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THE AT L ANTI AN 3 ®li? Atlantian Published Monthly by E. WALTER TRIPP Box 118, Atlanta, Georgia THE ATLANTIAN will give free space to all Secret Societies and Labor Or 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