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S I !• 11/Ji h ~ „ 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.