Earlier text: WILL NOT ENDURE SOUND DOCTRINE“TOGETHER WITH GOD.”
By Edison J. Driver
HALF-HEARTED religion never did do much. But an active and intelligent faith has often found a way (or made one) to accomplish the seemingly impossible. The two principles are well illustrated in the following anecdote:— A certain young man given to sowing wild oats, had, before he realized it, gone too far. The taste for drink, opium, and tobacco led him into the wildest dissipations, till, sinking lower and lower, he became the very picture of dejection. His parents were respectable people, and he had many friends, yet nothing could they do to help him. It is true that they talked Scripture after a fashion, and entreated again and again, but it was all in vain. His case seemed a hopeless one indeed. But one person felt that it was not hopeless. On her knees before the God of heaven, she earnestly prayed to be shown a way to help him. And so one day she said, “Tom, we are going to pray for you to-night.” “Pray for me! No you—” he began, but she said firmly:— “Yes, Tom, we must pray for you.” Altho he remonstrated and argued, she found words to quietly meet all his objections. Then she told him the story of what Christ came to earth to do, and, as she pictured the scenes of that marvelous life to him, he broke into tears. “O, do you think there’s any hope for a fellow like me?” he cried. She certainly did think so. Her words fell like healing balm on his bruised mind, and, as she repeated the invitation and promise, “Come unto Me, . . . and I will give you rest,” he said:— “O, thank God! I believe it all now.” That night, when they prayed, the gentle and powerful Spirit came in and took away his unnatural taste, and set him free. And he is free to-day.
EDISON J. DRIVER.
Fresno, Cal. WHAT CHRIST DOES.
By Gertrude E. M. Spiking
My life is full of sinfulness,
My heart is full of sin;
But Christ has promised me to bless—
He’ll come and reign within. My tongue is prone to evil speak,
Deceitful things to say—
Set Thou a watch before my lips,
And Satan cannot stay. My feet in crooked paths do stray;
Entangled they become
With all the briers and creeping vines
Of sin that’s strewn among. But Lord, Thy blessed Word shall be
A lamp unto my feet;
O, then I’ll walk with Thee below,
And hold communion sweet. My righteousness is filthy rags,
Not fit for heavenly home;
But Christ has come and made me clean;
In garments white I’ll roam. Gertrude E. M. Spiking.
Rapid City, S. D. THE JOY OF A CONSECRATED LIFE.
By A. O. Tait
A LIFE that is fully consecrated to God is a life that is full of the most perfect joy. This is the simple statement of a fact that every one knows who has really given himself unreservedly to the service of the Master. There are many who hesitate to give themselves wholly to God for fear that they will have to give up so many things that they will be rendered gloomy and unhappy. Indeed they look upon the consecrated life as uninviting and full of penances and rounds of service that are dark and disagreeable. But what a mistaken notion this is! The consecrated servant of the Lord, it is true, will have things to do that are not inviting, neither always pleasant when looked at from one point of view. But when viewed in the true light of service, and the eternal consequences that are involved, that which would seem unpleasant immediately becomes a pleasurable duty. We look at things from God's standpoint, and our eyes are not so much on the present unpleasantnesses as they are fixed upon the future glorious possibilities. By faith we see and know God and His purposes, and any inconvenience of the present is lost sight of while we are enthusiastically co-operating with the Father in heaven in working out His great plans for the salvation of men. The man who is working out some great design will have many things to do that, if they were considered in themselves alone, would be very unpleasant. Before the beautiful structure is erected it is usually necessary to go down deep into the earth, sometimes even through the mire to lay the foundation. None of this work is pleasing unless we keep the picture of the finished building in mind. The careless observer might see in the excavation and placing of the foundation nothing more than an unsightly hole in the ground. But he who has been taken into the confidence of the architect sees the finished edifice, in all of its symmetrical beauty, every time he looks at these uninviting beginnings. The soul that is consecrated to God has been taken into the most intimate confidence with our Father above. The Lord has taken particular pains to outline fully in His Word what His plans are for this fallen world. He has told us clearly what He proposes to do for humanity as fast as men and women will come to Him. And the most blessed part of it all is that as fast as we come to Him He makes us full partners with Himself in working out His great designs. The plans of God not only cover this present time and this present life, but they reach on and on, through eternity. "Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God!" The one who is a co-partner with God is all absorbed in the working out of the Father's plans, and hence consecration is not a matter of high-keyed effort, but a divinely natural outgrowth of the heavenly influences at work within the soul. The trouble with so many is that they look only at this world. And even when induced to raise their eyes to God and heaven they look at them through the world's murky atmosphere. God invites us not only to look up but to come up. And when we draw nigh to Him, He draws nigh to us, and consecration to His service becomes our greatest delight. It is a positive truth that perfect consecration to God affords the highest, the fullest, the keenest, and the most profoundly satisfying pleasures that may be experienced anywhere. Indeed, after one has tasted the real joys of the Master's service, the so-called pleasures of this world become not only undesirable, but wholly unendurable. "O taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man that trusteth in Him!" Ps. 34:8. A. O. TAIT. "IS IT PEACE?"
By M. C. Wilcox
TRUE peace is found only in Jesus Christ. Jehovah is "the God of peace." Heb. 13:20. Man is in rebellion against God. "The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." Rom. 8:7. The world is composed of carnal men, and the world is in rebellion against God. Being in rebellion against God, the world is by virtue of that condemned to death; "for if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die." Verse 13. Jesus Christ has, by His own life, purchased for the sinner pardon and peace. He took upon Himself sinful flesh, broke down in the flesh "the middle wall of partition" separating man from God, and so became "our peace." It therefore follows, if man wants peace, that he must find it in complete surrender and obedience to God through Jesus Christ. "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Rom. 5:1. To secure the peace we must surrender on the terms proposed by our gracious God. To maintain that peace man must maintain constant submission to God's righteous will. Then he will have peace, peace that floweth "like a river," peace that "passeth all understanding." "And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance forever." Isa. 32:17. So much for the humble, obedient child of faith. The peace of God is his. The world can not take it away. But of the world—is it peace? The question is not new. Wicked King Joram, led by his wickeder mother, Jezebel, asked the question of the swift on-coming scourge of the house of idolatrous Ahab, "Is it peace, Jehu?" And the answer is applicable now in principle, "What peace, so long as the whoredoms of thy mother Jezebel and her witchcrafts are so many?" How can there be peace when there is rebellion against the God of peace? There can be none. To-day the world is in rebellion against the "God of peace." They will not choose His ways. Neither is this because they are ignorant of them. In time past men did not know God; "and the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent." Acts 17:30. For nearly two millenniums the Gospel of the Man of Calvary, the Prince of Peace, has been heralded to the world. It has changed tigers to lambs, the fierce to the mild, the dishonest to the honest, the licentious and degrading to the pure and elevating. It swept through the great Roman Empire, and idol shrines fell before it. Its heralds, it is true, gave their lives; but their blood fertilized the Gospel seed sown, and it bore rich harvests of righteousness and peace among men, unsupported save by the Spirit from on high and the eternal truth of the Gospel. God demonstrated to the world what the Gospel of Christ would do if it could have free course and were willingly received. He showed that that Gospel was not dependent on human worldly-wise plans, or methods, or legislation, or kingly decrees. It needed them not in its promulgation nor defense nor support. The church in that time had one husband—the Lord Jesus Christ. He alone was the Head of the church and the Head of every man. In an evil day the "mystery of iniquity" wormed its way into the church of Christ through worldly men and half-converted heathen philosophers. They brought the world into the church. The church with a worldly spirit reached out her hands to the State. The State and the Church became united. The union was poison to both. The church became Babylon; committed, in this union, spiritual fornication, and the result was the darkness, the error, the ignorance, the persecution of the Dark Ages. God, in His mercy, sent the Reformation of the sixteenth century, not based upon the sinful men whom Satan connected with that movement, but founded in the Word of God in contradistinction to "fathers," "councils," "creeds," "popes," "bishops," "priests;" supported not by State power, but by the Holy Ghost. And God blessed mightily in the Reformation which started so auspiciously, yet which, in a short time, refused to go forward in the increasing light of an open Bible, let the world into her councils, divided, retrograded, and, like the early church, united with the various civil governments of earth. There the divided Protestant Church stands to-day in the Old World; and in America there is an increasing and ever-growing demand that the State shall enforce ecclesiastical dogmas, notably the Sunday. These governments of earth, in whose boundaries live, praise God, many sincere children of light, call themselves "Christian." But "'tis sad 'tis true," they are Christian only in name. In each and all of these so-called "Christian" powers of earth, despite the high profession, despite an open Bible and a universally-preached Gospel, despite the demonstration of the truth of God's Word in the past history of nations and church, are found oppression of the poor, robbery of the weak, iniquity framed by law, jealousy, deceit, overreaching, political chicanery, rebellion against God. This is emphatically true as regards the fourth precept of God's great moral constitution, the Decalogue. "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. . . . the Seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God," declares the eternal law. And yet under the influence of the "man of sin" the nations of earth have decreed, are decreeing, or are about to decree that the first day is the Sabbath of the Lord, the Lord's day. What is this but insult to the "Most High," who "ruleth in the kingdom of men"? "But would you have the governments of earth enforce the Seventh-day Sabbath?" asks one. Not for one moment. In the first place, they can not do it. Human law can not make men holy, nor can it make men keep holy the holy Sabbath. God's plan is that the civil State should forever attend to its own business of enforcing civility among men, protecting the weak against the wickedly strong or evil; and that the church should look to God for power to uphold His own law by establishing it in the hearts of His people. Here is the condition of the nations of earth. Here is the condition of the great professed Church of Christ, drifting from the Word, drifting with the world, honoring men above the Word, making void the Word by the traditions of men, and following the very course7 of the early church, expecting to escape her doom. "Is it peace?" How can there be peace when there is rebellion in both Church and State against the God of peace, in respect to tradition, to dogma, to statute law, and in practise? They may cry, "Peace, peace," but "there is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked." Isa. 57:21. Like the troubled, restless sea, casting up from its depths mire and dirt, so the great restless, sobbing, troubled sea of human life, not yielding to the voice of its Maker, knows neither rest nor peace, but continually casts up from its depths the sin, the war, the strife, contained therein. Peace in the government of earth can be founded only when God shall take to Himself His great power and reign. THE NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION.
By Emma H. Adams
THE formal opening of the annual convention of this important association occurred at three o'clock P. M., Tuesday, July 11, in Hazard's Pavilion, corner of Fifth and Olive Streets, Los Angeles. The great structure, including its main floor, first and second galleries, and with a seating capacity of 5,000, was packed, literally, as the services began, with educators, native and foreign, and with other persons awake to the interests of our national schools. With the stage, galleries, and roof decorated richly with the national colors, flowers, palm branches, festoons of colored lanterns for evening effect, and bright printed sentiments of welcome to the guests, the thronged interior spoke eloquently of good-will and endeavor for the cause which had brought the people together. Great numbers of eminent instructors on educational subjects, men and women who do the thinking for the cause of education, were in attendance from "our islands," and from all quarters of the continent. Scores of these teachers had come armed with an earnest address, a carefully thought-out essay, or an erudite paper, with which they expected to battle for America's millions of mentally-needy children. Numbers of them had grown aged in their vocation, and yet, to a man, they seemed as eager for achievements in pedagogy as did the recruits of yesterday. Regarded from the standpoint of its many departments, of the great questions considered, and of its certain out-comings in school work during the coming years, the convention just closed will rank as the most important meeting of educators ever held in any land. At no other annual meeting, it has been said, have been considered so many topics vital to the efficiency of the national schools. To the interests of the kindergarten, primary, and secondary schools were given the best thought of the ablest writers present, while high schools, normal schools, and university expansion received due share of helpful criticism and suggestion. The fact that thirteen different departments of work were scheduled by the association, and that from day to day sessions of these departments were conducted by men most eminent in their profession, as well as the wider range of subjects considered, indicates the broad ground covered by the National Educational Association and the scope of its endeavors. To attend the half of these sittings, and listen to the brilliant addresses made, to the remarkable papers and reports read, and to the keen discussions held, was in itself an education not to be scorned. And, on certain occasions, a quick mind might have discerned a peculiar trend of thought and argument on the part of the "more advanced" instructors. One evidence of this tendency appeared in a paper read at one of the general sessions in the pavilion, by Prof. S. T. Skidmore, of the Philadelphia Normal School. His subject was "Evolution and Ethics." During its reading, we noted such statements as follows: There is no such thing as positive evil. The present era is but the dawn of the vast human day. The race is but emerging from its condition of animalism. All that promotes selfhood aids in its development. The teaching profession is the trustee of this development. It should become the expert high commission of the world for framing the moral codes of this evolution. Now if it be true that evil is but the contrast of material realities with ideals of perfection, or of inferior character with superior moral nature, then the way to deal with evil is to stimulate development, to educate the human being out of lower into higher condition. A kindred line of teaching—if the paper and the discussion heard on the subject were not faulty in phraseology—was embraced in the "Culture Epoch Theory in Education," a feature of the Herbartian course of study in pedagogy. Herbart was a gifted German who taught that in child life, as in race life, periods occur which are especially favorable to culture. The child, but a small specimen of mere animalism at his birth, may be developed, if taken in hand at his culture epoch, into a human being of high grade. In brief, man, refined, noble, and highly endowed mentally, is evolved from a child animal. The process of evolution may include any number of years, ten, twenty, or thirty, according to ancestral influence and his own environments. It is doubtful if one in twenty of the attentive teachers who were present on at least two different occasions when abstruse papers were read on the subject, got a clear idea of the Herbartian theory of child training. Indeed, most of them, themselves, must have stood, then, at some point along the road between the child animal and fully-developed humanity. It is making but a fair estimate to say that fully one-half of the time of the convention was devoted to the interests of the child. In short, "the child" was the subject which drew the great convention together, for now-a-days students are children until they enter the university, high schools and normal schools being classed in the secondary grade. As a subject for investigation and study, the child was thoroughly picked to pieces before he emerged from all the departments. There was left of him bones only, and these scarcely articulated. To the child's brains, his memory, his imagination, his perceptive faculty, his moral nature—for not all the learned members of the corporation start the human being in animal-hood—his nerves, his eyes, his hands, his feet, were devoted much serious thought and talk; to the grand end, in some instances, that God may be glorified, and in others, that this "magnificent branch" of the imperial Anglo-Saxon race receive further uplifting. In some of the general sessions strong and fervid pleas were made for wide-spread and careful religious training of the children of the country. Prominent among the advocates of such education should be mentioned Right Rev. Bishop Montgomery, of the Catholic diocese. On this subject the bishop read a twenty minutes' paper, in which he was careful to say that it is not the province of the State to teach religion, therefore the State is right in ruling such instruction out of the schools it supports. Also he was careful to affirm that in the United States there should exist no union of Church and State. But for the right of the family and of the church to train the child religiously his voice must ever be raised, as well as for the right of every child to such tuition. Some auditors who followed the bishop closely, believed they discerned in his shrewdly-framed sentences a direct blow aimed at the public schools. An eminent teacher seated near the writer was heard to say, when the reader ceased, "That man would close every State school from Maine to California." An impressive paper entitled, "Quo Vadimus," was read by Mrs. Helen Grenfell, Superintendent of Public Instruction, Colorado. Mrs. Grenfell maintained that the authority of the parent over the child is superior to that of the teacher; that the right of the home over the child is greater than that of the school, and the parents and teachers should labor together for the child's development. Her paper was full of strength, and received marked approval from the parents present. No speaker of the convention made a happier impression upon the great audiences than did the President of the National Educational Association, Prof. E. Oram Lyte, Principal of the First State Normal School of Pennsylvania. His fine enunciation, majestic manner, and eloquent sentences, called forth great applause during the reading of his opening address. Expressing his approval of the expansion policy of President McKinley, he said: "I so thoroughly believe in the institutions of our country, in the dignifying influences which follow our flag, that I rejoice to watch the onward progress of our ever-conquering Republic, the triumphant march of the Anglo-Saxon race. Destiny points the way across the waters, as unerringly as it pointed the way for Columbus to our shores." In the same vein, but with argument still more striking, in favor of colonial separation, was the address of Dr. W. T. Harris, United States Commissioner of Education. Among many others, Dr. Harris made this point: "Africa has been divided up among the nations of Europe. It is but a question of months when China will be partitioned among the great forces. Is it not our duty to have our hands in the work of division, to show that we can hold inferior races for their benefit?" Thus, for the first time, perhaps, did political influence creep into the National Educational Association. A question of exceeding interest to advanced students has been that of a great national university at Washington. Dr. Jordan, of Stanford University, appeared as its strong advocate. President Jordan had in mind an institution which should make available to men and women studying in definite lines, the many splendid facilities for such study already existing in the city of Washington in connection with the great national institutions. Wholly opposed to this movement were the views of Dr. N. M. Butler, of Columbia College, New York City. In his opinion, and he had given the subject no little study, our true universities in this country afford all the facilities needed by men or women taking post-graduate studies. Dr. Butler had been detained at the kindergarten department, and did not hear President Jordan's presentation of the case. A recapitulation of its points brought the two earnest friends of liberal education quite to agreement. The discussion of the subject was intensely interesting. "AN INFANT OF DAYS."
By F. D. Starr
"What is your life? It is even a vapor." "My days as an handbreadth; and mine age as nothing before Thee." Perhaps there is nothing that more forcibly impresses the mind with the frailty of human existence than the helplessness of the tender, new-born infant. Its life is anxiously watched, and measured by hours. After a little we begin to count its age by days, then by weeks and months. If its life is spared, its existence is afterward measured by years, but these, numbering at most but a few score, are, in the pathetic language of Holy Writ, aptly enumerated as so many days. "Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage." "I will add unto thy days fifteen years." To this brief mortal existence God has promised to add unto us, if we are faithful, the years of an endless life, where there shall no more be "an infant of days," "while the years of eternity roll." Contemplations of this kind may have influenced the life of Enoch, of whom it is said: "And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years." The influence of his experience as a parent was to cause him to reach a higher experience, to realize more fully his own position, as a son of God. Here the ill-timed blasts of accident, misfortune and disease hold the life of the tender infant, as it were in constant suspense and uncertainty, but there the immortal elect shall dwell in everlasting security, for as the days of the tree of life shall be their days. The Tender Fear of Wrong
By Bayard Taylor
Higher than the perfect song
For which love longeth,
Is the tender fear of wrong,
That never wrongeth.
—Bayard Taylor. Echoes from the Peace Conference.
By Editor
One of the great war correspondents of the time, Mr. Edward Marshall, represents the San Francisco Call at The Hague Peace Conference. The conference seems to be more a shrewd game of diplomacy than a real desire for disarmament or peace. For instance, Mr. Marshall tells us that an American delegate nipped in the bud a scheme of the other powers to take the control of the Nicaraguan Canal from America. Here is Germany's attitude:— "The appointment by Emperor William of Stengel, an avowed and recorded advocate of war, was much more seriously regarded by the delegates of other countries than they permitted the journalists to know. . . . The plans of no delegation were more frequently interfered with by Germany than those of the able gentlemen who represented the United States." And thus much for Russia's sincerity:— "Russia's attitude was, of course, intensely interesting. It is not likely that any of the delegates believed entirely in the absolute sincerity of the great White Czar. It may be readily believed that his letter to the nations inviting the Peace Conference was induced much more by a desire to hide Russian grabs in China and outrageous Russian oppression in Finland; to counteract the effect of Tolstoi's campaign in behalf of the Russian Quakers and against compulsory military service, and to generally hoodwink the world's diplomats and politicians, than to bring about the disbandment of armies and the cessation of war." And this is how the Peace Conference of the world affected the public of The Hague:— "The coming of the delegates from all parts of the earth on their tremendous mission attracted no attention whatever from the lay citizens of this picturesque, military-ridden, gin-besotten, beautiful old town. During all my stay here I have seen practically no manifestation of any interest in the presence of the delegates." We wish with all our hearts it could be peace, world-wide; but why deceive ourselves? This unregenerate world is a world of war. INVESTIGATING SPIRITUALISM.
UPON the investigation of Spiritualism by Professors Hyslop, James, and Hodgson, the Independent has this to say:— "After rejecting many mediums, this Mrs. Piper has been found trustworthy under all tests; and the conditions have grown more and more favorable. We are not particularly impressed by the succession of spirits that 'control' the medium, from 'Phinuit' to 'Director,' and yet it is not quite incredible that some spirits should be more trustworthy than others, or have better powers of control. At any rate, Professor Hyslop believes that he has received such evidences of genuine communications, through these controlling spirits, from his own relatives long dead, that he does not hesitate to confess himself a believer. He is now devoting the summer vacation to a visit to the region where these friends have lived, so as to test the truth of what he has heard through the medium. It should be said that Professors Hodgson and Hyslop have so controlled Mrs. Piper's conditions and so watched her by detectives that they regard it as quite impossible that she should have learned the facts which she has stated in answer to questions. At present the main difference between those who are engaged in these researches is as to whether there is real intercourse with disembodied spirits, or whether there is some sort of thought-transference. With every prepossession in favor of belief in a spiritual existence after death, and yet against all likelihood of communication between the living and the dead, we pronounce the investigation not only legitimate but necessary. And we do not see why it is not as proper for a university to appropriate funds for this investigation as for other psychological laboratory work. We understand that the Society for Psychical Research has found its greatest difficulty to be the financial one." This shows the prominence which Spiritualism has attained. It is no longer despised, but respected. It is well to investigate, but let God's Word be the standard. Isa. 8:20. AMONG the large number of deliberate thefts that are being committed in New York, the World tells of the following:— "A gang of thieves made their way into the hat and cap store of Hein & Fox, No. 127 Bleecker Street, and spent the whole of the Fourth of July leisurely packing up $10,000 worth of goods. That night they carted them all away, while the policeman was on post. The thieves got away. There were no arrests. Captain —— strolled near the store while the robbery was in progress, and was warned by a watchman, but pooh-poohed and passed on." Politics are run upon the plan that "to the victors belong the spoils." And of course there are not enough offices to pass around to all, hence some are promised protection in crime in order that they may have the "spoils" of theft and murder. It has been positively proved again and again that there exists a wide-spread protection of crime in New York City, Philadelphia, Chicago, and elsewhere. Corrupt politicians, in order to get the criminal vote, appoint policemen who not only wink at thievery, but who actually divide the stolen goods between them and the thieves. What should be said of the moral apathy of a time when such things can not be stamped out, no matter how much they may be exposed? Can it be that we are at the dawning of the much-talked-of millennium, when all the world is to be good? If you will take the pains to search the Bible, you will find that God says that "evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived." 2 Tim. 3:13. God has told the truth, and all that some men may say to the contrary can not overthrow the facts. And since "evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse," in the very nature of things there must come a time when the world will be so corrupt that God will be under the necessity of destroying it. You know the frightful evils that exist all about you. Does not the question irresistibly force itself upon your mind, How long can a just and holy God endure these scenes? How long before Divine Justice must strike the fatal blow that will destroy all this wickedness, together with all those who cling to their evil ways? T. ROMAN CATHOLICS IN AMERICA.
THE annual meeting of the Catholic Union of Great Britain was held in London, June 27. Archbishop Ireland, of St. Paul, was present, representing American Catholics. There were strong expressions of approval of friendship and union between the two great English-speaking nations on the part of both Cardinal Vaughan (represented by letter) and Archbishop Ireland. Speaking of the Catholic Church in America, the archbishop said:— "Thank Providence, the position of the church in the United States to-day is most encouraging. We have received accessions from every country in the world. Ireland, Germany, all have sent us their millions. But, with all these various nationalities, we do not present a disunited, a divided Catholicism. America has the gift of assimilating all the different peoples that come to her, and so making out of them a great race for the future. To-day I believe we number thirteen to fifteen millions, exclusive of our new brethren from the West Indies. What is most remarkable for the last ten or fifteen years in the church of America, is the way Catholics are making their influence felt in all civil and social affairs. Necessarily in the past we suffered from great disadvantages; and the prejudice did arise to some extent that Catholics were not properly Americans. But we went to work and showed ourselves so American, that now all say that the best Americans, in peace and in war, are Catholics. I render this tribute to my non-Catholic American fellow-citizens—that they are fair-minded and honorable in their dealings; and this prejudice of the past has almost totally disappeared, certainly has totally disappeared, in public life. Catholics are well represented throughout all our public life to-day." RECENTLY the St. Louis daily papers had an advertisement running as follows:— "Wanted—a few well-dressed young men as subjects for demonstration of hypnotism." It is to be sincerely hoped that none will be foolish enough to answer such advertisements. It must be perfectly clear to any well-balanced mind that the hypnotic power can not be exercised over any one without the aid of the evil spirits. The hypnotized person must first abandon his will entirely, and he who consents to such a thing makes a weakness in his mental machinery that is not likely to ever be repaired. None but Satan could be the author of such a thing. Some great claims are made for hypnotism, but this is only a device of the evil one, by which he hopes to get men under this delusion so that he may the more easily lead them still farther into the dark. Signs of the Coming Day
By T.
Iowa has had some nineteen cyclones and electric storms of greater or less severity during the present summer. New York has had some remarkable electric storms. There have been death-dealing storms in Wisconsin, Kansas, Texas and elsewhere. Numerous earthquakes have abounded, and the daily reports tell of various disturbances in nature in all parts of the world. The Word of the Lord says: "I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the Lord come." Joel 2:30, 31. Thus do we see that God clearly foretells that before the "great and the terrible day of the Lord" there will be most remarkable disturbances in nature. There will be "wonders in the heavens and in the earth." We have reached the beginnings of these things, and you should understand fully what they mean. "The great and the terrible day of the Lord" is right at hand. But it has no terrors to the one who truly knows the Lord. That great day has terrors for those only who persistently cling to their life of sin—to the deceptions of sinful pleasures. T. Prosperity Amid Poverty
By T.
The reports that the government has given out in regard to the business of this country during the fiscal year that closed June 30, show that the United States exported $530,366,037 worth of goods more than she imported. This fact is taken up by the papers, and a great deal is being made of it as showing great prosperity here. But suppose the balance of trade during the past year has been in this country's favor to the extent of more than half a billion dollars. That does not destroy the fact that the great mass of the people are but little better off in consequence of it. To show that a certain volume of business has passed through the banks, and that the monopolies have exported large quantities of produce and manufactured articles, does not help the actual situation with the farmer, the mechanic, and the general laborer. For, notwithstanding these figures, there is, all over the land, an increasing amount of want and distress occasioned by poverty. There is indeed prosperity for the large combine, but the so-called middle and lower classes are being rapidly driven to the wall. Our eyes should not be turned away from facts by an ingenious presentation of figures. T. A World-Wide Clash
By Alonzo T. Jones
The St. Louis Globe-Democrat says: "The general tendency all over the world is to combinations of all sorts. There are combinations of capital and combinations of labor. All kinds of interests are coalescing and consolidating. This is a world-wide tendency." And this "world-wide tendency" most clearly forebodes a world-wide clash that is sure to come, and that at no distant day. For every one of these combinations has organized for the purpose of fighting for some selfish interest. Greed and self-interest was never more manifest than it is to-day. And the fact that men everywhere, who have self-interests in common to serve, are forming into groups and combines to reach their ends by whatever means they can best employ, is one among the many strong manifestations of this all-prevailing spirit of covetousness. And while these combinations are being formed the cry of discontent is becoming more and more clamorous and strong. The crisis must soon be reached, and then it will be a war of organization against organization, and combine against combine. It will be neighbor against neighbor, man against man. And since the hostile combinations are world-wide, the strife must be world-wide also. These are the literal facts in regard to the world to-day, and we might as well look them squarely in the face and prepare for the issue. T.