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8 The Golden Age (SUCCESSOR TO RELIGIOUS FORUM) Published Ebery Thursday by the Golden Hge Publishing Company (Inc.) OFFICES: LOWNDES “BUILDING, ATLANTA, GA. Price: $2.00 a Year WILLI a MV. UPSHAW, - - - - Editor A. E. RAMSAUR, - Associate Editor W. F. UPS HA W, - . - - - “Business Manager H. R. BERNARD, - - - Sec’y and Treas Entered at the Post Office in yitlanta, Ga., as second-class matter. To the Public: The advertising columns of The Golden Age will have an editorial conscience. No advertisement will be accepted which we believe would be hurtful to either the person or the purse of our readers. San Francisco. We do not understand it—and we shall not at tempt the sad mystery either to fathom or ex plain. We only know that the man who builds his house upon the sand, either in the physical, moral or spiritual world will see that house fall at last and suffer amid its ruins. ■San Francisco with all her beauty of location and richness of commercial wealth and importance was wicked—very wicked, but there are a thousand com munities in the world perhaps as wicked as she. If men everywhere should thus suffer because of their sins against God, surely the ground would sink be neath us all! Earthquakes have occasionally shock ed the world and swept away men and their habi tations since recorded time began. And whenever they have come they have found two grinding at the mill—the one taken and the other left. They have found some men ready, may be, to meet God and the Judgment and they have found many more swept into eternity while aband oned to sin and hardness of heart. Every such ca lamity then calls with the voice of thunder and the swiftness of the lightning’s flash to “Be ye also ready.” We do not understand the philosophy of storms nor the full meaning of every great disaster, but we do know that God can and does overrule these things for the wholesome awakening of slum bering humanity and the ultimate uplift of this staggering, sinning world. This we do know—San Francisco but yesterday rushing on in the mad chase after worldly goods and gain is today resting under the greatest, dark est pall of sorrow and suffering which any American community has ever known. “Who art thou, 0 man?” . Get thee up and haste with open purse and bended knee to bear thy broth er’s burden! As Spurgeon said, “Where Compensation stops let Faith take hold.” And make thy life that re maineth ready through Christ for the sudden call of shock or flood or flame! The Exploitation of Crime. It. is important to inquire just what effect is had upon the individual mind by the daily list of crimes and suicides reported in the papers. It is inevita ble that in a country the size of ours there should be many crimes; some of them shocking in their na ture, and as they constitute news they are properly a part of the matter to receive attention in the pa pers. But when they are gathered together on one page the daily aggregate is appalling. The fact that each crime which affords a single unique fea ture, or contains anything unusual, is “played up” for all it is worth and more, is where the bad re sults arise. If a woman commits a murder she is invariably described as “pretty” and “fascinat ing.” If the papers can be relied upon, no ugly woman ever suffered arrest. If one jealous- woman kills another, it is nuts for the reporter, lie can easily fill a column with an account of the beauty of the parties. There is a certain class who revel in accounts of this nature, They read them to the The Golden Age for April 26, 1906. last line. If the crime is committed in their own city, they attend the trial; perhaps they send flow ers and dainties to the prisoner. Suicides are played up in the same way. The woman in the case is pretty—the scene of the suicide is described and every detail given to make the matter as realistic as possible. Reading every day we live of suicides; of death self-inflicted by poison, drowning, gas, the pistol—in every con ceivable way, some of the horror and loathsome ness of suicide wears off, and the troubled and life weary begin to dwell more and more upon the thought of ending the struggle in this way. The suggestion is repeated by the daily stories until finally it seems the only thing to do—and tuns arises another story for the morning papers. The exploitation of crime is a distinctly yellow feature of journalism, and in the better class of papers it is rapidly fading out. The people will be better when there is away provided by which they can avoid the long list of crimes each morn ing. Parents and Children —Their Rights. Many people accept as a matter of course the doctrine that they “own” an interest in the prop erty of their parents share and share alike with their brothers and sisters. Many parents, well meaning enough, so regard it, and religiously give equally during life to their several children, and of course at death provide for equal distribution among them. Passing over such obvious eases as that of an infirm or afflicted child, for whom any normal par ent is glad to make special provision,, let us con sider the question in its usual phase. A father has acquired a fair competence. He has two sons. Both have been manly citizens, a credit* to themselves, valuable to their community, an honor to their parents. With one, affairs have gone smoothly. His investments have proved fortunate, he has prospered, and become wealthy. Upon the other has come misfortune. Let it be for lack of the sounder judgment of his brother, or disaster over which he had no control—the case is not al tered. He is poor. What is the duty of the father? The property a man rightfully owns is his own. His children do not own it and have no “rights” in it. Therefore it follows that a considerate parent will exercise a thoughtful discrimination and be stow his estate to the intent that he may comple ment both the natural capacity and fortuitous at tending circumstances of his children. Memorial Day. “These in the robings of glory, Those, in the gloom of defeat; All with the battle-blood gory In the dusk of eternity meet.” The South unites to-day in a chorus of tender memories, and in a paean of purest praise for the Southern dead who fell on the battle-fields of our historic past. All bitterness destroyed, all harrowing recollec tions softened and mellowed by the thought that victor and vanquished alike in the “dusk of eternity meet”—meet without trace or stain of the contest here or of the struggle both made for “the right” as each saw it, for now both know “whose cause was just in God, the Father’s sight.” This Memorial Day is of most special significance because of the annual convention of the United Gon federate Veterans at New Orleans, which is now in session. The people of the entire country regard the surviving veterans of both the North and the South with a special, almost paternally pathetic interest, during reunion celebrations, this interest is accentuated. Therefore, when to-day set apart for formal recognition of those who have “passed onward, armed with valiant trust,” comes at a time when honor is also being meted out to the surviving Southern veterans, the occasion seems to fitly combine paosf; deserved tributes to the living and the dead, u u, ’UJ Dr. Dixon’s Articles. Dr. A. C. Dixon, of Boston is one of the truly great men of our time. Born and educated in North Carolina—a State that has a way of giving celebrities to the world, and coming from a family remarkable for intellect and achieve ment, he has been conspicuous for his fidelity to the Bible and for the unvarying success which has crowned the consecration of his great powers to the cause of God and humanity. Our readers will count themselves fortunate in deed when they learn that Dr. Dixon has agreed to furnish exclusively for this publication a series of articles on “The Origin of Things,” growing out of the book of Genesis. These articles are re freshing in their originality and wonderfully help ful in their interpretation. They constitute the heart of a series of “Noon Addresses” recently delivered by Dr. Dixon at Tremont Temple, Boston, and have never been published. Mr. Carnegie as a Reformer. We are awaiting with much interest the outcome of Mr. Carnegie’s attempt to revise the spelling of the English language. So far as we are personally concerned, if the reform is inaugurated it will be agreeable to us, for, according to the samples we have seen of the new pattern, it is just about what we have been using for years. Even as far back as Chaucer they were accustomed to “spel” in the new way. It is simply getting back to nature. We would not for worlds do Uncle Andy an injus tice, but we have given the matter serious consider ation, and we are forced to the conclusion that he is either a plagiarist or a humorist. He is either been reading Chaucer and is trying to lift some of his spelling bodily, or he is trying to be funny along the lines of Josh Billings and Artemus Ward. It is going to be right expensive to effect this change and to remodel all the dictionaries; but Uncle Andy will do it if it costs up in the hundreds of dollars; and the consummation he most devoutly wishes will have been in part attained. He will be nearer poverty by just the amount expended than he was before. Uncle Andy models his life upon a paraphrase of a late lamented poet's lines, and may be said to— Count that day lost whose low descending sun Views not from his wad another million gone. Get There and Get Back. Times were when the chief requirement of hie was that a man “get there.” Now it is not enough. He must get there and get back with the goods. It is not so much a question of where he goes and how he travels in the line of life’s efforts; the su preme, tlie only question is whether he possesses the results in the end. Once upon a time there were two boys in a cer tain community. One of them had a rich father, the other was poor white trash; The rich son had a fine shot-gun, the first breech-loader of the neigh borhood. He had a good dog, a hunting coat, bought factory loaded shells and had all the parapherna lia the hunting market afforded. He went out ai d hunted as conscientiously as ever anybody did, and his gun sounded far and near, but he never brought back much game. There was always a plausible reason why he failed to get the game, and it never seemed to be his fault. The poor white trash had a single-barrel, “poke stalk” variety of gun, a hound dog, and he kept his powder and shot in bottles with cloth or paper stoppers. hen he went hunting the dyspeptic sounding spat of his little old gun could be heard faintly in the cane-brake now and then. When he returned he was usually covered with fur and feath ers, and had the game with him. Verily the poor white trash had more honor than the other with his costly equipment, because he got back with the goods. M hen in doubt whether to speak or keep silence, choose the latter. If your mind changes, you CUU retract silence, words are different,