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THE AT L ANTI AN
3
®li? Atlantian
Published Monthly by E. WALTER TRIPP
Box 118, Atlanta, Georgia
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ganizations.
On the other hand, we put everybody on notice when THE ATLANTIAN makes
a statement which we believe to be true, and such statement goes uncontroverted, we
shall insist that it is true.
&o
Published Monthly by The Atlantian Publishing Co. <t
VOL. 3
APRIL
No. 28
Our Motto: “Pull for Atlanta, or Pull
Out,”
©
Editorial Etchings
Easter
“If a man die, shall he live again?” This question man has been
asking through all generations It is born of the instinctive know
ledge that he has in himself the seeds of eternal life. He cannot
accept the dictum of the materialist, that after these brief years
of toil, struggle and strife, his body shall return to the dust, and
his soul to nothing. And so we have the belief, world-wide, in the
immortality of the soul. It remained, however, for the Christian
religion to make that belief a living influence in the lives of men.
In Judaism the prevailing note was the fear of God and the law.
In Christianity the prevailing note is the love of God.
With each recurring spring we see a new miracle. The plant
which grew and flourished during the preceding season, produced
its blossoms and matured its seeds, has apparently perished from
the earth. But the seed remained, and from that seed comes a
new plant. The gardener has found that he can so improve his
seed that the plant of this year is a better plant than that of last
year. So it is with the human soul. The body of man may return
to the dust, but the soul—the seed—will live; and that seed in a
new environment, where all things are congenial, will blossom out
into a new life such as the mind of man cannot now conceive, so
glorious will it be.
But, as the gardener by careful cultivation improves his seed,
so must man, by careful cultivation, make his soul fit with that new
environment, under which it will reach perfection. How to do this
he never knew until the Christian religion came to the front, and
with its eternally true doctrine of love of God and love of fellow
man marked out the path along which man must travel if he would
make his soul immortal.
And so, we have Easter Day—that day which celebrates the
resurrection of the greatest figure in human history—of the Divine
Man whose simple doctrine has revolutionized the world and made
a place wherein men can climb from the level of the beast up to
that altitude where they will be fit companions for angels and
archangels.
Easter has come to mean much to the world. Even the most
liberal Protestant sects accept it as a day of significance, and honor
it in a greater or less ceremonial way; while the Greek Church,
the Roman Catholics, the Church of England and the American
Episcopal Church honor it as the day of days—as the day upon
which the resurrection of our Lord settled the faith of believers
and started the Church upon its wonderful career.
It has been a wonderful career. God has given men the oppor
tunity. He has shown them the way. He has, through His Word
and His servants, extended a cordial invitation for all men to
come into the household of Faith. But he has also given the man
free will—he has given him the power to elect for himself whether
he will be saved to a glorious immortality, or whether he will
perish like the beast of the field. God does not drive.
It comes, therefore, to this: That if Easter and the great truths
of the Christian religion for which it stands shall have any effect
upon the individual soul, it must be by the consent and by the
active effort of the possessor of that soul. God does not save. He
shows the man how to save himself. To every man this opportunity
is given. He does not need to know much about theological dogma.
He does not need to be learned or wise or rich. He does not need
to be great or strong or polished. He does not need any of the
shining qualities to which men attach much importance. But he
does need to have the faith of a little child—to have that trust
in his Lord that the little child has in its parents, and he needs to
strive to do those things which are pleasing to his Lord, because
of love of Him, just as the child strives to do the things which are
pleasing to its parents, because of love of them.
This is not a hard doctrine to understand; and we are told in such
simple language what things are pleasing to God, that it is easy
for even the most limited intelligence to grasp that knowledge
and to live up to the doctrine.
If Easter Day and the things for which it stands have no influence
upon the individual man, it is the fault of that man, and not the
fault of his Heavenly Father.
Here and there we find people who wail over the shortcomings
of Christianity because they do not know how to reason. Chris
tianity has no shortcomings. Some of the individual professors of
Christianity have them, but net the Faith itself. And full of weak
ness as the individual professors may be, it remains a fact that
but for the influence of the Christian religion in the world to
day, from Nippon to San Francisco; from San Francisco to Gibral-
ter; from Gibralter to Jerusalem, and from Jerusalem back to
Nippon—around this world of ours, there would be nothing but
the bloody ruck and rapine which marked the centuries of
the beginning of the Christian Era. That we live in peace,
under governments of law, enjoying the fruits of our labor, to the
extent that these things are true, is due to the influence of the
Christian religion, for it is the one thing which stands between
civilization and barbarism.
However hard it may be for us to see it, with each recurring
Easter Day, there is a little improvement. The world is a little better
on this Easter of 1911 than it was on the Easter of 1910. And little
by little the gains will accrue until, in the fullness of time, men
will not need to celebrate Easter as a special day, because God’s
Kingdom will be established throughout the earth.
Who Will Be Senator?
It begins to look as if it’s going to be up to Governor-Elect Hoke
^mith either to accept or reject the senatorship. After all the talk
that has been indulged in by the newspapers and the people, it is
perfectly clear to those who have kept anything like a close eye upon
the situation, that Governor-Elect Smith can go to the Senate if he
wants to. Strictly speaking, he is the logical man. He has made
a fight in Georgia for what may be termed “liberalism” as opposed
to conservatism. For this, he is entitled to credit, for in doing this
he has had to overcome a naturally conservative temperament, and
must therefore have been strongly convinced of the wisdom of these
policies for which he stands before he could ever have made such
a move. He has brought a majority of the people of Georgia to his
way of thinking. He is recognized as perhaps the strongest man
today in the public life of the State—-and as the United “States
Senate needs strong men about as much as any organized body in
existence, it would be eminently fitting and proper if he should go.
There is of course another side to the question. He was elected
Governor before the present senatorial situation arose. It was ex
pected that he would serve out his full term as Governor. Naturally