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The Golden Age
(SUCCESSOR TO RELIGIOUS PORUM)
Published Ebery Thursday by the Golden STge Publishing
Company (Inc.)
OFTICES: LOWNDES BUILDING, ATLANTA, GA.
Price: $2.00 a Year
Ministers $1.50 per Year.
In cases of foreign address fifty cents should be added to cobet
additional postage.
Make all remittances payable to The Golden Age Publishing Company.
WILLIAM D. UPSHfXW, - - - - Editor
A. E. RAMS A UR, ... Managing Editor
LEM G. BROUGHTON - - - Pulpit Editor
SEN S. THOMPSON, - - 'Business Manager
Entered at the Post Office tn Atlanta, Ga.,
as second-class matter.
To the Public: The advertising columns of The
Golden Age will hare an editorial conscience. No
advertisement will be accepted which we believe
would be hurtful to either the person or the purse of
>ur readers.
Abraham Lincoln.
We publish in this issue an article by Colonel
Mark Bolding, of Atlanta, Ga., “Abraham Lincoln,
the Man and Patriot.” This article is the
first of a series of several by this author, which
will discuss the character and life of Lincoln from
an unusual standpoint. It has seemed to be the
desire of some of Lincoln’s historians to portray
him as a superhuman being, and his character,
as that of all great men, being susceptible to treat
ment from many view-points, he is perhaps com
ing to be regarded by the younger generation as
either a prodigy or an accident. The purpose of
these articles is to show that he was neither a
prodigy nor an accident, but was one of the - great
est and purest men our country has produced; that
he was thoroughly human, that he had some faults,
though none of them were serious ones, and that
he wrought out by a clear intelligence and patience
a character and a career which honor all our com
mon country, .South as well as North. It will be
shown that Lincoln considered himself the presi
dent of the whole country, having as his highest
oibject the preservation of the Union, which he
considered his duty under his oath. Attention
will be given to the great difficulty under which
he labored in preserving the Union, and how pow
erfully he was aided in this task by his great in
fluence over the minds and hearts of the com
mon people.
The view that he was a sentimentalist, as lie
has been regarded by some, will be contradicted,
and he will be viewed in the light of a man to
whom all things were definitely either right or
wrong, true or false, and that he acted in the light
of his own clear intelligence in making up his mind
upon all problems which confronted him during
what were perhaps the most trying times in the
history of this country. The author, in discussing
his actions, believes that in his composition, head
came first, conscience, second, and heart, last.
To those who have known Mr. Bolding during
his college career and watched his victories as an
orator and a debater, it is unnecessary to say one
word in the nature of an introduction to this se
ries of articles, and we are glad to have this op
portunity to introduce him to a larger circle of
acquaintances who are not as yet aware of his
splendid ability as a writer and thinker.
The Silence of the Preachers.
For two or three weeks the editor has been tremb
ling in his boots, expecting a fusillade of “hold
up” criticisms from our many ministerial readers.
Why? Because, in an inadvertent moment (and
such moments will sometimes come in a busy news
paper office), the Book of Joshua in Dr. G. Camp
bell Morgan’s “Track Through the Bible” was
handed to the printer before the Book of Deuter
onomy. It was nobody’s fault but the editor’s,
for Dr. Morgan had sent the books, of course, in
their proper order, but mistakes will sometimes
The Golden Age for March 7, 1907.
occur in a general admixture of editors, printers
and “devils,” and this was one of the times—
that’s all!
But the preachers! They didn’t say a word.
And the thing that amuses us is the irresistible
conclusion that they didn’t notice the difference.
And if the preachers did not, of course, our lay
readers did not. And we are safe. Only one man
noticed it then, and that was Dr. Morgan himself,
but “each breeze that crossed the ocean” whose
voice we have feared to hear, has brought no pro
test from that wise, good man, who is great-heart
ed enough to forgive a busy editorial brother.
Hereafter we will try to see to it that there is no
backward “track” in Dr. Morgan’s enriching and
inspiring articles.
Hon. George W. Clower.
Recently, in the splendid town of Grantville,
Georgia, there passed away a man whose influ
ence for good will be felt for generations to come.
He was Dr. George W. dower, physician, public
ist and leader always in every good word and work.
He was a man who forgot himself, but was always
ready to lay himself out for the intellectual, moral
and spiritual upbuilding of his town and section.
The tabernacle at Cureton Springs was chiefly
the creature of his own building. And the taber
nacle at Grantville is but the concrete expression
of his own enterprising thought. He was always
working at anything and everything that would
bring the people of the community closer together.
A Sunday school celebration, an ’ historical con
test, a high-class debate —anything that provided
mental stimulus to the young, and a moral tonic
to the community, called for his enthusiastic sup
port, and, if need be, his financial sacrifice.
Whether representing his county in the legis
lature, ministering at the bedside of the sick, or
giving a handclasp and a “God bless you” to an
aspiring, struggling boy or girl, he was just the
kind of citizen that every community needs.
He honored God by uplifting humanity. And
because of what the writer knew him to be as the
friend of God and the friend of man, this tribute
of love is gladly given—with the hope that every
man who reads these lines will seek to mean to his
community what George W. Clower meant to
Grantville-—to “his day and generation.” A sel
fish man is loved by nobody while living, and
mourned by nobody when dead; but an unselfish
man—pouring out his life for his community’s
good, finds a reflex joy in his own heart while he
touches other lives into purpose and joy.
The Spiritual vs. The Material.
To the careful thinker the present age presents
no more significant feature than the widespread
recognition of the urgent need for a spiritual code
of conduct, as distinguished from the materialis
tic tendencies of the past generation. This con
clusion is forced upon us by the dbbservation of
the steadily inci easing number of evangelistic meet
ings held throughout the world and by the obvious
ly good work done by them. In addition, we note
with growing interest the fact that the principal
universities of the world include today a larger
number of Christian students than at any other
time within their history. Taking the last cen
tury as a sort of general viewpoint from which
to consider the question of spirituality versus ma
terialism it is clearly to be noted that the steps
leading to the present conditions have been well
defined and of no uncertain character. First we
hqve the rebound from the great wave of Agnosti
cism which swept the thinking world from end to
end, with the advent of such literary lights as Dar
win, Spencer, Haeckel, Kant and the school which
they represented. The mere audacity of the theo
ries which these great men propounded captured
the student mind, and the chains of evidence which
were woven by this school seemed so perfect and
complete as to challenge refutation by so much as
the displacing of a single link. Wonderful food
for the brain was found in following step by step
the road-way leading toward a goal of undiluted
materialism—life was said to be a mere product of
matter —the soul or brain, the result of certain
combinations of unseen atoms, which ceased to
sexist as soon as the molecules generating the
mind force were displaced by a stopping of the
physical machinery! Eagerly the student read
and read and read and the old order of thought
toppled and fell like a house of cards carrying
with it all the “illusions” of youth, and all the
hopes of maturity. Slowly at first, and then more
rapidly, man —the large thinking class —began to
question the meaning of a “scheme of thing's” by
which life was generated only to be eclipsed. Then
followed a long period of groping backward along
the lost path of spirituality—the sign posts on the
road were marked by all the cant phrases and
phases of “Spiritism,” “Hypnotism,” and the
like, all showing the longing of the soul for some
other solution as to its origin and destination
than that contained in the doctrine of the agnos
tics. Nature as God was too impersonal and im
palpable for the human soul to long accept and
the return to the Truth was the natural result.
This return we witness today when the world is
awakening to the voice of the spirit and is ans
wering the call toward the light. Grime, it is
true, has grown and flourished throughout the
dark period when doubt was abroad, but at no
time in history has the criminal found the world
as severe a judge as at the present. General
condemnation of sin and the universal design to
punish wickedness wherever found is one of the
most hopeful signs of the times. This is true
not only in the enlightened countries, but even in
the far lands beyond the seas where the lis'lit of
Christianity is only just beginning to filter through
the darkness of Paganism-—a darkness no denser
than that of the materialism that ruled the western
world so long.
It is our good fortune to be living in the sun
light of renewed hope which is founded on the
doctrine of a great and universal love —a love so
powerful and so far-reaching that we may say
with the poet that, in deepest reverence and sin
cerity :
“We trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill;
To pangs of nature, sins of will.
Defects of doubt and taints of blood;
That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That not one life shall be destroyed
Or cast as rubbish to the void
When God hath made the pile complete.”
Local Option in Kentucky.
The Washington Post recites a series of incidents
showing the rapid progress of local option in Ken
tucky, and adds:
“But have they banished it? Maine did not;
neither did Kansas, and drunken men and boys are
daily seen in ‘dry’ districts of Kentucky. It is
more trouble to procure it, doubtless, but when got
it is villainous stuff —nearly as bad as grog-shop
liquor in Maine or drug store liquor in Kansas.
And that is not all, nor the worst of it. The law
has been violated and brought into contempt.”
It is surprising that a paper that has the brains
in it that the Washington Post so manifestly has,
should fall into the sophistry that characterizes
the argument quoted above.
No, they have not banished it, but they have re
duced its frequency. They have turned millions of
dollars from waste in strong drink to benign use
fulness in providing for wives, mothers and help
less little ones. More families are well fed, well
clothed, well shod, and more children attend school,
Sunday schools and churches, while crimes are less
frequent.
True, when men get it in those dry counties they
may get it unlawfully. That is exactly the way
they ought to get it. The very central contention
of the prohibitionist is that every man or woman
who indulges in strong drink must do so unlaw
fully. The contention of the local optionist is
that those who indulge must not buy it lawfully
in the territory affected by the local option law.
That means that society, which is opposed to the
drink business, condemns it as it condemns mur
der, rape, arson and robbery. Shall society li
cense these crimes because men continue to commit
them ? Drinking intoxicants is a crime against
society. The law ought to say so.