THINGS! ‘“The desire to acquire new things,”’ says Percival
aq
White, writing in the North American Review, ‘‘in its more
radical forms is a revolt against law and order, and against
civilization itself.” It is a revolt against God, too; “for a
man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which
he possesseth.’’ Luke 12: 15.
THAT CIVILIZED MAN'S DIET is the cause of his ills is the
conclusion of Sir W. Arbuthnot Lane from observations
among the sturdy races of the Himalaya foothills and of other
regions whose diet contains the “roughage” that stimulates
the gastro-intestinal tract and prevents self-poisoning. The
natural grains, nuts, and fruits given by the Creator to be the
food of man (Genesis 1: 29) are still the best food, proved by
the agreement of science with the word of God.
THE FOURTH NON-STOP FLIGHT across North America was
recently completed by Captain Frank Hawks and his mechanic
Oscar E. Grubb, in 18 hours, 21 minutes, and 59 seconds,
bettering Arthur Goebel’s record by 36 minutes and one
second. The flight was a heroic struggle against bad weather
and proves what can be done under difficulties. Everywhere
we look we find speed, speed — the spirit of the age, foretold
by the infallible eye of divine prophecy as the spirit of the
days just before Jesus comes again.
“SO FAR AS CONCERNS the major group of animals, the
creationists seem to have the better of the argument. ‘There
is not the slightest evidence that any one of the major groups
arose from any other. Each is a special animal, complex,
related more or less closely to all the rest, and appearing,
therefore, as a special and distinct creation.’’ These are not
the words of a “‘feeble-minded”’ opponent of evolution, but
of Dr. Austin H. Clark, Harvard graduate, member of the
staff of the Smithsonian Institute, Fellow Royal Geographical
Society, author of many scientific books and articles.
ForDLANDIA is a new town rising in the jungles of the
Amazon valley, where the Ford Motor Company is opening
up a tract for the raising of rubber. This center of business
and scientific efficiency is really a wonder in the jungle, but
there are greater. The men who have planted this civilized
community in the wilderness are already themselves civilized.
The missionaries who proclaim the soon return of Jesus are
going into the headwaters of the Amazon and taking the
degraded, cannibalistic, devil-worshiping Indians, and in a
few months seeing them transformed through the gospel
into clean, clothed, industrious Christian people, agricultural-
ists, living in neat houses, learning to read and write. The
“gospel of modern business’ imports its devotees into the
jungle; ‘‘this gospel of the kingdom’ transports the lowest
savages into a Christian life that fits them for heaven.
THE PATHFINDER, popular news weekly, makes the state-
ment that the recent concord between Italy and the Pope,
solving the “Roman Question” came ‘like lightning out of a
clear sky.” It did, indeed, but only to those who thought
the sky was clear because they had not been watching it.
As a matter of fact, the finger of divine prophecy had been
writing across the sky of nearly two thousand years that
what happened on February 11 was coming (see Revelation
13: 3), and all who had eyes might have seen. Also for more
than fifty years the people who are carrying God’s last message
to the world have been saying by voice and pen to all the world
that papal supremacy was to be restored, and all who have
ears might have heard. But it came a surprise to the many, a
long foreseen certainty to the few. So the soon coming of
Christ will seem to be without warning to those who have
dulled their senses against warning. (2 Thessalonians 5: 1-6.)
APRIL, 1929
TRY, ®t hte ® penn pny e
[SAS Re LEER PA RAAF
CLL -
J} lof Divine Proph
AN AID TO CRIME is one of the chief uses of the automobile,
but radio is to be used to combat crime. A bill before the
Massachusetts legislature would require every city and town
police headquarters in the state to install a receiving set to
pick up warnings of moves of criminals. Police information
could thus be sent out much faster than can now be done by
long-distance telephone, and the escape of criminals in fast
motorcars be hindered. We rejoice in any use of modern in-
ventions to make it harder to break the laws.
‘THE OUTSTANDING ISSUE before the American people today
is respect for and observance of law, says a prominent Method-
ist bishop. And the most important issue in the world today
to every individual is his relation to the law of God. We are
living when the great message symbolized by the angel of
Revelation 14:9-12 is going to the world, to bring out a
people who keep all the commandments of God. Happy is he
who obeys not only the laws of the land but the law of God;
for he shall own the earth when the lawless have been de-
stroyed out of it.
MODERN Russia, says a teacher of Columbia University,
‘“is a social laboratory of the world, a tremendous experiment
in human social science.’”” He referred especially to Russian
experiments in trial marriage, divorce at will, no distinction
between the legal wife and her children and the unmarried
companion and hers. The pity of it is that Russia is not the
first laboratory in which experiments in human souls and
bodies have been carried on, to the irreparable damage of the
precious fabrics experimented upon. The law of God is the
safeguard of the race.
A PROPOSED NEW BIBLE would omit Numbers and Leviticus,
containing the Mosaic law. To many readers those books
which set forth the tabernacle service seem utterly removed
from modern life. In reality nothing in the Bible but the
cross is nearer; for the tabernacle and its service are the object
lesson on earth of what Christ has been doing in heaven since
His ascension; and according to the prophecy of Daniel 8: 14
we are living in the end of the antitypical day of atonement,
and our High Priest is about to come forth from His inter-
cession to execute judgment on the earth. The symbolic
system of the tabernacle is the key to the understanding of
the Bible and its prophecies.
RADIO BEACONS, electric sirens, and automatic lights have
not put lighthouses and their keepers out of their job; nor
have the thrills all disappeared under modern conditions.
Nearly 6,000 persons are employed by the United States in the
safety and rescue work on its coast. The old figures of speech
that compare Christians to lifesavers, lifeboat men, or light-
house keepers working to rescue those perishing in the storms
of life have lost none of their innate truth. Spiritual storms are
increasing, not diminishing, in these last days; and the lost,
not believing their dangers, resist rescue. But it was never
more necessary than now to ‘“‘throw out the lifeline,” and
‘let the lower lights be burning.”
HALF OF THE MONEY that was contributed for charity in the
United States in 1927 went for religious purposes. To be
exact, over forty-eight per cent of the enormous total given,
$2,219,700,000, was donated for religion. The average family
contribution for the year was $85.85, from which $41.41 went
to religion, $9.87 for organized charities within the United
States, $8.15 for foreign relief, $7.79 for health work, $7.13 for
education, $.98 for fine arts, and $.73 for play and recreation
purposes. This liberal share to religion means to us that God
is moving upon men to advance the interests of His kingdom,
that the world many have every opportunity to know Christ
and the news of His second coming to earth.
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