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The Golden Age
{SUCCESSOR TO RELIGIOUS FORUU)
Published Ebery Thursday by the Golden Hge Publishing
Company (Inc.)
OFFICES: LOWNDES BUILDING, ATLANTA, GA.
Price: $2.00 a Year
WILLI HMD. UPSHAW, - - - - Editor
A. E. RAMSAUR, . . . Associate Editor
W. F. UPSHA W, - - - - "Business Manager
H. R. "BERNARD, - . . Sec’y and Treas.
Application made at the Post Office in Atlanta, Ga., to be entered
as second-class matter.
What Shall We Render.
This has been a radiant week for The
Golden Age.. In one short span it has been
born; it has been nurtured; it has leapt into
vigorous life I Some of us who have kept mid
night vigil over its forming in the office and
hung day and night over its forms in the pub
lishing house, are now more than gratified
over its launching.
From far and wide messages of congratula
tion —and what is proof positive—subscrip
tions! are pouring in upon us! The editors
wish they could answer personally every good
letter that has come. But that is impossible.
The best answer that can be rendered is the
best service that can be given to meet the
expectation of friends and the generous en
thusiasm which has been accorded the first
issue of The Golden Age. And in rendering
thanks we would not forget our expert and
efficient publishers, Converese and Wing, who
are due great credit for the beautiful ap
pearance of the paper. They have been tire
less in their efforts, and in the highest print
er’s art they have won.
Let all our riends tell the good news about
The Golden Age to their neighbors, as many
are doing now. and together we will build up
speedilv in this section the greatest and most
fruitful paper which the South has ever known.
Denied in Creed, but Crowned
In Song.
On a recent Sunday night in Atlanta a
large audience gathered in The Grand opera
house to attend a service under the auspices
of the Unitarian church of this city.
The unusual attraction was a Sunday night
service at The Grand, and a new and schol
arly minister, the Rev. Moore Sanborn, a man
of engaging personality and an imperial,
flowing type of eloquence. His theme was
‘ Jesus, the Man.” Os course, he took the
well known Unitarian position—wreathing
flowers of beautiful rhetoric about the hu
manity of Jesus, but disputing the immacu
late conception and denying the Deity of our
Lord. But, lo! from the printed slip of hymns
selected by the minister the congregation was
invited to sing,
“In the Cross of Christ I
Towering o’er the wrecks of Time.”
But those who love Him who said: “He
that honoreth not the Son honoreth not the Fa
ther,” —those who love Him for His willing
Death and His triumphant resurrection
(meaning His atonement and his Divinity)
wonder how the singers could glory in the
Cross of Christ?
And then, more than all, that great congre
gation, at the invitation of the minister, stood
up and sang “All hail the power of Jesus’
name,” pealing forth those wondrous lines,
“Bring forth the Royal Diadem
And crown Him Lord of All!”
Why crown Him Lord if He were not Di
vine?
Ah! the human Christ is not enough.
“Naught but God can satisfy the soul.”
We ask in tenderness but in fidelity: Why
deny Him in creed, but crown Him in song?
The Golden Age for March 1, 1906
Reforms In Life Insurance.
Public attention during the last year has
been riveted on the life insurance upheaval.
The hurricane of revelation, investigation and
condemnation has passed. A cold and sullen
calm has followed. The unthinking eye sees
little save the havoc wrought. Those who
have studied precedent conditions have found
and analyzed the logical causes of the crisis.
Having pointed them out, intelligent thought
is now seeking to find helpful results. Ameri
can sense and genius will eradicate its harmful
faults and deceptive fallacies and retain the re
sultant sound system of legal reserve insur
ance.
Briefly put, the cause of the crisis was this:
The "business” incident to the conduct of life
insurance had come to overtop its beneficence.
This condition came gradually with the growth
of the several companies. As their accumula
tions gathered, large financial prestige center
ed in the personality of the men who controlled
them. Shrewd men of great business insight
as they were, they quickly saw that in press
ing their respective institutions into greater
and still greater size, swelling and doubling
the accumulated savings of their patrons, they
multiplied over and over their personal finan
cial power. Their dominant note became an
insistent cry for more new insurance; consid
eration was too seldom given to the question
whether this new insurance was secured at a
cost consistent with the interests of those al
readv policy holders.
Sharp competition arose. Competition may
lessen the cost of some commodities, but not
the cost of life insurance. Competition brought
higher commissions and heavier expenses all
along the line. The result was an increase in
the cost of life insurance. Premium rates ad
vanced and dividends decreased. Os course,
the simple forms of policies carried for pure
protection could not stand the burden of this
pressure. The competing companies were too
wise to place it there; instead, they encouraged
the sale of investment insurance, actually cre
ating a great demand for it. As these policies
carried high premium rates, upon them could
safely be placed the burden of expense.
fascinating forms, clad in the glittering rai
ment of radiant promises, obscured the vital
principle of insurance for pure protection.
As it is impossible to determine in advance
tne actual cost of insurance, it is necessary for
a sound institution engaging in the business to
charge a gross premium large enough to cover
the cost in any contingency. As nearly all
companies are theoretically mutual, the prom
ise is made to return at stated intervals these
excess payments, vulgarly called dividends. It
finally occurred to the management of most
companies that if policy holders could be in
duced to defer the time of receiving back the
surplus premiums they paid, it would add to
their holdings, and to their personal prestige,
iience the origin of the deferred dividend pol
icy. This form of contract left its purchaser
no assurance of dividend save what the con
science or capric of the ecompany might
award him at the expiration of the term —gen-
erally twenty years. It created a large fund
for which the management was legally respon
sible to no one. It gave the power to press
the reckless battle for magnitude. Theoretic
ally, the deferred dividend policy is not bad; in
practice* it is all wrong. It is the mudsill up
on which the wasteful fabric of extravagant
management was built. It must go. The econ
omy of life insurance for the future has no
place for it, save to fulfill honorably the con
tracts of this class already in force. Absolute
divorce of life insurance from the field of spec
ulation investments must come. Small commis
sions and general economy must replace expen
sive past administrations. This means less in
surance written, less lapsed, less cost to the
insured.
Some things must go, but not the system of
legal reserve insurance. Like pure gold, it
shines out clearer after the fires of criticism
have burned the trappings which trammeled
it. Protection for the home is an absolute ne
cessity and sound life insurance must remain
as long as the burden of providing for one’s
own family remains an individual responsi
bility. W. F. U.
Foster, Straton and the Bible.
Professor George B. Foster, of the Univer
sity of Chicago, recently published a book,
"rhe Finality of the Christian Religion,”
which voices the most advanced expression
of “new thought” and criticism. The book is
in substance an attack upon the Bible as the
Word of God. The inspiration of the Bible
is denied ; miracles are disputed and the res
urrection is questioned. Concerning miracles,
he says: An intelligent man who now affirms
his faith in such stories as actual facts can
hardly know what intellectual honesty means.”
The book has attracted wide attention. Rad
ical utterances generally do. In Chicago,
Rev. John Roach Straton, pastor of the Sec
ond Baptist church, has introduced a resolu
tion before the Ministers’ Conference of that
city, asking that Professor Foster be requested
to resign his position with the University of
Chicago. The action of the ministers on this
resolution is awaited with special interest by
Georgians, Mr. Straton having been reared in
Georgia, and indeed all persons who find from
their personal experience that the Bible is the
Book of Books, are united in hoping that the
Conference will pass the resolution. Not that
such action of these Chicago ministers would
mean the "finality” of Professor Foster’s book,
but because it would speak the attitude of lead
ers in spiritual things who have seen under
their own ministry countless refutations of
Professor Foster’s hurtful volume.
But despite the continued attacks —the pitia
ble mistakes of ultra scholarship and its mis
guided devotees, the conquering Church of
God continues to do business at the same old
stand without having to mark down its goods.
Whoever witnessed the miracle of regenera
tion take place under the teaching and preach
ing of “new thoughtism” and “higher criti
cism”? But men who love the Old Book, be
lieve in it from cover to cover, and preach it
with uncringing fidelity, are witnessing every
day the miracles of the “new birth” in lives
redeemed from sin and ruin.
"Hammer away, ye hostile bands! —
Your hammers break—God’s anvil stands.”
Chadwick Coming.
In another column will be found the an
nouncement of the Tabernacle Bible Confer
ence which convenes in Atlanta March Bth,
lasting ten days.
These conferences have for several years
been marvels in attendance and spiritual in
spiration. The program this year is wonder
fully rich, bringing together some of the
strongest speakers in America or the world.
But Dr. Broughton and the thousands who
will attend the conference are to be congrat
ulated that Chadwick, the great English
preacher, will be present and speak twice each
day. He will be open to a few engagements —
two or three days in each city—after the con
ference, and Dr. Broughton is now weighing
the invitations toward the widest possible
good.
Editorial Heart Throbs.
If your life —your duties are cheerless, put
cheer and sunshine into them.
What if Disappointment, Uncongeniality
and Sorrow do often “sit and sup with you
when you have bidden smiling Joy alone?”
God can take anything, any circumstance, and
bless it to your good—if you will.