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10 (1040) THE]
Another overture looks to a change in the requirements
for examination of candidates for
the ministry, by accepting a certificate from an
approved college in lieu of the examination on
the academic studies, and of an approved theological
seminary in lieu of the examination on
tne original language of the Kcnptures and on
ecclesiastical history. It also authorizes the alternative
of an English thesis for the Latin thesis
on some common head of divinity. Certain
minor changes, involved in this, are also proposed.
Another overture proposes an amendment to
the law on commissioners to the effect that the
Synod and the General Assembly may at their
own discretion commit any case of trial, coming
before them on appeal, except such cases as
affect doctrine, to the judgment of a commission
composed of others than the members of the
court from which the case shall come up.
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We do not like the word "campaign.'' It
sounds too muoh of the world. The idea that
has been moving in the minds of the leaders of
the Christian Church is, that the Church ought
to awake to its divine mission of evangelizing
the world. The mighty efforts to man the Foreign
fields is one phase of it; for Foreign Missions
and Home Missions are one.
The call comes from the courts of our Church
to direct our energies for the next year particularly
to the pressing claims of the gospel on the
world. To that end a letter has been sent to
every chairman of Home Missions in our Church,
asking that the attention of Presbytery take
steps to have every church conduct a continued
meeting during the next year. The local church
is to select its time and its method; the only
thing pressed is that the meeting be held.
May we not have unanimity in this thing?
For once, at least, will not the Church act as one ?
This work will need olannine. for it cannot be
done on the hot spur of the moment. The session
can well afford to give thought and attention
to this matter.
It is needed. The Church itfeelf needs reviving.
Perhaps we have drifted away from our
staunch faith; perhaps our love has grown cold.
Certainly many evils have crept into the household
of God. What a blessed thing it would be
if the whole Church could be lifted to a higher
plane of love and faith and devotion.
If not one soul could be saved immediately
by the meeting, this result would a thousandfold
compensate for the effort. May we not
(icat ictvuiio ill uvuis oavru I vur uuuruu
with all her effort has been gathering in about
14,000 souls each year. The whole year's work
of 22 Christians' preaching, teaching, witnessing
for Christ, results in one soul being brought to
confess Christ. Would it not seem that we need
"speeding upf" Is it not a fact that a great
number of our members are nUt
With only two in nine of the population even
enrolled in the number of confessed Christians,
it looks as if there were a vast multitude outside.
A careful census would show that the majority
in almost every community are unidentified with
the Church.
We have scriptural basis for this meeting of
God's people in prayer and supplication. The
beginning of the Christian Dispensation was in
such a meeting as is proposed?Acts 1:14.
"These all continued with one accord in prayer
and supplication." Then after ten days of this
kind of meeting, the blessing of Pentecost came,
as recorded in the second chapter of Acts.
More than ooce has the Church been aroused
and quickened after such a meeting, both in
scriptural times and afterward. Such meetings
PRESBYTERIAN OF THE SC
can be held. It is sometimes the boast of a
church that they have had and do not need
anything but the regular Sunday school and
Wednesday night services.
Ti _ l 3; J .1 ' < ... -
n i? h spieuuia xoing lor souis to De Dorn into
the kingdom at these regular occasions, but reports
show that the churches who do not put
forth special efforts occasionally are growing
by letter, and from the families of the church,
but not by an ingathering from the world about
us.
The children of James and Peter and John
would no doubt have followed their father's
example, but the 3,000 hardened and unbelieving
Jews outside would not have come in.
By all means let the pastor and session conduct
the meetings. They can do it. Get it out
of our minds that only a peculiar type of man
can hold such a meeting. It has been the mistake
of the past half century. The pastor can
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icou, uis strmiius win oe as enecnve as any
one's. The people have more confidence in him
than in an outside man. We ought to emphasize
the fact that the meeting is the people's.
Nothing -will so demonstrate to the world the
value of the Church of God as the Light-bearer
of the world as to have her lovingly lead souls
out of darkness into the light of life. The mission
of the Church is to so testify the grace of
God as to lead souls to salvation. Let her magnify
her office.
A- A. L.
THE REAL HEROES.
No greatness has ever yet been achieved by
man that may not be duplicated by man. It
behooves us then to study the lives of those who
have become great that we may "make our lives
suDiime."
The great of earth are not those who are born
with a patent of nobility. They are not those
who are heralded and badged, applauded and
followed, known and proclaimed. They are those
who have been first born of the Spirit of God,
and who have then reproduced the life of Christ.
Many of these heroes and heroines have
never had their names written upon the tablets
of any Hall of Fame. Their deeds and lives
have attracted small attention in the world.
But they have been appreciated by apostles and
their Lord and have been a benediction to the
world. Paul said of them, "Remembering without
ceasing your work of faith, and labor of
love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus
Christ."
The noble of earth are chiefly those who quietly
and unobtrusivelv meet, t.hp mmmnnnlano /111.
ties of life, who faithfully attend to its business,
and who, when crises come or great opportunities
open their doors, rise to the occasion without
affectation or conceit. There are more of these
than many suspect, and their numbers sometimes
obscure their real greatness.
Heroes are not born of crises. They may be
revealed by crises or brought out by them, but
they are not created them. The stuff of which
they are made is given long before. It is by
their faithfulness and constancy in the long prosaic
hours of commonplace, every day life that
they have become equipped for the supreme moments
which bring them to light. Character,
which is the basis of real heroism, ift a slow nrod
net, not made in a moment or when excitement
thrill* the heart.
And *0 there are real heroes and heroines all
around us. They are in onr humblest homes,
in loving, patient, hard-working fathers, men of
devotion and self-sacrifice. They are found especially
among the women, heroines of the washtub,
of the kitchen, of the nursery, of the sewingmachine.
of the shop, just as there are heroes of
m
I U T H [ September 11, 1912
the ax, and shovel, and saw, and plane, heroes
of accounts and of the counters and desks. The
humble places reveal them no Icsb than the chair
of state or the battlefield. All are heroes who
endure to the end, who are patient, constant,
consistent, steadfast. And even if their life does
seem prosaic, these traits in the dull routine
are fitting their possessors for glory in some hour
of stress or trial that may come.
There lb more real heroism in bearing patiently
the hardships of commonplace life and the
grind of dull routine than there is in meeting
in lordly spirit some great fesue when everything
around one incites to bravery. The soldier
marching steadily towards the foe or bravely
defending a post assigned him may require more
true courage than the one who is moving to martial
musdc and under the thrill of the battle that
is joined. Experienced men have testified that
the hardest time on the raw recruit is just before
the battle begins, and when the fight is entered
into the struggle with cowardice or fear is usually
over.
VANISHING BARRIERS.
Some time ago the Christian Century of Chicago,
representing the Disciples Church, took
the position that the form or mode of baotism
should no longer be made a barrier to Christian
fellowship, either experimentally or organically,
especially on the foreign field. The statement
was made that "there is a deep-rooted and rapidly
spreading conviction among the Disciples
of Christ that both our historic plea and the
demand of the age into which we have come call
for the casting away of this one last survival
of sectarianism in our practice?the practice of
selecting from among Christ's followers only the
immersed and rejecting all others from our fellowship."
There is a considerable body of sentiment
among our missionaries favorable to the
practice of Christian union by accepting letters
from churches practicing affusion baptism without
raising the question of the applicant's form
of baptism."
Continuing, The Century says: "On the mission
field the pivot on which unity turns is the
nrincinle of inter-commnTiinn
not only the open celebration of the Lord's Supper,
but a free interchange of members between
church and church, by letter, on the basis of the
recognized validity of the ordinances, ministry,
membership and discipline of all participating
churches. This, of course, is the pivot on which
unity turns in the home field, too, only it is not
so easy to see it here as there. There can be no
unity without this free inter-communion."
Whereupon The Advavc remarks: "This is well
stated. There can be no unity on a basis of
barriers whether of water, wood, hay or stubble."
This attitude, which more recently has been
assuming larger prominence among the Disciples,
is one which has been long maintained by leading
Baptist churches and pastors of Great Britain.
Among the pastors may be mentioned the
great Spurgeon, the late Alexander McLaren
of Manchester, who was called the Shakespeare
of the pulpit, and Dr. Clifford, the militant Nonconformist.
These have uniformly practiced
"open communion," "admitting to fellowship
the*# who had not been baptized by dipping."
For Borne time it has been noted that certain
Baptist ministers in America were doing likewise.
Two New York churches have recently
entered the list, one in Ithica and one in New
York City. In giving an account of how it came
about, The Presbyterian Advance has the following
to say: "Under
the leadership of both Dr. W. C. Bitting
and Dr. J. Herman Randall, men of liberal
views on this subject, large numbers of Chris