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SOUTH-WESTERN BAPTIST, ' THE CHRISTIAN HERAL&, of Alabama. or Tenkbbsee. ESTABLISHED I 811. Table of Contents. First Page—Alabama Department: A Per plexing Question ; The Late Thomas Car lyle; Apparent Contradictions; The Re ligious Press. Second Page—Correspondence : Noonday Association; Ministers' and Deacons’ Meeting; Translating the Scriptures; Resolutions Savannah Baptist Church; Bin's to the Associations; Voice from Macedonia. Missionary Department. Third Page—Children’s Corner: Bible Ex- Slorations; Correspondence, etc. The unday-School: The Commandments— Lesson for August 28th. School Adver tisements. Fourth Page—Editorials: God Forbid; Be lieve and Shudder; Glimpses and Hints; Georgia Baptist News. Fifth Page—Secular Editorials : The Cloud Eastward ; Fame—poetry—Chas. W. Hub ner; Literary Notes and Comments; The Magazines; Georgia News. Sixth Page—The Household: Transplanted —poetry; Home Sins; Miscellaneous Paragraphs; “All Quiet Along The Poto mac To, Night”—poetry. Obituaries. Seventh Page-The Farmer’s Index: The State Horticultural Society; Fish Farm ing ; Georgia State Agricultural Society- Meeting in Rome. Eighth Page—Florida Department: Mrs. G. A. Gove; Temperance Meetings, etc.; Re ceipts Florida Mission Board; Another Church—Another Minister; Tribute of Respect; College Notices. Alabama Department. BY BAMUEL HENDERSON. A PERPLEXING QUESTION. We apprehend there is not a more perplexing problem in all the range of questions which agitate the minds of the best Christians than that which relates to' the final separation of the righteous and the wicked in the last day. In the present life, it is a natural and an almost spiritual impossibility, to look forward to that day, and not transfer to its decisions the tender 4«te'q)PMhif.fi'«hicl. originate (.epedAly gfc the ties of consanguinity. So thoroughly are many objects of our earthly love wrapped up in our affec tions, that the very possibility of our separation from them finally and for ever causes us to recoil from it with shivering anxiety. It is difficult for us to realize that we shall view the de cisions of that day with any other than the feelings and sympathies which we now possess. Pious parents weep, pray for, and admonish their dear ones, and the very idea that they are to be lost sends a thrill of horror to their hearts; and transferring this feeling to the great and terrible day of his wrath, they not unfrequently ask the question, will not a knowledge of their eternal destruction embitter the very joys of heaven 1 To escape this, many suppose that all knowledge of each other will be blotted out in the spirit land; but this is a supposition con trary alike, as we think, to Scripture and reason. We think the whole sub ject is of sufficient importance to justi fy us in devoting an article to its con sideration. In the present life, God has given to our affections that particular attrib ute that we express by the term sym pathy. If there were no suffering to be relieved, or no dangers to be averted, doubtless, no such feeling as this could be cherished. Or if we were put in such relations to the sufferings and dangers of others as that our interven tion could not alleviate the one or avert the other, perhaps we should be alike unconscious of such sympathy. For even though we might be endow ed with the capacity of sympathy for others in this particular respect, if no practical purpose could be achieved by its exercise, its office would cease, and we should therefore cease to cherish it. Again : Religion, pure and undefiled, not only sanctifies, but intensifies our sympathies by directing them to the highest and noblest ends. Thote re lationships in life which appeal to our warmest affections, indicate to us a field of usefulness, which no other be ing in the universe can fill but our selves. These affections give to our prayers a fervency, and to our admoni tions and warnings a tenderness and efficiency, which no other heart can feel, and no other tongue can express. What other being on earth could have wept over and bewailed the fate of Ab solom as David did? Could any other than a Christian Jewish heart have ex pressed such unutterable concern for his “brethren according to the flesh,” as did Paul in Rom. 9 :1-3? But al? this affectionate concern for others be longs to this life. Here in this period of moral discipline, this probationary scene, where suffering may be alleviat- ed and calamities prevented, it is a most gracious endowment that we are made capable of “weeping with them that weep,” and tendering offices of kindness to the needy. It is well that we have the mind of Christ, in our measure, to labor to save men from that most direful of all calamities, the loss of their souls. But to suppose that we carry this particular phase of our af fections into the other world, is to sup pose that the same sphere will exist in heaven for its exercise as on earth. And this leads us to observe that a great change will pass over our minds when we shall have put on immortal ity. This change, will appear in two important respects: first, there will be no suffering in the better land to alle viate ; and, secondly, a complete ab sorption of the human into the divine will. When it is said of those who shall enter that bright abode that "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes,” it imports that all sources of sor row shall disappear—that among all the blood washed throng who shall gather on the fiery sea, there will be no weeping Maries, nodespairing Rach els, no lame Mephibosheths, no hopeless widowhood and orphanage, to appeal to our kindly sympathies. The slow and silent tread of funeral processions, with their train of mourners, will never move through the golden streets of the New Jerusalem. Each redeemed spirit will be too happy to cherish a single wish ungratified. And then, as to the fate of lost spirits, however dear they may have been to us on earth, the very consciousness that the “Judge of all the earth will do right,” will only aug ment the glory of the divine perfection and awaken a higher rapture in every rejoicing spirit. The grand purpose of divine grace is to conform the will of the creature to the will of the Creator. The full completion of this is the be ginning of heayen. The transitipp from grace to glory marks the hour when God’s thoughts are our thoughts and God’s ways are our ways. So that, when the decisions of the great day shall be told out, even though they will cut asunder the dearest ties that can bind us to earthly objects, not one voice will quiver among the innumer able throng of the redeemed, as tfiey peal forth the notes of the everlasting song, “Great and marvellous are tby works, Lord God Almighty, just and true are thy ways,thou King of saints!” The bond of union that consolidates the sacramental host will not be an earth born tie, but one that will unite all to one common centre—“the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne.” What ever He does will meet our joyous re sponses—His will will be the supremest delight of our hearts. His friends will be our friends—His foes our foes— His ways our ways. In one word, the very perfection of heaven will consist in the complete absorption of the will of the redeemed into the will of the Redeemer, just as the triumph of the satanic will, in the finally impenitent, fit them for destruction. Dear Christian reader, let us indulge this one reflection. Now, your sym pathies, your prayers, your efforts may be owned of God to pluck these brands from eternal burnings. Now, your com passion for souls may be exercised to ward the grandest objects to which mortals are ever called. Now, you may earn a name somewhat worthy of immortality, a name that shall “shine in the firmament of God forever.” But then, all these objects of your present sympathies,’ who shall die in their sins, will have passed beyond the bounds of divine .mercy, and therefore beyond the bounds of your concern. The limita tions of God’s grace are the limitations of pious sympathy. THE LATE THOMAS CARLYLE. Perhaps the death of no literary character, not even excepting that of Macaulay,has created a more profound impression than that of Mr. Carlyle. Bold, original, profound, and candid, he was just the man to perform a long needed service in some departments of literature from which others had re coiled, or for which they were incom petent. John Foster, whom Thomas Carlyle resembled in some important respects, had already broken up the fallow ground of mere routine both in theology and literature, and coined an independent terminology at which tread-mill critics had thrown up their hands in holy horror, but which re mains a perpetual monument to an imperial genius. Mr. Carlyle has fol lowed in his wake, and if possible, has transcended his gifted predecessor. He AL ANTA, GEORGIA, THURSDAY, AUGUST 18, 1881. has dared to rend assunder the veil with which the prejudices and anim osities of ages has enveloped names and events which deserved a different fate, and has well nigh or quite revers ed the verdict of what is called history in regard to them. Think of his at tacking what he bluntly calls that “Guano-Mountain," which the histori ans of two hundred years have persist ed in piling on the name of “My Lord Protector,” the grand old Oliver Crom well, and rescuing his name from the darkness and stench to which it had been so long consigned, and placing it at least in a position where ingenuous candor can comprehend such a char acter! We confess as we read the “Letters and Speeches” of this great man, and his terse, luminous commen taries on them—as we contemplate the dexterity and power with which he wields the sledge-hammer among the “Dryasdust” critics and historians who for two centuries, devoted themselves to the pious task of slandering one of the greatest men England ever gave to the world, and hear the yells of the whole tribe as the fatal blow swings down on them—we rather enjoy the sport. If the reader could imagine such a cavalier as the fabled “Black Prince,” encased in a coat of mail, turn ed loose upon a garrison of Lillipu tians, he might get some idea of the havoc made by our sturdy giant among these “guano” carriers to the grave of Cromwell. We rather think that Carl yle has reversed the source whence the heaviest stench will smite the ol factories of posterity henceforward. We rather think that “My Lord Protector’s” name will henceforth be rather aro matic in contrast with his maligners. Os course, we do not propose to write an elaborate paper upon Carlyle, even if we claimed the ability to do so, as The Index is not the channel for AUjaeaim '■ our humble sphere to express some ap preciation of the labors of one of the most remarkable men of the century. A devout believer in the Christian re ligion, though a despiser of the “cant” of sectarianism—a worshipper of true heroism as it dares to will and to do whatever is noble and grand in human character —a grand High Sheriff in the domain of historical and biographical literature, duly commissioned by an authority which it is madness to ques tion, to apprehend and bring to justice those purveyors of slander who have converted history into “a tissue of lies” —he has left a monument behind him more durable than brass. Peace to the ashes of the grand old hero I APPARENT CONTRADICTIONS. “And it repented the Lord that he had made men on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.” Gen. 6:6. * God is not a man that he should lie, or the son of man that he should repent’”—Num. 28:19. When a man is painfully conscious that the results of an enterprise in which he has embarked his labor and capital do not correspond with what he had a right to expect, we often say that he repents of his expenditures; or when he expresses an ardent desire to be able to annul the past, and to commence anew, we say that he re pents. In neither case may there be any blameworthiness attached to his purpose or plans, or even any want of sagacity in either. Thus far, there is a certain kind of analogy between re pentance as ascribed to God and man. Speaking after the manner of men, the results of our creation did not corres pond with what God had a right to demand. That God foresaw and pro vided for the fall of his creature, makes nothing against what we have said. We only affirm that he had a right to demand a different result. The change iu God is not a change of his great original purpose, but a change in the method by which it is to be accomp lished. The great difference between repentance as ascribed to God and to us, is, that a perverse result cannot be ascribed to, or occasioned by God, and that he never lacks for means or power to blot out the past and begin anew. When, therefore, it is said that it "re pented the Lord” that He had made man, it appears to us to mean, that God’s just demands on man had failed, and that by the awful judgment of the deluge he destroyed the race, and be gan anew in Noah, “as the second an cestral head es the human race,” as one has expressed it. But in the sense in which repentance expresses either sor row for wrong doing, or incapacity to repair the disasters of tbe past by an nulling it and commencing anew, “God is not a man that He should lie. neither the son of man the He should repent.” But still after saying all this, and much more to the same effect on this and other similar aspects of the divine character, we shall all have affecting cause to exclaim: "How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!” The. Religious Press. - The First Baptism in Utah.-Rev. Dwight Spencer, pastor of the Baptist church in Ogden, Utah, sends the fol lowing to Baptist Weekly: The organizing of a Baptist church in Utah isatiendei with great difficulties. In the first place there are but few Baptists here - then the most of these few are quite indifferent as to having a church of their own faith and order. It would be well not to organize those who are ind.fferent into a church; for they will make the church worse than indifferent. .The right plan is to get the indifferent ones out of the church, not to get them in it. Many, through long absence from their former homes, have lost their standing in the denomination, and have drifted Into pedo baptist congregations, where they have been given some position, and where them selves and families have formed social ties which they are unwilling to sever. Then let themxlrift; the sooner we get rid'of such drift-wood the better. We want no Baptists except those who cannot be drifted. Then there is a tendency all through the West to ignore denominational lines. Per sonsyiin churches here, not so much from any con vicions of truth or duty as from cer tain social advantages whiah they hope to derive from it. It is not uncommon tp meet with professors, who in the short space of five or six years have been members of near ly as many different churches. I do not mean to say that thia is true of all. but that the general tendency is in this direction. An# those of whom it is true are not worth hw.ing in any church. and writing many letter awTaluggish churches in the East, we found thirteen who were qualified, and ready to unite together to hold up the Baptist standard in the midst df this deluded people, In an upper room, like that first church in Jerusalem, v e met, and after prayer pledged ourselves to Christ and to each other. And then to crown our joy, the teacher of our in fant class, the daughter of one of our mem hers, arose aud told us that since our meet ings last winter she had been trying to live a Christian life, and now that there was a Baptist church, she wished to follow her Savior in the ordinance of baptism. The river Weber, fed by melting snows of the Uasatch mountains, was our baptistry. While a devout congregation, standing upon the river’s bank sang the old hymn : “In all my Lord’s appointed ways, My journey I’ll pursue.” we led down into the baptismal water, this first candidate from the thousands of Utah, with the prayer rising from our hearts that her example might soon be followed by a multitude, anxious to walk in their Savior's footsteps. After a strong array of figures on which the statement is baced, the Ex aminer and Chronicle says: If the present tendency of things shall con tinue unchecked for another twenty-five years, it may be regarded as certain that tbe practice of infant "baptism” will by that time have practically died out among the Congregational churches of this country. When that has come to pass, it mar not be too much to hope that those churches will return, not in part only, but altogether, to tbe primitive and Apostolic churches. Yes, the Pedobaptist preachers ima gine that they can find some sort of Scriptural authority for this unscrip tural practice, but the common people can’t see it. It requires a very un common man to see what is not to be seen. Give us judges of the exalted and heroic type needed, and, despite the stupidity of juries, and the delinquencies of other officials, crime will be made to hide its ugly head in all this land. If we are not greatly mistaken our brother of the Christian Advocate made this identical remark once before, and we replied to it then just as we do now; that our judges generally do their, work faithfully and ably. What we want is honest juries. Look at the Cash case in South Carolina, which was tried twice before different Judges. In each instance the Judge did his full duty, and in each instance there were perjured jurors, and the murderer was turned loose! Here is another illustration which we copy from an exchange: Three cases have been tried in Topeka, Kansas, two for liquor selling, one for manu facturing, in all of which tbe facts were readily proven ; but in each case the jury res turned a verdict of "not guitly.” • The jurors simply perjured them selves; that is all! Ah! if we only had some way to punish a perjured jury, (say for instance with ten years in the penitentiary) what a reformation it would work! We receive many gratifying expressions of good-will for our paper. And we have notio- ed that in nearly every case of'disoontinu anoe,’ wh.ch does not proceed from extreme poverty, the dissatisfied subscriber is a bad speller.—Central Presbyterian. We have obeerved the same phen omenon at The Index office. No man looking around with reflecting eye, but must conclude the church as it ex ists at present, is not the church for which Christ prayed that it might be one. What does our brother of the South ern Churchman mean? Does he mean the Ftotestant Episcopal church? If so, he has made a grave concession. If he means more than this he admits some of US to be in “the” church who have been supposed to be outsiders. * • * Our brother of The Watchman, (Boston,) is horrified, because at the Southern Railroad stations separate apartments are provided for white people and negroes. Speaking of one of them, he says: It seems that in that station-house there are three waiting-rooms, of which the third is for negroes. Here at the North we are so degenerate in civilization that only two are deemed necessary. Which form of civilisa tion is more worthy to be named Christian it is not neces ary to inquire. Ah! brother Watchman, we doubt not that you are sincere in the senti ment. you express, but if you will come to Atlanta and stay one week, you will be equally sincere in your belief that a man may be a very good Christian and still desire that the color line should be observed at the station-houses, — and elsewhere. The form that civiliz ation takes must depend on circum stances. If a million or so of our ne groes could be persuaded to “exode” to Massachusetts, you would quickly change your mind. To theorize is one thing, and to face facts is another. ’ The statistics of the Congregational chur ches in Maine show annually since 1855 a steady decline in the number of infants baps tized. The ntimher during the past year whs only 111. The haAtilms for the last five years are about half what they were twenty years ago.—Zion’s Advocate. A similar decline, we think, is taking place all over the United States in all Pedobaptist churches except the Roman Catholic and Episcopalian. Stir your people up, brethren of the Pedobaptist press, stir them up! Be sure to give them the Scriptural authority for in fant baptism; do not worry them with long drawn and learned arguments and farfetched inferences; give them something short and plain, such as common people can understand. Un less you do this, you will find that the decline in infant baptism will become greater and greater, until at last it will be found only in your catechisms and creeds. If you can find one solitary proof text, or even one solitary argu ment, on which you all agree, you will work wonders. Habd on The Revision.—An old lady from the country entered a New York book store last week and asked for the Reversed ’Jestament.— Asso. Ref. Presbyterian. Bhe must have wanted a Testament with infant baptism in it. It is reported, on very good authority, that no Pedobaptist can come to the Lord's table in Mr. Spurgeon's church for more than three months, without being informed by the pastor that it is his right and duty to be baptized, and that he must be baptized it he is to continue to commune with that church. In other words, Mr. Spurgeon is willing to permit unbaptized Christians to sit down occasionally at tbe Lord's table, but is not willing to permit them to sit down habitually. This is very like “close” com munion, after all. Tbe principle is admit ted, only it is relaxed in certain exceptional cases. How much better to apply the prin ciple uniformly! —Examiner and Chronicle- Yes, if it is wrong for unbaptized persons to commune habitually it is wrong for them to do it at all. Mr. Spurgeon’s plan looks like a com promise with error, and no one will say that such a compromise is proper. The N. Y. Independent has some thing to say about the President which we heartily indorse: There is a freedom and grandeur in the position of the President which it is not too much to say that none of bis recent predeces sors have enjoyed. We pray to God that, as he rises to strength and to the use of his powers, he may see it. Whatever may have been true before, he is now free; bis hands are untied, no man and no party can claim him ; and, except by his own act, he cannot be put into shackles again. If that fate, which may God forefend, befalls him, it will only be because be sqanders the opportunity not only of bis lifetime, but of tbe people be governs, and puts himself into trammels again. • * * * * * * He will rise from his bed to receive from them, North and South, East and West, and to a great extent without distinction of party, a degree of confidence than which no President has enjoyed more since Washing ton. He is a free man. The full powers of the President are in bis bands. Tbe splendid opportunity is his to be true to his convic- VOL. 59.— NO. 32. tions and theories of government end to know that to do so is both the line of sound statesmanship and in accordance with the wish of the nation. May God raise him from his bed. and higher than that, to be fully up to his day and bis opportunity. If the Independent means by these words what we should mean if we used them, (and we see no reason to doubt this,) and if what is said fairly repres ents public sentiment, and if the Presi dent should rise to the occasion, as is hoped, then the political millenium is nigh. An honest and capable Presi dent, absolutely free from the trammels of party, aud owing no more to one than to another, would be a blessing indeed. And on the same subject the Chris tian Advocate, (Nashville,) says: * If the weunded man should indeed recover he will have the opportunity to remove the last veetige of sectional antipathy. How? By being in reality the President of the whole nation. What the system known as “Camp bellism” teaches with regard to the doctrine of baptismal remission, is clear ly seen in what one of its organs, the Chicago Evangelist, says, in comment ing cn the passage of the Israelites through the Red Sea, (Ex. 11; 19-27): Their coming to the Red Sea to be bap tized Into Moses, places the following things beyond dispute. 1. That this baptism was essential to their deliverance. The lesson for us is, that our baptism into Christ, our leader, is just as es sential to onr deliverance from past sin. 2 Their old enemies were buried in tßk baptism The enemies are the types sins.and these are buried in 'he ««., of fulness, according to the promise <fl - when we are buried wt. It Christ tism. JMMMgg 3 Their faith and works, as far I’u l gone, were not enonj-h m ilieiusß save; not until the sea had been.. '' were they saved from the Eirvptians. alone will not save ns, but faith, repenWdU and bapti-in are for the rem —of are past. b . . . Elder Lansing Burrows, <of I.exitH ton. Ky., went into bit garden,.and saw thaffl; a tender plant had been saved Ay bis coolfl turning a slop bucket over it He to his study and read “Dr.” Kalloob’s severe abuse of the mission work among the Chinese in California by Dr. Hartwell, and he was greatly encouraged. The mission had the slop -bucket turned over it, and he thinks that it will now live and grow. —Biblical Recorder. Cheap Fame—The two most intemperate denunciations of the Revised New Testament we have yet seen came from the fierce Pres byterian minister of the Brooklyn Taber nacle, and a minister of our own denomin ation in a sermon, preached before Colby University. But neither of these ferocious critics quite come up to the English critic of 1611, who said of what is now the common ly received version, he “would rather be tom in pieces by wild horses than impose such a version upon the poor churches of England.” It is just possible that 270 years from now some journalist may quote the two ministers above referred to in away to make their not oriety less conspicuous than is that of the man who talked at such a rate ia 1611. Examiner and Chronicle. —Barnesville Gazette: Rev. Levi McLeod, who has been in the Theologi cal Seminary at Louisville, Ky., for some time preached at the Baptist church last Wednesday evening. He left Pike several years since an orphan boy and went to Texas. There he worked and economized until he has accumulated enough money to carry him through the Theological Semi nary at Louisville. He has been sev eral days in the county visiting friends and relatives. —LaGrange Reporter : The vener able and revered Dr. J. H. DeVotie, though nearly three score, still prose cutes his great work, as Secretary of the Baptist State Mission Board, with wonderful success. He was present during the session of the Convention. Rev. T. C. Boykin, who attended the Sunday School Convention, is one of the most energetic and a successful workers in the State. —Sandersville Mercury: A protract ed meeting has been held the past week at Sisters church and is still continued, a considerable feeling has been discer nable during the meeting, several have been added to the church. Last Sab bath evening one of us was present; we were made happy to observe so much interest on the part of the young, and rejoiced to see one of our old citi zens join the church. —Hamilton Journal: Rev. 8. T. Ful ler returned home last week from Thomaston, where in connection with Rev. R. J. Willingham of Talbotton he has been conducting a religious revi val. Much good resulted from the services and there were many acces sions to the church. He.left Saturday morning for Talbotton where he will assist Mr. Willingham jp conducting a protracted meeting.