In the Sabbath Recorder of Nov. 13, 1879, appeared an article from Eld. A. E. Main, a portion of which the readers of the REVIEW had the opportunity of reading last week. Said article contains some other expressions which perhaps demand a passing notice. Eld. M. says:
“I am heartily glad that thousands of heathen have, during the past year, embraced Christianity, though at the cost of their embracing one error, the First day Sabbath. I am exceedingly sorry that our Advent friends have been so successful in leading members of our churches from truth to error, and in winning others over to one truth at the cost of their embracing a whole system of errors.”
We do not care so much for the spirit of hostility manifested in this article against S. D. Adventists; but it seems to us that great indignity is heaped upon the Sabbath of Jehovah. In 1 Cor. 7:19, Paul says that “circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God”—“is something,” says Whiting’s translation. In harmony with this sentiment, we likewise feel that the keeping of the commandments of God is something. Whether or not a man is keeping the law of the great Jehovah, which is the rule of life here, and is to be the rule of judgment hereafter, is a matter of exceeding great moment; but whether or not a man is correct in all those points of theory which are mere matters of belief and do not directly affect the life, while it may be a matter of some importance, is not of such infinite consequence as the former. We would much rather a person would be brought to obey God, though cherishing some merely theoretical errors, than to be theoretically correct in all those points of faith which do not practically affect the life, and live in open, though it may be ignorant, violation of God’s moral law.
But this great practical matter of keeping the commandments of God, Eld. M. lowers to an ignominious depth, placing it below mere points of doctrine. He is very glad that thousands of heathen have been converted to a Sunday-keeping Christianity—still violating the law of God; he is very sorry that any have been turned to the true Sabbath, and to keep all the commandments of God, through Adventists, because, as he thinks, they are thereby led to cherish some doctrinal errors.
This is the more surprising, coming, as it does, from a professed friend of the Sabbath. And if his brethren do not openly rebuke the utterance of such a sentiment, we trust they love the Sabbath too well to extend to it any great manifestation of sympathy.
Again he says: “A man had better be an Adventist than an unbeliever; but he had better be a truly evangelical Christian than either.”
Just the status assigned to S. D. Adventists in this paragraph it may perhaps be difficult to determine. They are not unbelievers. We are glad of that. And this expression, we suppose, may be taken as an acknowledgment that they are believers in Christ. They will undoubtedly also be acknowledged as commandment-keepers. Then they keep the commandments of God, and follow the Lord Jesus Christ.
But, alas! they are not “truly evangelical Christians.” We suppose those converted heathen Sunday-keepers are. If so, we see again the low position to which the Sabbath is relegated by this writer; and we can assure him that such preaching, that men can be true evangelical Christians and keep Sunday, will not turn them to the Sabbath any more rapidly in the future than it has done in the past.
Eld. M. closes his article as follows: “We need not and do not fear to meet their errors in equal and open conflict; but if we shut our eyes to our danger, the conflict will, through our own fault, become an unequal one, and the battle may go against us.”
We know not how else this language can be taken only as an open challenge for public contests over our differences of opinion, and a recommendation to his brethren to enter upon an immediate and vigorous crusade against S. D. Adventists. If this is a correct deduction from the language, and we would not give any other, then let it go upon record, whatever may be the attitude and the action of these two bodies toward each other in the future, that a proposition of this kind first came from them, not from us. Though in the past, a few irresponsible persons have manifested their hostility, as individuals, toward S. D. Baptists, no representative man among us, and none of our organs of publication, have ever made such a proposition.
But we really think that Eld. M. is manufacturing about all the battle there is. Despite his protestations to the contrary as quoted last week, we can assure the people that we would not overthrow one of their churches, much less all, if we had the best opportunity imaginable. We do not desire to disturb them in the least. And as to the investigation of our own views, this is the very work to which we have been inviting the world, for the past twenty-nine years. Another S. D. Baptist minister says that our views “will be rejected more and still more as they are investigated.” That is not just the way it has seemed to work so far; but perhaps a new experience is in store for us; yet we see no other way but to continue “on this line.” We have circulated quite a number of pages of our views for investigation the past year, and we hope to double the number in the year to come. We have nothing to keep in the shade. We seek the light of the noonday sun. We do not desire to harbor a single doctrine, which, with the Bible as a standard, will not endure the test of the severest scrutiny and criticism. We believe we speak the minds of all our people when we say that any and all our churches are open to Eld. M., or any of his brethren in the ministry. We fondly conceive that with the rule of literal interpretation, a rule followed by every reformer from Luther down, so far as they did reform, our views find in the Bible a perfect Gibraltar of defense. If this is not so, the sooner we are ousted from this fancied citadel the better. And the one who first does this, will first receive the warm thanks we are treasuring up for this hypothetical benefactor.
OUR TABERNACLE AT BATTLE CREEK.
By George I. Butler
We have long been desirous of saying a word through the REVIEW concerning this edifice. It meets a want so long felt, and does it so perfectly and satisfactorily, that it merits more than a passing notice. As the work increased, church after church had been built in Battle Creek; and as the numbers called here by the Sanitarium, Office, and College became greater, it was absolutely necessary to erect a building of very large dimensions.
As the church numbered several hundreds, and there were hundreds more at the school, and other hundreds at the Sanitarium and Office, besides occasional visitors, and large gatherings of our people at general meetings, how to meet the emergency became quite a problem to solve. If a building just large enough to meet the present wants was erected, it would require an outlay of many thousands of dollars. In the light of our past experience, we had every reason to expect another would have to be built in a little while, for, by the natural growth of the work, we should be as badly crowded as now. Should one sufficiently large to meet our probable future wants be built after the ordinary style, it would be uncomfortable, and too large for present purposes. If it were built for the accommodation of the Battle Creek church alone, it would not accommodate our large general gatherings. If built for these, it would not be suitable for the uses of the church alone.
While these matters were being carefully considered, the present plan was presented by a capable architect of Detroit. It was a plan of his devising to meet such circumstances as we have stated, and it seemed every way feasible and worthy of acceptance. It was adopted, and our present Tabernacle is the result. I shall not attempt a particular description of this edifice, as it has been given by abler pens, but will merely refer to some general items. By means of sliding doors, which may be raised or lowered at pleasure, the large space beneath the roof may either be thrown into one room, which, with the gallery overhead, will hold upwards of 3,000 persons, or it may easily be divided into four rooms, separate one from another. The central space in front of the pulpit, and nearest to it, will hold any ordinary congregation, and when necessary it can be made into one of the largest rooms in the country. Heated by steam from the office boilers, it is in no danger from fire; and it is so arranged that any or all the rooms can be heated at pleasure. Here the large Sabbath-school of forty or fifty classes, comprising our young people attending the College from all parts of the country, can have the benefit of excellent opportunities of learning how to manage this important branch of the work, and thus be able to help the schools in their own churches. Without such facilities, the size of the Sabbath-school would be embarrassing; with these, every want is met, so far as room is concerned. Large funerals and public gatherings are here accommodated. Some of the vestries can be and are used to accommodate classes when the College is crowded, and thus the necessity of erecting an addition to that building is avoided at present.
We have never had a building erected in Battle Creek which seemed to me to be so completely adapted to the requirements as our Tabernacle. The plan adopted by the builders was a most happy thought, if not a real providence of God. Our people all over the field, who have any interest in the cause itself, are interested in it. Considering its size and finish, we think it remarkably cheap; costing only a little over $26,000. Many persons intelligent in such matters who have examined it, estimate the cost at about $40,000 or $50,000. The building is every way creditable to us; and though nothing to be proud of (for pride should never enter into any work of man's device), yet it does furnish occasion for gratitude that we have such a building at that most important center.
It has been called the “Dime Tabernacle,” because the original plan contemplated the giving of one dime each for one year by our people everywhere. Had they really done this, the dimes, with the larger donations which have been made, would have paid for it long ago. This, like other good plans, failed because not fully carried out. Many who started in on this plan, virtually pledging themselves to pay the whole $1.20, never paid but one or two of the twelve dimes pledged. The consequence is, this noble edifice stands thousands of dollars in debt to the Publishing Association, thus embarrassing another important institution. It would be a disgrace to our people everywhere to allow this debt to remain any length of time upon it. We need the building all the time. Our recent General Conference found it most convenient. Every State Conference should feel an interest in having this debt raised. Our T. and M. societies should take measures to collect, as far as possible, those original pledges of one dime each month, which are still back. Individuals throughout the cause should send in their donations, till the few remaining thousands of the debt are paid off. This would be a great help to the Publishing Association. Come, brethren, this is a prosperous year. Crops have been good, and prices good. Let us send up a thank-offering to God and set free from debt our Tabernacle at Battle Creek. God will hear our prayers, if we honor him with our substance. Geo. I. Butler.
SEND HIM A BIBLE.
The North-Western Michigan Press Association held its second annual meeting at Big Rapids, Mich., July 14, 1879. At a banquet in the evening, the toast, “Editorial Excursions,” was responded to by S. F. Aspinwall, of the Grand Rapids Journal; and in that response he is reported to have said:—
“The oldest publisher that we can now call to mind, Moses, who engraved the law on tablets of stone, went on an editorial excursion.”
Any man who, in this latter part of the 19th century thinks that Moses was the one who engraved the commandments on the tables of stone, should be made a subject of missionary effort by the nearest Sunday-school.
CLOSING IN.
A GLANCE at any modern map of the United States with reference to the location of our Conferences, will prove a very interesting and suggestive field of study for those who are interested in the spread of this work. The California and North-Pacific Conferences span the whole Pacific coast from Mexico to the British possessions. From these an influence is going out eastward into the territories of Idaho, Nevada, Utah, and Arizona.
East of the Rocky Mountains, our western frontier presents a solid phalanx of Conferences, from the British possessions on the north, to the Gulf of Mexico on the south; namely, Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Texas. From these an influence is working westward into Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico.
Thus the gap is closing up; and if we may judge from present prospects, the sound of the message will soon be heard in every State and Territory of the Union.
Sabbath Opposition and Meetings at Columbus Hill
shown all the way along, notwithstanding the bad weather. Opposition is manifesting itself since the Sabbath question came to the surface. The people have sent for two ministers, a Methodist Episcopal and a Baptist, to overthrow the Sabbath of the Lord.
This is an old field, with a heavy “Crisis” influence, which has poisoned many minds. But the darkness of error begins to disappear before the light of divine truth. Our trust is in God. We earnestly desire the prayers of all the dear saints. MILTON C. WILCOX. HENRY H. WILCOX.
Columbus Hill.—Meetings have continued at this place since Oct. 3, though with some interruption on account of bad weather and roads. The interest has been good, and quite a number have acknowledged the truth. Three have decided to obey, and there are others for whom we hope. Satan magnifies difficulties, eclipses the reward,—the crown that is to be won by bearing the cross,—and the power of tradition holds some. May God help them to feel the force of truth and the importance of rendering strict obedience to all his commandments.
Have obtained two subscribers for REVIEW, three for Signs, and two for Good Health, and have sold several dollars’ worth of books.
Bro. Whitney left me about the 1st of November. We are hoping for his return, and many express a wish to that effect. J. Q. FOY.
NEW YORK.
Fine, St. Lawrence Co., Dec. 2.—Commenced meetings in Ridge school-house in this town, Nov. 6. Have a fair interest. Have spoken on the prophecies and the nature of man, and have just reached the Sabbath question. Some considerable interest has been
A LETTER FROM ENGLAND.
By Henry Veysey
To Editors of REVIEW AND HERALD.
Although not nominally one with you, it is my earnest desire to know and spread the truth. There are five of us who broke bread together last week, as desiring to obey all God’s commandments, and two others who were hindered from being present. These are Sabbath-keepers.
A large number of friends are more or less interested in the truth. From one of these, a commercial traveler among so-called Christadelphians, I received the following:—
“I have been reading some of the Sabbath papers you sent me, and trust I shall be enabled not only to understand, but to obey the commands of God on this important subject of seventh-day observance; but we must be thoroughly convinced before we should obey the truth on any point; and although I shall have to contend with ridicule and opposition in many forms, pray that God will enable me to understand his will in this matter, and afterward to comply with the requirements of his word.”
Several besides the seven above noticed are interested in the Lord’s Sabbath. In the autumn I was enabled to give a series of lectures at a seaport sixteen miles north of us. In about three weeks we shall dismiss school for the winter vacation; then I hope to visit Bro. Loughborough at Southampton, and trust I shall be able to do more for the Lord.
I have been personally an abstainer from flesh meat for five or six years; my dear wife, for eight months. We keep no intoxicants in the house, and my wife is thinking of trying to give up tea. May God bless your work.
Yours in the Lord, HENRY VEYSEY.
Somerset Co., Nov. 21, 1879.
AMERICA—ITS MATERIAL PROGRESS.
THERE are some themes of a grandeur so surpassing that the simple announcement of the topic carries with it to every cultivated mind a force and impressiveness which no prolixity of elaboration can augment, and no minuteness of detail can increase. The material progress of America is a topic of this striking and emphatic nature. The course of human history exhibits no parallel to the circumstances which attended the discovery of this modern world, and none to the motives which prompted its occupancy and settlement. The intimate blending of religious fervor, daring adventure, personal cupidity, and commercial enterprise, which heralded and accompanied the entire movement, lends to the era and to its leading actors an interest at once absorbing and perennial. The most striking antitheses are exhibited in the insignificance of the agents and the importance of their actions, in the feebleness of the initial stages and the mighty energy of the resultant forces, in the poverty of the means employed and the opulency of the ends attained.
Although some feeble motions toward foreign discovery were made in England as early as the era of Henry VII., it was not until the age of Elizabeth that any adequate attempt at colonization was undertaken. The height of grandeur and power to which that great queen raised the British empire; the vigor of her internal administration; the wisdom of her foreign policy; the growth of national sentiment; the rapid expansion of maritime power; the brilliant outburst of literary spirit,—all signalized her reign as an auspicious season for inaugurating a series of discoveries which should place England in the van of civilization and progress. Yet it is amusing to read the Charter which the Virgin Queen conferred on Sir Humphrey Gilbert. Nothing could show in stronger colors the vague and indefinite views of even the wisest sovereign of her age, nothing could more plainly prove how little the leading minds of that age grasped the possibilities of the new world, or how little they even imagined of the future growth and wondrous development of these yet unknown regions. Elizabeth authorizes Gilbert to discover and to take possession of all remote and barbarous lands unoccupied by any Christian prince. She confers on him and his heirs the full rights of property in the soil of those countries; she vests in him the complete jurisdiction and royalties within the lands and seas thereunto adjoining, with full power to convict, pardon, punish, govern, and rule, according to their own good discretion, all persons who may from time to time settle within said territories. Could power more absolute, despotic, or irresponsible be imagined than is here conferred upon the projectors of American colonization? Fortunately for human progress, events have never been found, under such circumstances, to shape themselves in accordance with the predetermined theories of popes and potentates.
The early efforts of Gilbert came to grief. Long years were to elapse, numerous attempts were to fail, hundreds of lives were to be sacrificed, untold misery and suffering were to be endured, before the first successful lodgment was made upon the soil of America. Viewed from the standpoint of human probabilities, could any beginnings have seemed more hopeless of ultimate success than the feeble enterprises planted upon the shores of Virginia in 1607, and upon the inhospitable soil of Massachusetts in 1620? Judging by all past experience for more than a century, they must fail. Judging by the vastness of the unbroken wilderness, by the rudeness of primeval nature, by the severities of a northern or the relaxations of a southern climate, by the fatal neighborhood of fierce wild beasts, and the more deadly proximity of hostile savages, by the remoteness of human succor, and the slenderness of the ties which stretched in invisible lines across the weary waste of Atlantic waters,—by all these fearful odds they seemed hopelessly foredoomed. Yet the tenacity of Anglo-Saxon purpose overcame these multiplied obstacles. The little colony of Virginia flourished apace, met famine and disaster, put to sea in despair, returned in hope, flickered between life and death, revived, increased, and finally triumphed in a steady and199healthful growth.
The feeble band on Plymouth Rock faced winter, wild beasts, savage warfare, wasting sickness, cruel disappointment, threatened extinction; yet, like the storm-tossed mountain-pine, struck root at length even in the stony soil of bleak New England, and laid deep and firm the foundations of a great and glorious commonwealth. Soon the whole seacoast, from the balmy latitude of Florida to the icy rigors of Labrador, was dotted with detached settlements.
Confined at first to the shores of the ocean, the network of colonization gradually interwove its growing fibres up and down the Atlantic seaboard, until a hardy family of nascent States grew and prospered in friendly neighborhood and in amicable intercommunication. Still some extraneous force was needed to consolidate the interests and to unify the activities of the scattered colonies. This the Revolution supplied, and under the pressure of eight years’ incessant struggle with the greatest military power of the world, the American settlements were compressed into a confederation so stable as to endure the strain of a century of unparalleled growth, and so flexible as to admit of an expansion of life, ideas, and progress of which history offers no previous example. From the meager roll of thirteen sparsely peopled colonies, we have now grown to the mighty proportions of an empire comprising thirty-eight States and eleven Territories. From the 3,000,000 of freemen to whom Patrick Henry made his fiery appeals, our population has now risen to the enormous aggregate of quite 50,000,000 of thrifty, restless, energetic, and progressive people. Instead of two or three towns of 20,000 to 30,000 inhabitants, as at the outbreak of the Revolution, we now boast within our domain about twenty cities of over 100,000, of which number ten are over 200,000, seven over 300,000, and at least three of them have over 500,000 population, while our great metropolis, New York, is fast taking rank as one of the largest cities on the globe.
Our narrow belt of territorial possession has widened back from our Atlantic front into a measureless sweep of valley, prairie, and mountain, until at once both oceans beat in alternate rhythm of calm and storm upon our eastern and our western shore. The tourist, traversing the States, is whirled along for one hundred and forty-four hours of consecutive railroad travel, with the highest speed of the modern locomotive, without once seeing a foot of alien soil, or catching a glimpse of another flag than that which bears the stars and stripes. He must be a constant student of Geography who keeps pace with the perpetual flow of population toward our far western Territories; and the exigencies of our postal service demand an incessant revision of the lists of offices as they spread far and wide over our newly settled possessions. Our textile fabrics have grown from seventy-five bags of cotton, received in Liverpool with incredulity, as being too great a production for the American colonies, to an overwhelming average crop of fully 5,000,000 bales, enough to set the looms of the world in a whirl of frantic industry. Instead of the scarcity of food which threatened with destruction our early colonies, America is now fast becoming to the world what Africa was to ancient Rome, its granary and its storehouse. The wheat crop of the United States for 1879 will exceed 400,000,000 bushels, more than half as much as the entire production of Europe for the same period. Indeed, the value of our farm products is estimated at the amazing figure of more than two and one-half billions of dollars, a sum which staggers the imagination. Our iron industry, after a history of marked vicissitudes, has at length attained a gigantic development, which enables us to compete in home markets with the best manufactured articles of the British people. In the line of labor-saving implements, we are now supplying the world with our manifold improved appliances in every branch of agricultural and mechanical pursuits. The spread of our railway system is on a scale of grandeur quite commensurate with the “magnificent distances” which we have spanned, and the colossal obstacles of mountain, desert, lake, and river, over which our engineering has triumphed.
It was not until 1829 that the Post Office took its place among the departments of our government, yet already the lightning express has replaced the tardy mail coach, with its cumbersome apparatus and tiresome travel, while the eager appetite for news stops at nothing short of telegraph and telephone, poured through the columns of the newspaper, with its multiplied daily editions. Nearly six thousand daily and weekly journals fill our land with latest intelligence from the ends of the earth. The sneering inquiry, “Who reads an American book?” finds answer in the ceaseless tide of publications which flood the literary markets of the world, all bearing titles of American authorship and imprint of American publishers. In Periodical literature we have come up abreast with our ancient prototypes, the venerable Quarterlies and staid Reviews of London and Edinburgh, while in the field of elegant reading, illustrated journalism and popular science, we show the world models which they have not yet learned to equal. In the mining interests of our country we have exhibited a productiveness so amazing that the story of it reads like a tale of faerie.
Yet the United States, as a nation, is but at the very threshold of progress and development. Consider, if you please, the vast area yet to be opened to settlement; the boundless acreage of virgin and tillable lands yet untouched by plough or spade; the far-stretching maze of inland waters yet unvexed by the keel of commerce; the primeval forests that cover with merchantable woods of various grain and dye the immense sweep of our unpeopled wilderness; the countless mill-sites where water-powers are awaiting the establishment of factories; the coal-fields whose deposits, covering hundreds of thousands of square miles, are but barely scratched by the miner’s tool, in many cases not yet laid open to the reach of labor; the mineral treasures that underlie the soil of many of our great commonwealths, starring the gulches of the Black Hills, the canons of Nevada, and the savage ravines of Montana with silver and gold; the exhaustless subterranean lakes of petroleum, whose refined oils are carrying the light of American commerce to the palm-groves of Damascus, to the deserts of Africa, to the kraals of Caffraria, and to the palaces of Cathay. Here is a prospect that must fill with patriotic emotion the breast of every American citizen. To such a goodly heritage are we born, and upon us and upon our posterity rests the grave responsibility of rightly measuring its infinite possibilities and of providing for its wise enjoyment, its judicious guardianship, and its progressive improvement.—America, Nov. 15, 1879.
NO TIME.
By E. P. Daniels
No time to seek after treasures, Ambition's delusive goal; No time to court worldly pleasures— 'Tis spiritual death to the soul; No time now to spend in dreaming Of honors yet to be won; For the day of probation is passing, And the Judgment is coming on.
No time for repining or sorrow O'er hopes that have vanished away; No time to think of to-morrow, But of duties before us to-day. No time to seek greater attainments Than we need in the cause of the right; For the day of probation is passing, And on comes the darkness of night.
No time to fetter the conscience With skeptical doubts and fears; No time to seek ease and comfort In this dark valley of tears. No time for vain speculations In which the unstable delight; For the day of probation is passing, We're approaching the shadows of night.
No time for mere wish to be better, But to work to be better indeed; No time to be led by the wicked, But that you the wicked should lead. No time to think “I'm unworthy,” For there's no one good in His sight; Make haste; for the day of probation Will soon give place to the night.
No time to be doubtful and question The course that others pursue; No time to praise others for doing The very things you ought to do; No time to lay down the armor; For now is the time to fight, While the day of probation lingers, Ere we enter the shadows of night.
No time for aught but preparing; No time for cherishing sin; No time to linger despairing, In reach of the crown you can win. No time to stifle conviction That God's holy precepts are right; For now is the day of decision, Ere Christ comes like a thief in the night.
E. P. DANIELS.
OHIO
By H. A. St. John
New Haven.—The meetings here continue. A few are interested. I expect to close soon, and seek for a more fruitful field.
H. A. ST. JOHN.
WEST VIRGINIA.
By I. Sanborn
Rockport.—I have now been preaching within one mile of Rockport, Wood Co., for ten days. Have large congregations, and an increasing interest. Several have decided to obey the truth. Reading matter is taken quite freely. I have invitations to preach in several other places, so I am hopeful of a good company of commandment-keepers in due time.
My address, until further notice, will be Rockport, Wood Co., W. Va. I. SANBORN.
MINNESOTA
By N. Battin; A. H. Vankirk
New Hartford, Dec. 8.—We began a course of lectures at this place, eighteen miles south of the city of Winona, Friday evening, Nov. 28. This is an entirely new field, and very little was known of present truth previous to our arrival. The interest from the first has been good, and the Lord has given extraordinary liberty in presenting the word. We are now in the midst of the Sabbath question, and already there is quite a stir. We anticipate a good work here, and earnestly request the prayers of the people of God.
N. BATTIN.
A. H. VANKIRK.
IOWA
By J. S. Hart
Williams, Hook's Point, and Webster.— Spent Sabbath and Sunday, Nov. 8 and 9, with the brethren near Williams. Some are on the background; all the others are of good courage. Obtained some subscribers for our papers, and received over $30.
Nov. 15, 16, I held some good meetings with the church at Hook's Point, and left them feeling somewhat encouraged. Eld. Lee had been here, sowing seeds of division.
I labored about two weeks near State Center, with but little interest.
Sabbath and Sunday, Dec. 6 and 7, I was at Webster City. The brethren here are quite anxious to have tent-labor the coming summer. Dec. 8. J. S. HART.
Dedication at Corsica, Ohio.
By A. O. Burrill
According to appointment, the dedication took place Sunday, Dec. 7. Although the roads were very muddy, the house was well filled. The building is 28x46 feet, with appropriate tower, and is a model of neatness throughout. It cost, including a fine chapel organ, $1,832.31, all of which has been provided for by this society.
Four were baptized, and several more took their stand for the truth, and still there is an interest to hear. Some more than $100 was pledged for the T. and M. work. We thought this commendable, considering how freely they had given for the church. This is a step in the right direction. Now that they have opened the fountain of benevolence, and have experienced the blessings that attend the cheerful giver, they will need to continue their liberalities. “How strange it is that these Adventists get along without any discord; it isn’t so with others,” was frequently heard by our brethren while the building was in process of erection. Although this church is so young, and has been left without any preaching, there has not been a jar during the building of the house. Elds. Canright and Mann, and visiting brethren from Newark, Bellville, and Waterford, were in attendance. Bro. C. remains to follow up the work.
If this church will remember to carry out the solemn vow made to dedicate themselves anew, together with their house, it will be well-pleasing to God, and they will bear much fruit to his glory. In conclusion, as I look over the work that has been wrought for this people in the past few months, I am led to exclaim, What will not our God do for us, when we work in harmony with him? May they so walk and work for the dear Saviour, that in the coming kingdom they may stand among the redeemed. Thus close my labors in Ohio for the present.
A. O. BURRILL.
Lansing, Mich., Dec. 10.
TEXAS HEALTH AND TEMPERANCE ASSOCIATION.
By A. W. Jensen; Frank Green
At the camp-meeting held near Dallas, Texas, Nov. 5-11, the subject of health reform was introduced by Eld. Geo. I. Butler. After appropriate remarks and a discourse on temperance, the pledge papers were circulated through the congregation, and ninety-three signed the pledges, all but three of whom took the teetotal pledge. Seventy-three paid the initiation fee.
It was then voted that we organize a Health and Temperance Association, whereupon Eld. Butler was called to the chair, and Eld. R. M. Kilgore was chosen secretary pro tem. The Constitution and By-laws were read and adopted. The Chair, on being authorized to do so, appointed, as the Committee on Nominations, R. A. Miller, A. W. Jensen, and W. J. Simonton. The committee reported: For President, A. W. Jensen; Secretary, Frank Green.
On motion, the Association adjourned sine die.
A. W. JENSEN, Pres.
FRANK GREEN, Sec.
PLEASED AND ASTONISHED.
Bro. H. H. Hoyt writes from Richland Co., Wis.:—
Last September a Seventh-day Adventist tent was set up in this village; and out of “curiosity” I went to hear the deluded men (Elds. S. S. Smith and Eli Osborn) present their doctrine. I soon became interested as well as astonished. A discussion on the Sabbath took place between these men and Eld. Hamilton of the Campbellite church, and Eld. Bryan of the Methodist Episcopal church. I hoped the latter would confirm the word to me, as I was, and had been for years, a Methodist; but they could not. The result has been, that my wife and I have lost our home in the M. E. church; and, alone in this community, we are trying to keep the Sabbath of the Lord God. In one sense it is a bitter cross; but we have a bright hope that when Jesus comes we shall have company, and be found among that number who have kept the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. I have read Thoughts on the Revelation, also on Daniel, the Twenty-three Hundred Days, Exposition of Matt. 24, and quite a number of tracts. The more I read, the more plain and clear the whole matter appears. The great wonder to me is, that I have lived so long (nearly forty years) and have not seen these great truths before.
DE STEM DER WAARHEID.
De Hollander, published at Holland, Mich., thus notices the Holland paper published by Bro. De Vos at this office. It is no doubt “damaging” to error. Let it be circulated.
Under the handsome title De Stem Der Waarheid, a pamphlet has been issued by C. De Vos, of Battle Creek, Michigan. It is printed on good paper, with a plain letter, and for this we can say that the undertaking of Mr. De Vos, as a printer, is very good indeed; but a word in favor of the contents of the pamphlet is more than we are able to give, and we shall console ourselves that the publisher, Mr. De Vos, applies the following to us, when he says in said pamphlet: “Inferior minds—minds which are molded in a narrow and limited pattern—are prone to be opinionated and dogmatical.” Such and similar expressions will not hurt us, nor any of the “inferior minds;” but we wish to excuse ourselves from recommending it, and thus aiding in the circulation of a lecture which we consider damaging.
ANOTHER VIEW.
THE readers of the REVIEW will remember that Eld. J. N. Loughborough, in a recent article, mentioned the effort that had been made in London to open the Guildhall library on Sunday. They will no doubt be interested in the following from the Christian Weekly, giving another view of the subject. The Christian Weekly does not mention the liquor saloons, which are open on all days of the week, from whose influence those interested in opening the libraries on Sunday would be glad to shield the young men of that great city. Do not these threaten “encroachments on our [their] day of rest.”
Christians in Great Britain are watching with much concern the insidious efforts that are persistently made to break down reverence for the Sabbath day, by encouraging and sanctioning the opening of libraries, museums, and places of amusement and entertainment. The Sunday League is not discouraged by the want of success its efforts have generally met hitherto. Its latest assault has been upon the London Common Council for the opening of the City Library on Sunday afternoons. It was defeated, but will doubtless return to the attack. Evangelical Christendom puts the matter in its true light, and its words apply to our country as well as to Great Britain, when it says: “We are no alarmists, nor would we conserve any institution which could not be maintained or defended from considerations of justice and of right; but we are of all things concerned to uphold, for all classes, the right and privilege of Sabbath rest—an observance which, more than any other, has tended to preserve among us not only the ordinances and the spirit of religion, but also the health, the well-being, and the freedom of our people—blessings but too lightly esteemed by those who are thoughtlessly or wilfully endeavoring to assimilate our Sabbath to the Continental Sunday.” We cannot be too vigilant in resisting the encroachments upon our day of rest.
PERPLEXITY OF NATIONS.
ASSASSINATION as a fine art, Nihilism and social anarchy, industrial prostration, commercial stagnation, national bankruptcy, a dying empress and a crazy emperor, is Russia's greeting to the world. Austro-Hungary takes up the doleful refrain and groans about the renewal of floods in Hungary, cities destroyed, millions of property swept away, crops annihilated, and 200,000 people starving in Silesia. Germany joins her deep voice to the chorus of wretchedness and tells us that business is stagnant, the banks are idle, commerce is dead, merchants are failing, houses are empty for lack of tenants, while the people sleep in the fields, and even in the streets of cities. Ireland continues her never-ending song of woe, and complaint of nakedness, of starvation and of disorder. Merry England braces herself against her troubles and puts her best foot foremost, but the world sees the millions of her starving artisans, in spite of her efforts to keep up appearances. Italy has the phylloxera and floods laying waste her vineyards, Spain her fairest provinces swept by a deluge. France, the most prosperous because the most thrifty and frugal of European nations, is not without her troubles, for she is threatened with a relapse of her worst disease, political fever. And all this in one day's dispatches! Surely it does not look as if the millennium were coming.—Detroit Evening News, Dec. 10.