p. 15 | Signs of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 34. (8/23/1905)

Earlier text: HUSS GAVE HIMSELF TO THE CHURCH

SUNSET MAGAZINE

By Editor

DESCRIBES

California

Not only California, but all the great West, is truthfully described in the beautifully illustrated pages of this virile Western monthly. Its fine half-tones make you SEE the country, while its descriptive and industrial articles TELL YOU EXACTLY what is to be found there. It is

"Opportunity"

in visible form, for it shows the wonderful chances for success now open in the new West for wide-awake people.

If your news dealer doesn't carry SUNSET, send us his name and address and write for sample copy.

HOME OFFICE: 431 California St. San Francisco, California.

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TO REPRESENT the E-Z Washing Tablets. Either sex. Also local agents. Terms free. Sample for sufficient for one month's washing for ten cents, stamps or silver. An honest article that any one can sell. Address, Alfred Mallett, Elkridge, Baltimore, Md.

BROWN'S MILLENNIAL TEXT-BOOK.—500 texts and diagram. Aid to ministers, workers, everybody. Quick seller for agents. Copy prepaid, one dime. Eugene A. Brown, Phoenix, Ariz.

FOR SALE.—Health-Food Store, fitted for Café; good, fresh stock, regular trade; $500. Also modern Job Printing Plant, good trade, $1,200. Locality booming. Eugene A. Brown, 21 S. 1st Ave., Phoenix, Ariz.

MY MOTHER'S LIFE.—The Evolution of a Recluse. By Mary Henry Rossiter. (Life of Mrs. S. M. I. Henry.) The personal history of a life made beautiful through motherhood. The story of a woman who was transformed by her love for her children from a timid, shrinking girl to a speaker and evangelist, known and loved by thousands of those who have felt the bondage of sin and sorrow. 353 pp. Cloth, net . . . . . $1.00 Address PUBLISHERS OF THIS PAPER.

The Mormon System

Yes, God wants us all to do something; but, first of all, it is essential that we be something. "Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus," who says, "Without Me ye can do nothing."

To decide from one's own concept as to what truth should be, rather than to accept what it is from the standpoint of the Word of truth, is the bane of human criticism. It is making oneself the standard, instead of being governed by the word of wisdom. Christ is the truth, and only through belief of His Word—not through criticism of it—can any one find truth. Ultra-criticism of the Word often obscures its obvious meaning; it darkens the vision of the critic, and misleads those who are inclined to trust in human wisdom for a knowledge of the truth.

The urgency with which many people press the one point of polygamy in objecting to Mormonism would lead to the supposition that in everything else the great deception is acceptable to them, or would not be specially criticized, were polygamy out of the way. Polygamy is, without question, as black as any foe could possibly paint it; but the whole Mormon system is a travesty on Christianity; the whole machination is a scheme to be a law unto itself. It was so before the adoption of polygamy, as well as afterward, and it would be none the less so with polygamy abolished. It is simply a great autocratic political organization, with religious pretension for a cloak. The admission of Utah into the Union on the condition that the Mormons abolish polygamy, was an acknowledgment that the upas tree would be harmless, if one branch were cut off. It is the cultivation of a huge church-and-state autocracy in the land, dominated by a few lords of the manor, whose venality is manifest from every point of view and in every fundamental principle, that constitutes the danger of Mormonism to the Republic. Mormonism is working insidiously, and with more progress than is generally realized, to gain the balance of political power in other states besides Utah; and wherever it may succeed the sequel will prove that the system is just as vicious without polygamy as with it. It is not wisdom to practically indorse the wicked system by contending against one particular feature, as tho that were all that is bad about it.

OUR FORTHCOMING SPECIALS.

By Editor

THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES is set for the purpose of giving the last Gospel message of Revelation 14 to the world. And it gives it week by week, number by number. Yet that message is so broad, so comprehensive, that it is impossible to scarcely more than touch it in one issue. In fact, it takes an entire volume of the paper to develop that great message at all adequately.

Yet there are many who wish it presented in its various phases briefly. To do this, we propose to issue, beginning with the first week in October, four "Special Message" numbers, as follows:

The Sure Word of Prophecy and Christ's Coming.
The Sanctuary, The Gospel in Type and Antitype.
The Law, the Gospel, and the Sabbath.—"The Whole Duty of Man."
The Church Triumphant.

The above titles express only a part of that which each number will contain. Here is a suggestive list of the main articles so far as developed:

I. PROPHECY AND CHRIST'S COMING.

Object of Prophecy.
Prophecy May Be Understood.
Importance of Prophecy.
Alphabet of Symbolic Prophecy, Daniel 2.
God's View of the Nations, Daniel 7.
Christ Will Come Again. How? When?
What His Coming Means.
Christ Our Life.
The Only Power That Can Save, Acts 4: 12.

II. THE SANCTUARY,—THE GOSPEL IN TYPE AND ANTITYPE.

The Gospel in Type.
The Sanctuary and Its Lessons.
The Priesthood in Type and Antitype.
The Day of Atonement and the Judgment.
The Wonderful Book—The Seven Seals.
The Closing Work of Our High Priest.
The Great Apostate Powers, Revelation 12 and 13.
Signs in the Heavens.
A Message of Preparation.

III. THE LAW, THE GOSPEL, AND THE SABBATH,—"THE WHOLE DUTY OF MAN."

The Eternal Law, The Everlasting Gospel.
The Bible Sabbath.
The First Day of the Week.
The Broken Hedge, Sabbath Changed in the Church.
Babylon—Its Character.
Principles of Babylon in Succeeding Ages.
The Reformation and America.
Encroachments on Freedom—Beast, Image, Mark.
Great Field of Prophecy.
Signs in the Earth.

IV. THE CHURCH TRIUMPHANT.

A Spirit-Filled Church.
Requisite Conditions to.
Spiritual Gifts.
The Apostasy.
The Great Center of Sanctuary Service.
The Seal of God—Sabbath Restored.
God's Last Great Protest.
A Church Restored, and Triumphant.

Besides these our Home department will be full of precious instruction. There will be Bible-Readings, poems, music, if there is room, many illustrations. Each number will have a specially-prepared front-page cover-design, attractive and appropriate to that issue.

This series ought to have a circulation, at the least calculation, of half a million. More about it in the future.

"DECEIVING AND BEING DECEIVED."

An apostle assures us that in the last days "evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived." There is oftentimes less of rough crime, but also less of morality. In his address to the merchants' Protective Association the other day, District Attorney Jerome, of New York, said:

"We are developing a subtler form of crime than any our fathers knew. In the olden days criminals moved along the line of knock down and take. Nowadays robbery has a more commercial aspect. This change is not being met by a corresponding development of laws to punish commercial crimes. The moral sense of most people is governed by the statute books. Thousands of us are blind on our moral side. Too many men do not know that they are doing an immoral thing until it is pointed out to them as a felony on the statute books."

What a commentary this is on the preaching and the religion of the day. Men ought to be able to discern morality, to shun an immoral thing, without the instruction of a law with a temporal-penalty lash. If men knew more of Christ's Gospel which reveals the holiness of Sinai's law, there would be less need of laws against crime, and Mr. Jerome would not have occasion for such a speech. Men are partial in God's law, or are neglecting or rejecting it. Conscience is left without a standard; and therefore, in the words of Christ, lawlessness abounds. Matt. 24:12-14.

A Reason of Loss of Power.

Here is an extract from a letter written to a religious paper by a lady who writes of her unconverted brother, whom she induced to attend church:

"Afterwards, the minister kindly welcomed and spoke to my brother, and we hoped a profitable friendship would ensue. One evening he invited my brother home to supper. On returning, he said to me in a tone of peculiar surprise and disappointment, 'I suppose you know that your saintly Mr. B. is a smoker? He had a pipe with me after supper.'"

"I can not of course explain why this injured his influence with my brother. I only know that it did, and from that time I could see that he ceased to regard him with the same reverence that he had for him at first. His interest in the services declined, and he slipped back to his former state of indifference."

A religious contemporary well remarks:

"Some ministers claim (it is to be hoped for unselfish reasons), that to be smokers helps them to get in touch with young men. This may be true, but it will also result in destroying their power to do young men real good. When a sinner gets sick of the world, as sinners do, he turns for help to the one who is freest from the ways of the world."

How a Prominent Attorney Views the Situation.

At the annual convention of the New York State Bankers' Association, held at Frontenac, N. Y., on July 13, former Assistant Attorney-General J. M. Beck, of New York, spoke on "Moneyphobia." He declared that the signs of the times indicated a growing feeling of social discontent, which found its chief expression in an indiscriminate attack upon wealth. He stated further that the agitation was not confined to the ignorant, the envious, or the malicious. The recent commencement season had indicated that the educated men were considering the moral aspects of business methods. Their speeches dwelt largely upon the evils of our times, and the decrease of morals, as exemplified in business transactions. Abuses of trusts had run riot; the rapid accumulation of wealth had bred a new kind of intoxication, and a weakening of moral responsibility. Sober, thinking men are recognizing the conditions, and are fearful because of the dangers lurking in them.

"Religion is not within the purview of human government. Religion is essentially distinct from government, and exempt from its cognizance. A connection between them is injurious to both."—James Madison. "Every man is accountable to God alone for his religious faith."—George Washington.