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The Presbyteriai.- the South
Vol. 97. No. 48. RICHMOND, VA.
NOVEMBER 29, 1922
NEXT SUNDAY is Equipment Day by or
der of the General Assembly. The As
sembly and its Executive Committee have found
out that its workers are very poorly equipped
in many respects to do the work that the
Church has given them to do, as it believes in
accordance with God's command. The As
sembly, after careful study of the subject, says
that $5,000,000 is needed at once to furnish the
proper equipment. It is asking the Church to
give this year $500,000 of this amount. When
we think of the churches and manses and school
buildings needed in the mission fields in the
home land it is seen that all of this and much
more could be used to great advantage in sup
plying the need. Mr. William T. Ellis, one of
the best informed men in the world in regard
to foreign missions, said, after visiting a num
ber of fields, that as to its personnel no Church
has a finer mission force than has our Church,
but that it has the poorest equipment of any
force engaged in foreign work. An unequipped
force cannot do good work. Let us all remem
ber that next Sunday, and let us ask God to
show us our duty in this matter.
MOVING PICTURE producers are begin
ning lo realize that they cannot afford
to go against the best moral sentiment of the
country. Some of the actors and actresses,
whose pictures have been shown all over the
country, were of thoroughly immoral and vi
cious character. Their immoralities were ad
vertised everywhere, as a means of attracting
the public to see the pictures. But a day of
awakening seems to be dawning. One of the
worst of these characters was Roscoe (known
as Fatty) Arbuckle. His immoralities occupied
the front pages of the daily papers all over
this country for weeks and no doubt made many
of the habitues of the moving picture show
houses anxious to see him. It is said that there
was nothing specially objectionable in the pic
tures in which he appeared. But we have no
doubt that those who saw him would think
more about his personal deeds than they would
of the scenes in which he acted. It is gratify
ing therefore to see it reported that the com
pany which produced his pictures has decided
to scrap all the recent ones in which he ap
peared, some of which had not been given to
the public. May the good work go on.
BOOTLEGGERS, as a class, are murderers
at heart, if not in fact. There are many
who are murderers in fact. United States Pro
hibition Commissioner Haynes reports that al
ready more than 125 prohibition enforcement
officers have been murdered by bootleggers,
and the operators of illicit stills. The men arc
far worse than ordinary murderers, for they
murder the officers of the law, who are ap
pointed to uphold and enforce the law. As
soon as a man engages in the liquor traffic he
arms himself and as soon as he sees an officer
whom he, suspects is trying to arrest him, he
begins shooting. This estimate of the number
thus murdered probably does not include State
officers who have also been killed in large
numbers. This is a state of affairs that amounts
almost to guerilla warfare. It is war against
the government, for those killed are represen
tatives of the government. Two questions
arise. Who are responsible for this condition
of affairs, and what can be done to put a stop
to it? Those who are responsible for it are
largely of the otherwise better class of people
of the country. It is a very generally accepted
view that most of the liquor that is bought
today from bootleggers is bought by the more
respectable element of the people. The cost
of the liquor is so high that not many of the
more vicious element can buy it. Unquestion
ably the purchasers of the liquor are respon
sible for these murders. If there were no pur
chasers, there would be no liquor made. Jf
no liquor was made, there would be no officers
murdered. Or turn this around and here is
what we have. Respectable men buy liquor,
therefore the bootleggers make it, and there
fore the officers are killed. When the better
class of men stop buying liquor, and begin
raising their voices against this traffic, then,
and then alone, will these murders cease.
I WANT TO HEAR SOMEBODY SAY
When I enter the Beautiful City ?
Far removed from earth's sorrow and cure,
I want to hear somebody saying:
"It was you that invited me here."
*
When at home in those mansions in heaven,
And the saved all around me appear,
I want to hear somebody tell mo:
"It was you that invited me here."
"To our Saviour alone be the glory.
Whose Spirit the Witness did bear ?
Yet I might not have heard the glad tidings,
Had you not invited me here."
CHURCH AND STATE are to be kept sep
arate is the doctrine of our Church. That
means that the State is not to undertake to
rule in the Church, nor the Church to rule in
the State. It seems hard for some churches to
make this distinction, but it is harder still for
the Federal Council of Churches to make it.
In a communication just received from the
Councils' Washington office this statement is
made, it claims, "expressing the sentiment of
approximately 50,000,000 members of the
Christian churches of all faiths in America:"
"On the eve of the Lausanne Conference, rep
resentatives of great Church bodies and or
ganizations interested in Near Eastern prob
lems made a final appeal to Secretary of State
Hughes on Saturday, November 18, to make
the 'observers' of the meeting fully accredited
delegates. This action by the various churches
and other organizations was taken at a meet
ing called by the Federal Council of Churches.
Tn the resolution which was presented the com
mittee in charge assures President Harding and
Secretary Hughes that they welcome the Gov
ernment's intention to stand for the freedom
of the straits, the protection of religious mi
norities in the Near East, the protection
of American property rights and the lives of
American citizens and freedom to carry on re
ligious and educational work." This looks
very much as though the Council has decided
what the Government ought to do in a matter
that is purely political, though it has. as all
political questions have, a moral side. But it
is not the moral side that is at issue here. It
is the attempt of the Council to say what
method the Government shall adopt to settle
the political question. We hold that the Church
has no right to dictate to the Government as to
the methods by which it accomplishes its pur
pose. The Council then has no right to speak
for the churches, where the churches have not
spoken. And indeed this is not the action of
the Council, which has not had a meeting for
about two years, but it is the action only of a
committee.
FASHION, that, invisible master (or is it
mistress?;, which no one can locate or de
scribe, has more power over the lives of many
people than any other influence. Sometimes it
is thought that this applies only to women, and
especially to their clothes, but the fact is that
fashion controls many people in many ways.
It is interesting to notice that fashion gener
ally has to do with something that we buy.
Those who manufacture and sell commodities
of many kinds, are anxious to increase their
output. If they can persuade a purchaser to
throw aside some article he is using before it
is worn out, he will soon become a purchaser
for another article. So it is to his interest to
have the fashion as to that commodity changcd
as often as possible. The Christian Statesman
says 011 this subject: "If the former were as
much of a gonger as the designer of clothes,
he would make a new fashion in bread stuifs
for each season. Other people would have to
throw away all their stores of food every six
months in order to keep up with his procla
mation of new styles. Just when a clothing
worker ? for instance ? got his larder well
filled, along would come an edict from the
grange stating that it is no longer good form
to eat wheat ? you must change to rice; that
the most advanced feeders have decided to
abandon duck and take to mudhen ; and that
the comparatively weak and inarticulate onion
is to give way to the more expressive garlic.
Ridiculous? Surely it is. But no more ab
surd than the way the designers of clothing
change the styles every season, to gouge the
farmers ? and all the rest of us."
Expenses of church courts are
heavy and for many reasons they are in
creasing. We find from the report of its treas
urer that the meeting of the General Assembly
foi 1921 cost $21,874. Of this amount $17,207
was paid for the traveling expenses of the com
missioners attending the Assembly. This seems
a large amount, but it is small compared with
the cost of the Northern Assembly. That
Church is about four times as large as is the
Southern Church. The expenses of the meet
ing of the Assembly for the same year were
$179,533. Of this amount $62,800 was paid for
traveling expenses and $23,800 for hotel bills
of the commissioners. This shows that the
Northern Church, though only four times as
large as the Southern, spent eight times as
much on the meet^g of its Assembly. The
question of reducing the size of the Assembly
is being very seriously considered by the
Northern Church, and the cost of the meetings
is one of the reasons given for doing so. It
might be well for the Southern Church to con
sider this matter also.