p. 16 | Signs of the Times, Vol. 26, No. 4. (1/24/1900)

Earlier text: OUR WORK AND WORKERS

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Mothers

By Editor

We think you will be interested in the following extracts taken from a forthcoming book by Mrs. Vesta J. Farnsworth, entitled

THE HOUSE WE LIVE IN

"MOTHER: We may call it a house, because the Bible calls it so; and, more than that, it says it is a temple. Listen to this verse: 'What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?'"

"AMY: Then this house or temple of the body does not belong to us, mother, for it says, 'Ye are not your own.'"

"PERCY: I see how it is. You know people sometimes build houses to rent, and the One who made the house we live in gives it to us for a home as long as we live, and He wants us to take good care of it."

"MOTHER: That is right. The house is loaned or 'rented' to us, as Percy says, for us to live in and care for."

"MOTHER: Percy, do you remember what men use in building houses?"

"PERCY: They use stone, wood, brick, iron, glass, lime, and paper."

"HELEN: And some houses are made of earth and straw."

"MOTHER: Yes, and some of these things are found in the body-house."

"AMY: Why, mother, we are not made of wood, stone, glass, or lime!"

"MOTHER: That is true; yet some of these very things are in your body. Those who have studied the blood tell us it is iron, partly, that gives it its rich red color. You saw what a pretty red it is when you cut your finger to-day, Helen. Some of the things of which glass is made are in our hair and finger nails, and our bones would soon become useless if we did not give them plenty of lime."

"PERCY: But how do iron and lime get inside of us? That is what I would like to know."

We can not now follow Percy as he learns how the iron and lime become a part of him, but suffice it to say he learns it, even as he does many other things in the same series, because it is made so plain that any child can grasp it.

This is the object of the book, to help you in your work of instructing your children about the wonders of the house they live in, and how careful they should be to keep it in repair.

We hope to publish and copyright this book in the United States and England sometime in February.

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LESSON V.—SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1900.

THE FIRST DISCIPLES OF JESUS.

Lesson Scripture, John 1:35-46, R.V.

35 "Again on the morrow John was standing, and two of his 36 disciples; and he looked upon Jesus as He walked, and saith, 37 Behold, the Lamb of God! And the two disciples heard him 38 speak, and they followed Jesus. And Jesus turned, and beheld them following, and saith unto them, What seek ye? And they said unto Him, Rabbi (which is to say, being interpreted, Master), where abidest Thou? He saith unto them, Come, and ye shall see. They come therefore and saw where He abode; and they abode with Him that day; it was about 40 the tenth hour. One of the two that heard John speak, and 41 followed Him, was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He findeth first his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have 42 found the Messiah (which is, being interpreted, Christ). He brought him unto Jesus, Jesus looked upon him, and said, Thou art Simon the son of John; thou shalt be called Cephas (which is by interpretation, Peter).

43 "On the morrow He was minded to go forth into Galilee, and He findeth Philip; and Jesus saith unto him, Follow Me. 44 Now Philip was from Bethsaida, of the city of Andrew and 45 Peter. Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found Him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did 46 write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. And Nathanael said unto him, Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, Come and see."

Golden Text: "They followed Jesus." John 1:37.

NOTE.—Read John 1:19-51, committing to memory verses 35-37. The lesson section includes the story of how Jesus trained His first five disciples, and the record of how they made their first journey to Cana and Capernaum. It is suggested that the following verses be learned by heart: John 1:29, 39; Isa. 53:7; 1 Peter 1:19.

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS.

(1) What three persons are spoken of in the first verse of the lesson? What is the signification of the word which introduces this verse? Note 1. (2) As he looked upon Jesus, what declaration did John make? V. 36. (3) Hearing this, what did John's two disciples do? V. 37. (4) What question did Jesus ask, as He turned to meet them? How did they reply to Him? V. 38. Note 2. (5) With what invitation did He answer their question? What did they do? V. 39. (6) Who was one of those who followed Jesus on this occasion? V. 40. Note 3. (7) What missionary work did Andrew at once do? What did he say to his brother? V. 41. (8) To whom did Andrew take his brother? When Jesus saw Simon, what did He say? V. 42. Note 4. (9) Where did Jesus go the next day? Whom did He find? What did Jesus say to him? V. 43. (10) To what city did Philip belong? What other disciples lived in the same city? V. 44. (11) Whom did Philip find? What did he say to Nathanael? V. 45. (12) What question did Nathanael ask on hearing Philip's declaration? What wise reply did Philip make to this question? V. 46. Note 5.

NOTES.

1. Again.—A repetition of what had taken place on the preceding day. John's declaration to his disciples, given in verse 37, was in part identical with his expression of the day previous, "Behold, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." John had not mistaken the work of Jesus. This expression shows that John understood Jesus was to be the world's great antitypical sacrifice. Twice he had declared it to his hearers.

2. Where abidest Thou?—The question showed a desire on their part to know more of Jesus. It was also an indication of their desire to be with Him; and Jesus did not keep them waiting for an invitation. Jesus is always ready to receive those who desire to follow Him.

3. One of the two.—It is generally believed that the other one who followed Jesus at this time was John, the beloved disciple.

4. Thou shalt be called Cephas.—The Aramaic word for "stone." Jesus saw the character of Simon when He looked upon him, impulsive, rash, unstable; but the name which He gave to Simon was a prophecy of what he would become, a rock which could not be shaken even by the fear of a cruel death.

5. Come and see.—"If Nathanael had trusted to the rabbis for guidance, he would never have found Jesus. It was by seeing and judging for himself that he became a disciple. So in the case of many to-day whom prejudice withholds from good. How different would be the result if they would 'come and see'! He who saw Nathanael under the fig tree, will see us in the secret place of prayer. Angels from the world of light are near to those who in humility seek for divine guidance."—Desire of Ages.

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TO CONTRIBUTORS.

By Editor

The Signs of the Times is a purely missionary enterprise. For this reason it has felt free to ask for contributions from its friends. It pays nothing for contributions, either prose or poetry, unless solicited by the editor, and then the fact is stated when the articles are asked for. This is a plan rarely followed, but sometimes deemed expedient.

Articles Desired.—Those which set forth in the Spirit of Christ the great saving truths of God, short and to the point. It is better to treat one important truth clearly, in a short article, than many points vaguely in a long one. We desire no caustic, critical productions, which might minister to personal pride or pleasure, but can not save souls.

How Prepared.—Write plainly, with typewriter or ink, with wide space between the lines, to freely admit of editing, writing of subheads, etc. Write on one side of the sheet only. Sign the name to the manuscript, as it becomes oftentimes separated from accompanying letter. Anonymous contributions are not used, whatever their merit. If the writer does not wish his name to appear, let him furnish a pseudonym for the public. But we wish the name.

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Note.—We wish those who ask questions to take particular notice: (1) Only such questions will be answered here as we believe to be of general interest and information. (2) We can not undertake to explain from four to a dozen scriptures, as in one sentence we are often requested to do. (3) Do not ask to "explain" a certain text or passage. State clearly the point in question. (4) Give full name and address, not for publication unless desired, but as evidence of good faith, and to give us the privilege of replying by letter if deemed best. (5) Unsigned communications of any kind find the quickest way to the waste-basket. (6) It is always well to inclose stamp. (7) "Foolish and unlearned questions avoid," also those that minister to mere curiosity. (8) Study the Scriptures yourselves.

Destroying the Children in Schools.

"Do American men and women realize that in five cities of our country alone there were during the last school term over sixteen thousand children between the ages of eight and fourteen taken out of the public schools because their nervous systems were wrecked, and their minds were incapable of going on any further in the infernal cramming system which exists to-day in our schools?" inquires Edward Bok, in the January Ladies' Home Journal.

"And these sixteen thousand helpless little wrecks," he continues, "are simply the children we know about. Conservative medical men who have given their lives to the study of children place the number whose health is shattered by overstudy at more than fifty thousand each year. It is putting the truth mildly to state that, of all American institutions, that which deals with the public education of our children is at once the most faulty, the most unintelligent and the most cruel."

A committee of the London School Board makes the following statement:—

"At times, when there is no special distress, 55,000 children in a state of hunger, which makes it useless to attempt to teach them, are in the schools of London alone."

And London is not alone. Millions untold are lavished upon needless luxury, upon intemperance, upon war, while souls and bodies are starving. It is a sad picture these 55,000 pale, pinched children make.

DOUBLY MISTAKEN.

By Editor

THE Fruits and Leaves of the Tree of Life, a wonderfully long name for a little paper, has the following:—

"The W. C. T. U. National Convention was held last October in Seattle, Wash. We learn they were sorely lobbied and pressed by legalists, till actually they gave up work for our legal sabbath, and lost their Sunday department. O dear sisters, shall your brothers now fight this battle alone? Can it be possible that you do not understand that there is no law from Maine to California, South or North, that prohibits any man from keeping sabbath on Saturday, on Monday, or on any other day? And that Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2:13, etc., indicate a Christian right, plainly, for any nation to make a legal sabbath day, and, farther, it binds us for conscience' sake to observe the law? We need not question you more. Certainly a little reflection is enough."

But our little contemporary is doubly mistaken. (1) The W. C. T. U. were not sorely lobbied and pressed to give up work for Sunday; and (2) they did not give up their Sunday department. There was presented a resolution to change the constitution, which will virtually abolish the legal Sunday department, but action will not take place on this till the next annual convention. If the Fruits and Leaves had read the report in the SIGNS OF THE TIMES, it would have learned just what was done, with the fullest report of the discussion. Fruits and Leaves is a Holiness paper. Is holiness promoted by civil law? Is legalism necessary to it? What does it mean by "legalists" anyway—those who believe in each person being left free to obey God's law, or those who wish to compel others to obey some law which the compellers may think to be God's law? Once more. No man or men can keep God's Sabbath in any other place than where the Lord Himself placed it. Think of this.

CONTAINED IN THIS NUMBER.

By Editor

Poetry.

One Only, LLEWELLYN A. MORRISON . . . . . . . 4 Vain Regrets, G. E. PRICE . . . . . . . . . 6 Christian Nations . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 "The Seventh Day Is the Sabbath," G. F. RENNER . . 10 Be Still, LAURA BROWER . . . . . . . . . . 12 "Teach Baby I'm Dead," MRS. HENDERSON . . . . 14

General.

"Is It Peace?" . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Polygamy and the Reformers . . . . . . . . . 3 Creation versus Evolution . . . . . . . . . 3 Before Pilate, MRS. E. G. WHITE . . . . . . . 5 Cast Out the Bondwoman, URIAH SMITH . . . . . 4 What Is It to Sin against the Everlasting Covenant? S. N. HASKELL . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Overcomers, CYRUS SIMMONS . . . . . . . . . 6 Who Wrote the Pentateuch? . . . . . . . . . 7

Outlook.—Visited with Earthquakes—The "United Christian Party"—A Christian Party—A False Hope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8, 9

Missions.—Anglo-Saxon Support to Islam . . 10, 11

The Home.—The Home, G. C. TENNEY—A Lesson from Dogs, J. E. GRAVES—Is Vegetarianism Merely a Fancy? DAVID PAULSON, M.D. . . . . . 12, 13

International Sabbath-school and Sunday-school Lessons . . . . . . . . . . . 14, 15

Publishers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Sad News.

By Editor

It is with great sadness of heart that we record the death of two other laborers in the Orient, Pastors D. A. Robinson and F. W. Brown. To Karmatar, a village 150 miles northwest of Calcutta, Brother Robinson had gone to visit one of our missions conducted by Brother Brown, and while there contracted smallpox, of which both died. Brother Robinson has borne important responsibilities in this country; he was for some time at the head of our work in Great Britain, and for the last four years has had charge of our work in India. Our sympathies are extended to the relatives of the deceased in this deep affliction, and, with our brethren in India, we mourn the loss of a faithful, able laborer.

The Established Church of England

The Established Church of England is undergoing another periodic disruption spell, over illegal practices in various quarters. The inconsistent thing of it is that the church is controlled by civil law. She can not make her own laws. Of all the pitiable conditions in which a church can be placed, that of being established by the civil power is the chiefest.

The Coming Educational Number

By Editor

Our coming Educational number will be worthy of a large circulation. We hoped to announce the date of its issue at this time, but are unable. Next week we expect to make definite announcement.

Earthquake Ruins in Southern California

By Editor

Views of the earthquake ruins done on December 25, at San Jacinto and Hemet, in Southern California, will be found in our Outlook department.

THE CIGARET EVIL.

A COMMITTEE of medical men in great London have investigated the ubiquitous cigaret, and found it harmless; it produces no "injury to health." That is what the smoker says. But one paper in New York City calls the following, reported in the press of that city, as a part of the cigaret harvest for a little more than a year:—

Driven insane by cigarets, 30 Robbery inspired by cigarets, 12 Suicide the result of cigarets, 6 Murder caused by cigarets, 6 Killed by excessive use of cigarets, 3 Convulsions caused by cigarets, 2 Blindness from cigarets, 1 Total, 60

This paper furthermore declares that it can furnish to this medical committee, "names, dates, and circumstances connected with every one of the above cases. We would inform the committee, further, that many of our most brutal and notable murders have been inspired by cigarets." Were the members of this committee paid to furnish such an opinion, or were they themselves thralls to the habit?

In a reformatory in Pontiac, Ill., it is said that "out of 63 boys 12 years old, 58 smoked; of 133 boys 14 years old, 125 smoked; and out of 82 boys 15 years old, 73 were smokers."

The cigaret habit is evil and only evil. The nicotine is deadly poison, and it is not the only evil that dwells in the little roll of tobacco. Nervous diseases without number spring from their use; conscience is benumbed; intellect is dulled; the physical powers are weakened and dwarfed; drinking, gambling, bestiality, and criminality follow in the cigaret train. All doctors, praise God, are not alike.

Christ and the True Zionism

By Editor

Rabbi Gottheil tells us as a closing-year remark that "the great question which now lies before the Jews of the whole world is to be found in Zionism. Would that they could see that the only question of a true Zionism, a Zionism which would "bring them to Zion," must have Jesus Christ in it. Would that they could see this.

Drowning of Sister Elsie M. Gates

By Editor

The date of the drowning of Sister Elsie M. Gates, sister of Pastor E. H. Gates, superintendent of the Polynesian mission field, mentioned in a previous issue, was December 3. While riding with two other ladies by the side of a stream, the horse became unmanageable, and backed into the water, which at that point was ten to twelve feet deep. Every effort was made immediately to resuscitate Sister Gates, but they were unavailing. She was just past forty-seven years of age. The two other ladies were both saved, one having been thrown out on the ground, and she pulling the other from the water. The horse, which belonged to Pastor W. C. White, was drowned. Brother Gates has now no surviving blood relative nearer than first cousin. He and his wife have our sympathy in this trial.

Are They Not Important Now?

Are They Not Important Now?—A new Christian manuscript, recently discovered by Monsignor Rahmani, the Uniat Syrian Patriarch of Antioch, has been published, under the title, "The Testament of Jesus Christ." The Independent (December 21) places its age at a thousand years, and says that it is a translation of a Greek original, probably of the third century. It furnishes certain details of church order said to be spoken by the Lord, among which is the following:—

"Besides deaconesses there is another order of women that stand far above them, the 'widows,' once called 'presbyteresses.' They are ordained apparently by laying on of hands, and the form of ordination is given. The bishop is chosen by the people at large, and ordained with a twofold laying on of hands. He is never to taste wine except at communion, and never to eat meat."

Baby Found in a Waste-Basket

It would seem that a mother is "without natural affection" who would, amid a number of parcels, forget her child. She had numbered the little one among the bundles, found one missing, and by sufficient thought found it to be an eight-months baby. All the officials and helpers in a large department store were questioned in vain. She looked about the store but could not find it. She finally gave her address to a policeman, and coolly said: "You have my address. If you find the baby, let me know and send it to me." And then she went home. It was by accident that the youngster was found. Cleaning out the waste-baskets which had been taken into the cellar, a clerk came across the infant in one of these depositories, sleeping peacefully. But for this discovery the child might have been carted away and dumped into the river. The incident, which occurred in St. Louis, bears its own lessons.

The Beginning of the Century.

By Editor

In our issue of Dec. 27, 1899, we quoted from the Sunday School Times, a paper generally reliable, that Pope Leo XIII. had "announced to the world" "that the twentieth century is to be reckoned as beginning Jan. 1, 1900." It appears that the S. S. Times was mistaken. What the pope does say, as reported in the Baltimore Sun, is as follows:—

"Since, moreover, at midnight of the last day of December of the coming year the present century will come to an end and a new one begin, it is very appropriate that thanks be given to God by some pious and solemn ceremony for the benefits received during the course of the present century, and, owing to the urgent necessities of the times, that greater favors be implored in order to begin auspiciously the new era."

This is good common sense, and we are glad the pope possesses it. We now wonder if those Protestants so willing to follow him into error, will be willing to begin the century where it should begin.

Anglo-Saxon Support to Islam

By Editor

We publish in our Missions department an editorial from the Missionary Review, which we have headed "Anglo-Saxon Support to Islam." The article is well worthy of careful study. Much of that which passes for Christianity to-day, is busy with formalities, so far as religion is concerned. And these formalities seem only to be observed in order to quiet the conscience, while the individual abandons himself to all the follies and extravagances of earthly pleasure. And while this apathy is seen on the part of professing Christians, the heathen have turned missionary, and are even winning over to them some of the foremost men of the so-called Christian nations. Well did the Master say, "Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?"