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4 > THE PRESBYTERIA
FOOTBALL.
The fatalities which occur each year in connection
with this popular game cause widespread alarm and
call forth positive censure from many sources. This
year is 110 exception to the rule. Two weeks playing
made a record of seven deaths besides many cases of
serious injury, and the end is not yet for Thanksgiving
Day's record is not yet made up. Thanksgiving
Day! What would the Puritan fathers think of our
al use of their day of grateful devotion and happy domestic
fellowship?
We are told that strenuous athletics, such as is furnished
by football, is conducive to manliness. To this
we may assent, provided the game is conducted within
manly limitations, but the ruthless hazard of human
life is not manly. It is brutal if not cowardly. The
truly brave are those who place themselves between
danger and the security of human life and happiness.
Many of our fathers in the sixties exposed their lives
to danger, but to the end that the lives and liberties
and domestic felicity of those in their homes might be
preserved. The soldier who wantonly exposed his
life, or the life of his comrades to peril, was condemned.
It never has been true and never can be that brutality
is promotive of either physical or moral manliness.
The bully may overawe, but in methods that appeal
to honorable manhood, he is a weakling. It is
not recorded that either Jackson or Lee was a master
of brute force.
Recently some college authorities have expressed
the opinion that the element of danger intensifies in.
terest in the game and is essential to its success. This
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American prize-fighting, but it does not justify either.
There are many games that are intensely interesting
that do not involve the element of danger. The meaning
of such statements is that the crowds of spectators
are interested in seeing men wounded or killed.
But we are told there is risk in all pursuits and danger
everywhere. The answer is that the better judgment
of society protests against the wanton exposure
of life, and civil laws take cognizance of such exposure.
Are we to trifle with the mighty and sacred instinct
of parental affection simply that we may attract a
crowd by exposing young men to death as beasts in the
arena? There are devoted parents in our land today
whose happiness is blighted for-life as they mourn for
the pride and joy of their hearts, who has fallen a victim
to "the element of danger" in the desperate contest.
There are features of the game other than that of
imperiling human life that should be eliminated. Reporters
commonly speak of the game as a fight and de
scribe how the contestants fought. Intense anger is
excited and the hostile methods of an enemy in furious
combat are used, limited only by rules of the game
whose violation would mean defeat and involve a penalty.
Is it possible to apply the golden rule in such
a contest, or is it applied under such desperate conditions?
"In honor preferring one another" is Paul's
standard of receiving and bestowing honors. We will
let the professor of ethics in the university explain
how this principle is illustrated in the football contest.
We are in favor of the game. It can be made inter
N OF THE SOUTH. December I, igog.
esting, civil and safe. Our boys should have recreation,
should be trained in skill and muscular strength.
Friendly contests, in which the most competent shall
be rewarded, are to be encouraged. But many good
and comemtidablc things degenerate merely from excess.
There is often but a step between dignity and
dishonor, a wholesome rivalry may be perverted into a
desperate antagonism which involves a maximum of
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as the manly athlete is he who clearly discriminates
between the two. E. B. M.
PROGRESS.
Very appropriately the first page of "The Home Mission
Herald" is devoted to "Thanksgiving Thoughts."
These thoughts deal with the progress and state of the
Southern Presbyterian Church during the past year.
The facts that appear in this statement are most interesting
and encouraging, and the editors of the Herald
have done valuable service in presenting them to
our people. The facts and figures presented indicate
a year of unusual prosperity. More than thirty thousand
additions were made to our church membership,
sixteen thousand of these having been received on
profession of faith. The year's work shows a' net increase
of four per cent in membership, which is equal
to the highest attained by any denomination.
In the department of benevolence, the Church this
year made the largest contribution in its history. The
total contributed for Foreign Missions was $412,000;
for the Assembly's Home Missions, $91,000, and for
Local Home Missions, $205,000. This gives a total
for Foreign and Home Missions of $708,000. We are
told that five years ago the amount given for these
causes was only $404,000. The amount contributed to
all departments of Churcji work this year was $3,604,906.
It is noteworthy that the largest relative increase
of membership was in our mission fields. The largest
percentage of accessions was in those synods which are
aided by the Assembly's funds. Oklahoma gained
22 per cent; 1 exas, iO per cent; Florida and Arkansas,
x3-5 Pcr cent. It is noted that one small Presbytery in
Oklahoma has grown in a few years into a vigorous
Synod and Texas is now the third Synod in size in
the Assembly.
Such facts call for profound gratitude and inspire
larger hopes and more earnest endeavor.
Recently published statistics on Sabbath-schools indicate
that there are in the world a grand total of
252,972 schools with 25,961,291 teachers and scholars.
These schools are distributed as follows: In Great
Rritain anH Tr#?1 and a(\ h/JMi ft t > * ttA
? f'lOT?' ...v.. IIII.IIIWVI J.
In the other European nations there are 27,698 with
l>997>900 members. In Asia and Africa are 6,124
schools and 263^78 ^members. In the United States
are 151,476 schools with 13,732,190 members. In Canada
9,703 schools have 791,000 members. In North
American regions are 1,850 schools containing 165,000
members. In South America there are 3,500 schools
and 153,000 members. In Oceanica are 9,372 schools
and 723,360 members.