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\ THE CHRISTIAN HERALD,
SOUTH-WESTERN BAPTIST, r 1-
of Alabama. 1 " ~ xtza
ESTABLISHED I 811.
Table of Contents.
First Page— Alabama Department : Prejad- 8
ice: Modest Pretensions—Great Achieve
ments; Prophetic Burdens; The Religious
Press; The Baptists in California. (
s
Second Page—Correspondence: Sunday-
School Convention, Rehoboth Associa- <
tion; A Buddhist Prayer ;-W. L. Scraggs; f
Grateful Acknowledgment—Green Harts- (
field; Mercer University Notes; Orderly .
Communion —I. H. Goss; The Baptists of
Atlanta—S. Landrum; Affairs in Macon;
Missionary Department.
Third Page -Children’s Corner: Bible Ex
plorations ; Correspondence; The Sunday-
School: Review—Lesson for June 19th.
Fourth Page—Editorials : Miracle Outdone;
The Variations; Selfish Prayer; Strange
Fire.
Fifth Page—Secular Editorials: News Para
graphs; Georgia Land Agency; Carlyle;
Georgia News.
Sixth Page—The Household: Summer
Reigns— Poetry. ' Summer Fashions;
Flashes of Fashion.
Seventh Page-The Farmers’ Index Fars
mere in a Bad Fix; Quarterly Report of
Department of Agriculture; Small Notes.
Eighth Page—Florida Department: Scotts
ville; Ten otassasa Church; A Rich Ex
perience.
Alabama Department.
BY SAMUEL HENDERSON.
PREJUDICE.
What striking changes occur in lan
guage. Words that once filled an
honorable place in our vocabulary, have
come to signify anything else than
their original import. So prone is our
nature to indulge its depraved passions
and inclinations, that having exhaust
ed all the wicked terms of our tongue
to express its evil propensities, it has
captured many words of praise-worthy
origin, and suborned them to do its
dirty work—like the Philistines who
captured Samson, put out his eyes,
and made him grind in their mills. Thus,
for instance, maudlin., (which comes
from Magdalen,) once meant sincere
penitence, now it means simpering con
temptible hypocrisy. Demure once
meant good manners, now it means the
mere sham of modesty. Trench has
traced out, with great force, the gradual
process by which many such words have
been “dragged downward,” and made
partakers more or less of our common
depravity. And among these words is
the one that stands at the head of this
article. It meant nothing more orig-
inally than its etymology involves, com- ’
posed as it is of two words, pre, before,
judgment, i.e. to judge ■
anticipatively, foresight—that sagaci
ty by which some men are m advance
of others in their estimates of men and
things. But this the real meaning of
the word is now obsolete and rare.
The meaning we now attach to it is
“evil and only evil continually. Men
are so prone to form unfavorable opin
ions of each other, that this word has
taken altogether a blind and downward
tendency, grounding itself on neither
i udgment, reason, nor evidence. Hence
the adjective prejudice, instead of in
dicating the quality of an opinion as
based upon facts, whether good or bad,
means hurtful, mischievous, injurious,
Pte When, therefore, we say of any
particular person that he is filled wit
prejudice, we simply mean that he has
neither eyes to see nor ears to hear
and that to attempt to reason with
him with any view of c i han^ n f hlB
opinion upon his blindly chenshed con
victions is as absurd as to write a poem
upon water. Nay, even more—the
more overwhelming your reasoning
and facts, the more he is confirmed m
his views. You cannot vex him more
than to show him by testimony as
clear as a sunbeam that he is wrong.
The degree of your proofs is the degree
of animosity you engender. The res
urrection of Lazarus from the dead,
the grandest miracle wrought by our
Lord, preceded only a few days his
trial and crucifixion.
And what a dispicable, ignoble sen
timent is this for one who P rofeß “ 8
be a sensible man to indulge! What
is it but a species of voluntary insanity,
a self-inflicted dementation, in which
we degrade ourselves to the lowest in
stincts of our depraved nature! For
instance, we are introduced to a stran
ger of whom we know nothing. Some
Stle thing that ought not to have the
ie-ghiof a feather occurs, it may be
S cut of his coat, the way ne wears
Ss hat, or his gait,
ly trivial, and ever thereafter we look
at him through the puerile prejudice
this engended. Act as he may there
after, we cannot rise above the caprice
of that moment. The very mention
of his name brings a contemptuous
smile to our lips. If he comes to hon
or, we pity the credulity of the con
stituency that promoted him. If he
does anything really great or worthy,
it is thrown away on us. In a word,
we have written him down as a pigmy,
an upstart, a mere vapid, and no amount
of argument or facta can change the
verdict.
Reader, did you ever witness a con- t
test between two editors of partisan |
newspapers,who have each written down 1
in his political creed that “nothing good i
can come out of Nazareth?” Did you
ever observe the dexterity with which '
they can throw mud at each other? the
facility with which superlative adjec
tives which mark the last gradation of de
pravity flash from their pens? . They
seem to put our language to its full
resources to express the infinite variety
of each other’s meanness. If they are
to be believed, pandemonium itself does
not contain a spirit more deserving of
its quenchless fires than they each
merit
Nor less common nor less to be de
plored is this unhallowed sentiment
among those who profess Christianity.
Out of this hatred have originated the
fiercest fires of persecution that ever
disgraced the Christian name. Indeed,
the largest roll of martyrs that the
church militant has yet joined to the
church triumphant were the victims of
this hatred.
In those discussions and controversies,
the ostensible aim of which is to elicit
truth and put down error, - it is often
amusing to see the adroitness with
which each party assumes the cham
’ pionship of truth and right. Names
, and phrases are appropriated by each
, which involve the whole merits of the
, question at issue. Thus in the civil
i war of England in the days of Crom
well , the Parliamentarians assumed the
title of the ‘ Godly party,” and denounc
’ ed the royalists as the “Malignants.”
’ Os course, when the designations were
, accepted, they decided the question, in
. advance of any reasons or facts that
could be alleged. Perhaps not one
man in a hundred ever paused, after
accepting these terms, to ascertain any
thing beyond their import. This ex
pedient is yet resorted to in most con
troversies upon all classes of questions.
Knowing that the great body of the
outside world never stops to reason on
the subject in hand, each party assumes
the merits of the case in the very forms
in which he states the propositions to
be discussed. Thus, each seeks to com
mit the multitude to his side before he
offers a single argument. He knows
if he can play upon the prejudices of
the masses, he may defy all the logic
and rhetoric of his opponent. There
is not one controversy in a hundred,
the parties to which are animated by
any higher motive than victory. To
elicit truth is most generally subordi
nate to party triumph.
We make no apology for relating the
following incident, which we learned
i from parties many years ago who were
■ raised in the neighborhood where it
! occurred, and which, so far as we know,
has never been published. It may
serve to show what ought to be the
r spirit in which every controversy should
i be conducted: The present constitu
s tion of the United States, after it was
adopted by tne uonvenuuu
the close of the Revolutionary war, was
submitted to the ratification of the
several States. Many good men and
true patriots were opposed to its ratifi
cation, and took strong grounds against ]
it; and among the number was the no
table John Leland, then of Virginia.
Mr. James Madison was one of the
principal men in the Convention that
drafted it, and therefore betrayed the
greatest anxiety to have it adopted.
He made an appointment to meet his
fellow citizens at Orange Court House,
Va., to discuss the merits of the new
constitution. The opponents of the
measure sent off and got Rev. John
Leland to answer him. The day arriv
ed, and Leland was there “cocked and
. primed” as we say to answer the dis
tinguished statesman. Mr. Madison
spoke some hours, developing the dis-
Acuities of the Convention in reconcil-
• ing all conflicting interests,north, south,
■ east and west, and then appealed to the
5 people to ratify the instrument as be
j ing the best that could be done. He
3 then gave way to Mr. Leland. The
s worthy man arose and said in substance,
- that he had been bitterly opposed to that
t constitution as they all knew, but that
ATLANTA. GEORGIA, THURSDAY, JUNE 9,. 1881.
Mr. Madison had convinced him that
he was wrong, and that he did not
doubt then, that it was the best instru
ment of the kind on which the con
vention could agree—and that although
he had come there on purpose to an
swer the argument of Mr. Madison, he
frankly acknowledged that he was
wrong, and recommended all his fel
low citizens to vote for its adoption. |
This is one case of a thousand; but I
these were great men, and only great
men can afford to be convinced.
It would be a bootless task to follow
the meanderings of that neighborhood
gossip with which so many communi
ties are afflicted, all which originate m
this same thing we call prejudice.
If the reader’s olfactories can bear the
experiment, he will find no difficulty
in tracing out the track of such gossip
by the slime and filth it leaves in its
wake.
MODEST PRETENSIONS—GREAT
ACHIEVEMENTS.
Perhaps no book that has been
written in the last two hnndred years
has exercised so broad and deep an in
fluence over thinking men as that
monument of learning, genius and ~
piety, “Butler’s Analogy,” and yet no
book ever appeared with more modest j
pretensions. The whole object of the
book may be expressed in two senten
ces : That the analogy between na
ture and religion,natural and revealed,
is sufficiently striking to vindicate
religion from the jibes and ridicule of
infidelity—and, That to profess Chris
tianity does not necessarily make a
man a fool. No uninspired man ever '
pretended less and did more in the
same sphere than this worthy prelate. |
In the sphere which his book fills in
Christian literature, he followed no
predecessor, and up to this time, he
has left no successor. His great work
stands alone, containing a mine of
thought, to comprehend which is a
greater achievement than to be a credit
able author. We know not how often
we have read it, and yet every reading
pays us better than the previous one,
in suggesting principles, truths and
analogies of indefinite application.
It has often been suggested that
some one competent to the task would
perform a grateful service to translate
or modernize this great work. As
well undertake to translate Milton’s
Paradise Lost, or Shakspeare’s Ham
let! When genius puts the finishing
tonch to one of its creations, it is little j
short of madness to undertake to im- ,
prove on it. No; let the book remain
as it is, eternized in the sturdy diction
of the grand old thinker —a diction so
distended with thought, that, as an old
French author once said of another
book, “If you cut it, it will bleed.”
The very virtue of the work is, that it
makes men think. Linguists are not
made by “interlinears,” nor mathema
ticians by arithmetical, algebraic and
geometrical “keys.” Thinkers are not
devel ped by “easy methods.” That I
mental training that recognizes the (
mind as a mere passive recipient is
well nigh worthless.
But we simply set out to say, that ,
to promise little and do much is a |
mark of true genius, and Butler’s An
alogy is an impressive illustration of
the idea. Perhaps, too, what we have
said may lead some of our readers to
study a book which age only improves
i and which will reward them with so
■ rich a harvest of seed thoughts.
PROPHETIC “BURDENS."
How often do the Old Testament
prophets preface their messages by the
portentous word “burden.” Thus we
read of “the burden of Babylon,” “the
burden of Moab,” “the burden of Tyre,
etc. Os course something more is
meant than a mere message, a simple
communication from God to his crea
tures It is a word of terrific import,
as much as to say in the very first ac
cent of the lips of inspired men, “dan
ger is impending—a storm of wrath is
gathering—the divine patience is ex
hausted, and the day of vengeance is at
hand !” It marks the transition be
tween mercy and wrath, and bids us
“behold the goodness and severity of
God ” It is the note of alarm which a
catastrophe throws in advance of its
coming, bidding the doomed city, or
country, “prepare to meet thy God .
Alas, how sad to think that iniquity so
abounds in this fallen world as that so
many messages from the eternal world
must bear upon their forefront the por
tentious sentence, “the burden of the
word of the Lord!” How otherwise
can we miserable sinners feel than that
any message from a just and holy God
that concerns our destiny must be a
“burden,” a crushing load, to him who
bears it!
A heavy portion of the ministrations
of God’s word to our wretched human
ity, that fairly expresses the mind of
the Spirit, must yet be, even under the
gospel dispensation, “a burden of the
1 words of the Lord.” “Whatsoever
things were written aforetime, were
; written for our learning,” as well as f or
I those who first received them. Much
o{ New Testament teaching is bur
dened with “the wrath of God revealed
from heaven against all unrighteous
ness.” Ministers worthy of their call
ing are yet God’s burden-bearers.
Though they are the heralds of “good
news of great joy to all people’ who
will hear and accept their messages,
there is an undertone to this message
which denounces “indignation and
' wrath to every soul of man that be-
1 lieveth not, to the Jew first, and
also to the Greek.” Quivering under
this burden, an inspired minister ex
, claims, “I have great heaviness and
. continual sorrow in my heart, for I
could wish that myself were accursed
1 Christ, (after the manner of
> wnrist?) for my brethren, my kinsmen
i according to the flesh.” All these bur
-5 dens gather volume and power as they
. point to “the great day of His wrath,”
and bid us ask ourselves the question,
“who shall be able to stand ?” How
these burdens must have crushed the
heart of the exile of Patmos, as in pro
phetic vision, he saw vial after vial of
the wrath of God poured out upon the
earth, spreading desolation and woe
wherever they fell! 0, how they col
lect their concentrated fury upon that
bottomless pit, the smoke of whose tor
ments ascends up forever and ever.
Reader, “Can thine heart endure, or
’ tome hand# be strong in the day that
He shall deal with thee?”
■■ I
The Religious Press. !
We met a Roman Catholic friend the other
day, who was horrified at the publicity given
to the Inspired Volume. He thought it a
terrible thing that it should be paraded in
the public prints and hawked about the
streets as merchandise. He thought it should
be confined to the guardianship of the priest,
hood, and not be handled by the people as
common property, or treated as a matter of
private judgment and interpretation. He
broke out, indeed, into the emphatic decla
ration that he regarded the whole thing—the
revision and the wholesale circulation of it
—as “the crime of the nineteenth century!’
We remarked that we took just the opposite
view. That the Word of the Lord should
not be bound. It was the People’s Book,
and they had a right to read and interpret it
forthemselves. That the leaves of the Tree
; of Life should be scattered abroad “for the
• healing of the nations " We could, of
- course, very well understand why a Roman
i Catholic should object to the general dis
-1 tribution of the Bible. Nothing is more to
t be dreaded by an apostate Church than the
t diffusion of the truth. It will expose every
, I form of error, and vindicate its own claims
3 ! to the universal acceptance of mankind.
8 Baltimore Episcopal Methodist.
Whereupon The Index has nothing
t 1
L i to say.
The New York Herald says that Massa
chusetts now has a law which forbids re
I tailers of liquor to use shutters, screens,
shades or anything else that can hide the
I business of their establishments from officers
I who may want to look in.’
i That is exactly the way to do it. Men in
I an honest and respectable business have no
use for screens. They are never ashamed of
: their vocation, and are g.ad to show tiheir
wares. A screen is a virtual confession of
wrong—of something that will not bear the
light. —Journal and Messenger.
This is Index doctrine.
God sometimes uses feeble instruments for
the accomplishment of great things. He
mav bless the work of an bumble diwiple to
the’salvation of many souls. Often the poor,
bed-ridden and ignorant, speak words which
lead to Christ those afterwards blessed in the
ministry or in other Christian work. Uwm
the exhortation of a poor woman which led
Charles Wesley to Christ. She was through
him the means of saving multitudes.—Jour
nal and Messenger.
Yes, many an obscure minister has
done more for the world than some who
are among the most conspicuous. God
often makes use of the weaklings.
On the same line with our article of
last week on “Decaying Christianity
the Herald and Presbyter says:
Christian people need not be alarmed by
such predictions. Infidelity threatensigreat
things, but so it has threatened from the
beginning. We can wait for some demon
stration. An insane man once entereo a
crowded church, and grasping two pillarsi of
the gallery, one on each side of theaisle,
cried : “I will pull these down and destroy
you as Samson did the Philistine lords’
There was a sensation. Men fumed pale
and cried out, women fainted, and a panic
was imminent, when the minister, quietly
waving, his hand, said, “Let him try. He
did try, and that was the end of the sensa
tion. Infidelity lays hold of the pillars of
our temple—the Sabbath, the Bible, the di
vinity of Christ. Professors of probabilities
say, ‘‘lt will pull them down. Let them
try. Others have tried, but our temple
stands. It was built by the Almighty, and
from its sure corner-stone to its highest pin
nacle it is secure.
Our brother of the Biblical Recorder
has a mortal aversion to deadhead
Baptiste, and The Index is in hearty
sympathy with him. Here is some of
his good doctrine:
Our duty as Baptists is to lead people to
Christ, not into our churches, and to let
church membership follow as the result of
having been made new creatures m Christ.
Every one introduced into our churches too
hastily and unprepared by regeneration thus
injures the churches in their high calling
under Christ. It also injures the one thus
introduced, as it puts him into a position for
which be is not fitted, and enjoins duties on
him that he cannot discharge, and imposes
on him a service for which he has no taste
nor capacity, and the neglect of which brands
him as a traitor or apostate, while an
attempt to meet his obligation must only
harden his heart against Christ and dnve
him farther from Christianity. Let us think
on these things and remember that God has
given us, as a people, great work to do.
Yes, and there is also a great work
for us to undo; and a great deal going
on all the time that we had better stop
‘ doing; and there is some cut out, for
, next August probably, that we had
> better not begin to do.
And here are two clips taken at
second-hand from the Presbyterian .
1 The shabbiest church extant' has just
been heard of. It was discovered by the Ad
vance in the State ot Vermont. It was
composed of well-to-do farmers who, seeing
that their pastor gave an unusually large
contribution to foreign missions that year,
instead of taking the generous hint, and
doubling their own, jumped backward, to
the conclusisn that they were paying him
too much salary, and made haste to out it
down!
The Index thinks that the names .
of the parties ought to be published.
2. The Christian Register says that “in
one of the Episcopal churches of Providence
a Sunday or two ago the preacher, a strange
er, defined the soul as ‘the non-atemic
center of psychic force,’ and throughout the
discourse, when alluding to the soul, used
the phrase. Fancy the improvement on the
old reading:—‘What is a man advantaged if
He gain the whole world and lose his own
non-atomic center 6f psychic force.
This is an exaggeration on anything
we have ever heard from the pulpit,
but we have heard things of which it
reminds us. Too much Greek, He
brew, cheap scholarship, and “hifalu
ten” spoil a sermon for us,and for most
people.
We learn from some of our exchange
papers that the Unitarians are claim
ing that the New Version sustains
their views. We have seen no such
claim in any of the Unitarian papers,
but here is something that we have
seen in that very able and elegant Uni
tarian journal, the Christian Regis
ter:
Unitarians are relieved from all fear about
a translation of the Bible, so far as they
themselves are concerned, from the simple
fact that the Bible is no longer to them an
infallible book. Could they always be sure
of a perfect translation, it would still be
true that they were dealing with a
book, and, as such, a book compounded
both of truth and error.
So the correction of the translation
is a small matter with our Unitarian
friends; indeed, it would seem to be a
matter of indifference with them
whether they have any Bible at all.
THE BAPTISTS IN CALIFORNIA
It is well known that the man Kai- f
loch —to whom we apply no epithets, <
but whose history will suggest to the
reader such epithets as are appropriate
has been the occasion of much dis
trees to the Baptists of California. As
the result of this a meeting was recent- i
ly held at Dixon, California. The fol
lowing paper, which explainsitself, was
adopted:
Meeting of delegates from the Baptist
churches in California, held in the Presby
terian church of this city for the purpose of
organizing a new Convention, in pursuance
of the following declaration read in the
California Baptist Convention, in the Bap
tist church this evening
“We, the undersigned, representatives of
the following churches, recognizing the fact
that our convictions of what constitutes the
purity and efficiency of Christian life and
work, not only among our churches, but
among our ministry, are so radically opposed
?o those entertained by a large element com
posing this body ; and recognizing the fact
that it is impossible for us to harmonize these
convictionsiwe hereby call upon those who
are in sympathy with us to withdraw and
organize* a new and separate convention, that
shall.be in harmony with the general senti
ment of our denomination throughout the
■ country."
This paper was signed by some sixty
or seventy persons, among whom was
our brother J. B. Hartwell, missionary
VOL. 59.— NO. 23.
of the Southern Baptist Convention to
the Chinese.
The meeting resolved itself by vote
into “The General Baptist Convention
of California."
On motion, Rev. S. B. Morse was chosen
President; E. R. Pope, Secretary, and B. C.
Wright, Treasurer. .J .1
The following resolution was then adopted
unanimously, and the President and Secre
tary instructed to send copies to the various
churches which they consider will be in
sympathy with this Convention :
Whereas, it has been deemed advisable by
the following churches, viz: the First, Fifth
and Chinese of San Francisco, the I irst and
Trinity of Oakland, the First of Brooklyn,
the First of Alameda, the Calvary of Sacra
mento, the First of Stockton, the First of
Vallejo, the First of Modesto and Ceres, of
Wheatland, and Virginia City, in order to
uphold the purity and efficiency of chinch
and ministerial life, to separate themselves
entirely from the body known as “The Cali
fornia Baptist Convention,” and to form
themselves into a body known as The
General Baptist Convention of California,
for the purpose of maintaining and propa
gating those principles which they are con
vinced are absolutely necessary for true and
permanent denominational success ; there
fore they extend a most cordial invitation to
al’ the churches throughout the State, who
can give them their hearty sympathy and
co-operation, to connect themselvee imme
diately with this body.
A supplementary meeting was ap
pointed to be held with the meeting of
the Central Baptist Association at
Stockton in October next, and the next
regular meeting of the Convention for
the second Wednesday in May, 1882,
with the Fifth Baptist church in San
Francisco. The following is the
REPORT ON CHINESE MISSIONS.
Your committee on Chinese Missions in
this State beg leave to report that they find
Mission effort put forth for the conversion of
the Chinese in our midst as follows : The
First Baptist church in Oakland has an effi
cient Sunday-school of about thirty, and a
night school with average attendance of
about twenty, conducted by Mrs. E. R.
Bradway and Miss Dearborn. The Chinese
membership in the church is fifteen. There
is also a Sunday-school m connection with
the First Baptist church of Brooklyn, num
bering twenty-five to sixty together with a
1 Sunday school of about a dozen in connec
tion with the San Diego church. These are
all the interests of which we have been able
to learn, aside from the Mission of the
Southern Baptist Convention under the di.
rection of the Rev. Dr. Hartwell in San
Francisco- Tbis Mission has been success
fully conducted during the.year. A Chinese
church was organized on February 3d,1881,
which now has a membership of twelve, and
is now represented in this body. The con
tributions of this little band to religrcus and
benevolent purposes has been $l6O. The
night school of this Mission now hasi an
average attendance of seventy. This Mis
sion needs and deserves the cordial sympa
thy and aid es the churches on this coast.
Dr. Hartwell needs means to employ assis
tants in the flourishing night school under
his direction. Your committee recommend
the adoption of the fallowing resolutions
Resolved, That we urge our churches
throughout the State, wherever there ye
i Chinese, to make special local efforts for
their instruction and conversion.
Resolved, That we recommend that our
churches aid the Mission at San Francisco in
means to pay for assistance in the night
school. . , ,
’ Resolved, That a committee be now ap
pointed and authorized to organize as a con
- stituent of this Convention a Chinese Mission
Society, with branches in the several
churches, whose object shall be to promote,
bv prayer, direct labor and contributions of
t money, the cause of Chinese evangelization
e '’’(Signed) 1 !. B. Hartwell, 8. B. Morse, G.
a S. Abbott, John F. Pope, J. C. Voorhees,
e a Chinaman’s appeal.
Brother Wong Kwai Hong, rising to a
question of privilege, presented the follow.
“The representatives of the Chinese Baps
tist church in San Francisco beg to make a
special appeal through this Convention to
the Baptists of this State in behalf of their
countrymen here- Our people are going on
in idolatry and ignorance of the true God,
in nearly all the towns and cities of the State
within reach of the Baptist churches; and
in behalf of these perishingsouls we implore
the followers of Christ to gather these peps
pie into Sunday-schools, and in every possi
ble way to labor for their conversion to
Christ.”
Baptist State Convention of Ala
bama.-— Delegates and visitors who ex
pect to attend the fifty-eighth annual
session of the above named body to
meet at Troy Wednesday July 13th,
1881, are respectfully and urgently re
quested to forward their names and
post-office address immediately to the
committee of arrangements.
The citizens of Troy will open their
hearts and homes on this occasion; and
will do all they can for the comfort and
enjoyment of their guests.
A hearty invitation is extended to
all that will come. Address
T. H. Stout,
Chairm. ofCom.
Box 102, Troy, Ala.
Henry Ward Beecher said, not long
since: “The Baptists hold that no
man can reach the promised land
without going over his head through
the Jordan.” The Watch-Tower cor
respondent of the Watchman calls this
“the old lie,” —thus rendering rudeness
for rudeness.
