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BKi 4 VOL. 59. Table of Contents. First Page—Alabama Department: The Fa tal Trio ; “Besetting Bins State News; The Religious Press. Second Page—Correspondence: Were the Ancient Americans Asiatics ?—William L. Scruggs, Canton, China; Sunday-School Convention Hephzibah Association ; The . Olive Branch—J. W. L.; The Sunday- School—Lesson for March 6—“ Witness of Jesus to John.” Missionary Department. Third Page—Children’s Corner: Bible Ex plorations ; Correspondence; Almonds and Violets; A Little Goose—poetry. Fourth Page—Editorials: No Advantage In Inspiration; More Practical; Intemper ance in Work; Rest; The South. Fifth Page—Secular Editorials: News Para graphs ; Literary Notes and Comments; About the Boers; The New Hospital; Georgia News. Sixth Page—Court Calendar ; A Sensible Mother. Obituaries, etc. Seventh Page—The Farmer’s Index: Com posting; Ensilage; Lucern ; Rotation of Crops; Phosphate of Lime; Small Notes. Eighth Page—Florida Department: Chips and Splinters; Query; Rev. James Page; | (Interesting Statistics; Preaching and Prac ticing ; Christian Shirks, etc. Alabama Department. BY SAMUEL HENDERSON. THE FATAL TRIO. Money—lust—ambition! Despicable avarice—sensual pleasure— deluding honors! What a trio of vices, always appealing to the human heart, alas, too susceptible to their seductive charms! As to the love of money, “it is the root of all evil.” As to the lust of the flesh, it is affirmed “when it is finished it bringeth forth death.” And as to earthly honors, they are the merest baubles that ever deluded to destroy. How sad to think that immortal beings on their way to a destiny so sublime as that it hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive of it, should be decoyed by temptations so debasing and so ruinous! What folly can equal this! A young expectant of royal honors, on his way to grasp the crown of a grand empire, and who turns aside to revel in scenes of sensual delight un til the prize escapes him, would be wise in contrast with him who has “a price in his hand” to obtain an in corruptible crown, and madly throws it away on the merest trifles that ever cheated a fool in his folly. It would seem that the very state ment of a delusion so transparent, would be sufficient to expose it. But then it may not be amiss to go a little more into detail with the view of show ing not only the folly but the crime of such consummate deception. One cause of the fatal ascendency of these despicable vices over the hu man heart is, that our own depraved nature so readily seconds their temp tations. That conquest is easy in whieh an external force is met by an internal weakness. Their indulgence gratifies our strongest predispositions. The contact of tinder and fire will not more naturally create combustion, than will the contact of the human heart with temptation result in trans gression. We carry the tinder within us—the fires of temptation will set it aglow. Take one of these vices to il lustrate all of them, the love of money, avarice, that “root of all evil;” as an old anther expresses it, “a root as odious for its branches, as the branches for their fruit; a root fed with dirt and filth, and so no wonder if of as much foulness as fertility.” Covetousness, like the fabled Briareus, has a “hund red hands,” all employed in grasping and gathering, and not one in giving back —cheating and robbing all, and restoring nothing. All nature is but a system of compensations. Every part pays back something for what it takes. The earth receives the seed and culture of the husbandman, and pays back “in some thirty, in sixty, and in some a hundred fold.” The dumb brutes re pay their owners more than $n equiv alent for their care and comfort. Even the dog earns his food by standing sen tinel for his master at night. But here is a monster to whom the more you give the more you must give, with no hope of any restitution. Indeed, as SOUTH-WESTERN BAPTIST. ) OF Ala BAM A. j you increase your gifts you diminish any hope of return. How true the saying that covetousness “makes both the alpha and the omega of the devil’s alphabet,” as it is the first vice that corrupts the young, and the last vice that dies with the old. We need only add that lust and ambition are alike degrading to all the higher and nobler sensibilities of the soul. The one wal lows it in the mire and filth of aband oned depravity; the other inflates with the pride that sent the fallen angels headlong to perditiou. Another cause of our subjection to their power is the delusions they prac tise. How readily we become the dupes of their artifices! For though they have cheated us a thousand times our credulity expands with each de ception. The drunkard may be res cued from the gutter of the swine to day, only to sink deeper to morrow. The miser may be brought to the verge of lunacy by a thousand cares to-day, only to increase them to-morrow. Vaul ting ambition may endure the stings of slander and vituperation to-day, only to place himself more exactly in the range of their missiles to-morrow. The debauchee may nurse the pains and diseases of his lewdness to-day, only to gratify his brutal instincts to morrow. For, in the baser departments of our nature, our most painful and revolting experiences are the prelude to still deeper depths of degradation, as in our higher nature the rewards of well-doing stimulate us to abound yet more and more in every good word and work. The galley slave never eked out a service under the lash more con stant, more degrading, than those masterful passions exact of their vic tims. Andjfor all this drudgery, this perpetual servitude, what is their com pensation? What is to reward them for this unrelaxing devotion to their master, the devil? “The wages of sin is death!” Alas, alas, what “labored deeds of hard earned infamy” mark the career of the slaves of passion! Such devotion in the service of God and humanity would be sublime! Still another reason why our lower instincts dominate over us to the ex clusion of our better and purer im pulses is, that the one brings a present gratification, while the awards of the other are, in the main, reserved for the future. So that we are left to choose between what our wicked hearts per suade us is a present and certain good, and one that is remote and contingent. We prefer to serve the world, the flesh, and the devil, because they pay us down the coin-and oh, such a coin! rather than our Father in heaven who bids us show ourselves worthy of the “reward of the inheritance” before He bestows it. • We decide to take the worse than gew-gaws and trash, the merest shams, of the one, because we get it in hand, rather than the incor ruptible crown of the other, because it glitters in the distance, and demands that we shall win before we wear it. It was a fine conception of Bunyan to personate those two ideas under the symbol of two damsels, named respec tivily Passion and Patience. Passion would have every thing now, even though it rfemanded her in the end to poverty and rags—Patience quietly waited for, and obtained, those trea sures more precious than rubies. Thus are we all left to choose between the “pleasures of sin for a season,” and that “recompense of reward” which constitutes an eternity of bliss. What multitudes make that fatal choice which plants in the soul that remorse, that worm that never, never dies! "BESETTING SINS." What are they? All sins are indi genous to the carnal mind. Such are represented as “drinking iniquity like water.” But then there are special sins which possess peculiar charms to particular persons, and these sine have not inaptly been styled “besetting sins.” They are such as being oft re peated, acquire all the force of habit over us. Thus our Lord says of those whose “eyes are full of adultery,” that they could not cease from sin.” Jo seph’s brethren had so long indulged their hatred towards him, that “they could not speak peaceably to him.” We often say of a covetous man, that he cannot be charitable. This strong language is used, not to denote a nat- THE FRANKLIN STEAM PRINTING HOUSE. ATLANTA, GEORGIA, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1881. ural, but a moral disability. Those who contract any wicked habit, we say cannot practice the opposite virtue, be cause they will not do so; since it is just as certain that men will net do that which they have no mind to do, as that they will not do that which they have no natural capacity to do; although the two things are the poles asunder in their origin. The one pro claims our deepest guilt, the other our simple incapacity. Can our “besetting Sins” be laid aside? Paul thought so, when he ex horted his Hebrew correspondents to “lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily beset" them, so as to “run with patience the race that was set before them.” What a man volun tarily takes up, he can lay down. No Christian who is what he professes to be, can contract any evil habit which he cannot abandon. It is a libel upon his Christian manhood to affirm that any vice that saps the foundation of his character as a religious man, can not be abated. When, therefore, a professing Christian contracts the habit of drinking ardent spirits intemper ately, (and any use of that article other than as medicine, strictly speak ing, is intemperance) and says that he cannot quit it, it is equivalent to say ing he cannot be, and is not a Chris tian. If “he had faith as a grain of mustard seed,” he could say to this monster evil, though it assumed the dimensions of a “mountain, be Aon plucked up by the roots, inti the sea, and it would be done ” If lie cannot quit so beastly a habit, the church is no place for him. In reclaiming persons far gone in intemperance, two things must be done. First, rally their manhood, all their moral principles, if they have any, and bring them to the rescue. If there is anything in the victim of this vice to which an appeal can be made, and on which any moral conviction can fasten, then do this the first of all, for unless he can be summoned to put forth his best exertions, nothing else need be tried. But secondly, create a strong sympathy around him, so that he will be encouraged and strengthened in all his efforts to eman cipate himself from his degrading sla very. Let him know that the wise and good, all those whose good opin ions are worth conciliating are in full sympathy with him in his praise-wor thy struggles. Give him your best ad vices, your prayers, and in so far as you can, your confidence, and let him know that your eye is upon him for good. Many a struggling victim, after making such an effort, has relapsed back into his old habits, just for the want of sympathy. Long Credit.—How often do the occurences of early life come up before us “to point a moral, or adorn a tale.” It must have been forty years ago that a little incident occurred in our neigh borhood between two worthy men of which we have often thought. One of them had unwillingly offended the other. The complainant went to the the offender with the story of his wrong, and, as is sometimes the case, very demurely assumed the role of the martyr, and said to his offending broth er, that he had carried the case up to the final Judge, and that the judg ment of the great day would vindicate his innocence! The supposed offender answered, that “the credit was too long—that he apprehended both of them would have as much to answer for that day, a 3 they could well meet, without carrying any special cases there that could be better settled here, and that for his part he demanded an exchange of receipts then and there.” Reader, do not carry too many cases to that last tribunal. It is hazaruous in the extreme. There may be "two sides” to these questions of which you little dream, and the decisions of that day may surprise you. Better settle as yon go. Better not cumber “the books” then and there to be opened with too many cases. Should any of them go against you, your loss is irre parable. The Legislature adopted a resolu tion granting permission to Col. If. M. King, editor of the Macon Mail, to have access to the archives of the State to fa cilitate him in writing a history of Al abama. STATE NEWS. —During a part of the time this win ter, some parties in Florence were forced to use cotton seed for fuel. —Fifty thousand dollars are rendy for improvements to be made in the Talladega colored college. i —Rev. B. F. Riley, of the Baptist church, is getting up a petition to pre vent the sale of whiskey in Lee county. —Old farmers in Alabama say tlsat good crops have always succeeded hard winters in that State, and they are going to spread themselves this year. —Notwithstanding the fact that the mortgage system has been in vogue ■•ever since the negro became a com mercial free agent, there are numbers of prosperous colored farmers in Bar bour county who have never given a mortgage on their property or crops. —The spirit of progress is on the move, and every day adds to the im portance of Pratt Mines as a mining centre. Already it is the largest mine in the South. Coketon will, in time, rival any of the large mining places in the country. The population of the place is said to be one thousand. —Parties connected with the M. and C. railroad hstve lately been over in Marion and other mountain counties looking for coal and iron, with a view Building a road out into that coun- Xhey found both coal and iron bundance and of fine quality. *The Gadsden Times salys : There has been a marked improvement in the cash trade in Gadsden within the past few years. As an evidence of the rapid increase of population in our city, the upper sto ries of business houses are being occu pied by families as tenement houses. —A declaration of incorporation of the Alabama and Mississippi Railway Company was filed in the office of the Secretary of State. The road is to ex tend from Eutaw, in Greene county, to Columbus, Mississippi. A commis sion was issued to Arthur C. Jackson, of Boston, Richard C. Daniel, of Mem phis, and Lester C. Smith, of Mont gomery, board of corporators, to open books of subscription to the proposed railway. The Religious Press. Color prejudice at Cambridge! Right un der the shadow of Harvard ! The superin tendent of schools confesses that so much color prejudice exists among a part of the community that it seems inexpedient to ap point colored teachers, although several young women qualified for places have for some time been applicants. Before we send any more missionaries to Africa let us send a few to Cambridge.—Christian Register. The trouble will be that the mis sionaries themselves, when brought into close quarters, will yield to the in exorable trend of nature, which re quires that like shall consort to like. The best missionary that could be sent to those who are anxious to break down what is called the “color preju dice” would be the negro Senator Bruce, from Mississippi, who asks for his race, “equality before the law” and nothing else. Nothing is gained by making admission into the church too easy. To invite persons to rise and report themselves converted, adds nothing to the strength of a church, and raises no presumption that souls are being saved. To fill the records with names of children, unless deep religious impressions are made, does no good, and much harm. To make terms with persons who say, “I will never give up theater-going, dancing, and card- playing, and will never attend the “class meeting,” is to betray the cause. If the truth be manifested to the conscience ; if the invitations of mercy be given: if earnest private appeals be made, and but ten be saved, it is a great work. Spurious revivals often make a genuine one impossi ble. The church and the pastor were in a hurry. Be faithful: be in haste, hut never in a hurry. Blessed is the minister who can do his whole duty without yielding to the temptation to adulterate the sincere milk of the word I This wholesome counsel is from a Methodist paper. It is by our Metho dist brethren that we Baptists have been led astray. Now that they see the error of their ways, and desire to abandon them, we shall be wise if we follow their counsel. But alas! it is easier to follow a bad example than a it is to take good advice. The sphere of modesty and caution is in the formation of opinion, in the growth of J THE CHRISTIAN HERALD, ( of Tennessee. conviction: they have nothing to do with utterance. Fitness as to time and courtesy as to manner are the only checks upon the utterance of convictions. Positiveness of tone implies no lack of courtesy. It it did, there would be an end to all real discussion of any topics, and especially of moral and religious topics. To produce any impression upon his hearer, the preacher must speak with theaccentof positiveness. If his words and tone indicate that be is not sure of his own conclusions, that there is a shadow of a doubt in his mind of the utter truth of what be is saying, how shall he persuade others to make his conclusions theirs? The same rule applies to writing as to speaking. No man has h right to claim the public at tention to what he mar say on ?. great ques tion, unless he can speak with the positive ness that is the natural and fitting utterance of sincere conviction. If he speaks with a hesitating, half-hearted air, he is an inter loper who should be unceremoniously thrust aside. He may or may not persuade the public; but he must, first of all, have per suaded himself that his view of the case is the true one.—Examiner and Chronicle. All very true and well said; but lest they should be overlooked or forgotten, we repeat the qualifying words of our contemporary, “fitness as to time and courtesy as to manner.” There are those who seem to think that a man is not “sound” unless he is always en gaged in controversy, and that a man is not “strong” unless he is abusive. Controversy may be proper, yet proper but seldom. In general, the best way to put down error is to preach up the truth. And in all discussions soft words and hard arguments are much more effective than soft' arguments and hard words. That positiveness of speech which the Examiner urges, is not at all incompatible with dignity, courtesy and charity. And here is written in poetic' prose by the gifted editor of the Christian Register. He is speaking of those deep experiences of the inner life which every heart is conscious es, but which are unutterable. In regard to these things x e are like a race of deaf mutes wholly untaught in the art of communication with each other. Each man is a secret from his fellow, not always because he desires to be so, but because there is that within us for which nature has provided no outlet. The writer having said, truly, that music can express much that is ineffa blq in words, continues : But the divinest office of music is not in giving expression to ineffable emotions, but in revealing to us the mystery and depth of that which is inexpressible. There is an unutterable without and an unutterable within. Name, catalogue, analyze, as we may, all the emotions and operations of our own minds, is there not still to the shallowest soul a depth of being which we cannot scoop up into our dictionary or congeal in a frigid phrase of philosophy. The subtlest so-ms of our thought, the deepest experiences of emotion, are not easily formulated. We cannot convey them to others, we cannot represent them to ourselves. They are like strains of music which float dreamily through the mind, but which escape us when we try to sing them. But there are still depths of thought and sentiment which even music cannot utter for us. Below the melodies which may breathe from the voice and vibrate in the ear, there is a melody of heart which the most inspired musician could not score. It belongs to the untranslatable zone of our lives. And there is no part of our being which is more real to us than that depth which we are unable to explore. So, to love in its highest forms, the altitude of experience far transcends the altitude of expression. The ineffable moral joy which comes of a good action is something which is just as real as it is unspeakable. Paul recognized the melody of the heart, and bid men set their worship to its finer music. The closest and most real communion with God is the unutterable communion of soul with soul, which Jesus described as the wor ship of the spirit. Our brother Paul speaks of some things heard by him which it is “ not lawful for a man to utter.” 2 Cor. 12:4; but if it had been lawful in a moral sense, it might still have been forbid den by a law of nature which denies escape to anything .through an avenue smaller than itself. Our grandest ex periences never find expression, either through our lips or otherwise. To the saint it is a source of joy to know that his aspirations, though unuttered, and not formulated even to himself, are known to God, the searcher of hearts. If our baptized children and youth were distinctly and perseveringly taught that they are members of the Church of God, “conse crated to his service” and placed under sol emn obligations, as such, to keep the com mands of Christ, it would constitute the most powerful appeal to their consciences, would give them a new sense of obligation, and would exert a restraininginfluencefover them. Who can doubt this?—Southern- Presbyterian. All Baptists doubt it; or rather none of them believe it. The same may be said, we think, of a good many Presby terians. Most of the baptized children growing up ungenerate will doubt ii and deny it. In this country so per vaded with Baptist leaven, it is hard to get an intelligent but professedly unregenerate person to think that he is a “member of the church of God”' in any sense whatever. In Europe, where the Pedobaptist sentiment pre vails overwhelmingly, everybody who was baptized in infancy considers him self a member of the church ; and what is the effect of this on the spiritual con dition of those who are so deluded? The idea prevails among them very largely that their membership in the church will save them. We try to touch the consciences of our children by assuring them that they are not members of the church and that they ought to be; that they ought to be members of a church, all whose mem bers have made a personal profession on their own responsibility of their faith in Christ, and who have publicly put on Christ by baptism; said bap tism to be their own act, and not the act of another. This we think is the more excellent way. We think it is inflicting a cruel wrong on a child to make him believe that he is a member of a spiritual body when his own heart tells him that he ia not so. Canon Farrar says that, “A nation which has never had a national church may flourish, though always and that inevitably, upon a lower level of blear, edness, with feebler powers of Christianity with wilder of error, than if H bad one.” ' - And on this the Herald and Presby ter remarks with much pith: Spain has a national church ; so has Italy, and so has Russia; but we hope American Christianity may never drop to their “level of blessedness.” Transpose the words “never had” from the first line to the last and the statement is nearer the truth. There are thousands of Christians who never put themselves to any trouble to learn what is going on in the Christian world out side of their own immediate neighborhood. They do not take religious papers; they give little or nothing for missions and edu cation ; oftentimes, though wealthy, they ease their conscience by giving their pastor a pittance. So says the Central Baptist. “Thousands of Christians who never,” &c. It may be so; it may be that there are thousands of such Christiane. But admitting this, we must think that a good many of those who are classed with these “thousands of Chris tians” are Christians only in the sense that they profess to be such. If a man does not pray, “Thy kingdom come,” his claims to being a Christian are not very credible, and if his ac tions do not correspond with his pray ers, his case is .very far from being above suspicion. The rapid development of facts in these days is exploding a great many cherished ■; theories in all parts of the United States. The census just taken has taken the wind out of the sa'ls of many a voyager on the seas of speculation, and struck dumb many a prophet of evil. Let us be thankful.— Christian Advocate. Yes, a good many of them are dumb, but a good many of them "rise to explain.” They have a great deal to say about “square miles,” “extent of territory” and the like. But a “square back down,” as the boys call it, would serve them a better purpose if they could only think so. This introduces us very pleasantly to the last wriggle of the Journal and Messenger, who seems to have been made uncomfortable by the facts of. the census. The class in Chinese at Harvard Universi ty has doubled this year. Last year it had one and now it has two. This is a larger per centage of gain than any other class has made, and if it shall go on increasing at the same rate, all the University will be enrolled in the Chinese class in a few years. Chris tian Index please make a note of it. 0 yes, good brother; anything to oblige you. Take all the comfort yon can get from your Chinese class, and your square miles. Explain all yon can. The facts without any expla nation are good enough for us. It ia something like the case of infant bap tism. It is not necessary foqr us, as jA is for some, to explain why thtare » \ allusion made to it in the New ment. On this, and on the c*>- question, we have on our side nof but facts ; the other side has notl - but explanations. NO. 8.