p. 733 | Signs of the Times, Vol. 40, No. 46. (12/2/1913)

Earlier text: The Mystery of God Dwelling in Flesh

India Mission


Previously Reported	$149.00
Raymond Van Blaricom	.50
C. Nall	.40
Nadine Schachten	.20
Melvin Oso	.40
S. S. H.	25.00
Wm. Doty	1.00
Donna Richardson	.15
Grace C. White	.15
Total	$176.80

“B” Mission Through “Our Little Friend”

| Previously Reported | $126.05 | | Received during August, September, and October | 34.46 | | Total | $160.51 |

Bibles

Bibles.— Remember that we are headquarters for anything in the Bible line. Address this office.

Two Brochures

There are on hand a few more copies of the two brochures by Mrs. M. E. Steward, “The Destroyer, a Temperance Tale,” and “Harry Spencer, Dyspeptic.” “The Destroyer” is the story of a drunkard’s reformation, and the conversion of a saloon-keeper. It shows the fearful effects of alcohol on both mind and body. “Harry Spencer” is a story with pleasant surprises. From being a confirmed invalid, Harry is so fully restored to health, through the use of nature’s remedies, that his own mother does not know him.

Until exhausted, these may be had for five cents each, the two for ten cents. Address Mrs. M. E. Steward, Sanitarium, Cal.

Ripe Olives for Sale

By A. E. Crist

In fifty-gallon barrels large size at seventy-five cents per gallon. Medium size at sixty cents per gallon. Either size in twenty-five-gallon barrels five cents extra. In five-gallon cans ten cents extra. In one-gallon cans fifteen cents extra. F. o. b. Chico. Satisfaction guaranteed.

A. E. Crist, Chico, California.

Your Name and Address

And a nickel will bring you a ten-cent package of E-Z Washing Tablets and an offer whereby you can get the tablets at agents' rates, mailed direct to you by parcel-post, prepaid. One tablet in your boiler will remove all the dirt without rubbing,—cutting out most of the hard work of washing. Send at once to Alfred Mallett, 721 H Street, Sacramento, California.

Do You Know Your Bible?

Send for the “Scriptural Exercise,” a new Bible game. Fifteen subjects; a brief outline of Present Truth. Entertaining, instructive, profitable, for both young and old. Approved by Mrs. McKibbin, author of “Bible Lessons,” and by other teachers. Price 50 cents. Discount to agents. Address Mrs. M. E. Steward, Sanitarium, Cal.

The Lord’s Day the Test of the Ages

This little monograph, costing only ten cents, gives more information as to the great Sabbath question than any dollar book ever published. The Sabbath, its origin, its history, before and after Christ to the present day. A medium in price.

Pacific Press Publishing Assn., Mountain View, Cal.

Take Care of the Boys

By B. J. Kendall

YES, fathers and mothers, it is your boys that need your most thoughtful care. It seems to be instinctive to parents to shield their girls from evil, to keep them from the sight and sound of sinful things. What mother would rest when evening comes if her little daughter were at large in the street, frequenting the village store, or hanging about the door of the drinking saloon? How many times is the son of ten years away from the sight and sound of the mother at nightfall, breathing in, from the rude talk of older boys, or of coarse, vulgar men, a worse malaria than that from stagnant pools! Outgrow it, will they? Now and then a boy poisoned in childhood by vicious associates does live down the poison, and comes out a pure, clean man. But look over any community, in search of the young men without guile, whose souls and bodies are clean, and are they the rule or the exception? Scrutinize the sisters of the same young men, and do you expect to find the spotless among them the rule or the exception? It is the curse of the world that its boys are cherished less sacredly than its girls! And they whose temptations to physical vices are strongest have the least done to fortify them against evil.

Do not say that because of the difference in their natures, boys and girls can not be trained by the same standard of morality. It is a base libel upon manhood, fostered so long in the world that it has come almost to be believed. If the boys have greater temptations, so have they stronger powers of resistance, if these powers are cultivated. But too often they are wholly neglected. Do not trust to the future to bring out your boys

all right, for it will almost certainly bring them out scarred. Neither trust to their being above temptation. Know always where they are, and what they are doing, and what are their inmost thoughts; and this, not by prying, tyrannical oversight of their movements, but with such a tender, yearning interest for their well-being that they love to open their souls to you. Some day these boys of yours will be seeking out mates, and you will expect them to bring to you spotless, high-minded girls. In receiving them, how can you think it honorable to give less in return than spotless, high-minded boys?

B. J. Kendall, M.D.

A Wonderful Ornament

By Mrs. L. D. Avery-Stuttle

I HAVE heard of a gem that is fairer Than all of the gems of earth, More beautiful far, and rarer,— Of wonderful, wonderful worth.

This gem is so far exceeding The value of earthly things, It is vainly sought, for it is not bought With the revenue of kings.

And yet ’tis a wonderful story,— You scarce could believe it true: This gem of surpassing glory Is offered to me and you.

It is given freely not only To the monarch upon his throne, But the poor may wear this gem so fair, And call it his very own.

“Pray, what is this gem,” you ask me,— “This ornament bright and fair, This wondrous, rich adornment That the humblest child may wear?”

’Tis “a meek and a quiet spirit,”— This treasure of richest worth. This gem that is free to you and me Is the fairest gem on earth.

Quiet Christians

By Mrs. L. D. Avery-Stuttle

It is natural for the human heart to love display and noise and notoriety. The man who can talk the loudest and make the wildest gestures on election day, is the man that the crowd will listen to and applaud. The woman that is able to make a sensation, is too often the popular woman. The young lady whose costumes are the showiest, whose diamonds are the largest, and whose bracelets and bangles jingle at every movement, is the one whom the world turns its silly head to look at and admire.

Every age has produced its full quota of these noisy people, and always will, to the end of time. They lived and flourished in the days of Moses,—flourished until the Lord Himself took matters into His own hands.

I suppose there was a time when Korah, Dathan, and Abiram were popular men,—a time when they made much noise, when their voices were often heard in the camp of Israel. But neither noise nor popularity saved them when God said to Israel, “Get you up from about the tabernacle” of these men. O, what a cry of horror and dismay rose to heaven from lips white with terror and voices hoarse with agony, as the gaping earth opened her mouth upon them! In vain!

David had a remarkable experience with noisy people, in the matter of Goliath, the loud-voiced champion of the Philistines. The men of Israel were afraid of him because of his enormous size and his loud, boastful, daring manner. The Philistines believed in him for the same reason. But neither the size nor the angry bellowing of the giant availed against the sling of the youthful shepherd.

Coming down a little farther in the stream of time, we see the lofty heights of Carmel aswarm with the noisy, screaming, shouting prophets of Baal. Round about the mountain on every side are the upturned faces of the famine-stricken multitude. There is only one man in the entire concourse who is quiet,—one voice that is calm. The frenzied priests, bedaubed with blood and shrieking like demons, leap up and down upon their altar like wild beasts. They imagine that their noisy demonstrations will bring the fire from heaven. And so from morning till noon and from noon until time to offer the evening sacrifice, they shout and foam and cut themselves with knives. But the silent and brassy heavens above Mount Carmel witness the performance of their thankless task, with face silent and unmoved.

At last, as the brazen sun dips its molten rim in the cooling waters of the Mediterranean, a quiet man clad in simple dress steps forward. There is no outcry—no noisy demonstration. A few earnest words, a reverent lifting of the eyes toward heaven, a sigh, an expectant hush, and lo, from the far-off zenith flashes a dazzling light! The waiting sacrifice is consumed, and even the very water in the trenches is licked up by the tongues of flame.

We remember the story of the maid who brought her masters much gain by prophesying. But the spirit that possessed her was not the “meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.”

Methinks I can hear her wild, shrill voice ringing up and down the narrow streets of old Philippi. Everybody’s attention is attracted. Higher and higher sounds the weird, wailing voice of the servant of Belial. Hour after hour and day after day it continues. “Surely,” reason the cunning masters of the maid, “surely, these humble men, whoever they are, will be greatly flattered by this attention; and not only that, but without doubt they will give us money for advertising them so thoroughly and so loudly.”

We know the sequel, and we remember the anger and humiliation of the disappointed masters of the maiden.

Now all these examples go far toward proving—if proof is necessary—that the Spirit of the Lord has little in common with the spirit of noise and disorder or turbulent commotion.

Ah, the meek and quiet spirit, the spirit that seeks not its own, “is not easily provoked,” the spirit that dwells in the hearts of those who “study to be quiet,” that they “may lead quiet and peaceable lives,”—this is indeed the spirit to be wooed and won by the followers of Him of whom it was said, “He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause His voice to be heard in the street.”

O these quiet Christians! I am glad, glad that there are a few of them left yet. I never knew one of them to scream and shout at his horses or growl at the hired man. I never heard one of them go about proclaiming his own goodness or his own piety, nor relating noisy stories illustrative of his own godliness.

The quiet Christian is not necessarily a brilliant man nor a witty woman,—not of necessity a man or a woman whose fame has reached even to the confines of his or her own city. The quiet Christian may or may not be a man of great brain, but he must possess a large heart and a gentle spirit.

As we think of this, how many of us will be reminded of some unpretending, quiet, loving heart, now stilled forever, and of some mild, unassuming character, the luster of whose brightness can not be dimmed by the hand of time!

Ah, these are they who “shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father”!

MRS. L. D. AVERY-STUTTLE.

The Responsibility of One Man

THERE was in a certain colliery an explosion by which four hundred miners were suddenly hurled, amid shattered ruins, into horrible death. It was caused by a single miner who had opened his safety-lamp to light his pipe. To that pipe of tobacco were sacrificed four hundred precious lives of fathers, husbands, and sons; and, alas, on the bodies of not a few of those who perished in that fiery blast were found duplicate keys by which, hitherto with impunity, they had done the same! Alas! My brethren, the United States are such a mine; they are full of the explosive fire-damp of intemperance. In all societies it hangs dense around us in the perilous and pestilential air. Do not say that there is none of this flaming peril around you; that you may open your safety-lamp and no harm come of it. It may be so; it may not be so. You could not, you would not, do it if you were sure that there was danger; for that, as you see at once, would be a deadly selfishness and an atrocious crime. But you can not be sure that there is not danger. Is the gain worth the risk? Is the transient and animal indulgence worth the permanent and eternal peril? No harm may come to you; but if harm comes to others who are reassured by your example, you, even you, will have helped to perpetuate a frightful curse, whose effects, in shattering blast after shattering blast, shall be perpetuated in echoes of ruin and of misery, too late for penitence, amid generations yet unborn. The fatal and fatally common key of that safety-lamp is what is called “moderate drinking.” If in this particular struggle you would be patriots, if in this matter you would show your true love for your brother men, fling it away. Like the Nazarites of old, like the children of Jonadab the son of Rechab, drink neither wine nor strong drink, so long as by it you make weak, or cause to stumble, or tempt into ruin and misery, the soul—the priceless soul—of a brother, the soul of your brother for whom Christ died.—Selected.

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Government Officials and Thanksgiving Mass

A CUSTOM has grown up in Washington, D. C., to have a “Pan-American Thanksgiving mass” in St. Patrick’s Church. It is now customary for the service to be attended by the president, members of his cabinet, justices of the supreme court, the diplomatic corps, and other official dignitaries. It is said that President Wilson has accepted an invitation to attend this year. Because of this, Dr. P. H. McKim, former president of the Episcopal House of Deputies, formulated some resolutions condemning the practise. These resolutions have been passed by Episcopalian, Lutheran, Baptist, and Disciples of Christ clergy, and other denominations are considering them. The resolutions that are being adopted are the following:

“The attendance of our chief magistrate and members of his cabinet, year after year, has been used to give color to the Roman claim that the service is the official celebration of Thanksgiving day in our national capital. This fact has been understood in the United States and abroad to give the Roman Catholic Church a prestige and preeminence over all other churches. Every effort is being made by the Roman hierarchy to give this Roman mass the color of an official function.

“We protest against the attempt to convert our national Thanksgiving day into a Roman Catholic festival in a service entirely out of harmony with the history of the genius of our country and the spirit and purpose of the day.

“We desire to give voice to the wide-spread feeling of indignation among millions of Protestants of America against the efforts of the Roman press and the Roman hierarchy to exploit the presence of our chief magistrate and some of his cabinet (which we are convinced has only been intended as an act of courtesy and good will) for the purpose of glorifying the Roman Catholic Church and giving this service an official characterization it does not and can not possess.”

There is a big struggle on in the world between true Protestantism and Catholicism. There are still strong men in all the Protestant churches who are Protestant at heart, and who are beginning to feel alarmed over the activities and the aggressions of the papacy. This is manifested in the circulation of much anti-Catholic literature, and many expressions from the pulpit and the rostrum. Because of this, the superficial observer may be led to think that the ecclesiastical power of the papacy will never again be allowed to manifest itself. But just as surely as the whole Protestant church has been right in its interpretations of the prophecies of Daniel and the Revelation, just so surely may we know that ere a great while the world again will be worshiping at the shrine of papal power. This is not a time for us to say, No, this can never be; but it is a time for us to study these prophecies, and think, and watch. And it is just as important for our Catholic friends to study these things, as it is for the Protestants; for God is on the side of fulfilling prophecy, and it is always safe to stand with Him.

Desperadoes

ON the night of November 17 a lone highwayman boarded one of the Southern Pacific's fast trains at San Jose, California, and when the train was well under way he entered the mail-car, and at the point of a revolver commanded the three mail-clerks to lie down on the floor and put their heads in mail-sacks, so that they could not see what was going on. The train made no stops between San Jose and San Francisco, a distance of about fifty miles, and he had about an hour in which to work. He busied himself tearing open the registered mail, and securing whatever valuables he could find in the mail-car, and when the train slowed down in San Francisco he jumped off and made good his escape.

A similar robbery of a mail-car was committed on the same line a few weeks ago, and in a very similar manner, the highwayman boarding the train near San Francisco, and robbing the mail-car in the same way that this was done. It is supposed to have been the same person. Another train coming into Oakland was looted by a bandit. So far no clew seems to be obtained that will lead to the arrest of the desperado, or desperadoes, that have been doing this work.

Criminality of this character is becoming bolder and more daring. One of the chief reasons for it lies in the fact that we have so many corrupt officers that can be bribed, and who are not on the alert to catch criminals. Another cause lies in the delays and technicalities that are permitted in our courts of justice.

But deeper down still, at the very foundation of all this evil, is the fact that the moral backbone of society is crumbling. Some men seek to talk very earnestly and very eloquently on the other side of the question, and to tell us of the great things that are being done in the world for the moral uplift of society. But if society in general were not in a deplorable condition, we would need none of these organizations and great institutions that are working so heroically to better conditions. We should recognize the fact that society as a whole is going to pieces under its corruptions, and we should further recognize what these conditions signify.

Bible Names for Bible Things

THE Christian Evangelist pleads for the use of Bible names for Bible ceremonies and institutions. For instance, it thinks that the Lord’s Supper should not be called “the sacrament,” and that the first day of the week should not be called “the Sabbath,” but that it should be called “the Lord’s day.”

There should be no contention over the name to designate the Lord’s Supper; and if we will take the Bible, and the Bible only, for our authority, as the Evangelist often exhorts us to do, there should be no contention over the question of the Lord’s day.

The term “Lord’s day” occurs in Rev. 1:10, but there is not a particle of evidence in that text as to which is “the Lord’s day.” Sunday is nowhere in the Bible called “the Lord’s day,” but in Mark 2:28 Christ affirms that He is the Lord of the Sabbath. The commandment says that “the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God,” and in Isa. 58:13 the Lord claims the Sabbath as “My holy day.”

So it would be well, if we desire to be in harmony with the Bible, to speak of “the Sabbath day”; and as we speak of the Sabbath, to understand that the only day recognized as such in the Bible is the seventh day of the week, and it is also the only day that is recognized as “the Lord’s day.” The evidence is altogether on the one side.

Dastardly and Fiendish

THE Woman's Christian Temperance Union has sent out a special warning to parents and young girls in regard to one of the latest diabolical schemes of those engaged in the white slave traffic. This warning has appeared in a few papers, and its importance deserves the widest publicity.

The warning is the result of several actual experiences in Eastern cities. One case was that of a young woman who had gone to the city with her mother to do some shopping. When they were nearly through with their work, one of them went in one direction to make a few purchases, and the other to a different section of the city, agreeing to meet at a particular place. The young woman had completed her work, and was returning to meet her mother, when she saw in a show-window something that interested her, and while looking at it she felt a sharp prick in her arm. Turning around, she saw only a number of bystanders who were looking at the same thing that had interested her. When she reached the place where she was to meet her mother, she manifested the symptoms of intense intoxication. Some of the proprietors of the place were giving her attention and wondering what to do with her, when a well-dressed man stepped up, and in a very matter-of-fact sort of way announced: “This is my wife. She often has these spells.” He gathered her up, and was just placing her in an automobile when her mother came up and rescued her.

Another very similar case is reported of a young woman who was treated in the same way, but fortunately was likewise rescued before she was carried away by her captor.

We hear of some of the cases of those who are rescued; but those who are captured are smuggled away, and nothing is heard of them. Not only should mothers and their daughters be vigilantly on their guard against these fiends who are using all sorts of methods to procure innocent young women, but we should recognize the degraded conditions of a large class of society when such things are permitted. Thousands upon thousands (60,000 a year in this country alone) of young women are required each year to fill the depleted ranks of the white-slave traffickers, and only fiends could do such deeds as these reported.

The Master told us, when He was here, that the vices of Sodom would prevail throughout the earth as one of the signs that the last depths of iniquity were reached, and that He would return in person to visit destruction upon the sins of this time, the same as He did upon Sodom of old. If the sins of Sodom called for the destruction of the cities of the plain, certainly the sins of this time are crying out to a just God for proper retribution.

Would Make the Pope Supreme

IN an interview in Cincinnati a short time ago, as reported in the Times-Star of that city, Cardinal Gibbons said:

“The union of the scattered branches of Christendom is a consummation devoutly to be wished for, and I would gladly sacrifice the remaining years of my life in lending a helping hand toward this blessed result. The first essential requirement is the recognition of the sovereign pontiff.”

Devout Catholics never compromise on the question of the recognition of the “sovereign pontiff.” They stoutly affirm that there should be a visible head to the church on earth, and this head should be the pope of Rome. This is a doctrine that is built solidly into the great papal structure. Protestants are becoming continually more lenient toward the papal church; and in their enthusiasm for church federation, they will yet reach the place where they will agree with the Catholic people themselves, and unite in making the pope the supreme arbiter and head of the federated churches. The prophetic declaration is, “All the world wondered after the beast,” and in unison they say again, “Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?” Rev. 13:3, 4. It is well for us to divest ourselves of prejudice, and study closely, in the light of God’s prophetic word, the trend of events in the increasing influence and power of the papacy.

Oakland’s Proposed Saloon Ordinance

The authorities in the city of Oakland, California, are discussing an ordinance that will limit the number of saloons, and restaurants that are allowed to serve liquors, to 200, and they will raise the license from $500 to $1,000 a year. It is estimated that the city has approximately 40,000 males over twenty-one years of age, and who are legally entitled to buy drinks. A large proportion of these will not care to buy at all. It will be seen that there must be many women who are addicted to the drink habit, and a great many minors allowed to buy drinks, in order for such an army of saloons to be supported in a city of 200,000 inhabitants. Population is centering more and more in the large cities, and here the great drink evil is strongly entrenched, and how to drive it out is one of the great problems of this time.

Dancing Schools in the Church

The despatches tell of a minister in New York who has decided that his church will teach dancing, “omitting tango and the rag.” It is a rather sorry state of affairs in a community, when a preacher claiming to be a representative of the Lord Jesus Christ can be persuaded that he may improve the spirituality and the morals of his flock by conducting a dancing-school in connection with his church. Such a thing is certainly very much out of harmony with the spirit and purpose of the gospel of Christ.

Marconi’s Wireless Telephone

SIGNOR MARCONI has been working to complete his wireless telephone. In recent experiments, it is stated, he successfully talked across the Atlantic. This is another step in the mighty achievements of this time, in bringing the world closer and closer together by facilities for rapid intercommunication.