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SOUTH-WESTERN BAPTIST, ' THE CHRISTIAN HERALD,
of Alabama. of Tennessee.
ESTABLISHED I 811.
Table of Contents.
First Psge.—Alabama Department: Self'
Depreciation ; Alabama Baptist Conven
tion; Figures and Facts. The Religious
Press.
Second Page.—Correspondence: Indian Mis
sions of the Southern Baptist Convention;
Monthly Olive Branch ; Fifty Years Ago;
Mercer University Notes; Programme of
Meeting at Sugar Creek, Morgan county.
The Missionary Department.
Third Page.—Children’s Corner: Bible Ex
plorations, etc.; Correspondence. The
Sunday-School: The Call of Moses—Les
son for July 17.
Fourth Page.—Editorials: Attempted Assas
sination of the President; The Silver
Lining; Mercer University, etc. Glimpses
and Hints; Georgia Baptist News.
Fifth Page.—Secular Editorials: To the
People of Georgia; Prophetic Words;
Books and Magazines; Georgia News.
Sixth Page.—The Household: Rowing
Against the Tide-poetry; Why Should
we Pray: For Ladies to Read ; The Month
of July (illustrated); etc. Obituaries.
Seventh Page.—The Farmers’ Index : Farm
Work for July; The Fence Law: Corres
pondence. The Cotton Exposition—Ad
dress of 8. T. Jenkins, Esq., at Cincinnati,
Ohio.
- Jjjghth Page.—Florida Department: Facts,
fancies and Figures; From the Churches;
Alabama Department.
BY BA.MXJEL HENDERSON.
SELFDEPRECIA TION.
There is perhaps no “scape goat”
that carries off more of the sins and
imperfections of professed Christians
than this thing you call self-deprecia
tion. It is always at hand when duty
calls us to put forth some effort in the
'causeiof Christ If a brother is called
on to bray, how often do we hear the
9Q weak—l ciAild not
pray to edification—please excuse me.”
If asked to speak to a friend about his
soul, how apt is he to say, “I am not
gifted in that respect. I never could
talk to my friends about religion.” If
asked to aid in some delicate and essen
tial service for the good of his church,
he at once responds, “I am not the man
to perform that duty. Any other
member of the church will perform it
better than I.” If urged to contribute
something to the cause of Christ in any
of its departments, alas, how stereotyp
ed the plea, “I am too poor—l cannot
spare it.” And thus these excuses go
on to the end—every duty is shirked
by a kind of assumed humility, a self
imposed depreciation either of our
talents or our means, we persuading
ourselves meanwhile that this is “es
teeming others better than ourselves,”
when the fact is, it is nothing more nor
less than a mere cloak of selfishness.
For let any one begin to agree with
oue of these “Uriah Keeps,” these “very
umble” people, and he will not be long
in discovering, the real visage behind
the mask. Let him but say to the one
making all these excuses, “yes, brother,
you are weak—you are not gifted—
you are unworthy—you are too poor
to give a nickel to the cause of your
Master,” and he will soon see in the
flushed cheek, and hear perhaps in
pretty fair English, something equiva
lent to “sir, I’m as good as you are.”
A consciousness of unworthiness is
one thing, and a bait for compliments
is a different thing. The one expresses
an ingenuous piety— the other is an ef
fort to extort a commendation. The
one is real—the other is a sham.
But then, we would not denounce
where Christian sympathy is needed.
There are worthy Christians, who- from
a kind of morbid sensibility, have grown
into the habit of depreciating them
selves to a reprehensible degree. For
such persons we cherish a profound
respect. We often meet them in religi
ous circles, and have tried many expe
dients to cure them of the habit. Such
persons, instead of waiting to get right
before they pray, ought to pray to get
right—instead of waiting until some
impulse seizes them to perform a given
and known duty, ought to perform
that duty to enjoy the feeling—instead
of waiting to get rich before they give
to the Lord, ought to give that they
may be rich, at least in good works, if
not in worldly goods. They have in
verted the whole order of things in the
economy of grace. They demand the
reward in advance of the service. We
must do well before the Master can say
“well done.” We must discharge our
obligations, before we can cherish the
“answer of a good conscience.” Our
moral constitution is the exact coun
terpart of the divine law. In this mat-
ter, God has, as Solomon says, “set one
thing over against another.” For thus
the Lord speaks, “Whosoever will do
his will shall know of the doctrine.”
The knowledge never comes before the
doing, even as men never reap a har
vest until they plant and cultivate it.
One obvious effect of the habit of
self-depreciation is that it will ere long
superinduce a sense of personal degra
dation, by undermining that measure
i of self-respect which every man owes
to himself. He will after a while come
to lose confidence in his own judgment,
his own convictions, and make himself
the sport of every caprice that may
i cross his mind. It will destroy what
has been happily called a “presiding
i purpose of life,” so essential to success
in any pursuit, secular or religious.
Our personal convictions, joined with
: a habit of interrogating our own judg
ment and conscience upon practical
questions are the measures of our
worth and standing in the world. It
is just as absurd to act upon the con
viction, judgment and conscience of
others, in projecting and carrying out
the purposes of life, temporal and spir
itual, as to attempt to subsist our bodies
on the food they eat. We may com
pare opinions, we may impart and re
ceive advice, but we must make them
our own before we can successfully act
upon them. We have known men
who, in a sense, lost their personal
identity by yielding to that sense of
dependence upon others that emascu
lated them of all their manhood. To
attempt to “run the schedule” of life
upon the resources of others, we mean
upon their advices and opinions, is like
a merchant in these days of poverty
attempting to run his business on bor
rowed capital. In both cases, nine
times to one, there will be a collapse.
How it would vitalize every interest in
ohurch and State, if evefw man would
oulf agree lb be himself, and apply
with energy his own resources and ca
pacities to whatever fairly falls in his
line of duty.
ALABAMA BAPTIST CONVEN
TION.
The approaching session of this
body, which meets at Troy, Pike coun
ty, Ala., is likely to be one of peculiar
interest. The programme of subjects,
of reports and addresses, as published
by the committee having that subject
in charge, presents a broad range of
topics of great and vital interest. The
time of meeting, it will be remembered,
is Thursday the before 3d Lord’s day in
July. It will be a great privation to
us, but at this writing, we do not see
our way clear to attend. The opera
tions of our State Mission Board will,
of course, occupy its usual amount of
attention, and we doubt not it will
make a showing satisfactorily to all.
It already has nearly doubled the num
ber of appointees over and above that of
any year, and those appointees have
directed their attention mainly to des
titute regions. And then this Board
has been constituted the agent for all
benevolent purposes, and the result of
the change will be looked to with
great interest. We can only hope that
those results will vindicate the wisdom
of the change. Such a gathering as
will assemble at Troy ought to mean
something. The cost, the fatigue, the
time, the vacation of so many pulpits,
and the mingling together of so many
Christian men for purposes so worthy
of thoughtful and prayerful considera
tion, ought to throw a fresh impulse
into every object fostered by the Con
vention ; and we shall be greatly dis
appointed if this should not be realized.
The temperance cause at this meet
ing will present some salient points of
abiding interest. That question is
stirring the whole country to its deepest
depths. Thoughtful men everywhere
are deliberating as to whether an evil
more prolific of crime, of poverty, of
pauperage, of ruin to every interest of
society, material, social and moral,
should any longer be allowed to rear
its head in a civilized community un
der the sanction of the law—whether
society has not a right to protect itself
against an evil that threatens its very
existence. What agency the Chris
tian element in our population shall
put forth in such a crisis will in part be
discussed at this approaching Conven
tion. We only hope that the trumpet
from Troy will give no uncertain
sound.
Both Foreign and Home Missions
are appealing to us with more practical
interest than usual. The Foreign
Board is sending several new appointees
to strengthen old and establish new
ATLANTA, GEORGIA, THURSDAY, JULY 14, 1881.
stations. The missions to Italy and
South America are each to be strength
ened. All this will require an increase
of means to sustain these missions. The
Home Board is also seeking to occupy
positions of commanding influence,
such as ought to arouse a fresh interest
in its operations. And last, though not
least, the cause of education deserves,
absolutely demands, a more than com
mon measure ol attention. The grow
ing interest and importance of Howard
College must awaken and call out in
some practical form our best and wisest
counsels. The Theological Seminary,
always interesting, is now more so than
usual. If we may use the figure, after
a stormy existence of many long years
of perils and tribulations, it is now in
sight of safe anchorage. Let its friends
come to the rescue, and it is safe.
FIGURES AND FACTS.
It has grown into a proverb that
“figures do not lie.” That is all true
enough. Any given combination of
figures put down on paper will foot up
a given result, no more, no less. But
then the man that puts them down
may err most prodigiously. And so
often is this done, that some ascetic
writer has coined another saying, that
“figures are the most consumate liars
in the world." We have known men
farm on paper, in which every conceiva
ble item of expense was put down, so
that it was demonstrated that * given
. quantity of cotton could be produced
for just three and a hal f cents per
pound of lint, for which ten cents could
be realized, a profit of over six cents.
You could not detect the slightest flaw
in the estimate. There were the figures
to represent every source of expense
up to the ginning and packing the
last lock. It really looked tempting,
and placed a fortune within the gragjF
of urery industrious man. But theil
we have seen the results “pan out” at
t the end of the year in so freakish a
manner that the expenses and the
profits exchanged places; that is, the
expense of making amounted to twelve
or thirteen cents, and the sales netted
nine or ten cents, leaving the planter
to “balance the accounts” as best he
could. Alas, how often have facts
kicked our most carefully prepared
figures into “pi," leaving us to moralize
1 over the uncertainty of human affairs!
Reader, when figures take one side of
’ the question, and facts take the other
side, you follow the facts, and you will
not materially err, the impossibility of
figures lying to the contrary notwith
standing.
We generally have associated figures
and facts together; but eomehow or
other, in these latter years’ they have
! become divorced, or at least alienated,
so that now they are prosecuting a
kind of “family quarrel,” in which
figures come out second best. The
. figures show that we have over two
million of Baptists in the United States.
' The facts show that in real, reliable,
working material, we have about five
j hundred thousand. Indeed, this is a
liberal count. The figures show that
nearly a million and a half of these
1 Baptists live in these Southern States.
The facts show that we have, perhaps,
1 about one hundred and fifty thousand
’ live, efficient C hristians in our churches.
1 ’ ___________ •
» ■
Temperance Movement in Talla
dega County. —Our last Legislature
passed a “local option” law for the
benefit of Talladega county, and our
Probate Judge has been applied to by
the legal number of qualified citizens
to order an election on the 22nd day of
next August at which all qualified vot
ers can vote “prohibition,” or “non
prohibition” on the liquor question.
We are likely to have a lively time “all
along the line.” We have not voted
in a county election for many years,
but on this occasion, we shall “pull off
the bridle,” and take the field, and
give the hydra-headed monster the
best fight in us. We cannot afford to
fail. There is not an interest, material,
social, political, moral, or religious, but
what appeals to every right minded
man to buckle on the armor, and come
to the front with all the manhood he
can summon. We are persuaded that
all that is needed to secure a trium
phant victory is for every good citizen
in the county that desires to protect
his household from the ravages of this
fell destroyer is to do his duty. In
this event, the contest will “be short,
sharp, and decisive.” So mote it be!
Every adult in one of the Micronesian
islands, where a few years ago all were
idolaters, is, by profession, a Christian.
The Religious Press.
Casks or School Life And Death.-Last
week a young woman in New York City
threw herself into the river to commit sui
cide, in a fit of despair because she failed to
pass her examination and obtain the desired
number of credit marks in the school.
On the same day a boy died in that city
from a brain disease attributed to overwork,
studying in competition for a pr:ze.
In view of these cases the New York Ob
server justly remarks: As in almost every
thing else in this world, there is a mixture
of good and evil in this system of competi
tion, emulation and prize giving. The good
is that it stimulates the dull and the lazy to
do better work than they would do without
this incentive. That is all. The evil is that
is unduly excited at a period of
life when it is peculiarly liable to be injured
by excessive exercise. The younger the
student the greater the danger.
There are thousands of cases of sickness,
neryls prostration and unfitness for use
fulfil among those who have been connec
ts ’ with our public schools that give ems
phasis to this subject and call for a reform.
And our opinion is that the system
of prize giving does much harm and
no good. 1. It appeals to a wrong
motive, and this is enough to condemn
it, no matter how good the results may
see»l to be. 2. It stimulates overwork
in (hose who are naturally inclined to
overvfork, and who ought to be repres
sed rather than stimulated. 3. It dis
heartens the defeated candidates,
crushes their spirit and injures them
for We. 4. It begets animosities among
students who ought to be friends. 5.
It often works cruel injustice; for in
many cases it is almost impossible to
dejjde between the rivals, and the de
ciMn is as apt to be wrong as right. 6.
It leaves those who have no hope of
success without motive to study, and
makes them idlers. In a class of twenty,
thirty or fifty - or any other number,
the Contest will always be between two
or three workers, who need no artifi-
Cigfk imulus. The first month of class
! wALtycides who these contestants
; while all the rest look Un'in
despair. The whole system is inex
pedient and morally wrong.
Baptist Pbcgbbss In London.—ln 1646,
there were in and about London forty-seven
Baptist churches.
Id 1738. there were thirty-five Baptist
ohuichee. of Which some nine were General
Baptists.
In 1816, there were forty-one Baptist
churches, of which four were General Bap
tists.
In 1827, there were fifty-five Baptist chur
ches, not including General Baptists.
In 1866, there were a hundred and thirty
Baptist churches, ofwhich four were General
Baptists.
In 1880, there were two hundred and
twepty- seven Baptist churches in and about
London, of which five were General Baptists.
“Not unto us, O Lord.” The Freeman.
The General Baptists of England can
be described only in a very general way.
All of them,we believe, are Arminians,
some of them are Socinians, and all
we presume are open communionists.
On the whole they are rather a miscel
laneous set, and as Baptists are worth
(to speak in a figure) not more than
thirty or forty cents in the dollar.
Des Moines has a praying band of women
who hold services every Sunday in the jail.
A member became infatuated with a hand
some young horse thief, and planned to help
him escape by disguising him in woman’s
clothes as one of the band. But she failed.
Metsenger.
If she had been “a keeper at home”
she would not have become infatuated
with the horse-thief, and thus would
have escaped both disgrace and crime.
Our Methodist brother of Zion’s Her
ald (Boston) says that Rev. F. C. Rog
ers, pastor at Brunswick, baptized three
persons by immersion last Sabbath.
How else could he have baptized
them?
Extraordinary afflictions are not always
the punishment °f extraordinary sins, but
sometimes the trial of extraordinary graces.
—Philanthropist.
’‘What I do thou knowest not now,
but thou shalt know hereafter.” John
13:7.
Dr. Ezra Abbott, one ofthe New Testament
revisers, says that “the greatest service which
the scholars who have devoted themselves to
critical studies and the collection of critical
materials have rendered, has been the estab
lishment of the fact that on the whole the
New Testament writings have come down to
us in a text remarkably free from important
corruptions, even in the late and inferior
manuscripts on which the so-called ‘receiv
ed text* was founded, and “though the cor
rections made by the revisers, in the Greek
text of the New Testament followed by our
translators, probably exceed two thousand,
hardly one-tenth of them, perhaps not. one
twentieth, will be noticed by the ordinary
reader.”—Journal and Messenger.
That the revised New Testament takes
“hell” out of some passages, is said to dimin
ish the probability that there is any such
place. Similarly the omission of "fool
from at least a dozen familiar places dimin
ishes the probability that there are any such
persons. The new version seems likely to
comfort a good many people in one way and
another.—Mich. Chris. Herald.
Pithy.
Speaking of the attempts made at
different times to assassinate the Pres
ident of the United States, the N. Y.
Independent, a most excellent paper,
partly religious, largely political, and
altogether Republican, sometimes very
fair in its statements, and sometimes
very unfair, has the following to say:
The purpose in each case was to kill the
President of the United States- The official
character of the victim was the reason for
the assassin’s choice. Each case had its spe
cial circumstances. That of President Jack
son grew out of the passions begotten by the
nullification theories and attempts in South
Carolina. That oi President Lincoln had its
birth in the war. That of President Garfield
is explained by the nssassin himself. “I am
a Stalwart,” shouts the murderer, immediat
ely after the bloody deee, "and Arthur will
be President." This let > out one thought in
his mind. Whatever eh-e it may suggest, it
shows that he contemplated the transfer of
the presidential office from Mr. Garfield to
Mr. "Arthur, and that this transfer was, at
least, one among the reasons of his action.
This proves no conspiracy to which anybody
else was a party; yet it does suggest that the
Conkling contest with the President, begun
at Washington and now pursued for more
than a month at Albany, has formed the cir
cumstances; at least in part, out of which the
murderous purpose was begotten in the heart
of this self-announced “Stalwart of the Stal
warts.” One theory in his mind was to be
their helper, by killing the President and
putting the Vice-President Arthur in his
place.
The Interior, our highly valued Pres
byterian exchange at Chicago, has this
to say:
The Pedobaptist revisers say that the ori
ginal is ‘in water’, not ‘with water.’ This is
a calamity of the first magnitude to the Bap
tist religious press. What are they to do for
topics for those three or four columns on
bapto, baptizo, immerse, plunge, splash and
sprinkle?
We fail to see the calamity. When
a disputed question is settled by
the complete concession of pne of
the parties to the other, thus producing
ufiauirmty,* '-ouse for Rejoicing.
If there is any cause of grief it is cer
tainly not with the victorious party.
Hereafter we should hear more of im
mersion (the words plunge and splash
are simply sneers, unworthy of our re
spected contemporary), and sprinkling
should be heard of no more.
The Standard (Chicago) copies, we
suppose with approval, the following
from an English paper:
When the Confederate States sought to es
tablish their Independence the public opinion
of England was with them, not from any be
lief that they were In the right, or that hu
manity on either side of the Atlantic would
benefit by their success, but because they
were the weaker of the two combatants, and
they were making a plucky fight of It. Now
that the struggle has long been over, much
the same generous, but somewhat unreason
ing admiration lor them exists In the North.
Well yes; the war was a frightful
evil but not wholly unmitigated.
Among other things it taught the
world that the “enervating influence of
the climate” and the “demoralizing in
fluence of slavery” have not caused the
Southern people to become effeminate
and to degenerate into imbeciles as
was supposed and asserted by many.
We have heard nothing of this non
sense since the war. We suppose it is
admitted now that in point of physical
endurance, and pluck, and perseverance
and persistency and pei tinacity, to say
nothing of military skill and ability,
the Southern people are quite equal to
their Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman
ancestors; and that is saying enough.
What is proved is this; either that the
enervating and demoralizing influences
imagined did not exist, or that the
Southerners, having triumphed over
them, are the most remarkable people
in the world. We are willing to accept
either alternative, but the former is
the true one. The genuineness of our
manhood is established; we hope to
remain worthy of it In our opinion,
the good qualities of our people have
been more conspicuous under defeat,
than they were even on the field of
battle. We were strong enemies, and
now we are anxious to be strong friends.
The war is over. Thank God.
The End of Controversy.—A
writer in the Christian Observer (Pres
byterian) says:
The long controverted question as to the
true meaning of the word baptise should
now terminate. Let every one practice what
ever mode of baptism they may prefer..
We have put one word of the quoted
sentence in italics to make way for the
remark, that if the writer knows as
little of Greek as he does of English,
his opinion on such subjects is not worth
much. The writer continues:
But let the long and bitter controversy now
cease; just as the old and new version agree
in always translating the word baptizo, by
the English words wash and baptize, as the
true meaning. So let it stand.
If the writer knew that the word
VOL. 59.— NO. 27.
baptise is not an originally English
word, but merely an Anglicised Greek
word, he ought not to have expressed
himself as he has done, implying that
the word baptize is a translation of the
word baptizo, but perhaps he did not
know the facts in the case. Proceed
ing to state the case fully he says:
The eigthy learned men of 1881 having
spent ten yean in studying the true mean
ing of each word of a book, using the one
word baptizo one hundred times, and agree
ing with the forty-seven learned men in 1611
in saying its true meaning is to wash, to
baptize, and never gave it the signification
of immersion one time, determines theques
tion- How could these one hundred and
twenty-seven men, with any honesty, find a
word one hundred times, and never give its
true meaning one time? How can we ac
count for this remarkable fact in both vers
sions, that immersion is never once given as
the true meaning of baptizo? It is said King
James forbade the forty seven in his day.
He asks why the word was not trans->
lated immerse, and gives the answer
himself without seeming to know that
he has done so. King James forbade
the translation. He asks who forbade
the recent revisionists? He perhaps
does not know that the Canterbury
rules forbade them. He perhaps
would be willing to have the Greek
word baptizo translated into plain Eng
glish, for he does not know what the
result would be. He evidently thinks
that baptizo would be translated baptize.
But the church to which he belongs
would not dare to call on one hundred
of its own best scholars to trans
late the word baptizo into English.
The Canterbury Convocation did
not dare to ask for a new trans
lation ; a mere revision was all that was
called for, and even that was thought
fully guarded by the following restric
tions : 1. “To introduce as few alter
ations as possible into the text of the
authorized version consistently with
faithfulness.” 2. “To limit as far as pos
sible the expression of such alterations
to the language of the authorized and
earlier With such jealous
care was the translation of baptizo and
some other words prohibited. The re
visers handcuffed and gagged, did the
best they could. In the new version
we read, .“And they were baptized of
him in the river Jordan,” Mark 1:4;
and the American revisers, only two of
whom were Baptists, insisted that the
Greek en in connection with baptizo,
should always be translated in— never
translated with; and this it would seem
ought to be the “End of Controversy”
so far as Americans are concerned. But
perhaps the writer of the article] under
notice did not know that the facts are
as we have stated them.
The following incident of heroism
and chivalry is related by a writer to
the Philabeiphia Times: On the 15th
day of December, 1862, the Sixteenth
Regiment and three companies of the
Second Battalion of Featherstone's
Mississippi brigade were sent to the
front to relieve a brigade posted at the
foot of Marye’s Heights to the left of
the plank road leading from the city
toward Orange Court House. Between
them and the city was a tanyard and
many outbuildings. Much sharpshoot
ing was indulged in on both sides, op
portunities being afforded us by squads
of Feaerals, who in twos and threes
kept moving rapidly from behind ex
temporized shelters to their rear, post
ed in the city limits proper. While a
squad of these were braving shots, one
of them was seen to drop, while all his
companions but one, taking advantage
of our etnpty rifles, soon got to cover
behind the houses. This drave fellow,
seeing his comrade fall, deiiderately
faced about, and dropping his rifle, as
sisted his friend to rise, and together
they slowly sought the rear. As they
moved off a score or more of rifles, in
the excitement of the moment were
leveled with deadly intent, but before
a single one could be discharged our
Colonel, Carnot Posey, commanded,
‘Cease firing; that man is too brave to
be killed,’ and then with characterstic
admiration for the brave fellow we
gave him a hearty cheer, to which
he replied by a graceful wave of his
cap as he and his comrade passed
behind the protection of an outbuilding.
I have often thought of this brave act,
and wondered if he escaped a soldiers
death and lived to become an acknowl
edged leader among men.”
—Columbus Enquirer: The Baptist
church at Browneville is very much
revived, and the meeting is still in pro
gress. Last Sunday Rev. C. W. Buck,
! the pastor, baptized six candidates,
t and there are others yet to be baptized.
There is a general revival feeling
1 among the citizens of that place.
