Newspaper Page Text
May 26, 1909. . TH
Presbytery of Atlanta: Relative tc
melhcd of soloctiug a pastor.
Enorte: Un validity of Romish baptism.
Winchester: On Christian Science.
Atlanta: On Presbyterial blanks.
Roanoke: On placing reports of the
home and school under the head of
orphanage.
Winchester: That presbyterial reports
rather than executive committee reports
be us<d in published minutes of the
Assembly.
Florida. ISast Hanover atul .Maryland
on Presbyterial reports.
East Hanover: Asking a permanent
committee on adjustment of the Assembly's
causes.
Upper Mo.: As to number of collections
and consolidation of committees.
Forth Worth: Suggesting a plan for statistical
reports.
Abingdon: To interpret question No. 10,
in the narrative.
Synod cf La.; On evangelistic work
among foreigners living in this country.
East Miss.: Field Secretary of Homo
and Foreign Missions.
Paris, Atlanta, Charleston, Missouri
and Augusta, and Lafayette, favoring
organization of general evangelistic work.
. Ezenezer: Asking that the Laymen's
Movement include Home Missions.
I Louisville: To place Home and Foreign
Missions 011 llie same plane.
Montgomery: To appoint an ad interim
committee to propose for a semi-centennial
celebration.
Pine Bluff: Asking a revised edition
of the Bible to be made from the King
James and authorized versions.
West Texas and St. Louis: On allowing
mileage to commissioners to " the
Assembly.
Dallas: To reduce assessment for the
Assembly's treasury.
Synod of Alabama: To provide for cooperation
between the Publication and
Education Committees in the employment
of colporteurs.
The report of the trustees of the Assembly
was read and referred.
Also reports of trustees of Columbia,
union, Austin, KentucKy ana southwestern
Theological Institutions.
The vei>ort of the Permanent Committee
on family religion was read; Dr.
Oornelson, chairman.
The report of Dr. E. C. Gordon and
others, on the revision of citations of
proof texts, was read and referred to a
siieeial committee.
A paper was presented by Dr. E. M.
Green, giving assurance to our missionaries,
Messrs. Morrison and Shejiherd, In
Africa, of our synvpathy In the trial
before the Belgian government oflleiala.
Ivu wmcn iney are soon to oo suDjecieu.
and commending them for their faithfulness
in exposing atrocities upon the
natives in Africa. Also appointed Sundny,
May 23, ns a special day of prayer
in their behalf. An amendment offered
by Mr. D. S. Henderson, of South Carolina.
to the effect that the offices of the
United States government be Invoked in
behalf of Messrs. Morrison and Shepherd,
was adopted along with the paper
of Dr. Green, after earnest discussion.
Rev. A. B. Sloan, of St. Andrews, Scotland,
was introduced and welcomed as a
visiting brother.
[E PRESBYTERIAN OF THE SOU
Religion In The Home.
Opening Sermon to the General Assembly.
By the Retiring Moderator,
Rev. W. W. Mcore, D. D.
May 20, 1909.
Dent. 6: 6-7. 'And these words which
I command thee this day shall be in
thine heart; and thou shaft teach them
diligently unto thy children."
The Greatness of Moses.
proses the Hebrew law-giver was perhaps
the greatest mere man that ever
lived. His influence has probably been
stronger, inoie far reaching and more
beneficent than that of any other teacher
and organizer in the history of the world
except aione our Lord Jesus Christ. The
teachings of Hoses have largely determined
the history and influence of three
of the great religions of mankind?Judaism.
Mohammedanism, and Christianity.
He wrs a many-sided man. He was preeminent
both as a man of thought and
a man of action. In Lie realm of letters
ho excelled alike as a writfcr of
prose and a writer of poetry, as shown
in the matchless narratives of Genesis,
the ringing paean of deliverance at th?
Red Sea, and that lofty and melancholy
hnnn tho Qlith. Pcnlnt ho nmwAP nf
which is shown in the fact that it has
fcetu made a part of every funeral service
in Christendom?so that these deathless
words about death are still read
every day over the mortal remains of
many thousands of our fellow men. And
when your time comes and mine, the
minister who officiates, will pronounce
over our lifeless clay the threnody thai
Moses wrote three thousand years ago.
In view cf what the Bible telte us about
his temperament and his defects as a
speaker, it would hardly be expected that
Moses should excel in the oratorical style.
Vet Professor Moultcn, of the University
of Chicago, who has made the literary
forms of Scripture his specialty, says that
he once read through on three successive
days, each at a single sitting, an oration
of Demosthenes, one of Bnrke, and the
book of Deuteronomy, and he had the
feeling at the time that neither of the
other two rose to the oratorical level of
the speeches of Moses.
According to Josephus, Mosos wa3 also
a brilliant and victorious soldier, and
on the occasion of an Ethiopian invasion
took command of the Egyptian army,
repulsed the invaders from the very
gates of Memphis, drove t'nein back into
their own country, and captured their
capital. His pre-eminence as statesman,
legislator and organizer is seen in the
fact that, to him are traced back nearly
all the formative ideas and institutions
of the most influential people chat, ever
lived. In the wealth of his endowments,
in the grandeur of his character, and
in the masslvene&s of his work, he is a
colossal figure.
But when that towering personality
passed away, would not the work he had
done fall to the ground? His work would
certainly have been Incomplete had he
not made provision for tho perpetuation
of It after his death; and in nothing does
the greatness of the man appear more
clearly than in the measures whiah he
adopted for this purpose.
The Essentials of His System.
In the book of Deuteronomy we have
the closing addresses of the aged leader
'TH. 17
to his people, and in ihe paragraph before
us (Deut. 6: 4-9), we find the three
essentials of his system, vis.. a Theology,,
a Religion, and a Pedagogy.
A Theology.
"Hear, O Israel; the Lord our God is
one Lord." Xo other portion, of the
Scriptures has had so strong an influence
on the character and career of the
Hebrew race as this. It is the Holy of
holies of their Bible?the central article
of their 'faith?? the key stone of their
creed, it is repeated morning and evening
in the daily ritual iu every laud
where there is a Hebrew synagogue or
a Hebrew home. It is bound upon mil
liens of arms and foreheads. It is nailed
upon millions of door-posts. In every
way it has been emphasized to the eye
as well as the ear. In the original text
the final letters of the first uad last
words of the verse are majuscula, i. e.,
printed much larger than the ordinary
size, so that, as soon as the hook is
opened, lhi3 verse leaps from the page
as it were and seizes the attention of
the rerader. Thj?se two letters form
together a word meaning "witness," the
utterance of this verse being accounted
by the Jews a witness for the faith.
Nor are the Jews alone in stressing
this doctrine of the divine unity. The
Mohammedans give it an equally conspicuous
place in their creed. Five times
every day the muezzin climbs to the
uiijuiei oun cans me iaiuuui to prayer
with the words: "There is no gcd but
God." The importance attached by
Christians to the doctrine of the exclusive
deity of Jehovah is too well known
to require further mention. But in the
time of Moses there was need of special
emphasis on the unity of God. He and
his people had just come out of a land
which was the very hot-bed of polytheism?where,
as Herodotus said, it was
easier to And a god than a man?a land
where the people had deified the sun and
worshipped that, where they had deified
the Nile and "worshipped that, where they
had deified bulls and rams and cats and
worshipped them. Over against this riot
of polytheism, Moses taught that God
is one, supreme, almighty, creator and
lord of all, loving and gracious?"our
God." And it is impossible to overestimate
the world's debt to him for doing it.
For, explain it how you will, polytheism
degrades and mouotheism exalts. The product
of the one dies, the product of the
other endures. The religion of Egypt has
perished, the religion of Israel abides.
And the explanation is not far to seek.
For belief in one God, righteous and
almighty, is the indispensable condition
of a calm, courageous, conservative mind
and a rational view of human affairs. It
steadies, strengthens and lifts the whole
character and life of the individual and
the community to know that this universe
is the thought of one mind, that it is
under the control of one hand, and that
in all its parts it moves to the accomnlishment
of r>?o
m ? vuv ciou. cuu. io any
one therefore who may suppose that this
is all academic and far removed from
the practical interests of our land and
time we would say that a sound theology
is one of the most practical of things
because it affects directly the temper of
the mind, the steadiness of the character
and the quality of the work.
A Religion.
Further, Moses not only gave a Theology
but a Religion. He not only taught*