p. 10 | Signs of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 31. (7/30/1902)

COMING TO THE LIGHT.

There are theologians who study the Bible. Those who do, not to maintain error or theory, but to know its doctrine, reach, if permitted to live long enough, the truth. Such a one appears to be Prof. Joseph Agar Beet, D.D., for seventeen years the principal of Richmond College, the principal seat of theological training among the Wesleyan Methodists of England. The question up now is, Will he be continued as instructor? The reason is not that he denies God's Word in any part, but that he believes it; but he does not believe in the inherent immortality of the soul, because he does not find it taught in the Scriptures. Here is the report of the part of an interview with a representative of the Christian Commonwealth of London (we quote from the Literary Digest of June 7):—

“What kind of immortality, then, do you believe in?”

“Eternal and blessed life for the righteous through Jesus Christ.”

“What do you think will be the fate of those who die impenitent in this world?”

“What their ultimate fate will be I do not know. I am convinced that they will be punished, but I can not say how long the punishment will last, because the Bible does not tell me.”

“How do you interpret such passages as those which say that the wicked shall be cast into a furnace of fire, where there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth?”

“That phrase occurs seven times, but in not one place is anything said about duration.”

“You are, of course, familiar with the argument that as the same word is applied to the duration of the felicity of the blessed as to the duration of the condition of the lost, a time limit in the latter case would, inferentially, involve a possible time limit in the other case?”

“Yes; but I do not see that punishment necessarily involves consciousness. The loss of eternal life would itself be eternal punishment.”

But threatened loss of place does not seem to move Dr. Beet. He says in the British Weekly:—

“Whatever success I have gained is due to the fact that my whole life has been devoted, with the best aids within my reach, to study the Bible, as the only safe method of learning the truth revealed in Christ; that, whatever I have thus learned, I have stated in plain and clear language, without fear and without reserve. This method, applied to eschatology, has roused the antagonism which now threatens to cut short my work at Richmond. But I can not disavow principles which a life of study declares to be sound; and therefore I shall not shrink from their consequences. Altho the evening of life is approaching, I am well able to continue the work I have done so long; but am not able to begin a new kind of work. If, in consequence of my loyalty to that I believe to be true, that work be interrupted, and this eventide be overcast, I shall accept whatever may come, and lay it with joy as a lowly sacrifice on the altar of Him who, in order to bear witness to the truth, laid down His life.”

May God bless the old soldier, and lead him safely on to the glorious consummation, immortality with Christ Jesus.

THE PYRAMID OF CHOLULA.

By A. G. Bodwell

[From Mission Board Correspondence.]

CHOLULA is a small village about nine miles from the city of Puebla, Mexico. The date of the building of the pyramid of Cholula is unknown. Even before the Aztecs came to the plain of Cholula, the great pyramid was there in the midst, and the people told them the legend of it, that it was built by a race of giants descended from two survivors of a great deluge that overspread the land, and whose intent it was to raise its heights to heaven; but they incurred the displeasure of the gods, who sent forth fires and destroyed them. This is the legend, and it is indeed coincident with the Chaldean and Hebrew accounts of the deluge and of the tower of Babel, of which there is much in the traditions of these people that is similar to the accounts of the Bible.

Pyramid of Cholula, near Puebla, Mexico.

On the summit stood the sumptuous temple of the mystic deity, Quetzalcoatl, “god of the air,” whose image was there, under its pinnacled towers, as the chronicler says, with ebon features, wearing on his head a miter waving with plumes of fire; a resplendent collar of gold was about the neck; pendants of mosaic turquoise in his ears; a jeweled scepter in one hand, and a curiously-painted shield, emblem of his reign over the winds, in the other. Cholula was, in those ancient days, what Rome is to-day. Pilgrims came from hundreds of miles, as do the Mohammedans to Mecca, to bow down before the temple of Quetzalcoatl, in the holy city of Anahuac. Cortez declared that he counted four hundred towers in the city of Cholula, yet no temple had more than two, and some only one. High above the rest rose the great temple of the pyramid, with its never-dying fires spreading their radiance over the capital, proclaiming the return of the deity to resume his rule over the land. Such was the pyramid and city as the Spaniards saw it at their coming, and the people they found there could tell little else of its history than is written here. The temple was promptly thrown down, as was the custom of the conquerors, and a Catholic church placed in its stead, that stands to this day.

This pyramid has the appearance of a natural hill, as its sides are overgrown with trees and bushes. This is but an evidence of its great antiquity, as the interior is composed of alternate layers of sun-dried brick, clay, and limestone. It covers twenty acres of ground, and rises to the height of 177 feet above the plain. A paved road leads up the steep west side, with steps of hewn stone to the arch and cross of the entrance way to the church of Nuestra Señora de los Remedios, on the very top. From the balconies the view of the valleys and surrounding mountains, the many churches, with their glazed tile towers, and the towns and villages of the plain, is superb.

The town of Cholula has dwindled from the great capital of a mighty nation to less than 5,000 people. But notwithstanding this, as I stood upon the top of the church, which is on the top of the pyramid, I counted forty-five Catholic churches in the town and near-by. As I viewed these many churches, my thoughts were carried to the condition of our work in this great republic. My heart was indeed sad to think that while the enemy has so many churches, where he is holding the people in darkness, we have not a single church building in the entire republic. On nearly every large farm they have one or more churches. They do this in order to keep the natives on the farm. For, if they have no church on the farm, the natives have an excuse to go to town to mass.

There are two other pyramids in Cholula, the Cerro de Acozac, and the Cerro de la Cruz. Acozac, about 1,300 feet southwest of the great pyramid, is forty-nine feet high, with base lines of fifty-five to 150 feet. The sides are vertical, and a ladder is necessary for the ascent. According to tradition, this mound was to the people that built it what the city of refuge was to the Israelites. The Cerro de la Cruz is about 350 feet west of the pyramid itself; it is forty-four feet high, and has a base 1,230 feet in circumference, and 460 feet at the top. Both these cerros are of adobe bricks. Tradition says that on the Cerro de la Cruz Cortez caused the first mass to be said in 1519. On the plains round about are numerous other cerros, or cerritos, as they are much smaller.

The day that I visited the town of Cholula, I had the privilege of selling fifty-seven copies of our Mexican paper, El Mensajero de la Verdad. I sold some as I was going up the steps to the church, and I left one with the woman that takes care of the church. All we can do is to sow beside all waters, and we know that in due time God will give the increase. Our hearts burn within us to see workers in all parts of the republic, giving the last message of mercy. And we believe that the day is not far distant when we shall see the message going with a loud cry in this darkened land. For the Lord has promised to cut His work short in righteousness. And from the many letters that we are receiving from our dear brethren and sisters in the States, whom the Lord is impressing by His Holy Spirit to come to this field, we can see how this work can be accomplished. A. G. BODWELL.

Tacubaya, Mexico.

Wealth and Happiness

WHEN wealth comes in at the door, love and happiness often fly out of the window.—Revised proverb.

OUR WORK AND WORKERS.

THE Iowa State camp-meeting will be held at Ames, August 28 to September 7.

A CHURCH-SCHOOL teachers' institute will be held at Anoka, Minn., August 7 to September 2.

AT Hawkeye, Iowa, on the 5th inst., four candidates were baptized by Brother J. H. Kraft.

BROTHER G. F. Haffner reports to the Southwestern Union Record that a church of fifteen members has been organized at Woodward, O. T.

A DEPARTMENT of general instruction in German is to be added to Walla Walla (Wash.) College the coming year, with Prof. N. J. Schnapper in charge.

ON the 5th inst., Brother O. O. Bernstein baptized four candidates in Crystal Lake, at Robbinsdale, Minn. Two other candidates were hindered by unavoidable circumstances.

ONE candidate baptized and four members added to the church at Rome, N. Y., is part of a report in the Indicator from Brother George B. Thompson, president of the conference.

DINING-ROOMS have been opened in connection with the Life Boat Mission, 436 State Street, Chicago, so they can serve hygienic meals to business men right in the heart of the city.

THE offices and headquarters of the Union Conference and New South Wales Tract Society have been removed from 25 Sloane Street, Summer Hill, to 56 George Street West, Sydney.

AT Victor, Mont., meetings held by Brethren R. D. Quinn and W. D. Emery had up to the 12th inst., resulted in twelve converts to the faith. On that date a Sabbath-school was organized.

THE Montana Conference Committee have decided to conduct an intermediate school at Bozeman the coming year, to include the fifth to the ninth grades. The school will be opened September 15.

FROM the Bivouac we learn that there will be but one camp-meeting in Montana this year, and that one will be held at Helena, August 22-31. A church-school institute will be held at Helena, commencing August 17, and continuing till after camp-meeting.

THE Sabbath-schools of the Australasian Union Conference are giving their missionary donations for this quarter to fittings for the Sydney Sanitarium treatment rooms. The Record says the building will soon be doing the work for which the Lord designed it.

BROTHER E. H. Gates has returned to Australia from his missionary prospecting tour through the East Indies, having gathered many items of interest. He reports a very extensive and a very interesting field as yet unentered to any considerable extent by our people.

PROF. JOHN B. Fitch, of Keene (Texas) Academy has translated into Spanish the tract “Which Day Do You Keep, and Why?” and it has been printed at the office of the Union Conference Record. Other Spanish tracts are to follow. We also note that one page of the Record is printed in German.

FROM the Record published at Sydney, N. S. W., we learn that “Brother Arthur Currow has located among the natives of a small island of the Fijian Group. In isolation for his Master, surrounded by natives for whom he labors, and with whom he makes his home, he is finding plenty to do and bear for Jesus.”

IN reporting the progress of the cause in St. Louis, Mo., Brother J. M. Rees says: “Our Central Union Conference is in charge of the German work in this great city. They have a good strong corps of workers here holding tent-meetings. Some fruit has already appeared in their work. Some six or seven have begun the observance of the Sabbath as the result of their labors.”

BROTHER W. A. Alway writes from Salt Lake City, Utah, of the struggle he and other workers have of establishing something permanent in that deplorably needy field. Not a few have been converted, but many of these soon move away. A church building is needed, greatly needed. Any one who feels called by the Spirit to respond to this need may send funds to W. A. Alway, 63 East First South Street, Salt Lake City.

THE CONVERSION OF WALTER HOWARD

By HART HALL

A True Story.

HIGH up on a hill, almost alone on the block at Harrison and Main Streets, reached by long flights of steps, stands the old St. Mary's Hospital. At the time of our story it was occupied, and probably is still, as a sailor's boarding-house, or home. Managed under the auspices of the Ladies' Seamen's Friend Society, its features are distinctively moral, and in compliance with one of the provisions of its lease, it sustains a pastor, or chaplain, to care for the spiritual interests of its guests.

The manager of the home was a large, pleasant-looking man, commanding in appearance and well adapted to his position. Kind and fatherly to his guests, willing to help the deserving needy who appealed to him for aid, but stern toward those who attempted to defraud him or impose upon his kindness, he received the respect and admiration of the “jolly tars” who found at the home a refuge from the “land sharks,” whom they feared more than the sharks of the sea.

Gaming and drink were prohibited and the sailors' money was held at their demand in the large safe at the office, except when an intoxicated guest came in off the streets demanding his hard-earned wages, then it was very sensibly withheld; and when he became sober, he was sheepishly grateful that it had been kept from him.

“What can I do for you, young man?” the captain asked of a youth who had been standing at the counter in the office awaiting his turn to speak to him.

“I want to go to sea, captain, and I was told you could get me a job on board ship. Can you help me out?”

The captain looked the young man over. He saw at a glance the shabby clothes that had once been good material, the thin, pale cheeks that should have been round and ruddy, and the curly flaxen hair that fell becomingly about his regular features. It was not a bad face that he saw, so he asked kindly, “Why do you want to go to sea? You are no sailor.”

“I'm tired of the land, that's all,” was the reply. “I am a good cook, and I know I could suit at that job if I can't furl a sail. Men are not born sailors. I could get a job in the marine service,” he added, “but I should like my line better.”

“The sea-faring chances, my boy, aside from the marine service, are very poor at present. The hard times and the strikes have affected the shipping business to such an extent that good sailors are working their passage out of this port.”

At this point the captain was called away, and the boy, considering his interview unfinished, awaited his return. It was a full hour before he finally appeared, and he seemed surprised to find the lad still there.

“I should hate to see you enter the marine service,” the captain said, taking up the subject where he had dropped it. “It's too rough a life altogether. I'll tell you what to do. Stay around here with us a few days, and if you don't find what you want, I'll see what I can do for you. The steward will show you a room,” and he waved him away.

On the day following, after a fruitless search for work along the water-front, he stood near the stairway in the hall at the Home watching a few sailors pacing the long room with the peculiar rolling gait acquired by trying to keep an equilibrium on the deck of a tossing vessel.

Back and forth they shambled, keeping step and spinning yarns as they would have done on their good ship's deck. As he was wondering how long it would take to acquire such a swagger, he suddenly felt a hand placed on his shoulder, and he found himself looking into the kindly blue eyes of a man whom he rightly judged to be the chaplain.

“Your name?” queried this worthy, cheerfully.

“Walter Howard,” was the reply.

“From what ship?”

“O, just a ‘land lubber’ trying to get to sea.”

“We are just going to have service upstairs, Walter, and we want you to come. Will you?”

“O it isn't preaching,” he added, as the boy's face hardened perceptibly. “Just a good old song service. You like to sing, don't you?” he added, tactfully.

“Sometimes,” was the reluctant answer.

If there was one God-given faculty that lay not wholly unsullied in the boy's heart, it was appreciation of music, so he threw away his cigarette and started up the stairway.

“And one of God's great charities Is music, and it doth not scorn To close the lids upon the eyes Of the weary and forlorn,”

quoted the chaplain as he hurried off after more of his congregation.

The chapel was on the third floor, and from his seat near the big window Walter could see out over the bay once more. Now he could plainly see Golden Gate, and the fort, and away in the distance to the right, Mt. Tamalpais.

White-winged ships dotted the bay going in and out, and the steamers left long wakes of black smoke that hung fog-like to the water for some time before it disappeared.

As the service commenced, the music from the large deep-toned organ and the chorus of voices of the Christian women who came to exert their influence for good, blended in perfect accord; and as they sang of the Redeemer's love, of the cross and the resurrection, many a hard-handed son of Neptune wiped his eyes surreptitiously with the back of his hand, and vowed in the bottom of his heart that sometime he would be “good.”

Ah! how often it is that we put away the day of grace. Almost we are persuaded to be Christians, yet we put away the opportunity until it is gone, or we are gone, forever.

But with Walter; as he listened to the old, old story of God's love, his burdened heart seemed almost to break. He felt a painful oppression in his chest, and in his throat was a lump that no amount of swallowing would down.

In vain he used his handkerchief, his eyes seemed to be a fountain of tears. He could not have explained his feelings otherwise than that he “felt sorry.” Like any boy, he was ashamed of his tears, but still they came.

After a half hour of singing the chaplain talked to the men for a few minutes in a simple, practical manner of the advantages of the Christian life. His words were weighted with feeling and brotherly love, asking the men to consider the One who had called Himself their elder Brother. He pointed to the fact that they would be glad to have a prince or a king for a friend, and yet the King of kings had called Himself their friend and they held aloof. After reading some of the Lord's precious words to them, he exhorted them to accept their Friend as one who could save them from their sins.

As the sailors filed out of the room, the chaplain shook hands with them as cordially as if he had not seen them every day about the building.

He had noticed Walter's emotion, and wished to talk with him; so when the boy came along he said, “I wish to speak with you a moment, please.” When they were alone the older man laid his hands on the boy's shoulders and said kindly, “Are you a Christian, Walter?” The burdened look came into the boy's face, once more, and he would have broken away, but the chaplain saw the wet eyelashes, and remembered his emotion, and held him fast.

“No, I am not,” he said when he saw he could not evade the subject.

“Why not?” the question came firm and direct. “I have tried before, and could not be. I should like to be a Christian; I would go on my hands and knees from here to New York if I thought that could make me one. But I know I can't, and it makes me feel bad to be in a meeting. That's why I don't like to go to one.”

“The Lord can help you to be a Christian, lad; if you have failed it was because you tried to do right in your own strength. That mistake is frequently made.”

“It's no use,” was the reply in a broken voice, “I have sinned so much that I believe there is no hope for me.”

“Don't believe that; the devil would like to have every one believe that, but as long as any one feels a desire to do right, that is the Spirit of God pleading with him. And you dishonor God by thinking He can not keep you from sin; but remember you have a part to act in that, and He will do all the rest. But before I tell you those things that you must do, I want you to read what the Lord promises to do. Here it is, Isa. 41:10: ‘Fear thou not; for I am with thee; be not dismayed; for I am thy God; I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of My righteousness.’”

Walter read the words slowly from the minister's Bible, and was evidently encouraged.

“Are you willing to ask God to help you, and to forgive your past?” the latter inquired.

“Yes,” was the answer. So together the two knelt in the empty chapel, and the lad prayed in a simple, broken manner, asking forgiveness for his sins and for keeping power to deliver him from his evil ways.

The chaplain was moved to tears. He prayed sincerely for the lad, and they both arose encouraged and strengthened.

“The parts that you must do in your new Christian life, Walter, you must remember, are just as essential as God's part, and they are these: First, study your Bible every day; you may not have time, but take time. It is an absolute necessity, because it is the spiritual food that God gives to sustain your spirituality. Job said he considered the words of God more than his necessary food.”

“The next point is prayer. You must pray often. It does not change God, it changes you. It reconciles you to His ways, which are best for you. You can not neglect prayer and be a Christian.”

“The third point is, always speak a good word for your religion and your Saviour. Be a witness for Him continually.”

“What about my bad habits? How can I quit smoking?” asked the lad as he arose to go.

“Don't touch, taste, or handle anything that is harmful, and God will help you overcome the habit. He may take away the appetite for tobacco, or it may leave the desire with you and give you strength to overcome it. But trust Him, whichever way He may take.”

“Now come in often while you are here, or maybe I can be of some help to you in different ways; won't you, my boy?”

“I will,” the lad responded heartily.

A few days after he hunted up the pastor, and found him reading on the balcony.

“I am going home,” he announced, simply. “I guess I don't want to go to sea; anyway I feel like I ought to go home.”

“When are you going?” asked the chaplain.

“Right now,” he answered, smiling, “good-bye.”

“This is rather abrupt, Walter.”

“Well, I am not doing any good here.”

“Will you remember to retain your integrity, whatever comes?”

“The Lord helping me I will,” was the sober response.

“Always remember me as your friend, my lad,” the chaplain said as the boy bade him good-bye.

As he descended the long flight of steps that led to the street, it was with feeling of regret and yet of joy, knowing that he was beginning an experience that would lead to manliness and self-respect, happiness and heaven.

At the foot of the stairs he looked back and saw the chaplain still on the balcony. He waved his hand in farewell, and saw the salute returned by his friend; and turning away was lost in the crowd.

And so God allows circumstances to force us to extremities from which we see no way of escape. These are his opportunities. In the dead of night, in the loneliness of desertion, in the pangs of affliction,—then we read His thought; there we find His way. HART HALL.

Armona, Cal.

Contented in His Quiet Arms.

By Robert Haven Schauffler

If the wren can cling To a spray a-swing In the mad May wind, and sing and sing As if she'd burst for joy;

Why can not I Contented lie In His quiet arms, beneath His sky, Unmoved by life's annoy? —Robert Haven Schauffler.

VIII.—OBEDIENCE

The word obedience, in the common thought, means subservience; but in reality it only implies the power of choice. If there is not power of choice there is certainly not obedience, but slavery.

If conduct results from compulsion, it is submission, not obedience. We talk much in these latter days of personal liberty, but the only free man is he who wisely chooses his master.

“Choose ye this day whom ye will serve.” This is the law of life—service, obedience. Our freedom is to choose what or whom we shall obey. With this thought firmly implanted in our minds, we begin to see that obedience is dignified; and we begin also to realize the great issues that underlie the question of training children to obey. We begin to see that we are working not for the moment but for time, for eternity; that the immediate result is the smallest part of the training. We say to the child, Do this, or do not do that, and think the great thing is that these commands should be promptly obeyed; when in fact the immediate thing is of small importance, while the ultimate result is of vital importance.

“You must not touch the stove,” we say to baby, and think we are working to save him from present pain. In truth our prohibition has the wider purpose of teaching him one phase of the great law of preservation which he must obey in order to avoid suffering. Perhaps he will not learn that law except by following the law of impulse, and finding out by experience that fire burns.

This law of impulse is one to which it is easy to yield obedience, and a large part of the child’s training is to teach him obedience to a higher law.

He takes a toy that belongs to a companion in obedience to a selfish impulse or desire for possession. We insist that he shall obey the righteous law of regard for the property rights of others, and give back the toy. We ask him to share his sweets with his friends, thus yielding obedience to the law of generosity instead of obeying the selfish impulse. We insist that he shall keep still because some one’s head aches, thus yielding obedience to the law of kindness instead of following the law of his nature which impels him to activity and noise. We require that he shall hold his spoon in his right hand and eat with it daintily, thus obeying custom rather than the instinctive inclination to eat with his fingers. Thus we see that in all the ways in which we require him to obey our commands, we are indicating that there is a possibility of obedience to some other law. To be obedient, then, only means that the individual has chosen to obey one thing rather than another. The disobedient child has chosen to follow his own inclinations or the suggestions of a companion rather than the law of the parent. The man who is said to have disobeyed the law of the land has in reality chosen to obey his own desires.

It being true then that disobedience means an unwise choice of masters, we see that obedience is the dignified course, meaning as it does, the voluntary yielding to rightful authority. The problem before the parent then is not simply to secure immediate submission to his will, but the arousing in the child the desire to choose wisely the authority which shall rule over him.

It is true that in his early childhood he must obey without being able to reason out the why of his obedience. He is acquiring his technique, as it were, just as he studies exercises in learning to play the piano. He first learns how to yield his will to that of another; and as judgment develops, he learns to choose, and so becomes the truly free man.

With his larger idea of the value and dignity of obedience, the parent begins with the baby in teaching him to obey the laws of nature for his own protection. He learns that fire burns flesh. That is its law; and obeying the law of his own body, he keeps away from fire. Later he learns other laws of fire, and, obeying these, secures warmth for his house and steam for his travel or manufactories.

If wise, he obeys the laws of his being in eating, exercise, and sleeping, or if unwise, he obeys inclination and eats unwisely and neglects sleep and exercise, and reaps the result of service to impulse rather than law.

As his mental and moral nature develop, he learns the laws of kindness, benevolence, justice, honesty, and either obeys them and is rewarded by freedom, or obeys selfish inclination and is fettered by evil habit, or the loss of bodily liberty.

Too often man, in childhood or maturity, feels that obedience is degradation, and that he is asserting his manhood in rebelling against the power that claims a rightful authority over him. If he could only realize that obedience to recognized authority is the only way in which he can prove his manliness, because it indicates his voluntary choice of that which rightfully should be his master, he must realize that what is called disobedience is in truth an acknowledgment that he obeys a lower power, and therefore is less noble.

The authority of the parent is not because of the tie of blood. The father’s right to require obedience is because he is under obligation to teach the child how to choose wisely his way of life. If he fails in this, he has failed in the vital point, even tho, through force or fear, he has secured the child’s obedience. The value of obedience is in its being voluntarily rendered, being of choice.

I once had in my house a child of five who had no idea of obeying except by compulsion. I learned that she had a great desire to be a lady, and I spent no little time in teaching her to say “thank you,” “excuse me,” and not to pass in front of people, telling her that was not the way ladies did. After some months of indifferent success, I was rewarded. One day she started to pass in front of me, then pausing said, “Now I am going back and make myself do that over.” The mother who saw the little incident laughed at it as funny. I said, “You think that amusing, but it is what I have been working for all this time, to arouse in the child a desire to do the thing required.”

To be sure, she might have learned through constant admonition not to be guilty of such rudeness, but it would not have been worthy of the name of obedience until it sprang from the impulse of her own heart, indicating that her nature was coming under the law of courtesy, and she was choosing to obey that law. Many words might be employed in illustrating this idea, but the thoughtful parent can follow out the suggestions here given, and for himself discover how he can help his child to become truly free and great by the wise choice of the master whom he will serve.

LITERARY NOTICES.

“A VACATION WITH NATURE.” By Frank De Witt Talmage. Ornamental cover, 12mo., cloth; price $1.00 net, postage 9 cents. Funk & Wagnalls Co., New York and London.

The author of this little book of sixteen chapters, fragrant of field and wood, is the son of the well-known T. De Witt Talmage, who so recently passed away. The young man, now thirty-four years of age, is an ardent student of nature, and has inherited a good stock of his father’s word-painting ability. In this book he has taken the common things of nature, such as the autumnal leaf, the wild flowers, the mighty hills, the protecting eagle, etc., from which to press home important lessons in spiritual life.

“DOROTHY VERNON OF HADDON HALL.” By Charles Major. Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy. The Macmillan Co. 12mo., $1.50.

The work is a novel, well written we suppose, “with a historical basis,” which, like that of all historical novels, is the merest excuse for the dissipation of novel-reading, the curse of the age.

“THE BIBLE DEFENDED; PEARSON ANSWERED: THE ALPHA AND OMEGA.” By L. W. De Laurence. Frederick J. Drake & Co., Chicago.

This work was called out by Professor Pearson’s attack on the Bible, or rather Professor Pearson’s attack on the Bible gave opportunity to present to a larger class perhaps the occult philosophy of the Orient. The book contains many concise, beautiful statements of great general truth. Apart from this it is no defense of the Bible. In fact it is the effort to introduce under that guise a conglomeration of Buddhism, Brahminism, Mohammedanism, Catholicism, Spiritualism, and we know not how many more. If the Bible is true, these are not. Christianity is more than a part; it is the whole. Christ represented the whole. All fullness dwelt in Him. Teach the Bible; it is its own best defender.

“ADDRESSES ON PROPHECY.” Watchword and Truth, Box 5326, Boston, Mass.

This work, bound both in cloth and paper, contains 158 pages of closely printed matter pertaining to prophecy. It is composed of addresses given at the International Prophetic Conference, held in Clarendon Street Baptist Church, Boston, Dec. 10–15, 1901. There are eighteen different addresses, covering a large field. “The Inspiration and Use of the Sacred Scriptures,” by A. C. Dixon, D.D.; “Redemption, Past, Present and Future,” by E. Y. Mullins, D.D.; “The Conversion of the Israel and the Conversion of the World,” by W. G. Moorehead, D.D.; “The Two Advents of the Lord and their Literal Fulfilment,” by Sholto D. Douglass, M.A.; “Missions in Relation to Prophecy,” by A. T. Pierson, D.D.; “The Eschatology of Jesus,” by Robert Cameron, editor Watchword and Truth, are the titles of some of the sermons contained in the book. The conference would have benefited, if it had opened its forum to Adventists; but it set for itself a standard which it called “evangelical,” and excluded all who were not in harmony with the self-constituted standard. We fear that many of these speakers would have suffered at the hands of some other “evangelical” body. We can hardly look for consistency in these addresses, and if we did, we would not find it. And we look in vain for the voicing of God’s great threefold message for this age, given in Revelation 14. When those who profess to believe in the Word and Christ’s soon coming will take into consideration the related truths of His coming, the closing work of His priesthood on account of sin, the restoration demanded in His church, and the connection between righteousness and life, the prophetic Word will mean much more and be much clearer. Still we are glad of the conference; and there were many good things said.

“SANFORDISM; an Exposure of the claims, Methods, Predictions, and Threats of Rev. F. W. Sanford, the ‘Apostle’ of Shiloh, Maine.” By E. P. Woodard. Safeguard Publishing Co., Portland, Maine.

We presume that the most, at least, of what Mr. Woodard says of the Sanford delusion is true. It would be a good thing if Mr. Sanford and Mr. Dowie could meet and settle their claims to Elijahship between themselves. But we do not know as these delusions, bad as they are, are worse than the no-lawism taught by Mr. Woodard and the church of which he is a member. One of the most fatal delusions that can come to a soul is that God’s eternal law is not binding, and that the example of Jesus Christ is naught.

“SUNDAY IN HISTORY; THE TRUE REST-DAY, OR THE DEVELOPMENT OF ITS RIVAL IN HISTORY.” By C. H. Edwards. Price 50 cents. Pacific Press Publishing Co., Oakland, Cal., New York, Kansas City.

The sixteen chapters of this work set forth by the testimony of men largely favorable to Sunday observance, give the true history of the Sabbath and the Sunday. “The Rest Day,” “Does the New Testament Teach Sunday Observance?” “The Fathers,” “Who Changed the Day?” “Sunday in the Reformation,” “Sunday Legislation,” are typical chapter-headings of the scope of the work. Between 200 and 300 authors are quoted. The book is a compendium, a thesaurus on the Sunday question.

We have received from Rand, McNally & Co., Chicago and New York, No. 1 of Vol. 18, Geographical Series. The price of this issue is $1.00. It has 72 pages of such nicely-colored maps as only Rand and McNally can make, including practically the whole world, with statistics of area, population, cities, etc., printed at the sides of the maps.

Christ and the Sabbath

CHRIST AND THE SABBATH: Or Christ in the Old Testament and the Sabbath in the New, by Elder James White.

paper covers, fifty-six pages, sent post-paid for ten cents.

Address. PACIFIC PRESS, Oakland, Cal.

Continue reading: LESSON 7.—AUGUST 16.—THE RELIGION OF BABYLON DOES NOT RECOGNIZE THE TRUE TEMPLE