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The Golden Age
(SUCCESSOR TO RELIGIOUS PORUM)
Published Ebery Thursday by the Golden 51 ge Publishing
Company (Inc.)
OFFICES: 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 cober
additional postage.
Make all remittances payable to The Golden Age Publishing Company.
WILLIMM D. UPSHMW, .... Editor
A. E. RAMSAUR, - - - Managing Editor
LENG. 'BROUGHTON - - - Pulpit Editor
BEN 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 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.
An Indiana man has filed divorce proceedings
against his wife because she told him that at so
cial functions he “stood around like a hoop.’’
This is a new one on us. but it sounds ornery. It
must be something like a “mollycoddle.’'’ and no
man with a bit of grit could stand being called
that.
The Lane Has Turned.
Verily the lane has turned. Soon after Dr. L.
G. Broughton came to Atlanta nine years ago, one
of the daily papeits became so incensed because of
the great preacher’s fearless fidelity in rebuking
social evils and political immoralities that it was
determined on the part of that paper that the name
of Broughton or the Baptist Tabernacle should not
appear in its columns —even for pay! My! how
extreme! That daily, be it said, has changed
hands since then. And Monday afternoon, follow
ing that wonderful upheaval of giving at the Taber
nacle on Sunday, it spoke as follows in a strong edi
torial entitled, “Dr. Broughton’s Great Achieve
ment ’ ’:
“'We extend to Dr. Broughton our unqualified
congratulations on the enthusiasm with which his
project to raise funds for a magnificent tabernacle
has been launched, and on the success which is al
ready assured for this worthy enterprise.
“There was something electric in the air and
magnetic in the personality of the distinguished
minister himself when he ascended the platform
at the Grand on Sunday afternoon, surrounded by
some of the leading citizens of the state, and made
his straightforward appeal for the tabernacle.
“Os the magnitude of this enterprise it is not
necessary to speak at this time. We have all been
made familiar with it in detail and we know that if
the proposed plans are carried out the tabernacle
auditorium will be one of the most magnificent in
the whole country. The beginning of subscriptions
has been anticipated with the greatest interest for
a long time, but it was hardly expected that more
than $50,000 would be raised at the meeting on Sun
day.
“How far these modest expectations were ex
ceeded is well known now. The congregation itself
has subscribed $68,000, and this, with the funds
already subscribed outside the church and outside
the city, places the amount which has been assured
between $90,000 and SIOO,OOO. It was a veritable
love feast at which this money was raised, every
dollar of it consecrated with the heartiest good will
to the moral and spiritual upbuilding of the com
munity.
“This, of course, is the primary consideration.
As an element in the stimulation of the higher
ideals of the people it has the first claim to con
sideration. But from every other point of view
it is worthy of commendation and support. It is
The Golden Age for March 21, 1907.
a substantial contribution to the progress and wel
fare of the community and goes far to establish,
the prominence of Atlanta.
“The new tabernacle will not come in conflict
with the auditorium which has just been provided
for by the public spirited citizens of Atlanta. Tn
fact each will have a sphere of its own and one will
supplement the other. The purpose to which tire
two splendid halls will be devoted will be largely
if not entirely different and the work of each will
complement that of the other.
“ That outpouring of the people and the readi
ness ■with which they responded to Dr. Brough
ton’s appeal were in themselves a magnificent
tribute to the zealous minister, to the civic pride
and spiritual alertness of the people and a material
pledge of the future greatness of Atlanta.
“It was a red letter day in the calendar and we
will look forward with impatience to the consumma
tion of the enterprise which has already been so
auspiciously set on foot.”
Verily again “nothing succeeds like success,”
and the only success enduring is that success which
is builded on the foundation Eternal.
Annual Baraca Convention.
The Eleventh Annual Convention of the Ba
raca classes of America will occur in Atlanta on
April 16. 17 and 18, the meetings being held in
the Wesley Memorial church. It is probable that
this will be the greatest religious gathering that
has occurred in Atlanta in many years. The at
tendance is expected to be unusually large, as it
will represent something like twenty-three hundred
classes, eighteen hundred being for men and five
hundred for young women. The home of Baraca.
Syracuse, New York, where the organization was
founded by Marshall A. Hudson, a consecrated lay
man, will send a notable representation.
The theme of the convention will be: “Young
men at work for young men; all standing by the
Bible and the Bible School.” The opening ses
sion will be on the evening of April 16,
and will consist in a joint meeting of the Baraca
and Philathea classes, Bev. Chas. McKenzie, of
Jonestown, N. Y., National Vice-president, presid
ing. The meetings will be addressed by notable
religious workers from all over America, and will
be of great interest. Un Wednesday, April 17, Mr.
Marshall A. Hudson, the founder of Baraca, will
preside.
Piety and Material Prosperity.
The Wall Street Journal, as its name implies,
is a cold-blooded, matter-of-fact financial publi
cation, and it would not be expected that anything
would appear in its columns that did not deal
strictly with cent-per-cent, or with the fluctua
tions of stocks and the material development of
the country. Mr. Sereno S. Pratt has recently
been contributing a series of articles io the Jour
nal, and in one of them he uses language which
it gives us great pleasure to quote and endorse.
It cannot be otherwise than a source of deep joy
to those who long for the arrival of the day when
religion will be placed before business and above
gain, to see that a writer on financial subjects thus
expresses himself:
“'What America needs more than railway ex
tension and Western irrigation, and a low tariff,
and a bigger wheat crop, and a merchant marine,
and a new navy, is a revival of piety—the kind
that mother and father used to have —piety th it
counted it good business to stop for daily faml’y
prayer before breakfast right in the middle of hai
vest; that quit field work half an hour early on
Thursday night so as to get the chores done and go
to prayer meeting; that borrowed money to pay the
preacher’s salary, and prayed fervently in secret
for the salvation of the rich man who looked with
scorn on such unbusinesslike behavior. That’s
what we need now to clean the country of the filth
of graft, and of greed, petty and big; of worship
of fine houses and big lands, and high office, and
grand social functions. What is this thing we
are worshipping but a vain repetition of what de
cayed nations fe]l down and worshipped just by-
fore their light went out? Read the history of
Rome in decay, and you will find luxury there
that could lay the big dollar over our little dough
nut that looks so large to us. Great wealth never
made a nation substantial nor honorable. There is
nothing on earth that looks good that is so danger
ous for a man or a nation to handle as quick, easy,
big money. If you do resist its deadly influence,
the chances are that it will get your sons. It takes
greater and finer heroism to dare to be poor in
America than to charge the earthworks in Man
churia. ’ ’
Spring.
Gentle Spring is about to make its arrival just
as it does almost every year, To some it affords
a theme of rejoicing, it is a season of gladness.
Mortals, inspired by the bursting of the buds and
the appearance of the flowers have even written
poems describing how it felt to be living when the
glad springtime came again, tra la. But it is not
a time of joy for us. We can not warble with de
light; neither can we be especially rejoiced by
the warbling of the abominable little birds and
things. We are going to speak out and say just
what we think about spring. It is a fraud, all a
fraud, and the time is coming when the label will
be changed just like the pure food law has changed
other labels. It is contrary to nature that all the
people should be deceived all the time by anything.
As a season it is on the fence; it is an uncharted
strip of channel between bluff, blowing Winter
and honest, hearty Summer. It is the time when
our winter clothes are too hot and are looking
seedy, and we have not yet been trusted for our
summer ones. It is the gladsome season when we
go to the country to spend the week-end without
our overcoat* and come back wearing the lap-robe
or our Aunt’s mackintosh. Along about now' our
wife feels the same old yearning for flowers in the
front yard and Irish potatoes in the back; and she
wants us home early from the office to get the lit
tle exercise that “is so good for one who has been
cooped up in that stuffy old office.” Even the pub
lic school system takes a shot at us; for at this
time the old school books are moulted and new
ones must be bought. We say nothing of the mil
liner’s bills; some griefs are too deep for words.
At the office things are just as bad? The office
boy, poor little fellow’, suffers the most terrible
bereavements. His grandmother passes away this
Saturday afternoon, next Saturday a dear uncle is
gathered to his fathers, and ere the baseball sea
son is half advanced the undertaker’s bills must
have mounted into a fat figure. The stenograph
er’s cousin from the country comes to town ami
must be entertained on the very day that the
match game between the No-socks and the Moguls
is to be played, and the next "week there is a church
pie-nic to which the bookkeeper feels obliged to
go. But no need going further our sorrows to
disclose. IVe would be reconciled in a measure to
our present sorrows if we only had a happy child
hood to look back upon. We have no pleasant rec
ollections of Spring even in (he morning of our
days. Then, as now, we found no gladness in this
season. While Nature burgeoned and the birds
warbled and all the trees on all the hills put on
their glory of green, we were knocking corn-stalks
and distributing fertilizer. We went to school five
days, on the sixth we followed the patient mule
afield and on the seventh we went to Sunday school
with a starched collar on our neck, tight shoes on
oui feet and loathsome knee-breeches covering cer
tain parts of the intermediate territory. Even the
little birds made remarks about us. The Joree ca
peied in the brier thicket, remarking gleesomelv,
“Sa-a-ger,” “Sa-a-ger!” and from' the tree-top
the blue-jay derided us with “Jay,” “ Jay.” And
•ill the time we knew where we could have caught
gie<J strings of fish if we could, only have gone
down mro ♦ hem with baited hook. Happy Eskimo
children! Blessed Eskimo grown-ups! There is
no Spring in that pleasant realm. Tn their ice
bound vales there is no hint of the violet and the
daffodil. As Horace so truly said, “Nihil ab omni
parte beatum est,” which, being dissolved, means
(hat uheiexQi' you are you will wish yoq were some’
where else. ' t
