Newspaper Page Text
August 30, 1911] THE
Editorial j
Columbia Seminary is to be congratulated on
the election of Rev. R. G. Pearson, D. D., to the
professorship of English Bible. Those who have
heard Dr. Pearson's expositions have been profoundly
impressed with his mastery of the spirit
and letter, the genius, harmony and unity of the
blessed Book. He makes his hearers love and delight
in the inspired oracles. He thrills them
with the realization of the precious truths of inIspiration
and overwhelms them with the conviction
that this is none other than the living truth
of the living God.
Now that Columbia has its chairs of instrucfinn
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finest type, we may expect growing prosperity
for the Seminary. Especially since the prospect
of increased and ample endowment is in view,
and more especially since, according to announcement
by President Whaling, a new emphasis is
to be placed on the acquisition by every student
of a thorough, scholarly understanding of and
familiarity with the English Bible. The presidint
and faculty have selected a key to the highest
excellence in ministerial education in deciding
upon and announcing increased emphasis on
the discriminating and systematic study of the
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ounpiures 111 me language 01 xne people.
A thing that does not usually occur appears
to be coming to pass in the case of Rev. Reginald
Campbell, the erratic doctrinaire and pulpit
freak of the London City Temple. After preaching
for several years, a jumble of idealism, pantheism
and other forms of imationalism, he has
returned to some of the doctrines which he once
thought were relics of the crude civilizations of
the past, only to be discarded as driftwood in
the light of modern evolution. He is credited
with these utterances in late pulpit discourses:
"The whole power of the Christian religion, and
its distinguishing mark among all other religions,
V?oo VtAan hnf if Viao n r*rvorvnl aP innn
uno i/cun mav it nao piv/v/ianuuu a ^uopci ui viuarious
forgiveness." "Theory or no theory, the
fact is that faith in Christ does give a man a
sense of peace and power to live the new life."
These may be but solitary gleanings from the
rank and noxious growth which City Temple
audiences are harvesting, but all the more to be
valued by them. Or perhaps the prodigal
preacher may be returning from the swinetroughs
of the far country of sensational religious
conjecture.
The city of Richmond is now undergoing a
process of humiliation such as has been endured
by one after another of the cities of our land
A trial for crime is in Drosrress and newsnaDers
are sending into the homes of the people accounts
of revolting details of crime and vice
supposed to be involved in the case. Young
people and children have whole front pages of
this kind of thing served to them daily in their
homes. It will require years to overcome the
evil influence that is pervading the social and
moral atmosphere of the community. A financial
panic or an infectious plague would be less disiistrnns
Tho nsnpps dta rtnin fr -iiiaf what moot
though not all, daily newspapers do. They are
no worse, we wish they were better in this respect,
than the average. They place too low an
estimate on the moral and social standards of
the community in assuming that they are giving
what the public wants. Or else they are pandering
to the tastes of the coarser, more depraved
classes, presuming upon the tolerance of the better
social and Christian sentiments.
PRESBYTERIAN OF THE 8<
Notes and
We fancy that among intelligent people there
is coining a great weariness with titles. With
men of self-respect and true dignity of character
there is a surfeit, which turns against the
exaggerated use of titles with extreme distaste.
They are multiplied, they are so promiscuously
bestowed and they are counterfeited, until men
of true worth want none of them. There are so
many colonels and generals who never saw a battlefield,
that a real general would rather be
known (is a private soldier. There are so many
professors and doctors who know nothing and
teach nothing, that the really educated man
would rather his learning should not be mentioned.
We are learning that tall true values in
manhood do not need marking with a star, or a
row of letters. Really learned men do not care
to be called professor, and the doctor is a small
thing to the man who has any theology in his
head. There is an excellent colored man, a
preacher of the African M. E. Church in the
South, Bishop Turner. One of his denominational
papers telling of his sickness speaks of
him as the Lord Bishop Henry M. Turner, D. D.,
LL. D., Ph. D., D. C. L. If he is a man of any
sense at all we fear his doctors will have a hard
time pulling him through after (all that.
NORTH STATE NOTES.
A trip through the State of North Carolina is
a pleasure and association with its people is a
privilege. Everywhere are to be seen evidences
of material prosperity. The country is attractive,
farms are well cultivated and crops are
abundant. A chain of towns along the Southern
Railway give outward evidence of material progress
and enterprise. We are told that State
and municipal laws, being modern and sensible,
are well enforced by capable and honorable officials.
AntimiJltnA 1- ' 1
! gxTumwuuii iiKtuinuery nas
been consigned to the scrap-heap, and government
for the benefit of the people has taken its
place. Hence the prosperity, enterprise and air
of confidence and hope everywhere prevailing.
The spirit of the Church is likewise buoyant
and expectant. Perhaps its deep breathing of
energy and large purpose has set the arteries of
secular life throbbing. Certain it is that "onward"
is a watchword throughout the Synod's
bounds. It has become a habit to organize new
churches, establish schools, especially among the
mountaineers, commission evangelists, raise up
young men of brain and brawn, dedicate, train
and ordain them to the gospel ministry, place the
blue banner in their hands and tell them to lead
the onset against the enemy's strongholds. Our
working force in presidencies, professorships and
pulpits would be sadly depleted if our North
Carolina contingent were withdrawn, and the
ranks along the firing line would be awfully
thinned and disheartened. The purpose to be
"first, farthest and last" in the fray for life
and liberty, has not forsaken the breasts of these
stalwart descendants of that hardy race of old
world heroes who contended for Christ's crown
and covenant and who won.
The work will go steadily on. Crowded mountain
schools will be enlarged, colleges and seminaries
have already clamored for expansion and
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...? mn unn uerii neeueu generously, or will be.
Town and city churches are safeguarding the policy
of sending out pioneers and helpers to new
and dependent fields.' The home mission, and
consequently the foreign mission, spirit is much
in evidence and pervasive. Christian education
is a slogan. And withal, a fact that gives zest to
effort and a girdle for service, "there remaineth
yet very much land to he possessed."
[) U T H (825) 9
Comments
NOTES IN PASSING.
BY BERT.
But there are those who say they cannot afford
to pay the Lord one-tenth of their income and
give free-will offerings besides. My first answer
is that this ohiee.t.ion npvnr 4-1?
0 uv> w* Wiuvo 11UUI UIHW;
who practice the tithe, but from those who are
seeking to evade it. My second answer is, God
commanded it upon all the people of Israel and
many of them were as miserably poor as any in
our day. My third answer is, if the tithe be
God's it is dishonest not to pay it.
If there ever was a time when people as a
whole could pay the tithe, that time is now.
There is more money in circulation now than
there ever was, wages are higher, conditions of
living are easier. Any Christian knowing anything
about the comparative styles of living between
now and the days when no man sought to
evade the tithe, who would offer this as a reason
ought to be ashamed of himself.
D..x -* ? *
oui evidently tne urging of such a reason is
clear evidence of want of faith. And many
people are today dragging out ia miserable existence
upon a pittance because they will insist
upon doing for themselves when if they would
obey God and throw the burden of their support
upon Him they would be infinitely better off.
If a professing believer thinks he can do better
for himself than God can do for him, God will
give him all the opportunities he may need to
prove it. But how much nobler that life, how
much freer from vexatious cares, which in the
face of all apparent impossibilities dares to trust
God. Even if there were no law of the tithe and
a Christian soul should feel that by giving out of
his poverty one-tenth to God he would be doing
a service God would love, I believe with all my
heart that God would never let such a spirit come
to want. "What is needed today as much as anything
is something of the heroic quality in our
faith. If men would give a fraction of the effort
toward lifting themselves upon a higher platform
of religious living that thev use trvinc tn
excuse themselves for remaining where they are
they would be better off.
If those who urged such an excuse only knew
what and how great blessings they were keeping
away from themselves by their disobedience they
would not long hesitate.
Others urge against practising the tithe that
they are in debt. But will we pay our debts
with God's money? Might it not be that if we
began right and gave God His first our other
debts would rest more easily upon our minds.
Love will always find a way. And if there be
a real eiaraest desire to obey God every difficulty
which comes to the mind of the disobedient will
vanish before the eyes set upon obedience.
The benefits of the tithing system are so numerous,
and emerge in so many unthought of
places, and meet us at so m!any turns that no
man can give them all. Almost every individual
who in the right spirit observes this law has peculiar
experiences which abundantly confirm his
own faitti.
In many parts of the South it is the wasteful
custom of farmers to let their costly agricultural
implements lie out in the corner of the field from
the end of one season to the beginning of the
next. In this way Vast sums of money are lost
every year. A certain farmer had his eyes opened
upon the tithe. He became impressed waste was
disobedience. He concluded that if he were to
take better care of his machinery he would not