p. 16 | Signs of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 2. (1/8/1902)

DAY OF THE SABBATH

IS IT ANY DAY, OR IS IT A PARTICULAR DAY? AND IF A PARTICULAR DAY, WHAT DAY IS IT?

A. G. L. NO. 30 10C EACH 60C. PER HUNDRED

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Jesus Christ Our Righteousness

“Jesus Christ Our Righteousness.” (Spanish.) A translation of Bible Students’ Library No. 71; 8 pp.; price, 1 cent. Address, PACIFIC PRESS PUBLISHING CO., Oakland, Cal.

Too Much Novel.

—Mr. Andrew Lang, an English writer of note, and one well qualified to criticize, in speaking of “The State of American Literature,” in the Independent, says that “your literature is swamped by the novel,” and then he tells us that he “would give a wilderness of novels just now—yea, of good novels—for a Macaulay, or a Hazlitt, a Tennyson, a Gibbon, a Hume, a Wordsworth.” “The novel, of course, has taken all knowledge for its province, worse luck; because the novelists do not really know everything, and I regard their attempts to instruct as frivolous. They dabble (I am thinking of England) in religion and science, in social philosophy,—ah, with what rejoicing ignorance, in what barbaric style! We all know and confess that you can not learn history from historical novels!” And he suggests that the same is true in other fields. And he asks if the public which feeds upon novels must not have “its powers of attention debauched.” “A supposed demand for trash is met with an overwhelming supply.” “We become a generation of children crying out for fairy tales.” “The great peril is the peril of the ‘popular,’ a term which means a voluntary and injurious and even an insulting degradation of the literary standard.” So much on the literary side. The curse of novel-reading is more marked in the moral and mental phases of popular life. It is demoralizing and demoralizing.

Practical Counsel for the Home

Our Home department in the year to come offers a specially valuable lot of matter, practical and blessed if reduced to practise in any family.

Darwinism at Its Last Gasp

By Editor

We have just received from a student in science an article entitled, “Darwinism at Its Last Gasp.” It will appear soon, supplemented by some other matter along the same line. Our readers will be glad to see it.

God Rules Over All

The New Year begins ominously. Famine in China, famine threatening in India, war in South America and more threatening, war in the Philippines, war in South Africa, and the nations in that condition that a breath may start the avalanche which would involve a world in war. But over all God rules, and all are safe in whom He rules.

Sunday Saloon Laws and Religious Legislation

Throughout Ohio there is being put forth tremendous effort to close saloons—on Sunday; just as if liquor-drinking or liquor-selling was worse on that day than any other. A temperance paper seems to feel jubilant because fines for Sunday violation are ten times greater than for violations on some other day. All of this is for religious legislation, not in the interests of temperance.

Business Principle and Policy

Business principle is one thing; business policy is another. Business principle will abide, whatever may come. It may seem to be defeated in commercial competition; it may seem to be buried beneath the mold of millenniums; but it will survive the storms of ages, the wreck of worlds, and the power of death; it is of God. But business policy is of the devil. It may prosper for a time like a green bay tree; it may seem to prevail over all “competitors;” but it has within it the seeds of everlasting ruin, and is doomed to perish. Those who identify themselves with it will perish with it. Business principle is of God. Business policy is man's substitute. It makes flesh its arm, and will fail. But business principle makes God its strength. For it is written: “Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm. . . . Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is.” Read Jer. 17:5-11. It is a Christian business homily for to-day.

Sin Is Hypnotic

Sin is hypnotic, enslaving its victims in the worst of bondage. “Righteousness delivereth,” not only from death, but from all that brings death. The only Saviour from the hypnotism of sin is the Righteous One, Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Harvest of Sin

How often the carnal heart loves the seed-sowing of sin, but hopes to repudiate the harvest of disease and death. But the fruit must be reaped; the consequences can not be escaped. “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” That is an eternal principle of truth. The only way to remedy the harvest is to remedy the sowing.

Letter from Heaven.

Our readers interested in the working of error through tradition will be pleased to trace through the centuries the “Letter from Heaven” on the Sunday-sabbath. They will note that it came about the time half-converted zealots were endeavoring to force “the wild solar holiday of all pagan times” upon the church. Dr. Axon writes upon this subject in no controversial spirit. In his antiquarian researches he has found these facts, and our readers will be interested in his conclusions. Dr. Axon has for many years been librarian of the large public library of Birmingham, England, and has had exceptional advantages in antiquarian research. He is author of something like a quarter hundred of works on various subjects.

Dangerous “Knowledge.”

There are poor souls who esteem their understanding of the Bible so absolute and infallible that they flatly denounce as atheists those who question any part of it. It matters not that their opinion is based on other men's opinions; that they take for evidence that of which they themselves know nothing only as it appeals to their limited understanding. Their whole discourse is summed up in the words, “I believe it; therefore it is so; and if you do not believe it, you deny God and the Bible.” Those who thus speak do not see it, but they are really putting themselves in the place of God, assuming place and authority which God never gave them. Such knowledge is exceedingly dangerous. It is of the balloon quality.

The Spirit of Truth

The Spirit of Truth.— He who has the truth as it is in Christ Jesus may be positive, but he will not be bigoted or arbitrary. He who holds merely “the form of the truth,” cold and dead, is likely to be bigoted, arbitrary, and rigid. He wishes to fit every one to his frozen mould. Everything outside of that is to him atheism, infidelity, heathenism. He assumes the place of judge, and condemns unsparingly all who may disagree with him. But not so with him who has the life of the truth. While established as to the truth, he knows that God is leading other minds as well as his. Others may be in error, where he sees truth, but he is also aware that he does not know it all, and with love and sympathy will he work for souls in error. A harsh, judging spirit is the best of evidence that the one who possesses it has not the greatest essential of truth,—its life, its love, its power.

Popular Government in the Philippines

It may be interesting to many readers to know something of the extent of popular government established in the Philippines. According to the report of the Secretary of War, municipal governments have been organized in 765 towns, in which the municipal officers are elected by the people. All persons who own real property to the value of $250, or pay an annual tax of $15, or who speak, read, or write either English or Spanish, are competent to vote. The affairs of the town or village are in the hands of the municipal authorities, subject to “extensive visitorial and supervisory powers” by the Commission. This is somewhat indefinite. An “extensive” supervisory power might be so extensive as to be dictatorial; that would depend upon the temper of the Commission; but a New York journal assumes that it is not more extensive than the powers exercised over the municipal affairs of New York City by the legislature of that State.

Reading for Children

One of the popular magazines says that “the matter of reading for children is of great importance, and presents many perplexities to fathers and mothers who are eager to make the best use of the most impressionable years of childhood.” Then the editor recommends several books for children which were selected by “a group of men and women who, by reason of special study of the subject, and, in many cases, of successful practice of the art of writing, are qualified to speak with authority.” But the books thus recommended are mostly bare fiction, and the others are truth so adulterated with fiction’s elaboration that the chaff is far in excess of the wheat. It is quite common, in recommending books of this character, to say that such a volume is “founded on fact,” or that “it is truth with enough fiction thrown in to make it interesting.” Thus the children are taught that truth is dull and uninteresting, and the impression is too prevalent among people of all ages. But it is truth alone that can save and sanctify.

The Sabbath Is the Seventh Day

It is not the Sabbath as an institution which the Lord asks us to remember; it is the day. “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” It is the day that is named; it is the day that is set apart; it is the day that is to be observed. A tract before us says in a wise manner:—

The term “Sabbath” contains nothing in its orthography which limits its meaning to that of a particular sacred day.

And we could as logically say that the term “Jesus” “contains nothing in its orthography which limits its meaning to that of a particular sacred person.” But Inspiration has identified that name with the Anointed of God, and highly exalted it. Just as truly God has identified the term “Sabbath,” referring to the weekly rest, with the seventh day. “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God;” not that the Sabbath comes upon that day. That day is the Sabbath of the Lord. To endeavor to shift the language to an uncertain institution is to pervert the plainest and most positive language.

Discarding the If in Prayer

“If” can not be properly applied to God. All things pertaining to Him or to His Word are positive; there is no place for the “if.” This is well illustrated in the case of the man whose son was possessed of a dumb spirit. In the absence of Jesus, the man had applied to His disciples to cast out the spirit, but they were unable to do so; and when Jesus came, appeal was made to Him. The father stated the case to Jesus, referring to the failure of the disciples to give relief. Then he said, “If Thou canst do anything, have compassion on us, and help us.” But Jesus immediately threw back the “if” upon the petitioner himself, and said, “If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.” When the man asserted his belief, and threw away his “if” (discarded his doubt), the Lord gave immediate and permanent relief to his afflicted son. It would be impossible to compute the list of prayers that fail of their object because they are offered with an “if,” either expressed or in mental reservation.

Drink Bill of Britain.

According to Mr. Asquith, the British Liberal leader, the drink bill of Great Britain amounts to $500,000,000 yearly, or over $16 per capita, including men, women, and children.