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10 (1112) T H E I
Christ recognized this man as a real follower.
In this he rebuked the denominational narrowness
that says we are ''the people, and there are
none else." A narrowness that demands not only
church membership, but my church membership
as a certain condition of salvation. Put emphasis
on the real condition of salvation. Faith
and life in Christ's name. Through him alone
is life and power.
Does this encourage us to refuse to join the
visible Church? Not at all. "What is the best for
US? Where is the most useful nlona ~
?? XVI XUC tu
be? There is but one answer to that. It would
be rather a poor compliment to me for my
Saviour to say, "He was not against me."
The most useless Christian is the one outside
the Church. A useless Christian is a helpless
Christian. He loses all he might have, from the
sympathy and love of the brethren. He fights at
a disadvantage. He gives Satan the underhold.
He is on the wrong side of the breastworks.
It is certainly the worst for the Church. She
has right to demand the loyal and loving work
of the disciples of Christ. If one Christian has
a right to stay outside, then all have and the purpose
for which Christ set up his kingdom in the
world would be set at naught. a. a. l.
LOVE FOR THE NEGRO.
The attitude of the Southern people towards
the negro is often misunderstood and grossly
misrepresented in other sections. The actual
facts are not appreciated. So much has been
made of isolated cases of unkindness, and so
adroitly have these cases been woven together
into story and been made to impress outsiders as
the normal rather than as the exceptional, that
small attention is paid to beautiful incidents
which are constantly occurring and beautiful
manifestations which are continually appearing
to give proof of the happy relations which once
existed and which, when allowed, still exi3t between
the once enslaved race and their masters.
2\. most striking instance has just come to our
attention. To-day an old negro woman lies dying
in a hospital in New Orleans. A daughter of
her owner of many years ago has come seventy
miles from her home and large cares out in the
State, to sit by the old "mammy." Another
daughter could not come, but she has sent a
pastor from her home in her place, to minister to
the dying soul. A message has been wired by
these sisters to their only brother, a busy man,
whose family lives in Chicago, and whose b?is?ness
is in New York and Chicago, that the old
mammy is sick, and he wires back from Pittsburgh,
where the message has caught him, that
he has received the call and is on his way to the
bedside of the sick woman. Some years ago the
parents who owned this servant died. Their
estate was not large, but amounted to a tew
innusana aoiiars to each ot the children. Th-.
&on talked over the matter willi his sisters, ana
j. 11 agreed that Amanda, who had cared for them
;n their childhood, ought to be cared for in her
advancing years, and thereupon the son relinquished
his share in the estate entirely and directed
that it go to the old negro.
instances nae mm are not rare. The violence
of prejudice is not in the hearts of the Southern
people, aa the unintelligent think. The way
the negro is treated in the North, when anything
untoward happens, is more brutal than the treatment
the race receives in the South. In the latter
the mob sometimes wreaks its vengeance upon
guilty individuals and those whom it supposes to
be guilty, a crime for which there is no apology
when it knows the guilt beyond a doubt; but it
does not visit its wrath upon the heads of the
negroes' innocent wives and children and neigh
>RESEYTERIAN OF THE SO
bors by burning the negro quarters or seeking
to run them out of the immunity
Where except in the South is there a monument
like that handsome one erected a few years
ago in Fort Mill, South Carolina, by the agency
and oiferings of noble families of that section, led
by Captain Sam. White, a Confederate veteran,
to the memory and honor of the old time negro T
* r
"ALL THINGS NEW WITHIN THE SPHERE
OF FAITH."
We iiave been getting an impression of the
attitude of the new publication, "The .Presbyterian
Examiner," on the general subject of
biblical criticism. In a recent editorial dealing
in part with that subject we read of "analyzed
and reconstructed belief." Again, "The religious
work of our age, in the rediscovery and
restatement of trutn, where that has been done
reverently and with circumspection, has been of
utmost sigmlicance and value." Also, "Today
we stand possessed of a Bible, a Christ, a message,
recovered from the furnace, renewed by
a baptism of lire, delivered from the parasites
of human tradition, irresistible in their native
beauty and power. God has made all things new
within the sphere of faith."
We are not disposed just now to challenge
the statements here made, but rather to call for
authority lor these statements. What great biblical
truths have been the subjects of rediscovery
and restatement in this agef What beliefs ot
the Christian Church have been "analvzed and
reconstructed in our day"? What are the facta
which justify the statement that "today we
stand possessed of a Bible, a Christ, a message
recovered from the furnace, renewed by a baptism
of lire, delivered from the parasites of
human tradition?" What authority is there for
the statement that in these last days "God has
made all things new within the sphere of faith?"
We are well ?wnro rhot +v?a ~e ?J
wv buui; biiv xvicv^aova Ul l OUical
criticism have been to this effect, but some
facts ought to be available to verify their fulfillment.
Our impression is, that those who ask
for the old paths and walk therein are the men
and women who are bearing the heat and burden
of the day. The great throng who are doing
Christ's work in the earth today are not conscious
of a "reconstructed belief" nor are they
aware of having a Bible, a Christ, a message
which radical criticism has "delivered from the
parasites of human tradition." "What are the
patrons and allies and devotees of the new theology
doing to evangelize the heathen, or the slums
or the frontier? Do they give either themselves
or their money to the great worb f Perhaps they
think their scholarship is their share of contribution
to "the common weal. Alas, their scholarship,
in both its genuineness and fruitfulness.
is the point at issue and is being freely challenged.
Indeed it is being widely rejected by
one-time disciples as being visionary, speculative
and grossly addicted to assumptions. Its
abject barrenness, its failure to make strong,
staying men, in the case of either its promoters
or their victims, is its condemnation.
The radical criticism is believed by many eminent
and most devout men, whose judgment,
piety and scholarship are not questioned, to be
the breeding-place of skepticism of a most malignant
and pervasive type. If it has provided the
Church with a "reconstructed belief/' "redis- 1
covered truth," deliverance from "the parasites
of human tradition" and has been the means
of making "all things new in the sphere of
faith," the facts which sustain it upon that
proud eminence should be readily available ahd .]
susceptible of being ranged "like a Grecian i
phalanx, moveless as a tower." 1
UTH [ Octooer 2, 1912
PREVENTION VERSUS CURE.
Ask any intelligent physician of the present
day and he will tell you that the whole trend
of thought with the best men of his profession
ia the prevention of disease. The fact has come
to be recognized that the cost of prevention is
money, 'but the cost of treatment is lives, and
lives cannot be put into the scale with money.
And even as to the money cost, a community
saves vastly, in cash as well as in lives, which
adopts wise means of keeping disease away.
"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of
cure." ^
The whole gospel system is predicated upon
the same practical principle. The gospel is the
power of God unto salvation. It is a great positive,
constructive scheme for keeping away sin
from man and man from sin. Its curative end,
healing the disease of sin, is never forgotten, but
its power to develop a life and to put the believer
into such a state that he will throw off
or get away from the contagion is as much a fact
and as much an end as that of simple ''salvation."
By the atonement of Christ and the
working of his Spirit men are not only saved
from something but saved to something. They
are both crucified with Christ, and live with
Christ. They are dead to the worlH ?nrl ?Hva
unto God. , '
The gospel is the greatest asset that the world
possesses. It seeks to turn men from the asylums
and penitentiaries rather than to take them out
of such places. It works upon the hearts of
men rather than upon their outward lives. It
tries to correct by going to the source of things
It seeks to regenerate rather than renovate. If
its principles prevail largely in a community,
that community has little need for police and
jails and courts. How much better, then, for its
ministers to devote themselves to this positive
preventive work than to the effort to clean up
after the evil has come or to the handling of tK
results of sin? They are to rebuke sin everywhere,
but never without offering the great preventive,
the living gospel of the Son of God.
SNOBBERY.
The most laughable, if it were not the most
pitiful, exhibition of pure and unadulterated
snobbery which has lately been seen in this
country is in connection with the interests of a
Travelers' Agency which the projectors, in
England, are pushing by means of some large
names and the well recognized gullibility of
Americans of a certain type. These tour projectors
have in some way, we think it must have
been through some railway sffice in London, obtained
the names of a large number of Americans
and have sent them lett^ro atotin? v.-**.*
- ? Mvwi/iUig l/uab UUCJ llOYC
written at the request of the Right Honorable
So-and-So, the brother of Lord This-and-That,
and that the Right Honorable and His Lordship
invite those addressed to confer with them concerning
a certain tour which the said Right Honorable
is arranging and which the friend addressed
is asked to join. On the strength of this
preliminary letter not a few editorial paragraphs
have appeared telling of the distinguished
honor which had been conferred in the invitation
Jrom "the brother of his. lordship!" "Our
editor has been honored with an invitation from
P;?Ui 'U 1-1 r. i ... - -
jugui iioiiurauie oo-ana-oo, a brother of Lord
This-and-That, to join them in a special and
extensive journey,'' etc., have been words which
we have seen not a few times during the last few
months.
The whole business is nothing more than a
'travel club" worked in the name of some impecunious
aristocracy of England who are willing
to exchange their large names for the cash
which they will get out of the business. There
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