Newspaper Page Text
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 'Pear
WILLIHM D. UPSHfAW. - . - - Editor
A. E. RAJIS A UR. - - - Associate Editor
LFl\l G. STOUGHTON - - - Pulpit 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.
Dr. Morgan’s Articles.
Many of the readers of The Golden Age have
been interested by the announcement recently made
that, beginning about the first of January next, we
will publish Dr. Campbell Morgan’s Bible notes
each week, and have written to know just what will
be contained in these articles. We take pleasure in
explaining more fully. Dr. Morgan is said to be
the greatest living expounder and interpreter of the
Bible. He is so considered in his own country, and
as an evidence of that fact a large publishing house
has closed a contract with him whereby he will fur
nish them within the next two years a complete
commentary and interpretation of both the Old and
lhe New Testament. This work will be published in
book form -when completed and will be far beyond
anything heretofore published both in scope and in
quality of subject matter. The serial rights to this
matter have been secured by us, and it will be fur
nished to us direct by Dr. Morgan, personally revis
ed and authorized, and will appear in The Golden
Age before its publication in book form. No other
publication in America will have this matter. It will
be copyrighted and will belong exclusively to us.
To the Bible student this will be the mcst valuable
work in existence, and to the layman it will mean
an opportunity to secure in a clear, direct and il
luminating manner the truths of the Book. We
feel that we cannot too strongly congratulate our
selves and our readers on securing this series of
articles.
A Bloodless Victory.
The people of Valdosta, the “Queen City of the
Wiregrass,” are rejoicing over a bloodless victory
which they have recently achieved over the sa
loons. Briefly told, the history of the crusade is
as follows: On October 31, last, the city saloon
licenses expired. On the last Sunday in October,
before the Council met on Wednesday to consider
the granting of licenses, four of the pastors of Val
dosta preached from their respective pulpits on the
question of closing the saloons for good and all,
and called upon their congregations to join in an
irresistible petition to the Council to refuse new
licenses. The response on the part of the congrega
tions was enthusiastic and practically unanimous.
The people went to work in earnest. Their time,
their strength and their prayers were given to the
cause. A petition was prepared for the white
voter’s and another for the women of the town.
When the Council met on Wednesday, a petition
signed by over four hundred of the best citizens and
one signed by over six hundred women was laid
before them. The meeting was held in the City
Hall, and it was crowded with eager men and wom
en. The petitions were presented and addresses
were made. The Council went into executive ses
sion at once and decided to give the saloon men four
months to close out their business. There was no
concerted action of any kind on the part of the
whiskey men. So it has come to pass that with
the end of February, 1907, will come the end of
the licensed liquor traffic in that beautiful city.
No mere words can describe the joy and thankful
ness felt by the good people over what has been
The Golden Age for November 15, 1906.
accomplished. Rev. L. R. Christie, pastor of the
First Baptist Church, says: “The truth is, this is
the strongest prohibition town today in Georgia.
We know what the saloon is. It is no theory. We
have watched it ruin our boys, curse our men, break
the hearts of our women, fill the courts with crimi
nals, demoralize labor and impoverish the people.
We are ashamed of it. The decent men and women
of this town make their apology to the State for
having so long tolerated this business and social
scandal in our city.”
The people of A aldosta have accomplished much.
The good results of their concerted efforts will be
for time and for eternity. The blessing they have
secured will extend through the coming years and
its uttermost reaches can never be fully reckoned.
But more than this: If the people of the State
and of our country will profit by their example,
will hear the moral which should be taught by their
consecrated efforts, they will have wrought more
than they dreamed. No .election, no long, bitter,
cruel fight was waged for prohibition. The people
simply worked and prayed with one mind and one
purpose and made such an impression upon their
Council that the saloons were doomed. The first
day of March will be a day of thanksgiving in Val
dosta. Other cities should institute such a Thanks
giving Day in their own history.
Dr. Bernard’s Book.
“The Work Once Delivered to the Saints” is
the title of a book by Dr. H. R. Bernard, just pub
lished. The general purpose of the book is a dis
cussion of the work of the Baptist denomination
and of the methods employed by individual church
es to carry out their enterprises with reference
to their local duties and their obligations to the
field at large. Dr. Bernard is at present connect
ed with the educational work of the denomination
at Mercer University. His long and inva’uable ser
vice to the denominafon as a minister and as a fac
tor in the advancement of Baptist educational in
stitutions is well known to all: and his business ex
perience fits him peculiarly to speak with authority
upon the subject he has chosen. He states the
problem before the denomination to be the working
out and perfecting of a system whereby the auto
nomy of the individual church can be entirely pre
served and that will at the same time secure that
concert of action in organized effort that will
achieve success through being based upon a co-op
erative spirit and a rigid adherence to the agree
ments entered upon the records. Various phases of
the work of the church are discussed; notably,
“The Martyr and Reformer ; v “The College,” and
“Bookkeeping as a Part of the Work.” A solution
of various difficulties is suggested, and the whole
argument is conducted in a broad, sensible and at
tractive vein. It is not a dry book and it is not
dull. The author’s meaning can be misunderstood
in some instances, and his anecdotes may, perhaps,
be misinterpreted; but one who knows the author
and his service to the Cause, and who reads with
a desire to benefit by what is helpful, even though
it necessitates an abandonment of some old forms
and usages, cannot be otherwise than largely in
structed and agreeably entertained. The book, tak
en in this spirit, will accomplish good.
The Countess of Castellane.
The papers of two continents have for some time
been publishing daily accounts of the troubles the
Countess of Castellane is having with her husband.
It seems that the Count has proven a rather ex
pensive possession. He cost a pretty sum to begin
with, and has been spending over two millions of
his wife’s money annually since. His extravagance
and worse still, his unfaithfulness and his bru
tality, have grown too great for endurance, and the
Countess is trying to secure a divorce. The Count
and his creditors are unanimously opposed to this
divorce proposition. Divorce means a cutting down
of the gorgeous allowance that has been the Count’s
since his marriage. Os course it would never do
to turn the Count out with nothing, as the cele
brated Bill Bailey was treated; he will be pen
sioned: that is, he will receive a mere bagatelle,
something like a hundred thousand dollars per an
num; but what is that paltry and contemptible sum
of money to a member of the Frencn nobility?
From the revelations brought about by the hearing
in the divorce suit, the Count must be the limit.
He is more—he is the limit and then a few. He
lacks in the attributes of common decency and grat
itude much that is possessed by the average Amer
ican hog. We have our limitations and can’t say
just what we think of Count Boni Castellane.
Neither have we . inclination to add a sympathetic
wail to the chorus that is going up in behalf of
Anna. We wish she could have had a good time:
it is a shame that she has spent so much and had
such poor returns, but further than this we do not
go. She must have known what she was buying
when she bought Boni. The fact that he had to be
bought was in itself enough to forewarn her as to
what she might expect. The sad feature is not so
much that the Countess of Castellane is having hard
luck and is forced to appeal to the divorce court;
it is that our modern social system is such that
many of our women regard social prestige, at what
ever cost it has to be purchased, as preferable to
the establishment of a home, the rearing of a fam
ily and the expenditure of their inherited wealth
in away to benefit and bless mankind.
And it cannot be otherwise than humiliating to
every American to reflect upon the regard in which
our women are held by the titled degenerates of
foreign countries. They can sell their mortgaged
coronets above par at any time; and to give their
patron saint his due, it is small wonder that they
/treat with scorn the wife who is thrown in as
lagniappe.
The Orphan’s Home.
The Georgia Baptist Convention meets at Car
tersville, Georgia, on November 20. It is
urged by some members of the denomination that
the securing of funds for the Baptist Orphans’
Home at Hapeville, be given especial attention and
that an extra effort be made to secure in cash or
in pledges an amount sufficient to pay all the in
debtedness which is now on the institution. It is
eminently fitting that this be done. It is not ex
pected that Methodists, Presbyterians and other
denominations will contribute largely to this cause.
It is distinctly a Baptist work and depends upon
Baptist giving for its maintenance. It is to be
feared that the average Baptist does not fully
realize just what work is being done by his Or
phans’ Home. If every member of this denomina
tion could visit one time the Home and see the
children who are being cared for there, who are
fed, clothed, carefully reared in Christian environ
ment—and could see the opportunity for bringing
more cheer and light into those young lives, the
difficulties of the Home would be removed. It
needs but to stop and think—and no heart can be
unmoved by the contemplation of helpless, unpro
tected childhood placed in the world absolutely alone
Fortune and fate work queer changes in this world.
No father or mother, however prosperous they may
be now, can be sure but that within a year their
worldly possessions will be swept away, and their
children left without a protector or a home. Your
little boy, your little girl, alone in the world!
Does it net fill up all the depth and fullness of
pathos? Think of what a life must be without a
happy childhood to look back upon. The dearest
treasures of the heart are the memories of the old
home, the parents, the loving care and peace of
childhood. Without this, without loving hands to
direct aright your budding life and character, what
might you not be now? To assist in giving a home
10 one lit tle child is one way of making your life
worth something to another life. A little gift means
much to these helpless ones. Some are not moved
to supporting foreign missions; reasons are adduced
why home missions are not worthy objects of contrib
ution ; but how is that heart fortified that does not
warm to the needs of innocent children who have no
one to care for them?. To bring a smile to the
face of a child; to make him feel that there is love
for him in the world; to guide a life aright in its
beginning—is there a sweeter, grander opportunity
in life?