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The Golden Age
(SUCCESSOR TO RELIGIOUS EORUN)
Published Ebery Thursday by the Golden fAge Publishing
Company (Inc.)
OEEICES: LOWNDES "BUILDING, "ATLANTA, GA.
Price: $2.00 a Year
WILLIAM D. UPSHfXW, - - - - Editor
A. E. 'RAJTSAU'R, - - - Associate Editor
Entered at the Post Office tn Atlanta, 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.
Sam Small on “Civilization.”
The lecture of Sam W. Small on “Our Christian
Civilization” at the Tabernacle last Sunday after
noon was one of the richest intellectual and moral
treats ever heard in Atlanta.
Everybody who has ever heard Sam Small “turn
loose” on any subject to which he applies his ready
thought and surpassing genius can imagine some
thing of what he would say on the glories and perils
of our American civilization. But his eloquent ut
terances are put into italics now by his recent recla
mation during the Torrey-Alexander meeting’s, de
claring anew his allegiance to Christ and announc
ing that he had come home from his wanderings
and would give the evening of his life to God.
After his lecture Sunday afternoon to a splendid
audience, Dr. Broughton arose and said that he had
become suddenly impressed that the Tabernacle
ought to inaugurate a series of Sunday afternoon
lectures by Mr. Small along the line of “our na
tional sins, and their remedy,” declaring that he
knew of no man in the land with such a fund of in
formation as Sam Small has who can tell what he
knows in such an entertaining way. Should this be
done, great crowds will receive intellectual and
patriotic inspiration with a wholesome flavor con
cerning the duties of Christian citizenship.
One of Mr. Small’s striking sentences Sunday af
ternoon was this: “Your ballot is simply you.
The only reason you don’t get in the box yourself
is because it is too small to hold you. And this
being true, you put a little piece of paper through a
hole in the ballot box,and that paper expresses your
heart and thought and life. And no man has a
moral right to put a. piece of paper in that sacred
ballot box which he is not ready to redeem with his
life before God and man.”
Compulsory Education.
To the thinking people of America the subject of
compulsory education is one that must of necessity
command the most earnest attention as well as the
fullest support. During the early history of the
country it was deemed sufficient to put free edu
cation within the reach of the general public, and
even to-day many individuals insist that the gov
ernment has done its full duty to the people when
it places a good education within the reach of even
the humblest. But the question is, whether the
mere fact of the public school being free to all,
is enough? We do not think it is.
We do believe, however, that there is more de
manded of the government than this; for in many
instances other things enter into the question of
children attending school apart from the expense
of the tuition. There is, first of all, among the very
poor, the question of suitable clothes, then the grave
question of books and school supplies, all of which
enter largely into the general subject. We believe
that if compulsory education is made a law of
the land, it should be a kind law as well as a
wise one, and to make it both wise and kind it
should embrace some system by which children of
The Golden Age for July 19, 1906.
the required age—say seven to fourteen—should,
in cases where necessary, be furnished with some
inexpensive, simple uniform, to be worn at school,
and that the parents be relieved of all expense as
to books, etc. If the law were enacted on this plan
it would seldom be regarded as a tax, and would,
in the vast majority of cases, be welcomed by even
the very poor.
We understand the expense that this system would
entail on the government, but it is supposed that
this is fully appreciated by the committees having
the whole subject in charge, and we believe, further,
that if it were possible to estimate the individual
cost of caring for a single child during the seven
critical years of his life, it would be found eventual
ly, a good investment for a nation. Deep students
of penology have decided that one of the chief
causes of crime is ignorance, and the majority of
criminals of all classes, especially of the class term
ed “regulars,” are, in almost every case, unable
to read or write. Hence, it is safe to assume that
early education would lessen the ranks of the crim
inal and the state be saved the maintainance and
the trial of many who now prove a continual tax
on the finances of the general government as well
as on that of the separate state.
Taking everything into consideration, we cannot
but think that the majority of individuals would be
willing to bear a slight additional taxation if it
were specifically stated that the amount would be
devoted to covering the expenses of a compulsory
education law.
One of the chief difficulties to be overcome by
the passage of such a law would be its inadequacy
to reach children in the outlying mountain districts
of the country, but by a regular system of registra
tion less onerous and less rigid, perhaps, than that
employed by the Revenue Service, even this diffi
culty could be overcome. In some cases it would
entail the forming of new schools in thinly popu
lated districts, but as the school has long been re
garded as a civilizer of the highest order, we can
only more fully endorse any plan which would in
crease their number.
In considering compulsory education we'Jnnst
not overlook the fact that if children were in school
from seven to fourteen years, the question which
is now agitating the country in regard to the em
ployment of child labor in the mills would be satis
factorily disposed of.
Every phase of the subject of the protection of
children appeals to us, and it is needless to say that
broad general question will always have our most
enthusiastic support.
n
County Schools in Danger.
We believe the bill now pending before the Geor
gia Legislature to put the election of County School
Commissioners in the hands of the people would be
a dangerous law.
We know it is popular in these times to cry out
concerning all public offices and officers, “Back to
the People!” And for almost every public trust
we believe that cry is wise and good. But we think
experience has proven that the election of Superior
and Supreme Court judges by the people is a mis
take. Some of the unseemly contests in Georgia
during recent years put so much slime and grime
upon the “judicial ermine” that the judges par
ticipating in them can never again hold the “bal
ances of justice” even in the eyes of the populace
who witnessed the bitter battle of ballots that fol
lowed the scheming and traducing battle of words.
This is placing the intrigues and propositions of
selfish politicians too near the sacred shrine of
Equity, Honor and Impartial Truth.
And the County Superintendent of Schools comes
even closer to the people than the judge on the
bench. He builds school houses and employs teach
ers for the unformed millions who are to be saved,
pray God, from contact with the court house and
the judge; yea, the school superintendent goes into
the very “Holy of Holies,” so far as the love and
maintenance of justice are concerned. Do not tempt
this man to be what is called a “politician.” And
above all, do not tempt what is called a politician
to be that man. If you do scholarship and honor
will not always win, but too often the glib talker,
the magic “hand shaker”—the man who can pat
the other fellow on the back will be the victor and
the dispenser of spoils! And the spoils, alas! will
consist in bartering children’s lives—their expan
sion or their dwarfing, their glory or their shame.
Political debts will be paid locating school houses,
by employing teachers and by other things that
will hold within their compass the help or the hurt
of the children of the future.
Good men sometimes make mistakes, and we
believe the House of Representatives made a mistake
in passing this bill. We hope the Senate will kill
it and thus keep the “serpent’s trail” out of the
Eden of our schools.
Which Is Right?
Josh Billings once said: “The older I get, the
fewer things I am certain uv.” Each year that
passes that statement becomes more applicable to
every one of us. We have long suffered in purse
because lawyers disagreed. We have suffered in
body because doctors of medicine disagreed; but
the limit seems to be approached when our doctors
of divinity differ so radically as to the method of
conversion; the process by which the atoning blood
of the Savior washes the soul clean of sin. Promi
nent ministers have recently indulged in utterances
in their pulpits, some preaching what was termed
“instantaneous conversion,” and others deriding
this idea and maintaining that conversion or regen
eration was gradual; an evolutionary process of
getting better and better, until finally the soul at
tained a state of consecration which would entitle
it to entrance into a state of bliss beyond this life.
The latter class of preachers seek to make the
expression “instantaneous salvation” ridiculous by
likening it to a religious “get-rich-quick scheme,”
and their utterances on the subject seem to derive
their point and warmth from a thirst for controver
sy rather than a zeal for souls. In the conviction that
he possesses a soul and is therefore interested in
finding the right way, this writer has given both
sides of the issue as careful attention as his limita
tions would admit. After due reflection he leans
to the salvation and forgiveness that comes with
out stint and without delay through the vicarious
sacrifice of the cross, whenever perfect faith and per
fect repentance exist. Conversion through evolution, a
series of improvements in right living, smacks too
much of a doctrine of self-help and leaves no room
for faith in and reliance upon an omnipotent sav
ing power and an all forgiving love. There is too
much delay in the gradual plan. Life might not
last long enough. To some, growth in grace would
come rapidly, to others it might never come.
The thing that demands faith in the doctrine of
regeneration and that makes the whole plan of sal
vation from sin believable and beautiful, is the
death on the cross. Through that sacrifice for us
we are entitled to ask for full, free and complete
forgiveness from sin, now, not tomorrow; not grad
ually; not by reason of our strengthened purpose
toward right living; but by reason of the fact that
the price for our utter and complete redemption
was paid on Calvary by the supreme agony of the
Christ.
As we understand it, the death on the cross was
borne for the sake of securing to man the com
plete and instantaneous salvation from sin when he
met the two requirements of repentance and faith.
Otherwise it were unnecessary. If man can depend
upon his inclination to better living, aided by an
evolutionary growth in grace, for his final salvation,
he could reasonably claim to be independent of any
obligations for the sacrifice made for his atone
ment.
It is difficult to understand how any heart can
turn from the majesty and simplicity of the faith
taught in the Bible as it has long been interpreted,
to a plan which makes him his own savior, aided
perhaps by fortuitous circumstances, or such casual
assistance as may be rendered by evolution,