Earlier text: The Oakwood School

An Earthquake Experience

IT was the greatest catastrophe of modern times, and writers gifted with remarkable ability in making word-pictures have been utterly unable to exaggerate in writing up the San Francisco earthquake. In fact, the simplicity of direct statement is the most impressive in this instance.

The following extract from a private letter tells briefly of the experience at a private sanitarium conducted by Sabbath-keepers;—

Dr. Lamb’s sanitarium was on the fifth floor of a block on the corner of Ninth and Market Streets. At the time of the earthquake their sanitarium was crowded, one patient being accommodated on one of the treatment tables in the operating room. The doctors and nurses were all in bed and nearly all asleep when the earthquake came. With almost the first shock one side of the brick building fell out. It was providential that it fell out instead of in. The doctors were in bed asleep, and the edge of their bed was within fourteen inches of the wall that fell out, and yet they were not touched. . . .

With the house rocking so that they could not stand on their feet they made their way to the back door, where they thought they could get out on the top of an adjoining roof, but to reach that roof they must go part way down the five stories of back stairs. Just as they opened the door, before they had placed their feet upon the landing, the whole stairway separated from the building, and fell in a heap five stories below.

Then they ran back toward the front entrance only to find the doors jammed so that every means of escape was blocked. From their windows they saw the collapse of the city hall and many other buildings and chimneys, and it seemed to them that the city was going entirely to pieces.

After the quake they went for their patients, and found them comparatively calm. Several of them were still in bed. The doors of three rooms were jammed so that they had to be broken down. The building was unsafe, so they began at once to remove their patients. They found rooms not many blocks away. In one case they had to pay five dollars for a room for one hour. Think of the love of money to such a grasping extent getting hold of the hearts of people so that in the midst of a calamity like that they would charge extortionate prices for shelter for invalids.

Every patient was removed from the building without injury, and of the furnishings they saved a quilt and a sheet with each patient. Dr. Lamb saved one of his diplomas, and a little hand-bag of instruments. That portion of the city was burned so soon after the earthquake that they were given little chance.

The more we learn concerning this earthquake, the more we are convinced that we have but the most inadequate conception of the real nature and extent of the disaster. If this is only the alpha of destruction, what will the omega be?

Midsummer Offering Notice

NOTICE should be given in all the churches in this country next Sabbath of the midsummer offering to be taken on Sabbath, June 30.

Educational Work at Loma Linda

PROF. W. E. HOWELL, formerly president of Healdsburg (Cal.) College, has accepted an invitation to conduct educational work at the Loma Linda Sanitarium. It is the purpose to make this institution an educational center for the training of gospel medical missionaries.

Educational Convention Visitors

PROF. H. R. SALISBURY, the principal of Duncombe Hall Training College, London, arrived in America last week to attend the educational convention at College View, Neb. Professor Salisbury spent several days in Washington, and spoke to the Takoma Park church last Sabbath.

Missionary Travel in China

THOSE who compare the methods of travel in China, described in Brother Westrup’s article on page 12, with the luxurious appointments of American railways can judge how the Chinese ideas impress a missionary from this country. We surely ought to do all we can to make the lives of our missionaries tolerable in that dark land.

The Missionary Idea

REFERENCE has already been made in these columns to that excellent book “The Missionary Idea,” by Mrs. A. E. Ellis. It is divided into three parts: part one deals with the general subject, part two furnishes material for conducting missionary meetings, and part three presents “an outline of Seventh-day Adventist mission fields.” There is much to stimulate thought and interest in this book, as well as sufficient suggestion and actual material for a missionary campaign. The reading of it ought to quicken the missionary impulse, and lead to an increased amount of practical work.

Catholics and Protestants Unite for Sunday

THAT Sunday conference in London, to which we referred two weeks ago, was held according to appointment. No opportunity was given to Christian observers of the seventh day of the week to express their views, but the vote on the resolutions adopted was not unanimous. In its comments on the conference, the Present Truth (London) says:—

The most striking feature about the gathering was the fact that it united Catholics and Protestants. This is a circumstance of sinister import. Only a few days before, the official head of Roman Catholicism had declined to join in prayer for a reunion of Christianity, declaring that in this matter Roman Catholics must take their traditional course. What does it mean, then, when Roman Catholicism is officially represented at a union meeting on behalf of Sunday observance? Clearly, it means that Rome sees in such a union meeting a promise of reunion along her own lines, in which her claims will be recognized.

Liberty Opposes Church-State Union

MORE than three columns of space of the May number of The Christian Statesman are devoted to the first issue of Liberty, which it designates as “a new opponent in the field.” It declares that “its zeal is explained by the fact that it is the mouthpiece of the Seventh-day Adventists, and is published by the Review and Herald Association.” It further says:—

When Liberty is willing to learn the truth concerning the National Reform movement, it will know that we are as earnestly opposed as itself to any union of church and state, and that there is nothing in our principles or designs which look toward any infringement of the rights or liberties of other men.

And yet the Statesman advocates Sunday laws, and one of its charges against Liberty is that “it has all Sabbath laws as its special object of attack.” But what has the state to do with the Sabbath or with Sabbath laws, if there is no union of church and state? Every form of religion has the right to expect impartial protection from the state, so long as it does not involve acts of incivility, but there can be nothing more than this without a union between the state and some form of religion, which is the same as a union of church and state. The views of the Statesman belong to the fourth century and the succeeding dark ages, but are contrary to American principles.

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