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The Golden Age
(SUCCESSOR TO RELIGIOUS FORUH)
Published Ebery Thursday by the Golden Hge Publishing
Company (Inc.)
OFFICES: LOWNDES BUILDING, ATLANTA, GA.
Price: $2.00 a 'Pear
WILLIAM D. UPSHAW, .... Editor
A. E. RAMS A UR, - - - 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.
Your Wondrous Touch.
, By W. D. UPSHAW.
You touched my hand one glad, sweet morn—
-0 friend so brave and true!
And all day long I felt new strength
Whene’er I thought of you.
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You touched my HEART with the word you said—
-0 friend, 0 brother mine,
And the day was bright and my hope was high
From that wondrous touch of thine!
You touched my SOUL—my living self—
Because you lived and wrought,
And a subtle fragrance like breath of God
’Gainst sin’s miasma fought!
You touched my LIFE, my love, my all—
And I sought the earth and sky
With a Vision calling me to WORK,
To do and dare and die!
Sunset At Morning.
Just as we go to press the sad announcement
comes that Mrs. Lois James Christian, of Douglas
ville, has entered into rest, after a brief but painful
illness.
She was the beautiful young wife of Mr. J.
Homer Christian, a kinsman of the Editor, and
every member of our force, both clerical and edito
rial, experiences a deep sense of personal loss in
the death of this lovely young woman. The sun
of her fair and promising life sets at seven o’clock
in the morning of life’s bright day, and her wide
and widening circle of friends cherish the light
and the fragrance that touched our hearts with
cheer and blessing.
The Georgia “Tech.”
The Georgia School of Technology has opened
with a record attendance—sso young men having
matriculated, while many others are shut out for
lack of room.
President K. G. Matheson is out in a card calling
on the people of Georgia to rise up and meet the
expanding needs of “The Tech.”
Everybody knows that there is no better tech
nological plant of instruction in the South than the
“Georgia Tech,” as it is affectionately called.
The magnificent growth of the institution is evi
dence of its vigorous and commanding worth.
But after all, we must be allowed to say that the
greatest thing at the Georgia School of Technology
is its stalwart Christian President. A sturdy
Scotchman, a typical American, a radiant Puritan
and a kingly cavalier, K. G. Matheson is more than
all these—he is a devout Christian, and his daily
life, rugged with vigor and mellow with beauty,
preaches with winning eloquence to every student
whose life he touches.
Long life and larger usefulness to President
Matheson and the “Georgia Tech”!
The Golden Age for October 18, 1906.
SAM JONES IS NOT DEAD.
“A splendor from the earth hath fled—
A glory from the skies!”
To speak of Sam Jones dead! What a sorrow!
This paraphrase of Henry Grady’s words when
he wrote of Ben Hill’s death has kept ringing with
unspeakable sadness in my heart all during the
day since the startling announcement of the un
timely death of America’s greatest and best be
loved evangelist.
Only a. few minutes before the “extra” told of
his death I had received a letter for this week’s
issue of The Golden Age from his gifted young
co-worker, Walter Holcomb. In that letter he used
these words: “Rev. Sam P. Jones has had the
very best health and been in the best spirits during
the meeting in Oklahoma City. He has never
preached with more vim and power. Perhaps the
crowning service was his ‘Stag Party.’ Five thou
sand men were present. He preached on ‘Escape
for thy Life.’ Fully two thousand men came for
ward and gave Brother Jones their hand promising
God a better life.”
Having just read these lines on my desk, you can
hardly imagine how my very soul was transfixed
by the news that this wonderful man of God had
w I
B K
so suddenly stepped from the summit of his mar
velous career in the service of God and men to
“the home of the soul,” toward which he had
pointed so many thousands. This shock came on
my birthday, October 15, and tinged with sorrow
the beautiful greetings that were coming to me on
every side.
I feel a deep personal bereavement in the death
of Sam Jones. No man who knew him and loved
him should be ashamed of tears in such an hour.
I had the privilege of taking supper in his home
in Cartersville on the last night of his recent meet
ing there. He presented me to the vast audience
that night with the tenderness of a father and a
brother in one. And the last time that I ever heard
his voice was over the long distance ’phone making
an engagement to call at my office—an engagement
which a rain-storm prevented his keeping.
For twenty-five years Sam Jones has been speak
ing the same rugged truths in the same quaint and
inimitable way—and still the thousands thronged
to hear him to the last.
The world granted to him a license for
repetition in plain speaking which no other man
of this generation ever had. There is but one ex
planation. With all his marvelous versatility, men
everywhere knew that deep down in his heart Sam
Jones loved God and humanity, He stood as a
miracle of regeneration. He had been in the
depths. On the last Sunday he spoke in Carters
ville, in arraigning the liquor-traffic, he told how
the devil had used it to beat him against the very
bars of hell, and ever since he had been redeemed
he had known how to hate the devil and love the
souls of men. Everybody who knew this “Georgia
wonder,” linked to God will agree with Hon. R. E.
Park, who said to me with sadness: “Sam Jones’
death is a calamity to the Christian world.”
Verily, the thousands who mourn him are walk
ing in the splendor of the light he left behind!
Sam Jones was one of the friends and promoters
of The Golden Age. I shall never forget my in
terview with him when I laid before him the plan
to establish in the South a beautiful, inspiring pa
per to build homes and make citizenship. His
piercing black eyes twinkled merrily and he said:
“Put dynamite in her, and she’ll go, Bud—l want
stock in a paper like that.”
And on the Sunday before the paper was launch
ed, in speaking for the Anti-Saloon League at the
Bijou Theatre in Atlanta he read what he called
his “pronunciamento” concerning the paper to the
great audience, announcing his purpose to support
it with pen and tongue. His almost constant trav
el had unavoidably interfered with his plans, how
ever, and negotiations were in contemplation where
by we hoped to have him a regular contributor.
But in this disappointment of Divine appointment
I shall always feel the encouraging clasp of “a
vanished hand and the sound of a voice that is
still.”
And I shall be braver to do and dare whenever,
in fragrant memory, I drink the tonic of his in
spiring fellowship. And thus he blessed and in
spired thousands upon thousands! Thus he will
live in human hearts.
And because of this—Sam Jones is NOT dead!
He has been so much alive, we can never think
of him as dead. I heard him presented to an au
dience at Oak Bowery, near the spot of his birth
in Chambers county, Alabama, and in the course
of that speech of introduction the local Methodist
preacher said: “Brother Jones, there is a woman
who says she heard you make your first speech.
You were a little fellow in school, and when your
time came they had to wake you up, and the world
thinks you have been awake ever since!”
After all, it is the life that is alive here that
remains alive forevermore. It is the life alive to
the things of God—alive to the needs of human
ity as Sam Jones was that awakens others from the
sleep that knows no sleeping!
Like his own beloved brother, Joe Jones, who
died suddenly in the arms of his brother Sam, this
wonderful and beloved man of God was called sud
denly without warning. If he must die away from
home, thank God that in the arms of those who
loved him he went to the arms of his Redeemer.
For the comfort of the wife of his bosom and his
stricken children and grandchildren, millions of
hearts whom he has helped upward will lift their
prayers to Heaven.
Would God his sons might catch his fallen man
tle—for the world needs another like him!
God grant that the life of Sam P. Jones as an
illustration of redeeming grace with mighty tal
ents dedicated to Christ and His cause, may call to
the multitudes who knew and honored him to love
Christian manhood and bravery as never before!
'”-1 his death? His sudden death in the radiant
afterglow of one of the most wonderful hours of
preaching power that ever crowned his wonderful
life!—But Sam Jones is NOT dead!
Sunday night he wrought—he fought against sin
like a gladiator transformed into an Angel of
Light—and Monday morning the bright dawn over
the western plains kissed him into rest!
And Sam P. Jones, the friend of God and the
friend of man, lives in the beautiful triumph of
dual glory—ma earth, and with God!
William D. Upshaw,