Newspaper Page Text
“I Am
The Way,
The 7 ruth, ana
The Life."
Origin of Things as Revealed in Genesis.
By DR. A. C. DIXON.
VI. CIVILIZATION.
Primitive civilization was founded on purity.
The first two pages of Genesis have not a trace of
sin in them. And with this purity there was beauty.
We have the picture of a garden, which carries with
it the idea of blooming flowers and landscapes of
beauty. The instinct that cultivates flowers, that
would put the pot in the window and watch the
geranium grow, is one of civilization. It delights
in the beautiful as God made it. Some value beauty
in dollars and cents, and whatever has not a cem
mercial value they think of little worth. But the
higher type of civilization is that which values
beauty for its own sake, and looks through the beau
tiful back to God who delights to charm His people
with the beautiful in nature.
With purity and beauty there is a civilization of
industry. Adam is put in the garden and command
ed to till it. He is to cultivate the soil, and, as Dr.
Parker very strikingly says, “You can trace back
any form of civilization from that day to this to
the man on the soil.” Take the man from the soil
and you will have no factories. Work means civili
zation, and civilization means work and the love of
work. The motive that should prompt us to con
tend for eight hours of toil is not that we may have
the other hours for lounging, loitering, and idleness,
but for employment along other lines that will be
helpful to others.
With purity, beauty, and industry we find a civili
zation of law. Physical laws are, of course, at
work, but there is also a law of permission and pro
hibition. “Thou mayest eat of every tree of the
garden,” except one. “Thou shalt not.” Permit
ted and forbidden.
This civilization based on law is linked with a
civilization based on love. In the second chapter of
Genesis there is a picture of mutual ministry.
Wherever the Bible has not carried its blessings,
you will find woman a chattel and a slave. But
turn to this first civilization that God Himself
founded, and you will hear Him say, “A man shall
leave his father and mother, and shall cleave unto
his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” Woman is
given the preeminence. It is not woman leaving
the mother and father and cleaving to the husband,
but it is the man leaving the mother and father and
(cleaving to his wife. In no period of the world’s
history has woman reached a higher plane of civili
zation than you will find in the primitive civiliza
tion of Eden.
With the purity, beauty, law, and mutual ministry
we find religion. When a child is born the mother
says, “I have received a man from the Lord.” And
when one of their children brings an offering of
blood and lays it upon the altar, God recognizes it.
There is in the family a self-sufficient, Pharisaical
son, and, as we study his career, we note the crumb
ling of civilization. It is destroyed by a revolt
against authority. God had said, “Thou mayest,”
and “Thou shalt not.” The Devil insinuates that
God is not supreme after all, and that He is selfish
m His command, for He knows that the moment yon
eat you will be as gods, knowing good and evil, in
timating that the command was not for the benefit
-.
The Golden Age for July 5, 1906.
of His subjects. The result is a revolt against love
as well as authority.
Then follows self-indulgence. These three thi \gs
have caused the wreck of many a civilization revolt
against authority; revolt against the beneficence of
those who govern; and self-indulgence. Note the
words: “The tree is good to eat; the tree is pleasant
to look at; the tree is good to make one wise.” As
already noted, we have here an appeal to the intel
lectual. The tree is good to eat—an appeal to the
appetite. The tree is beautiful to behold—an appeal
to the love of the beautiful. The tree will make one
wise—an appeal to the intellectual. Men are often
dragged down through these things.
There comes next a self-centered and self-asser
tive individualism: that seen in Cain, the individual
ist, as he replies, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
The individual has declared himself independent
not only of God but now independent of man, and
the one follows the other. When a man revolts
against the authority of God, he is almost certain to
revolt, sooner or later, against the authority of
state, and when he revolts against the authority of
■the state, he revolts against the authority of all
forces that should restrain him. Cain asserted his
independence of his brother just because he had as
serted his independence of God.
Following the course of events we find a federa
tion of selfishness. There are two lines, the line of
Cain and the line of Seth. The line of Seth was the
line of loyalty and worship, and these two lines
came together. “The sons of God saw the daugh
ters of men that they were fair; and they took
them wives of all which they chose.” They mar
ried. Thus the church and the world got together,
and as a result the world became so wicked that God
had to destroy it with a flood and start anew. That
is what God is constantly doing. Civilization be
comes so rotten that He has to destroy it and start
anew. He sent the flood, and having saved out of
the church one family, He began a new civilization
with the home and the altar.
Now comes an attempt at federation the second
time. They come to the Plain of Shinar. Here is
a magnificent opportunity. With their large in
crease of wealth they propose to make a name, and
they go to building a civilization with God left out
again. What took place before the flood is paral
leled after the flood. We find along the line of
Cain a godless culture, Enoch, the son of Cain,
builds a city; the grandson of Cain is a musician;
another grandson of Cain is an artificer in brass and
iron; another grandson of Cain is giving his atten
tion to the raising of cattle, and we find a system of
civilization made up of the city with its architec
ture, music, and fine arts, but with no altar; with
out any recognition of God. You scarcely enter
that civilization until you find the first case of poly
gamy. Lamech, the descendant of Cain, takes two
wives and goes crazy as a result. Read what La
mech says and you will say that Dr. Parker is right,
the old man is out of his head; he is stark crazy as
the result of disobeying God in taking more than
one wife. There is a derangement in the moral or
der, for God has been left out. Woman has been
degraded. The command that God gave concerning
woman has been disobeyed, and she begins to be the
plaything, the chattel, the slave of her master.
Along this line there develops a godless culture, the
civilization of city building and fine arts, without
prayer, praise, or church.
Then follows a great national sin. The Babel
builders founded a civilization centered in self with
God left out. They had no thought of building a
tower that reached to Heaven in the sense that they
could go into Heaven; what they did intend was to
build a city and a tower by which they could make
a name, and by which they could be kept together
in national unity, and thus become powerful. But
God was left out. And when you leave God out, He
Comes in. If you don’t let Him in by prayer, He
will come in by providence. He will reign over you,
if you will not let Him reign in you. Then God
scatters them, and the lesson for us is that selfish
federation is the destruction of civilization. If men
will federate as capitalists; if labeling men \Gn
unite with the purpose of helping their fellows, they
will be a blessing; but if men federate with a view
to simply helping themselves and leave God out,
they wil just make a rope with which to hang them
selves; they are manufacturing the electric chair for
their own execution. Federation based on a self
ish purpose is the death of any civilization. Ye
leaders of organizations, see to it that the federation
shall not be simply for your own glory, but for the
glory of God and the uplifting of humanity. That
soit of federation will perpetuate civilization, while
selfish federation is certain to destroy it.
A word in conclusion concerning the restoration
of civilization. Purity, beauty, industry, law, love,
religion, everything that makes the perfect state
shall be restored. It is to be done through the res
toration of the individual. In the book of Revela
tion we find this civilization restored. The cities of
Cain with God left out are no more. Heaven itself
is a redeemed municipality, a city with streets and
order arid government, the river of crystal and the
tree of life.
National Baraca Convention Meets in
Atlanta 1907.
“Young Men at Work for Young Men; All Stand
ing by the Bible and the Bible School,” is the ral
lying cry of hundreds of thousands of young men
in every part of America. It is the motto of the
Baracas and is at once a call to service and a pledge
of loyalty to the Sunday school and to the Book.
Next year these enthusiastic young men and their
leaders will meet in annual convention in Atlanta.
Special rates will prevail on all the railroads and
delegates from every part of the United States will
be present. The most popular Sunday school work
ers obtainable will be on the programme.
The young ladies’ organization—the Philatheas—
meets with the Baracas. Nearly five hundred class
es of Philatheas have been organized.
The Atlanta Baraca Union will hold its next quar
terly meeting at the Ponce de Leon Avenue Baptist
Church, Tuesday night, July 17, to discuss plans
for entertaining the convention. The following are
the officers of the city union: A. B. Caldwell, pres
ident; W. H. Fitzpatrick, corresponding secretary;
L. F. Camp, vice president; Lindsay Flurry, record
ing secretary. Any of these young men will be glad
to give information about the work or assist in the
organization of new classes,
‘‘''The Entrance
of
Thy Words
Gi-veth Eight."
■ M
3