prisoned for a year, or both, in the discretion of the court.

To-day, we see before us a gigantic federation of the Protestant churches; we see also a great federation of Catholies; we see the National Reform Association becoming international in scope and influence, and many other organizations joining with it in the demand for a "Christian" government. Upon one point all these bodies are united, and that is the desire for legislation to enforce the observance of Sunday. There, and there only, do all these great federations and associations find common ground. And the enforcement of the Sunday sabbath, the sign of the spiritual authority of the Church of Rome, is the very thing which is designated in the Scripture prophecy as being the "mark" of the "beast."

Nearly one hundred arrests of seventh-day keepers have been made since the modern revival of intolerance began, some of them under circumstances of great cruelty and oppression. The prisoners have served an aggregate of nearly fifteen hundred days in jail and in chain-gangs. Two men have lost their lives through the hardships to which they have been subjected. Secular papers have quite generally spoken out in loud protest and condemnation against the monstrous hypocrisy, injustice, and wrong of these things. But what about the religious press, whose professed principles would compel them to protest? With a few honorable exceptions, religionists have treated the matter with utter indifference and silence, especially those who have taken the pains to sneer at our apprehension that great evil was sure to result from this tampering with the laws. They have averred with a cynical smile that the movement "would not harm a hair of our head;" but when the religious machine begins to grind, they have not a whisper of apology, or a word of censure, or a note of protest to offer. It is not for the hair of our head that we are specially solicitous, but we

THE COMING DESTRUCTION

411 raise a warning against national apostasy, which means national ruin.

But if prophecy outlines this work, it may be said, you can not stop it. Very true; isolated individuals can not turn back the tide and save the nation. But individuals can save themselves. "A prudent man forseeth the evil, and hideth himself." Prov. 27: 12. To save as many as possible from a catastrophe which is to swallow up so many should be the object of every lover of truth. With a true evangelical spirit, we "seek not yours, but you." 2 Cor. 12:14. The third message of Rev. 14: 9-14 is a special message with respect to this very crisis: "If any man worship the beast and his image, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God." The cup into which this wine is poured is composed of his "indignation," and the condition in which it is poured is "without mixture," without any mixture of mercy or hope. This is the storm-center around which, with cyclonic speed and power, the closing scenes of these last days now revolve. But on the brow of this dark and troublous cloud glows the bright bow of divine promise. "There shall be a time of trouble, such as never was; . . . and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book." Dan. 12: 1. "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. . . . He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. Because thou

hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the Most High, thy habitation; there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling." Ps. 91:1, 4-10.

With this presentation of the argument we here rest the case, feeling that no further statement is called for. We have not sought for. any novel, sensational, or overdrawn arguments, but have endeavored to present only a plain array of Scriptural and self-evident truths, and a platform of firm, immovable facts that will stand the test of the great day when every refuge of lies will be swept away, and every covenant with death be disannulled. Isa. 28: 16-18.

APPENDIX

THE PROGRESS OF A CENTURY

O rapid has been the onward march of modern progress in the realm of the arts and sciences, that comparatively few people of the present generation realize how far the world. has been carried beyond the knowledge and appliances of civilization as it existed in the days of our grandparents. The following description taken from a book published in the centennial year 1876, entitled, "Our First Century," will help to give the reader a clear conception of the wonderful manner in which this nation has arisen from very humble beginnings in the brief period of time since it was first seen "coming up":

"Here, on the verge of the centennial anniversary of the birth of our republic, let us take a brief review of the material and intellectual progress of our country during the first hundred years of its political independence.

"The extent of the conceded domain of the United States, in 1776, was not more than half a million square miles; now it is more than 3,300,000 square miles. Its population then was about two million and a half.

PRODUCTS OF THE SOIL

"The products of the soil are the foundations of the material wealth of a nation. It has been eminently so with us, notwithstanding the science of agriculture and construction of good implements of labor were greatly neglected until the early part of the nineteenth century.

"A hundred years ago the agricultural interests of our country were mostly in the hands of uneducated men. Science was not applied to husbandry. A spirit of improvement was scarcely known. The son copied the ways of his father. He worked with no other implements and pursued no other methods of cultivation; and he who attempted a change was regarded as a visionary or an innovator. Very little associated effort for improvement in the business of farming was then seen. The first association for such a purpose was formed in the South, and

was known as the 'South Carolina Agricultural Society,' organized in 1784. A similar society was formed in Pennsylvania the following year. Now there are State, county, and even town agricultural societies in almost every part of the Union.

"Agricultural implements were rude and simple. They consisted chiefly of the plow, harrow, spade, hoe, hand-rake, scythe, sickle, and wooden fork. The plow had a clumsy, wrought-iron share with wooden mold-board, which was sometimes plated with old tin or sheet-iron. The rest of the structure was equally clumsy; and the implement required in its use twice the amount of strength of man and beast that the present plow does. provements in the construction of plows during the past fifty years save to the country annually, in work and teams, at least $20,000,000. The first patent for a cast-iron plow was issued in 1797. To the beginning of 1875, about four hundred patents had been granted.

Im

"A hundred years ago the seed was sown by hand, and the entire crop was harvested by hard manual labor. The grass was cut with a scythe, and 'cured' and gathered with a fork and hand-rake. The grain was cut with a sickle, thrashed with a flail or the treading of horses, and was cleared of the chaff by a large clamshell-shaped fan of wicker-work, used in a gentle breeze. The drills, seed-sowers, cultivators, reapers, thrashingmachines, and fanning mills of our day were all unknown. They are the inventions of a time within the memory of living

men.

"Abortive attempts were made toward the close of the eighteenth century, to introduce a thrashing-machine from England, but the flail held sway until two generations ago. Indian corn, tobacco, wheat, rye, oats, potatoes, and hay were the staple products of the farm a hundred years ago. Timothy and orchard grass had just been introduced.

COTTON CULTURE

"The expansion of the cotton culture has been marvelous. In 1784 eight bales of cotton sent to England from Charleston, S. C., were seized by the custom-house authorities in Liverpool, on the ground that so large a quantity could not have come from the United States. The progress of its culture was slow [until the invention of the cotton-gin in 1793, by Eli Whitney, a machine which by means of saw-teeth disks was adapted to separate rapidly the fiber from the seed. It did the work of many persons]. The cultivation of cotton rapidly increased.