The Christian index and southern Baptist. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1881-1892, August 11, 1881, Image 1

The Christian index and southern Baptist., August 11, 1881, Image 1

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Newspaper Page Text& E SlrM IfoEX SOUTH-WESTERN BAPTIST, X X THE CHRISTIAN HERALD, of Alabama. W- ' of Tennessee. ESTABLISHED 1821. Table of Contents. First Page—Alabama Department: Fiction as an Educator, Intellectual and Moral; An Od Book; “Geese Picking;” The Religions Press. Second Page—Correspondence: New Or leans; Men and Things; General Meeting* Lithonia; On Receiving Members; Jot tings By The Way; Ordination; The Church at Cochran. The Missionary De partment. Third Page—Children’s Corner: Bible Ex plorations ; Enigmas ; Correspondence. Educational Advertisements. The Sunda y The Manna—Lesson for August 21st. Fourth Page—Editorials: Politics; A Case in Discipline; Glimpses and Hints; Geor gia Baptist News Fifth Page—Secular Editorials : The Inter national Exposition at Atlanta; Tallulah —poetry—Chas W. Hubner; The Maga zines: Literary Notes apd Comments; Georgia News. Sixth Page—The Household: If I Could Keep Her So—poetry ; Enemies Shaking Hands; Daisy's Dolls; A Good Mother’s Plan; Christianity—poetry. Obituaries. Seventh Page - The Farmer’s Index: City and Country ; Small Notes; The Cross- Cut Saw. Eight Page—Florida Department: Facts. Fancies and Figures; Northern Anniver saries— Ingersoll, etc.—Rev. N. A. Bailey; Sickness in East Macon—An Error Cor rected. Alabama Department. BY SAMUEL HKNDERSQN. FICTION AS AN EDUCATOR, IN TELLECTUAL AND MORAL. First of all, let us take the reader as with a kind of supersedeas, to borrow a legal phrase, by apprizing him that by fiction we do not mean the cart loads of amorous novels furnished to each generation, and which old father Time dumns into the dead sea of oblivion after a fitful existence; nor do we mean distortions of truth done up in paper covers, and sold by the thousand to the credulous multitude, such as “Western Scenes,” “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” etc. The compensation in such cases is, that such trash dies with the genera tion that creates it. But we do mean such ideas as genius only can originate and inspire as with life, so that their influence shall be as real in the world as if they had liv<d, and as if a compe tent biographer had written their lives. Have we any books, biographical, his torical, or'what not, which have sway ed so broad an influence in all circles of society, from the highest to the low •est, as Shakspeare’s dramatical works, Milton’s Paradise Lost, or good John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress? The geuius that produced these grand works, breathed into the characters delineated a vigor, a power, as well as a measnre of human sympathy and beauty, that have sent them down through the ages with an influence more potent to-day than it was two hundred years ago. What biographer ever gave to his subject more of real life than Bunyan has given to his Chris tian, his Faithful, his Hopeful, or his Clreatheart? his Giant Despair, his Igno rance, or his Talkative? These abstrac tions spring from his pen,as so many in carnations, to tell their story to listen ing thousands yet unborn. Now, is the effect of reading such books, especially upon the minds and hearts of the young, good or bad? Let us look into this question. No one will contest the fact that we are all by nature imitative. Hence the universally accepted truth that exam ple is more potent than precept. Most of the effective part of our education is nothing more than the result of im itation. For instance, a young man has the ministry in view. At the for mative period of his life, he is thrown, say, with a minister who fills up Ijis ideal of what a minister ought to be, both in his style of preaching, in his piety, and we might add his habits of study. All these things are to him models. Without intending to imitate anybody, nay, perhaps with a full in tention not to do so, he unconcionsly falls into the manners, habits, methods of study, forms of sermonizing, and ■delivery of the preacher whom he re gards as a model. He will just as nat urally glide into all these habitudes, even in his gestures and the intona tions of his voice, as any effect follows its cause; and though he may strive against it, it will be years before he can be fully himself. Now, this is true of every pursuit in life. We have somewhere seen it stated that such was the effect of Alexander Hamilton’s style of forensic eloquence, that after his death the bar of New York had so copied it even in its slightest defects that it never disappeared until that generation gassed away. Now, it is the province of fiction in the sense in which wo nse it, to endow its characters with such attributes, whether virtuous or vicious, as may at tract or repel, as our nobler moral in stincts may dictate. And what if the picture in combination is overdrawn? is not this expected, even demanded, by the necessities of the case? If the author is animated with lofty and pure motives, he would fail of his pur pose if he did not paint virtue in so faultless a style as to overtax our best efforts to reach it, and thus inspire perpetuity in our endeavors, or vice in such horrid deformity as that we recoil from it with ever increasing de testation. Os course the writer, if his experience and observation is anything like extensive, has seen every virtue and every vice he delineates exempli fied, perhaps, to the very degree he de picts, but not all in combination, that is, in the same person. He finds the virtues and the vices illustrated in, it may be, a dozen or more persons in real life. One is beautiful, another is modest, another benevolent, another the very soul of honoi, etc. All these traits he combines in his hero or hero ine, not because any one person em bodies them all, but because human nature has exemplified them each" in detail, and like the different colors in the hands of a superb artist, he consol idates them into one, so that by a kind of moral synthesis the impression will be greater; for we are all more likely to be influenced by the concrete than by the abstract. Go into the nursery, for instance, where the mother is en gaged in her first essays to impress the budding intellect of the child with the leading virtues the word of God enjoins. The sublime piety of Enoch, the faith of Abraham; the meekness of Moses, the patience of Job, the wisdom of Solomon, the zeal of Elijah, etc., etc., are arrayed before the mind of the child in combination to inspire it with lofty aims and virtuous impulses. All these virtues did not exist in their last maturity in any one of these charac ters. But they each were embodied in one or other of these ancient wor thies. Is it any harm to combine them before the young so as to awaken their aspirations? Yet this is nothing more than our best authors in fiction have done. Take Washington Irving’s charming sketches—did ever painter or sculptor give to an admiring world more transcendent forms of natural beauty than those conceptions of moral excellence that well mgh breathed with life in his enchanting pages? The heart and the head that would not be impressed by reading most of his vol umes have no sensibility that truth and virtue can touch. Who that has read that sublime poem of Milton, Paradise Lost, but has been made to feel “how awful goodness is,” and to adore with profounder homage the “high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity!” And then that prince of modern poets, Shakspeare, has given “a local habitation and a name” to almost every emotion of which the human heart is capable, in pithy sentences which constitute one of the chief adorn ments of our language, and which are so thoroughly incorporated into the entellectual wealth of the world, that we are constantly using them without being conscious of it. We might mention other books, such as the “Eclipse of Faith,” by Henry Rogers, a controversial book in which, in the garb of fiction, he grapples with infidelity, as a British Quarterly puts it, with “great power of logic,” “liveli ness of illustration,” “Socratic weap ons,” etc., which “have never, since the time of Plato, been wielded with more grace and spirit.” But we forbear, having already trespassed, perhaps, upon the patience of the reader. We only add that sound discretion is needed on the part of parents as to the character of the ficticious books to place before their children. Aspiring minds demand something of the kind, and our wisdom is to regulate this de mand appropriately. The Independent, reviewing Bad eau’s Life of Grant, says that Badeau brings a strong array of testimony to support his argument that the South was not crushed by mere brute strength of re sourses, but by the superior fighting quali ties of the Northern troops and the skill of the Northern generals. Tuis article has a certain flavor of novelty and its presentation is most timely and able. Well, yes, it is rather fresh; we don’t thick it will keep. ALANTA, GEORGIA, THURSDAY, AUGUST 11, 1881. AN OLD BOOK. After an interval of several years, a few days ago we gjanced through Al geron Sydney’s “Piscourse on Gov ernment,” and were much more struck with the ability with which it was written than we were twenty-five yeats ago, when we first procured it. It i» really sad to think that a work that announces truths so obvious, and dis cusses them with such marked ability and statesmanship, should have cost the patriotic author his head. The whole purport of the book is to show that kings do not reign by any inhereat, or, as it is impiously claimed, divm’l ' right, but by the appointment of th ■' people—that the end of all government is the good of the commonwealth, nol the aggrandizement of the king—that the people were not made for the king, - but the king for the people—and that when kings violated their coronation oaths, and sought to convert their office into a private franchise, and the com * try into their own personal proper' the power that made them kings could unmake them. And yet, for the asser tion of truths so obvious as these, he was tried, condemned, and executed" as a traitor. As we read his glowing pages, all pervaded by a spirit of patri otism which kings then, and many o their subjects, could not compiehend every chapter sparkling with classica and pertinent illustrations from sacreu and profane history, we could but feel somewhat as David felt, when in | the heat of battle, he longed for the “waters of the well of Bethlehem,” and I three mighty men, breaking through the ranks of the Philistines, procured it for him at the hazard of their lives, and presenting it to his parched lips, 1 he refused to drink it, and “poured it j out before thq Lord,” saying, “Is notj this the blood of the men that wei ‘ in . jeopardy of their lives?” Some el best literature of the world has either cost the authors their lives, or been put under ban of the Pope, or been written in prison. How sadly true may it be said of many as the wisest and best men that have ever lived, “the world was not worthy of them!” “GEESE PICKING.'’ And what can you make of “geese picking?” Well, really, we do not know, only the other morning, suffer ing no little from our “oft infirmity," sick headache, the whole yard was alive with the little folks, whites and negroes, hemming up the geese in the corners preparatory to a general picking, Now, to one suffering as we were, the music of the geese was not harmonious. But then the time had come, and as we had always tried to impress the home folks to do everything in its time, of course we made no complaint and the thing went on. Now, we are indebted to geese for the most comfort able beds in the world. Talk about spring mattresses, cotton mattresses, or any or all other kinds of matrasses they are nothing but mere substitutes, mere makeshifts, resorted to by people who have no geese, and cannot buy feathers. Why, of a cold winter night we should very nearly freeze on one of these mattresses. No, give us the goose for a bed above everything else. So we have this array of facts: Geese are essential to good, comfortable beds— good beds are essential to sound sleep —sound sleep is essential both to phys ical and mental health and vigor— health of body and mind is essential— well, to the preparation of matter for these columns! Now, reader, don’t you see the connection between “geese picking” and The Index? At least we have read many an elaborate argu -1 ment upon serious questions that did not have anything like the vital coher ence that this has. So you see that we are “sound on the goose.” Speaking of fowls reminds us that there are other fowls beside geese that fill important places in this great world of ours. And it so happens that this year we have a pretty respectable fowl yard—geese, turkeys, chicks and guin eas, so that the future is somewhat hopeful for “chicken-pies” and “roast turkejand the like. We have no idea of allowing our Methodist preach ing brethren to enjoy a monopoly of “fried chicken.” Their proverbial fond ness for that delicious dainty only shows that they are men of taste. If a relish for “chicken” above every other dish, vegetable or animal, constitutes a qualification for a Methodist circuit rider, we would have made a capital one. It is the first thing one relishes after a spell of sickness, and the last thing of which he grows wearyin health. As to ducks, well, we have none of them. Are we not informed in clas sical literature that “Cxsar et forte duxf” So that we are prepared to be lieve the old story, that Ctesar was a jjfeat gormandizer. We have no dis ’. ■eition to raise such a fowl, when one gpose is equal to "forte dux for we WBve no modern eater who can con sume a gobse. True, the Latin student will tell you that the above quotation 4pes not mean precisely in Latin what Ita sound indicates in English. But Ei we accept it “as saying what it ns, and meaning what it says.” spelling is somewhat antique, but v-'iore is no mistaking the sound, no m tter what the critics say. Excuse this little folly, reader. We ii>’ just getting up from a considerable sh of bilious fever, and the “quack of geese on nerves already sensi i from illness, set us off on a “wild se chase,” of which the foregoing is result. You know what the poet • s: “A little nonsense now and then, “Is relished by the wisest men.” The Religious Press. Rev. Edward Cowley, a minister of the Episcopal church in New York, who was convicted of shocking cruelty to children and sentenced to a year in the penitentiary for his crime, having served out his time, was recently “in vestigated” by a committee of his church. The committee admit that Cowley was deeply culpable in some respects, but nevertheless report that . “Under a deep and solemn sense of re sponsibility to Gol, to the Church they in this case represent, and to society at large, and after a very long, laborious, and con scientiously prosecuted investigation, the committee are compelled to refrain from P&smting the Rev. Edward Cowley for trial in a court of the Church fer crime.” Ah! but suppose he had preached without a gown! What then? The following from the Hartford Herald shows that The Index is not alone in opposition to pseudo-human itarians whose goody sympathies would prevent the rigid enforcement of law. No law executes itself; but its enforcement depends upon a healthful public opinion. Officials are not inclined to act, unless they are incited and sustained by the s< ntiment of community. Hence the need of active moral support from all good citizens in maintaining law and in enforcing the pen allies for its violation. It is not agreeable business to punish criminals; but it is a nec essity of society that it should be done. One of the annoyances that is encountered comes from a class of restles persons—not numerous but persistant—who, under the specious plea ofhumanity and reform, are endeavoring to undermine social order and regard for jus tice. Tney claim for themselves all that is humane and pious. Tney have their pet but impracticable theories of prison manage ment. They are thrusting themslves forward as the champions of progress and charity. They assail all that oppose them. Their denunciations are stored up for the uphold ers of law aud order, and their charities are reserved for the violators of law. The prompt execution of a few mur derers would save many precious lives. Let it be known that death is the cer tain penalty of murder and very few murders would be committed. There is no propriety in waiting until some body kills the President; hang the first man that murders anybody. Various plans have been suggested for making the President’s life secure. The best plan we know is to hang everybody whom the law says should be hung. If this were done, the spirit of murder would soon cease to manifest itself in the crowning act at least; then the President would be safe, and so would we all be. Not many would have to be executed; a few examples would suffice. To. make the penalty certain is all that is needed. We copy from Zion's Herald, a most excellent Methodist paper, published in Boston, an account of two extraordin ary incidents that recently occurred in Providence, R. I. 1. The religious community was painful ly shocked last week at learning that a hitherto popular and highly esteemed Meth odist clergyman, one of the leading preachers in the New England Southern Conference, had been charged, in the public prints, with peculation. We refer to Rev. W. F. Whit cher, pastor of the Mathewson St. M. E. church, Providence, and an ecceemed corres pondent of this paper. The evidence was conclusive of his having stolen rare and val uable books and documents (of no great pe cuniary value,however), of having mutilated the same more or less, and of attempting to dispose of some of them b sale. Having a generous salary, a small and not expensive lamiiy, wealthy relatives,and hosts of friends, witn the brightest prospects of success in his chosen profession, triose who know him best are utterly at a loss to imagine what were bis motives for so heinous an offence. We understand that he has made a full confes sion, and withdrawn, formally, from the ministry and membership of the church. A fall so terrible as this, a case so painful and reproachful to our holy religion, carries with, <t its own lessons and warning. What are the lessons, and what is the warning? Perhaps both may be embodied in this: that ministers are human and arc liable to fall into sin, into grievous sin, like other people. Possibly in this case the man may have been afflicted with the disease called Kleptomania. But does such a disease free from responsibility? We do not know, yet we incline to think that, if persons whose diseases lead them to commit crime, such as stealing and killing, were promptly punished, dis eases of that class would be less pre valent. Some persons seem to have an abormal and therefore (?) diseased inclination to tell lies. If each lie were punished we think there would be fewer of them. 2. Rev. Angelo Canoil, the popular pastor of the First M. E. Episcopal church, New port, R 1., sustained a painful and t*mpor arily disabling injury last week, bytbeac cidental discharge of a pocket pistol, inflict ing a flesh wound in the calf of the leg. The ball was promptly extracted, and at last ac counts be was doing well. Brother C.accounts for bis possession of the weapon, we under stand, by stating that he is accustomed to carry it for purposes of protection at night, while engaged in astronomical studies which take him from his home. His many friends while deploring the casualty, have reason for gratitude that he escaped a more serious wound. We are glad that Rev. Angelo Can oll was not killed, and we are also glad that he got shot in the calf of his leg. Served him right. We hope that the next time he carries a pistol so unnec essarily he will shoot himself in the calf of the other leg, and by that time perhaps all the calf will be shot out of him. Is it in pious Rhode Island that ministers of the gospel in time of pro found peace carry pistols? Well, folly and sin are not confined to latitudes, as some people seem to think. A writer in the H7itc/i»rtun,(Boston,) speaking of the action of the Foreign Mission Board in withdrawing the ap pointment of brethren Stout and Bell, says: If the Bible is inspired in spots, here and there, but no one knows where, and every body ii at liberty to select bis inspired spots as be pleases, what, pray, has become of the inspiration of Bible? For every practical purpose it has disappeared. And the editor of that journal on the same subject, says: The Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention have well seconded the 1 rustees of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Professor Toy was relieved of his office of instruction in the Seminary and two of his pupils have been withheld from the foreign mission field, for teaching “erroneous and stranee doctrines” on mat ters of supreme importance. And we hold that our churches and pastors cannot be too careful to recognize such departures front the faith, and withhold their fellowship from any who are involved in them. And the Standard, (Chicago,) on the same subject, says: The Board in Richmond have dealt with the matter, as it seems to us, with Christian wisdom. With the single exception of the Courier (S. C.) the Baptist press of the United States, North, South, East and West, is unanimous in sustaining the action of the Richmond Board. The United Prebyterian, speaking of the New Version, says wisely: As a rule, it may be taken for granted that if a man take strong ground against it, he is either superannuated and thus past tbe neo essary sympathies of active life, a politic trimmer, who wishes to conciliate friends, or so poor a student of tbe Bible that he does not know tbe value of having it made free from literary defects. Tbe man, who has studied the truth carefully and devoutly ac cepts the new work, not as the very best that can be done, perhaps, but as a help towards that which he wishes may go on till it is completed. We like the last sentence especially ; we accept the work “not as the very best that can be done,” but as a step toward what will be better. We are anxious to see every word of the New Testament translated into English, and we are willing that the work shall be done entirely by Pedobaptist scholars, pro vided only that they will agree to select fifty, or one hundred of tbe best they have in the world. We are ready for this; but are they? Their recent action in trammelling the revisers with severe restrictions shows that they are not; and even as it is, a writer in the British Quarterly complains of the revisers that “they allowed themselves to be too much hampered by the original I” That will do; “too much hampered by the original.” Almost all the papers are denounc ing the speech of Wendell Phillips, re cently delivered at the centennial an niversary of of the Pni Kappa Beta VOL. 59.— NO. 31. Society at Harvard following from the Presbyterian Banner (Pittsburgh, Pa.,) may serve as speci men : But it is wicked madness in another way. Mr Phillips gives every private person the right to take into his own bands the vindi cation of all public wrongs and also of all bis private grievances, if he can persuade himself—which is not difficult to do —that there is no other way to secure bis rights. Terrible applications of the principles set forth in this address have been seen in ths murder of President Lincoln and in the at tempted murder of President Garfield, These detestable principles can be seized upon by any ruffian or adventurer, and made the plea for attaeking the pers »n and destroying the property of Mr. Phillips or any other citizen, or made the apol >gy for mobs, as those which threatened this coun try so terribly in 1877. Such teaching as that of Mr. Phillips cannot fail to enc turage all classes of desperadoes, and should be reprobated and denounced as hostile to lib erty and destructive of personal safety. Wendell Phillips! Wendell Phillips! Who is he, anyhow? and what is his past record? and where does he live? what moral atmosphere does he breathe? He must be an ex-rebel and an ex slave holder. One thing is certain; he advocates the sum of all villanies. A revival of religion cannot be ordered. There are no set rules for securing it. It is not the result of visible, tangible forces which can be set in motion at pleasure to work out defiinite products. Tbere are, however, principles in the kingdom of grace which grace never violates, and upou which it invariably proceeds. These principles are a legitimate study for the pastors who are anxiously longing for revivals in their churches.—Central Baptist. We fear that some of our pastors have not studied these principles very carefully. A Goon Law.—The new liquor law of Rhode Island, which went into effect the Ist of June, provides that no license shall be granted for selling intoxicating liquors at any place within four hundred feet of a school, and that the protest a majority of . land holders within one hundred feet of the place for which license is asked, shall defeat tbe application. Few persons will be found willing to have their property depreciated in value for the privilege of having a drun kard manufactory aJjolniug It.- Christian Observer. Rather a weak device, we think; in tbe country it would do no good, and in the towns not much. Yet it em bodies the principle of Local Option and this we approve. Tbe Military I lea in College training is one of the fashions out of harmony with tbe age. Its results are not good in scholar ship or character. That the Government needs a military academy one can under stand ; that “peace establishments” should affect such methods in education is a prob em indeed. Bit the brass buttons, the tinsel, the drums, catch some eyes and ears. —Wesleyan Christian Advocate. We have seen the plan in operation, and regard it as an unmitigated nuis ance. The Christian Secretary, speaking of Dr. J. R. Graves’ new departure, says: We do not feel quite confident that we could answer all the questions that would be asked us, if we should adopt the author's conclusions. If tbe Supper is only to be ob served by the members of a particular church and all intercommunion is forbid den, what right has a church to ask a min ister not a member of it to administer the ordinance 1 And why should we not apply the same rules to baptism ? Why should we not exclude a minister from the pulpit, unless be is a member of the church to which he is invited to preach? Why not push tbe doctrine of independence a little further, and say that no church is bound to pay any attention to a letter of dismission and recommendation addressed to it by an other church? We should vary the phraseology a little, and say, “Why not push the doctrine to its final result, and say that no church has a right to pay any attention to a letter of dismission from another church?” We might further ask “What right has a church to re gard a minister as ordained unless or dained by itself?” As both gentleness and meekness are fruits of the Spirit (Gal. 5: 22), it is well to distinguish between them. The distinction between the things no less than between the words which des cribe them, is thus well drawn by the United Presbyterian: Meekness is not gentleness simply. The latter represents our manner of treating others, the former our manner of bearing their treatment of us. Thus we may be said to give rebuke with gentleness, but to receive it with meekness. Nor is meekness mere insensibility to wrongs, or indifference as to what we have to do or endure. There is many a natural temperament of this kind in which there is nothing of tbe humility, pa tience or charitv which are tbe distinguish ing elements of gennineChristian meekness. There are only half as many Epis copalians in the United States as there are Presbyterians; but the former “baptize” three times as many infants as are baptized by the latter. The same distemper affects both, differing in the two cases only as smallpox and varioloid differ.