—The Japanese cotton crop is a complete failure this year.
—According to Bradstreet's reports, nearly all the bonds of the United States are held at home.
—Leading educational men, to the number of nine, have incorporated the California Educational Society.
—The czar proposes now to be crowned king of Poland, and the event will come off in the fall of next year.
—A Yokohama publisher has brought out an edition of Darwin's "Origin of the Species" in the Japanese language.
—Natural gas has been struck at a shallow depth, at Salinas City, Cal., and a company has been incorporated to utilize the product.
—A Zanzibar dispatch says: "The chief of the Bushiri has been captured and handed over to the Germans, who intend to hang him."
—It is said that Queen Victoria contemplates a visit of state to Ireland, which is understood to be a matter of policy rather than desire.
—There were 158 desertions from the regular army during the month of November. Of this number 13 were from the Presidio, San Francisco.
—The first Japanese ever convicted of murder in the State of New York has been sentenced to death by electricity, to be executed in February next.
—A China steamer recently landed at San Francisco a cargo of silk valued at $1,500,000. It was consigned to New York, and made eleven car loads.
—A bill for the formation of Oklahoma Territory was introduced in Congress on the 16th inst.; also a petition for the admission of the State of Wyoming.
—Two men near Butte, Mont., on the 15th inst., had a regular prize-rule fight, just to settle a dispute, which resulted in the death of one of the contestants.
—It has been decided to take the Pan-American delegates on a tour of the Southern States, and then to the Pacific Coast, the journey to begin about February 1.
—England has ordered her naval stores removed from Lisbon in view of possible "strained relations" between her majesty's government and Portugal in regard to their African claims.
—About fifty Sioux Indians have recently been visiting Washington, and called upon the President. They want their reservation lines surveyed, and better schools than are now provided.
—A careful estimate of the expense of running 300 street-cars by horse-power and by electric motor, says the New York Sun, shows a balance in favor of the motor power of over four dollars per day per car.
—Placer County's exhibit of citrus fruits in San Francisco during the present month has been highly creditable, and goes a long way toward demonstrating the productive capacity of Northern California.
—The trial of the Dr. Cronin murderers at Chicago has ended. Coughlin, Burke, and O'Sullivan were sentenced to imprisonment for life, Kunze to three years' imprisonment, and Beggs was adjudged not guilty.
—Austria's standing army costs $47,000,000, Germany's $86,000,000, Great Britain's $97,000,000, Italy's $51,000,000, Russia's $102,000,000 annually. The United States pays in military pensions, $100,000,000 a year.
—The State Board of Health complains in its last monthly report of the difficulty of isolating and checking contagious diseases through the unwillingness of citizens, nurses, and even physicians, to report cases that come to their knowledge.
—The unusually open winter in the East is said to have a bad effect on the public health. A Pittsburg dispatch says typhoid fever is on the increase in the Ohio valley, and a scourge of pulmonary diseases is sweeping Blair County, Pennsylvania.
—Dom Pedro's presence in Europe is creating uneasiness among the crowned. As a deposed emperor, he is a constant reminder of the case with which the empire of Brazil was transformed into a republic, and Republicans take courage.
—Owing to a break in the Sacramento River levee, just below Sacramento, and the formation of a sandbar in the old channel, it is feared that navigation will be permanently impaired, and that a new channel will carry the waters off through the Yolo and Solano tules.
—The inclement weather of the 19th ult. having prevented the Japanese emperor's chrysanthemum party from being held on that day, his majesty ordered that the dinner prepared for the occasion should be given to the inmates of the Tokio asylum for the poor.
—Stanley, the African explorer, gives great credit to the Zanzibar natives who accompanied the late expedition for the relief of Emin Pasha. He says they collected fungi for provisions, and thus kept the Europeans alive. They would eat nothing themselves until all the others had eaten.
—Influenza of a virulent type, which has recently been quite prevalent in Europe, has made its appearance in New York. Eight cases were reported within two days, being friends of a family just returned from Europe. In these cases the disease began with vertigo, followed by headache and chills.
—The provisional president of Brazil is said to be dying, and the matter of a successor may cause trouble. It is possible that the change of government there will not run so smoothly as at first anticipated. A republic is not so easily managed by inexperienced hands as might be supposed.
—British Columbia is greatly alarmed for the fate of its Chinese Restriction act. The Dominion Government has apparently resolved on the repeal of the act at the behest of the Canadian Pacific Railroad, and the citizens of the province understand that they must work for the act if they wish to preserve it.
—By a proclamation of general naturalization in Brazil, all foreigners are declared citizens from the date of the proclamation of the republic unless they refuse it. All foreigners will be considered Brazilian citizens after two years' residence if they accept, and may enjoy all the civil and political rights, but shall not be eligible for the office of chief of the State.
—Emperor William, of Germany, is fond of experimenting with the army, having sudden night calls made to test the alertness of the troops, and other like projects. At Bornstedt, recently, a regiment of cavalry was ordered to advance at full gallop, and the sudden helter-skelter through the streets resulted in killing some of the horses and injuring several unsuspecting people.
—King Humbert, of Italy, has inhaled so many cigarettes that his bronchial tubes have become affected. He now sucks camphor instead of tobacco smoke.
—The Brazilian provisional government has canceled its grant to the ex-emperor of 5,000,000 millreas, and has also suspended his allowance on the civil list. He is now declared banished from the country, together with all the royal family. The governor of Rio Grande do Sul is charged with instigating secession in his State, and has been condemned to transportation.
—The Alaska Commercial Company's twenty years' lease of the seal islands expires next year, and Secretary Windom has decided to award the lease for another term to the highest bidder. The seals are more numerous now than they were at the beginning of the term, and but for the raids of the Victoria and San Francisco poachers they would be so abundant that the annual draft of the lessees upon their numbers could not be missed. The present lease returns to the government $315,000 a year.
News and Notes.
RELIGIOUS.
—Rev. Wm. Kincaid, a well-known Baptist minister of the Pacific Coast, who recently resigned the pastorate of the First Baptist Church, San Francisco, has received a call to a Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis.
—Dr. Howard Crosby strongly urges the consecration of "Christian capital" for the founding of "good secular newspapers," which shall treat all social and political matters "from a high moral and religious standpoint."
—Referring to the organization of the lower House of Congress, the New York World correspondent says: "For no office was there a keener contest than for the chaplaincy, there being a dozen eager candidates. The $900 prize was captured by Charles B. Ransdell, a young Presbyterian clergyman of Washington."
—There was a celebration of the tenth anniversary of the publication of the Herald of Truth, at the First Baptist Church, San Francisco, on the 17th inst. In other words, it was a kind of decennial commemoration of denominational deliverance from Kallochism on the Pacific Coast, for which good purpose the Herald was instituted.
—At one of the sessions of the Evangelical Alliance recently held in Boston, Dr. Green, rector of St. Bartholomew's Church, New York, read a paper on "Christianity and the State." He claimed that, one theory of the State being that it is based on a social compact, neither the Christian religion nor any other religion can have any organic connection with it.
—Rev. C. C. Bateman, a Baptist minister, writing "Oregon Odds and Ends" to a Baptist paper, has this to say about Astoria: "Poor Astoria; founded in 1811, and has never been able to keep a pastor of a Baptist Church, with one exception, for a single year at a time! The city has the reputation of being the 'wickedest' place on the Pacific Coast. There are a few Baptists, but the rest are Methodists, Presbyterians, and 'tough citizens' generally."
—Rev. A. J. Gordon, of Boston, in a recent address before the Evangelical Alliance, expressed himself in sympathy with the old view that the divisions of Christendom were an advantage to the cause of Christ, both at home and in the mission field, although he acknowledged that a divided church was not an ideal church, nor the church founded and prayed for by its divine Master. This sentiment is one of the strange anomalies of the modern church.
MAPLE SUGAR.
By A. W. BARTON
WESTERN parties who wish to get maple sugar true to name, may address me as below. Prices reasonable. A discount to purchasers of large lots. Goods carefully selected, and packages made secure.
A. W. BARTON,
Underhill, Chittenden Co., Vt.
FOR THE EUROPEAN MISSION.
ALL grades of American and Swiss watches will be sold to the friends of the cause at the most reasonable prices; and for any watch sold for less than $10, we will give 50 cents to the mission; above $10, we will give $1.00. Write to A. Vuilleumier, 124 Third Street, Portland, Or.
The American Sentinel’s Good Service
THE American Sentinel, published weekly by the Pacific Press Publishing Co., Oakland, Cal., $1.00 a year, is doing good service in opposing those narrow-minded advocates of the union of Church and State. —Wauseon, O., Republican.
BOUND VOLUMES OF THE "SENTINEL."
By Editor
The American Sentinel for 1889 can now be obtained neatly bound in a cloth volume, with leather back and corners, for $2.50, post-paid; bound in heavy paper, for $1.50, post-paid.
ARE YOU GOING EAST?
If so, you will find it to your advantage to write to or call on B. R. Nordyke, Pacific Press, Oakland, Cal., about routes, tickets, etc.
Parties are being formed to go East nearly every week. He has through car arrangements, and excellent accommodations for the traveling public. His next parties for Chicago and New York will leave San Francisco and Oakland, Cal., December 26 and 31.
THE AMERICAN SENTINEL.
By Editor
AN EIGHT-PAGE WEEKLY JOURNAL,
DEVOTED TO
The defense of American Institutions, the preservation
of the United States Constitution as it is, so far
as regards religion or religious tests, and
the maintenance of human rights,
both civil and religious.
It will ever be uncompromisingly opposed to anything tending
toward a union of Church and State, either in name or in fact.
Single Copy, Per Year, post-paid, - - - $1.00
In clubs of ten or more copies, per year, each, - - 75c.
To foreign countries, single subscription, post-paid, - - 5s.
Address, AMERICAN SENTINEL,
43 Bond St., NEW YORK.
THOUGHTS ON DANIEL,
By Uriah Smith
CRITICAL AND PRACTICAL.
BY ELD. U. SMITH.
AN EXPOSITION OF THE BOOK OF DANIEL, VERSE BY VERSE.
WE are now living in times plainly pointed out in this prophecy, and it is important to understand it; for Daniel himself says that in the time of the end, the wise shall understand; while, if we fail, we are equally guilty with the Jews, who knew not the time of their visitation (Luke 19:42-44), and shall meet a similar fate. 416 pp. Price, $1.25.
Address, PACIFIC PRESS, Oakland, Cal.
......T H E......
By Editor
Signs of the Times
PROSPECTUS FOR 1890.
WITH this number the Signs of the Times reaches the close of its fifteenth volume. It has proved of unusual interest among its many thousand friends and readers, who everywhere pronounce it a live religious paper, a reliable expositor of Scripture, an energetic defender of Bible truth and inspiration, and a household paper, the contents of which, in every department, are pure and elevating. While it is in no sense a political paper, taking sides with no political party, it will in the future, as it ever has in the past, defend with boldness the principles of religious liberty which were held so sacred by the founders of our government, and which have proved such a blessing to our country in the past. The future promises to be of still greater interest and more intensely thrilling in this respect, as the rights of minorities are more and more disregarded. Especial attention will be given to the subjects of Religious Liberty and National Reform in the Signs of the Times the coming year, by one of the best writers on these topics in the United States.
We confidently announce that the columns of the Signs will, as heretofore, be filled with interesting and instructive matter, profitable to all classes of readers. Editors and writers whose names and pens have given character and value to the paper in past volumes, will continue their labors and contributions during the year 1890. In short, effort will be put forth to make it a better paper than ever before.
The following departments will still be continued, each of which we shall endeavor to improve in the year to come:—
Editorial.—In this department will be presented the important and leading doctrines of the word of God, the events of the day and their bearing upon the prophecies of the Bible will be discussed; the signs of the times will be kept before the people; all worthy Bible questions will be answered, and articles helpful to a Christian and godly life will appear. Especial prominence will be given to the Sunday-law agitation, and all other phases of the movement tending towards a union of religion and the State. E. J. Waggoner, whose long experience in this line has fitted him for this work, will present before our readers the dangers and duties relative to this soon-to-be-all-absorbing question.
General Articles.—This department will embrace a wide variety of subjects, in articles original and selected, practical, doctrinal, and miscellaneous. Mrs. E. G. White will continue her contributions to this department.
Temperance.—The Signs of the Times will not only advocate total abstinence from intoxicating drinks, but that Christian temperance which is worthy to be associated with righteousness and judgment to come. Useful hints and helps will be given in the matter of physical health and training.
The Sabbath-School.—This department will be a live, useful help to an understanding of the lesson. It will not only contain the lesson as published in the lesson pamphlet, but extended and suggestive notes on difficult passages. It will also contain helpful notes on the International Lessons, which cover this year the Gospel of Luke.
Missionary.—The Signs is designed to be a missionary publication, to be used by our Tract Societies, and sent to every part of the world where the English language is spoken. It will not only give reports of our own work, but will notice the lives and work of all true reformers and mission workers of all ages, both in the Old World and New.
Home Circle.—This will embrace pleasant and instructive reading for the household, of an elevated and moral character. No serial stories published. Nothing of the sensational style admitted. The object will be to combine the useful, the instructive, the pleasing, and the elevating.
General News.—A synopsis of the news of the day, or items of all the most important events as given in the best daily papers. To many who do not take the dailies, this department will be of real value. Both secular and religious news and notes will be given.
Book Notices.—The receipt of all books will be acknowledged, and such other notice will be given as the contents seems to demand.
It will be the object of the Signs to advance the cause of the truth of God, honoring that truth whenever found, and to labor to gather souls into the kingdom of our God and his Christ. We ask the earnest support and assistance of our readers and friends.
Terms.—Per year, postage free.......................$2.00
In clubs of five or more copies to one name and address, to be used in missionary work, each........ 1.50
To foreign countries, single subscription, post-paid, 10s
Address, SIGNS OF THE TIMES,
Twelfth and Castro Sts.,
OAKLAND, CAL., U. S. A.
Fire Risks in Supposedly Safe Buildings
THE following from the Oakland Enquirer of the 19th instant contains facts well worth pondering. Too much care cannot be taken in regard to fires. The fire element once let loose is almost absolutely uncontrollable. In speaking of what has been supposed to be uninflammable materials, and the findings of the Boston experts, the Enquirer says:
"To look at a massive stone building it would appear that nothing could be more impregnable to fire, and it required many bitter experiences to prove that this confidence was misplaced. Granite, usually considered a type of solidity, is especially dangerous, as it is full of minute cavities which fill with water and explode when the fire becomes very hot. Brownstone, marble, and other rocks, are almost equally unstable when the destroying element approaches them. To show what a fire can do, the Ames building in Boston may be instanced. This was designed by the great architect, H. H. Richardson, and was thought to be fire-proof. It had a solid brownstone front. Between the floor and ceiling of every story there was a packing of four inches of asbestos, so that if the flooring were fired it could not penetrate to the room below. Yet this great building was wiped out in thirty minutes. Iron is another building material whose defects show themselves in a great fire. When the heat becomes intense the iron pillars in the fronts of buildings expand so much that this movement is alone sufficient to wreck buildings in some cases. And when heated still further they bend and let the building fall."
The Signs of the Times.
By Editor
OAKLAND, CAL., SECOND-DAY, DECEMBER 30, 1889.
We send no papers from this office without pay in advance unless by special arrangement. When persons receive copies without ordering them, they are sent by other parties, and we can give no information in regard to them. Persons thus receiving copies of the SIGNS are not indebted to the office, and will not be called upon for pay. Please read the papers and hand them to your friends to read.
Our readers may look out for the text of the Blair Sunday bill next week.
Dr. Waggoner Goes to Battle Creek
By Editor
Dr. E. J. Waggoner, who came December 6 instead of November 6, as stated two weeks ago, left for Battle Creek, Michigan, the 20th inst. He goes to teach Hebrew and theology in the College during the remainder of the term, after which he expects to return. He will continue his contributions to the SIGNS. May God bless his labors in the College.
Sunday Work in the Army
By Editor
ONE of the resolutions adopted by the American Sabbath Union was a resolution of rejoicing "that Sunday work has been already reduced to the minimum in the army of the United States." If it has been already reduced to the minimum, it cannot be reduced any lower; and we can see no necessity for agitating that question any further.
Church Independence from the State
By Editor
WE learn that the recent Baptist convention at Ottawa, Canada, passed the following resolution:—
“That in the opinion of this convention the acceptance by the Baptist Churches of the exemption of their church property from municipal taxation is inconsistent with our distinctive principles, and is an impediment to our work of evangelizing the world.”
That is the true principle. The church cannot afford to be under obligation to the State; for its work of evangelization is not to be done by the aid of the State, but by the power of the Spirit.
The American Sentinel Moves East
By Editor
The last number of our esteemed cotemporary, the American Sentinel, December 25, closes its fourth volume, and also its publication on the Pacific Coast. No. 1 of volume 5 will be issued from the New York office, 43 Bond Street. It will have a much larger field in the East, surrounded, as it will be, by the more densely populated States of the Union. While we are sorry to lose the Sentinel from Oakland, its mission is needed more in New York than in California. The Golden State is still free from a union of Church and State. She believes in religious liberty. May the Sentinel prosper even more abundantly than in the past in its new field.
The Sunday-Rest Law Campaign
By Editor
THE eighth of the series of resolutions adopted at the recent annual meeting of the American Sabbath Union, was as follows:—
Resolved, That we observe with pleasure the introduction of the Sunday-Rest law in the Senate of the United States, and that we recommend the widest possible circulation of petitions to both Houses of Congress for its adoption.
They are rather premature in calling the bill which has been introduced a law; but this resolution should serve as a renewed call to action on the part of those who favor religious liberty. It is something more than a coincidence that Senator Blair introduced his Sunday bill December 9, the very day that the American Sabbath Union met in convention. There can be no doubt that the officers of the union had a hand in the preparation of the bill, so that it could not fail to please them.
The Pre-Millennial Advent Disproved
By Editor
A TRACT has been sent us, entitled, "The Pre-Millennial Advent Disproved," by one W. Gribbon. A sample of the argument is shown by the opening words:—
"The pre-millennial theory of the second advent of Christ is disproved by the following considerations: First, it maintains false views of the kingdom of God. It makes Christ's kingdom a literal one, whereas he says, 'My kingdom is not of this world.'"
If the pre-millennial theory never has to do battle with any heavier argument than this, it will never suffer. Just as though nothing could be literal that was not earthly. In heaven we have "a better and an enduring substance." Heb. 10:34. The writer makes the same mistake that is made by many others; he confounds Christ's present kingly priesthood with his eternal reign. When Christ comes his kingly priesthood ends.
The True Basis of Christian Union
By Editor
IN our Missionary Department is an item from the Chinese Recorder, lamenting the lack of union among Christians in the mission work in that field. There is one true basis of union among the different sects of Christians, and that is union with Christ through his truth. Regeneration through faith, and abiding faith based on the word of God, will certainly bring and maintain union with God. And if we are united with God, we will of necessity be united with each other. But such union necessitates the laying aside of all human creeds, and coming direct to the fountain, the Bible. The world would then know, so far as the world could know, that the mission of Christ was divine. John 17:21. Such union would be a power, but it can only be built up between regenerate hearts.
Indecent Literature and a Converted World
By Editor
THERE has lately been figuring in the divorce courts of New York one of the vilest of men, a novelist withal, whose works, dull and stupid as they are said to be, had an immense sale. His theory, deduced doubtless from his own heart, is that there are no decent men in the world. Concerning the sale of his books, the New York World says:—
"But what a melancholy commentary upon our character as a people is the fact that this man's novels, in spite of their dullness, have been bought and read by tens of thousands for the sake of their indecency!"
And this is the period which is to usher in a converted world! There are good men in the world, but they are not of it.