p. 16 | Signs of the Times, Vol. 29, No. 14. (4/8/1903)

The Advent Message and the Resurrection

By Editor

Read the article from Mrs. White, entitled, “The Home-Life,” in our Home department. We are sure it will profit all parents.

The one note in the General Conference thus far has been that of the Advent message. It is ringing out with new life and vigor. Christ is coming, a message of righteousness is to be given by those who have received it, the world is to be warned, and God's people to be fitted to meet their Lord.

A study of this number will show to our Christian readers that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is a fact for all time, which God wishes to make a living truth in the every-day, every-hour life of every Christian. How utterly absurd it is, then, isn't it, to set apart a day, a single day, to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, when God demands the life, every day of every year? O that the professed church of Christ knew this!

Division Among the Baptists.

The Independent tells us that in the South there are practically two Baptist denominations, the one, the regular, holding that each local Baptist Church is independent of all bodies, and that it can not project itself into or become a part of any other ecclesiastical body. It is represented in advisory associations by “messengers,” not by delegates. The new denomination holds practically to the Presbyterian view, that each church becomes a part of the general body with which it co-operates. As the result of this division new boards and associations are being organized.

The Pagan Origin of Easter

The term “Easter” is used by many good Christians without a thought of its origin. They do not know that it is purely pagan, the name of the Saxon goddess Eostre. This was only another name for the goddess of sensual love, worshiped by the Egyptians under the name of “Isis;” by Babylonians and Phœnicians called “Astarte;” by the Greeks, “Aphrodite;” by the Romans, “Venus, Flora, Ceres;” by the Ephesians, “Diana;” and by the Zidonians, in our common version, “Ashtoreth,” and by our pagan Anglo-Saxon ancestors, “Easter,” or “Eostre.” Almost invariably connected with her worship was lewdness and licentiousness. Eostre was the goddess of spring. The pascha, an unauthorized feast, adopted by a rapidly apostatizing church to follow the passover and celebrate the resurrection of Christ, also came in the spring; and to mollify, placate, and more rapidly to convert the heathen, was brought in conjunction with the feast of Eostre, and the name of the Saxon goddess adopted. It was a wicked thing, because it placed on the same level the sacred and profane, and so blinded the minds of God’s people. There are those who think it a Christian term, because it occurs in our common version of the Bible (Acts 12:4); but there is absolutely no warrant for the use of the term. The word ought to be “passover,” as in the Revision. The word, the custom, the name, is in no sense Christian.

Stirring Sermons at the General Conference

Among the stirring sermons delivered by our ministering brethren in the General Conference to date are the following: (1) What we may call “The Necessity of Cleaving to the Message,” Sabbath, March 21, by A. G. Daniells, chairman of the General Conference Committee; (2) “The Time and the Work,” evening of March 27, by Prof. W. W. Prescott, editor of Review and Herald; (3) “Lessons from the Sending Out of the Spies,” Sabbath A. M., March 28, by Mrs. E. G. White; (4) “The Song of Victory,” Sabbath P. M., by G. A. Irwin, chairman of the Australasian Union Conference Committee; (5) “The Message for the Time,” evening after the Sabbath, by A. G. Daniells; (6) “Experiences and Providences Relating to the Giving of the Message in Europe,” March 29, A. M., by L. R. Conradi, chairman of European General Conference Committee; (7) “The Church, Its Mission, and What It Means to Belong to It,” 3 P. M., by A. T. Jones, president of California Conference; (8) “What the Message Means,” 7:30 P. M., by Prof. W. W. Prescott; (9) “The Gospel of the Kingdom,” March 30, 7:30 P. M., by Dr. E. J. Waggoner, editor of the Present Truth, London, Eng. All these will appear in the Bulletin. As one listened to them, it did not seem difficult to imagine one heard the many prayers ascending from God’s people all over the world that this conference would be a success. The answer is coming in these ringing messages, these earnest appeals.

Kerosene as a Beverage

Kerosene as a Beverage.—There seems to be no limit to the diabolical invention of intoxicants. One would suppose that the people of France had enough variety in this line without resorting to kerosene, yet the vice has grown to such an extent that the government is prompted to take steps to check it. In Peru, Bolivia, and other South American countries, and some South Pacific islands, it has been known that the Indians used kerosene as an intoxicant; but it hardly seemed possible, where so many other kinds and qualities had gained popularity and were cheap. As one writer says, “It proves how abnormal the human appetite may become in taste for drinks which act with exciting or intoxicating effect.” Yet, after all, if the kerosene were not too much adulterated in the process of making it palatable, it might not be as bad as some of the more popular and “refined” beverages.

Victory for Liquor Regulation

Fortunately, there is, once in a while, here and there, a check on the pernicious liquor traffic. Were it not so, decent society would soon be submerged in a deluge of debauchery. There is a crumb of comfort in the following press dispatch, dated San Francisco, March 21:—

The battle between the Police Commissioners and the Retail Liquor Dealers' Association, relative to the rights of the commission in the matter of regulating the liquor business of the municipality, has resulted in a signal victory for the commissioners. Contrary to forecast and to the expectations of the allied dealers, the Superior Judges, sitting in bank this morning, held that the present liquor-license ordinance was valid, and that, when the Police Commissioners refused the issuance of a license to any applicant, he could not, under the law, conduct a liquor business in this city.

The Least Cost of Crime.

The Hartford Post summarizes the cost of crime in the State of Connecticut from a monetary view. The year's crime bill in prosecution alone amounts in that small commonwealth to $2,167,300. And the crime plants, that is, the investment of the State in institutions for dealing with crime, amounts to $2,570,000. A school for incorrigible boys costs $200,000; an industrial school for girls, $225,000. And this is only the monetary aspect, what the Bridgeport Standard calls “the least important” manifestations; and it suggestively asks, “What is the sum total of human loss? For the wages of sin is death.” The rapid and constant increase of crime is a sign of the approaching end of all things earthly, and then Christ the Restorer will come.

Idolators

Idolators.—There are many men in this old world who would scorn to offer worship to sun or moon, yet who make a God of their stomach; and who glory in that in which they ought to feel a shame.

Faith That Works by Love

Faith in a personal Christ, even as in Reformation days, is all that is needed to-day. But it is “faith which worketh by love.”