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ian Index. Vol. 57— No 45. Table of Contents. First Page—Alabama n epartment; The True Defence of Innocence ; Pauline Parenthe sis. Religious Press, etc. Second Page—Correspondence : Bethel As sociation ; Rochester Notes—C. H. K,; From the Indians—J. L. M ; Rev. W. I). Atkinson—D. O. Daniel; Programme—W. H. Cooper; Receipts of Mission Board—J. H. DeVotie. The Sunday-School: Lesson for December 7 —" The Heavenly Song.” Third Page—Childrens’ Corner: A Boy’s Remonsirance poetry; Witnessing the Truth ; May Blossom's Canes—Catherine Cameron. New Advertisements Fourth Page—Editorials: Decrees and Means! Rev. E Dumas ; The Revival Season ; Dr. Warren's Work in Richmond ; Bernard Mallon ; Dr. Lovick Pierce; Georgia Bap tist News- Fifth Page—Secular Editorials ; News Para graphs ; Sherman's Famous Peace Move ment in Georgia ; A Mormon iu Atlanta; Appointments; Georgia News, etc. Sixth Page—Obituaries, etc. Seventh Page—The Farmers’ Index : Down the Country ; The Fall Season : Plymouth Rocks ; Bushels vs. Acres. Eighth Page—Florida Department: Lacon ics ; Among the Associations Still. Mar riages; Special Notices; New Advertise ments. Alabama Department. BY SAMUEL HENDERSON. THE TRUE DEFENCE OF INNO CENCE. When innocence is assailed by the malignant aspersions of enemies, the most triumphant vindication of which it can avail itself is silence and kindness. When an injury is done by one person to another, and that injury is returned in kind, the parties are placed on terms of equality, except only that one is the aggressor, which, in any proper moral estimate of the guilt of wrong doing, is a small matter. Where wrong is answered by wrong, casuistry will be puzzled to strike the balance be tween them. If A. steals B's. horse one night, and B. retaliates by stealing A’s. horse the next night, the differ ence is too insignificant to attempt to decide. And where is the difference between this and any other wrong? Did two wrongs ever make a right? If une inau .ieuouuccs angjtar as having lied, does it mend the mailer for the aggrieved to return the foul epithet? Is there not a more excellent way? Now, it is worth while to bestow a little thought upon a subject, be it never so trite, in which perhaps nine-tenths of the difficulties between men originate. It covers a question environed with all the embarrassments which passion and lust can interpose in their conflict with conscience and reason. It em braces just that part of our deportment in which, as Christians, we are requir ed to exemplify the practical ascen dency ol that law that emancipates us from "the law of sin and death,” and where reason, animated by faith, dis putes the authority of “the lusts of the flesh and the lusts of the eye, and the pride of life.” In one word, it is ex actly here that reason and passion de cides which shall rule the empire of the soul. .In the first step of wrong doing, there is but one aggressor; nor is it difficult to show that this aggressor has done himself a far greater injury than he has inflicted on his victim. It makes no difference whether the injury relates to person, property or reputa tion, there is an instant recoil upon the party inflicting it far more terrible to himselt than anything he has done to the person he has wronged. If he has violated the laws of the laqd, he has also violated the law of God, and thus subjects himself to the penalty of both. In both cases, therefore, he has injured himself infinitely more than he has his neighbor, and stands pillor ied, so to express it, before God and man, to endure this doleful penalty. The next step in wrong doing—we mean where the person wronged retal iates in kind —places both parties on the same ground. The aggrieved par ty forfeits the vantage ground he held when he only received an injury, and becomes particept criminis. He incurs the like penalty with the first transgressor. The sympathies first aroused in his behalf subside, and he takes the same status with the party that injured him. The next step—but why trace the steps of wrong doing when it is let lose on society, spread ing over a surface as broad as the kinship and friends of the parties ex tend? Who has not seen and deplor ed it time and again? Our duty is plain enough. Reason and Scripture combine to assure us that silence unit ed with kindness will do more to ex tinguish animosity, and all the fierce passions of the soul,than all the carnal weapons depravity ever forged. “Wherefore, if thine enemy hunger, feed him, if he thirst give him drink, for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his bend. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.” When an angry man finds that all his passionate utterances and doings pro- SOUTH-WESTERN BAPTIST. of Alabama. duce no response but silence or kind ness, he is apt to turn with indigna tion on himself, and repent of his ini quity ; for of all things in the world, a man dislikes most to expend his base passions in vain. We do not mean to say that a man should not protect his person, family and property from notoriously bad people. This may become a solemn duty. And even then he should go no further than is essential to this end. The balance he can leave to the laws of the country. But when the charac ter of a good man is assailed, as a gen eral rule the less he says the better. If you bespatter a garment with mud, and undertake to rub it off at once, you only increase the surface that is soiled. Let it dry and it will fall off itself. Who was traduced more than our Saviour? Yet “He answered nothing;” and was finally vindicated by receiving a name above every other name. We have not known one ease in ten of suits brought to recover dam ages for slander, in which the party bringing the suit was not damaged more than could be compensated by the indemnity awarded to him. Reason as we may the great body of the people will continue to think that a reputation that dollars and cents can represent is not worth contending about. Religion, pure and undefiled, is a “coat of mail” impervious to all the missiles of slander that enmity can shoot at us ; and when we pause to return them in kind, it is a sad evidence that some of these mis siles have “found the joints in the har ness.” Before laying down the pen, we wish to say a few words in regard to a character we have all met occasionally We mean the man who seems to spend his whole life in hunting up occasions of offense. You never meet him with out having to listen to a list of griev ances that would fill a respectable tract. He would consider any trip a lost op portunity, if he failed to find some thing to growl over. He never sees the sunny side of human nature. Your caresses and kindly expressions are thrown away on him. But start him off on his favorite theme, and he really grows eloquent. If we are to believe him,the whole outside world has form ed one grand conspiracy against him. What a pity that all these “Tribula tion Trepids” could not be drawn to gether by a kind of moral affinity, just to let the world see how “good and pleasant” the communion of such spirits would be! PA ULINE PARER THESES. An intelligent minister once said to us that he should like to see a took written on the parentheses of Paul’s epistles, for that he thought some of the sublimest conceptions that ever came from the Apostolic pen were found in these little interjacent sentences. Thinking over the subject, we have concluded that if somebody else will write the book, we will essay a para graph or so on the subject. The late Dr. Carson expresses the opinion that parenthetical expressions blunt the force and obscure the meaning of writers, and are really evidences of weakness instead of strength. Hence, he never resorted to them, except where they supplied the place of “foot-notes” in other authprs. But the learned doctor did not seem to think of the Apostle Paul in this sweep ing declaration ; for of all the writers of the New Testament, nay, we may say of all the early writers on Theolog ical subjects which we have examined, Paul resorts most frequently to paren theses. One can scarcely read a page of his writings without encountering one or more of these brilliant«scintilla tions ; and what is more, they always occur just where we need the light they shed upon the topic under discus sion. They come in to supply a kind of ellipsis, pouring a flood of light on the subject as if one were traveling over a rough and thorny road some dark and stormy night, guided by the light of a lamp, there would occasion ally come a broad, vivid flash of light ning, revealing a broader range of objects than the light of the lamp could compass. Let us take two or three of these parenthetical phrases as indicating how. as a kind of side-lights, they serve to expand our knowledge of divine things. Take that one recorded in Rom. 2: 13-15, in which human ac countability is predicated fimtlly’upon man's moral consciousness, and not upon the written law. The written law may serve to increase this account ability, from the fact that it increases the light, the opportunities, and the means of conformity to the divine will. But the foundation of this moral re sponsibility is laid in this, that God has endowed man, as man, with a moral sense to discern right from wrong. Hence, in all languages, whither writ ten or spoken, of which we have any knowledge, there are words which an swer to our English words right und wrong, good and bad, righteousness Atlanta, Georgia, Thursday, November 20, 1879. and sin, etc. This accountability, we repeat, may be modified by our possess ing God’s written word, but it exists independently of the sacred writings. Thus our Lord says, it “shall be more tolefable for Tyre and Sidon in the judgment,” than for those who shared His ministry ; not that Tyre and Sidon would be saved in that day on account of their ignorance of God’s word, but that their condemnation would be less fearful than that which would consign Capernaum to the “perdition of ungod ly men.” We repeat, what a flood of light this single parenthesis throws upon that aspect of divine jurispru dence that would likely agitate the minds of the people for all coming time! In Rom. 9:11, another one of these suggestive parentheses occur. We will quote it: (“For the children (Esau and Jacob) being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth ;”) then follows the decree: “The elder shall serve the younger.” Now, we submit, if this passage does not teach the absolute unqualified sov ereignty of God, it is not in the power of human language to do it. Kick against it we may ; fret and chafe un der it, men have done ever since; but there it stands, calmly confronting us with the sublime God-like truth, that all His purposes are self-evolved, and that they are in no tense contingent upon what man is. or on what man may or can do. “The gifts and calling of God are without repentance;” not repent ance on our part, but repentance on His part. Seeing the end from the begin ning, no contingency can arise that can change His purposes and determi nations. Still another one of these sublime truths appears in a parenthesis in 2 Cor. 5:7: (“For we walk by faith, not by sight.”) What a theme for our pulpit ministrations, and our closet devotions! The sublimestsermon that the gifted Andrew Fuller ever preached was based upon this text. It ministers strength to the believer from the time he accepts the cross until he reaches the crown. He never sinks so low in the “valley of humiliation;” he never risep so t high upon ( the “((electable, mountains,” but that it reaches'him in its all-embracing vigorous arms. These instances we have selected at random, but they are enough for our present purpose. The reader can ex tend them almost indefinitely. So that, so far from agreeing with Dr. Carson in his criticism upon the paren thesis in composition, that it weakens, obscures end blunts the force of truth, we should rather say, that when dis creetly resorted to, it strengthens, illu mines, and gives a keener edge to any writings, human or divine. A Box of Gold in a Shipwreck—An Anecdote by Bev. W. Hay Aitken.— | Some time ago a friend of mine was I coming home from Australia—orrather 1 a brother of a friend of mine was —and ' when they were about half way home j the ship took fire in mid-ocean. Two ' ! boats were lowered, and into these J ! boats all who were on board ship were put.’ One was a large boat, and into I that they managed to Hing a consider i able quantity of stores —casks of bread, bacon, barrels of water, and so on ; and , into the smaller boat, in the confusion lof the moment, they east a considera ble number of eases containing solid gold, which they were bringing home ! from Australia. When every one had . got into the boats they found they had got a very slender stock of provisions I in the small boat, and a large amount! ' of gold, whilst the larger boat had got nearly all the provisions and no gold. As night came on a stiff breeze sprang | . up, and it was probable the boats would separate before morning, and n>y friend , I said he never should forget the mo ment when four or five stalwart sailors stood up in the small boat and lifted , up a huge box containing about £14,-, 000 or £15,000, and they shouted across , the water to the occupants of the other j boat, “Here’s £15,000 to be divided amongst you if you will only give uh a cask of bread,” and they could not do so. A good price, was it not? But the gold could not purchase the bread that perishes. I How much less will the rich man’s ■ ■ gold avail him in She shipwreck of this ' world, in the day of judgment, to pur-' i chase the bread from heaven which | endures unto everlasting life! Blessed j , indeed are those who, leaving the un-1 satisfying husks of this world’s pleas- 1 tires, arise and go, like the prodigal j son, to their Father, and are admitted by Him to sit down in the kingdom of God. The greatest man is he who j troubles himself the least about the ' j verdict that may be passed upon him ! by his contemporaries or posterity, but ' who finds in doing good, honest work ( , to the best of his ability, tinder existing J ; conditions, its own “exceeding great i reward.” i > The Religious Press. Amusing, suggestive and instructive is the flowing extract of a letter from brother A. B. Cabaniss to the IFetKem Recorder: * WhxTie Stopped the Recobeeb.—l met a irominent Baptist in the road and asked Jiim to take the Recorder. “I did take it once but stopped it.” "Why?” “Be cause Onperton wouldn’t publish au obituary I sent He would have published a few lines ■ but it was no doubt too long.” “I was willing to pay him for it, but he wanted to charge me too much." “The charge is made, Kot for the money, but to keep these long obituaries out.” “Well, I don’t think he treated me right; he might have publish ed it; >ne wal an old subscriber.” "My dear sir, we have six thousand subscribers, generally heads of families, and there is an average of live iu a family, which makes thirty thousand persons. Qut of that num ber, sot te one is dying everyday. Don’t you sec\j,hat if we did not put a stop to obituaries, obituaries would put a st' p to the paper? In this busy, go-ahead age, who wants to take a paper filled with accounts of the dead past? We are striving to make the Recorder a live, wide-awake paper—a transcript of the-missionary age in which we live, and not a cemetery for the burial of the dead. Think oh these things, my brother, and take the paper again.” “I know it’s a good paper for Baptists to have in their familie<; but I have said I will never take it again, and I’ll stick to it.” “I suppose, then, you belong to that family that, when you gay a bora? is sixteen feet high, will stick toi it.” “Yea,rir,” was the prompt re ply, ..-*1 I bade him adieu; thinking he must te tome kin to the old brother in Washington county who, when the church passed some resolution that displeased him exceedingly, picked up his hat and started, saying, “I’ll never put my foot in this door again. ” Believing him to be at heart a good man ■ the church bore with him. In about twelve months, the old brother longed for the ‘privileges of the santuary, and greatly desijred to visit the courts of the Lord. He Anally sent a message to the church, asking the privilege of cutting a door in the back side of the bouse, at his own expense. They sac design, and granted his request. He * w j ;nr,d|*ndaet in thMfctuayr after | this, but always came in at the back-door. I trust our good brother, firstgpientioned, will take the Recorder again, even if he has to come in at the back-door to get it. We learn from the National Baptist that Brother 11. L. Wayland presented to Dr. William Cathcart, as President of the His torical Society, an original signature of John Hart, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, the only Baptist in the Continental Congress. The signature was attached to a Three Shilling Bill of the Colony of New Jeisey, dated March 13, | 177 C. John Hart was one of the three Commissioners authorized to Lsue these bills. Dr. Cathcart accepted this relic on behalf of the Society. John Hart was Vice- President of the Colony of New Jersey, and Speaker of the Lower House. He was three times elected to the Congress, and was dis tinguished for sound judgment and inflexi ble resolution. When the British were in liossessioo of New Jersey, Mr. Hart’s house and mill were burned, and his property was ravaged ; he was hunted from cottage to cottrge, and from cave to cave; so that he did not venture to sleep twice in the same place. In 1865, a monument, erected to his memory by the State, was dedicated with an address by Gov. Parker. Mr. Hart was a Baptist; he gave four acres of ground on which to build the old Baptist church at Hopewell, and gave largely toward its erec tion. The Christian Intelligencer (Dutch Re formed) says, speaking of the great numbers of Baptists : “This large body of Christians, which puts great stress upon an exact obedi euce to the commands and an exact imita tion of our Lord Jesus Christ, and which accuses other Christians of glaring defects in obedience, this large body does not aver age twenty five cents to a member In its gifts in obedience to the Master’s last command. If this is true because it is Baptist, the sooner it becomes something else, the better.” This is a very severe thrust at our people, and the most humi iating part cf it Is, it is true. The Baptists have the best creed in the world, and theretore they are bound to be I the best people in the world, but, alas! they 1 let almost all other Christians give more to the cause of Christ than they.— Biblical Re carder. This is from the Central Baptist That God could reveal Himself hi human , form is no more difficult to believe thin that I He could reveal His will in human words. , The obstacle in both cases is reduced to that of expressing t>.e infinite under the limita tions of the finite, which can by no construe i tion be regarded impossible. And as there is no form in which the divine will can be 1 expressed to man, objectively and intelligi- THE CHRISTIAN HERALD, of Tennessee. bly, except in the form of human language, so is there no manner, known to us, of re vealing the divine character except by its embodiment in human r orm. A new Baptist church at Bowdon, En glatd, has made provision in the trust deed of the church for the reception as ‘ non denominational members” any Presbyterians, Methodists, Episcopalians, etc., who may desire to unite with the church. Such mem 1 bers are to be allowed to retain their peculiar j views, the condition of their acceptance be- : ing profession of faith, a godly walk, and | subscription to the leading doctrines ol i Evangelical Christianity. They are not, however, to he permitted to vote on any question affecting baptism or Baptist princi ples. So it seems that with all the so-called I “liberality” of our trans-Atlantic .breth ren, (hey admit Pedobaptists only as*a kind of second-class members—steerage passengers, as it were, who sit at the far back seats, even if not at the second table. We think that our plan is more courteous, as well as more Scriptural. Archbishop Leighton was once, says Dean Stanley, reprimanded in a Synod for “not preaching up to the times.” “Who,” he asked, “does preach up to the times?” It was an swered that all jhe brethren did. “Then," he replied, “if all of you preach up to the times, you may surely allow one poor brother to preach up Jesus Christ and eternity I” We are sorry to say that many of our religious exchanges deal largely in politics, and some of them severely re primand those of us who refuse to do the same thing. As so many of them are engaged in this business, we hope they will allow their brother of The Index to eschew the subject, and con fine himself to preaching up the doc trine of Jesus: “Peace on earth and good will to men.” The following strange lines are from our esteemed brother of the National Baptist: j, We regret to see that in Virginia the matter of honest debt-paying is still in doubt. But we rejoice that our valued contemporary, the Religious Herald, disregarding the puerile exhortation to "let politics alone,” has manfully contended for honesty in the State. " If the exhortation to ■“tet alone” is “puerile,” it appears to us that the New Testament is a very puerile book. If any of the writers of that book took any sides in the current politics of that day, we are not aware of it. They satisfied themselves with laying down broad principles, applica ble to all nations and races, and for all time, and we should do well to follow their example. As to honesty, we well remember what the Apostle says in Rom. 13:8: “Owe no man anything, but to love one another,” and if our zeal in this is behind that of any, we lament it. But what this has to do with “politics,” we do not perceive. We presume, however, that the differ ence between ourselves and the Nation al Baptist are more verbal than real after all. We surely agree in this, that the moral code of the New Testament ought to be urged at all times, and un der all circumstances. We hope, too, that our brother will agree with us in this : That mere questions’of national expediency, when they involve no prin ciple of morals, are questions on which religious journals ought not to take sides. Those of our contemporaries vyho entertain this view will have no "politics” in their papers, as we have none in ours. The Christian Advocate, (Nashville) speaking of the burning of the McKen dree church in that city, says : The most notable feature of this case re mains to be mentioned. Among the offers of tenqiorary worshipping accommodations to the McKendree congregation, was one from the Jewish Synagogue on Vine street. The offer was made in a manner so graceful and generous as to enhance its value and the gratitude of the recipients. Such a transac tion would have been impossible twenty five years ago, and shows the drift of the age in the direction o' religious tolerance ar.d liberality. Mankind is coming to see that a difference of opinion is no ground for hatred, and that a difference in ideas is compatible with kindness of feeling and reciprocal good offices. The offer of our Hebrew friends was accepted, and for three Sundays Dr. West has preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the Synagogue, and that temple built by the children of Abraham bas resounded with the melody of Methodist hymns. To us the whole transaction is curious, pleasing and prophetic. Certainly the offer of hospitality on the part of the Jews was a graceful act, and we sec no reason why it should not have been, as in fact it was, as gracefully accepted. Our Methodist brethren are by no means rigid In their views of communion, but docs anyone suppose that they would commune with these Jews, or with any others Whole No. 2395 who like them deny the Savior ? If one of the Methodist churches were to do such a thing, would it not be brought to speedy discipline? A Bap tist church is independent and undis ciplinable; but if one of them falls into disorder, any or all the others have a right to say that they have no fellow ship with it. The Watchman says: The colored people are under the profound conviction that it is not safe for them to vote for candidates whom the whites do not approve. We need not hesitate to set the South down as solid in the next Presidential election. If it should be so that this statement is not true, then the following words from the 15th Psalm might well engage the attention of the Watchman :, “Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill? He that walketh uprightly, and worketh right eousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart. He that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbor, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbor.” Does our broth er know that what he has said is true? Do he believe it to be true? On what evidence does he base his belief? Does not the election returns from these Southern States show that thou sands upon thousands of negro votes are cast for candidates whom the whites do not approve? Is not this a matter of public record? We assure the Watchman that we have seen negroes at the polls by hundreds at a time voting for men whom the whites did not ap prove. We have never seen the least disturbance at an election ; and being here on the ground, where we h’ave al ways had and still havejsvery opportu nity to witness the facts as they are, we put on record this our profound conviction that the “terrorism” spoken of does not exist. Our opinion the Watchman will take for what he thinks it is worth, but what yill he do with our statement of facts ? Will he say that we are mistaken? This he must know is impossible. Does he think that we would knowingly misstate a fact? We do not believe that, lie - ’ thinks so. MY COMPANY. I have read (says Mi. Bpur-,<xm) vi one who dreamed a dream, when in great distress of mind, about religion. He thought he stood in the outer court of heaven, and he saw a glorious host marching up, singing sweet hymns, and bearing the banner of victory; and they passed by him through the gate, and when they vanished he heard in the distance sweet strains of music. “Who are they?” he asked. “They are the godly fellowship of the prophets, who have gone to be with God.” And he heaved a deep sigh as he said, “Alas, I am not one of them, and never shall be, and I cannot enter there.” By-and-by there came another band, equally lovely in appearance and equally triumphant, and robed in white. They passed within the portals, and again were shouts of welcome heard. “Who are they?” “They are the godly fellowship of the apostles.” “Alas,” he said, “I belong not to that fellowship, and I cannot enter there.” He still waited and lingered, in the hope that he might yet go in; but the next multitude did not encourage him, for they were the noble army of mar tyrs. He could not go in with them, nor wave their palm-branches. He waited still, and saw that the next was a company of feodly ministers and offi i cers of Christian churches; but he ■ could not go with them. At last, as : he walked, he saw a larger host than ' all the rest put together, marching and I singing most melodiously, and in front I walked the woman that was a sinner; and the thief that died upon the cross hard by the Savior; and he looked long, and saw there such as Manasseh and the like ; and when they entered he could see who they were, and he i thought: “There will be no shouting about ! them.” But to his astonishment, it seemed as if all heaven was rent with seven fold shouts as they passed in. And the angels said to him : “These are they that are mighty sinners, saved by mighty grace.” And then he said : “Blessed be God! I can go in with them." And so he awoke.— Ex. Mrr. Potts, the woman from Phila i delphia, who created a sensation | a short time ago by walking I from Philadelphia to New Oilcans and j return, within a specified time, has [ been very unfortunate since the suc cessful completion of her tour, and lust week attempted to commit suicide. She is now in the hands of charitable I people, who will provide for her wants.