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VOICES OF YOUTH
The Heart That’s Brave.
Face the world with a brave, “I can,”
Be a woman, or be a man,
Ashamed to idle —ashamed to shirk,
But never ashamed of honest work.
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Face defeat with a stout, “I will,”
Try again, and again, until,
You overcome, by valiant stress,
Each barrier to your own success.
Face temptation to sin with, “No”!
Let your words and your actions show,
An honest purpose, strong and true,
To stand for the Right—in all you do.
Reidsville, N. C. SARAH A. HEINZERLING.
With Our Correspondents.
STARTING RIGHT.
The Editor received a personal letter the other
day which contains a sentence in it good enough
to pass along. It comes from Mitchell Todd, a ster
ling young man who formerly lived in Atlanta. We
do not publish the news of his marriage to start a
matrimonial wave in the Order of The Golden Age—
for most of us are too young for that —but em
phasize the fact of his beginning right when he went
away from home. He sent for his church letter
and ran up his flag over his life showing where he
stands.
We hope God will bless the little home this young
couple will build, making them a blessing to each
other and his cause. Here are his words:
Dear Brother Willie:
I married Miss Lizzie Shannon, of Birmingham, last
Sunday, March 10. We married at her home here
in Birmingham, and had a very simple ceremony.
I just received my church letter from Brother Motley
a few days ago, and am going to join here in Bir
mingham and try to be good and true. I am making
all my environments so that I will have as little
temptation as possible. I have one of the finest
little girls for a wife I have ever seen, and she is
going to help me to be good and make something
of myself. Your friend,
MITCHELL TODD.
FROM A YOUNG TEACHER.
Dear Brother Willie:
I saw my first letter in print. I thank you very
much for granting me the privilege of calling you
“brother.” lam sending two subscriptions for The
Golden Age. I think often of the motto: “Let noth
ing discourage you—never give up.” Therefore lam
going to keep trying to get subscribers. We never
know what we can do until we try. lam going to
work very hard to get one of the pins. Os course
when we work for anything and get it, we appreciate
it more. Mattie Earl Kent, I want to congratulate
you. I certainly agree with you about Mr. Upshaw
being a real hero. I have never had the pleasure of
reading “Echoes from a Recluse.” I hope that I
may some day. I will promise to write again soon,
and tell you how my dear pupils are getting on.
With love to the editor and members of the Order
of The Golden Age. “ELIZABETH.”
Elizabeth, I greatly appreciate your kind words
and your successful efforts to make new friends for
The Golden Age. We will be glad to hear some
echoes from your school room.
A HEROINE AT HOME.
Dear Editor:
Will you welcome a stranger from dear old Cobb
county? It is impossible to tell how much I enjoy
The Golden Age. It is the best paper I have ever
read, and has helped me a great deal in my Christ
ian life. I know the contest has closed and I am
too old to compete for the prize, but I want to tell
you of a heroine —one who never has thought of
herself as one. She is the oldest of eight children
and since their mother’s death, about seven years
ago, has been a mother to them. She has given her
whole thought to them and although she devotedly
loved a deserving young man, would not marry and
leave her sisters and brothers. She does not hes
itate to give up any pleasure for them and does it in
such a cheerful way that they can’t see, often, what
a sacrifice it is. And, not only to them, but to every-
The Golden Age for March 21, 1907.
one she is always bright and cheerful. It matters
not what her troubles and worries are, those are
kept to herself, but if she knows anything cheerful
she tells it. She is certainly a sunbeam to all who
know her. She never speaks of any one unless
it is something to their credit and of course she is
loved by every one. I know her well and have for
a long time, therefore I know this to be true. As
my letter is getting too long, will close. Your sister
in Christ, B. B.
Marietta, Ga.
The Editor finds peculiar pleasure in welcoming
to our circle “B. 8.,” our little Cobb county friend,
because he moved to that county when a boy of
twelve, and remained there a farmer boy until the
accident whcih put him on bed for some years.
Much of this time was given to trying to inspire
bright boys and girls out in the country to “seize
the winged moments as they pass” and use them
to prepare for usefulness in life. Cobb county is
sacred in memory. B. 8., your story of “a heroine in
the home,” will make other heroines, we hope,
and heroes as well.
A TENNESSEE MAIDEN.
Dear Brother Willie:
Will you allow a Tennessee girl a small space in
your columns? I have seen but few letters from
Tennessee, so I thought I would hold up my great
state. Papa has taken The Golden Age from the
very first copy and we all like it very much. I
wish Bartlett Kelly would write more often, I think
he is such a good boy and so smart. I will answer
his questions: Peter raised Dorcas to life by the pow
er of God; Eutychus was the sleepy youth of Troas;,
Archelaus was a son of Herod the Great. I wish more
of the young people would write their best. The
editor has been so kind and given us a page in his
noble paper and I think we ought to make it the
best and most interesting in the whole paper. We
can if we will only try. I suppose some may want
to know if I live in town or in the country. Well, I
live about a quarter of a mile from our little town,
Elkton. It is not a large town, but it is very pretty.
It consitsts of four stores, a bank, two doctors’ of
fices, an exchange office, two blacksmith shops, and
one carriage shop; so you see it is not very large.
I expect my leeter will get too long if I write any
more, so I will ask two questions: When was the
Bible first translated into English? When was the
Bible first printed in type? Yours lovingly,
Elkton, Tenn. MARYE COBB.
We are glad this little girl from the “Volunteer
State” has “volunteered” to lift her own voice among
our “Voices of Youth,” and all of us are especially
glad to welcome into our fellowship a representative
from the great state that is doing so much to destroy
that arch enemy of young and old —the saloon.
SAM DAVIS, “HER OWN BLOOD”
William D. Upshaw, Editor, Atlanta, Ga. Your
paper, The Golden Age, made its first appearance in
our home last night. And I find on page ten “A
Hero Contest,” an appropriate article written by
Odessa Hays, of Rockmart, Ga., on “Henry W.
Grady,” as an ideal hero. In entering this contest,
I beg you to go back with me to Smyrna, Tenn.,
my mother’s native home, and there on the bank of
Stone river, under the hemlocks and cedars, sleep
the remains of another hero, around whose grave
cluster honors that are a thousand fold richer than
those that cling about the graves of Grant or Lee —
a buoyant youth, whose life was naught as a sacri
fice for the cause he loved and the honors he chose.
I will pen for you a brief sketch of this martyr,
“blood of my blood,” my mother’s own uncle, Sam
Davis, who had barely entered manhood when the
clouds of war began to hover under the moons,
planets and trembling stars of his native state, and
if I remember history correctly, it was in the spring
of ’63, while taking his evening nap, he was aroused
and feeling himself a giant refreshed by slumber, he
buckled on the armor of a Confederate soldier and
entered the Federal lines at Nashville, Tenn., and
there gained important information favorable to his
beloved mother —the blessed “sunny south.” These
important papers were obtained through a young
lady, Miss Rhoda Woodruff, of Holly Springs, Miss.,
who played with the sentimental weakness of a Fed
eral captain, and by this piece of strategy obtained
the maps and drawing which afterwards proved
fatal witnesses against him. Uncle Sam was tried
by court-martial and sentenced to be hanged, and
when the day of execution came, Captain Chickasaw,
of General Dodge’s staff, just before the trap was
sprung which broke Uncle Sam’s neck, mounted the
scaffold and again offered him his liberty and escort
to see him safely home, if he would only reveal the
names of his informants. Within a moment of eter
nity, Sam Davis turned and with a placid smile and
an unfaltering voice, said: “If I had a thousand
lives I would lose them all here before I would be
tray a friend.” Just at this critical moment, I beg
to say, while the world is adorned with the names
of illustrious men, out of the great plains of history
tower whole mountain ranges of sublime women, but
I will not call the mighty roll. But there was one
cultured and refined, who secured a pass to the
Union lines, and was finally accorded an interview
with Uncle Sam Davis, the boy she loved; she plead
ed with him desperately. “Sam, if you love your
mother, if you love me; you will save your life; we
beg it —I implore it.” Uncle Sam’s answer was:
“I do love you, and my heart is almost breaking as
I think of mother at home. But there are occasions
where our duty to country rises above every other
motive, and I cannot be a traitor,” and rather than
betray a secret that would have saved his own life,
but doomed another to the same death, while in the
bloom of youth, crowned with exalted honors, he
stood firm in the enemy’s lines, and at the last mo
ment serenely gathered his robes around him and
stepped with the dignity of a soldier and the faith
of a Christian down to the most noble, glorious death
since Robert Emmet died in the cause of Erin’s free
dom. No marble shaft or statue in bronze towers
above the dust of a nobler life than that of the fair
haired youth of eighteen summers, who kept his
faith and his honor. “His ashes sleep, but his mem
ory lives in thousands of hearts who love the cause
for which he gave his life.”
“Before his foes the captive stood,
And many a pitying eye,
Bent on him, when they knew that he,
So young, so brave, must die.
And many a heart responsive beat,
While gazing on that face,
Where dauntless courage blended
With a soldier’s youthful grace.”
Starkville, Miss. ANNIE MAY SUDDUTH.
This stirring story of Sam Davis, the boy hero, by
a bright little Mississippi girl, who carries some of
the hero’s blood in her veins, is a piece of history
which should not be lost. Os course the world
knows in a general way about this fair young hero,
but the story, told by one of his own relatives, be
comes doubly sad and beautiful.
HELPED BY THE GOLDEN AGE.
Dear Editor:—This is my first letter to this de
partment since our Mrs. Hodges resigned. I wish
you to add my name to the roll of honor, and send
me some of the blanks to fill out, and I will get
some friends to fill them. One of our members asked
some questions from the Scripture recently, and I
have tried to answer them. Dorcas was raised by
Peter, and the others I could not find. I hope some
one will find them for I would like to know who
they are. If they could not answer I am sure we
would all be pleased to hear from the questioner.
The Golden Age has helped me very much, as well
as others. I liked to read “Clippings from the An
cient Press” so much. I am sorry they did not last
longer. I hope you all are expecting to attend the
Tabernacle Bible Conference here in Atlanta. It
only lasts from the 21st to the 31st of this month.
I am a member of the Tabernacle church, and find it
to be a wonderful church. Everybody is so kind and
you are always welcome. The recent revival meet
ing led by Rev. J. J. Wicker was a great success. I
attended very regularly and received much help.
Mr. Wicker won the hearts of many people at our
church. He had a wonderful voice and sang at the
close of his sermon. We hope he will soon be with
us again for a month or more. He stayed only two
weeks this time. I will write again, if you publish
this letter. With best wishes for The Golden Age
and its Editor, I am, truly yours,
Atlanta, Ga. MARY BOOKER.
All right, Mary Booker. We are glad to have you
back again. If more of our “Voices” would tell of
good meetings they have attended, and the special
blessings they received, we are sure others would be
blessed.
Conducted by
the "Editor.