WE are informed that a compromise between the mayor and saloon-keepers of Rochester, Minn., has been concluded. The saloon-keepers “agree and promise as honorable men to close at eleven o’clock Saturday night, and keep closed until five o’clock Monday morning” on condition that licenses be granted them for another year, and the mayor evidently enters into the agreement, as he says that he will see that the pledge is carried out. A local paper is quoted as saying that “it is one of the encouraging signs of the times that saloon-keepers themselves are uniting to close their places of business in compliance with law.”
That “encouraging sign of the times” has some queer features. It implies that the saloon-keepers see a danger of losing their licenses altogether, and by offering to limit their trade to six days in the week they win a decided victory. They not only retain their privilege on an equality with ordinary business enterprises, but gain the good-will of many professed temperance people because of the decision to do business in a law-abiding manner. It is no specially good “sign of the times” that men prefer to sell intoxicating drinks only six days in the week rather than to close out. It is no specially good sign to find officials, who have the power to close nests of crime all the time, compromising with dens of infamy on terms offered by the proprietors of such places. It is not a specially good sign of the times to see municipal officers willing to put the crime-breeding saloon business on a basis of legitimacy on condition that its conductors observe Sunday. It is not a good sign of the times to see municipal officials compromising with crime in any sense.
G.
WORSE AND WORSE.
It has been telegraphed all over the world that “a clergyman of the Church of England” denies that Christ ever rose from the dead, while another “clergyman,” of the same denomination, has opened a saloon for the sale of intoxicating liquor! The unbeliever proclaims that he is “high churchman wears vestments, and lights candles,” and yet denies that the resurrection of the body of the Lord is an article of faith. He even dared to say that in a “careful exploration in Palestine to-day we might come across the sacred tomb and discover within it the precious body of our Lord, or the dim remains of it.” He declares that only “the spirit of Christ rose and ascended into heaven.” Thus it goes until one is sickened with the silly statements of men who seem to be bereft of their senses. “When the Son of Man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?”—Watchword and Truth.
SUNDAY ENFORCEMENT.
IT is reported from Elmira, N. Y., that the Civic Federation, composed of professed ministers of the Gospel, recently served notice on the mayor and police board that unless Sunday baseball games are stopped, efforts will be made to have them removed from office. But the Spirit says, “No man that warreth [as a soldier of Christ] entangleth himself with the affairs of this world.” 2 Tim. 2:4. Threatening or prosecuting municipal officials is in no sense the work of Christ. Neither He nor His apostles ever engaged in such work.
Canton Clergymen Demand Sunday Law Enforcement
EIGHTEEN clergymen who recently called upon the mayor of Canton, Ohio, with a demand for the enforcement of the Sunday-closing law, received a promise that he would do all he could to secure an “orderly Sabbath.” But he took occasion to censure one of the delegation for turning his church into a hotel on Sunday while demanding that other places be closed. It seems that clergymen and churches (that is, Sunday observers) are deemed to be exempt from the penalties of such laws.
Persecution and Its Escalating Penalties
It is incumbent on the authors of persecution previously to reflect whether they are determined to support it in the last extreme. They excite the flame which they strive to extinguish, and it soon becomes necessary to chastise the contumacy, as well as the crime, of the offender. The fine which he is unable or unwilling to discharge, exposes his person to the severities of the law, and his contempt of lighter penalties suggests the use of propriety of capital punishment.—Gibbon, in “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” chap. 37, par. 23.
Greenwich Clergymen Turn Against Sunday Golf
HAVING accomplished the suppression of baseball-playing on Sunday, the clergymen of Greenwich, Conn., have announced their purpose to attack Sunday golf also. Some of the wealthy golf-players joined in the crusade against Sunday baseball, but continued their own golf games.
Massachusetts Senate Committee Proposes Sunday Law Revision
The Committee on Ways and Means of the Massachusetts Senate has recommended that a special recess committee be appointed to consider and revise the laws relative to the observance of Sunday,—the committee to consist of two members of the upper house and three of the lower.
Council Bluffs Mayor Moves Against Sunday Funerals
At the request of the carriage drivers' union, the mayor of Council Bluffs, Iowa, is said to be moving toward the suppression of Sunday funerals. The mayor has given his own opinion that the ministers of the city should refrain from conducting funerals on that day, and that they do such work in disregard of the Sabbath commandment. Query: (1) What has a secular official to do with enforcing the observance of a religious institution? (2) How does Sunday work do violence to the Sabbath commandment? “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.”
Louisville Strict Sunday Enforcement Under Mayor Barth
PURSUANT to the proclamation issued by Mayor Barth of Louisville, Ky., on May 22, after conference with Governor Beckham, there was strict Sunday enforcement in that city and the county on Sunday, May 27. “Every place except hotels, drug-stores, and railroad and street-car lines, was closed.”
A PRESS despatch says that strict Sunday enforcement against all business prevailed at Kokomo, Ind., on Sunday, May 13. Signs were posted in nearly all the retail stores, warning their customers that no sales would be made on Sunday. Even drug-stores and fruit stands were closed, so that it was impossible to purchase even a glass of soda water or other harmless refreshments during the day. The J. G. Leach Ice Company suspended business for the first time since the plant was built, and no deliveries of ice were made in any part of the city.
East Side Merchants Fined for Sunday Trading
The New York Post notes that seventeen East Side merchants were recently fined five dollars each for violating the Sunday law. The magistrate declared that he had been trying for years to break up the practise of keeping stores open in this locality, but had not been able to succeed. The defendants were mostly Jews.
Falling Chinese Immigration After the San Francisco Earthquake
A noticeable effect of San Francisco's disaster is the falling off in Chinese immigration. In June of last year, 450 were admitted at that port; for the same month of this year there were less than fifty. Very extravagant reports were circulated in China about the earthquake, giving the impression that it was far more extensive and ruinous than it really was, many believing that the whole country was devastated. This report was confirmed by the large number of Chinese that returned to the Orient immediately after the destruction of their occupations and apparent prospects. However, a reaction is expected in course of time.
Court Rules Trust Debts Cannot Be Collected
The latest blow at the “trusts” is a decision in the Circuit Court at St. Louis, that a debt for goods bought of a “trust” concern can not be collected by law. A man bought a bill of goods from the Cahill Swift Manufacturing Company, and afterward refused to pay. He was sued, and his attorney argued that a trust corporation, being an illegal party, could not lawfully collect any bills for its wares. Judge Ryan sustained the defense, and dismissed the case. If such a decision holds good, the monopoly builders will have to try some other scheme than combining corporations in restraint of trade.
Destructive Cyclone Damages Oklahoma and Indian Territories
A destructive cyclone passed over portions of Oklahoma and Indian Territories June 24. Houses were demolished, live stock killed, and crops (especially corn) badly damaged. A man named Graham was killed by lightning near Roosevelt, O. T., and a Mrs. Tobin was killed at Perry. In Lawton the damage was especially heavy. One family left their house just in time to see it sucked up by the whirlwind and turned over and over. At Snyder, also, the loss is reported to have been very heavy.
Italian Laborers Strike at Tacoma, Washington
A peculiar strike at Tacoma, Wash., is mentioned in a press despatch of June 25. About two hundred Italian laborers for the Tacoma Railway and Power Company, who were on strike for a raise of wages, marched to a point where some Americans were at work and ordered them to quit also. Fifteen of the men obeyed. Each Italian carried a red rose in his hand or teeth, or wore it in his hat or coat. People are wondering what is the significance of the red rose.
Free Tool Bureau Aids Mechanics After San Francisco Fire
A thoughtful charity is that of the “Los Angeles Times Free Tool Bureau” in San Francisco. Its work is to distribute free tools to deserving mechanics who lost their all in the great fire. This is a most practical help in time of need.
MORALITY PERSONAL, NOT LEGISLATED.
By F. M. Wilcox
[From the Denver, Colo., Camera.]
I READ with interest what you said in your issue of Wednesday evening under the caption, “Want Blue Laws,” referring to the efforts of the Boulder Ministerial Association to secure a city ordinance prohibiting the giving of entertainments on Sunday.
I heartily approve of the principle of your dissent from this effort. Every student of history knows the evils which have inevitably resulted from all religious legislation, even tho undertaken in many instances, no doubt, with the best of motives. The persecution of the Quakers, the banishment of Roger Williams, the burning of witches,—all this and many other misguided movements, have resulted from the notion that it was right for some to dictate to others what they should believe and practise in religious matters. And the first step in such procedures created the necessity for every subsequent act of intolerance.
All amusements that are uncivil, that tend to the degradation of the community, should be prohibited on all days. An amusement that is proper to be given on Monday or Tuesday, is as entirely proper to be given on Saturday or Sunday, in so far as the civil authorities have to deal with the question.
It is certainly the privilege of the minister of the Gospel to warn his flock and the public generally, against desecration of the Sabbath day, but here his duty ceases. It is manifestly wrong for him to attempt to force upon his hearers his notion of things.
The state has to do with civil matters only. By enactment of appropriate legislation, it should regulate the civil relationship existing between the citizens of the state. If a man is uncivil, if his course of conduct is such that it invades the rights of his fellows, if his life is a menace to the civil peace of the community, then it is for the state to exercise its authority in compelling the offender to lead a civil life, whether his incivility is manifested on Sunday, Saturday, or any other day of the week; but no more so if it be manifested on Sunday or Saturday than if it be manifested on Monday or Thursday.
That legislation which seeks to improve the moral tone of the community by prohibiting evils on a certain day, is religious legislation, aimed not against the evils primarily, but designed to afford protection to the day. It is as wrong for a man to steal on Wednesday as it is for him to steal on Sunday. Proper prohibition will prohibit theft on both days and on every day. If it is wrong to sell whisky and operate a saloon on Sunday, it is equally wrong to sell whisky and operate a saloon on any and every other day of the week, therefore Sunday prohibition is but an effort to throw certain barriers around a day. Prohibition which is directed against the liquor traffic, pure and simple, will seek to prohibit it every day and all the time.
While the province of the state pertains alone to civil matters, the church has its field of operations in the province of moral questions. The state deals with those questions affecting the civil actions of men, the church makes appeal to the conscience. Says Christ, “Render therefore unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.”
There is seen to-day a sad tendency for the church to enter the realm of politics, and to compel men to do by civil or legal enactment, what they can not be induced to do by moral suasion. It is the right of the Christian to vote, to hold office, and as a citizen to throw his whole influence in favor of good government. It is right for the minister of the Gospel to exercise his prerogatives as a citizen of his country. But let him keep politics out of his pulpit. As well might the ward politician be found occupying the pulpit, as the minister be found, in his ministerial capacity, doing the work of the politician. When the church as a church enters the realm of politics, when it seeks to accomplish by civil enactment what it can not do with its divinely appointed help—the Holy Spirit—it misses its high and holy calling, and misinterprets its mission in the world.
It is for every citizen to determine before his Maker how he shall spend every day of his life, without any manner of interference from his fellows, so long as he conducts himself as a law-abiding citizen. And so far as his fellows are concerned, it is perfectly proper for him to do on one day what is proper for him to do on any other day.
That which is not uncivil on one day, can not be uncivil on any other day. Every man, so far as the interference of his fellows is concerned, has a God-given, natural right to keep every day as a holy day, or to keep no day at all. And so far as such interference is concerned, every man has a natural right to worship a pagan deity, the one true God, or not to worship anything. God will sometime call this man to account, but the state or his fellowmen have not this right. They may seek to persuade him, but with that their mission must end. When in the worship of his deity the pagan becomes uncivil, then the state can step in and compel his observance of civil laws. When the professed Christian, in following a perverted sense of right, becomes uncivil, then, likewise, the state has a right to compel civility. But let it be remembered in all this that that which is not uncivil on one day is not uncivil on any other day.
The language of the Gospel is to entreat, to beseech, to implore. If men by moral suasion can not be made religious, they can not be brought to God by forcible measures. One compelled to pray is made a hypocrite, and in God’s sight a hypocrite is worse than an open sinner.
I heartily approve of every effort to improve the moral tone of any community when such effort is put forth in Christ’s lines. If I believed that any one day was holy, I should deem it my duty zealously to labor to induce my fellows to observe that day in a proper spirit, but failing there, I could not ask the city counsel to compel men to do on one day what the council should not compel them to do on every day.
We need always proper legislation to correct evils in the community, but let the legislation be so broad that it will not favor any cult or church or creed or day, but will be aimed against the evil on whatever day that evil may be exercised.
F. M. WILCOX.
AS IT SHOULD BE EVERYWHERE.
In speaking of his trip to the Orient last year, Mr. John G. Woolley says:
When we reached Japan a great surprise awaited us. I never saw such eagerness to hear and absorb whatever information and facts we had to give them. The war was just over when we arrived there, and thousands of the Jap soldiers were returning from Manchurian battle-fields; but strange as it may seem, there was little or no drinking among them, and for the most part it was as abstemious a crowd as a delegation of ministers in this country en route to some church conference. Our first point in Japan was Nagasaki, a mission colony, where we had a strenuous ten days of it, with two enthusiastic rallies every day. The Japanese young people are most appreciative and sympathetic, and they would listen to what I had to say without any regard as to what time it was when I began or when I might stop. Occasionally they would keep me at it for two, three, four, and even five hours at a time, and were ready for another meeting of the same sort at the first possible moment thereafter.
At Tokyo and Yokohama we had many large and enthusiastic rallies, at which hundreds of university young men were conspicuous by their interest and attention. The whole trend of Japanese thought seems to be in the direction of Western ideas and Western customs. Everywhere the warmest friendship was professed for America and Americans. If there is one thing that stands out above others on this trip, it is that we have the best people in the world in this great fight wherever it is being carried on. Nothing could match their hospitality wherever we went, and especially was this noticeable in our final meetings in Japan. At our last meeting in Tokio we were presented with a silk American flag with the Japanese flag fastened indissolubly to it, and this token represented the feeling of our friends throughout our journeying. Best of all to me was the evidence that the Christian people are leading in this great reform. The liquor men are coming to treat the church as synonomous with its temperance enemies, and a head-on collision is rapidly approaching.
THE TESTIMONY OF PRESIDENTS.
Here is a copy of a remarkable document, said to have been drafted in 1834 by Edward Cornelius Delevan, founder of the New York State Temperance Society. To this document the author personally secured the signatures of twelve presidents of the United States. Following are the testimony and the names of the presidential signers:
Being satisfied from observation and experience, as well as from medical testimony, that ardent spirits as a drink is not only needless, but hurtful, and that the entire disuse of it would tend to promote the health, the virtue, and the happiness of the community, we hereby express our conviction that should the citizens of the United States, and especially the young men, discontinue entirely the use of it, they would not only promote their own personal benefit, but the good of our country and of the world.
Zachary Taylor. Andrew Jackson.
Millard Fillmore. James Madison.
Franklin Pierce. John Quincy Adams.
James Buchanan. Martin Van Buren.
Abraham Lincoln. John Tyler.
Andrew Johnson. James K. Polk.
It will be noticed that this is not a pledge, but a testimony, and coming from men whose opportunities for observation extended to all classes of men, it bears unusual weight and is entitled to serious consideration.
Schaff on Religious Freedom and the First Amendment
Schaff, in commenting on the first amendment to the Constitution, says: “This is much more than freedom of religious opinions; for this exists everywhere, even under the most despotic governments, and is beyond the reach of law, which deals only with overt actions. Freedom of exercise includes public worship, acts of discipline, and every legitimate manifestation of religion.”
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OUR WORK AND WORKERS.
THE Opera House in Santa Ana, Cal., has been secured by Brother W. A. Simpson for a two months' series of meetings.
A NEW house of worship was dedicated at Perkins, Okla., May 20. The services were conducted by Brethren A. E. Field and J. R. Bagby.
THE following camp-meetings are announced for the Southwestern Union Conference: Alvarado, Texas, August 2-12; Winslow, Ark., August 16-26; Kingfisher, Okla., August 23 to September 2.
AFTER holding a few meetings with the church at Leavings, Alberta, recently, Brother J. W. Boynton had the privilege of baptizing six young converts. The brethren there also voted to establish a church school.
JUNE 16, four converts were baptized in San Diego, by Brother W. M. Healey. We are informed that the seating capacity of the San Diego church is taxed to its utmost to accommodate the Sabbath audiences.
A TEACHERS' institute for Southern California Conference will be held at Fernando Academy, July 30 to August 13. The list of teachers will include Professors W. E. Howell, E. S. Ballenger, and E. D. Sharpe, also Sisters Sarah Peck and Grace O'Neil.
A SECOND series of lectures at Bath, N. Y., by Brother J. S. and Sister Lulu Wightman, is said to be calling out encouraging attendance. They report that sixteen persons have accepted the message. One of these, a talented young lady, is preaching the Word in a union church. They also report the circulation of 200,000 pages of literature, eight subscriptions for the SIGNS, and numerous articles in the papers.
WE have received the Fifth Annual Announcement of the Elk Point (S. D.) Industrial Academy for 1906-07. It is a neat pamphlet of 24 pages, illustrated by views of the buildings and premises, and containing such information as patrons and prospective patrons will desire. The full term of the school will commence September 26. Address Wm. H. Twining, Business Manager, for copy of announcement, or other business.
BROTHER G. W. REASER, president of Southern California Conference, writes: “The general camp-meeting for Southern California will be held in the suburbs of Los Angeles, August 16-26. It will be necessary for all of our churches to select delegates for this meeting so that we will be prepared to act upon all business matters that may come before the body. Our churches are entitled to one delegate to represent the organization, and one additional delegate for every twenty-five members.”
WE have several times noted the missionary spirit of conferences in sending laborers to other fields and paying their salaries, but it remained for South Dakota Conference to part with their highly-prized president in this way. It has been decided to send Brother C. A. Burman to Alberta, Canada, and support him financially in that field. Brother E. G. Hayes, who in his younger days was a canvasser in California, has been chosen president of South Dakota to succeed Brother Burman.
WANTED FOR MISSIONARY WORK.
(Always prepay postage).
LATE, clean copies of the SIGNS, Bible Training School, Watchman, Liberty, Our Little Friend, Life and Health, and tracts. Address, Ella Marie Leach, 819 Eastern Avenue, Connersville, Ind.
CLEAN copies of the SIGNS, Little Friend, Instructor, and Life Boat. Address, J. W. Hicks, London, Laurel County, Ky.
BANK OF MOUNTAIN VIEW
THIS is the thirteenth week of our ad. Some say that thirteen is unlucky. We are not a bit superstitious, but we think that if you have read all of our other twelve weekly messages and have not written us for information about Mountain View or about our banking facilities, that you are the unlucky one. The lucky man is the one who has taken the time to find out about Mountain View. Be one of the lucky number and write to-day. Address
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ABIDING SPIRIT.
By Sarah M. I. Henry
By the late Mrs. S. M. I. Henry. The object of this book is to show the necessity of having the help of the Holy Spirit in the performance of the common and every-day duties of life.
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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.
LETTER FROM PORTUGAL.
By C. E. Rentfro
There is no country about which Seventh-day Adventists ought to know more than Portugal. With its four million inhabitants who can not read the Bible, even if allowed to have one, it needs the fostering care of a people who can give the poor, down-trodden ones a definite, distinct, life-saving message.
To those Protestants in the United States who are seeking to enforce religious ideas by the power of civil authority, to cause all to cease labor and to formally worship God on Sunday, a change from their place to that of the Portuguese Protestant might bring a practical lesson. I will mention three cases, which were well reported in the daily papers, as religious persecution.
Native Evangelist Preaching.
Not long ago a colporteur of the British and Foreign Bible Society was arrested at the instigation of a priest, in a province of North Portugal. He was kept in prison eight days. The agent for the society here wrote to friends there, as well as to the authorities, and the governor of the province ordered the prisoner to be freed. The Bibles were retained, the complaint being that they contained statements contrary to the state religion. Thus Rome seeks to keep the Bible from the people.
Another case shows what the Catholic Church will do with the believer in the Bible. On the 20th of December an old woman was arraigned before the tribunal for offenses against the state religion. The priestly accuser complained of her because she would not give the usual kiss to the images. Her age was sixty years, yet with her Testament in her hand, she sought to sustain her belief. The judge released her, and took occasion to censure the priest quite strongly.
On this case the Messenger, a paper edited by a Protestant minister, says: “Verily the ministers of the pope are showing very clearly the weakness to which their church has arrived, when they judge themselves so gravely offended by a poor old widow! They themselves are proving to us that, destitute of the Spirit of God, the Roman Church is as a dead body that only helped by the temporal arm can maintain itself on foot.” And yet their ministering brethren of the Protestant churches in America and other countries are seeking the same kind of help. The comment is pertinent just now.
I will also note the arrest of two teachers of the Bible, one an old minister of some eighty years, and the other a professor in a school. Both were arrested, and occupied a place in a jail for some time for the crime of singing and reading and practising sentiments subversive of the state religion on the occasion of a funeral. They gave bail to the amount of four hundred dollars. Now these men can sympathize with honest Christian souls in other countries who believe in following the Bible in keeping God’s holy Sabbath and working on the first day of the week, and yet are thrust into prison with common criminals on account of their religion.
In a number of places here men are striving to bring the Sunday rest-day before the public, partly on a business basis and partly because of religious bias. Before such measures are enforced by law, we are desirous that these people may receive the light of “present truth.” We have published three thousand copies of No. 5 of the “Family Bible Teacher.” Some of these have gone to Brazil, Bermuda Islands, and China. Elder Morrow, of Hamilton, Bermuda, wrote us saying that twenty persons, mostly grown people, have begun the observance of the Sabbath there. We should like to see from among them recruits for Portugal and Brazil. If Brazil shares with her mother country in sending a Portuguese worker, she should have help to feed the hundreds of thousands who go to her from Portugal. We should be able to load them up before they go there.
We are now publishing another Bible-reading on the “Signs of Christ’s Coming,” and as I am now able to do effective work in giving Bible studies in the native language, together with the Arauto da Verdade, which is being much improved, we hope to see souls embracing the truth in this part of the Iberian Peninsula. I have learned that there are thousands of Portuguese in California, and believe that those of our Sabbath-keeping Portuguese in that state might help Portugal by scattering our literature among their countrymen there. Those in turn will carry or send the truth back to their home country. Readers of the SIGNS OF THE TIMES residing in east Massachusetts would also do well to send for some of our Portuguese literature to distribute among the Portuguese people there.
We have some friends who are studying the points of our faith, and others who are learning the first principles of Bible study. Once a week, twenty or thirty children and grown people come to our home to learn the hymns. Mrs. Renfro has had a good privilege of breaking prejudice and winning hearts by nursing cases of sickness.
