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■ ft? ’ K - F IT 1- SOUTH-WESTERN BAPTIST. ) or Alabama. j VOL. 59. Table of Contents. First Page— Alabama Department: Advan tages ui Godliness and Uonteniment: The Religious Tress. Second Page—Correspondence: The Lord’s Praytr--K.H Handle; xbeSunday bchool —Lesson lor March 20—‘ Review. ’ To the Baptists ol Georgia—Rev. Sylvauus Lan drum. Missionary Department. Third Page—Children’s Corner: Bible Ex plorations; Questions; Correspondence; etc. Fourth Page—Editorials : The Hydrostatic Press; Tue New Administration ; The Average Minister ; Morals in Maine ; Southern Baptist Convention; Georgia Baptist Convention. Fifth Page—Secular Editorials : News Para graphs; Joseph E. Brown —illustrated; Im Bchwarzwald poetry Charles W. Hubuer; Books and Magazines ; Georgia News. Sixth Page—The Household: Thirty-fold —poetry; Your Boy; Miscellaneous. Obit uaiies. Seventh Page—The Farmer's Index: The Opening spring ; Bermuda Grass; Latent Fertility ; Anti-Monopoly, The State Ag ricultural Society. Eighth Page—Florida Department: Chips and Splinters; From the Field ; The Har mony Church Council, etc. Alabama Department. BY SAMUEL HENDERSON. ADVANTAGES OF GODLINESS AND CONTENTMENT. Gain and loss are the two things that rack more brains, exact more labor, exclude sleep from more eyelids, and inspire more lieart-trouble, than all other sublumary causes combined. Like some brooding, ill-omened spirit, they are the last that we can expel from our mind at night to secure a little troubled slumber, and the first to seize us in the morning to hold us in their giant grasp during the live long day. No intervals of quiet seclusion are safe from their obtrusion. Like the fabled Prometheus they bind us hand and foot, and place the vulture of corrod ing care in our hearts to gnaw our vit als. Even “nature’s sweet restorer, balmy sleep,” cannot always exclude the vulture from us. 111-boding images stalk in upon our fancy, and throw over the enchantments of dreamland the grim and sombre portents of com ing evil. Is there any relief from those perpetually recurring anxieties? Is there any power to which we can ap peal that can release us from this worse than Egyptian bondage? We think there is. And will it not be a grateful task, dear reader, to seek this relief? Could our efforts be directed to a more worthy object than this? A few Sundays ago, having no en gagement to preach, we sat down in our study, and preached a sermon to ourself. And truth to say, if the reader will excuse the apparant egotism, we felt edified and stiengthened. In the hope that it will not be an ungrateful service, we propose, not to be sure, to preach the identical sernym to you, reader, but to offer some practical re flections connected with the subject matter of that sermon which we think are of general interest. But let us announce the text. “BUT godliness with contentment is GREAT GAIN.”— Tim. 6 :6. We think the text contains a never failing remedy for all our heart-aches —all our cares and troubles, whether they come from the past, exist in the present, or are borrowed from the fu ture. To be at one with God, is to con ciliate all 'the sources of Omnipotence in our favor. To be panoplied in the whole armor of God, is to defy the fiercest onsets of the powers of darkness. To be hid with Christ in God, is to in spire a sense of security that nothing can disturb. To be in harmony with the triune Jehovah, with the angelic hosts, with the blood-washed throng, with every good agency and influence in the universe, is no less a guarantee of our future than our present peace, even the “peace of God that passeth all undeistanding, that will keep our minds and hearts through Jesus Christ our Lord." We can all aim at this mark. We can aspire to this higher plane, where our weary spirits may re pose in serene tranquiHiy under the shadow of his wings, and where we shall find what we can find nowhere else in this storm-tossed world, that “Earth has no sorrow that Heaven can not heal.” Godliness is the most exhaustive term used in the Bible to indicate that sum of moral and spiritual excellence which fits us for the life that now is, and for that which is to come. It is, so to express it, the genus of the whole ter minology of spiritual attainment. It is more than religion ; for there are as many religions in the world as there are objects worshiped; but there is only one godliness. It is more than faith more than humility,—more than piety —more than hope—more even than charity; for it is all these combined, and every thing else that can make a man “perfect in Christ Jesus.” It is that thorough equipment of the soul for the mission of life which fits it for every good word and work, as well as its badge of entrance into the “mar riage supper of the Lamb.” O, it is the garment to be worn through life, and kept unspotted from the world, to be worn in death as our pledge of vic tory over the last enemy, worn in the judgment day as the ground of our ac quittal there, and worn in Heaven as our title to its felicities. It never waxes old, and is adjusted to the countless ages of eternity, in whose sun-light it will brighten forever. The very term imports all this. “Godliness” —like God —“partaker of the divine nature.” Not indeed partaker of his lofty and in communicable perfections—his eter nity, übiquity, omniscience, etc.; but of his moral attributes,such as goodness, mercy, justice, and truth. These vir tues that exist in Him to perfection, are to be exemplified in us to our last capacity. Like Him in the ends, aims, and purposes of our lives. Like Him in the vast breadth of our sympathies and benevolence. Our “field is the world,” the world that He so loved— the world to which He sends us forth to spread the savor of his Gospel to every creature. The goodness, mercy, justice, and truth that bled onCalvary in the person of His matchless Son, appeals to sis to carry the pleasing story wherever our humanity groans under the burdens of sin and death. Contentment! What is it? It is not stoical indifference. It is not blind indolence. It is not self-complaisancy in past achievements. It is the repose of the soul upon the promises of our covenant-keeping God after we have solemnly and intelligently received Christ as our Savior, and committed our eternal all into his hands. It is the persuasion that He is able to “keep that which we have committed to Him,” and that, under His guardian ship, “all things work together for good to them that love Him.” But why at tempt to define it,when we all know what it is? Let us rather concern ourselves to know what will place it in the soul as an abiding influence. As one has said, “I had rather/eel repentance than to know the definition thereof,” so let us aspire rather to enjoy content ment than to define it. What, then, will inspire it in our hearts? Consider the attributes, providences, and promises of God. They are a pav ilion into which our souls may fly and find shelter amid the storms, the bus tle, and the hurricane of life. How cheering and animating the voice of our heavenly Father, saying to us in accents of infinite tenderness, “Come, my people, enter into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee; hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast.” Isa. 26 :20. What can harm us when we are locked up in the attributes, pro vidence, and promises of our God? What power can break through this pavilion of Godhead? What were the brazen walls, the marble palace, and trusty legions of the Babylonian king on that night of self-security, when the mystic hand broke through all those defences, and wrote his terrible doom on the wall, compared with the shield with which Almigbtiness invests the least of his saints? Ought not this to inspire contentment? Reflect again, Christian reader, what has been done for you. What were you once? “An alien from the com monwealth of Israel . . . without God and without hope in the world.” How utterly forlorn, destitute, helpless, and ready to perish 1 Condemned, and un der the wrath of God! Can imagina tion itself conceive of a condition more perilous, more terrific? What are you THE FRANKLIN STEAM PRINTING HOUSE. ATLANTA, GEORGIA, THURSDAY, MARCH 10, 1881. now? A “fellow-citizen of the saints and of the household of God” —“an heir of God and a joint heir of Jesus Christ”—a “king and priest unto God and his Father.” And “this honor have all the saints.” God the Father, Christ the Son, the Holy Spirit,the Comforter, dwell in you. Angels guard you, for “are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for them who are heirs of salvation.” The saints of all ages from their high abodes of bliss are represented as looking on you, and an imating you with their examples and sympathy. “Wherefore, seeing we al so are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us run with pa tience the race that is set before as,’’etc. There is not a harp-string in glory but stands ready to peal forth its highest notes to celebrate the victory of your faith. There is not a saint or angel there but is waiting to welcome you to the "general assembly and church of the first-born.” And will not this content you? Consider, once more, that these light-afllictions disappointments, cross providences, and the like, “are but for a moment, and work for you a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” They are nothing in compar isonwithwhat othersaints have endured, who went up from the stake, the gib bet, and the rack; and what are they in comparison with what Jesus suffer ed for you? They are the bitter before the sweet; the cross before the crown. What is this we hear from an angel’s lips, as he points the exiled John to the white-vested throng? “These are they who have come out of great trib ulation, and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” Realize it, child of Jesus, you will soon be there! Your tribula tions will then be history, and your felicity will augment with the rolling cycles of eternity. And ought not this to inspire that contentment that would banish the canker of care from your troubled heart? O ye beloved of God, called to be saints, we would address you as Jon adab adressed Amnon, the son of David, “Why art thou, being a king’s son, lean from day to day?” Why are you, be ing the children of the King of kings and Lord of lords, so often exclaiming, in the depths of your souls, “my lean ness! my leanness!” Why not “come to his banqueting house” when he in vites you so kindly, so pressingly, “Eat abundantly, 0 beloved, and let your soul delight itself in fatness?” Never did royality spread so sumptuous a feast as that to which the poor, the halt, and the blind Are invited. No earthly wardrobe ever furnished such raiment as Immanuel supplies to the obscurest and weakest of his loved ones. Now, what the Apostle affirms is, that the combination of “godliness with contentment is great gain.” Gain in all the permanent and solid interests of this life, because the temperance and the industry it inspires, and the proper regulation of the passions it im poses, fit us for long .and useful lives; for “godliness is profitable unto all things, having the promise of the life that now is, and that which is to come.” But especially is it gain to the soul. It moderates our expectations and desires by teaching us that this world is only a means to a more noble end. It is simply our “spendingmoney” on our way to a better inheritance. It satisfies us with our lot, and thespheie of our usefulness. No jealousies, heart burnings, and envies disturb its calm equanimity. With an eye fixed upon the prize ever glittering before it, earth has no object that can allure it. En rolled as a “king and priest unto God our Father,” worldly distinctions are the merest baubles of an hour. Laying up its treasures in heaven, the coffers of the rich excite no envy. Filled with joy inexpressible and full of glory, the pleasures of sin for a season can no longer tempt him. And to sum up all in few words, it reconciles us to every adverse providence, by the assurance that infinite wisdom can make no mis takes. It prepares us for Heaven by bringing the kingdom of Heaven into the soul, thus producing that peace and joy which have only to be expand ed and perfected to constitute the bliss of Paradise. Grace matured is glory begun. And it invests our character after death with an odor alike grateful to our brethren and honorable to the cause we - have served. Never, surely never, sweet a sound melt upon human etr, ns did that which John heard in die Apocalyptic vision : “Bles sed are the dead that die in the Lord from henceforth; yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors, and their works do follow them.” How riqh the treasures of sacred bio graphy f “The righteous shall be had in everlasting rememberance.” Thus, dear reader, we may all reach that goal to which the great Apostle of the Gentiles attained when he said, “I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.” May suc cess reward all our efforts, so that if the past has been stormy and turbu lent, th'e future may be tranquil, pros perous, and happy! [communicated.] Aloiie in life! how sad; and drearer, darker, deeper is the sadness where is olations the result of mistake, error of heart and mind, or failure to win and wear in the soul the aspiration that had kindled its ambition and fed its hopes. That aspiration may have been wealth, honor or position; it may have been friendship, esteem or love. It may have been a modest, yet earnest desire to stand in the front rank of the pure, to be usher in the temple of fame—to be the peer of him who wins his “lady love.” But when foiled, dis appointed and wrecked in his dearest hopes man will sometimes turn from the highway where the thronged world presses, and seeking only solitude, will the avenues to his heart from obtrusion by his kind, in order that he may reason with himself and commune with his God. His mind will turn in on itself and search the secret sources of thought. His heart by introspection, will look into its inner chambers, and sit in severe judgment upon its mo tives and sinister promptings. And heart and mind, at fault with them selves, will then seek counsel of God. And this is the highest style of man, endowing him with a moral sublimity beyond any ever illustrated by philos opher, statesman or hero. It is the at itude of the martyr, not yet bound to the stake. It is the bugle note of a spirit, preparing to take with equal steps and upward career in life, and un daunted by its dangers and obstruct ions, unallured by the roses that shade serpents, impenetrable to the winsome smiles of beauty, or the fickle applause of his toils on nor pauses un til he reaches the summit. And then, what is his guerdon ? What is his sweet reward for unrest of spirit, for toil, for self-denial, for misconstruction, for the sneer, doubt and sarcasm whispered along his pathway? It is something that is little esteemed by the herd of man kind ;it is something that shrinks from the track where the hunt for wealth follows, that flees the marts of business, that mingles not in the mirth, gayety and forgetfulness of the youthful throng that gather together to catch fleeting moments, of so-called pleasure, as infantile life will sometime meet on the meadow to chase the but terfly. As the world goes it is a worth less guerdon ; a trophy of no esteem! The millionaire does not value it; the politician would not pick it up; the business man thinks it is in his way, and the votary of pleasure throws it aside as a weight that hinders him in his hurried race. And yet, had it not been in the heart of Washington, liberty might not have been ours. Had not William, of Orange, felt its influence, the inquisition might have permanently held its carnival of wrong, cruelty, and blood, where- now the sweet songs of Protestant civiliza tion attest and do honor to the highest achievements of man. Without it in their hearts, Edwards, Howard, Wilber force, and many others that have illum inated the heights of life, would have beencommon torch-bearers among their fellows. Without it, society would be a fatal deception and religion a myth. Reader! what is it? You may answer the approval of a good conscience. Leon. Talledega County, Ala. Dr. Joseph Parker, of London, says: "It is uncertaan whether geologists contradict Moses bnt it is positively certain beyond all doubt that geologists contradict one an other." j THE CHRISTIAN HERALD, ( of Tennessee. The Religious Press. Chicago lias ten Baptist churches close to gether, and ten Presbyterian churches which are close together, and now it is proposed that one of the Baptist and one of the Pres byterian societies swap churches. Why 7 not ?—Christian at Work. There is no reason in the world why they should not. When the attendance upon public worship diminishes as the attendance upon the Sab bath-school increases, it is high time to ask what this thing really means. A Sabbath school which for any reason has this effect, nee sto be born agaih. “By their fruits ye shall know them.” applies to institutions as well as to individuals.—Hartford Religious Herald. Well said: and when people take more interest in the Sunday-school than they take in the church, it is time to iuqnire if there is not something se rious the matter. From the same paper we copy the following: If we have come to a time when revivals of religion need to be apologized for to a Christian public, it is well to ask how this state of things has come about, and to what extent ministers and churches are responsi ble for it. Well said again. The best things we have are those which we most abuse. One of the Universalist papers, says the Presbyterian Banner, makes a good sugges tion. It proposes that some rich man should offer a premium to the minister who during the present year shall use in his sermons the fewest times the words agnosticism, pessim ism, evolution, optimism, Spencer, Tyndall, Darwin and Huxley. The public car has grown weary of these words from the pul pit, and is eagerly listening for the sound of the gospel. We are not apt to quote from Uni versalist papers, but we must say that that the above is a good hint as well as a good hit. The pul pit is the last place in the world for pedantry. Nothing chills the devotion of the saints more quickly than to see their pastor make an ostentatious dis play of his learning, particularly when they know that he has no great learn ing to display. It requires as much courage to stand up for Christ to-day as it did in the times of the apostles. The opposing forces of Satan are marshalled on somewhat different lines, and with other tactics, but the powers ol dark ness are in formidable array. It is a time for vigilance, and fore vary follower of Christ to be sober, and to watch unto prayer.—N. O. Christian Advocate. Just as much. Satan failed when he tried persecution, fire and sword. Now he is trying to take us with guile, and talks learnedly about philosophy and science. He will be foiled again. Still these are trying times, and we need much grace to sustain us. When Satan gets through with “science” he will try something else, we know not what, but we may be sure that coming generations will have fheir own pecu liar conflicts just as we have ours, and as those before us had theirs. "I have observed this truth, even in our confused world: that whatever of teal hu man worth a man puts into his grand eu terprise, just about ths same quantity of real human victory (irrecognizable often to blockheads, but very real for all that) does he in the end get out of it." We quote this at second hand from Carlyle, the great English thinker re cently deceased. Never was a truer thing said. And we may reverse it, and say that no real victory recogniza ble by sensible men is ever to be gotten out of any grand enterprise which has never been put into it. A good deal of what passes for “success’' in this life is worthless. A man attains to high position for which he is not qual ified, but he manages to conceal his in competency from all but a few, and these say nothing about it. This is called success! A man loses position or fails to reach it, although everybody whose opinion is worth anything knows that he well deserves it. This is called failure! Reverse both statements and you have the opinion of The Index. Defending the Indefensible.—We called attention, some time ago, to the startling declaration made by Hon. William E. Dodge, and confirmed by the observation of others, that Sunday-schools, as now conducted, are likely to undermine the Church, rather than feed it. The difficulty is ( that the Sunday school as an institution, is neld up as being itself the children's church. We are sorry to find, that some persons in the discussion of the subject, say that this objection is just the merit of the Bunday school This idea will give way before better judgment ere long, but the fact that it is upheld by any one enly shows how imminent the danger NO. 10. has become. According to this theory, the regular preaching of the word of God, the administration of the ordinances, and all the means of grace, which the Savior instituted, may be abandoned in the course of one or two generations. But how will men fare in those coming days, without the Church? To say nothing about the objective helps ''hrist has lodged in what he has been pleased to call his “body,” what will men be without Church discipline? How are the young to be housed and nurtured and guarded, when they become too old to goto Sunday school ? The argument that Sunday schoolsareadap ted to the children is a poor one. There is such a thing as lowering God to man's devi ces instead of making man conform to God. Messenger, And The Index rules that the point is well taken. There is a disposition with some to make the Sunday-school, to some extent, a substitute for the church. We do not suppose that any of our people would advocate this on theory, but some of them are liable un wittingly to fall into the error in prac tice. It must be guarded against. We strongly favor the Sunday-school, and that is the very reason why we jealously watch it and try to protect it from abuse. Rev. Dr. Broaddus, of the Lousville Semi nary, did not come to this city for nothing. He leaves it with solid subscriptions on his book amounting to f3G 000 Will not our Southern friends accept this as another “love-token” from their Northern brethren? —N. Y. Examiner and Chronicle. Certainly we accept it as such, and we accept it gratefully. God bless the Baptists of New York. “How’s Business?” said one man to an other, as we were walking down Main street. The query was propounded by a man at a pea nut stand, where he had as his stock of worldly possessions, about half a bushel of that Southampton staple, and a few dozen very red apples piled up in pyramids. It was addressed to another pea-nut man, a shambling, poverty stricken, elderly man, with a crumpled bat. The latter replied, as he pushed on up the street, “Ch, there’s nothing doing, nothing at all!” The whole thing passed with all the gravity of a con versation at the Stock Exchange.—Central Presbyterian. And will not all our grand enterpri ses, and our great political movements, and all the affairs of empires look just about as insignificant when the light of eternity shines back upon them? In Good Standing —As letters of dismis sion usually read, the church granting the letter certifies that “brother A. is a member of this church in good standing,” and as such he is cordially commended to the fel lowship of the church addressed. At first view, this looks very much like a certificate of good character. There can be no doubt that that is whatit ought to be. The solemn declaration of a Christian church that a man has a “good standing” in it ought to mean a great deal. It ought to mean that he has been faithful in the discharge of his church duties, liberal in his contributions for the support of the gospel, consistent in his con duct before the world. All this, we say, it ought to mean. As a matter of fact, it means something very far short of it. In a word, a certificate of “good standing,” in far too many cases, means no more than that the name of the person mentioned in it is on the church record, and that he has not been openly charged with “disorderly, limlk.”— Examiner and Chronicle. If we should exclude from our churches all those whose “good stand ing” consists only in this: that they have not been openly charged with dis orderly walk, how many would there be left? Ah! Now, will it do us any good to in crease the number of these ecclesiasti cal dead-heads by baptizing a few thousand more of them next August? "I see,” said Baxter, “that good men are not so good as I once thought they were, and I find few men are so bad as malicious enemies or censorious professors do imag ine.” We ought to blame ourselves much ; we ought to make every allowance for oth ers. There must be growing charity for mankind. None of us are wnat we ought to be. We need allowances to be made for us; we must make the same for others. — Southern Churchman. We have long since discovered that the saints, the real saints of God on earth, whether ancient or modern, are a very imperfect set of people. If the doctrine of justification by faith be not true, there is, so far as we can see, no salvation for any one of them. It may be true that Church journals give too little general news, but it perhaps would be better If secular newspapers gave the p*o ple a little less of what they want and a lit tle more of what they ought to have.—Mes senger. Yes, a good deal less of what they want. It demoralizes the public mind to read the daily accounts of crimes and horrors, so freely set forth by the secular press. A weak mind is ise a microscope. which magnifii-H u- fling things, but cannot receive great ones