p. 16 | Signs of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 43. (10/22/1902)

Increase of Unnatural Crimes.

The thoughtful man or woman who reads or merely scans the news of the day must be struck by the increase of unnatural crime, if such a term may be used. Of course, all crime is unnatural, or ought to be; and yet on the other hand it is the legitimate fruit of a seed-sowing of lawlessness, lust, and sin. As an instance of the prevalence of this sort of crime, we pick up a local paper of October 10. It tells of a school-teacher in North Dakota, shooting three trustees, three girl pupils, and then committing suicide. This was in a settlement of Mennonites, a place that would not be expected to bring forth such results. From Pittsburg comes the news of an intelligent young man of seventeen years of age brutally murdering his mother and sister, wounding four smaller sisters, and seeking to kill three brothers, who overpowered him. Just the other day it was discovered that two young lads, one of whom was considered a good boy, in a town near San Francisco, had been setting fire to various buildings in the village for months, destroying many thousand dollars' worth of property. The sister of one, a pretty girl, was privy to the work. The motive seems to have been sheer maliciousness. The commissioners of prisons in England report that 17,163 more persons were sentenced to ordinary imprisonment in the year just closed than in the year previous, and 183 more to penal servitude. And such items as these are found in every day's news. Truly the apostle and prophet said: “Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse,” and “in the last days perilous times shall come.”

California Answers the Macedonian Call

More particulars will be given of California’s response to the Macedonian cries from regions beyond next week.

Articles on The Revelation

Articles on “The Revelation” begin with this issue. The first is found on page 6. The next will appear on the first page.

Consider Him Series

The first of Professor Rine’s series, “Consider Him,” appears on the first page of this paper. The others will appear under a special two-column heading.

Conditions in Barbados

By Editor

We have received from Brother W. A. Sweany, our missionary in Barbados, a most heart-rending story of the conditions of the people throughout the island. The story came too late for this issue. It will be presented next week.

California Election Laws and Vote for 1900

We acknowledge receipt of “California Election Laws, and Vote for 1900,” from Hon. C. F. Curry, Secretary of State, Sacramento, Cal. The compilation makes a respectable little volume of 270 pages of neatly-printed and well-indexed matter. It is just now a timely document for politicians.

Sunshine as a Disinfectant

By Editor

In our Home department will be found the reprint of an article by Surgeon-General Sternberg on the importance of sunshine as a disinfectant. We wish that people generally would value sunshine more. It is worthy of it. Let it into the houses. Let it bathe every room if possible. Never mind the furniture or the carpets. Get such as will not fade, or let them fade. Health is better than upholstery; color in cheeks is better than color in carpets.

Christianity as the Life of God

Christianity is not a system of ethics, of rules, of regulations; it is not a set of theories and moral precepts, preferable perhaps to any or all others, but similar. Christianity is a life, the life of God sent down from above to men. If it is not that, it is nothing. Its beautiful form is no more than ice-cold stone, with no power to help the one who embraces it; nay, more, it will absorb his warmth and life and leave him cold and dead. He who embraces Christianity gets life, the very life of God.

The Bible as Literature.

On the suggestion of the National Educational Association that the Bible be used in the public schools “as a literary work of the highest and purest type, side by side with the prose and poetry it has inspired, and in a large part formed,” the New York Sun remarks: “The very suggestion that now the Bible should be read and taught simply as ‘a masterpiece of literature,’ wholly apart from any religious character, put forth as it is from a nominally Christian and Protestant source, is significant of a change of spirit which can not be called less than revolutionary in its significance. A suggestion from a Christian source that the Bible be degraded from its place of supreme elevation as ‘the Book and the Word of God,’ to the category of the human words of Milton and Shakespeare, as merely a masterpiece of the literary expression of a single race would once have aroused the whole English-speaking world, believing and infidel, as a momentous surrender of pivotal religious position. Now it is taken as a matter of course.”

The European Mission Field

The aftermath of our good California camp-meeting was gathered at Oakland. The “aftermath” is the sweet, fresh, tender grass which springs up under fresh showers and warm sunshine after the first crop has been cut and garnered. We know little of it in the Golden State. From the camp-meeting came Messrs. A. G. Daniells and E. R. Palmer, members of our Foreign Mission Board, the former president of our General Conference, both of them just fresh from a visit to the great European field. Brother Palmer spoke Sunday evening and Brother Daniells Monday evening on that great field, fitted for further sowing, and ripe for the harvest, waiting for God’s last great message of warning and preparation for Christ’s coming. Rev. 14:6-14. The many millions there waiting and ignorant were contrasted with the fewer millions in this country, more enlightened, and the fewer, O, so much fewer laborers and believers there with the many here. The $500,000 in regular funds expended here, much of it on believers, among 80,000,000 people was set over against $16,000 used there among 500,000,000. Pathetic incidents were noted as showing the great need and soul-hunger of the people there for the truth of the Gospel. Encouraging items and experiences were related of those who were seeking and finding the truth in various lands, especially in Catholic Austria, Hungary, Italy, even in Rome. These were soul-stirring talks; and it is good to note that there has been in California noble response in laborers and means to the needy Southern field in this country, to England, Africa, Spain, Germany, Italy. Praise God for part and counterpart of the appeals. New life will follow new giving. May God bless these brethren as they go to other fields, bless the great mission fields for which they plead, bless the laborers in those fields and those who are going to those fields, and our whole people, with such a burden of the great mission work and unsaved souls as was never felt before.

Confession of Sin

O how many there are who are not ashamed to sin, but are ashamed to confess their sin, even when their sin is known and manifest to all around them. They say by this attitude that they love the sin rather than the purity that separation from it means; that they prefer the disease to its healing; that they prefer the horrible, eating, discharging ulcer to the whole healthy flesh. There are many who wish to live a righteous life, but desire to make no confession of sin, no acknowledgement of a wrong course, pursued before many, and in which some have stumbled. Pride and false shame hold them back. They ought to be ashamed not to do it. Confession, true confession, is separation from sin. It is saying that the evil has been cast out; that the wicked partnership has terminated; that henceforth sin and ourselves go different ways. What blessing comes to the individual and to other souls by such noble, heart-felt, whole-hearted confession. David said: “When I kept silence my bones wasted away;” but “I acknowledged my sin unto Thee, and mine iniquity did I not hide. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto Jehovah; and Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.” Ps. 32:3-5. The confession of all sins should be made unto God; all sins of which He alone is cognizant into His ear alone. Sins involving others and before others should be acknowledged before them lest they stumble. He who truly confesses and forsakes his sin shall find meeting him in all its cleansing, healing power, God’s fulness of mercy.

Trouble in Great Britain

Trouble in Great Britain.—Mr. John A. Hobson, a noted sociologist of London, who is at this writing a guest of the Boston Twentieth Century Club and Harvard University, predicts serious trouble in England between organized labor and organized capital. Labor organizations are increasing and multiplying rapidly. At present “employers are able to keep down the labor unions, and to break down the principles of collective bargaining. They have turned to the weapons of law and failed. The House of Lords has ruled that trade-unions can not be sued, and a lower court has cancelled the right to picket even peaceably.” Mr. Hobson tells us further that some eminent men hold that this is “the death knell of trade-unions in England. When open to litigation the unions will be worsted by the superior resources of the employers, and when trade declines he will get a series of strikes and lockouts.” And out of all this will come rioting and violence.

Winnowing Fact from Scientific Conjecture

A writer on science declares that “a regular day’s work in science is sixteen hours. By reading incessantly this full time every day, one can begin to form a concept of the present expansion of the scientific mind.” And yet oftentimes how much chaff of conjecture and hypothesis one has to winnow away to get one little kernel of fact.

Saved from Sin, Not in Sin

It is not God who destroys man; it is sin. It is God's effort to save man from his sin, and so from destruction. He can not save man in sin; if saved at all man must be saved from sin. There is no other salvation worth seeking.

Omaha Strike Threatens Harriman Railways

And now there is a threat of tying up all the Harriman lines of railway unless a strike of shopmen in Omaha is settled. So are men becoming bound together, and not always or generally by the bonds which make for peace.