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December i, 1909. THE PRESBYTERIA]
spending the winter in a house with walls of packed
mud, whose lower floor had been ten inches under water
during the summer, and whose mud walls were
therefore marred with dampness for months afterward ;
and we have seen the ill-health that followed this exposure.
Wc saw another mission family living in a
house (the best that their means would allow), whose
walls varied from the perpendicular one foot in ten.
It was sustained by poles set up diagonally to prop it
from falling. Of course it is impossible to protect our.
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without a sewer, or from the effects of garbage left to
rot in the hot sun. But with the increased resources
coming from this bequest, the homes of the mission
laborers of our sister church can at least be made more
com fortable.
This bequest does not directly aid our own Church
or work. It all goes into the treasury of the Northern
Assembly. And yet indirectly it may help our work.
It may set some of our noble men and women to
thinking whether they may not do something special
for the mission work that is under our own care. As
they witness the benefits that are to flow to our sister
Church from this beneficence they will ask, when and
how our own Church mav receive n nimilnr beln
Mr. Kennedy postponed his giving till his death.
Now the bequests will all have (we suppose) to be
scaled by the government. We apprehend that the
"collateral inheritance tax" will take perhaps ten per
cent, from each of these contributions and put it into
the government coffers. If our friends can see their
way clear to make their donations while yet living, this
expense will be saved. By all means let us do at once
whatever our hearts bid us do.
AMONG THE MEN.
It is unquestionably true that there is a revival of
interest in religious and mission work among the men
of the churches. For this and for all that it signifies
and all that it promises we may well be profoundly
thankful to God. Felt and evident most in centers
where great meetings have been held and appeals
made, it is a fact also in many of the smaller commu
nines ana in country churches. Bible class work for
men has been almost universally established, and its
fruits are appearing in intelligence, character, attachment
to the Church of Christ and zeal for its progress.
In many places brotherhoods are pattered, for the organization
of Christian men in Christ's service, that
shall at least begin to compare with the great work of
Christian women.
The Laymen's Missionary Movement is an expression
of the religious interest of men, and it is the
means of stirring and extending that interest. Undenominational
and comprehensive as it is, it is thoroughly
evanceliral nnrl malrpc ilc or>n?al <?/-.!
0 J - - ?-Q ?vw? MJ/J/VUi OVltlJf IUI LUC
proclamation in all the world of the one everlasting
gospel of redemption through a divine and crucified
Redeemer. Wherever the appeal of this Movement
has been heard it has again directed the faith and love
of our church men to Christ our Lord and Saviour, and
awakened anew their desire to serve Him and to exalt
His name before the whole world. And it directs their
zeal and newly consecrated energies not into any new
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4
N OF THE SOUTH. 3
church or agencies," but to the churches, local and denominational,
to which they are now attached and
where their vows are recorde^l.
The results directly aimed at, and most immediately
apparent, are in the large increase of offerings to missions
and the world-conquest for Christ. And this is
itself religious; it indicates and it works genuine religious
revival, and of the best kind. To make these
pledges and to keep them reciuires the faith and lnvp
the self-denial and sacrifice of the true Christian life.
And our men are richly blessed therein.
But the value of all this movement among men, confessing
the name of Christ, will not be only in the fuller
treasuries of the House of God, and the extension of
the Kingdom in other lands, nor yet in the deepening
and enlargement of personal religious life. A farther
result, we may hope, will be in the lessening the hold
of the world with its rewards and pleasures upon the
hearts and lives of a great body of Christian laymen.
The greatest peril of our country today is probably
in our material prosperity. We suppose history has
not recorded such a rapid development of resources and
accumulation of wealth as is seen today in America.
Our own Southland is growing rich far beyond anything
we ever knew. The prospect of wealth is everywhere
before the eyes of the young men, and the desire
is created, and the energies are directed, with in
nvoaing muui dim growing speea. corner aims are
belittled, other devices are cast aside. The numbers
who enter the race increase daily, and the fever burns
more fiercely. Wealth, and what it brings of pleasure
and pride, of luxury and appetite, becomes a na- *
tional passion.
We can not blind our eyes to the peril. It is written
many times in history. It is seen in our day in other
lands and other sections. Is the curse of wealth to
come upon our people? Covetousness and selfishness,
and forgetfulness of better things, and absorption in
gold, and demoralization and degeneracy. It is an old
and oft-repeated story. It is written of individuals.
It is written of nations. Shall it be written of our
Southland? Of our Church communities? Of our
sons? Rather than wealth at such cost; with corruption
and vice and shame, and the rejection of morals
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auu icngiuu, aim an awiui ruin, let us nave poverty,
with virtue and the fear of God before our eyes.
Among the men, will the Misisonary Movement, and
any other movement, call them back from the peril, and
keep them from blindness, and hold them up out of the
sea of worldliness, and make them rich in faith and
love, rich toward God, most happy in the service of
another King?
That is what we are hoping!
One can hardly restrain a little smile when told of
a Sunday-school "Home Department" organized on
a penitentiary farm of Louisiana. Such is the fact,
however, and it is a good fact, an example well worthy
of imitation. Of course the members have to stav "at
home," but none the less should they be cared for by
those who love to tell of Jesus and his love, and to
spread the knowledge of the Word of God. The New
Orleans church, which is doing this work, is worthy
of all praise.