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The Golden Age
(SUCCESSOR TO RELIGIOUS TORUN)
Published Ebery Thursday by the Golden Zlge Publishing
Company (Inc.)
OFFICES: LOWNDES “BUILDING, ATLANTA. GA.
Price: $2.00 a 'Pear
WILLIfXM D. UPSHfAW. - - - - Editor
A. E. RAMS Am. - - - Managing Editor
LEH G. RROUGHTON - - - 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.
Our First Christmas.
December 25, 1906, will be the first Christmas
that we have ever spent together as a family—
we mean THE FAMILY OF THE GOLDEN AGE.
And this, therefore, is the first opportunity we
have ever had to -wish each other the best that
the Christmas tide can bring. Not quite a year
we have thus been friends, but in this brief period
we have known a friendship which, we are glad to
believe, has been helpful and inspiring to us both
—the Editors of The Golden Age on the one hand
and our generous, growing family on the other.
Because of what you have meant to us in the fel
lowship of opportunity and service; because of
what you mean now in inspiration toward high
endeavor and because of what you will yet mean
in active friendship for the paper and its great
mission in the world we feel like taking each one
of you by the hand, whether around the fireside,
in the study, on the platform or in the school
room, and wishing here and now: A Christmas
stocking full of childhood’s dreams, of manhood’s
joys, of womanhood’s loves and humanity’s hopes
—all, all that can come to the human heart from
the personal reign of the Christ of Bethlehem.
Send a Christmas Token.
There is not a more beautiful charity within
our knowledge than the Georgia Industrial Home
—popularly known as Mumford’s Home—at Ma
con, Ga. We are glad to dedicate a good portion
of our space this week to this great work. Ever
since the lamented father-founder was called home
to God. the condition of these children who are
worse than orphans has appealed with peculiar
tenderness to the friends of the home. John R.
Gunn, the faithful and enterprising young mana
ger, has launched a movement calling for a hun
dred thousand friends who will give a dollar each
on Christmas day. This money could be promptly
and profitably spent for necessary enlargements,
endowment and equipment in order to open the
door to countless children who are now lifting their
pleading bands for help. They are a class taken
by no other orphanage. They are not only being
saved from criminal lives, but are being transform
ed by God’s grace and practical methods into use
ful Christian men and women. The moment you
lay down this paper, join the army by sending a
Christmas gift of at least one dollar to the heroic
manager. The reflex joy in your own heart will
be ample reward for this Christmas investment.
Mr. Rockefeller’s Sorrow.
The heart of humanity has been deeply touched
by the press announcements of Mr. John D. Rocke
feller’s recent sorrow.
Down at the wharf in New York the stricken
father wept in great grief as he welcomed home
from France all that was mortal of his daughter,
Mrs. Strong, who had been a sufferer for years.
Marrying the splendid son of Dr. A. H. Strong,
The Golden Age for December 20, 1906.
the great President of Rochester Theological Semi
nary, Mrs. Strong had lived, we are told, an un
ostentatious Christian life, and those who sorrow
do not mourn “as those without hope.”
Mr. Rockefeller has had other bereavements in
his family of late and knowing something of his
simple home life and his great love for his chil
dren we are prepared to give him and those who
sorrow with him our cordial, tender sympathy.
Mr. Rockefeller has blessed so many institutions,
North and South, with his helpful and sometimes
saving benevolence, it is only natural that the
friends of these institutions should form a wide
and widening circle of unseen friends who go down
with him in the valley as he “passes under the
rod.”
Life’s evening is far spent with the great phil
anthropist. God grant to make it beautiful with
lifted shadows and rifted clouds—with sorrow and
service kissed by the touch Divine.
Three Notable Recruits.
Men who make citizens save systems, and when
ever a stalwart, consecrated maker of citizenship
for two kingdoms comes into a community, he de
serves a welcome that will encourage him in his
business. Among the notable preachers sent to
Atlanta by the recent session of the North Geor
gia Conference are Rev. John Stewart French, pas
tor of the First Methodist Church, and Rev. S.
R. Belk, of Augusta, at St. Mark’s. Mr. French
comes from Tennessee, leaving a magnificent record
behind him and bringing with him a personality
and a purpose that have won the present and
promise great things for the future. Young, mag
netic and spiritual, he has in him the power of
sacred leadership for the multitudes to whom he is
speaking. And Belk—we don’t propose to call
him either “Rev.” or “Doctor.” To those who
know’ and love him best he is just “Sam Belk.”
We don’t mean a bit of harm by it, but Belk is
just what a stylish, complacent Peachtree congre
gation needs. He has just that quality of com
mon sense that will smash conventionalities to
hear them rattle, and he is blessed with just such
a case of “old time religion” as will make him
feed the souls that hunger for God in the palace
as surely as they do in the tenement.
Keep your eye on Peachtree Methodism.
And there is another strong man for Atlanta
bound—Dr. John D. Jordan, of Savannah. He
comes from the First Baptist Church in that his
toric city to that young and vigorous democracy
doing business for God and humanity out on Jack
son Hill. With a warm heart, a “red head,” a
fearless soul and a voice that rings like a silver
bell, John D. Jordan will make the devil learn all
over Atlanta that “Jordan is a hard road to
travel.”
We welcome these three men and all others like
them as fellow helpers to the Truth—preaching
the everlasting gospel, driving saloons from the
Gate City of the South, and making citizenship
for the kingdom of God—on earth and in Heaven.
Get Together and—Stay !
Hon. Will J. Neel, of Cartersville, is one of the
sanest red-hot fighters of the saloon in all the land.
On the platform and in the editorial chair he
fought these gateways to death and hell out of
Rome, choosing between thirteen barrooms on one
hand and a dispensary on the other. When con
gratulated by the writer on his victory, he replied:
“I decided I would rather have one barroom than
thirteen. And now if the dispensary don’t behave
itself I will jump on it and help beat it to death.”
But whoever heard.of a well-behaved whiskey den?
And we heard W. J. Neel the other day electri
fy the Georgia Baptist Convention with a three
minute speech, telling how he was longing to go
back to Rome and help wipe out the dispensary
curse from his old home.
This same wise, eloquent little man, who is pres
ident of the Anti-Saloon League in'Bartow county,
will be a natural leader of the anti-saloon forces
in the next Georgia Legislature. We have just
received a. strong personal letter from him com
menting’ on the disposition of some of the prohibi
tion forces to divide as to “ways and means.”
In this letter he says: “The devil and all bis imps
will snicker and cavort in hellish glee if they can
only get good men who are leaders to bucking’
against each other.” Homely phrase, but oh. how
strong and true! And to prevent that division
the following resolutions were offered by Rev. J.
L. I). Hi 11 yer and W. I). Upshaw last week at an
open meeting of the Atlanta Anti-Saloon League,
held at the Young Men’s Christian Association
gospel hall, and unanimously adopted:
“Whereas, the spontaneous movement for prohi
bition which sprang up from the late riot in At
lanta was the moving incentive which prompted
the Anti-Saloon League to undertake this cam
paign, and
“Whereas, the movement for state prohibition
received its initial impulse from the Atlanta move
ment ; and
“Whereas, the position of Atlanta and Fulton
county will exert a most powerful influence on the
destiny of any prohibition movement that may
come before the legislature; and
“Whereas, it is of immeasurable importance that
the prohibition strength of Fulton county should
find an adequate expression before the legislature;
therefore be it resolved,
“1. That we most earnestly entreat every prohi
bitionist in Fulton county to sign the petition for
an election to the end that all concerned may see
the strength of the prohibition sentiment.
“2. That we do most earnestly entreat those
brethren and excellent citizens who may not ap
prove of a prohibition election to nevertheless with
draw their opposition in order that the friends of
prohibition may be able to put the county in the
best possible condition for aiding in the coming
fight in the legislature.
“3. That we push with all our might the pend
ing campaign for an election in Fulton county,
that we at least may be delivered from the liquor
traffic, whether it be driven from the state or not.
“4. That we believe the best interest of the
cause of state prohibition will be secured by a
vigorous fight in Fulton county, whether we win or
lose. If we win, of course, we will be able to
carry to the legislature the prestige of victory.
If we lose, after a faithful struggle, we will have
demonstrated our helplessness so completely that
the state will be won over to our help.”
Unhappy France.
The Gallic heart, so long an explosive mine of
individual unrest—and at once the cause and prey
of national disturbance—is passing through anoth
er “reign of terror.”
Napoleon ought not to have allowed it. It was
right for him to restore and enjoin the privilege
and duty of worship in the church everywhere, hut
he should not have given that governmental pat
ronage to religion which again wedded the church
and the state, and made possible all the abuses that
have reigned from Louis and Richelieu until now
—propagating infidelity, “fathering” the French
Revolution, and opening the way to the long lines
of spiritual decay and moral degeneracy whi»h
have characterized the world’s great center of
frenzied fashion and folly.
Bishop Benjamin Keiley, of the Roman Catholic
Church in Georgia, declares: “It simply means
the forcible taking of property consecrated to
-God’s service,” and says it is a war of infidelity
on the Catholic Church as the exponent of Chris
tianity.
Thomas E. Watson, historian and commoner, de
clares: “The government of France is today seek
ing to do no more than our forefathers did sep-
arate church and state.”
M hen the battle is over and the smoke has clear
ed away, let the world know again the lesson it
has been so slow to learn—-that the Lord of Heaven
and earth spoke an eternal truth when He said:
“Render unto Caesar the things that are Cae
sar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.”