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10 (1016) THE!
conferred on him the degree of Doctor of
Divinity.
Many discriminating readers write us that
Tule Presbyterian op the ISouth is the best religious
weekly in the South; we do not care to
say this ourselves, but we do say it is our purpose
and endeavor to make the paper more and
more an instrument of usefulness to our beloved
Church, and in all things to further the happiness
and well being of all her people.
In this we are sure Dr. Little will ioin us.
"T. S. W.
AFTER THE VACATION, WHAT?
The habit of taking a \?**tion is evidently
growing with the America^ ,/eople. The city
man goes to the country, 'lue country people
visit the city or the mountains or the seashore.
It seems to be a necessity of this nerve-racking
climate and strenuous life. Great business corporations
arrange for their employees to take a
while off. Large factories shut down to let men
and machinery be repaired.
It is right. J esus bade his disciples come apart
and rest awhile. He knew the strain must 'be relieved.
i jus vacation Habit baa created new ditliculties
in church life. The summer is a hard time to
even keep up the work of the church. Yet it is
the very time when most needs to be done. The
forces of evil are unusually active in summer.
July is the month of the largest criminal record.
Evil is most active during the period of relaxation.
Vacation properly spent re-invigorates for renewed
service. But like all changes it has its
dangers. "We are largely creatures of ha'bit. We
are greatly affected by the influence of public
opinion. On the vacation are unusual temptations.
Good habits are often impinged on. The
silent Sunday, the absences from Sunday school
and church services, the contact with people of
unspiritual character. The breaking up of home
life; the absence of public opinion, constitutes a
real danger.
We come home physically stronger, and morally
weaker. The plane of our life may be dis
tincrny lower, rne seeds 01 evil may be lodged in
our hearts.
Then, after vacation, we ought to take spiritual
stock. See where we stand. It is a good time
for the pastor to get in touch with his people.
He may find that ravenning wolves may have
been among them. Some germs of sin-sickness
may have gotten in, that left alone may result
in a sad state of affairs. An ounce of prevention
may be worth a pound of cure.
On the other hand some of the people may
have received a new vision?'been lifted up out of
some ruts. A new desire to serve may have been
acquired.
The pastor is wise who may catch these souls in
the hour of aroused willingness, and harness
them up for a new work.
After the vacation, the preacher can bring the
old message in new ways, and with attractive
methods to his people, and thus prove he has
not spent his time in the idler's paradise.
He has a chance to look back over the year's
preaching and see where it Is defective. He may
rub wits with others and learn how to do it.
After the vacation parents may well look into the
spiritual condition of their children. Seeds of
worldliness are often implanted just during this
time. Seeds of rebellion against parental control?of
dissatisfaction with the home regime.
Like the seed dropped in the crevice they may
sever parents and children eventually.
It is not enough to look over the wardrobe and
repair the rents, but look into the spiritual condition
and remember "a stitch in time saves?
nine."
*1
II
PRESBYTERIAN OF THE S<
Satan does his best work in breaking up the
family during vacation time.
After the vacation parents may well put into
practice lessons they have learned in training
children.
Very seldom do parents see or hear how other
parents train children. But in the forced commingling
of families, in the free and easy life
of this period, the wise parents may see how
faults grow?or how virtues may be developed.
A mother said, '' I did not know what careless
manners ray children had until 1 saw the pleasant
and polite ways of ??1 's children."
So even a mother may learn her children are not
perfect.
After the vacation, Sunday school workers will
find much to do. The class has been crrPAt.lv or
entirely disorganized. For weeks the pupils have
not attended Sunday school, or if they have,
under conditions and teachings so different that
it has aroused only a perfunctory interest.
Often, if about sixteen, they had been in touch
with other boys or girls who think themselves
"too big" for Sunday school. Attendance on
Sunday school being entirely voluntary, the wise
teacher must use her personal influence to start
the pupil again.
In the class, a Sunday or two might well be
spent in going back and picking up the threads
of the lesson, so as to arouse the interest of the
pupil.
A social meeting might bring them together,
and attract some other who does not attend Simday
school. At this meeting have the scholars
what they have seen and heard. Get their point
of view of life and thus make the vacation a great
help to training the heart of the child.
Surely after the vacation, we ought to be ready
for a higher service?more faithful doing life's
duties?a better preparation for that home where
after we rest awhile his servants will continually
serve him. A. A. L.
NOTES IN PASSING.
BY BERT.
If church work is to be really
Making Good, successful every one must stand
in his place with an open heart,
a ready hand, and a responsive spirit. The
Church is a co-operative institution in which responsibility
is so distributed that every man and
woman, boy and girl share in proportion to
knowledge and ability. No one is without responsibility.
The most valuable possession one
can have is a spirit keenly sensitive to its obligations
and always hastening with joy to respond.
A man oan refuse to meet his responsibilities,
but he cannot destroy them. They continue call
ing upon him; and the only effect of turning deaf
ears to them is to make them caill the louder.
Every responsibility refused claims its toll in
weakened character. The men who make good
are the men who joyfully assume all proper obligations
and then do something more. For he
who does nothing more than his duty is an unprofitable
servant.
Bishop Doane says, "EnthusAnother.
iasm is the element of success in
Requirement, everything." One does not have
to make any very minute investigation
to become convinced that in every line of
human endeavor the enthuaisastic spirits have
been the ones to make things go. If there is anything
noticeable in our church life it is the utter
lack of that enthusiastic interest in the work
which is remarkable elsewhere. If the average
business man took no more vital interest in his
business than he does in his religion the sea of
commerce would be crowded with -wrecks, and
the industrial world would soon look like the
1
3 U T H [September 4, 1912
hopeless ruins of some past age. If Cariyle be
correct in saying that4 4 Enthusiasm is the fundamental
quality of strong souls" we may be justified
in judging that weakness is a universal
quality in the religious world.
Enthusiasm demands some knowledge, and
knowledge calls for situdy of the Word and attendance
upon the preaching of the GospeL It
also calls for a stronger sense of one's personal
obligation to tl e Word, and an awakened conscience.
Of no very large number may it be said
to-day that they are eaten up by the zeal of
God's house. There is need of the baptism of
fire that our hearts may be set aglow with a new
earnestness of love for the cause of Christ.
No man should be satisfied
Still Another* with doing less than his very
>U a. ~ CJ. J
'LTCBI,; uxter li, is UOBC, no UUUJ
should be satisfied with his best. One's best is a
variable quantity. That which is his best at one
period of his life ought to be far from his best
at a later. The only fixed ideal is perfection;
everything beneath that ought to be always moving
toward it. We should not be contented to do
a thing as well as we can do it; contentment here
is the foe to growth, and the firm step in a retrograde
movement. Many a church can date its
failure from the moment of proud boasting in a
splendid record. There can be no goal in the
course of the race, the prize is given at the end.
But the great virtue in doing one's best lies not
in the accomplishment but in the work itself.
What can give such continued joy to the soul as
rne consciousness inai you are always aoing mat
the most exacting mind demands? With such a
program self-imposed you are entirely independent
of the opinions of the censorious. There's an
elation about it which lift ysou up to, and keeps
you living in, the atmosphere of genuine ideality.
And it is in this atmosphere that all true
advancement thrives.
The joy of work is work. He who labors only
in hope of reward loses the brightest reward of
alL
A temptation is an opportunity. What the
devil means to be stumbling blocks, the Lord intends
for stepping-stones. When the devil tern
pted Christ, the Lord instead of being buried beneath
the stones raised himself upon them to the
sublimest heights of victory. What he did, in
his Spirit I can do.
Israel wanted a king to fight their battles.
That is what we want. Only a king can fight my
battles. Which shall it be, shall I face them as
a king or a craven 1 My attitude toward Christ
answers the question.
THE SUNDAY SCHOOL ENTERPRISE
The Sunday school is here. It is to be handled,
not displaced. The enterprise has fastened itself
in the imagination, the mind, the heart of
the Christian world, and in its activities. It has
its place. The problem now is, not shall it bei
but What shall it be? And this is the question
for all who are embarked in the enterprise.
The answer will be determined chiefly by their
conception of the fundamentals of the work.
These fundamentals, for Sunday school workers,
will not be found in the mere pedagogics of the
enterprise. They will be found to come out of
something loftier than the mech&nical ways and
means of a routine sehood-room. Or, if pedagogy
be studied it will be in the light of the specific
principles which underlies the work and the
specific ends which are sought. It may be of
value to examine some of these.
The desire to succeed is not a solid foundation
upon which to lay the work. That is working