Newspaper Page Text
September 11, 1912 ] THE
Editorial 1
It is an interesting fact that in the Presbytery
of New York, with its fifty-seven churches
and twelve missionary stations, there is not ?
single church that has any debt upon it.
"Individuality," "I am myself," and the
like, are poor excuses for bad manners. It will
be better in such cases for people to be more
like others in the amenditive of life, and less "individual."
Men may laugh at church societies organized
to see that church societies do their work.
Hugh Black reported this as one of the characeristics
of American church life. But the world
is at the same thing. There came to us this
week from a great insurance company a proposal
to insure all our insurance. We have
been looking for this for some time. The question
arises. "Whero will it ?-?->^ * T_e
r ...1& iu vuui 11 ILISUritllUO
must be insured, who will insure the insurer of
the insurance, and so on back ad infinitum.
The Secretaries of the Executive Committees
of our Church have organized the Woman's
Work of the church, as directed by the General
Assembly. They have given it, as its official
designation, the name "The Woman's Auxiliary
of the Presbyterian church in the United
States." They have given the title "Superindent"'
to the official head, and elected to that
office Mrs. W. C. Winsborough, of Missouri,
and made Kansas City temporary headquarters,
and elected Mrs. A. M. Howison, of Staunton,
Va., treamirer. By a supplementary resoluton
they recommended that the organized work of
its women in the Synods be designated "Synodicals,"
and in the Presbyteries "Presbyterials."
God has attached conditions to some of his
gifts. "We are to ask liim for them. This is not
because we are straitened in him. It is not because
he would, merely for form's sake, hold us
to a form. He wishes us to live more with him.
The man who habitually prays, who faithfully
cultivates and uses the habit of earnest prayer,
is in better condition to receive God's gifts. His
spirit and God's are more in accord. Being
better prepared to receive the gifts, God gives
to him more liberally the things he needs. The
reflex effect of prayer is no little part of the
power of prayer.
The work of the newspaper office has its compensations.
A subscriber writes: "I have read
the paper for seventy years and what a comfort
it has been." Earlier we received this of which
we feel unworthy, but for which we are most
grateful: "I feel that I cannot get on wthout
The Presbyterian of the South. It is the
grandest paper in the world. I am stone deaf
and I get so much pleasure out of The Presbyterian.
It is a revelation to me." A pastor,
who has secured a large circulation of the paper
in his congregation, writes: "You gave me
praise for my zeal in behalf of the paper, which
I J "TV -l -r - ?
- ~w ??t uenrrvt*. w niie 1 Wl?n SUCCeaS tO THE
I'resbytertan op the SoiTTH. I tried to secure
new subscribers because I thought those who
would take the paper would be helped in their
Christian and perhaps in their church life."
The recent announcement made by the Poet?ffice
Department that laws regulating the distribution
of Sunday mail would be enforced,
aroused strong protests and expressions of in
HKg& :'y\
PKKSBTTEBIAM OF THE SO
Notes and
dignation on the part of many daily papers.
"Puritanical" was a favorite word set in irrito+orl
. 1
v?,.vvi uijvi iwuwui puraseoiogy. realtors ana
reporters might at least acquire such elementary
bits of knowledge of history as would inform
them that the Puritans furnished a large
part of the brawn and brain and conscience
which built Britain and America into great nations.
The dictionaries define "puritanical" as
a word signifying reproach, but it is to be remembered
that it is given this meaning by the
usage of the libertines and their sympathizers.
It is greatly to be deplored that "great dailies"
will use their influence to oppose Sabbath regulations
in government departments and at the
same time use their advertising and editorial
pages for the promotion of Sabbath desecration,
the liquor traffic and their attendant vices. It
is devoutly to be desired that the day may not
be far distant when all publications that go into
rne homes of the people shall be controlled by
men of clean lives, enlightened consciences and
moral courage.
Newspapers are sometimes like highly esteemed
citizens who get their eulogies after they
are dead. "The ATew York Observer" was such
a grand old paper and was so grand and so old
that everybody presumed on its being imperishable
ab well as indispensable, so robody outside
the sanctum felt responsible for its proper nourishment.
But one day a few weeks ago, it suddenly
passed away, then the mourners went
nhnnt tVia fti-anto On- -f 41 nnT n
,uu vuc ui intsw was 1 ne OWf!,
which said:
"If there was time to take notice of much of
anything in this rapid planet, a few of us. more
than a few perhaps, wonld stop to regret that
an ancient landmark of religions journalism,
the New York Observer, seems to he less fortunate
of late than it has always been desecnug.
bight of our fathers', of our fathers' fathers'
eyes, we would not see it go out. A pillar of
the undoubting faith of earlier and simpler
days, it has come down to us through long generations
of Morses and Primes. In the dark
backward abysm of time our grandmothers, with
their beautiful caps on their kind old heads?
that was before old ladies became extinct?their
gold-bowed spectacles pushed up on their foreheads,
blinked and dozed over the New York
Observer in the summer afternoons. It was a
kind of palladium. It was as safe as a bank and
as respectable as a bishop. It was the temperate
pulse of quiet lives, the visible exemplar
of antique, austere moralities."
Everybody is saying that the evangelical denominations
are coming to know each other better
and love each other more. That is true, we
believe, and happy results therefrom will continue
to appear increasingly. The old way of
one church crowding into a mission field where
another is established will be completely out of
date after we all get a little more civilized. A
good example, which of course was set by Presbyterians,
is mentioned by Mr. Wm. T. Ellis
in The Continent, as follows: "The Presbyterians
had started a mission Sunday school in a new
suburb without, knowing that the Episcopalians
were also starting a school next door.. At once
the Presbyterians sought out their Episcopalian
brethren and explained the coincidence. There
was no feeling on either side, but the Presbyterians
suggested that it would look better in the
eyes o? the world if there were not this seeming
rivalry, and so they moved off to another quarter
where they could do quite as good work."
U T & (1039) 9
Comment
The present writer has had two promising mission
stations crippled by the obtrusion of another
denomination with high pressure methods.
There is plenty of room for new work without
crowding, if only we want to work for the Master
instead of working for ourselves. Many a
good cause is injured by excessive anxiety "to
make a fair show in the flesh" at the next annual
church meeting.
Some of the big theological seminaries are
gradually adding to their prescribed course of
study, departments which are supposed to sustain
some relation, more or less remote, to ministerial
efficiency. The added departments call
for new chairs manned by new varieties of specialists
who are to experiment on the student by
cramming him with the output of their several
departments. The capacity of the theologue
remaining practically stationary, the culmina
won or tftis daily process, when examination
time comes around, may be reasonably anticipated.
An exchange quotes a convention speaker
who said: "If theological seminaries were to
teach all the courses which their critics suggest,
a theological student would not go into his parish
younger than was Moses when he escaped from
Egypt. And even then he would be so weakened
by the cuisine of his educational house of
Pharaoh, and by its table d'hote of political
economy, political science, hypnotism, basketball,
religious pedagogy, philosophy, biology,
higher criticism, practical athletics, advertising,
management of moving-picture shows and the
practice of psychotherapeutics, as to need an.1.1
*
muer iorty years of retirement to recover his
balance of mind, and a practical-minded fatherin-law
to assist him in leading his chosen poople
out of bondage."
FOR THE PRESBYTERIES.
Among the matters which will come before
the fall meetings of the Prsebyteries there are
several overtures from the General Assembly,
looking to confessional and other changes in the
Church's standards. In many Presbyteries action
will doubtless be postponed until the spring
meetings, to give opportunity for further study
or for reference to special committees.
The overture which continues the long drawn
out "elect infant" matter sureiy may be acted
UOOn ?+ nnon T* ^?1 A- ? *
, 10 uaru iu see now any more
study is needed to enable every presbyter to know
his mind on the subject. The proposition to the
Presbyteries now is that they consent to change
the adjective "elect" into the participle "being
elect," with a comma following. This will make
the much debated confessional statement r ad:
"Being elect, infants dying in infancy, are regenerated
and saved by Christ, through the
Spirit," etc.
Another overture contemplates a change in
the basis of representation in the General Assembly.
It provides that each Presbytery shall
have a minister and one ruling elder as its commissioner,
but that when the communicant roll
of a Presbvterv nhi* its mt ?? j
, ,, ,? . ? .uiuwwiioi run exceeds
4.000. it shall send an additional minister and
ruling elder, and in like proportion for every
4,000 communicants and ministers. The chief
feature of this proposed amendment is that it
will make the Presbyteries' communicant roll the
basis of representation rather than the mihis
terial roll. The practical effect of this change
if agreed to, will be a better distribution of the
representation and almost no appreciable change
in the total number of commissioners.