members of the Printers' Union from their employ. The men were told that all who left the Union would be re-employed. —The Chinese Ambassador to England attributes the famine in India to so much land being devoted to the cultivation of the poppy, 1,033,000 acres of the best land in India being devoted to that business. —Twenty-five thousand war claims are now on file in Washington, and it is stated that eighteen years will be required to adjudicate upon them. Many millions of dollars are called for by these claims, mostly by Southerners. —The national debt was, on the 1st of March 1869, $2,525,463,000. March 1, 1877, the debt amounted to $2,088,781,000. The decrease had been $436,682,000 in eight years, and the average yearly reduction has been $54,585,000. —The Bureau of Engraving and Printing has commenced the work of printing silver certificates. Orders have been already received from New York for eight million two hundred thousand dollars of certificates of various denominations. —The House Committee on Invalid Pensions have agreed to report a bill allowing pensions of $72 per month to soldiers who have lost either both eyes, both hands, or both feet, and $24 to those having lost one eye, one hand, or one foot. —Diamond digging in South Africa has now settled down into a paid industry. Companies are being formed, dividends are declared monthly when there are any, and there is something like a fixed trade of findings from this claim or that. —An exchange says: "Hard times continue in the Eastern States. In Massachusetts some of the cotton manufacturers talk of reducing production to make prices better. The frequent suspensions of banks, also, serves to increase the general suspense." —It is reported that England is spending very large sums of money in war preparation. The £6,000,000 voted by Parliament is a mere drop in the bucket. If she fights, £100,000,000 won't more than foot her bill, and that sum of course will be added to her present enormous public debt. —In Broadway, between Chambers and Fourteenth Streets, New York, there are to let twenty-seven entire buildings, seventy-seven stores, fifty-three buildings with lots, and twenty-two with offices. Several of the buildings have been vacant for many years, the owners refusing to lower the rents. —A telegram from Jamaica says: A revolution took place at Port au Prince during the absence of the president. Tanis at the head, with 1,000 followers, attacked the palace, arsenal, and fort, and succeeded in capturing the fort. The Navy remained faithful, and is bombarding the positions of the revolutionists. —The Agence Russe says: England has not yet replied in regard to the Congress. She still insists upon her demand that all the conditions of peace shall be submitted, notwithstanding the text of the treaty has been communicated to all Cabinets, and Russia has agreed to complete freedom of discussion at the Congress. The chances of the Congress meeting are diminished. —The Postmaster-General has issued an order amending a regulation of the Department governing the transmission of matter, which is very important in its bearings, inasmuch as it overrules a long established practice in the Department. Any matter in print which may be transmitted within an enclosure may also be transmitted at the same rate if printed on a wrapper on the envelope. This includes business cards, directions for returning, and any printed matter on the outside of a wrapper or envelope. Postmasters are instructed not to regard requests for the return of such matter unless stamps to pay return postage are deposited. It is not a new nostrum, nor a new "school" in medicine. It is old as the world, and besides it is, as the advertisers of pills and potions say, "indorsed by the faculty." The "Mind Cure" is recognized by all learned doctors, and yet because it is theoretically recognized and practically forgotten, we wish to speak "a word by way of admonition." The finest curative agency in the world is the mind of the patient. We do not mean to say that you can cure corns and bunions by resolving to dispense with them, or that you can restore your lungs, after disease has destroyed them, by having a cheerful temper, or that cancers can be eradicated by a hopeful heart. The "Mind Cure" is not warranted to act as a "specific" for everything. But there is no medicine that is susceptible of such a variety of uses as this. There is no disease in which the state of the mind has not much to do with the state of the body. The first thing to do then is to keep a clean conscience. The man who defiles his life with sin, suffers a terrible retribution often in his body; not that he feels any keen pang of remorse, but everything that impairs one's self-respect hurts the vitality and shortens the life. One does not need to be killed by such a spot as that which stained the hands of Lady Macbeth in order to suffer in life and health for sins unshrived. It is enough that one cannot look one's conscience in the eye, enough to depress the thermometer of the heart, and by subtle sympathy impair the life. Physicians prescribe travel and sanitaria; they send one man to Minnesota and another to Florida, without taking the temperament of the man into account. We have seen a man acting Chief of Police in St. Paul, who had been carried ashore from the steamboat on stretchers, so far was he reduced by hemorrhages. Climate? Yes, and more than climate. Doubtless he was a man of hearty temperament, and enjoyed the new and strange scenes about him. We have seen a hundred invalids in the same climate pine for home and older civilization, and die of nostalgia. Let it be understood that no invalid is benefited by a climate when he stays in a place an hour after that stay is enjoyable. If you are an invalid, arrange your life so that it may be restful and happy to you, and then enjoy it. We recall a man, a bridge-builder, who carried his consumption over bleak and snowy prairies, who slept in cold beds in frontier taverns, coughing all night, who built bridges and drove business when his lungs were all wasted away. He said that he was happy at work, and that work had kept him alive. And it did. Year after year he managed to spin out his broken life, happy always and making all about him happy, until he became a walking miracle. At last came the catastrophe, and he died. If your business amuses you, and you are succeeding, and you can keep your temper happy, then there is no better medicine. But he who has a distasteful business, and who has not the will or the power to adapt himself to it, is indeed to be pitied. Life insurance companies thump your ribs and listen to the whispers of your heart. They ask about your father and your grandfather and your mother's sister and the father's brother. They want to know whether you have had any or all of the following diseases, etc. But when did a life insurance company ever think to ask about your clear conscience, your cheerful heart, your business success, your amiable domestic relations, your religious faith, and all the rest that go to make sunshine and clouds in your life? Do not listen to anybody who tells you to travel if travel is uncongenial to your temper. But if you enjoy it, then is travel best of all medicines. An invalid struggling for life should not have any duties. The main business at such a time is to enjoy yourself. Joy is a tonic above all.—Hearth and Home. —The Baptists number 2,024,224 communicants in America. —Four-fifths of the inhabitants of this planet now have the Bible in their own tongue. —There were in 1877 fifty-seven times as many Presbyterians in the United States as in 1777. —English Wesleyans have the responsibility of training 725,000 Sunday-school scholars. —The people of New Haven, Conn., have erected a building for Mr. Moody that will seat 4,000 persons. —Plymouth Methodist Episcopal church, Buffalo, which cost $27,000, has just cleared itself entirely of debt. —The Irish Presbyterian Sunday-school Society reports 984 schools, 8,846 teachers, and 71,926 scholars in average attendance. —It is now feared that Spurgeon is so broken down that he will be compelled to abandon the ministry, and thus break up the largest congregation in the world. —The Baptists of Great Britain and Ireland number about 270,000. During last year they contributed for religious and benevolent objects, outside of home church expenses, domestic missions, association work, etc., £340,000, or $1,700,000. —The new South Free church (Unitarian), Boston, has adopted a new method of observing the Lord's supper. The bread and wine are displayed on the communion table. There is nothing more about it. The congregation partake of it only by faith. —The Church of the Puritans, in Hartford, last week discharged a debt of $100,000. The Congregational church, at Peoria, Ill., has paid off its indebtedness of $20,000. St. John's Episcopal church, Bridgeport, Conn., has raised $35,000 on its debt of $60,000, and the Simpson Methodist church, Brooklyn, has nearly paid off its floating debt of $13,000. —The income of the Garrett Biblical Institute, Chicago (M. E.), has been wholly cut off by the great fire in that city, and the depreciation of property. To replace the buildings, a debt was incurred, on which $70,000 was paid. A debt of $92,000 still remains. The rentals have so far diminished, that at present, the entire income is consumed in paying taxes, insurance and repairs. COLD FEET.—No business at the desk, counter or bench—no domestic task or conventional circumstance, is of so grave importance as to warm one's feet when they are cold. You can't afford the hazard to health incurred by indifference to the discomfort nature is giving you as a premonition of danger. Keep your feet dry. If by accident you get your feet wet, remove the wet stockings. If chilly, take a warm foot bath, ending with a cold dip and rubbing dry. TENT No. 1 will be pitched in San Francisco for meetings this week, in the Mission Dolores. Meetings will commence on Friday evening. Elders Loughborough and Healey go with this tent. Tent No. 2 will soon be erected in Lemore, Tulare county. Brethren Wood and Rice go with tent No. 2. Tent No 3 will be erected this week in Red Bluff, and meetings will commence on Friday evening. Brethren Israel and Stephens will use this tent. Meeting of the P. S. D. A. Publishing Association.
According to notice given in the SIGNS OF THE TIMES, the third annual meeting of the Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association was held April 3, 1878. Meeting opened with prayer. Upon calling the roll it was ascertained that a large majority of the stock was represented; 929 by proxy, and 636 in person, being more than two-thirds of the subscribed stock. Minutes of the previous meeting read and accepted. On motion, the chair appointed E. R. Gillett, Geo. Manuel and J. I. Tay as committee to nominate a board of five directors for the coming year. The report of the financial workings of the Association from March 30, 1877, to March 28, 1878, was read and accepted as follows:— Cash on hand March 30, 1877 ................. $777 50
Rec'd on acct's & deposits 96,059 82
" SIGNS OF THE TIMES 12,319 90
" shares in P S D A P A 2,232
" Cal Conf. Fund ... 4,717 36
" sales of books .... 3,941 53
" " paper .... 2,051 25
" job printing .. 7,569 35
" donations to SIGNS 158 80
" Cal T & M Society 3,393 92
" exchange ....... 32 89
" incidentals ...... 201 43
" fuel acc't ...... 97 38—132.875 63
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$133.653 13 Paid out on acct & dept's 96,844 32
" for paper & freight 10,247 70
" " books & freight 3,668 55
" Office labor ...... 10,788 68
" imp'mts on r estate 1,076 94
" type and material 1,176 12
" SIGNS OF THE TIMES 359
" incidentals ...... 2,607 41
" fuel acc't ...... 471 86
" exchange ....... 55 82
" Cal Conf Fund .. 3,579 48
" Cal T & M Society 2,683 73
Cash to bal March. 28, 1878 93 52—133,653 13 GEO. S. MANUEL, Treasurer. Total value of the Association ................ 46,051 97
Due Ass'n on book acc't .. 7,196 79
Cash on hand ... 93 52— 53,342 28
Ass'n owes on book acct and notes 17,573 77
Assets after the debts are paid ... $35,768 51 I hereby certify that I have carefully examined the books and accounts of the P. S. D. A. P. Association, and find them correctly kept, and further, that the above report of the treasurer shows a correct statement of the financial condition of the Association. J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH, Auditor. We the committee on nominations would submit the following names for directors for the coming year, James White, J. N. Loughborough, John Morrison, W. N. Glenn, J. E. White. Upon counting the ballots, the above named persons were found to be elected without a dissenting vote. Some remarks were then made in regard to the satisfactory workings of the institution during the past year, after which the meeting adjourned. J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH, President.
J. E. WHITE, Secretary. Sabbath-School Singing Book.
By Editor
We are making an effort to get up a good Sabbath-school singing book which shall accord in sentiment with the belief of S. D. Adventists. We want all the help we can get from abroad in the shape of new pieces and the loan of Sabbath-school and revival singing books. Below is a list of what we already have. Any one having books different from these will do us a great favor by writing their names and address on the first blank leaf and sending them to us. We will return them as soon as the book is completed. We have: Pure Gold, Brightest and Best, Golden Wreath, Musical Gems, Book of Praise, Golden Chain, Happy Voices and Echo to Happy Voices, Songs of Salvation, Fresh Leaves, Song Evangel, Merry Chimes, The Nightingale, Flora's Festival, Heavenward, Starry Crown, Robin Redbreast, Oriola, Laurels and Jewels, Christian Songs, Royal Songs, Welcome Tidings, Heavenly Echoes, Golden Censer, Sunshine, Golden Shower, Royal Diadem, Pure Diamonds, Choral Harp, Winnowed Hymns, Songs of Praise, Songs of the Morning, Jubilee Harp, Gospel Hymns Nos. 1 and 2, Songs of Worship. Address, SIGNS OF THE TIMES,
Oakland, Cal.