ALCOHOL, whether given in the form of beer, wine, or whisky, has, in every case, the same destructive tendency. I am well aware that some physicians claim a power for alcohol which it does not possess. They prescribe it as a restorative, and assert that in wasting diseases it is useful in arresting or preventing waste of tissue; neither of which effects I am positive it possesses, and for these purposes it is futile to prescribe it. I am quite sure that in a state of health there is not a single organ or tissue of the body that derives any benefit from its use; and quite as positive that it is a most destructive agent to every organ and tissue of the body either in a state of health or disease. Most mistaken ideas have long been entertained of the efficiency of alcohol in many diseases of the system, and its general effects upon the human body; but actual experiments have convinced several of the ablest and most profound thinkers in the medical profession that it has always, and15in every form, proved itself to be the most pernicious agent that was ever employed mechanically or otherwise. Being, therefore, satisfied that its use in a state of health is never necessary, and in a state of disease it is most injurious, I have for years past abolished its use in the asylum—Dr. Dickson.
Trust.
THE clouds hang heavy round my way,
I can not see;
But thru the darkness I believe
God leadeth me.
'Tis sweet to keep my hand in His
While all is dim,
To close my weary, aching eyes
And follow Him.
Thru many a thorny path He leads
My tired feet;
Thru many a path of tears I go,
But it is sweet
To know that He is close to me,
My Guard, my Guide:
He leadeth me; and so I walk
Quite satisfied.
—Selected.
The “Naval” Edition of the Signs.
ATTENTION has already been called to the fact that the SIGNS OF THE TIMES under date of May 13 is to be a “Naval” Number with illuminated cover.
On the first page there will be a portrait of Rear-Admiral Evans, commander of the fleet, in full dress uniform, surrounded by an emblematical border.
On the last page of the cover there will be a large half-tone engraving of the entire battle-ship fleet, with the flag-ship “Connecticut” in the center.
The cover will be printed in green-black ink, and will present a very attractive appearance.
Many will purchase this number just for the beautiful engravings it contains; but they are not the most important part of the paper by any means, for its pages will be filled with soul-stirring truths for this time, presented in the most forceful and attractive manner, and it is hoped that a spirit of inquiry will be awakened in the hearts of many which will lead them to Christ.
The third page of the cover will contain advertisements of our leading books, pamphlets, and tracts, so that those who wish to read further on any subject will know where to send.
Every one seems to be enthusiastic over this forthcoming number. We quote the following from a letter just received from Elder W. B. White, president of the North Pacific Union Conference:
“I am interested in your ‘Naval’ edition of the SIGNS OF THE TIMES. Have written an article for the next issue of our union conference paper. I hope that a large number of these papers will be sold in the North Pacific Union Conference during the month of May. I think it was a very happy idea that came to you of issuing a ‘Naval’ edition, for I am sure it will sell well and thus be the means of bringing much truth before the people.”
The California Conference alone expects to sell from forty to fifty thousand copies of this number. This great “Naval” edition presents another opportunity to place the truth in the hands of the people in an attractive form.
Five or more copies mailed direct from this office to individual names and addresses furnished, four cents per copy.
Regular subscription price, one year, 52 numbers, including all special numbers, $1.50.
Address SIGNS OF THE TIMES, Mountain View, Cal.
Home and Health.
Prepared and edited by a competent committee of home-makers and physicians.
"Home and Health" is a household manual containing two thousand recipes and helpful suggestions on the building and care of the home in harmony with sanitary laws, the preservation of health by clean, consistent living, and the home treatment of simpler ailments and diseases by use of natural, rational remedies instead of drugs.
It contains six sections as follows:
The Home: Its Location, Suggestions on Building, Sewerage, Healthful Surroundings, Water Supply, etc.
General Housekeeping, including all the general features of the housekeeper's work, such as care of the rooms, Laundering, House Cleaning, Fruit Canning, Pests, etc.
Diet.
Care of the Body.
Care and Training of Children.
The Home Treatment of Disease.
The object of this work is twofold:
(1) The prevention of disease by teaching the principles of life and health.
(2) The classification in convenient form for reference of such recipes and items of information as are most needed in the home.
The book contains nearly six hundred pages; is fully illustrated, and bound as follows:
Cloth, marbled edges, $3.00; library style, $4.00; full leather, $5.00. Address this office.
Steps to Christ
Steps to Christ. This little work, by Mrs. E. G. White, presents in a simple and attractive manner the steps by which the sinner may be made complete in Christ. While the book is an excellent guide for inquirers and young converts, it also contains a wealth of counsel and encouragement for those who are laboring with the difficulties that beset a growing experience. Paper covers, 25 cents; cloth, plain edges, 50 cents; cloth, gilt edges, 85 cents. Address this office.
SUBSCRIPTION RATES.
By Editor
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One new yearly subscription and one renewal, or two new yearly subscriptions, sent at one time, $2.50.
Two new yearly subscriptions and one renewal, or three new yearly subscriptions, sent at one time, $3.25.
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Sample copies sent on application.
DATE OF EXPIRATION.
THE SIGNS wrapper bears date of last issue due on your subscription. Unless renewed in advance, paper stops with expiration date.
If herewith is an order-blank, you will know you have overlooked sending renewal. You will not wish to miss a single issue. Back numbers often can not be furnished.
Smith on Human Nature and Destiny
By Uriah Smith
Here and Hereafter, or Man's Nature and Destiny. By Uriah Smith. This work is a thoro canvass of the great questions of a future existence, and the nature of man in the present life. Every text in the Bible which has any possible bearing upon these points is taken up and carefully explained. Cloth, 444 pp., $1.00. Address this office.
Bibles
Bibles.—Remember that we are headquarters for anything in the Bible line. We shall be pleased to send you our catalog of Bible selections on application. Pacific Press Publishing Co., Mountain View, Cal.
HAMPTON ART COMPANY
Beautiful Imported Bible Cardboard Mottoes
All have flowers with silver letters and a cord to hang them upon the wall. Special for 60 days. All sent by mail as follows: 5 for 50 cents; 12, $1.00; 25, $1.75; 50, $3.00; 100, $5.00. More you buy, the less they are. Address,
HAMPTON ART COMPANY
Lock Box 257 Hampton, Iowa
Raisins as a Diet
By Editor
A letter from Dr. Miller to this office states that the Chinese printing-office has been located at Shanghai, and all mail for the press or for Dr. and Mrs. H. W. Miller, Mr. and Mrs. B. A. Roberts, and Mrs. Botilla Miller, should be addressed to Shanghai, China, care U. S. A. Post-office. We are glad indeed to note their safe arrival at Yokohama, from which place this news came to us.
The despatches say that President Roosevelt has called a meeting of all the governors of the states and territories of the Union to be held in Washington, D. C., May 13. In addition to the governors that are asked to attend the meeting, Grover Cleveland, W. J. Bryan, James J. Hill, Andrew Carnegie, and John Mitchell are invited as special guests. The conference is to last three days, and will be presided over by President Roosevelt in person. The purpose of the meeting is not stated, but it has the distinction of being the first meeting of the kind in the history of the Republic.
Raisins as a Diet.—The Bureau of Forestry has an agent in California, Mr. Enos A. Mills by name, who recently lectured in New Orleans. Among other things he gave this bit of personal experience: "As a rule I walk thirty miles a day over the forest of which I have charge. Much of the time I have to climb mountains. Some of my trips last three weeks, and when I am about to start on one of them, I strap fifteen pounds of raisins to my back, and there are my provisions all put up and easily carried. I find that I need no other food. Part of the time I am as much as 14,000 feet above sea level, where there is much snow, and I find that the raisins agree as well with me at that altitude as they do at more normal levels. I have no regular meal hours. I merely chew raisins when I am hungry. I make a point of chewing them up fine, seeds and all." Where is the man who could make such a journey on 150 pounds of beefsteak?
Now Is the Time to Renew.
By Editor
MANY subscriptions close with our Special Bible-Reading Series. We have been glad to have these readers with us during the last six months. We desire to lose none of them. We are glad to receive already so many renewals. Now there are better, stronger reasons for them to stay with us than there were that they should join us.
The SIGNS OF THE TIMES will be a better paper next year than ever before. While so much space will not be given to Bible-readings, we shall still give a short, pointed, concise Bible-reading in each issue. In addition to that the paper will publish the entire great, glad, vital, Gospel message in the year to come. It will publish the great ominous signs of warning which God is giving to a world rushing on in mad, thoughtless selfishness. It will note all the great world movements of significance. It will keep before its readers the great mission fields of the world. It will tell by word and illustration the saving, helping truth of God. By that Book of God it will stand without fear or favor. Therefore we invite those whose subscriptions are expiring to stay with us. In the words of Moses to Hobab of old, "Come thou with us, and we will do thee good; for the Lord hath spoken good concerning Israel"—all those who will search and do His word.
Life Force.—Prof. E. L. Larkin declares in a recent number of the Examiner that the idea that there is a "real vital force seems to be rapidly vanishing. Few scientific men believe in a vital or life force. Life, now, is almost unanimously held to be an electro-chemical process." And then the professor cites in proof of this Buechner's yeast experiment, in which living yeast was mixed with hard, white sand, sterilized, and subjected to enormous pressure, destroying all yeast germs, but squeezing out a thin liquid, in which were no yeast germs nor protoplasm, which science once called "the base of life." Yet this fluid set up fermentation. The conclusion was that this action is purely chemical action, not life action. But must vital force, or life force, always be manifest in germs discernible by science, or be subject to sterilizing processes? Is protoplasm either "the base of life" or necessary to life existence? It seems to us that there are a dozen questions which it might be profitable for scientists to consider before they set aside the hope of the universe—God the Source of all life, and whose life maintains the integrity of the universe.
"Prepare war," declares the prophet; and everywhere we hear the war talk in response to the prediction. A recent number of the London Daily Express says: "The reasons urged for the reduction of the navy are ridiculous. To-day the horizon is clear, and Great Britain is friendly with all the world, but who can prophesy what to-morrow will bring forth. The international situation has changed amazingly in five years. It may change even more rapidly, and fleets can not be built or armies prepared after a crisis has risen. It is imperative that the two-power standard [that is, England's navy as large as those of any other two powers combined] should be maintained fully and completely."
We noted three accessions to the Roman Catholic Church from the Episcopal Church in our last. The despatches record another in Chicago; the Rev. Charles E. Bowles, rector of All Saints' Episcopal Church, resigned March 24 to enter the Roman Catholic Church. He is a member of the association known as the Companions of the Holy Saviour, composed of about forty Episcopal ministers throughout the United States. Within the past month three other members of the brotherhood have entered the Roman Catholic Church.
Just as soon as a government begins to legislate for the protection or promotion of institutions involving classes, that government has entered upon a downward course. It is individual men and women who should be protected in their rights. Institutions, howsoever religious and sacred they may be, may safely be left to care for themselves. It is men—the individual man, whosoever he may be—whose rights should be guarded.
The "Evening Telegram," of St. John's, Newfoundland, of March 23, contains a good article on religious liberty by Mr. C. H. Keslake. Mr. Keslake rightly argues that government has no right to interfere with one's religion, be that religion right or wrong, so long as its devotee does not interfere with the equal rights of others.
We wish to thank our correspondents who have sent us some very fine illustrated London journals on the assassination and funeral of the King and Crown Prince of Portugal. One comes from Southern California, the other from Colorado.
Contained in This Issue.
With Our Inquirers
Questions Nos. 2462 to 2472 . . . . . . 2
General
That Marvelous Transmigration . . . . . . 3
The Cross Draws Men to God . . . . . . 4
The Bible Valued by Agnostics . . . . . . 4
What America Needs . . . . . . 4
Some Facts . . . . . . 4
Persecuted for His Sake . . . . . . 5
No Foreign Field . . . . . . 5
The New Birth Illustrated . . . . . . 5
Home Bible Studies
The Outpouring of the Spirit . . . . . . 6
The Holy Spirit . . . . . . 7
Our Bible Band . . . . . . 9
Editorial
Wanted, Men . . . . . . 8
Studies in Romans . . . . . . 8
The Liberty There Is in Christ Jesus . . . . . . 9
The Outlook
Japan's Attitude Toward the United States . . . . . . 10
Striking Students . . . . . . 11
Missions
The Preaching of the Gospel to the Jews . . . . . . 12
The Home
Simplicity in the Home . . . . . . 14
Mistakes Concerning Alcohol . . . . . . 14
Our "Bible-Reading Specials" close with our next issue. The subject of the reading of that number will be "Spiritual Gifts," a subject that should be of interest to every Christian, whatsoever his name or denomination. Christ has bestowed gifts upon His church. He would not have us ignorant respecting them. He has given much instruction in the New Testament concerning them. When these gifts were bestowed, to whom given, for what purpose, for how long, and what the gifts are, will be clearly set forth in our Bible-reading of next week.
The Log Cabin in Which Abraham Lincoln Was Born in Hardin County, Ky., Feb. 12, 1869.
Our “Naval” Issue.
By Editor
We call it that, but it will be a Gospel issue of the SIGNS OF THE TIMES like each and all we publish.
It will, however, deal with naval statistics more than our ordinary issues.
It will show the meaning in the light of reason and prophecy of the greatly increased naval armaments of the world.
There will be published illustrations of battleships of various great nations. There will be enough of naval matters published in that number to entitle it to the term “naval.”
All over the country, nay, more, all over the world, men are interested in the great fleet of battle-ships which will soon gather in San Francisco Bay. All over the world rulers, statesmen, politicians, thinking men, are discussing the meaning of the great display. It is well that students of prophecy should inquire as to its meaning.
Our “naval” issue of the SIGNS will present some thoughts along these lines which will be helpful.
For a more detailed description of that issue see the previous page.
Hero and Martyr of Liberty, Lover of Mankind. President of the United States from March 4, 1861 till April 15, 1865.
