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f""? ?" M?lk. H ^ ;J 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.