Earlier text: The Special Work of the Spirit Attends Every Special Work of God(Condensed from Review and Herald.)
Holland.—Brethren Owen and Kellogg have been holding meetings in this place since May 17, have given eight discourses. They have now reached the Sabbath question. The interest is good. Three have already decided to obey; and others are hoped for, as they have opportunity to hear further. Canandaigua.—Brethren Collins and Butcher had labored in this place about four weeks at the time of their report. They write: "We praise the Lord for some signs of success. Many are convinced and are still investigating. Six have said they would keep the Sabbath, and we expect as many more to join them by another week. We have appointed a Sabbath meeting; quite a number have said they would attend." Bentonsport.—May 30, Elder L. McCoy reports twenty-four as having signed the covenant at this place, and others as being much interested. The Methodist minister has begun to review him. Davis City.—Elder G. I. Butler and C. A. Washburn commenced meetings near this city May 10, and continued them till May 20. Eight were baptized and a church of twenty members organized. These were mostly heads of families. Ten or twelve others are keeping the Sabbath, besides many others who are convinced. About $100 per year systematic benevolence, was pledged. Granite Falls.—A church has been organized at this place, two were baptized, and six signed the covenant to keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. Friendship and Wolf Lake.—Elder S. H. Lane met with the people at Friendship May 19, and 20. Three were baptized, and a church of seven members organized. Systematic benevolence was pledged to the amount of $50 per year. May 25, 26, he was at Wolf Lake where he completed the organization of a church of seventeen members. Terrill.—Of the progress of the work in this place Brethren Kilgore and Caldwell report: "Seven discourses have been given against us by the Baptist minister. We missed three meetings in order to let our audience hear the other side, leaving an appointment for Sunday P. M., at which time our large congregation voted for us to go on with our meeting, stating that they had heard enough of the other side. We gave two discourses in review of his assertions on the Sabbath question. Our friends are all stronger than before. We lost none, but gained some. To God be all the praise. We are not able to tell how many are keeping the Sabbath. Our Sabbath-meetings are excellent. The truth is settling deeper into the hearts of many. We learn of new ones every day. We are laboring incessantly, visiting from house to house; and we see no stopping place yet. We are gathering names from different parts of the State, and sending out our periodicals. Times are hard, and there is but little money afloat. Have sold but few books; but the people are reading their Bibles, and listen attentively to the word spoken." Weeping Water.—Elder Boyd writes: "In company with Brother Hackworth, I went to Weeping Water May 23, and commenced meetings in the evening. We found this company, not only firm, but growing in grace. A church of eighteen members was organized. Ten were baptized. Systematic benevolence was cheerfully pledged to the amonut of $122. All were glad to here meet a company from the Nebraska City church. Meetings closed with the celebration of the Lord's supper, of which quite a number partook for the first time. In the gathering out of this company the hand of God is very manifest. While passing through the country, Brother Jas. Clark heard of a believer in the advent faith. He sought and found a wandering brother. He influenced him to attend the camp-meeting which was soon to be held at Fremont. He here renewed his covenant with God, and went home to sow seeds of truth by scattering tracts and living a Christian life." THE HOME CIRCLE.
By Mrs. J. D. C.
“My House” and “Our House.”
These houses are opposite each other in a beautiful suburban town. “My house” is large and handsome, with a cupola, and has a rich lawn before it. It is surrounded by a broad piazza, and graced and shaded by ancestral elms and huge button-wood trees. Its barns and stables are large and well-filled; its orchards are gorgeous with fruit in the season, and the fields around it seem alive with golden grain that waves in the wind. Everything about the place tells of long continued prosperity. The rich old squire who lives there rides about with fine horses, and talks a great deal to his neighbors about “my house, my orchards, and my horses.” His wife is evidently the lady of the region. She was a model housekeeper and dairywoman in the days when they worked the farm, and is now an oracle on many questions. She, too, talks of “my house, my horses, and my estate.” These persons each brought property to the other, and the two interests had, unfortunately, never flowed together and formed one estate as they should have done; so there were always two separate interests in the house. Of course the property belonged, legally, to both; but as each had a snug little fund laid away, the question was always to be settled, if repairs were to be made, or horses or furniture bought, who should pay for it. It seemed but proper to the husband that carpets, and sofas, etc., should be bought by his wife; also the cows, as the lady was at the head of the house. But she said, “You walk on the carpets, sit on the sofas, and eat the cream and butter just as much as I do, and I see no reason why you should not, at least, help to pay for them.” Such discussions often occurred, but, on the whole, each upholds the interest of the other against outsiders, and gets along without open rupture. They ride about in better dress than their neighbors, they receive and return visits, and are called the leading family in town. But “my house,” as some have named the great square mansions, is nobody’s house but its owners’. No guest who could not return hospitality in equal style is asked to tarry for a night there. All ministers sojourning in the place are directed by them to the humble parsonage for entertainment. Every weary, homeless wanderer is pointed to the distant almshouse; and a neighbor’s horse or cow which has strayed from its own enclosure, is at once put into pound by the squire’s man. If an appeal is made for any benevolent object the squire says, “Go to my house and ask my wife to give you something.” She, in turn, points the applicant to the field or the orchard, and says, “Go down there and ask my husband to give you something.” So one puts it on the other, and nothing is given; and neither the town nor the world is the better for their living. This is the way things are done at “my house.” Across the street, under the shadow of two wide-spreading elms, stands a very modest cottage nestled in vines and flowers, with curtains drawn up to let in the light of God’s blessed sun, and an ever-open door with a great chair in full view, holding out its time-worn arms, as if to invite and welcome in the weary passer-by. The birds are always remembered here in their times of scarcity, and so in token of their gratitude, they gather in the trees and carol out sweet and merry songs by way of paying their bills. God’s peace, as well as his plenty, rests on this place, and while its owners call it, in their hearts, “God’s house,” they speak of it to others, always as “our house.” Twenty-five years ago a sturdy, brave hearted young mechanic bought this one acre of land, and with his own hands dug and walled a cellar, at times when he had no work to do for others. When he had earned an additional hundred or two dollars he bought lumber and began to build a house. People asked him what he was going to do with it, and he replied that if he should live to finish it, he was going to live in it. Well, in two years the house was finished, to the last nail and hook. Then he went away, as it was thought, for a wife. In a week he returned, bringing with him some neat household furniture, and three persons instead of only one. He did bring a wife—a bright-eyed, merry-hearted young girl—and also two aged women “our mothers,” as he called them. The first night in the house they dedicated their humble home—“our house” to God, and in the name of the Lord they set up their banner, praying that ever after this his banner over them might be love. Many a family moves into a new home and asks God to come in and prosper them, and take up his abode there; but they do nothing to draw him thither. They begin for self, and go on for self; and sometimes God leaves them to themselves. But the young owners of “our house”—the children of “our mothers”—made their little home His home and the home of His poor and feeble ones. “Our mothers” now laid down the weapons of toil over which they had grown gray; and came out of the vale of honest poverty into the sunshine of plenty. Their hearts grew warm in this gift of double love. They renewed their youth. In their first days at their children’s home, one of “our mothers” spoke of “Henry’s new house,” when he checked her saying, “Never call this my house again. I built it for God and for all of you, and I want it always called ‘our house.’ There is yet one thing I want done here before I shall feel that I have made my thank-offering to God for the health and strength and the work which have enabled me to build and pay for this house. I promised then that no stranger or wanderer should ever go hungry or weary from this door. You have made sure of a neat and sunny room for our friends. Now I want a bed, a chair, and a table put in the shed-chamber for such strangers as we cannot ask into the house. I want also to fill the little store-closet under the back stair-way with provisions to give the needy. They will then not be our own; and if at any time we should be short of money, we will not be tempted to say, ‘I have nothing to give.’ I want to live for more than self, and I know you all share the feeling. I want to feel that God is here, and to live as if we saw him and were all under his actual guidance and care, and that he sees and approves our way in life.” Thus was “our house” opened, and thus was it kept—a home sanctified to humanity and to God. The years rolled away not without changes, but peace and plenty still reign in the modest home whose owners are looked up to by all the towns people—rich as well as poor—as friends and benefactors; for all men alike need human sympathy and comfort. The young carpenter of twenty-five years ago, is now a prosperous builder in the great city near his home. He could afford to erect and occupy a house worth four times what the cottage cost. But he loves the place and cannot tear himself from it. He has added more than one L to it, and he has refurnished it, and brought into it many articles of taste and luxury. When asked why he does not build a house more in accordance with his means, he replies:— “No house could be built which would be like ‘our house.’ I can never forget the night we and our mothers dedicated it to God in prayer and simple trust; and ever since that night I have felt as if we were dwelling in the secret of his tabernacle, under the shadow of the Almighty. We might have a larger and more fashionable house, but it would bring a weight of care on its mistress, and steal the time she has made sacred to others. No other house could have the memories this one has; no other house be hallowed as this has been by the prayers of the holy and the blessings of the poor.” And so the family still live on and are happy in “our house.” Still the pastor’s weary wife is relieved of church company, for, from force of habit, all ministers and others on errands of good, draw up their horses before the well-filled stable, and ring, for themselves, at this open door. Still the poor are fed from that store closet under the back stair-way; still the wanderer—though he be a wanderer in a double sense—rests his weary head in that shed-chamber. The squire wonders at the builder, because he lives in such a modest way compared with his means, and says, “If I were he, I’d be ashamed of that cottage which was all well enough when he was a young journeyman.” The builder wonders what the squire does with all that great house, and why, when half a dozen rooms are empty there, he doesn’t allow himself the pleasure of company, and of sheltering strangers and getting the blessing they bring. The squire’s wife peeps through her fine curtains, and says, “I wonder that pretty and intelligent woman hasn’t more taste. She might live like a lady if she pleased, and dress as I do; but she pokes on just as she began, and dresses no better than the minister’s wife, and has a rabble of poor, forlorn creatures whom I wouldn’t let into my house, nor into my wood-shed, running after her for food and clothing, and nobody knows what.” So, you see, “my house” is literally “my house,” and “our house” is God’s house.—Mrs. J. D. C. Uncle Simon's Queer Reply.
WHAT a funny old man Uncle Simon was! I remember asking him, one day, as I pointed to a house lately built and occupied by a stranger, whether its owner was rich. "Well, that is as you look at it," was his answer. "As I look at it! How absurd!" I said to myself; "as if my looking at it would make the man rich or poor!" On another occasion, I inquired, "Uncle Simon, do you think we are going to have a pleasant day?" We children were going to have a picnic, across the lake, on a lovely little island, and, of course, we were anxious for fine weather. "Well, that'll be as you look at it," was the reply, with a twinkle in his gray eye. "The same old answer!" I said to myself. How very foolish I was to ask him! I might have known I should get no satisfaction." That was about all I thought of the matter at that time; but I have since learned the meaning of Uncle Simon's words. Mr. Smith, about whose wealth I had been curious, I afterward learned, was the owner of a large tract of valuable land, a whole block of fine houses in the city, and had plenty of bank and railroad stocks. Almost anybody but Uncle Simon would have promptly answered "yes," when I asked if he was rich. But, as I also afterward discovered, he had a sullen, morose disposition, and was so selfish that he kept all of his money for himself and his children. He was never known to give anything in charity, even when urged to do so. Instead of enjoying, by a proper use, the wealth God had given him, he hoarded it, and made himself miserable by coveting still more. If he made fifty thousand dollars in one year, he grumbled because it was not one hundred thousand. If he had made the desired hundred thousand, he would still have sighed because it was not a million. When any pleasant event occurred, he could not enjoy it because something else, which he would have preferred, had not happened instead. With the ideas of wealth I then had, if I had known of Mr. Smith's possessions, I should have thought him a rich man; but as I now view the matter, he was a very poor man. Uncle Simon's reply to my question about the weather, meant that even if it rained, and we were disappointed in our picnic, the day might be pleasant, provided we viewed the disappointment in the right way, and tried to enjoy whatever kind of sky God sent; and that it might be very unpleasant, even if the sun shone, and we had our party, if we did not enjoy and improve it in the right manner. And Uncle Simon was right! Things are as we look at them—dark or bright—and men are rich, not according to the lands and stocks they possess, nor poor according to their privations and penury, but in proportion as they receive either with grateful, submissive, and obedient hearts, the wealth or poverty which God in his wisdom and love. apportions to each. A poet expressed this truth when he wrote, "The source of outward good lies deep within." There are poor rich men like Mr. Smith, and there are rich poor ones, who lack what the world calls wealth, but "Who, having nothing, yet have all;" for they possess the incorruptible wealth of religion. As the Bible expresses it, they "are rich toward God." Uncle Simon's reply was not so very queer, after all. "I SHALL never become like him," a young man said to me as he pointed to a poor reeling drunkard across the street. I had been trying to warn him of the danger of touching alcohol in any form, for alas! he sometimes drank cider, beer, and wine. "I shall never become like him," he reiterated again, earnestly. "Do not be too sure, Charlie," I answered, "for you have taken the first few steps in the path that poor L. is now traveling. Unless you now stop at once, you will become the same wretched thing that he is—a drunkard." "No, you are mistaken," the young man said, "for whenever I discover danger ahead I will stop; I know that I can." "You will never discover it till it is too late to turn about, Charlie. Poor L. yonder, was lost before he knew it," I answered. "Do not borrow trouble about me," he replied with a laugh, as he turned away. Five years have elapsed since the above conversation took place between Charlie S. and myself, and to-night he sleeps in a drunkard's183 grave. Poor Charlie did not see the danger until it was too late, and so he went to ruin. He did not possess the moral courage that he was sure he could call into command at any moment, and his frail constitution gave way in a little while, and Charlie was lost in darkness. "I was mistaken," were the last words he ever said to me, "for I have become just such a wretch like poor L." Boys, look at the poor, bloated wrecks of humanity all about you, and be saved while it is possible. You will become just such a poor object of pity, unless you leave the paths of intemperance. Leave it now, for if you wait until to-morrow, you may be bound in chains that can never be broken. — Cross and Crown. THERE are two ways to live on earth;
Two ways to judge, to act, to view;
For all things here have double birth,
A right and wrong—a false and true! Give me the home that kindness seeks
To make that sweet which seemed small;
Where every lip in fondness speaks,
And every mind has care for all; Whose inmates live in glad exchange
Of pleasures, free from vain expense;
Whose thoughts beyond their means ne'er range,
Nor wise denials give offense; Who in a neighbor's fortune find,
No wish, no impulse, to complain;
Who feels not—never felt—the mind
To envy another's gain; Who dreams not of the mocking tide
Ambition's foiled endeavor meets
The bitter pangs of wounded pride,
Nor fallen power that shuns the streets. Though fate deny its glittering store,
Love's wealth is still the wealth to choose;
For all that man can purchase more
Are sands, it is no loss to lose. Some beings, whereso'er they go,
Find naught to please or to exalt,
Their constant study but to show
Perpetual modes of finding fault; While others in their ceaseless round
Of daily want and daily care,
Can yet cull flowers from common ground,
And twice the joy and pleasure share! Oh! happy they who happy make,
Who, blessing, still themselves are blest!
Who sometimes spare for others' sake,
And strive in all things for the best! MAN NATURALLY FRUGIVOROUS.
If we now look, as we should have done at first, at the class of animals next below man in the scale of being, considered from an anatomical standpoint, at least, we see at once a most striking similarity. And, indeed, this is just what we should naturally expect. The teeth of the orang-outang are precisely the same in number and order of arrangement as those of man, the principal, and almost the sole, difference being that the cuspids are somewhat longer, and more powerful, and pointed. The front and back teeth are entirely similar, as are also the articulation and motion of the jaws. The alimentary canal is a trifle shorter, however, and the cuspids are separated a little from the other teeth; which facts, together with that previously mentioned in regard to the cuspids, would place this class of animals rather nearer the carnivora, but, at the same time, plainly place man at a still greater distance from the latter class. It is a well-known fact, moreover, that in a wild state the orang-outang lives exclusively upon fruits, nuts, and esculent roots, at least when not urged by hunger to do otherwise; they are consequently frugivorous. This being the case, and the intimate dietetic relation of the human species with this class having been established, we seem to be shut up to the conclusion that man is also a frugivorous animal. Since, then, all the productions used as food by frugivorous animals belong to the vegetable kingdom, are we not compelled to acknowledge that man's diet should also be derived from the same source? TESTIMONY OF EMINENT MEN.
While it is true that some eminent men contend that man is carnivorous in his dietetic character, it is also true that many of our ablest anatomists and physiologists, who have bestowed both time and attention upon the investigation of this important subject, when expressing their candid convictions in regard to the matter, unhesitatingly pronounce man to be purely frugivorous as regards his dietetic character, when viewed from the standpoint of anatomy. We will give the testimony of some of the most eminent of these authors. Sir Everard Home says: "While mankind remained in a state of innocence there is every reason to believe that their only food was the produce of the vegetable kingdom." Said the great naturalist, Linnæus, in speaking of the dietetic character of man, "His organization, when compared with that of other animals, shows that fruits and esculent vegetables constitute his most suitable food." Speaking of fruit, the same author said, "This species of food is that which is most suitable to man; which is evinced by the series of quadrupeds, analogy, wild men, apes the structure of the mouth, of the stomach, and of the hands." Gassendi, who lived in the seventeenth century, and of whom Gibbon says that he was the most learned of the philosophers, and the most philosophic of the learned men of that age, after a thorough investigation of the comparative anatomy of the teeth, came to the following conclusion:— "Wherefore, I repeat, that from the primeval and spotless institution of our nature, the teeth were destined to the mastication, not of flesh, but of fruits." "As to what relates to flesh, it is indeed true that man may be sustained on meat; but how many things does man do which are contrary to his nature! Such is the perversion of manners, now, by a general contagion enameled into him, that he seems to have become a new creature. Hence the doctrines of morality and philosophy are directed to no other object than to recall mankind to the paths of nature which they have abandoned." Baron Cuvier, one of the very highest authorities on comparative anatomy, says, "The natural food of man, then, judging from his structure, appears to consist of fruits, roots, and esculent parts of vegetables." Prof. Lawrence, of England, fully agrees with Baron Cuvier, and remarks that the opinion held by some that man holds a middle ground between carnivorous and herbivorous animals appears to have been derived from experience rather than from comparative anatomy. Mr. Thomas Bell, who occupied the position of lecturer on anatomy and diseases of the teeth at Guy's Hospital, in a work upon the subject, says, "The opinion which I venture to give has not been hastily formed, nor without what appeared to me sufficient grounds. It is not, I think, going too far to say that every fact connected with human organization goes to prove that man was formed a frugivorous animal." Many other names of equal celebrity might be cited; but these are sufficient to convince that class of persons who judge of the truth of any theory more by the great names appended than by the real strength of argument that evidence of this character is not wanting in support of the positions taken. We have now examined some of the anatomical evidences upon this subject, and we think the candid reader who has carefully weighed them will not be unwilling to acknowledge that the unequivocal testimony of anatomy is in favor of a vegetable diet for man, at least in his primitive state. We have seen how little weight and real force there are in the arguments based upon the so-called canine teeth of man, and upon the comparative length of his alimentary canal. Indeed, it must be evident that those arguments were never framed from a careful consideration of the evidences of comparative anatomy, but were seized upon as a sort of apology for the practice of meat eating so prevalent in this country and England at the present time. Many more evidences might be drawn from comparative anatomy, but we forbear, feeling confident that the arguments already elucidated are sufficient to fully establish that man is in no sense a carnivorous or omnivorous animal, but that he rightly belongs to the frugivorous class, and consequently should derive his food exclusively from the vegetable kingdom. RELIGIOUS NEWS AND NOTES.
—At Kioto, Japan, there are eighty-seven students training for the Protestant ministry. —The Episcopalians have erected 37 chapels for the freedmen, and have 57 clergymen and teachers laboring among them. —More than 16,000 natives in the east of Tinnevelly, India, have within seven months placed themselves under the instruction of the Episcopal missionaries for baptism. —There has been an increase of 470 Roman Catholic priests in England and Scotland since 1867, and convents, monasteries and religious orders have multiplied rapidly. —The Philadelphia Annual Conference of the African Methodist Episcopal church, at its session on the 13th of May adopted a resolution strongly condemning the contemplated exodus of the colored people to Africa. —Mrs. Cowgill, an American Friend, visiting the meetings of the Society of Friends in England, sang a Moody and Sankey hymn in a Quaker meeting-house in London. It was the first time singing had been heard there in two hundred years. —The general synod of the German Reformed church of the United States which began its triennial session at Lancaster, Penn., on the 15th of May, comprises 6 district synods, 680 ministers, 1,368 churches, and 146,901 members. —The Governor of New South Wales, Australia, recently, by proclamation, called on the ministers of religion and all other of her majesty's subjects in that colony to observe a day of special thanksgiving to Almighty God for his great mercy in delivering the colony from the suffering and loss attending a long continued drought. —An exchange says: "The Rev. Charles Tamerlane Astley, Vicar of Gillingham, England, whose living is worth $3,400 per annum, besides a free house and fifteen acres of glebe land, has just resigned his incumbency and intimated his intention to withdraw from communion with the church of England because he considers some of its doctrines and practices are drawing many under the influence of Romanism. In his farewell sermon, Mr. Astley specially mentioned the doctrines of baptismal regeneration and priestly absolution as those which he could not seem to tolerate any longer. All honor to every man, whatever may be his opinions, who considers his conscientious convictions first and his worldly prospects afterwards." —Dr. Prime writes for the New York Observer the following on Bible selling in Rome: "When I was in Rome, nearly twenty-five years ago, it was not possible to find a Bible in a bookstore, and its circulation in the Papal States was prohibited. Now it is as freely sold, distributed, and read as in any other country. In my room at the hotel Quirinal, and in each room of this the largest hotel in the city, is a copy of the Bible in the English language—a large, octavo, gilt-edged and handsomely bound Oxford Bible! Such a copy in New York would cost $2.50 or more. An agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society resides in Rome and attends to the distribution of the Scriptures in hotels, institutions, and wherever it will be received. Colporteurs are employed to go about the country and the cities. One of them will be fitted out with a horse and cart, the cart being so constructed as to be converted by night into a bedchamber for the colporteur to sleep in. He goes into a city, gets a license to sell his books in the marketplace, draws a crowd about him, reads the gospel and sells the truth, or gives it away if he thinks it wisest to do so." —New York brewers are sending beer to Germany. —Of the 2,500 doctors in Philadelphia, 500 are homœopathists. —A Kentucky farmer recently lost three cows which ate some tobacco leaves with their hay. —The citizens of Chicago are arming against apprehended disturbances from the Communists. --Texas made 46,000 more bales of cotton, the past year, than any other State in the Union. —According to the Yuma Sentinel, the condition of Indians on the Colorado reservation is truly deplorable. —Clarksville, Texas, suffered a loss of $150,000 by fire May 22. Nineteen business houses were destroyed. —In 1850, the length of the railway lines all over the earth was only 19,000 miles; in 1875, it had increased to 200,000. —Canada shipped to the United States in 1876, 1,619,206 pounds of butter, and 1,026,995 pounds of cheese. —The pleasure steamer Empress of India, with a party of eighteen persons on board, capsized over a dam on Grand river, at Galt, Ontario, May 29, and all were drowned. —There are upwards of sixty public offices in Great Britain which enjoys free postage, and their correspondence would, if paid for, cost more than $500,000 a year, and the weight of it exceeds 450 tons. —The Shah of Persia has reduced the taxes of his subjects by one-half for the next fourteen years. This is owing to the large amount of gold taken from his recently discovered mines of Ahmedabad, near Tahiji, and to the prospect of further large receipts. —Constantinople among all its other troubles has been visited with a fire within the precincts of the Sublime Porte, which destroyed the greater portion of the official buildings, including the Ministries of Justice and of the Council of State. The archives were saved. —Stewart's hotel for women, which was opened not long since in New York, is said to have proved so much a failure that it is to be transformed into a general hotel, the number of boarders having dwindled down from 60 to 15, while the expenses are $700 daily. —The largest plow ever manufactured has just been turned out of a factory at Stockton, California. The mold-board is eight feet long, and the furrow which is cut is thirty-five inches wide. It is designed for work upon the tule lands, and requires twelve oxen to pull it. —An exchange says: Advices from Berlin indicate anxiety caused by the discovery of the hold which socialistic opinions have obtained upon the peers. It is said that the whole professional and educational sections of society are honeycombed with these opinions and that they are prevalent also in the subordinate classes of officials. —The city of London has 50 Richmond streets, 70 Devonshire, 76 Brunswick, 56 Cambridge, 87 Gloucester, 50 East-and-West, 90 North-and-South, 176 New, 129 Union, 95 King, 99 Queen, 78 Princes, 109 George, 119 John, and dozens and scores that has nothing to distinguish them except the district in which they happen to be. —Silver Springs, one of Florida's curiosities, is a subterranean river bubbling up into a basin nearly 100 feet deep and an acre in extent, which sends out a stream 60 to 100 feet wide to the Ocklahawa river, six to eight miles distant. To this natural inland port run three steamers from St. Johns, and, in the basin, the fish and everything on the bottom can be seen through the crystal waters. —The Sydney correspondent of the Australian and American Home News writes that the loss in Australia by drouth in 1876 represented about $10,000,000. It was with great difficulty that stockholders could be induced to furnish statistics. The losses in 1877 are known to be very much heavier. Previous prosperous seasons have enabled the colonies to bear up under this heavy blow, but of course, many individuals have gone under. —Never in modern times has there been such a period of famine as in the last five years. First in Anatolia (Turkey), then in India, and now in China and Brazil. Hundreds of thousands have died from sheer starvation. Last month the deaths from this cause in Brazil were reported to be as many as one hundred a day. Government and individuals have done what they can, but are powerless to deal adequately with the calamity. —The work on the tunnel under the British Channel is quietly progressing. The experimental shaft at Sangatte is already 330 feet below the water mark, a pair of pumps throwing out the water, which works in plentifully; while in the chalk bed under the channel a trial gallery has been opened perpendicular to the shaft. If no serious obstacles are encountered in this gallery up to a distance of 8,281 feet, the grand tunnel will be begun. —Japan has a certain advantage in not having been civilized gradually, but by a revolution. Everything in the Government being new, each department can be formed on the best existing models or on the theoretically best models to which older nations in civilization have not yet attained. We have been talking for a long time about forest preservation and the urgent necessity of encouraging the growth of timber, but Japan is already ahead of us in the liberality of its offers to those who plant and cultivate forest trees. —Among the buildings brought to light at Pompeii, within the last few months, is one supposed to have been a woolen factory, divided into several chambers, the largest of which (probably an unroofed court) contains three ample receptacles, like cisterns, between files of brick pilasters; on one side of these is a corridor, and on the inner wall, bounding the premises at the same side, are painted several small figures—sportive children and other little beings with large heads, quite caricature-like in grotesqueness. —It was only in the year 1874 that celluloid goods were first put into market, and already there are no less than fifteen manufacturing concerns which use celluloid exclusively in their business, employing from 1,200 to 1,500 hands, and disbursing in wages from $50,000 to $80,000 per month. Each of the companies manufacture some leading specialty, such as jewelry, combs, brushes, knife handles, dental blanks, etc., and they have attained to quite a marvelous skill in the imitation of coral, ivory, amber, turtle-shell, ebony, malachite, and kindred substances. —An exchange says: "The Khedive of Egypt makes a great show of setting his kingdoms in order by sending for European officials and giving them and their extensive staffs splendid salaries—$20,000 a year the two Comptrollers-General have; but there is one thing which would inspire more confidence in him than anything else among financiers and men of sense all the world over—restrict his expenses to $100,000 a year until Egypt is out of the very thick wood which environs her. It is notorious that his expenses during the past fifteen years have, without any exaggeration, been on an 'Arabian' scale of splendor." Red Bluff and Vacaville, Cal.
By B. A. Stephens
Our meetings at Red Bluff closed the evening of May 26. Thirteen signed the covenant, whom we hope will prove faithful. The opposition is strong, but a few have pressed through the darkness to the light, and taken up the cross of Jesus. This church is very much scattered; its members living from twelve to seventy miles away, yet their courage is good. In the forenoon, May 26, I spoke to an interested audience in the Antelope school-house on the subject of the resurrection. The last meetings were good, and all seemed to desire not only the form of godliness but the power connected with it. Several will attend the camp-meeting. May 29 to June 4, I spent with the Sabbath-keepers at Vacaville, and spoke seven times. The methodist preacher gave a discourse upon baptism. He said that baptizo had eleven different meanings, and although it sometimes meant to dip it must be understood in the New Testament as meaning to sprinkle; that we could not tell from the Greek prepositions whether Philip and the eunuch really went down into and came up out of the water, or not; and that nothing was said of the eunuch that was not said of Philip; that if Paul baptized the Philippian jailor after he was brought out of the prison he would burn his Bible; that immersion was inexpedient, dangerous to health, and very indecent; that John the Baptist inducted Christ into the priesthood by sprinkling him; that immersion was baptism in spite of its being immersion, and was not taught in the Bible. These different points were easily confuted in a review. The friends at Vacaville seemed encouraged. I have now come to Rocklin, Placer county, to hold meetings a few weeks in a school-house by request of some who have recently embraced the truth through reading, and to gather in others if possible. Desire the prayers of all for the success of the truth here. B. A. STEPHENS.
June 6, 1878.