8. The maturity of the Papal anti-christ.—Popery itself is no new thing on earth, so that its mere existence is no peculiar sign of the last day. But its progress and prevalence are entirely new. There is a maturity about it which, in other ages, it could not claim. It is rising in stature and fast hastening to its consummation. In extent of circle she stretches far beyond the territories of other days. In all regions of the earth she is planting her banner and claiming dominion over the nations. Never did she show herself more thoroughly in earnest. She is flinging her chains across the globe. With stealthy foot she has been advancing, step by step, till now she walks abroad at noonday with the sound of the trumpet, lifting up her head in bold defiance. Her hand, like Amalek’s is “upon the throne of the Lord;” and she acts and speaks as if in nothing she would be restrained of all that she has imagined to do.
Never, since the Reformation, has Popery made so deadly and determined a struggle for the recovery of throne and altar. Hundreds of missionary priests are thrusting themselves into every corner, winding themselves into the confidence of the influential, and insinuating themselves with serpent-stealth and subtlety into all seats of power. They mark off their districts, and rear their churches everywhere, carrying on their work of proselytism at any expense, and by every method. They build with costly splendor; they adorn with most attractive grace; they cast the net with consummate art, that beneath its ample stretch they may entangle the thousands of every age, and class, and temper, who love a theatrical religion, that will gratify the carnal sense, and furnish men with a license for the commission of any amount of iniquity. They talk proudly, too, and boast openly of their success, casting off the mask of meekness and modesty which they had in some measure assumed; proclaiming loudly that as no heresy was ever allowed more than a duration of three centuries, the British apostasy has now reached its close. Thus they prophesy of their own speedy triumph, and of our hastening doom.
9. The diffusion of infidelity.—This at least is new. Our fathers knew comparatively little of this, and our fathers’ fathers almost nothing. An infidel was rare indeed in their day—a man wondered at and shunned. Towards the close of the last century, infidelity burst forth in France, and partially extended itself elsewhere. Of late years it has developed itself with prodigious swiftness, and assumed a bold and lofty attitude of assault. Its extent is incredible. The masses are thoroughly leavened with it. It has insinuated itself everywhere, and is eating out the very heart of everything like deep principle among men. It has corroded the cement by which society hangs together, so that nations and communities are now like walls or towers without mortar, ready to fall to pieces of themselves, or be leveled by the first blast. Its ferocity is alarming, its activity unceasing. Much of it is undisguised and confessed; but very much of it is still secret and unavowed. It taints the air; it blights life; it ossifies conscience; under it all good things wither. It is the worm at the root of all that is noble and excellent in these last days. Hence the hollow condition of things among us—the chill that is upon life’s fellowships and offices of love. Social, political, kindred ties are worn-eaten and ready to break asunder. The erect bearing and manly vigor which religion imparts is no longer visible. Superstition has come to the rescue, and is trying to supply its place. But in vain! Expediency rules. Large masses of the people are either openly or secretly infidel, if not atheistical. God is not acknowledged. His yoke seems to gall men’s shoulders. The nations are ready to cast it off. And what hope is there, what token, that this is to end before the Lord return to end it. Is it not a sign of his approach, and a denial of the possibility of a previous millennium of holy blessedness upon the earth?
10. The increase of immorality.—Like a flood it is swelling and widening in its course. It is without shame and without fear. Crimes that our fathers knew not of, are common among the nations. Licentiousness riots fearfully, perpetrating deeds without a name, so that it is “a shame even to speak of those things that are done of them in secret.” Drunkenness staggers along every street. Blasphemy pours itself forth, till we shudder, and close the ear against its horrid sounds. Murder has broken loose, and every day our newspapers are telling some horrible tale of bloodshed; man slaying his fellow-man, in fiendish hatred, or more fiendish love of gain; none spared; the parent slaying his children, the child his parent, the husband the wife, the wife the husband; no sanctity of relationship is any safeguard from the poison, or the bullet, or the knife, or the more brutal hammer. Oh, what a cry is going up to God from this land of ours, the cry of innocent blood, blood which a righteous God will yet avenge! But the picture of our spreading immorality is one not easily drawn, save by the record of facts, facts which one man scarcely ventures to whisper to another, too awful to be laid bare before the public eye. It calls for a prophet’s eye to see it, a prophet’s pen to record it, and a prophet’s soul to weep over it “in secret places” before the Lord. “Men are truly lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.” All this is to come to pass in the last days, and to wax worse and worse till the Lord come. How vivid, then, and how numerous, are the signs of the advent,—signs of whose nature, whose progress, and whose termination, demonstrate irresistibly that there can be no millennium before his coming.
11. The prevalence of superficiality and formalism in religion.—Form without power, a body without a soul, religion without vitality,—these are among the signs of the last days. The show of piety is wide-spread, but the thing itself occupies a narrow circle. There is much profession, but profession lies on the surface, and underneath all may be worldliness. Depth and solidity are wanting; the aspect of religion is unhealthy; the fresh hue of primitive times is departed; the intense vitality, which of right belongs to it, is dried up, so that, instead of its being the living source of motion to the world without, controlling, or counteracting, or impelling its currents, it lies inert and passive, at the mercy of every outward movement. It is a worldly, self-pleasing religion, adopted for fashion’s sake, and used according to convenience.
Satan has now transformed himself into an angel of light, and under this fair disguise he is working with marvelous success. He is teaching us to build the tombs of our fathers, that we may rest content with the mere approbation of their principles without any imitation of their practice. He leads some astray into fatal error under the pretext of candor and the love of truth; others he saturates with the orthodoxy of the head, that they may become indifferent to the state of their heart before God. Some he persuades to deny the Bible; to others he lauds it, that he may make it a substitute for the God of the Bible. He allows us a wide range of religious feeling and sentiment, if he can only succeed in making them a substitute for God. He hinders not our being serious, earnest, solemn, if he can thereby feed the cravings of a restless, empty soul with something which may prevent us from seeking the bread of life. He permits us to denounce the world’s vanity and hollow pleasures—to be weary of its unsatisfying round of folly, that he may delude us into the idea that this dissatisfaction with the world is a proof that we are religious, and thereby cause us to sit down contented, when yet a great way off from our Father’s house.
These outward things may be in themselves right and good, but what are they without the indwelling Spirit? What is truth without the True One? What is the perfection of church order without the vital power from above? The body is there, but the living spirit has fled.
And are not these the signs of the last days? Is it not when the virgins are slumbering that the midnight cry is to be heard, “Behold, the Bridegroom cometh;” and “when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” Where, then, is there room for a millennium before the advent?
12. Religious deceivers.—The extent to which these are flourishing in our day is much overlooked. We have grown so familiar with strange opinions that we have almost ceased to notice them. Yet in all countries and in all churches these are springing up. Besides the great leaders in our day, Romanists, Jesuits, and Tractarians, there are the Unitarians, the Latter-Day Saints, the Swedenborgians, the Spiritualists, and such-like, who are saying, “Lo, here is Christ;” or, “Lo, there.” Incredible and absurd as these systems are, they are believed in by tens of thousands, who seem to be given over “to strong delusion that they should believe a lie.” And, then, in addition to these, there are sad heresies springing up around us in various forms, and indicating a restless, feverish state of mind, which must, ere long, issue in something more hideous and fatal.
These are a few of the many signs of the times. Some of them belong specially to our own day, not having been witnessed by any former age. Others, though seen by former generations, have shone out far more fully and decidedly in our own. No previous age can point to signs so many and so vivid as we can do; and it is this that renders our position so very solemn and responsible.
A Common Meeting Place.
THE rich and poor meet together in the same moldering of the tomb. There is no difference down in that spot where the grave-worm has his banquet! Among the darkness, dust, and putrefaction, among dead men's bones, you can find nothing to minister to human vanity. The loftiest and the lowliest rest side by side and mingle their dust together in the bosom of their common mother, earth. Affluence seeks, indeed, an external distinction in the burial spot; but it cannot even seek for any other, and all it can do is only to rear some more imposing sepulcher, or more proudly sculptured marble, which may arrest for a little while the passing stranger. It is only for a little while.
As time sweeps on his course, the chiseled marble gives way; the letters are worn off; the proud name is gone; the splendid tomb is crumbled down; the plowshare passes over the moldering heart, or the spade of the grave-digger flings up the dust and bones of the mighty as unceremoniously as those of the mean. In a few centuries after they have left the earth, the high and the mighty of Babylon, Tyre, and Egypt, of Nineveh, Rome, and Etruria, have not even a man left upon the earth; and if their sepulchers are known at all, they are only known as matters of curiosity to the antiquary, or to be rifled of their bones by the rude hand of some heartless barbarian! The decree has gone forth over all the walks of humanity alike, and will be everywhere executed just alike: Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.—The late Dr. Spencer, Brooklyn.
The Importance of Family Worship
FAMILY worship lies at the foundation of family religion. Without the blessing of God, the children cannot prosper; and this blessing cannot be expected unsought. The child will not learn to pray for himself without the example of his parents. Those who neglect to pray with their children are, therefore, sowing for a bitter harvest which will be reaped by those who are dearest to their hearts. It is an instinct of nature that parents should pray for their children. And family worship is a delightful interlude in business or play. The hour of prayer, when it is not a mere form, is the calmest and happiest of the day. The cares of the family are put away, the jarrings of the family are forgotten, the anxieties of supplying the wants of the little ones, have passed out of sight, and the family united in love pour out their petitions dictated by affection to the Heavenly Father. The family that is without family prayer is a family only in name. And family prayer cannot flourish and prosper unless supported and strengthened by closet, private prayer.—Christian Observer.
The Cause on the Pacific Coast.
By James White
In no part of the great field has the cause of present truth been established without a sharp contest with the powers of darkness. This has been true in the brief history of our cause East and West. It is as true in the experience of our missionaries in Europe, as it has been in America. And as sure as our message to the world is based upon the Word of God, and our mission is in the special providence of God, just so surely will the enemy of truth contest every inch of new ground we may occupy.
The outside world seems powerless to oppose our progress. In fact, opposition from the clergy is necessary to wake up the spirit of investigation, and give the truth of God a hold on the minds and hearts of the people. New fields of successful labor are being opened in all directions, and we find no difficulty, so far as the clergy is concerned, in establishing the cause wherever plain Bible truth is preached in the spirit of the gospel.
The tug of war, in establishing the cause on the basis of unity and vigorous action in the entire membership, comes from want of confidence in the work on the part of those newly come to the faith. Here Satan sees his best chance to hold the work, that it may not move forward with strength and vigor. This trial came on the cause in Michigan, Wisconsin, and other of our stronger conferences, twenty years since. Younger conferences have suffered from the same want of confidence at later periods. And the result has been the purifying of the body by the separation of the discordant elements. If there be an apparent loss of membership for a time in any locality, the Lord shows his approval of the plain testimony, which discovers the dross and purifies the church, by adding worthy members to the body far exceeding those who contributed to the burdens of the cause.
Such exchanges are ever great victories. And it is these exchanges of jealous, fault-finding ones for men and women of worth that is constantly adding to the permanency of our cause. In such old conferences as Michigan, where real progress is being made, and success attends every effort, such trials are in the past. At their annual camp-meetings not a word of dissatisfaction is heard in all the camp. Our organization is such, the officers of the several societies chosen by the people annually, and all the business transactions connected with the cause laid open for thorough inspection, that the opinion prevails with the body that none but malicious railers will engage in general fault-finding in those localities where our cause and work are understood. Taking this view of the subject, our people in the older conferences will not for an hour tolerate the spirit of grumbling at the leaders and managers in the cause too common in our day.
From the very nature of the case the evils aforementioned may be expected on the Pacific Coast to a greater extent than on the other side of the mountains. Those who have emigrated to this country had sufficient independence and enterprise to break away from home associations, and to look after their own interests after they came here. Such persons usually have more confidence in themselves than in their neighbors, and the spirit of distrust and fault-finding will find place with this class of minds more readily than with the confiding who think their neighbor's judgment nearly as good as their own. It is with these difficulties to face that the cause has progressed on this coast. And it has been found to be a task to establish the cause in unity and efficiency upon this coast, above the influence of those who would sow the seeds of discontent and murmuring.
For a time Eld. Miles Grant held an influence over some minds. But operation in his malicious course cut the last cord of sympathy through which he abused certain minds. This had a tendency to strengthen confidence in our cause. And later efforts on the part of one whose church connections have their headquarters at Marion, Iowa, are proving most beneficial to our cause. The young man evidently came to this State under the delusion that he could injure the cause, and draw off a party with him.
And it is not his fault that he has not succeeded. He has labored patiently and persistently under great discouragements. But after four months of toil he has nothing to show for his work here only that he may have strengthened the hands of those whose hearts were set against the cause before he came. If he has separated a single soul from the body during his four-months' tug, we have yet to learn it. But in his utter failure, our people here have a forcible illustration of the power of truth and the feebleness of error; and the result upon the cause is stronger confidence in the work, and God's servants who give their lives to it, and sweeter union in the body.
Our people should not complain of opposition. Said Christ, “It must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh.” A Judas was as necessary to the carrying out of the great plan of human redemption as a John or a Paul. These men of God had decided preferences in the part to act; and, noble souls, they could spend their breath to better account than in complaining of poor Judas. We say, let God work out his own purposes for the good of his cause and people. It should be the greatest care of our people to hold themselves in a proper position, and speak and act in harmony with the providence of God.
God has greatly blessed his people and cause on the Pacific Coast. If trials have been severe at certain times, our people have had better chance to learn and become united and strong. But in the midst of the furnace the good cause has fully stood the test, and has advanced almost without a parallel. The Pacific S. D. A. P. Association owns a lot and fine building worth $18,000. Its presses and printing material are worth $12,000. And books and stock on hand will very nearly equal all debts. The SIGNS Office is a place of great activity. Gentleman who call on business, or to see what we have, and what we are doing, represent our publishing house, crowded with the presses, material, work and operatives, by a beehive. Those who have liberally donated to bring this institution into existence have the satisfaction of having lifted it at the right place at the right time. This great work now accomplished will not have to be done again. And from present indications the Office will very soon be self-sustaining. It is truly wonderful that so great a work has been accomplished in a time of severe trial.
And it is truly wonderful that a handful of brethren in San Francisco, and a large proportion of those of the poor of the flock, now worship in a house which cost, including the lot, about $18,000. True, they have a debt of about $6,000 on their house; but the rent of the basement to the city for schools more than pays interest and other expenses, and they are constantly reducing the debt. But above all wonders of church progress is the noble action of the church in Oakland. They now have a church ready for dedication in the very best locality of this city, which has cost not far from $15,000.
Here are three enterprises of no small magnitude which have been carried forward in this great center of the Pacific Coast (for San Francisco and Oakland are really one), in the midst of severest trials. These, if preserved from disaster, are accomplished forever. If the churches at San Francisco and Oakland require more room, and a greater outlay, they will be ten times as able to do it as they were to do what they have done. And during two or three years the publishing house will need only a few thousands annually to pay its debts, and create a capital to invest in stock.
God has been testing his people on the Pacific Coast, and most of them seem to stand the test nobly. And there is at the present time a gathering influence in all our churches. We are made very happy by good news from the North Pacific Mission. Elder Van Horn has some help in the ministry. Should men in that field dedicate all to God as he has, he would soon have a half a score of fellow-laborers. Elders Healy and Wood are bringing valuable accessions to the cause in California. We hope that the time is not far distant when there will be a score of active men in this State, proclaiming the message and scattering our publications everywhere. Our people are looking forward to the Biblical Institute to be held at Oakland in April, with great interest.
And the liberal action of Eastern T. and M. Societies should provoke our people west of the plains to love and good works. The “Overland Mail” brings to this Office daily nearly one hundred new subscribers for the SIGNS OF THE TIMES. And Eld. Haskell, our successful Tract and Missionary manager, thinks that with proper management, and faithfulness on the part of all our conferences and churches in raising the one-third addition for T. and M. purposes, and keeping it on hand for that purpose, the lists for the SIGNS for 1878 will be raised to 25,000. So let it be. J. W.
Moody on Daniel.
THE sermon upon the second personal advent of Christ preached by Mr. Moody in Chicago near the close of his labors in that city, has been published in the leading papers of almost every denomination and of course has drawn out as many varieties of comments. Although it was thought by some that “it would have been better to have left the address undelivered,” the manner in which the doctrine of the advent and reign of Christ is interwoven in other sermons, shows the importance which Mr. Moody attaches to that subject. At the morning service in the Boston Tabernacle, Sunday, Feb. 18, before an audience of nearly 5,000 persons, he delivered a lecture on Daniel, of which we give below that portion which refers directly to
NEBUCHADNEZZAR'S DREAM.
“The second year there was a great stir in Babylon. The king, Nebuchadnezzar, angrily ordered all the wise men to be put to death, and the first, I suppose, Daniel heard of it was when the officer came to take him out to be executed. Daniel asked what he had done to deserve death, and was told that Nebuchadnezzar had had a dream and none of the wise men could interpret it, and he ordered that they all be put to death. Daniel said: ‘Let me see the king,’ and he was taken to him and said: ‘Give me a little time and I will tell you your dream.’ There was faith for you! He knew in whom he trusted and believed, and he knew God would let him know the secret in answer to prayer. Time was granted and it must have been good news to these wise men. Daniel and his three friends called a little prayer-meeting—I don't know but it was the first prayer-meeting they ever had in Babylon—and together that night they prayed to the God of the Hebrews and of Heaven that he would reveal unto them this dream; but no answer came, and they went off to bed. I don't think you and I would have gone to bed and slept any if our heads had been coming off the next morning. But they had faith in their God, and while they were sleeping God revealed it to Daniel, and he was in bed praising and magnifying God—God had heard his cry. He rose early in the morning and went to the king and told him his dream. There must have been great joy in Babylon. And he said, ‘O king, in your dream you saw an image.’ I can just see Nebuchadnezzar's eyes flash as it came into his mind and he said, ‘Yes.’ ‘And this image's head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, his legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay. Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing-floors; and the wind carried them away.’ ‘Yes,’ cries Nebuchadnezzar, ‘that is my dream; I saw that image. Now tell me the interpretation.’ Let me say right here that Daniel had given to God all the glory; he said that the secret belonged to God; he didn't take anything to himself.”
“Let me say that the Chaldean government extended all over the world; and we talk about the improvements of the present day, but I suppose that Babylon, in its glory, was one of the most magnificent cities the sun ever shone upon. It was sixty miles around it; the walls were upwards of three hundred feet high, and eighty-seven feet thick; it had twenty-five solid brass gates opening into streets one hundred and fifty feet wide and fifteen miles long; twenty-five brass gates on each side of the city, and it was built perfectly square; the beautiful Euphrates ran right through that city, and there was a hanging garden, which the king built to please his wife, and which he took from a mountainous country. The wealth of the world had been brought into that city, and after it had been finished the second time they found in one of the temples a god of gold. It took millions of money just to make that one god of gold! There was the wealth of a nation centered in that great city; and now, he says, ‘there shall come another empire that shall overthrow yours.’ And Daniel lived in Babylon until he saw that government overthrown, and the Medes and Persians came in and took that city, and for some time ruled the world. Then came Alexander, representing the government of brass, and for some little while Greece ruled the world; and then came the kingdom of iron, the Cæsars, and ruled the world, but their government was overthrown and divided into ten kingdoms; and God will keep on overturning kingdoms until he alone shall reign. These ten kingdoms exist now, but by-and-by that stone which was cut out of the mountain without hands shall come into collision with the image and break it into pieces until it becomes like the chaff of the summer threshing-floor, and God shall set up his kingdom on earth and reign.”
“This dream is true. God is going to set up his kingdom, and he will rule the world in righteousness. May God haste the day when he shall come! There will be no government that will satisfy us until he sets up his kingdom and rules. Let us pray that that blessed day may soon come.”
Thoughts on the Book of Daniel.
By Uriah Smith
CHAPTER II.—CONTINUED.
VERSE 43. And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men; but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay.
With Rome, fell the last of earth’s universal empires. Heretofore the elements of society had been such that it had been possible for one nation, rising superior to its neighbors in prowess, bravery, and the science of war, to attach one after another to its chariot wheels till all were consolidated into one vast empire, and one man seated upon the dominant throne could send forth his will as law to all the nations of the earth. When Rome fell, such possibilities forever passed away. Crushed beneath the weight of its own vast proportions, it crumbled to pieces, never to be united again. The iron was mixed with the clay. Its elements have lost the power of cohesion, and no man, nor combination of men, can again consolidate them. This point is so well set forth by another that we can do no better than to quote his words:— “From this, its divided state, the first strength of the empire departed—but not as that of the others had done. No other kingdom was to succeed it, as it had the three which went before it. It was to continue, in this tenfold division, until the kingdom of stone smote it upon its feet, broke them in pieces, and scattered them as the wind does chaff of the summer threshing-floor!” Yet, through all this time, a portion of its strength was to remain. And so the prophet says, “And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken.” (Verse 42.) How in any other way could you so strikingly represent the facts! For more than fourteen hundred years, this tenfold division has existed. Time and again men have dreamed of rearing on these dominions one mighty kingdom. Charlemagne tried it. Charles V. tried it. Louis XVI. tried it. Napoleon tried it. But neither succeeded. A single verse of prophecy was stronger than all their hosts. Their own power was wasted, frittered away, destroyed. But the ten kingdoms did not become one. “Partly strong, and partly broken,” was the prophetic description. And such, too, has been the historic fact concerning them. With the book of history open before you, I ask you, Is not this an exact representation of the remnants of this once mighty empire? It ruled with unlimited power. It was the throned mistress of the world. Its scepter was broken; its throne pulled down; its power taken away. Ten kingdoms were formed out of it; and “broken” as then it was, it still continues—i. e., “partly broken.” For its dimensions still continue as when the kingdom of iron stood upright upon its feet. And then, it is “partly strong”—i. e., it retains, even in its broken state, enough of its iron strength to resist all attempts to mold its parts together. “This shall not be,” says the Word of God. “This has not been,” replies the book of history.
“But then, men may say, ‘Another plan remains. If force cannot avail, diplomacy and the reasons of State may—we will try them.’ And so the prophecy foreshadows this when it says, ‘They shall mingle themselves with the seed of men’—i. e., marriages shall be formed, in hope thus to consolidate their power, and, in the end, to unite these divided kingdoms into one.
“And shall this device succeed? No. The prophet answers: ‘They shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay.’ And the history of Europe is but a running93commentary on the exact fulfillment of these words. From the time of Canute to the present age, it has been the policy of reigning monarchs, the beaten path which they have trodden, in order to reach a mightier scepter and a wider sway. And the most signal instances of it, which history has recorded in our own day, is in the case of Napoleon. He ruled in one of the kingdoms; Austria was another. He sought to gain by alliance what he could not gain by force, i. e., to build up one mighty, consolidated empire. And did he succeed? Nay. The very power with which he was allied proved his destruction, in the troops of Blücher on the field of Waterloo! The iron would not mingle with clay. The ten kingdoms continue still.”
“And yet, if, as the result of these alliances, or of other causes, that number is sometimes disturbed, it need not surprise us. It is, indeed, just what the prophecy seems to call for. The iron was ‘mixed with the clay.’ For a season, in the image, you might not distinguish between them. But they would not remain so. ‘They shall not cleave one to another.’ The nature of the substances forbids them to do so in the one case; the word of prophecy in the other. Yet there was to be an attempt to mingle—nay, more, there was an approach to mingling in both cases. But it was to be abortive. And how marked the emphasis with which history affirms this declaration of the Word of God!”
Yet with all these facts before them, with all these plain declarations on the sacred page, asserting their power through the overturns and changes of centuries, the efforts of warriors, and the diplomacy and intrigues of courts and kings, some modern expositors have manifested such a marvelous misapprehension of this prophecy as to predict a future universal kingdom, and point to a European ruler, even now of waning years and declining prestige, as “the destined monarch of the world.” Vain is the breath they spend in promulgating such a theory, and delusive the hopes or fears they may succeed in raising over such an expectation.*
U. S.
(To be Continued.)
The Churches.
(Continued from Review and Herald.)
Kansas.
BLACK HAWK.—Eld. J. N. Ayers reports that the meetings here "are still increasing in interest. The house is crowded every night. We are in the midst of the Sabbath question. Twenty-three signed the covenant last night, twelve of whom had never made any profession before."
Iowa.
FONDA.—Eld. R. M. Kilgore has just visited this young company of believers, and reports that he found them all firm and rejoicing in the truth. Seven new ones were baptized and received into the church, and two more were received subject to baptism. The ordinances of the Lord's house were celebrated for the first time. Bro. M. Welsh was elected to fill the office of deacon, and Bro. N. R. Rigby was elected and ordained elder.
Illinois.
PRINCEVILLE.—Of his visit to this place, Eld. G. W. Colcord says: “Two brethren had gone back to the tobacco habit; but they promised to ‘try again.’ Five husbands and wives promised to keep the Sabbath, and began while we were still with them. A young man, a member of the M. E. Church, also embraced this precious truth. Will all ‘endure to the end’?”
Minnesota.
WRIGHTSTOWN.—Bro. John S. Collins, after giving seventeen discourses in this place, asked all who had made up their minds to keep all of the commandments to sign the covenant. It was then signed by fifteen persons all of whom bore their testimony, the most of them for the first time. Bro. C. is now visiting those who have recently embraced the truth in Douglass Co., after which he will return to carry the work still farther in this place.
FARIBAULT.—Brn. H. F. Phelps and D. C. Birch, report that eleven signed the covenant to keep all the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. A Bible class was organized and the proper church officers were chosen.
New York.
MANNSVILLE AND WEST MONROE.—During the last week Eld. D. M. Canright visited these churches, and in each place the blessing of the Lord was present to convict of sin, and many who had become cold and indifferent to spiritual things were inspired to renewed energy and activity in the cause of God. It was in this (Oswego) county that the first Conference of Seventh-day Adventists was held, and many old hands in the cause were present at the meeting in West Monroe. Three decided to keep the Sabbath, and many others were favorably impressed.