Newspaper Page Text
12
The COUNTY OF NY ‘BOYHOOD
There are times when everybody who has a spark
of sentiment in the soul feels like thanking that
patriotic spirit who wrote:
“ Breathes there a man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said:
This is my own, my native, land’!”
These beautiful old words keep ringing and sing
ing in my heart and thought while I am speaking
every night this week in Marietta, the picturesque,
historic and progressive capital of dear old Cobb
county, where I lived from a boy of twelve into
manhood’s estate. The big world has been gener
ous enough to keep me busy since I got up from the
bed where I spent nearly seven years, and with
a valise full of manuscript, a lot of faith and hope
in my heart and not a dollar in my pocket, I came
to Atlanta with my simple -mental wares, ready to
give to a part of the world at least the book which
was the crystallization of my written hopes and
dreams —the dreams of a country boy who had seen
his ships go out, unreturning, to the “ haven under
the hill.” Only occasionally have I been able to
get back to Cobb county—notably to gatherings of
the Cobb County Literary Convention, which I had
the pleasure of calling to organization, and which
was the outgrowth of many literary clubs organized
especially for the intellecual inspiration of country
boys and girls.
My father had determined
To flee from Fortune’s joys
Rather than sacrifice his boys,
and he carried us away from the gilded temptations
of Atlanta —away out into the 1 ‘beautiful, blessed
country,” where from twelve to eighteen, I walked
between my plow-handles and dreamed of the day
when I might be back in school and college, enthu
siastic over my surroundings, climbing higher by
digging deeper into the mound of knowledge and
striving in all things to prepare myself for the
battle of life. And then the fall—only a few inches
on that wagon, but a fall in which went down the
rosy dreams that gladdened youth, the shining cas
tles that cheered me and the bright hopes that led
me on. And then that gathering for years around
my bedside —the Mcßeath Literary Circle —as bright
and brave a set of aspiring boys and girls as ever
poured the radiance of their friendship and the dew
of their youth into the heart of any man who loved
boys and girls for the sake of what they were then
MU. ta&T* : . .. . ...
NnMflßwU J. “ 1
|
Ta i ™ ■
SUL* X ‘r wJw
flShr- ; . \
If
■■tor £3
-..May '■ - , X ‘gfeSqK
JiA *'• . in, mu ' ...
*» ~ J
THE BEAUTIFUL MARBLE BAPTIST CHURCH, MARIETTA, GA.
The Golden Age for April 25, 1907.
and were yet to be! The words of James Aber
crombie Hall come to me as I think of those golden,
speaking days of joy and fellowship together:
”0 happy, Silent Valley,
Your sky is ever blue;
And from life’s barren hilltops
We all look back to you!”
No wonder, then, that I was ready to accept an
invitation to help in a meeting at Marietta —for it
was here —beautiful little “Gem City” of Georgia—
that I used to come to market when a farmer boy,
and here that I came on my wire swing, unable
then to ride in a buggy—soon after I got off bed
—here spending a few days of happy, hopeful ef
forts and going back home with a generous sub
scription from almost every big-hearted business
man in town, to help build a hall for my literary
club out in the. beautiful grove fronting my home
at the old “Camp Ground” —three miles south of
Lost Mountain, and three and a half miles north
of Powder Springs.
Nestling at the base of historic Kennesaw Moun
tain, and connected now with Atlanta by a suburb
line of palace electric cars, Marietta, with her
five thousand people, her large manufacturing en-
terpriws, her sylvan parks and her beautiful resi
dences, is one of the most charming towns in all
the South. Here is the home of that dynamo of
political energy and statesmanship, United States
Senator A. S. Clay, or “Steve” Clay as they love
to call him in his native county; here is the home
of the “Old Reliable” Marietta Journal, with those
sterling men, Neal and Massey, still at the helm —
the Marietta Journal (how I love the name) —the
first paper that ever published a line from my un
tutored pen; here now is the home of the Marietta
Courier, a new candidate for newspaper honors,
where Fred Morris speaks his wisdom and Lawton
Fields sings his poetic songs; but above all things,
here live some of the truest and noblest friends
that ever blessed my life—friendships that were
born in that halcyon time when heart and soul and
life and love knew how to hide these friends
away in the most sacred citadel of the soul! And
so, whenever I look at grand old Kennesaw
around whose summit the lightnings flashed, and
about whose base the thunders of battle rolled
when Sherman, was “marching to the sea,” I do
not think so much of the boom of cannon and the
carnage of battle, but rather of the sons and daughters
of those brave men and of their children’s children
with whom I lived and wrought and hoped and
loved when the fires of youth were leaping to flame
and the “alchemy of hope” was painting earth
and sky!
The First Baptist church building, where I am
speaking in a series of gracious services, was
launched in 1892, and completed in 1898, the years
spent in its erection proving the hard struggle its
building cost the loyal membership. The outside
is marble from “turret to foundation stone,” pre
senting the most beautiful effect in church archi
tecture which I have ever seen in a town of five
thousand people. The pastor is now Dr. C. E. W.
Dobbs, a man of wide scholarship and deep
consecration. A native of Virginia, preaching for
years during his early ministry in the bluegrass
regions of Kentucky, pastor in Columbus, Miss.,
Cartersville, Ga., Indianapolis, Ind., editor for sev
eral years of religious journals, and author of a
strong forthcoming story, this able master of the
pulpit and the pen looks back upon a life fruitful
and blessed, and is filling life’s eventide with labor
and with light.
Helping Dr. Broughton’s gi*eat building enter
prise in the day, and speaking at Marietta at night,
I have not been able to “do my best,” but many
others have, and many beautiful conversions have
occurred.
My visit to the public school, where I spoke to
several hundred bright boys and girls, held pecu
liar interest for me, because this'school is presided
over by Prof. W. T. Dumas, the gifted Georgia poet
whose poems, “Twice One is One,” “The Dinner
Horn,” and “Whip-poor-will,” brought the author
deserved and enduring fame. Alas, in his own beau
tiful couplet that for many of my old Cobb county
friends (though certainly not for me),
“Youth, eager pilgrim, departs from the door
And, kissing his hand, returneth no more.”
Wm. D. Upshaw.
•5
Track Through the "Bible.
(Continued from Page 6.)
his sin, David chose to build the house of ’his God.
The threshing-floor of Oman the Jebusite, was
chosen as the site of the temple.
During the latter days of Lis life the deep un
derlying desire became again the supreme matter.
In perfect acquiescence with the will of God he
gave up all thought of building, and set himself
to preparing everything for another hand to carry
out the work. His charge to his son is full of beau
ty. He frankly told him of how God refused to
permit him to build, and named the reason. He
was careful, moreover, to teach Solomon that his
appointment to build was that of God, and thereby
created a solemn sense of responsibility in the
matter.
His intei est in the temple was not only mani
fested in his material preparation. He practically
abdicated the throne to Solomon, in order to su
pervise the setting in order of ‘the worship. Ar
rangements were made for the work of the Levites,
and with great care and remarkable democracy of
choice, the courses of the prieses were next set in
order.
It is easy to imagine what delight the poet king
took in arranging the song service of the new tem
ple. Music had played a very important part in
his career. His skill therein had been his first in
troduction to Saul. His psalms breathe the spirit
of the varied experiences through which he passed.
The days of his simple life as a shepherd, the
period of his exile and suffering, the hours of bat
tle and weariness, the triumph of his crowning, the
agony of his sin, the joy of pardon, these" and
many other experiences are reflected in the great
collection. And now, at the end, he gave himself
to arranging the service of song in the temple
which was to be built. Finally, he arranged the
courses of the porters, and the duties of such as
had charge of all the stores set apart for the
sacred work.
Before coming to the last charges of David in
a parenthetical section (Ch. 27), we have an idea
of the internal order of the kingdom under the
government of David. This chapter is a striking
revelation of the fact that the greatness of David