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business-like way of doing things. And the mis
sions that it had operated in different sections of
the city were to 'be given up. This, you say, is a
story. Alas, alas! it is a true one. It is one in
which my own heart has played a part.
What about that church today? What success
has it had in this line of work? I will not dare tell
you. It is enough to say that from all one can
gather, the Spirit of God has left the house. This
means its missionaries, its great crowds, its enthu
siasm; all this is gone. How strange! How
strange! And yet there is but one thing that can
keep this sad story from being true of ourselves,
and that is, that we continue to keep the wires
between us and the power-house of God clear and
well connected. That we maintain our zeal for the
lost and care little for anything else.
Whenever we cease to stand, in theory and prac
tice, for a clean life, an open Bible, an aggres=ivte
fight on sin, a friend to the friendless, and salvation
for the lost; then and there our doom is sealed,
and we start adrift on the sea of life without any
divine hand to guide.
Oh, the sad examples before us tonight, of men
and women once happy and useful in the cause of
Christ, but who are now castaways; miserable
themselves, and more than miserable to thos? around
them! Do I address any such tonight? Oh, come
back to Christ! There will never be any peace in
the life of drifting like unto that which Jesus
gives. Do I address a drifting church? Are we
disposed to let well enough alone while the “work
for the prize of the high calling” is ahead of us?
Then, let us face about. There is nothing ahead of
the drifting church but spiritual starvation.
Memorial to Clem Powers Steed.
The meeting held by the bar of Macon, Georgia,
as a memorial of the late Clem Powers Steed, on
February 2d, was a touching and beautiful tribute
to the worth of the distinguished lawyer and teach
er. The meeting was presided over by Hon. Orville
A. Park, who presented the memorial for the com
mittee of the local bar. Following this s\ere adr
dresses by Hon. N. E. Harris, Judge John P. Ross,
Judge A. L. Miller, R. C. Jordan, Merrill Calaway
and Walter J. Grace. President S. Y. Jameson,
of Mercer University, and Dr. J. G. Harrison, of
the chair of education and philosophy, were also
present. Dr. Jameson paid touching tribute. Reso
lutions drawn by the members of the law school
of Mercer, w’ere read by the president of the class.
Following the addresses of the gentlemen mentioned
above, Judge Emory Speer, Dean of the Law School
of Mercer University, paid a most eloquent and
touching tribute to the character of his friend and
co-laborer. In part he said:
“His life was gentle and the elements so mixed
in him that nature might stand up and say to all
the world, ‘This was a man.’ He was indeed a coun
selor of the court. True to his clients, it was yet
true that his clients had received the soundest and
truest advice before their cases were presented.
When he came to advocate causes, in the advocate
he did not sink the duty of the counselor.
“His services to the law school of Mercer Uni
versity, so important an institution for the train
> ing in jurisprudence of the young men of our state
and of other states, were inestimable. It is now
some fifteen years ago that he came to me and in
vited me to become a member of the faculty. He
originated and brought about the re-organizalion
of the school. In large respect he was the school.
“The delinquencies of the other prcfes c ors he
gently rebuked. He held us all to the strictest
and most continuous performance of duty. His
friendship was invaluable to any man who was
honored with its possession, and it is one of the
chiefest joys of my life to know that from the
first he was a close and loving friend.
He Shall Live Again.
“It has been inquired, ‘lf a man die shall be
live again?’ Can it be possible that when we con
template the mind and the soul of such a man as
Clem P. Steed, there can be any other answer to
this inquiry save, ‘Yes, he shall live again?’ Can
the Omnipotent—for there most be an Omnipotent
The Golden Age for February 7, 1907.
—afford in the plan of creation to dispense with that
clear mental power, with that sensitive imagination,
with that true and accurate sense of justice, with
that determination to accomplish the right always
•—can it be that such a man will remain a ‘knead d
clod,’ that, in the opinion of the materialist, he has
nothing more but to lie in ‘cold obstruction’? I
do not believe it. There was a great first cause,
whatever it may be.
“When we go forth in the starry night, we be
hold the bright luminaries of the heavens, the
countless stars, which gem the sky like platines of
bright gold. We know that each is a sphere like
that on which we live, that each is moving with
incredible velocity in its own orbit. The harmony
of the universe, the harmony of the spheres, is pre
served. Who preserves, who created it, how c°me
it there? It was the Omnipotent. ‘The heavens
declare the glory of God, the firmament showeth
His handiwork.’ And if there be a God—and there
must be—how can the Almighty permit to go into
utter nothingness the characters of the great, the
true, the faithful, the righteous, the honorable,
among His children whom He has created.
“We can get no consolation from the infidel. If
we look to the lives of the great, we find that this
was their faith. When I was a little cbi’d, walking
these streets, with my infantile hand in the warm
clasp of the noble man who was my father, he
taught me the principles of this belief, and when
he came to die, a little while before the last breath
passed from his suffering lips, an expression was
made of sympathy for bis sufferings, when he
exclaimed, ‘Jesus can make a dying couch as soft
as downy pillows are.’
A Ministering Angel.
“And so we have the consolation that though
our friend is gone, he still lives. Where, we know
not, in what brighter star he may in nobler, sweeter
song sing the praises of the Almighty. He may be
about us, a ministering angel, protecting us from
injury and harm, from all that would break down
or degrade character; but he lives, and shall still
live, and his life should be a lesson to us. It should
so teach us that when we, as he has done, shall go
to sleep and rest by the soft, murmuring waters of
the river, it may be said of us as it was said of
him, ‘Blessed is the man that walketh not in the
counsels of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of
sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful, but
his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in that
law will he meditate day and night.’ ”
Down Upon the Suwanee River.
But we didn’t go fishing there. Neither did we
float on the rippling bosom of the limpid stream
during the hazy days of springtime or the gorgeous
dream of summer. We just passed right over the
Suwanee River on a big, high b'idge and hastened
on to the lively city of Live Oak, the capital of
■Suwanee county, where the Florida Baptist Conven
tion was in session.
Lt didn’t take any begging on the part of Live
Oak’s stalwart preacher-author-citizen, C. A. Rid
ley, to make me accept the invitation. The truth
is, I was very much inclined to angle for one or
go straight on without it—for I had spent nearly
three weeks in that stirring, beautiful town during
a meeting that has ever been a spiritual mountain
peak, heaven-kissed and radiant, along the shores
of memory.
And, I might as well confess it, I have a pro
found respect for the heart and judgment, and an
undisguised admiration for the physical endurance
of any town that deliberately receives, every week.
The Golden Age in more than a hundred homes.
Last year, one hundred and two Live Oak citizens
showed their superior judgment and keen discrim
ination by subscribing for this paper in two days,
and I can get affidavits to the fact that the doctor
bills in the town have not been increased thereby.
The Convention assembled in the beautiful new
Baptist church, and was presided over by the re
elected President, Pastor Stuajrt B. Rogers, of
Gainesville. He is a former Georgian, and the
Georgia dust is yet felt in his cordial handshake.
I am looking forward with peculiar pleasure to a
visit in his home and church during April.
This is not intended as a report of the Conven
tion in any sense. Only a few special features
can be emphasized. The Convention sermon, by
Pastor Duke, of the First church. Tampa, was a
powerful and inspiring message. The report of the
veteran secretary of missions, Dr. L. D. Geiger,
showed about $50,000 raised for all purposes. This
is a splendid showing—possibly the best proportion
ate giving in the South—when it is remembered
that there are only thirty thousand members of
the Convention scattered widely over a state that
is yet largely undeveloped. Pastor Geo. T. Leitner,
of Bartow, and the venerable Moody, Nestor off
the Convention, now living at Gainesville, told
of the first gathering, in ’77, I believe, when all
of the delegates dined at one table, and the sum of
ten dollars was sent up for Christian benevolence.
Dr. Geiger is greatly and justly beloved, and
has done more, perhaps, than any other one men
in Florida to make flowers bloom all over the spir
itual garden of Florida, where only grass and
weeds were erstwhile found.
Dr. Wm. TI. Smith, of the Foreign Mission Board,
made a magnificent speech, as he always does, and
Dr. B. D. Gray, on Home Missions, impressed the
great audience that hung entranced on his sacred
eloquence, that he was not only a preacher, but a
Christian statesman as well.
Dr. Robertson, of the Seminary, at Louisville,
delighted everybody with his keen wit and his
wholesome, brilliant common sense. “The Preach
er’s Mission” pointed out the beauty and the glory
of the best class of people on earth. Richard W.
Thiot, one of his Seminary boys, who has been
representing The Golden Age since the failure of
his wife’s health in Louisville, followed Dr. Rob
ertson with a stirring speech from a student’s
view-point.
A Great Woman.
It was a great privilege to nvet at { he Conven
tion. Mrs. Jno. B. Stetson, wife of the late philan
thropist, for whom Jno. B Stetson University at
DeLand was named. Mr. Stetson °ave several hun
dred thousand dollars to the university buildings
during his lifet me, plus an endowment whose
wisely-handled income almost reaches the equal
of a million dollar investment. Stetson University
is, with the possible exception of Virginia. Vander
bilt and Baylor, the best equipped university in the
South. Mrs. Stetson is a strong, great-hearted
woman, in thorough sympathy with her husband’s
philanthropic investments.
Dr. Lincoln Hulley, the president of Stetson, is
a vigorous and enterprising man of w’de scholarship
and under his administration the institution, which
is co-educational. has over four hundred students—-
the largest enrollment in its history.
The reception tendered the Convention by Mr.
and Mrs. Barton at their home—one of the most
beautiful in Florida, was a charming function,
never to be forgotten by the fortunate and grateful
visitors.
It was my good fortune to be guest in the home
of the genial and gifted author of “The Literature
of Living,” recently reviewed in The Golden Age.
Let me repeat that any man who loves his wife,
his children and his neighbors as C. A. Ridley
does, and who is loved by them in turn as much as
Ridley is, has a right to write about “the litera
ture of living.” To a man of sentiment as I
confess I am, there is always something fascinating
and inspiring about meeting and studying the au
thor of a real book. And Caleb A. Ridley is re
freshingly human in manner, while stirringly sub
lime in life and language—both spoken and writ
ten.
Over at Jasper, waiting for the train, I spoke
to the Normal School, and, returning, to a packed
house at church, and the Florida flavor left in
my heart was sweeter, even, than the flowers that
bloom on the banks of the river famous in song and
story.
Wm. D. Upshaw.
W. T. WINN, Fire, Accident and Health Insur
ance. Both Phones 496. 219 Empire Building.
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