Newspaper Page Text
AN UNLIFTED PART OF THE PRIMAL
CURSE.
When God expelled Adam from the Garden
of Eden lie said, "in the sweat of thy face
shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the
ground." All the consequences of Adam's fall
have not yet been removed. Physical death
and bodily pain are still with us. What we are
to bo, doth not yet appear. Sorrow and pain
and death slisdl be no more, when the former
things are all passed away.
Another consequence of Adam's transgres
sion is the necessity of sweat i'ul labor in order
to live at all.
"Labor is life's first law." The woes of the
past have all been due to the effort, on man's
part, to e;it bread by the sweat of some one
else's face. Slavery had its origin in man's
endeavor to cash in his superior skill and
strength in terms of ease and luxury. The con
queror could lie back in comfort, while slaves
toiled in bis fields or ministered to his ease
and Inst. To escape the disagreeable lalior men
either secured slaves bv war, or bought them
with money.
The argument used to introduce African
slavery into the Southern States was that the
sun was too hot for the thin-skinned Anglo
Saxon to labor in the tields. In colder coun
tries the sun was not so hot, nor labor so ex
hausting. Men were trying to avoid the inevi
table consequences of the far-reaching sin of
Adam.
The mad race after wealth is due to this
seeking to avoid Edenic consequences. Xot by
brute force that makes slaves of men and binds
them to hard toil, but by the accumulation of
wealth which can hire others to take the hard
places, and leave the owner to indulgence.
There may lie as much toil and sweat in the
proper use of money as in the most grinding
toil to earn daily bread. In fact, the man of
larjje business often spends more sleepless nights
and excruciating hours of agony, than the hum
blest, unskilled day laborer in his factory or
011 his farm, lint too often money is sought,
not to uplift humanity and give sustenance to
thousands of others; to make life a little eas
ier for the masses, but that the owner thereof
may get from under the sweat-drip and reverse
the consequence of the fall. This accounts for
many efforts on the part of men to secure higher
wages and more time to loaf, than is justifiable
under this law. Every man ought to have a
decent living, but 110 scale of wages ought to
rob any other man of a sufficiency. And for
that decent wage there ought to l>e a decent re
turn, even if it brings the sweat to the face and
the weariness to the muscle.
There is no profession or form of service that
calls for more labor than that of the Church of
God. Only in terms of labor can the success of
the ministry 1k? seen.
Recently we have been reading of tho toils
and laliors and sacrifices of the traveling priests
of the Itomish Church who found 110 danger too
great, 110 trial too excessive, in penetrating the
mountains and forests and swamps of South
America, in seeking to undo the horrible op
pressions of the Spanish conquerors. They
succeeded in teaching these simple people the
arts of peace and religion. But when they be
gan to lord it over their flocks and live upon
their laliors, then the good work vanished and
today the vast solitudes of a dead people tell
the sad story.
In no profession, in no occupation of
life is idleness allowed under this partial con
sequence of the Fall.. The sooner our people
realize that not by politics, nor by artifices of
any sort, nor by accumulated wealth, will this
world thrive, but by the sweat of the face and
only thus is it possible for man to cat bread,
the sooner we will get back toward the Paradise
to be regained.
A. A. L.
Contributed
' ORTHODOXY IN NANKING THEOLOGI
CAL SEMINARY."
By Kev. P. Frank Price, 1). D.
A letter under the above heading in the
"Presbyterian of the South" of May 24th so
refleets upon the good name of an institution
in which our Church is co-operating, and which
is training most of our Chinese ministers, that
a word of reply is necessary.
Since its beginning the course in Theology
in Chinese has been taught in the Seminary
from the strictly conservative point of view.
W lien recently small and more advanced classes
taught through the medium of English were
opened, one of the younger professors, not
from any love of Clarke's Theology more than
of llodgc, Strong or others, hut because of its
simpler English, began to experiment with it
as a text book. Hut when objection was raised
the book was dropped.
Hastings' Dictionary is a more complicated
question. It is the only reference book of its
kind in Chinese and is issued by the Christian
Literature Society, which prints the works of
such conservative scholars as Dr. W. M. Hayes
and Dr. II. M. Woods, and has to its credit a
long list of constructive Christian literature.
The book is persistently advertised. To ban
ish it from the library and to deny its use as
a reference book for the much really valuable
matter it contains would be to treat the stu
dents as children, not as men. The faculty
took the ground that the better course would
be to purchase copies and sell them through
our own book room to students and others
with a printed statement on the fly-leaf, that
the faculty disclaims all in it that is out of
accord with the evangelical position of the
Seminary and the teaching of the class room.
"Whether or not they were wise in this may be
questioned. That they were aiming at the
good of the students is without controversy.
The fact of having 110 exhaustive Bible Dic
tionary, except this one, gives tremendous em
phasis to the work being done by Dr. II. M.
Woods in putting Orr's Dictionary into Chi
nese. Meanwhile Hastings' Dictionary is the
only one of its kind in the field, and students
are not urged to buy it, but when they do are
warned to use it guardedly. That is the issue
and the way it was met.
The writer of this article says he was "told"
that four members of the present faculty arc
"modernists." What does he mean by mod
ernist? It all depends 011 his definition. There
is 110 member of the faculty who does not ac
cept the inspiration and integrity of the Scrip
tures, the virgin birth, miracles, atoning work
and resurrection of our Lord, and the other
cardinal doctrines of evangelical Christianity.
That there are conservative and liberal ways
of looking at things is admitted without ques
tion. But from the fundamentals there is no
serious divergence. That there are "modern
ists" in the invidious sense of that terms is
not true.
If among the newly-elected professors there
are modernists why did not the writer, who is
a member of the Board, protest ? There is no
record of any protest or objection. It is mueh
harder to meet and cure an ill at its fountain
head than to rush off into the Church papers
and write about it. But it is the better, kinder,
truer way.
For ten years our Church has been con
nected with Nanking Theological Seminary. It
has had abundant representation on both
Board and faculty. Because we happen to
have two missions, our Church has proportion
ately had double representation on the Board
as compared with other missions, and so gen
erous are the other missions that no objection
has been raised to it. In a faculty of ten pro
fessors, three are Southern Presbyterian mis
sionaries, and in addition to these a fourth is
head of the Correspondence Course, a fifth was
recently elected as a new professor and yet, in
face of all this, a sixth Southern Presbyterian
missionary was urged as professor by a man
whom the above writer would probably de
nominate as the pronounced "modernist" on
the faculty. And Southern Presbyterians are
not the oidy conservatives of the stricter sort
among the teachers by any means.
Nanking Theological Seminary has the limi
tations of all interdenominational institutions.
There is a pull in two directions, the more lib
eral and the more conservative, but up to the
present time the latter have undoubtedly had
their way, and the Seminary is known as the
most conservative interdenominational theo
logical school in China, as it is the largest and
most influential perhaps of any theological
school in the country, graduating about fifty
men each year.
The Seminary is worthy of the sympathy and
prayers of onr Chnreh. And if in error is de
serving of a fair hearing of all the issues in
volved. And the Church, being so fully repre
sented on both Board and faculty, can surely
trust her representatives to stand for a faith
ful testimony to the truth, and if at any time
that testimony is impaired or nullified and
there is no remedy, then to make faithful re
port to the Church at home and advise separa
tion.
Note, for instance, the following action
passed by the Mid-China Mission more than a
year ago, in June, 1921 :
"Resolved, 1. That in view of the present
period of destructive criticism, unrest and un
certainty in many quarters, we, the members
of the Mid-China Mission, deem it wise to re
affirm our unflinching loyalty to the historic
position of our Church in regard to the integ
rity of the Scriptures and the fundamentals
of our faith. While there is a difference of
opinion among us as to the wisdom of individ
uals joining the Bible Union, there is no differ
ence as to where the Mission stands. And while
desirous of avoiding acrimonious controversy
and unkindly judgment of others, yet we are
of one mind in our zeal for the maintenance of
sound doctrine and the defense of the truth.
"Resolved, 2. That while desirous of culti
vating fellowship with all who love the Lord
Jesus and of co-operating in every practicable
way with other missions and denominations,
yet, it is impossible for us to permanently
maintain co-operation in any form of work
where unsound teaching goes unchecked; and
we urge upon all of our missionaries continued
watchfulness against compromising tendencies
and renewed effort by public appeal and by
personal contact, by .tongue and by pen, to
combat error and vindicate truth."
Nanking, China.
I
Tip WAY TO WISDOM
A wise old owl lived in an oak,
The more he saw the lees he spoke.
The less he spoke, the more he heard;
Why can't we be like that old bird?