Newspaper Page Text
February &, 1918) T H 1
Editorial 1
President-elect Wilson has shown his good
sense in a moat signal way by putting an end
to that excrescence, the "inaugural ball." His
manner of dealing with the matter was very
tactful and pleasant, giving no offonce, and yet
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he shows the possession of great wisdom and
good principle.
The Stevenson religions newspaper syndicate,
which is publishing the Presbyterian Examiner,
of New York, the Pacific Presbyterian,
of San Francisco, and the Gulf States Presbyterian.
of Birmingham, Ala-, has added another
to its list, to be called the Great Lakes Presbyterian,
to be issued from Chicago. The general
matter in all these papers is the same, and
certain pages are devoted to the several local
interests.
On to Memphis! is now the cry. The time,
February 18-20; the cause, Home Missions; the
purpose, God's glory in the awakening and encouraging
of his Church. If some doubt, the
work is going on anyway. If some decline to
have a part in a great and supreme effort to
move forward towards victory, the victory is
coming anyway. To all who cannot go to this
great meeting the call comes to pray for it at
any rate. Such a prayer will put the wire
between you and it on which the current will
pass, bringing light and power to those who are
a long distance away.
In this number appears the first of a series of
articles on Evangelism- These articles are furnished
by our Committee on Evangelism and
Cfnurat*^ckin anrl n r*n nonoAiollv arlflnitnH tn?>
uwi nai U?U1J|/ auu ul V uvau ^Tbvu wvr v??v
campaign now in progress. It is believed that
they will be of great value to pastors and those
associated with them in giving direction and emphasis,
and imparting efficiency to the work of a
particular congregation. They will be read with
interest and will doubtless be utilized to a large
extent in prosecuting the work to which we are
all called and in which it is a privilege and an
honor to have a part.
Wo roirpnt +a Yinnt* nf +Vio /taafh nf FVr
Walter A. Brooks, of Trenton, N. J., Stated Clerk
of the Synod of New Jersey for twenty-four
years and for many years of the editorial staff
of the Philadelphia Presbyterian. He pajsvnl
away on January 12, at the age of sixty-two.
lie was a man of great modesty, hardly knowing
his own worth, gentle, strong and scholarly, nn
exponent of the old faith, a stalwart defender of
the Bible and its integrity. Everything he undertook
was well done. When ill health compelled
him to give up his one and only charge,
in which he had labored for thirty years, he
took up the pen and for seven years has e<n
riched the thought of the Church through the
editorial columns and in weekly comments on the
Prayer meeting and Young People's topics.
It is with sineerest regret that we dimniele
the loss of the new Administrative Building of
Austin College, by fire. The college has done
and is doing an increasingly great work in Chris-,
tian education. It is jnst the type of college
that is most needed and for whose endowment
and patronage we have pleaded in these pages?
an instintion that builds men. A eollege should
crown the aeqnisition of all secular learning
with the supreme endowment of Christian convictions
and principles. To snch accomplishment
Austin dedicates its services. At trdch s
time as this the friends of sneh education an ex
'BE8B7TEBI1H 07 THE S<
Votes and
alts character while it stores the intellect have
their opportunity. Not only in the Southwest
but Presbyterians in every part of the South
may contribute of their sympathy and their
substance to restoring the lost structure. Austin
College is one of the leading educational plants
of the Church. Read the letter of President
Clyce in this number.
Numerous requests have been made to Dr.
Orts, whose discussions of Romanism are appearing
in The Presbyterian of the Sotjth.
to publish several of them in tract form. Among
these is a paper on the Origin of Religious Libertv
in Marvlsnd. and others of Kneeinl valne
Our Committee of Publication is not authorized
to publish books or trsets unless the coot is provided
in advance. Accordingly it is proposed
to -receive advance subscriptions to these tracts
The publication will consist of four tracts on
distinct topics, which will be sold at 10 cents
each. On quantities of ten or more, a substantial
reduction will be made. Liberal subscriptions
have already been received. Orders may be forwarded
to the author at Union Seminary, or to
onr Publication Committee.
Profewor David Smith is known as one of the
most distinguished of Scotland's younger scholars
and theologians. lie is best known as a
regular one-colnmn contributor to the British
Weekly. His writings are discriminating and
vivid. While highly gifted in assembling facts
and theories he is also highly erratic in making
false deductions from them. This eccentricity
may acconnt for his publisher's statement
that "he has brought all his talents and
knowledge to the task of humanizing theology
and making it the poetio expression of the soul's
aspiration instead of a science of controversy."
"A poetic expression of the soul's aspiration"
strongly suggests that theology is of merely human
origin and ignores the essential, paramount
element of Divine authority. But this brief
definition of Prof. 8roiths idea of theology is
strikingly descriptive of a popular type that
may be defined as a theology "of the people,
for the people and by the people" in its beginning,
continuing and ending.
The American country-bred boy is still at the
front and making good where tihere is a call for
brain and brawn and backbone. In dhurch and
state, counting house and trade, planning and
executing, they want bam to take charge and
lead the way. He is merchant, banker, con
stmotor, director, engineer, financier and so on
All this in addition to his being farmer and
feeding the nation and helping to feed the world
To this effect were some figures quoted by Dr
Qunsanlns, of Chicago, in an address to stud
ents of the Minnesota State Farm School. H<
said of the twelve most prominent preachers ol
his city "every last mother's son was raised or
the farm; so were all the leading jonrnalists
eighty-six of the one hnndred biggest corpora
tion lawyers and seventy-three of the one hnn
dred most efficient engineers." Many town
raised hoys make their mark, too, and man:
more conld if only they wonld. There is to
mnch lost motion in their lires, as the meOhani
cinns say about their motors. Yet neither towi
nor conntry need make or unmake the man. Botl
have their drawback* and "obstacles, bnt "i
man's a man for a that," whether he toils be
neath the canopy of the Tanlted sky, or "cabin
ed. cribbed and eon fined'* between ranlt-lik
wnHs in a skyscraper -
) U T H *1^ (105) 9
Comment
THE PREACHER IN THE HOME.
One of the best chanters in Dr. J. H. .Towett's
recent books of lectures entitled, "The Preacher,
His Life and "Work," bears the title "The
Preacher in the Home." On reading it somewhat
cursorily, one will get the impression that
the distinguished author rather minimizes or depreciates
that department of ministerial activity,
especially as compared with the greater opportunities
and privilege of the pulpit. More careful
study, however, will show that this impression
is not warranted, and that Dt. Jowett is
maintaining that the ministry to the individual
Is the hardest part of the ministerial work, and
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this kind only stirs the courageous preacher to
new and mightier effort. Among the causes
which make this a harder task than the public
preaching to the crowd he thinks that the foremost
is that the fear of a man is a much more
subtle thing than the fear of men, that improperly
but none the less really ministers are made
to fear by what are mere accidents of circumstances
rather than the essential gifts of character,
as, for instance, the office a man holds, the
wealth of a man, the splendor of his home. Another
cause indicated is that there is a certain
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sn:u?truy oxieu lmueuueu in xneir cnaracter
which makes ministers half-ashamed to "talk religion"
in private. Still another cause is that
there is a certain shyness which makes mao
shrink from anything that seems to he an assumption
of moral and spiritual superiority, or
an assumption of a personal attainment which
others have not achieved. For all these reasons
Dr. Jowett maintains that multitudes of ministers
can fish with a net who are very reluctant
to fish with a line.
Loyalty to the commission, however, will master
such reluctance and such timidities. And there
are certain valuable preventives and positive
helps in this matter. Among these the author
names as best of all a clear and well defined purpose,
laige, luminous, sacred, and sanctifying,
careful to avoid being merely pietistic or '' pious
priggishness," and always manly, cheerful,
sunny, with even song and laughter in proper
place. As positive helps he names first a ministry
of sympathetic listening. Many a soul "speaks"
its way into liberty and light. Sympathetic and
kind attention to tales of woe and difficulty will
solve the problems of many a one who feels
when l kept silence my bones-waxed old." Many
haunting feara vanish when we put them into
words. They are banished by expression. A
fear fihared is often a fear destroyed. Another
positive help is in giving the strengthening
I grace of sympathetic speech. Approaching individuals
with a clean and lofty purpose, helping
them to relate the common to the divine,
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, we beget the sense of fellowship. And in order
p to both their sympathetic listening and speech,
, there mnst needs be mnch knowledge, not book
knowledge, but experimental, practical, and immediate,
not light and airy talking and about
heights that we have never climbed. The re- *
ward of all this will be that while the minister
v gives he will receive, while he comforts be will
be comforted, while he counsels he will be en
lightened, while he lifts another's burden his
^ own will he made light.
h
n Von may have to compel yourself to ,4work
the work of the Tjord," but if you are equal
i- to the demand, work will soon cease to he
e irksome and become s positive end an inspiring
delight f.