p. 16 | Signs of the Times, Vol. 40, No. 29. (7/29/1913)

Earlier text: The Christian Citizenship Conference

The Magazine with the Message

Signs of the Times Magazine

(Published Monthly)

The Magazine with the Message

Devoted to the study of present-day affairs, world-wide. The place of these events in the great plan of God as revealed in His word. The right setting for each. The Bible furnishes the only dependable solution of present world problems. You ought to know their meaning. Several evenings of real, uplifting study for thinking people every month. There is a satisfaction in studying these subjects of world-wide import from this standpoint. It is the satisfaction of knowing — knowing something that can be depended upon.

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Signs of the Times Magazine

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The Message Is in the Contents

The World's Christian Citizenship Conference

By Editor

In our issue of July 15, in referring to the welcome that was extended to the World's Christian Citizenship Conference at Portland by Judge C. E. Wolverton of the United States Court, representing this country, we ask: “Why did the Federal Government extend welcome to an organization which had its genesis in Pennsylvania, has been promoted in America, and is officered by American National Reformers?” It is not a world organization at all. The Portland Oregonian of July 8 discovers this after the great meeting is over. We are told that promises were made that there would be 20,000 delegates; “by actual count 670 came. Of these more than 500 were from Oregon and Washington, and were induced to come here through the efforts of the local committee, and not by the managers of the conference.” “The local committee was led to believe that organized delegations would come from foreign countries, and that the meeting would be a great cosmopolitan gathering, representing every Christian country on the face of the globe.” “Now as a matter of fact, there was a grand total of only 22 persons here from foreign countries, and nine of them came from Canada. The rest of them, it is understood, had their expenses paid to come here. Of course, many of them were ministers, and entitled to travel under reduced rates, and the expenses were not great.” The railway and hotel interests were led to expect great crowds, but the Oregonian tells us that the railways had an “aggregate haul from all sources, and over all lines, of a little more than 500 persons, a considerable portion of whom were ministers and others entitled to travel at reduced rates,” etc., etc., etc. Certainly the term “World's Conference” was a misnomer.

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Our authority is the Bible, the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. When the Common (“King James” or “Authorized”) Version or the American Standard Revised Version is used, the version will not generally be designated in reference. Any Bible quotation in this paper, therefore, differing from the Common Version, unless otherwise indicated, will be almost invariably from the American Standard edition of the Revised Bible, copyright 1910, by Thomas Nelson & Sons.

For further particulars, subscription rates, etc., see page 15

Physiologic Signs of the Times

Do not forget the articles we have promised, from Dr. Thomason, on the “Physiologic Signs of the Times.” They present matters of stupendous import.

Political Crisis in Mexico

Conditions in Mexico are at boiling-point. It is asserted that if the United States does not interfere and help to a stable condition of affairs, Great Britain, Germany, and Japan may undertake it, despite the “Monroe Doctrine.”

China’s Political Troubles

By Editor

China is a great seething field of discontent and embryotic trouble. Her friends pray that she may have a strong, settled, republican government, but the sky looks troubled. We shall have some things to present on this shortly. In fact, one article is already in hand.

Christian Citizenship Conference

By Editor

We have given more space to the “Christian Citizenship Conference” than we designed. While that particular conference has not met expectations, and while the movement under that organization is not large, it has great aims, and represents wide-spread, deep-rooted, and rapidly-growing principles. We should know what they mean. Do not miss Mr. Martin’s article on page 9.

Calamity and Death

On one page of a daily of July 14 we have the following: electric trains crashing, in Los Angeles, 14 dead, 150 hurt, 20 seriously, said to be the result of a practical joke; in New York City boats upset during a squall and 10 drowned; and in Boston a sloop upset and eight drowned. We suppose the superstitions will lay it to the 13th day of the month.

Predicted Calamity for America

THERE has recently died in Italy a nun, Maria Benedetta by name, a paralytic for fifty-two years. She is thought by many to have possessed the gift of prophecy, and has predicted very many things of international importance, especially regarding the royal families of Russia, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and England, even to the predicting of her own death, to the day and hour, just one week in advance. She has been a puzzle to scientists. It is said that everything she has predicted has come to pass with wonderful exactitude. Among the things foretold were the earthquakes in Messina and Sicily. She has this to say regarding America: “Trouble is coming from the East. The Yellow Peril threatens the world, but it is against America that it will be first directed. Prepare to defend yourselves to the last gasp. Before two years are passed, about the end of 1914, yellow invaders and Negroes will be throwing dice for the last American girl in Central Park, New York, amid the smoking ruins of the great city, given up to the idolatrous cult of the Golden Calf. But true-hearted Americans will make a brave stand for their race in the interest of their country. I see a great battle upon a vast plain, by a great lake. I can not see how it will end.” We give this as a mere matter of news. There are prophecies far more sure than this,—prophecies of the word of God, upon which men can depend. It points out not only the fate of America, but the fate of all nations, and it also points to the sure refuge, our Lord Jesus Christ and His coming.

Contained in This Issue

Question Corner ................................ Page 2

4136 — A Backslidden Class; 4137 — Old Style and New; 4138 — The Day of Change; 4139 — What Days? 4140 — The Two Covenants

Our Bible Band ................................ Page 2

General ................................ Pages 3–7

There Is Healing in Him — Mrs. E. G. White

Our Lord’s Prediction — J. S. Kilgore

The Witnessing of God in the Early Church — The Editor

An Incitement to Zeal — Glory of the Advent

Poetry ................................ Page 7

The Mother — N. D. Anderson

A Priceless Lesson — Arthur V. Fox

A Joyous Day — Nellie M. Butler

Worship — Llewellyn A. Morrison

“Lo, He Comes!” — Worthie Harris Holden

Scenic-Worship — Fred P. Hanchett

The Wall from the Lake of Fire — Delwin Rees Buckner

Bible Studies of Vital Import .............. Pages 8, 9

What Christ’s Coming Means

Come, Glorious King — Not Unpleasant

The Home ................................ Page 10

The Minister’s Visit — Daniel Nettleton

Women and Savages

The Outlook .............................. Pages 11–16

The Christian Citizenship Conference — A. O. Tait

The Purpose of the Conference (page 9) — W. F. Martin

The Reunion

FROM all of the accounts that have reached us, the reunion of the Federal and Confederate veterans at Gettysburg was a successful one, in which there was no evidence of war other than the battle-torn flags and the relics of the great struggle, and the few aged men who were survivors of the conflict. It certainly was worthy of note that there could come together with such good spirit the survivors of a war which was so bloody. We firmly believe that it could have been brought about twenty-five years ago if it had not been for political agitators. The old soldiers in the conflict do not seem to hold the grudges that those outside of the conflict have held. Everything was done for the aged men to protect their life and health. One wishes that the words of the beautiful poem might be true,—

“No more shall a war-cry sever, Or the winding rivers be red; Our anger is banished forever When are buried the graves of our dead: Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment-day; Love and tears for the blue, Tears and love for the gray.”

BUT that time will not come until that far greater reunion shall take place, when the soldiers not of any “lost cause” or “won cause” of earth come home, but when the soldiers of Christ Jesus the King shall come home with rejoicing, to shout eternal triumph,—whose conflicts waged to the end have always been victorious, tho meeting with seeming defeat, and whose heroes, even tho they tunnel the grave, shall come from all lands and climes and generations and ages, to take part in the glorious reunion at His eternal coronation. Great as have been many of the warfares of earth, greater still is the conflict which every man wages with sin; glorious as have been the victories won on worldly battle-fields, eternally glorious is the victory won over sin. It is the wish of the writer that every member of the Signs family may engage in that glorious warfare, and in it may win the everlasting victory with his King Christ Jesus.

In the Balkans

It almost looks at times as if the trouble is to begin all over again. Turkish troops have been getting ready for war, and reports declare that they have advanced beyond the boundary-lines marked out by the Powers. It is suggested that Turkey designs to recapture Adrianople and Thrace, with the seeming consent of Greece and Servia. Rumania is occupying more Bulgarian territory; Bulgaria is suing for peace; Greece is refusing it on account of alleged Bulgarian cruelties and atrocities, which are denied by King Ferdinand, who makes countercharges of cruelty. It is impossible to depend upon the contradictory reports. This seems clear, however, that Bulgaria has been getting sadly the worst of it.

The Appeal to Reason and the Menace

The “Appeal to Reason” feels that it has won a great victory when the government and trusts have stopped prosecuting the Appeal, and the government is seeking the Appeal for evidence against the trusts. But it tells us that the paper is having a very hard fight to live. It is also intimated that the Menace has not been of any advantage to the Appeal to Reason, that many confound the two, or believe that they are connected, which they were, in a way, in the beginning. The Appeal to Reason, however, contends that it is making no religious fight in any way, shape, or manner whatever.

The Spirit of Lawlessness.

It seems to be exceedingly contagious in these days. The pope’s Swiss guards is the last place that one would look for mutiny, but when one of them was recently punished for refusing to do patrol duty, the others declined; and now all of them will be punished. If at the Vatican itself order can not be enforced, what is there in the claim which is being made that if the pope were placed at the head of the nations the spirit of lawlessness would be checked?

The Turkish Empire

The Turkish Empire.—Notwithstanding all her losses, Turkey possesses a territory equal to Germany, Austria, and Italy—about 650,000 square miles—and a population of 17,000,000, of whom about three fourths are Mohammedans. But it takes more than territory and people to form an empire. Turkey is not even independent.

Ottawa Train Wreck Kills Thirteen

Thirteen were killed and forty injured in a wreck on the Canadian Pacific three miles east of Ottawa, June 25. Spreading rails the cause. Death was by drowning. The cars rolled off an embankment into the river.