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February 28, 1*13 | THE
- Editorial
"Post-mortem Christians" is the very appropriate
name which an exchange gives to that
class of Christians who have no use for the
church except when they want to be buried or
prepared for death, or to have the offices of the
church for some of their household. The class
is more numerous than most people suspect.
T'llP Tlinlrnr?o 1 -?a ?
a..v iv,.xv no u&uvtuuiai was uiuuu uuserveu u
week or two ago. The greatest memorial to him,
however, is in the fact that in this later age of
the most sensational and unclean and "realistic"
literature, the works of Dickens command a place
and find a sale not less than ever before. The
century has thus erected a monument to him
greater than all the panegyrics of the centennial
platforms and meetings.
As the Chattanooga Convention recedes from
view its maemificent imnression do?s nnf
but rather increases. The impulse given the
cause of Foreiem Missions was undoubtedly great.
If now it quickens interest in home missions as
well, it will be seen that the work was genuine
and the impulse real and substantial.
That speech of Robert Speer, at the Chattanooga
Convention, on "The Impact of Protestantism
on Latin America," ought to be read by
every man in the United States. It described a
condition of things of a religious kind that is appalling,
and both by the conditions and the accepted
policy of all the South American Republics,
clearly showed that Protestant effort there
is warranted and is no intrusion. And yet the
speech was in the finest spirit and most charitable
tone. Mr. Speer was careful, for instance,
to distinguish between what he called "The
South American Church" and the "Roman
Catholic Church," and usually alluded to the
former not as a church but as "the South
1 American religious institution." The speech
could be read by the most ardent Romanist, if he
is thoroughly intelligent and if his heart is
right, without offense.
The cry goes up from many a quarter, and
more than ever since the Chattanooga Convention.
"Double-track the Laymen's Movement!"
Let it be for "missions," the mission of the
church, without limit to those people who are
without Christ one thousand, two thousand, five
thousand miles from us, but reaching to all who
have not named his name, the millions just
around us who are unevangelized, the hundreds
of thousands of foreign-speaking people living in
the midst of us, the districts where the blight of
South America is not unknown. The cause which
makes a strong and productive home base for the
foreign work is as great as the latter work.
Double-track this splendid laymen's effort, and
see what an impulse would be given the church
at home, and that without the loss of an ounce of
ui tin iuuu ui cApowfiuu in me wotk
abroad.
A bright ministerial correspondent in Arkansas
drops into poetry, sending ns the following
lines as "An Echo from the Laymen's Convention
:
"The danger as he saw it,"
Now listen, O ye men?
In this "up-rising of the layman,"
Is that "he'll sit down again."
The publicity committee of a Chicago Presbytery
has succeeded in making a re-adjustment
of newspaper reports of presbyterial proceedings.
In that city, aa elsewhere, the newspapers
PRESBYTERIAN OF THE Si
Notes and
have been sending irresponsible reporters to ecclesiastical
meetings to catch up anything of a
sensational nature that might occur, and to
manufacture sensational copy if it could not be
gotten ready made. The Chicago committee has
succeeded in making an arrangement with the
city press whereby a responsible representative
of Presbytery shall be the official reporter for all
news ?f presbyterial meetings. The fledgeling
reporter who overworks his scantily bestowed and
unseasoned wits to reflect upon the proceedings
of church courts, thereby forfeits all claim to
their consideration. Very readily might every
ecclesinstinnl moptincr onnnint ?
uj/puiub an uuiuitii rc*
porter from its own number.
Public prints in the form of newspapers and
current fiction will rarely let an opportunity
pass to berate the Puritanism of New England
in days gone by. It may be suggested that if
New England governors of this later day and
those of some other states were imbued with the
spirit of their Puritan predecessors there might
at least be less compromise with evil in our land
and a greater reverence for the righteousness
which exalteth a nation. Governor "Winthrop,
the first chief executive of the colony of Massachusetts,
was a devout Puritan, who deplored the
sins of the people and encouraged godliness.
Prior to his holding the office of governor, while
on a visit to England he wrote to his wife a
letter from which the following extract is made:
"My dear wife: I am verily persuaded God will
bring some heavy affliction upon the land, and
speedily; but be of good comfort, the hardest
that can come shall bring us into nearer communion
with our Lord Jesus Christ, and more
nssnranno /vf Viio Tf ? T ?J 11 ''
wic muguuui. 11 ine ajui'u seem it
will be good for us he will provide a shelter
and hiding place for us and others, as a Zoar for
Lot, Sarepta for his prophet; if not, he will not
forsake us: . . if he take not his mercy and loving
kindness from use we shall be safe." Governor
"Winthrop's statue in Scollay square, Boston,
shows him in civil garb, with the royal
charter of the colony in one hand and the Bible
in the other, a fitting representation of the good
citizen, the incorruptible statesman and the
practical Christian.
Rev. G. Campbell Morgan in The British Congregationalist
attempts to classify typical congregations
as he supposes he has discovered them
in America and Britain. In paying his respects
to the people of the South he says: "They impress
you with the feeling that no bolt that was
ever forged could have surprised them and
notning you can say can wake them up." He
thinks however that "beneath that apparent
langour there is passion and there is power."
The latter statement is doubtless intended to
supply some compensation for the former. Taken
together, however, they mean that our people are
lacking in intellectual robustness and appreciation.
We must be granted the indulgence of a
firm protest. The British divine has probably
formed his impressions in the hotel lobbies and
from foreicm made rmhlientieno rotiioi. ?
insufficient data. Besides it may be suggested
that Mr. Morgan is afflicted with a big I, which
always obscures rather than facilitates clear
vision. In legislative halls, in executive offices,
in the pulpit, in law, in medicine, as educators,
in finance, commerce and industrial enterprises
our people are $ot outclassed anywhere. A final
statement is made which, while it suggests that
the South contains a quantity of very raw material
out of which a great structure may be
ultimately built, has the merit of i.t least pre
0 U T ? < ??) 9
Comments
senting a cheery forecast of remote possibilities.
He ventures to prophesy that "in another fifty
years we shall see the men of the Southern States
of the United States of America marching to the
most marvelous victories in every singe department
of human life." Yes, brother Morgan, but
"years" to a Britisher means only months on
this side of the Atlantic.
NOTES IN PASSING.
BY BERT.
"If thou faint in the day of adFdinting,
versity, thy strength is small." Prov.
24:10. The great ship is made for
the day of storms; the army is intended for the
time of war. It is when the destructive breath
of the hurricane blows the waters into hissing
monsters of ungovernable rage that the good ship
shows her strength. It is when the battlefield is
plowed with shot and shell and the air is thick
with the messengers of death that the army
justifies its existence. So the day of adversity is
the day of your manifestation, the day for which
your strength is given. If your strength fails
to meet those demands it was intended to meet,
then it is no strength, but weakness.
"Through many tribulations
Tribulations, we must enter into the kingdom
of God." This was part of
Paul's message to the men nf TT-??
?J . i. , lUUlllUlll,
and Antioch. To shrink from tribulations,
therefore, is to deny ourselves admission in the
kingdom. But what kingdom is there into which
a man can enter without tribulations t There
is no success without effort, and no effort without
success. Your effort may not achieve as
much as you had hoped for, but it takes the
journey. But one ought not to want the kingdom
apart from the effort; for the effort is a
necessary part of one's preparation for the responsibilities
and burdens of the position, as
well as an impetus in the proper direction.
"And he did not many mighty
Unbelief, works there because of their unbelief."
Unbelief is a terrible darkener.
The testimony of unbelievers themselves
is so strong that we who believe need only quote
their own words to eondpmn j tt?
? VUV1& oirtiiu. ricsr
Hume: "I seem affrighted and confounded by
the solitude in which I am placed by my own
philosophy. When I look abroad on every side
I see dispute, contradiction, and distraction.
When I turn my eye inward I find nothing but
doubt and ignorance. Where am I? or what am
I? From what cause do I derive my existence!
To what condition shall I return? I am confounded
with questions; I begin to fancy myself
ir a very deplorable condition, surrounded with
darkness on every side." A more terrible arraignment
of unbelief can scarcely be found in
the Bible itself. Pusey says, "It believes, that
in the end it believes as it lives." Unbelief is
t.f> tllA C/YIll T*rV???*- 1 i_ '
__ ? ??nob pomiysis is to tne body; it
deadens the senses so that its victim can neither
see nor hear nor touch nor taste nor smell. God
and his Providences are shnt out and within
there is only the damp sepulchral odors of hopeless
death.
"In everything give thanks."
Thanksgiving. I knew a man who gave God
thanks because the train was
late, although he was very anxious to get home.
But he said how else could God teach him patience
T
One evil of a bad habit is that a person given
to it loses in measure the power to distinguish
between good and bad. _