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10 (82) n 7 H E P
sufficiency are demanding the attention of our
wisest statesmen.
Not only do we recognize that youth is the
critical time of life, but that a nation, that proposes
to progress, must give its young the best
opportunity.
The writer was recently at the eleventh anniversary
of the .Martha Berry School, and as he
looked at the 350 upstanding, clea**-eyed, eagerfaced
boys and girls, and thought of the thous?~
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enter life equipped for its duties, who had made
a succes of the hardest surroundings, he felt,
our country, and our Ohurch are in the hands
of the young.
This school, the splendid product of one of the
finest creative genius, has taken hold of the youth
of our mountain section and developed head and
heart and hands.
Has the Church of God, the Southern Presbyterian
Church, been slow to take hold of and
develop her young?
We sometimes fear she has.
We wait till gray hairs have appeared before
we confer office. We hold off till a man has demonstrated,
alone and unaided, an ability to make
and manage money, before we elect him a deacon.
We demand middle-aged men and women for
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enthusiastic loyalty that comes from harnessing
the young into the Master's service?
In our Church courts have we not side-tracked
and subdued our young men* The distinguished
President of Union Theological Seminary was
ten years in the Synod of Virginia before he
opened his mouth on any subject before that
venerable body. It Avas greatly to the detriment
of the Synod of Virginia. That body lost ten
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Especially in our Sunday school do we lose by
not putting in our young. "Why not take the
boys and girls of about 16 years and put them
into a Training Class with the distinct understanding
that the Ohurch needs them in her
work. Give them a goal to work to. Set up a
standard of useful service- Do not wait till they
are rusted and crusted and gotten deep into ruts
of diffidence and ignorance, before we wake up
to use men.
Have we made enough of our youth! They
wiH give their loyalty to something.
Society comes and lays hold on them and hon
ors and uses their crude talents.
Social and secret organizations want young
men, and quickly put them in places of service.
Business will have nothing else Crude and
crass as they may be. The corporation knows the
value of youthful enthusiasm and loyalty. Hence
wants the young.
Is the Church awake to fight the enemies of
the young. Science is greatly concerned with
fighting the destroyers of young plant and animal
life.
Youth is the crucial period. Sap the life of a
plant at an early stage and you have injured it
permanently. It will never get over the early
loss.
I? the Church awake to the evils that attack
the vouth? The eicarpffp tViA Anon mlnnn +Vir>
place of evil, the lascivious pictures, the allurements
on every side. Child labor sapping the
early life. The exclusion of the Bible from the
public school system of our land. These are
some of the evils against which older men and
women may he immune. But they are almost
fatal to the young.
The mother will almost give her life to save
her callow offspring?afterwards she will look
on their trouble with complete unconcern. The
mother instinct tells her the young are the hope
of the flock. Is the Church of God concerned
enough about her young' A. A . L. i
RESBYTERIAN OF THE SO
NOTES IN PASSING.
BY BERT.
Peter and James and John,
The Inner though numbered with the Twelve,
Circle. are, in a remarkable way, distinguished
Three times they are called
out from their brethren; once, to witness hi*
power; a second time to behold, and share in his
glory; and a thijrd time Ao be companions of his
sorrow. They alone of the Twelve are with him
when he raises the daughter of Jairus. They
alone are with him on the Mount of Transfiguration;
and they alone behold his agony in the
Garden. They are never called out to do anything
or be anything apart from the Lord, but
always to be with him. Where these three are
there is always the Fourth.
From the beginning of GenTheir
Peculiar esis to the Revelation, strange,
Characteristics, mysterious creatures play a
prominent part in the plan of
God. They stand to keep the way of the Tree of
Life after the Fall. They are everywhere visible
in the Tabernacle and, later, in the Temple.
Isaiah and Ezekiel see them, and they stand sup
ports and ornaments of the Throne in Revelation.
They are the Cherubim, and they have four
faces; the face of an eagle, the face of a lion, the
face of a man, and the face of a bullock or calf.
They represent perfected or redeemed humanity,
possessing the attributes represented by these
four animals The eagle, spiritual flight and
power; the lion, bold, undaunted courage; the
man, wise counsel and intelligence; and the bullock,
patient lal)or, and sacrifice. The characteristics
of three of these, the lion, the eagle, and
the man, are evident in the three apostles, Peter,
and John, and James. When we add the Lord
himself who is always with them, the Servant
of All, the patient Laborer, the Sacrifice for all,
the figure is complete.
Why did Christ select these
The Peculiar three of all the apostles to be
Exnerieneex with him ?t tViA Tuinin?? nf .Toimo'
of Peter, and daughter, at the Transfiguration
James, and and the agony in the Garden?
John. Evidently because they had some
special equipment through which
necessary and important lessons might be communicated.
He would toach, for instance, that
dead souls may be brought to life again, but that
neither human power, nor spiritual grace, nor
great wisdom, nor all three combined can do it.
iL we warn 10 Dring xne creacL to lUe we must
add self-sacrifice, and patient, uncomplaining
labor. And this last only Christ can supply.
Man has some power of his own, some wisdom,
and some spiritual understanding, they are part
of his equipment as man. Of course Christ must
perfect and hallow them; but when it comes to
real downright sacrifice for others who are nothing
to us, wljen it comes to spending and being
spent for the heathen at home or abroad, Christ
must supply all of that.
He would teach us that human strength and
courage, that human wisdom, and human longings
after higher things may be glorified, but
only when self-denial, even to the extent of self
efifaeement are added to them.
Tn the Garden they failed him. He withdrew
himself from them there. They slept oblivious
of his agony and blood sweat; they denied themselves
the glorious privilege of suffering with
him beeause the spirit of self-saerifice was gone .
When he came back, and the officers had come.
Peter rallied and drew and used his sword for
him.
Tn work for Christ, though we have all else,
if we are not willing to bear the burdens, and
0 T H | January 29, 191!!
ahare the sorrows of tluwe for whom Christ died.
1 f we are not strong enough and gracious enough
to give ourselves, all will go for nought.
Jesus Christ is the "Lion
The SuDVOrts of of the Trihn of Jndah " ho
Ihe Throne.? is the "Great Eagle," he is
Rev. 4:6-8. the "Lamb of God," the
"Sacrifice," he is the "Son
of Man." He is our complement. When man
comes into possession of, and makes use of the
royal equipment for Peter, and Jarnes and John,
glorified and supplemented by Christ the world
feels the Presence and Power of God. His Kingdom
has come.
HEADING CITYWARD.
The trend of rural populations toward the city
is attracting the attention of authorities on
social and civic economics. Some attempt to account
for and justify the trend while others dis
courage and condemn it. Some say that social
and business advantages summon aspiring young
people to the cities. Others say that those who
yield to the general tendency are forfeiting the
freedom and nobler environment of their
eountry homes for the sake of the superficial,
nerve-racking life of the city, with its preverting
and debilitating tendencies. A live issue
of the case has been distinctly drawn by the
Slate Inspector of High Schools in Louisiana
and a member of the staff of a large New York
daily. The State Inspector said the reason
young men and young women in the South are
Hocking from the farms to the citv is not that
they dislike fields and streams, but that they
love and long for culture- On this observation
the New York staff writer comments vigorously
as follows:
That sounds very well on paper. Perhaps the
poor things do love culture, but they get very little
of it when they flock to the cities. There is
more real culture in one little village library
than there is in a whole mile of Fifth Avenue.
And what kind of culture is it that a girl finds
in a working girls' boarding 'house? And how
cultivated are the young men after a couple of
months?spent., most of it, in pool-rooms and
cheap moving picture shows?
No. If a girl is lonely in the country, and
hates to be called a jay worse than she hates to
be half-starved and wholly ill-treated, why, let
her leave her good, comfortable home on the farm
and come to town and he citified to her heart's
content.
Let her learn tc do her hair so that it looks
like a eocoanut door-mat on a spree, and by the
time she's had a chance to Accumulate three
strings of beads and a pair of dangle ear-rings
she will look as if she had been brought up on the
TV
jmwcry.
But shell be hungry sometimes, and lonely,
and so homesick thai she'd walk two miles to
hear a katydid, and a dozen miles for a meal of
corn bread and a glass of real buttermilk.
As to the boy. He wants to get out and see
the world. But don't pretend that it's culture
yon arc looking for. little brother, when its excitement
and nickelodeons and vaudeville shows.
Culture! There is more culture in one sunset
than there is in a year of life in a Forty-second
street boarding house, west?or east, either, for
that matter.
Stay at home, if you want culture.
Good things do not come of themselves. They
must De sought, many a time struggled for.
"Every place that the sole of your foot shall
tread upon, that have I given you." Such was
the statement of God to Tsrael. The land was
given them. Yet it had to he fought for'
God's gifts are not bestowed without something
on our part of effort to secure the gift. But
what a promise attends the entering upon the
struggle! "I will he with thee; T will not fail
thee, nor forsake thee: only he thou strong and
very courageous "
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