Newspaper Page Text
Our Own Work.
What I have been saying about the Moody church
and the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, I want
to crystalize in the forming of new hopes and
aspirations and determinations for our work in At
lanta. Now, brethren, considering the age, con
sidering the money, and considering other circum
stances which I need not mention, the Moody Bible
Institute in Chicago and the Moody Bible church
does not exceed the work here at all. You must
remember that they are an old, established insti
tution. You must remember they were headed by
Mr. Moody. Mr. Moody had his rich friends from
one side of this country to the other. They poured
their money into his hands, and never asked a
question of how it was spent. He never had to
spend one minute of his time trying to satisfy, or
make easy, anybody. He had the money given him,
and he had the grace and the genius to spend it
wisely. God gave him great wisdom, but, you
know, as I thought of all that, I said to myself:
“ Moody had his great rich friends, but Moody
didn’t have any more corner on God than we have.
God has all the money after all.” Oh, if I could
make you see it, as I feel it, that God only wants
of this people that they shall be faithful with the
little talent that we have, to demonstrate through
us greater things than he has through Chicago.
My brethren and sisters, what I want this first
Sunday in the year, if I can say what I want, if
my heart isn’t too full for me to say what I want,
is this: Appreciating the great opportunity that
we have along all the lines of our church endeavor
and our institutional operations, oh, if I could have
it, I would have every member of this church keyed
to a higher sense of appreciation of what we have
as a gift of God. I would have every one of this
church to feel it. lam glad for all outside people,
I say, but I am beginning to long for the feeling
of the fact of the church itself. I want you to
know what is going on. I want you to see what
is going on.
Then, if I had my way, I would have a larger
personal representation on the part of the church
in all that is going on. If I had my way about you
people I would do this with you: I would have you
in, and underneath, and on top of everything that
the tabernacle undertakes to do. You can not at
tend every lecture. You can not all be nurses in
the infirmary. You can not all live at our young
ladies’ dormitory. You can not all come to the
lecture course. You can not all be a part of every
thing we have. You cannot all be officers and on
the working staff, but you can be a part of it.
You can feel the throb of it. You can be gripped
with the existence of it. You can have a word of
comfort and cheer for those who are in it. You
can let them feel that you are back of them.
And then I tell you another thing I would like
to have: More consecration of money. The thing
wherein we differ from other churches of like char
acter is in this respect. We are young’, our people
for the most part are young. We are yet to be
trained actually to know what it means to give
to God. One reason why you don’t give any more
money is because you don’t know what is going
on, and you are not in love with it as you ought
to be. A certain working girl, who had been giv
ing a certain amount during the past year, said:
“I want to double my contribution. I don’t feel
I am giving enough, and if every girl getting the
same salary that I am getting, and who is just
as able as I am, would do the same, do you know
how much it would mean? I am going to make a
calculation and tell you.”
Other churches no wealthier than ours give a
great deal more than we do. We need more finan
cial co-operation in order that we may enlarge this
business. I don’t know whether I am going to live
to see my plans materialize. I have been praying
so hard about our building. I don’t know whether
I shall see it erected or not, but if I don’t, I am
going to my grave the most disappointed man that
ever lived, and that great enterprise is only a
probability in proportion to the way that this
church gets back of it, not with great big money,
but back of it in heart, back of it in thought, back
pf it in enthusiasm, back of it in prayer. God
The Golden Age for January 17, 1907.
What We Think of Wbat We See
This is a time of doubt and questioning along
many lines of religious thinking. There are all
kinds of doubts and all kinds of doubters. Con
sistent doubters there are, perhaps, but the most
of them belong to the class referred to by an old
friend: “There iz lots ov people in this world
who say they hain’t got enny faith in a heaven or
a hell, and yet they hav got faith enuff to invest
their last dollar in a lottery ticket or a bottle of
quack medisin.”
The President has issued an appeal for aid from
this country for the 15,000,000 of starving Chinese.
The response from the American people has not
been as generous as might have been expected.
The Chicago Tribune, in commenting on the situ
ation, says that this lack of prompt response may
be explained by the magnitude of the figures repre
senting the need. The relief of a famine stricken
mass of fifteen millions of people seems almost
hopeless. But the explanation is made that “one
dollar will go as far to support life in China as ten
dollars here” and urges, “Give yourself the luxury
of saving a life.”
It does seem that we mention Mr. Rockefeller
(Jno.) a great deal, but we really haven’t any
grudge against him; he keeps saying things that
convince us he means well, but simply needs to
be treated kindly. Still, as he is not one of our
subscribers, we can’t take time to look after his
case thoroughly. He said recently: “I have seen
very little evil in the world.” Poor man. With
all that money he could have seen a lot. It is this
way he has of holding on to his money that keeps
him from seeing many things. He manifests no
intention of ever turning it aloose, either. We
have again to call his attention to Andrew Car
negie. He has made a will. He realizes that at
some time he will have to go and leave his money.
He showed it to Mr. E. M. Bigelow, but made him
promise not to tell whose name “led all the rest.”
The time is coming when an author will fear to
take a vacation or even to go over into the next
county on a fishing trip, lest when he returns he
finds that some one else has been announced as the
writer of his books. The critics have tried to rob
Moses, Isaiah, Homer, Shakespeare and Mrs. Eddy
of the credit for their respective work, and there
is no telling who will be attacked next. Mrs. Eddy
is on hand to defend herself and her authorship,
but the others cannot. What vital difference does
it make, anyway? A man lives but for and by
Almighty can fit that thing in Heaven, and let
it down on that corner, but He will never, never
do it under the sun until we get back of it.
Napoleon once said, “Give me fifty marshals that
will stand at my back, and I will whip the world.”
The trouble of it was he had some men at his
back who were literally at his back, and never at
his side. After Napoleon had spent years ban
ished upon St. Helena, he said: “If I had that
statement to make over again, I would say: ‘Give
me fifty men to stand at my side, and I will whip
the world.’ ”
I have been enough over this world to know
the secret of God’s ways. It is never along the
world’s ordinary method of calculating things. Go
from one side of this country to the other. Look
at the great historic churches. How did they be
come great and historic? Never along the lines
of the ordinary philosophy of men. They were
always people who were hindered and hampered
by poverty, but people who always got back of ev
erything, and in everything.
Last night in my study I got down by the side
of my chair and tried to talk to God, and my
heart got so full of the fire of God that I shoved
aside the sermon that I had prepared to preach
this morning. God seemed to tell me, “Go talk
to your people. This is the first Sunday in the
year. Tell them that if they don’t seize their op
portunities somebody else will.”
his work; his work, be it good, is the better part
of him, and the only earthly part that survives
him. We have the work of those men and should
be satisfied. They, on their part, are doubtless also
content. They don’t mind the row we are kick
ing up. Does Shakespeare or does Homer hear any
of this talk? If so, they don’t care for it a little
bit.
“Earth acts the step-dame to her poets ever,
Then grieves and gives them fame;
As if they cared by God’s great River
To hear the echoes of their name.”
Mrs. Sage is making inroads upon that $lB,-
000,000.00 she has promised to give away. After
some correspondence between her secretary and the
Associated Charities of Atlanta, Georgia, she
caused a check for twenty-five dollars to be care
fully drawn, and after affixing her signature she
bade it adieu and sent it to this city for distribu
tion. It has not yet been given out just how it
will be applied. Mrs. Sage has now announced that
she will devote the money to charitable assistance
to individuals living in New York. That leaves us
out entirely, as that climate would not agree with
us at all.
You have probably not heretofore heard any one
mention the Rev. Dr. William G. Selleck. He
is a Universalist clergyman of Providence. He has
been reading some in the Bible and finds that it is
full of scientific and historical inaccuracies. At
first lie could not credit what his own better judg
ment told him, but investigation and inquiry only
confirmed his terrible suspicions, and his duty was
clear. So he has written a book which has just
been issued by the University of Chicago Press, in
which he lays bare the defects. The author is an
noyed and displeased with the Book. There are
many things wrong with it. The fact that his book
is published is not of vital importance to the world
or to us, and we would not, perhaps, mention it at
all, but for the fact that this page has to be filled,
and we might as well take this opportunity to say
what arises in our mind when this type of man
comes forward with his book, as some one of his
kind does, periodically. We do not question any
man’s right to think as he pleases; we sometimes
think ourselves; and we will not repeat our opin
ion of the minister who, while wearing the cloth
and eating the salt of an established faith, pub
lishes an attack upon the Book whereon his church
is founded. We said all that about Dr. Crapsey.
Our conviction is that “scientific and historical”
inaccuracies in certain narrative portions of the
Bible, even granting that they exist, don’t
amount to the value of a wilted pin or of a stale
street-ear transfer to the man who is really seeking
Truth and who for his own soul’s welfare is willing
to be honest with himself. The Kingdom is with
in us, and the admonition to honesty, purity and
right living exists without dependence upon dates
and hair-splitting. Dr. Selleck is the tail of a long
procession of men who have risen and had their
say about the Bible. We know where the Bible is
today, but an advertisement in the “want column”
will not locate them. The friction of these attacks
has the same effect upon the real teaching of the
Bible that friction ever has upon pure gold; the
essentials shine all the brighter when the unessen
tials are rubbed away. The beginning of progress
along any line of human thinking is marked by an
interrogation point. Honest doubters are the
world’s benefactors. But there are doubters for
truth’s sake and other doubters for advertising’s
sake. We have come to expect that now and then
some one will explode with the same old line of talk
and then subside, having accomplished nothing
We always pay some little attention to these peo
ple, just as we would pause for a moment to watch
a man hurling pebbles against the Rock of Gibral
tar. We are interested, not because we expect to
see Gibraltar crumble, but to see the width between
the eyes of the pebble thrower and to learn how
long his pebbles will last.
5