The Present Truth, vol. 13

February 4, 1897

“Appealing to the Pope” The Present Truth, 13, 5.

E. J. Waggoner

In Manitoba, where Protestants out-number Catholics, in a ratio of ten to one, a system of public instruction was established which very recently undertook only the secular education of the children, leaving the churches to do their legitimate work of looking after religious instruction. But the Roman Catholic element, not only in Manitoba but in all Canada, demanded that Catholic schools should be maintained from public funds for Catholic children. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 66.1

It is the true Roman Catholic position, and Catholics have been tremendously fortified in their contention by the disposition lately becoming almost universal among Protestants to try to get the State to do the work which the churches are too lifeless to do, namely, to attend to the religious teaching of the young. The result has been strife and contention for several years in Canada, and one ministry was turned out and another put in by the last election, which turned upon this question. Now the new ministry has arranged a compromise, providing for certain hours of religious instruction in the State schools where a given number of parents request it. It makes equal provision for Protestants and Catholics, and like all illogical compromises it will surely lead to much in religious friction in school matters in years to come, even if accepted by both sides. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 66.2

But the Catholic hierarchy in Canada have been denouncing the compromise and threatening to make trouble. In portions of the Dominion the Catholic and French element is largely in the majority, and political life is strongly influenced by religious rivalry. The compromise has been approved by the Dominion Government and by our home Government. But it is not enough that Ottawa and Downing-street should issue a programme. Now the Governments appeal to Rome, and the matter is laid before the Pope to secure his aid in silencing the Canadian bishops. However it turns, the Pope could desire nothing better to establish his prestige. The Canadian ministry just set in power by a large majority and the British Government appeal to the Vatican for support in their educational policy. It is a situation which flatters Rome's ambition. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 66.3

“‘What Do We?’” The Present Truth, 13, 5.

E. J. Waggoner

The diverse influence of witnessing the effect of the power of the Spirit of God is well marked in the result upon those who stood by, of the miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead. Many who saw it believed on Him. “But some of them went their ways to the Pharisees, and told them what things Jesus had done. Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees, and said, What do we? for this man doeth many miracles. If we let Him thus alone, all men will believe on Him; and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation. And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at all, nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not. And this spake he not of himself; but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation; and not for that nation only, but that also He should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad.” PTUK February 4, 1897, page 66.4

At the voice of Christ the righteous dead arose from the grave, but the unrighteous living, who were dead in their sins, nevertheless to their living death. They made this exhibition of Divine power a pretext for bringing His case before an extra-legal assembly called together on purpose. Here they argued, that, for political reasons, the influence of Christ must be crushed, and He Himself put out of the way,—lest the Romans come and take away their place and nation. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 66.5

The futility of this argument was proved by the event, not so many years after, when Jerusalem was utterly destroyed and both their place and nation indeed taken away, while only those who believed in Christ and remembered and observed His warning words, directing them how and when to escape, were saved. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 66.6

But the words of the high priest Caiaphas are particularly remarkable, in that he, being a wicked man and the tool of the Roman power, while advising, with cold-blooded cruelty, the death of Christ, at the same time, unconsciously, states the mission upon which He came to the world,—to die for the people,—and prophesies its success in the ingathering from all nations of the children of God. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 66.7

How manifestly here the wrath of man is made to praise God! PTUK February 4, 1897, page 66.8

“Philanthropy” The Present Truth, 13, 5.

E. J. Waggoner

One of the magazines has an article calculated to make one pity the poor millionaire, who, with the demands upon his income in the way of town and country houses, yachts, horses, wines, and other demands innumerable, finds it necessary to plan carefully to get ahead. Even philanthropy levies tribute upon him. “Philanthropy,“ the writer says, “is now obligatory upon the rich, utterly because it is the cheapest form of advertisement, but because a non-subscribing millionaire would soon find the great ladies of his acquaintance looking at him coldly.” So Dives must devote a crumb or two from his thousands to the Lazarus at his gate. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 66.9

Some rich, however, it must be said, do not devote the mere crumbs to the welfare of others, nor do they give because fashion prescribes philanthropy for a well-conducted millionaire. Every man who has must be the steward of his own possessions, and it is very easy for the man who has but a comfortable amount to spend it upon himself or selfishly hoard it. But it is a fact that the great amounts devoted to charity come from the poorer class and not from the prodigally rich. The man who gives because it would not be “good form” not to do so-whether the amount be a half-crown or a thousand guineas-has had his reward. The poor soul who slips in the farthing because it is all she has, sorrowing that it is so little, will have a large account on the ledger of heaven-that is, if she does not spoil it all by advertising the farthing. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 66.10

“Where Eternal Life Begins” The Present Truth, 13, 5.

E. J. Waggoner

Where Eternal Life Begins.—It is the desire of Christians to possess, or to be possessed rather, by that perfect mind and heart which is the evidence of the indwelling within them of their Lord, that, being one with Him they may together, as He has prayed, be one with the Father. Those who are not filled and possessed with this desire, though they may be growing and developing, are not yet full-fledged Christians. It is with this complete renunciation of self that eternal life begins. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 66.11

“The Promises to Israel. ‘Another Day’” The Present Truth, 13, 5.

E. J. Waggoner

“For if Joshua had given them rest, then would He not afterward have spoken of another day. There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.” Hebrews 4:8, 9. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 67.1

We have seen that although not one word of God's promises to Israel failed, “the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it,“ (Hebrews 4:2), and that a long time after the Lord had given them rest, He set before them, through Joshua, the conditions on which they might enjoy the inheritance. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 67.2

THE KINGDOM THE LORD’S

Passing over a period of more than four hundred years, during which time the history of the children of Israel is a record of apostasy and repentance and apostasy again, we come to the time of David, when the kingdom of Israel was at the height of its power. Although, in demanding a king, the children of Israel rejected God, He did not reject them. It was not God's design that Israel should ever have any other king than Himself, but they were not content to walk by faith, having a King whom they could not see. Nevertheless the kingdom still remained the Lord’s, and therefore He exercised His right to appoint rulers. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 67.3

Even so it is in all the world. “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof.” “His kingdom ruleth over all.” The people of the world do not recognise Him as King, and boast in the pride of their own Governments; yet “the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will.” “He removeth kings, and setteth up kings.” Daniel 4:32; 2:21. “There is no power but of God; the powers that be are ordained of God.” Romans 13:1. This is why every soul ought to be subject unto “the higher powers,“ and is an evidence that the Lord's kingdom includes the whole earth, even though the rulers who for a season are allowed to imagine that they are holding the reins, set themselves up against Him. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 67.4

STRANGERS AND SOJOURNERS IN DAVID's TIME

So when in the providence of God David came to the throne of Israel, “and the Lord had given him rest round about from all his enemies” (2 Samuel 7:1), it was in his heart to build a temple to the Lord. At first the prophet Nathan, speaking his own words, said to him, “Go, do all that is in thine heart,“ but afterwards he spoke the word of the Lord, and said that David should not build it. At that time the Lord said to David:— PTUK February 4, 1897, page 67.5

“I will appoint a place for My people Israel, and will plant them, that they may dwell in their own place, and be moved no more; neither shall the children of wickedness afflict them any source as at the first, and as from the day that I commanded judges to be over My people Israel. Moreover the Lord telleth thee that He will make thee an house.” 2 Samuel 7:10, 11. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 67.6

The people of Israel therefore had not yet obtained the rest and the inheritance. David was a powerful king, and had “a great name, like unto the name of the great men that are in the earth,“ yet when he bequeathed the kingdom, with all the material for the building of the temple, to his son Solomon, he said in his prayer to God, “We are strangers before Thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers; our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding.” 1 Chronicles 29:15. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 67.7

At the time when the kingdom of Israel was as great and powerful as it ever was on this earth, the king declared himself to be as much a stranger and sojourner in the land as was Abraham, who had “none inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on.” David in his house of cedar, as well as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who dwelt in tents, “sojourned in the land of promise as in a strange country.” Not only Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but Gideon, Samson, Jephthae, David, Samuel, and the prophets, with many others, “having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise.” Hebrews 11:32-39. What stronger evidence could there be that the inheritance which God promised to Abraham and his seed was never a temporal possession in “this present evil world”? PTUK February 4, 1897, page 67.8

THE TEMPORAL JERUSALEM SIGNIFIES BONDAGE

Since the great king David, at the height of his power, had not received the promise, what utter folly it is to suppose that the promise to restore Israel to their own land can ever be fulfilled by any return of the Jews to old Jerusalem. Those who are building their hopes on “Jerusalem which now is,“ are losing all the blessedness of the Gospel. “We have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear,“ therefore we will put no confidence in anything connected with old Jerusalem; for “Jerusalem which now is,“ “is in bondage with her children; but Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.” Galatians 4:25, 26. When the promise is fulfilled, and the people of Israel really possess the land, and are no more strangers and sojourners in it, their days will no more be as a shadow, but they will abide for ever. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 67.9

But “the Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” 2 Peter 3:9. “The longsuffering of our God is salvation.” Verse 15. Even in the days of Moses, the time of the promise was at hand (Acts 7:19), but the people would not have it. They chose this present evil world, rather than the world to come. But God had sworn by Himself that the seed of faithful Abraham should enter in, and “seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief; again, He limiteth a certain day, saying in David, To-day, after so long a time; as it is said, Today, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.” Hebrews 4:6, 7. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 68.1

The unbelief of man cannot make the promise of God of none effect. Romans 3:3. “If we believe not, yet He abideth faithful; He cannot deny Himself.” 2 Timothy 2:13. If not a single soul of the natural descendants of Abraham and Jacob proved themselves children of Abraham, but were all children of the devil (John 8:39-44), God's promise to the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would be fulfilled to the letter, for God is able even of the stones of the ground to “raise up children unto Abraham.” Matthew 3:19. That would simply be a repetition of what He did in the beginning, when He made man of the dust of the ground. If Joshua had given them rest, then of course there would have been no need of any further day of salvation; but the unfaithfulness of professed followers of God delays the fulfillment, and so God in His mercy grants another day, and that is “To-day.” “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” 2 Corinthians 6:2. “To-day if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.” PTUK February 4, 1897, page 68.2

“TO-DAY”

Just think of it! even when David lived, it is called “after so long a time.” It was indeed a “long time,“ fully five hundred years after the promise might have been fulfilled; and yet, after so much longer a time the Lord still offers “another day.” That other day is to-day; we have not a year given us in which to accept the offer of salvation, not next month, not next week, not even to-morrow, but only to-day. That is all the time that God has given us—probation is but one day long. With how much greater force, therefore, the words come to us after so long a time, “To-day, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.” What a glorious treasure God has given us in to-day,—the opportunity of entering into the gate of righteousness. Christ is the door, and by Him all may enter in “while it is called to-day.” Shall we not accept it as “the day which the Lord hath made” and “be glad and rejoice in it?” “The voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the tabernacles of the righteous;” “for we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end.” “For thus saith the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel; In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength.” Isaiah 30:15. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 68.3

This rest is announced in the Gospel, for Christ says, “Come unto Me, all ye that labour, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30. The people of Israel in old time failed of this rest, not because it was not offered them, but because when the Gospel was preached to them they did not believe; the Gospel that is now preached to us is the very same that was preached to them. Hebrews 4:2. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 68.4

The rest is all prepared, for “we which have believed do enter into rest, as He said, As I have sworn in My wrath, If¹ they shall enter into My rest.” God has sworn by Himself that the seed of Abraham—those who have his faith—should enter into rest; and that was equivalent to an oath that they who did not believe should not enter in, and therefore God did indeed sware that the faithless ones should not enter in. This was not an arbitrary decree, but a statement of fact, for it is as impossible for an unbelieving person to enter into rest as it would be for a man to live and grow strong without eating, drinking, or breathing. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 68.5

The fact that “they could not enter in because of unbelief” shows that they would have entered in if they had believed; and the fact that perfect rest was all ready for them, is still further shown by the statement, “the works were finished from the foundation of the world.” Hebrews 4:3. When works are finished, rest must ensue; accordingly we read that “God did rest the seventh day from all His works.” Verse 4. That is what God said in one place of the seventh day; but in another place He said, “They shall not enter into My rest.” Verse 5. We see, therefore, that the rest which was ready, and which the children of Israel did not enter into because of unbelief, was the rest connected with the seventh day. For it was God's rest that was offered them, and it was His rest that they failed to secure, and the seventh day is the Sabbath-rest-of the Lord; it is the only rest of which we read in connection with God-God rested on the seventh day from all His work-and that rest was ready as soon as the work of creation was completed. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 68.6

GOD's WORK AND GOD's REST

The rest that is promised is God's rest. Rest follows labour, but not until the labour is completed. A man cannot rest from a given work until that work is finished. God's work is creation, a complete, perfect work; “God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made.” Genesis 1:31; 2:1-3. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 68.7

The work was perfect,—it was as good as God Himself could make it, as perfect as He is,—and it was all done; therefore the rest was also perfect. There was no taint of the curse; it was absolute, pure, unalloyed rest. God looked upon His work, and there was nothing to cause Him regret; there was nothing to induce Him to say, “If I had it to do over again—;” there was no room for alteration or amendment; He was perfectly satisfied and delighted with what He had wrought. Ah, what tongue or pen can describe, or what mind imagine, the sense of boundless satisfaction, the delicious peace and content that must necessarily follow work all done and well done? This earth affords no such enjoyment, for, “Labour with what zeal we will,
Something still remains undone;
Something uncompleted still
Waits the rising of the sun;” but all that sweet satisfaction and delicious rest God enjoyed in as much greater degree than human mind can imagine it, as God is greater than man, on that seventh day when God rested from all His work. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 68.8

THE REST INTO WHICH ADAM ENTERED

This incomparable rest is what God gave man in the beginning. “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.” Genesis 2:15. Eden means delight, pleasure; the garden of Eden is the garden of delight; the Hebrew word which in this place is rendered “put” is a word meaning rest; it is the word from which the proper name Noah comes (for the signification, see Genesis 5:29, and margin); therefore Genesis 2:15 may be rendered thus: “And the Lord God took the man, and caused him to rest in the garden of delight to dress it and to keep it.” PTUK February 4, 1897, page 69.1

Man entered into rest, because he entered into God's perfect, finished work. He was God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God had before prepared, that he should walk in them. “This is the work of God, that ye believe,“ (John 6:29), and it was solely by faith that Adam could enjoy God's work and share His rest; for as soon as he disbelieved God, taking the word of Satan instead, he lost everything. He had no power in himself, for he was but dust of the ground, and he could retain his rest and his inheritance only as long as he allowed God to work in him “both to will and to do of His good pleasure.” PTUK February 4, 1897, page 69.2

“We which believe do enter into rest,“ because “this is the work of God, that ye believe.” The two statements are not contradictory, but are identical in meaning, because the work of God, which is ours by faith, is completed work, and therefore to enter upon that work is to enter upon rest. God's rest, therefore, is not idleness, not laziness. Christ said, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work,“ (John 5:17), yet “the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary.” Isaiah 40:28. He works by His word to uphold that which He created in the beginning; so those who have believed God, and have therefore entered into rest, are exhorted to “be careful to maintain good works;” (Titus 3:8); but as those good works were obtained by faith, and “not by works done in righteousness, which we did ourselves,“ (verse 5), so they are to be maintained by faith; but faith gives rest, and therefore the rest of God is compatible with and necessarily accompanied by, the greatest activity. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 69.3

“Life by the Resurrection” The Present Truth, 13, 5.

E. J. Waggoner

When Jesus said to Martha that her brother Lazarus should rise again, she replied, “I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” His answer to her was intended to open her mind to the understanding of the fact that as the resurrection, at the last day, was through Him, so He was able at that time to raise her brother from the grave. Lazarus was now dead, and awaiting his resurrection from the dust. Martha understood that fact. She had sat at the feet of Jesus and been taught of Him. She knew what death was. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 71.1

If she had been in error, He who alone had the power of life and death was before her—of Him it was said, “Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus”—and He would have told her the truth. He would have done that which was the expression of His love for them, and given the assurance that was best for them. This is what He did. If Lazarus had not been dead, but entered into a blissful immortality, Jesus, who loved them both, would have told Martha so, and explained to her how unkind an act it would be to call back the loved one to the cares and trials of the world. But He told her nothing different from that which she had said. Lazarus was dead. As to this fact, and the understanding of what death was, there is evident harmony in the thought and words of Martha and Christ. The sisters said, “Our brother is dead, come and see where we have laid him.” Christ went, looked upon him in the grave where he had been laid, and said, “Lazarus, come forth.” And he came, not from the heavens, a transfigured, seraphic being, but from the grave, the man Lazarus, bound with grave clothes. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 71.2

“Raratongan Superstition” The Present Truth, 13, 5.

E. J. Waggoner

The power of superstitions about ghosts is a force that has frequently to be reckoned with at home. It is therefore not surprising that amongst more unenlightened peoples it is a more apparent evil. Ignorance of the Bible fosters these notions here, and is making the people an easy prey to the very real deceptions of Spiritualism. The same ignorance of what the Bible says of man's nature and of Satan's miracle-working power is responsible for the terrors that attend death in the minds of simple native tribes. The Medical Missionary gives the following account of common experiences which come to our Society's medical missionary in Raratonga, in the South Pacific Ocean:— PTUK February 4, 1897, page 71.3

“A boy was very sick, and the doctor was sent for in the afternoon. At bedtime he called again, and the doors were tightly closed as soon as he was admitted. The family, ten or twelve in number, were assembling to sleep on the floor of the boy's room, which was only about 12 x 14 feet. The doctor remonstrated with the father, and urged him to set at least one door open; but he would not consent, saying he was afraid of the turuma (ghost), and did not dare to open the doors. ‘Do you wonder,’ adds Dr. Caldwell, ‘that I want a house in which to care for the sick?’ PTUK February 4, 1897, page 71.4

“‘This belief in and fear of evil spirits,’ he says further, ‘is not uncommon, even among church-members; though when they are questioned closely, and shown that faith in God excludes fear of devils, they seem ashamed of their fear of the turumas, and sometimes deny it. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 71.5

“‘When they bury their dead, they used to put into the graves the personal belongings of the deceased. I have known even the iron bedstead of the woven-wire springs to be buried in the grave with the dead. This seems to be a vestige of the heathen custom of providing for the future comfort of the spirit of the dead.’” PTUK February 4, 1897, page 71.6

“Intemperant Eating” The Present Truth, 13, 5.

E. J. Waggoner

The veteran temperance writer, Dr. Lees, very clearly lays bare one of the weak places in this hurrying, worrying, nervous age. The boasting civilisation, in this end of the nineteenth century, can be seen to be visibly breaking down, and the perilous times of the latter days are about us. As a symptom of it, and as one of the causes contributing to the evil condition, intemperance in eating and drinking and living is plainly indicated. Dr. Lees says:— PTUK February 4, 1897, page 78.1

We live in a sensational age, because the nervous stamina of our people is lessened—the very brain is going. And why? The silly cry is, “We live too fast!”—silly because it is in itself an effect. With less brain force, stronger outward appeals to excitement are necessary. Sensational play-bills, sensational amusements, sensational books, even sensational songs and sermons. What are the elements of this fast life? A fast life is a life of waste, of exhaustion, both morally and physically, and this has been going on in spite of Temperance education and shortened hours of labour. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 78.2

What then, are the chief constituents in this causation which can possibly account for the terrible effects? They are not far to seek, and they are vices entailed upon the children, cursing them evermore with each generation. A tablespoonful of alcohol diluted, taken in twenty-four hours, causes 4,300 extra heart-beats, and in secondary effect narcotises the recuperative forces. Consider the effect of one hundred and thirty millions of pounds in value of this poison yearly consumed by 12,000,000 of adults; and then calculate the possible effect upon the nerve and brain of ?16,000,000 worth of narcotic tobacco consumed by another 12,000,000 of our population. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 78.3

Gambling finds in these people a lowered tone of moral life and intellect which responds to the temptations of custom, example, and interest, flooding our country with corruption and crime, and filling our homes with heart-break and misery far beyond our skill to describe. Thrift is natural to the Celtic race, but the unnatural appetite for narcotics, on which brewers, wine growers, and distillers thrive and grow wealthy counteracts nature. First conquer alcohol and tobacco, and then will foresight and economy resume their happy reign of amelioration and true glory. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 78.4

“Items of Interest” The Present Truth, 13, 5.

E. J. Waggoner

—There are eighteen thousand pauper children in London. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 78.5

—Of the natives in India, about 2,000,000 can now read English. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 78.6

—It is said that Germany can, in twenty-four hours, raise an army of 4,000,000 disciplined men. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 78.7

—It is estimated that between 1702 and 1876 7,000,000 acres of common lands in this country were enclosed. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 78.8

—The terms of a religious compromise in the matter of the Manitoba school dispute have been referred to the Pope. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 78.9

—According to official estimate 50,000 Armenian children under twelve years of age have been made orphans by the late massacres. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 78.10

—The income of the charitable institutions having their headquarters in London will this year reach nearly ?6,000,000. There has been subscribed for hospitals no less a sum than ?700,000, for institutions for the aged over half a million, for dispensaries over ?150,000. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 78.11

—About the year 1500 soldiers who used guns stood in files thirty-seven deep, and we are told that the re-loading occupied so much time that when a man had fired he passed to the rear and was not ready to fire again until the thirty-six men in front had discharged theft weapons. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 78.12

—On the completion of the Trans-Siberian Railway in 1901, it will be possible to go from Dover to Vladivostock in 297 hours, or twelve and a-half days. The entire length of the railway will exceed 14,000 miles. The Trans-Siberian Railway will enable China to be reached in fourteen days, instead of thirty-eight now required for the journey via the Suez Canal. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 78.13

—The increase of population in Europe, the colonies and the United States is carefully estimated by a recent author as follows, the figures representing the per cent, of increase during the last sixty-five years; United Kingdom, 63; France, 18; Germany, 75; Russia, 92; Austria, 45; Italy, 48; other European countries, 62 ; United States, 626; British colonies, 510. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 78.14

—An English traveller arriving at Brindisi from Bombay last week was sent by the authorities through Italy in a sealed carriage, and was four times disinfected on the journey through. All Continental ports in communication with Bombay are being carefully watched to guard against the plague, and Russia and Persia are guarding their Asiatic frontiers. Sanitary authorities hardly hope to be able to keep the plague from reaching Europe. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 78.15

—Europe has increased its population by 62 per cent., but at the same time 80 millions of its inhabitants have emigrated to other lands. Between 1851 and 1893, 8,601,000 have emigrated from the United Kingdom, 5,360,000 from Germany, and 4,000 from Italy. The other countries contributed 8,693,000 to the immense army, making a total of 26,674,000 souls. The bulk have gone to English-speaking lands. The United States absorbed 64 per cent., South America 13, the British Colonies 11, and the rest of the world 13 per cent. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 78.16

“Back Page” The Present Truth, 13, 5.

E. J. Waggoner

The racial and religious enmities continue to make trouble in Crete, and a revival of violence and agitation caused the representatives of the Powers to apprehend another general outbreak in the spring. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 80.1

We have received from the Calcutta branch of our Society (154, Bow Bazaar-street), a specimen packet of twenty different tracts on health and temperance subjects, which we expect will have a wide circulation in India. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 80.2

The Houses of Parliament make laws legalising the drink traffic, but the Attorney-General the other day, when pressed for an opinion, declared that he had come to the conclusion that the sale of intoxicating liquors as carried on in the refreshment rooms of the House itself was illegal. Some one has well remarked that it would be well for the members as well as for the State if the sale of liquor in the House were stopped instead of being legalised by special legislation exempting the place where the laws are made from the excise laws. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 80.3

The Odessa correspondent of the Chronicle says that a number of Stundists have recently arrived in Roumania from Russia, several having escaped from the penal colony of Gerusi, in Transcaucasia, near the Persian border. One of these latter bore on his body the marks of numerous wounds, some caused by burning with a hot iron, which he received at the hands of the local authorities and the priest. It was their way of arguing with a Protestant preacher. This village of Gerusi is the same to which ten or a dozen Russian members of our own Society were exiled several years ago. But the cause of the Gospel makes progress in Russia every year. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 80.4

Between genuine Protestantism and Romanism there can be no truce or compromise. Rome is wise enough, after the serpent's wisdom, to know this, and every compromise which she arranges with Protestants is known to be in her favour. All along Rome has known that the professedly Protestant demand for religious instruction in state schools was actually Romish in principle, and while reprobating as strongly as possible the kind of religion taught has never objected to having religion made a department of State. Anyone can see why. Now she begins to reap where others have sown. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 80.5

The Cape Times of January 13 contains a two-column report of the opening of the Claremont Medical and Surgical Sanatorium (near Cape Town), which the South African friends of our Society have had in process of construction for about two years. The description shows it to be well located and admirably fitted for the care of the sick. The building has accommodations for forty patients. The institution is under the general management of the Seventh-day Adventists Medical Missionary Association, and, as in all the similar sanatoriums, the end and aim is not financial profit in itself, but all the profits in the working of the institution are devoted to extending medical missionary operations. Thus every such institution is made a centre for the training of workers, and advancing the cause of the Gospel of health and helpfulness. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 80.6

“A Good Day's Work” The Present Truth, 13, 5.

E. J. Waggoner

A Good Day's Work.—It is said that the British and Foreign Bible Society distributes, on an average for the year, over thirteen thousand copies of the Bible daily. And it goes out in more than three-quarters of the leading languages of the human race. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 80.7

“Sunday Closing” The Present Truth, 13, 5.

E. J. Waggoner

Sunday Closing.—Various Sunday-closing Bills are being urged upon Parliament. It seems almost unnecessary to say that bills of this kind are not in the interests of temperance but of Sunday. To sell liquor is as wrong as on Saturday or Monday as on Sunday. The sting of the adder is in the cup whenever it is taken. But when temperance workers, in the interests of Sunday, accept the principle of Sunday closing they throw a mantle of respectability and even of religion over the trade through the rest of the week. The drink curse is the greatest promoter of crime and vice and sin. There is no need to argue academically about this; for no one can live in our cities without seeing it, and the prison authorities know well what brings most of the offenders to them. The trade is an absolutely wicked one, and no one is advancing the cause of Gospel temperance by tacitly accepting the principle licensing sin. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 80.8

“Fined for Praying” The Present Truth, 13, 5.

E. J. Waggoner

Fined for Praying.—Not long ago, in Eastern Prussia, a poor widow was fined and imprisoned for reading a selection from the Bible and singing a hymn at the grave of her little child, and now again, in the same district a somewhat similar incident has taken place. It appears that at the burial of a member of a workmen's club, there being no clergyman present, the president of the club made a speech and concluded with prayer. For this he was summoned before the court and fined, on the ground that no one has the right to invite an audience to pray without a clergyman's permission-the prayer having been prefaced with the words, “Now, let us pray!” The logical development of the principle at the bottom of these cases would make it necessary, eventually, to legally define precisely the places, times, and circumstances, in which the law should permit men and women to pray, sing religious music, or read aloud from their Bibles, or their devotional books. Any authority which proposes to so regulate the forms of devotion and religious expression must necessarily claim to dictate to men in spiritual things by assumption of Divine right, and so to speak with a papal voice. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 80.9

“Priestism in Power” The Present Truth, 13, 5.

E. J. Waggoner

Priestism in Power.—It is said that the witch doctors, or Fetish priests, rule over the King of Benin, and that their influence is responsible for most of the human sacrificing and slaughtering in that country. Go where one will in the world, or look through secular history, and it will be found that wherever a priestly caste has most influence in government there has been the greatest wickedness. Many think that this is solely because it is bad religion that gets into power, and that if only good religion could be lifted to the authority in the councils of State it would be a desirable thing. But good religion asks for no authority or power from man; it rests upon the power of God and preaches a Gospel of Divine power. Whenever religion forsakes this in order to secure power in the State it becomes bad religion, and its whole influence is evil, whether among whites or blacks, civilised or uncivilised. PTUK February 4, 1897, page 80.10